Chapter Twenty-five

THE MANAGER OF my hotel arrived at the french house with two beaten-up trucks and eight companions who looked like they were on day release. Shame on me for judging them by appearance – they turned out to be some of the finest, most hardworking men I had ever encountered.

They were friends of the manager, he had rustled them up at a moment’s notice, and when I met them at the front of the house and told them I would pay them, they all refused.

‘These men peoples say that of the money today they have no kissing-love, ’ the manager translated, sort of. The more I heard him, the more he sounded like one of those online translation programs. ‘Is enough for them of the great estate they have the chance to see, ’ he said.

It appeared that none of the men, like almost everybody else in Bodrum, had ever been through the tall gates, and they were only too willing to heed the manager’s call for help. As I led them around the house, heading towards the rear terrace, we encountered Cumali and her colleagues on their way out. There was a moment of embarrassment when the two parties confronted each other, but the manager stepped off the path and his workers followed suit to allow the cops to pass.

It so happened that I was in a position where I could see the manager’s face clearly and the look of disdain as the officer walked by was almost palpable. The manager turned, saw me looking at him and smiled. Once the cops were out of earshot, he walked to my side: ‘He is the name of a man we call SpongeBob. ’

All the workers nodded. ‘SpongeBob? ’ I said. ‘Like the cartoon? ’ The manager nodded and mimed a sucking motion.

‘Ah, ’ I said, ‘the big sponge, ’ and rubbed my thumb and forefinger together in the universal symbol of bribery. The manager and his friends laughed, and one of the men spat on the ground. For a moment we had transcended all language, and we turned the corner of the house.

After allowing them a minute to stare at the view, I led them through the French doors into the library. Two of the men were carpenters and, while they discussed the logistics of building crates to protect the mirrors, several others returned to their trucks for ladders and tools.

I wandered out on to the lawn and started trying to call somebody at FedEx who could organize, at short notice, to pick up the mirrors and fly them to Florence. I was waiting for yet another customer-service rep to call back when the manager hurried to my side, obviously upset and wanting me to follow him into the house. For a moment I thought they must have dropped one of the mirrors, but I realized I would have heard it smash and I put that possibility aside.

I temporarily gave up on FedEx, followed the manager up to the terrace, went through the doors and into the library. I stopped. The men – silent and standing to one side – were watching me. They had removed both mirrors, and I looked at the dressed-stone walls where they had been hanging.

When I first saw the mirrors, I had thought they were incongruous but I had put it down to someone’s eccentricity. It wasn’t – the mirrors had been used to cover two large swastikas that had been carved into the stone. They were the real deal too, beautifully chiselled, both surmounted by the imperial eagle of the Third Reich. I stared at them. As a child, I had seen swastikas in the Kommandant’s office at Natzweiler-Struthof and, for a terrible moment, I saw the woman again with the baby in her arms and the two children holding tight to her skirt.

I walked towards the foul things, watched by the manager and his friends, all of them seemingly shamefaced. Turkey had been neutral in the Second World War, but they all knew what the symbols represented and I think they were deeply offended at what had been found in their town.

I reached up – I really didn’t want to touch it – and ran my finger along the chisel marks. It came away thick with dust: the mirrors had been put in place years ago.

I turned to the men. ‘Why do they call it the French House? ’ I asked.