The Property of a Lady - Elizabeth Adler [85]
The car slid past the silent, gloomy tanker, around the bend toward Yenikoy where the ferryboats hooted and fussed on their way to Tarabya. Then it turned sharply right through the huge wooden gates into the courtyard of the Kazahn yali.
Everything looked as it always had, right from Tariq Kazahn’s time. The simple pale-green wooden façade with its white gingerbread balconies and fretwork screens; the cobbled courtyard with its shade trees, its Victorian lanterns, and the remnants of thousand-year-old columns and statues excavated from Anatolia. And inside, the contrast of great luxury: antique Turkish carpets and low, silk-covered divans, the great hall with its marble floors and glorious blue Izmir tiles, and the long, flower-filled terrace by the Bosphorus where the family had always gathered on warm summer evenings in the past. The house was full of treasures: antique Turkish silver and brassware, rare wall hangings from Bursa, ancient examples of calligraphy from Persia. There were porphyry columns and inlaid wall panels and a painted canvas ceiling that resembled fabulous Ottoman brocade. Leyla never walked through those big wooden doors without thinking of her great-grandfather, because when Tariq and Han-Su had created their family home, they had also created a living museum and a lasting memory of themselves.
They were waiting for her in Tariq Pasha’s old study. Her father, Ahmet, hurried to embrace her, looking anxiously behind her for Anna.
“Where is she?” thundered Michael, limping toward her, his leg swinging and his cane thumping angrily on the marble floor.
“Oh, Grandfather, I don’t know,” she cried, bursting into tears.
She sank into a seat in the great bay window overlooking the Bosphorus, sobbing bitterly into her hands, and Michael stared at her nonplussed. “Don’t cry, Leyla,” he said gruffly, coming to sit beside her. “It’s only your old grandfather in one of his tempers. You know it doesn’t mean anything, it’s just my way.” He patted her dark head awkwardly.
“I’m not crying for you, Grandfather,” she said, sobbing, “I’m crying for Anna. She was supposed to meet me. I had her ticket in my bag, and she just never showed up. There was no message, nothing, and after what you said, I’m so afraid.”
“I called her at home and at work,” Ahmet said worriedly, “and she’s not there either. No one seemed to know where she is.”
“If she’s got any sense, she’s hiding out somewhere,” Michael shouted, “and if she has the brains I always thought she had, she’ll be on her way here as fast as she can.”
Leyla lifted her head from her hands, pushing back strands of wet hair from her tearstained face. “No, she won’t,” she said. “She’s afraid to come home.”
Ahmet glared at his father and said exasperatedly, “What did I tell you? You always roar and shout instead of asking simple questions….”
“Never mind that now,” Michael roared again, “let’s get to the bottom of this story! Leyla, the first thing I want to know is why Anna sold the emerald.”
“She needed money to pay for Missie’s rest home. The bills are enormous. I had no idea these places cost so much until she told me. But only the best was good enough for her beloved Missie.”
Michael nodded approvingly. “She was right. But why did she need money? What about the million dollars from Tariq Pasha?”
“Remember, Anna was only seventeen when she inherited the money. She paid off a lot of debts and bought the house in Los Angeles,” she said. “They had bad advice and the rest just disappeared in bad investments. There was just enough for Missie to live on until she went to the nursing home.” Leyla gripped her grandfather’s hands tightly and said, “Oh, Grandfather, don’t you see? Anna was ashamed to come to you and ask for money. She said the Kazahns had repaid their debt of honor and now the responsibility