A Colder War

27

It was always the same afterwards. Walking back down the same quiet street, catching the eyes of strangers. How quickly his exhilaration changed to shame. The men in the tea houses, the women scrubbing flagstones on a front porch — all of them watching him. All of them seeming to know exactly what he had done.

Douglas Tremayne boarded the tram. It was crowded. He felt himself hemmed in against other bodies, other men. He had washed afterwards and his skin felt soft and feminine. He was aware that he smelled of soap, his hair still damp where it met the collar of his shirt. People staring at him. Strangers. Turks. The Englishman in his brown brogues and burgundy corduroy trousers. A tweed jacket in Istanbul. Tremayne liked to dress smartly but he always felt that the passengers on the tram were judging him.

He replayed the night’s events in his mind. The same old patterns. The exchanges were beginning to blend into one another. Sometimes he would forget where he had been, what had occurred, even in which city it had happened. He knew places all over Turkey.

There was always that sense beforehand of losing control, of his better self rendered powerless. It was just a thing that he was obliged to do, and until he did it, there could be no calm and equanimity in his system. He would know no peace of mind. Tremayne thought of it as an addiction and treated it as such, though he had never told a soul, never sought help, never succumbed to a confession.

Where did these impulses come from? Why had he turned out this way? Why did he always make the same rotten decisions?

The tram stopped. In the distance, a minaret. In Istanbul, there was always a minaret in the distance. More passengers crowding him up. More strangers. The stink of morning sweat and the smell of his own perfumed skin. A mingling. Tremayne touched the back of his neck, felt the dampness of his hair, wondered if this time he had finally been caught. Watched. Photographed. Filmed.

Perhaps it was what he wanted. A release from this secret life. A release from all the guilt. The shame.