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Today the sky was heavy, the fat dark clouds promising snow that Amber was eagerly anticipating. She’d never seen snow falling, her outer Melbourne suburb too low-lying, and she’d never been in the mountains to witness a snowfall. Strange how she’d had to come all the way to Turkey to see it, but it would be another memory to take home with her.
She was building quite a repertoire of memories to take home with her.
‘I never figured you for a tour guide,’ she half joked as they walked around the base of the tall pointed rocks he called fairy castles. There were so many sides to Kadar and this was yet another. Because he’d gone from being someone who seemed to be boss of the town to a man who could relate the history of the valley while they trekked.
‘Mehmet used to bring me here,’ he explained as they walked. ‘Whenever I despaired of life or of how unfair or tough things were, he’d bring me here and we’d walk these paths together. The valley had been here for ever, he’d tell me, and the rocks might be misshapen or bent crooked by the wind but they still stood, tall and proud. It was my choice if I wanted to give in, or to stand resilient like them.’
‘Mehmet must be very proud of you.’
‘I will never be able to repay him for all that he has done for me.’
She looked at him standing under the dark sky, the cold wind troubling his dark hair, and she understood him better then. She’d imagined he’d always been this way. A leader. Confident and self-assured. But it had been a conscious choice. He could have caved to his loss and his pain and deformity. He could have given in a thousand times to what must have been an agonising journey for a child and a scarred teen trying to find his place in the world, and nobody would have blamed him. But he’d chosen instead to be resilient and to stand tall, to be a leader amongst men.
And she admired him more than ever for it.
Admired?
As the first snowflakes began to fall from the sky, she wished that were all it was. She wished she could summon a hint of the resentment she’d once felt towards him, that she should still harbour towards a man who’d accused her of being a thief. Because instead what she was feeling was a growing respect for the man, and a growing warmth towards him that wasn’t all about how good he made her feel in bed.
And it was as inconvenient as it was unwanted, because she hadn’t come to Turkey looking for a man, even if she’d somehow managed to stumble upon this very fine example of one. And she certainly hadn’t come looking for love.
Which was a damned shame, really.
Seeing that was exactly what she’d found.
God!
She turned into the wind so there was no chance he could read the shock on her features and ask her what was wrong. The icy wind blew a flurry of snowflakes, cold against a face flushed with the heat of her discovery.
She’d been looking forward to the snow. Eagerly anticipating it like a child. Now the thrill of her first snowfall had been overshadowed by the force of something much more momentous. Something altogether more calamitous, the way her heart was racing in her chest.
What the hell was wrong with her? How could she have let it happen? It wasn’t supposed to happen!
She felt him take her hand and he whirled her around to face him. ‘It’s snowing,’ he said, with the excitement of someone who knew how much she’d been looking forward to it.
She did her best to smile. ‘I know.’
He lifted a hand to her eyes, smoothed a tear from her cheek. ‘Then why are you crying?’
She shook her head. ‘Because I’m so happy, of course.’
‘You look beautiful with snow on your eyelashes,’ he said, and kissed her, excited for her, and she tried to feel as excited as him but all she could think was, No.
Around them the snow fell heavier, the flakes fatter, turning the landscape white.
‘Come,’ he said, ‘we must go. There’s something else you haven’t seen yet.’
* * *
Back in the warmth of the Pavilion of the Moon, they peeled away their coats and shook off the snow. Kadar took a big set of keys into a locked room set up like those she’d seen in the palaces in Istanbul, with glass display cases to show the treasures of the time and where the students of the nearest university had worked to provide typewritten descriptions in Turkish, Arabic and English. Almost immediately he had to excuse himself to take a phone call, but Amber didn’t mind. Because there was so much to see, she wouldn’t miss him while she studied the treasures.
There were costumes, exquisite robes of silk and gold, and fine pottery and pouring ware, and there was jewellery of course. Only a fraction of what was on display in the palaces of Topkapi and Dohlmabahce, but the pieces displayed were beautiful nonetheless, the collection the remnants of a sultan’s hideaway.
