Virginia Woolf in Manhattan (32 page)

‘That’s not the point, it’s not the point, everyone’s a millionaire these days – ’

‘
Really?
’

‘No, but you know, all one’s friends. In any case, he claims they need money to get the vehicles mended and feed the huskies and whatever research he claims to be doing –

‘What is his research?’

‘Oh, same old, same old, he’s always investigating global warming, the ice-caps are melting, but are they, really? Virginia, do you mind not interrupting – the point is, Edward’s always away. He’s never there for Gerda and me. This time it’s been three months already. He didn’t need to go – ’

‘Why not?’

There was a pause. She looked uncertain, but she was too enraged to stop for long. ‘Because, it doesn’t matter, look it doesn’t matter. He doesn’t need work, there is plenty of money. I mean, I’ve got money … In any case. The bastard only phoned to ask me for money. A lot of money. From our joint account, which he had promised he would never use. I had no choice, I had to say “No”. There comes a point when you have to say “No”. Otherwise women get exploited.’ That last phrase seemed to give her confidence, but surely she knew her argument was muddled?

‘You felt you couldn’t afford to help him? – You said it was
a joint account?’

‘Why are you looking like that, Virginia? Do you want to make me feel bad? It’s all right for you, this never happened to you, I’m pretty sure Leonard never asked you for money, I don’t suppose you had a joint account, we agreed it would be a cushion for me, in case he died and I needed it.’

She was crying in earnest now. We were waiting for a tram, and people were staring, not unkindly, at the weeping woman. To me it seemed she understood nothing.

‘We both kept accounts,’ I told her, though I did not much care to talk to her about money. ‘I wrote everything down, like a housekeeper, money for ink, stamps, notebooks. The press did make money. We were a success. And after
To the Lighthouse
, I earned more than him. I think I preferred it, actually. My father tormented Vanessa and Stella, always blaming them for extravagance, even though we ate the same lamb for three days. Women must have their own money. But we had enough, Leonard and I, between us. I never wanted more than that.

‘But it isn’t, as you say, “all right for me.” I’d give anything for Leonard to telephone one morning. And I would give him whatever he asked for.’

Sometimes she reminded me of Gerda. That knack of saying things that cut to the quick. ‘£40,000 he asked me for.’

‘I suppose expeditions cost a lot?’

But £40,000! It was nearly as much money as we’d spent last year on the conservatory, after the monkey-puzzle tree fell on
the roof. It wasn’t peanuts, whatever he said. I was sure they could manage, somehow, without it. Did they really need that many huskies?

Perhaps I was just trying to make Edward come home. Perhaps I didn’t want to live without him anymore.

(
Not a word from him for nearly two months, and then he rings up and asks me for money
. That was the story that told itself, again and again, in my cramped, hurt, heart.)

I couldn’t convince her. We both fell silent.

I hovered to one side of the queues in the Topkapi gardens. The people queueing looked hot and fretful, but the gardens were green, and it was spring. Angela, who was always in a hurry, tried to marshal me into the line, but I stood on the grass, and looked, and breathed. The tulips blazed yellow and red down the path: I thought of Kew, butterflies, summer; but there were two sentries in sentry-boxes, little men dwarfed by the size of the gardens, and two others at the gate of the palace, and when I looked more closely, both cradled rifles, holding them up like uncomfortable babies, a little too easy, too intimate. For where was the threat? In the sea of grass, there were deep purple pansies, and families sat talking, and children played. Over the wall, blue water, boats, and seagulls hung, indifferent.

‘There are more flags than there were before,’ said Angela, looking in the same direction. ‘Why do they need to point those rifles? Terrorism, I suppose.’

‘It reminds me of New York. The fuss before we were allowed to get on the boat that took us to the Statue of Liberty. Then at the airport the same. Are there really so many terrorists now?’ The scene around me was peaceful, idyllic. ‘In our day things were different … we thought of
assassins and anarchists, not terrorists … though Conrad had some in
The Secret Agent
.’

I didn’t want to explain to her, I had my own troubles to think about. I thought she had just wandered off, but in fact she had found the little coterie of guides who were walking up and down, touting their skills. Yes, she was growing more confident.

Choosing him was easy: he had good English. He was not bored, or beaten down. Soon we were all inside the palace. He told me that his name was ‘Max’.

She believed him because she lacked cultural awareness. I asked him, what was his real name?

‘You said we had to call people whatever they wanted.’

It turned out, his real name was Muhsin.

He was elderly but very handsome. Looked Russian, or Tartar. High cheekbones, golden skin, teeth so white that I suspected them, though many modern people had blinding white teeth. He laughed and said he was ‘Mongolian’.

I think she had a crush on him. Though I admit he was good at his job.

Angela was slightly in love with him!

Lime catkins were hanging in the sunlight, bees were just lifting to life from the ground, the crows were watching us from the roof-tops – but no, Max was talking again, showering us with facts like pollen from the lime trees. ‘The “seven hills of Istanbul”, named after the seven hills of Rome … there were Pagans here, before Byzantium, then the Emperor Constantine … a Christian … long after the Romans in the west had fallen … Mehmet … in 1457… the Topkapi Palace you see before you was built only three hundred years ago.’

(‘Only three hundred’! He made me feel young. I have to admit I did find him handsome, though unlike Angela, I wasn’t smirking, or running my hands through my shingled hair. I tried to concentrate, to do him justice, but I was distracted by the sunlit gardens. How old was I really? What did time mean?)

‘Virginia, are you listening?’

– He was saying the best part of Topkapi was the Harem, but we’d have to pay another fifty Turkish lira.

‘Of course we must see the Harem,’ I said.

Angela paid up with a bad grace. She had many things to learn about being a lady.

This was the place of women. So we should have had a female guide. I did say that to Virginia, but she pointed out that there weren’t any. Was she, really, a feminist?

His eyes glinted behind his round gold glasses; his teeth flashed; he was enjoying himself. I had thought the Harem was the realm of the erotic, I was looking forward to hearing about that, I thought Max would tell the story well – but he talked about history and politics. And so I had to imagine the rest from a few wide beds and elaborate bathrooms, white marble enclaves with anterooms. Yes, I glimpsed pairs and trios of women, semi-naked, langorous …

Muhsin’s narrative was all about power. The women were chosen from the slave markets, to avoid dynastic quarrels with Turkish families – Circassians, Russians, Ukrainians, Greeks – teenagers, separated from their parents, pretty children trained by the black eunuchs; then the ‘best’ were picked by the sultan’s mother, and the first to give birth became the sultan’s wife. As soon as they were women, the power games began. Everything was focused on the future of their sons. Some would inherit, others would die.

Their living quarters were ornate but sad. Elaborate landscapes to replace the real world. The gaolers must have understood what they craved, for the paintings on the walls and the golden furniture were of wild flowers, fruit trees, boats on the ocean, wide sunlit landscapes they would never walk in. Maybe it just sharpened their hunger. The stone was worn away by their slippered feet. Those window-panes; women must have pressed against them, eyes yearning up to find the sky, soft flesh rubbing the sills away. Lives which left no other imprint. And every summer too hot, I thought, but they could never stroll on a hill in the breeze, and week followed week, and every
morning the pattern of the sun on the wall would be the same, every morning until they were old.

Were they watching us and whispering, the ghosts of mistresses left behind?

Would they be glad, or envious, to see us – two free modern women, with a man we were paying to serve our needs?

‘The only men allowed were the Sultan or the black eunuch. They had absolute dominion over the women’s lives …’

Max was surely enjoying this a little too much.

Out of the blue, Virginia interrupted. ‘Maybe the women were fucking each other.’

Fortunately Muhsin appeared not to hear. ‘Virginia!’ I protested, shocked, though part of me just wanted to laugh.

‘
You
say “fucking”,’ she said, ‘I’ve heard you. I thought it was normal?’

‘I haven’t said anything like
that
.’

‘But you do say “fucking”.’

‘Well … only when I don’t mean it.’

Muhsin, meanwhile, had ended his tour. Virginia gave him an excessively large tip.

I got lumbered with taking their photograph together. It was Muhsin who suggested it, when he realised he had read one of her books. Fortunately he was vague about dates when it came to modern literature! ‘
Mrs
– I’ve forgotten,’ he said, enthusiastically. ‘We read it at Istanbul University. Wonderful story about a party. Did you really write it? I would like very much a picture with you.’

Virginia was preening herself – I think that is an objective description ‘
Mrs Dalloway,
’ I interrupted. I wanted to cut short the love-fest. ‘She doesn’t like photographs,’ I added, but she didn’t back me up; just smiled at him, so I felt foolish.

‘Yes,
Mrs Dalloway
, exactly. Very famous book! Very famous author. Take my camera,’ he said to me, peremptorily.

‘I write novels too,’ I said. ‘I’ve written eight. I am translated into Turkish. We could ask one of these Chinese people to take all three of us. They’ve been taking photos non-stop, they are experts.’ But neither Virginia nor Muhsin was listening, they had gone to find a spot where they would look photogenic. Virginia, true, pretended reluctance, and jammed her boater down over her eyes, wailing ‘For heaven’s sake get a move on’, but when Muhsin begged her, she took the hat off, because he wanted her to ‘look like the photo he remembered’.

I must be more short-sighted than I was, because I took several pictures, posing them so light would fall on Virginia’s hair – lit from behind she looked particularly young, next to Muhsin’s white head hers was golden brown – I swear I did my best for them, but when Muhsin checked the pictures, he said ‘Where’s Virginia?’ I looked, but all I could see was him, the passage behind and a patch of darkness, and Virginia refused point blank to pose again.

She deliberately left me out of Max’s photo. As I said, she was in love with him. True, I found him charming, and wanted to please him … So I may have bent my rules a little, and this was her way of taking revenge. I suppose we were fighting over a man! It made me feel – amused, and young. I liked the new me. This was an adventure.

We said goodbye to him. He said it was an honour. I think that included both of us.

The tall trees en route for Aya Sophia reminded me of somewhere else – their gentle leaning, their high graceful arcs, the complex patchwork of colour on their bark, grey-green and eau-de-nil, in the sunlight – recalling something intensely hopeful – yes, it was the trees when I emerged from hell, the delicate pale giraffes of trees by the New York Public Library where my new life began. And there were crows: chattering ungainly, hopping and scattering over the grass, cawing at me. ‘
Kaar, Virginia
.’

(Were countries real? Were cities real? The birds, the plane trees spread all over the world?)

The leaves moved above us and above the tired tulips. Deep purple pansies blew in beds, an intense depth of colour with a dust of white weeds. Two yellow dogs slept on the green. Summer was coming – would I still be here?

‘Time for the Aya Sophia,’ said Angela.

But I couldn’t stop thinking about the Harem.

Somewhere in the warm colonnades of Topkapi, on the side of the palace that looked over the sea, did the souls of the imprisoned women become birds, swooping in and out over the blue water? Had their suffering earned them a thousand years of freedom, like the children of air in Hans Andersen’s ‘Little Mermaid’, set free from the green and gold book in my library?

(Could I escape too, from my old story? Could I ever recover my own desires? My own desires, which were stolen from me.)

‘Was anyone allowed to say “No” to the Sultan?’

(I thought, it would be nice to be a Sultan. Whereas I had to be unselfish. Mostly. Was I? Edward claimed when he was
home he was always looking after me. Just because he’s good at getting up in the morning! It’s not much trouble making cups of tea.)

A line of crows stretched across the lawns. Big-headed, powerful, a living chain. Their black beaks rose and fell like hammers.

‘I suppose – yes, but only if he loved them. If you want someone’s love, you can’t coerce them. My Leonard let me say “No” to him.’

Poor Leonard: those first years, we shared a bed. I felt no more than if I was a rock, and on my rock, he starved and suffered. But kisses: yes, and caresses, I gave, like swallows landing, then I darted away.

‘I could say “No” to Edward, too.’