The End of the Alphabet Read online

  She kept her place, apart from the mob of touts with their curative river water and stuffed crocodiles and plastic scarabs. Tourists scurried and counted out their dollars and pounds and yen and avoided her altogether.

  Zipper noticed the woman, as Ambrose was otherwise occupied. He stood to the shade side of the cornerstone and leaned in to sight the edge of the Great Pyramid of Khufu. He closed his eyes to slits, gauging the angle of the corner, the smoothness of finishing stones, the tiny army of labourers far above. Naked and sweating and laying the final course.

  Zipper left her husband and jostled away from the crowds. She found a quiet spot and sat in the hot sand. She watched the bedouin woman. Zipper wondered who or what was in the woman’s photographs.

  The woman stopped her play, beckoned Zipper. Come come, she said. Sit sit. There is nothing to be afraid of.

  Ambrose leaned his face against the stone. He ran his hands across the rough surface, following a groove here, fingering a worn edge, clearing the grit from a notch there. Checking for true.

  Hush hush, said the woman.

  Your singing is beautiful, Zipper said.

  And you are afraid.

  Zipper’s heart thumped in her ears. She felt her hands go cold.

  I should get back, she said. My husband…

  I know what you see, the old woman said. What frightens you. But what you see you must not fear.

  Zipper’s eyes welled up.

  Everything will be well, the woman said. For you. For your husband.

  Zipper wiped her face and forced a smile.

  The sign admonished visitors: To Climb Or Scale Or Deface The Sacred Tombs Is Highly Forbidden In Order To Protect Their Fragile And Historical Nature.

  Ambrose Zephyr likely thought otherwise. Nothing so enormous and so immortal could be that precarious.

  Or that tempting.

  Yes yes. Hold his hand. He will not be away so long. Not so long.

  As she spoke, the bedouin woman turned to watch a man struggling to climb the pyramid.

  Zipper followed the woman’s gaze to find her husband standing on the cornerstone of the first course of the Great Pyramid. Ambrose was hunched over, hands braced on his knees, wheezing and coughing.

  The photograph is amateurish: the horizon tilting wildly, the subjects fuzzy and almost out of frame, a blurred black fingertip across one corner. In the photograph a man stands atop a great stone block, stiff and uncomfortable, beaming and posing as best he can. Like a schoolboy Lawrence, awkward but having gotten away with something.

  He is pale in the dusky sun. His linen suit is scuffed and wrinkled and has become too large. Below him, a woman stands shy and reluctant. She is flushed, gently tanned, but appears lost.

  H.

  Somewhere between the Giza plateau and Cairo their taxi ran out of petrol. The subsequent bus rattled and inched along with the city’s traffic. There were no seats and no handholds. There was something that sounded like no brakes.

  When Ambrose Zephyr and his wife arrived at the airport, a sudden sandstorm had closed the runways, briefly but effectively.

  Connections, and Haifa, were missed.

  I.

  It would have been clear to those queuing for the flight, had they noticed, that the Englishman was having difficulty.

  Ambrose Zephyr’s face was drained white. He smelt foul, soiled, rotten in his own sweat. He stretched and curled and twisted his hands, rubbed his joints, cringed when he stood, shivered in the airport heat. Every few minutes his eyes bulged in their dark sockets. Like those of a person afraid of something he could hear or smell but not see.

  He snapped at his wife after she had asked him, again, if there was anything she could do.

  I am fine, Ambrose croaked.

  Is there anything you need? Zipper forced the question through her teeth.

  I need to be left alone.

  Zipper wanted to throw something at him.

  Enough, he said.

  Hit him.

  Stop fussing, he said.

  Stop him. Stop it. Go home.

  Ambrose seemed to recover as the queue moved to board the flight to Istanbul.

  They sat in the last row: Ambrose, Zipper and an enormous young man who said that he was flying to visit his sister she is a nice dancer in a hotel viewing the Bosporus saving money for hospitality school so she may return to our family’s taverna back home nice to meet you English couple on holiday I am presuming I study my English very much and you should come to our taverna someday such a nice couple you are though sir you do not look so well perhaps it is the flying maybe do you smell something? Where was I yes my sister the belly dancer she will help me and our father who is being most lonely since our mother left to be with her sister who is my aunt and raises many goats and makes their cheese best in all the Mediterranean yes now the card yes here it is the hotel where there is a view and my sister dances come if you are feeling well perhaps a hamam could help sir yes Turkish bath very good for all ailments can bring the dead back to life for madame as well I very highly recommend but remember please the hotel where my sister dances and sees the Bosporus if you get a chance my sister really is most good at the dancing perhaps a little heavy in the hips she should lose some weight but then who shouldn’t ha ha there I think we are here and landed you nice English couple have a nice day it is a pleasure to be flying with you now remember you come and visit my family’s taverna someday best coffee in all the Mediterranean truly even better than Istanbul perhaps we will see each other again remember a Turkish bath will do you no harm try the bath near the Blue Mosque very old very safe I know it well sorry let me slide over a little so you can get by apologies yes it is small in here I am perhaps too big for such a little airplane ha ha here let me move my so sorry can you get your leg over there okay sorry just a bit further maybe if I inhale a bit.

  Walking to the taxi rank, Ambrose told Zipper that he had once imagined a view across the Bosporus. Or had seen it in a movie. He couldn’t recall which.

  Perhaps, said Zipper, a proper Turkish bath will clear your head. At the least the smell.

  As boys of thirteen or fourteen are prone to do, Ambrose Zephyr received his first lesson regarding the intrigues of the near East, and sex, from a woman.

  The woman in question was not Polly or Penny or Patsy what-was-her-name who had lived a few doors down. Prunella or Poppy or Priscilla was the gangly one. Breastless, with braces that cut his lip during a stolen kiss in his parents’ garden.

  No. The woman in question worked for the wrong side but longed to work for the right side. She was willing and well able to use her nakedness under clinging bedsheets. She was born on the steppes of Russia, nimble with a code machine and a gun, breasted, blond, and in possession of a suite overlooking the Bosporus.

  Her name was Tatiana, said Ambrose as he and Zipper got out of the taxi in front of the oldest bathhouse in the city.

  Of course it was, said Zipper.

  And Bond meets her in the hotel room, said Ambrose.

  The one with the view?

  Right. She’s wearing nothing but a silk ribbon around her neck. Completely naked, and our man in a dinner jacket. Imagine that.

  Imagine that.

  Zipper thought of a polite and curious boy of thirteen or fourteen years, sitting alone in a cinema. Possibly a matinee near Piccadilly Circus. His eyes bugging at the views of Istanbul.

  Zipper emerged from the women’s side of the baths to find her husband attempting to brush the wrinkles and smell from his suit. His hair was slicked flat to his head, his face was flushed and shaved, his smile was broad. A child freshly plucked from the Sunday tub. Zipper’s expression was black, her face drained of everything but anger.

  How was your bath? Ambrose asked.

  Excruciating, said Zipper.

  Large attendant?

  Amazonian.

  Small towel?

  Humiliating.

  Steam?

  I’ve had enough.

 
; Luffah glove?

  You need to deal with this.

  Massage?

  That is not it.

  Oil? Liniments? Palm fronds?

  THAT IS NOT THE POINT.

  Zipper stared at her husband in disbelief. They were still standing in front of the Velázquez Venus.

  I mean yes, that is a point. Just not the point.

  Sorry, said Ambrose.

  Stop apologizing.

  Sorry.

  The point is you never say anything. I haven’t a clue what you think about anything important.

  Sorry.

  Stop it. Stop being so damned…absent.

  Ambrose shrugged.

  Don’t you care about anything? I mean really have an opinion. Beyond it’s lovely?

  Fine, said Ambrose. If you must know. I think the Velázquez is remarkable because it doesn’t matter to me that she was an actress or that the sheets are black. I think abstract expressionism is crap. I think Brussels sprouts are crap. I think I could paint but I don’t have the nerve. I think I am an unbelievably lucky man who is married to a woman who I think looks a little like the Rokeby Venus and I think if I open my mouth to say something I think is important I think she will discover she’s married a fool.

  You are many things my love. A fool is not one of them. You’re imagining things.

  I am keeping things to myself. Having an opinion doesn’t require sharing it with everybody.

  It requires sharing it with me. Because I get to know what you think. I get to know you better than anyone else.

  You do. Always have, always will, full stop. Let it go.

  One more thing.

  What?

  You’re wrong.

  Am I?

  Luck had nothing to do with us.

  Outside the baths, Ambrose’s scrubbed smile disappeared. THEN WHAT IS THE POINT?, he said, smoothing another crease in his suit. Deal with what? What would you have me do?

  Care. Worry. Say something. Aren’t you afraid?

  Yes.

  So?

  So what? So there it is. Here I am. There’s nothing to deal with. If there were I would do it. But there isn’t and I am terrified and this isn’t happening to you.

  You selfish, silent, shitty bastard. This is happening to me.

  Really? In less than a month, you’ll still be alive.

  Really. I can hardly wait. Lying in on Sundays? At last. A decent cup of tea? Brilliant. No more squinting, no more visions, no more imagination, no more silence? I can hardly fucking wait.

  In a lane near the Blue Mosque, around the corner from the oldest bathhouse in the city, curious pedestrians might have noticed a rumpled Englishman embracing a sobbing woman as if she might fly apart. She struggled to free herself, he held tighter. He whispered, she lashed out. He kissed her wet eyes, she turned her face away.

  After a moment or two, the woman said she was fine. The Englishman handed her a thin bauble, a boncuk. He told her that Turkish mothers pin the blue glass trinket to their children’s clothes. To keep them safe.

  The curious might have watched for a few more moments and then moved along and thought nothing more of it.

  That evening Ambrose and Zipper found a bench in a corner of the gardens of Topkapi Palace, where grand and terrible sultans had once lived. Ambrose claimed the sultans had attended to the needs of their harems in this garden. After they had emerged from their baths, he said. Zipper said that sounded like something only a man would think up.

  In the sultan’s garden, Zipper and Ambrose stole as much love as they dared. A few buttons undone. Straps moved gently aside. The slip of a warm hand. The smell of bath oil and perfumed soap. Luffahed skin, sensitive to the touch. They whispered to each other not to worry.

  The evening deepened and the lights on the Asian side grew more numerous. Zipper asked where the boncuk had come from. Ambrose said he had bought it while waiting for his lover to emerge from her bath.

  They sat for a while longer and wondered whether the nice hotel dancer would ever get back to the taverna and whether she was as good as her brother had advertised.

  In my opinion, said Ambrose, the best in all the Mediterranean.

  The next morning near sunrise, London called nine times in as many minutes. None were answered.

  Four calls came from Zipper’s office, two from the offices of D&C. No messages left. One call just kept yelling pick up, pick up, pick up, pick up. One was from the Foreign Office: In town. Drinks? The ninth call left a message: Sir’s shirts are ready and may be picked up at his leisure as it were.

  Ambrose stood at the hotel window, looking at the Bosporus through the dawn haze. He wavered slightly, leaning his forehead against the pane to catch his balance. It was time to go home, Zipper announced, knowing her husband would never admit so on his own.

  Ambrose turned and managed a sad smile. Home then?

  Home then.

  They slept that night in their own bed in the narrow Victorian terrace in Kensington.

  J, and the shirts, could wait.

  K.

  Ambrose Zephyr stood shaving in his bathroom.

  His wife hovered in the doorway, watching her husband’s hands. A subtle tremor, more noticeable in the right. The razor hand. Ambrose leaned into the fogged mirror and pulled a slow stroke. His hands steadied. The knot in Zipper’s stomach eased.

  We can’t keep avoiding them, Zipper said as her husband finished his neck and began on his chin.

  I’d rather not be today’s topic, said Ambrose.

  Friends wouldn’t do that.

  Zipper stood beside her husband and rested her head against his shoulder. Ambrose looked at her reflection in the mirror. What he could make out appeared hollow. As if she wasn’t quite there.

  Everyone does it, said Ambrose. One minute you are who you are. The next it’s strange looks and wringing hands and poor Ambrose is there anything we can do Ambrose let’s all dance on eggshells Ambrose. Suddenly it’s all that you are. All you will be.

  Ambrose held out his razor hand and watched the tremor shake a few drops of water to the floor. This, he said, is not me.

  He looked back at the mirror. They, he said, are not us.

  When the Mankowitzes lived at twenty-six and the Ashkenazis lived at thirty, the girls would meet in front of twenty-eight. Neighbours said that with that pair, that Katerina Mankowitz and Zappora Ashkenazi, there was always much to decide. What to do about boys. What to do about Katerina’s beastly little sister. What to do about their hair, their shoes, their skin. Zappora called her best friend Kitts.

  When Kitts found a job as a photographer’s assistant, she put a word in with her employer regarding a friend looking for work.

  When Kitts thought she was pregnant, Zappora found a discreet clinic. As it turned out Kitts was late. The friends celebrated at the local. Zappora bought a round for the house.

  When Zipper announced she had met someone, Kitts approved. As long as he can be trusted, she said. It was Kitts who found the wedding dress.

  When Kitts left her most recent lover, Zipper made up the spare room. She used some of Kitts’s photography to decorate. Kitts would never say as much, but what hung on the walls was worth thousands. Moody black-and-whites of backlane characters in rough countries were much in demand by the world’s collectors.

  Pick up, pick up, pick up, pick up. PICK UP.

  Zipper answered the phone.

  Kitts said she was on her way.

  Ambrose opened his front door and found Kitts glowering at him. She was, as always, tall and haggard. Like a woman just returned from working in a place with no running water. She called Ambrose a bastard and hugged him. Longer and warmer than usual.

  Lovely to see you too, said Ambrose as Kitts went inside. He sat on his front step and lit a cigarette left over from Paris.

  In her kitchen, through two pots of tea, Zipper came apart. She started laughing like a schoolgirl. L is for List, she said. W is for Was It Something I Did? D is for Somethi
ng I Didn’t Do? S is for Something I Should Have Done?

  She showed Kitts the journal, fanning the pages like a conjuror. She pulled odd items from the journal’s envelope. Souvenirs, Zipper said. What a grand bloody tour it’s been.

  Other bits and baubles materialized from Zipper’s pockets. Everything formed a small mound on the table.

  A postcard featuring a muddy reproduction of an enormous Rembrandt.

  A is for a Portrait in Amsterdam, said Zipper.

  A small and smooth stone, grey and warm.

  Barbaric Berlin.

  A flattened lavender bloom, barely fragrant.

  Advertising in Chartres.

  Another postcard, this time offering a jolly watercoloured Bienvenue à Deauville.

  A honeymoon by the sea, Zipper said.

  A fat and worn copy of Les Misérables, an embossed photograph of an Italian woman in an elegant scarf, an unflattering Polaroid snap of Ambrose and Zipper by the Pyramids. A child’s blue glass bauble.

  Our Paris, laughed Zipper. Florence, Giza, Istanbul. Did I mention we missed Haifa?

  Zipper picked up the journal. Page after blank page.

  And what will I have when he’s gone? Nothing. No growing ancient together, no retiring to the pied-à-terre, no children, no grandchildren come to that. No more. No life. Nothing. Blank.

  But you never wanted children, Kitts said.

  I never wanted this. I is for I Don’t Know What to Do.

  Kitts sat in the eye of her friend’s storm, nodded, shook her head, held tight, wiped Zipper’s dripping face, put the kettle on, wept, buttressed, agreed. Listened.

  When the worst had passed, Kitts did what she had done since the childhood meetings in front of twenty-eight. She said something smart at the precise moment when there was nothing to say.