Twenty-two

INCIDENT IN ANATOLIA

Mrs. Upjohn was sitting by the side of the road overlooking a deep ravine. She was talking partlyin French and partly with gestures to a large and solid-looking Turkish woman who was telling herwith as much detail as possible under these difficulties of communications all about her lastmiscarriage. Nine children she had had, she explained. Eight of them boys, and five miscarriages.

She seemed as pleased at the miscarriages as she did at the births.

“And you?” she poked Mrs. Upjohn amiably in the ribs. “Combien?—gar?ons?—filles?—combien?” She held up her hands ready to indicate on the fingers.

“Une fille,” said Mrs. Upjohn.

“Et gar?ons?”

Seeing that she was about to fall in the Turkish woman’s estimation, Mrs. Upjohn in a surge ofnationalism proceeded to perjure herself. She held up five fingers of her right hand.

“Cinq,” she said.

“Cinq gar?ons? Très bien!”

The Turkish woman nodded with approbation and respect. She added that if only her cousinwho spoke French really fluently was here they could understand each other a great deal better.

She then resumed the story of her last miscarriage.

The other passengers were sprawled about near them, eating odd bits of food from the basketsthey carried with them. The bus, looking slightly the worse for wear, was drawn up against anoverhanging rock, and the driver and another man were busy inside the bonnet. Mrs. Upjohn hadlost complete count of time. Floods had blocked two of the roads, détours had been necessary andthey had once been stuck for seven hours until the river they were fording subsided. Ankara lay inthe not impossible future and that was all she knew. She listened to her friend’s eager andincoherent conversation, trying to gauge when to nod admiringly, when to shake her head insympathy.

A voice cut into her thoughts, a voice highly incongruous with her present surroundings.

“Mrs. Upjohn, I believe,” said the voice.

Mrs. Upjohn looked up. A little way away a car had driven up. The man standing opposite herhad undoubtedly alighted from it. His face was unmistakably British, as was his voice. He wasimpeccably dressed in a grey flannel suit.

“Good heavens,” said Mrs. Upjohn. “Dr. Livingstone?”

“It must seem rather like that,” said the stranger pleasantly. “My name’s Atkinson. I’m from theConsulate in Ankara. We’ve been trying to get in touch with you for two or three days, but theroads have been cut.”

“You wanted to get in touch with me? Why?” Suddenly Mrs. Upjohn rose to her feet. All tracesof the gay traveller had disappeared. She was all mother, every inch of her. “Julia?” she saidsharply. “Has something happened to Julia?”

“No, no,” Mr. Atkinson reassured her. “Julia’s quite all right. It’s not that at all. There’s been aspot of trouble at Meadowbank and we want to get you home there as soon as possible. I’ll driveyou back to Ankara, and you can get on a plane in about an hour’s time.”

Mrs. Upjohn opened her mouth and then shut it again. Then she rose and said, “You’ll have toget my bag off the top of that bus. It’s the dark one.” She turned, shook hands with her Turkishcompanion, said: “I’m sorry, I have to go home now,” waved to the rest of the bus load with theutmost friendliness, called out a Turkish farewell greeting which was part of her small stock ofTurkish, and prepared to follow Mr. Atkinson immediately without asking any further questions. Itoccurred to him as it had occurred to many other people that Mrs. Upjohn was a very sensiblewoman.