“That’s Europe. Not here. Christ, Leon, you didn’t think we’d just keep going here forever, did you? After the war?” he said, his tone slightly defensive. “Ah, Mehmet.” Making room for the new drinks, some banter Leon didn’t hear as he watched Tommy’s face, the red cheeks moving as he talked. Knowing it was coming, arranging his own transfer, taking care of business. A desk at the War Department? Or something closer to the Mayflower bar? He looked down at the fresh drink, his stomach queasy. Now what? Back to the desk at Reynolds, days without edge.

“When does this happen?”

“End of the month.”

Just like that.

“What about me?”

“You? I thought you’d be glad it’s over. You never wanted- I had to talk you into it, remember? Though I have to say you took right to it. Best I had. You know that, don’t you? That I always thought that.” He moved his hand, as if he were about to put it on Leon’s, but stopped. “I could put in a word for you-I mean, knowing Turkish, that’s something. But they’re closing the shop here. Everything back to G-2 and you don’t want to join the army, do you?” He looked over the brim of his glass. “It’s time to go home, Leon. OWI’s already packed up. Everybody’s going home.”

“I haven’t been back to the States in-what? Ten years now.”

“You don’t want to stay here. What’s here?”

My life.

“Get Reynolds to transfer you back. Be a big shot in the tobacco business.”

Would they? An office in a long corridor of offices, sharing a secretary, not his own corner overlooking Taksim. A house in Raleigh with a small yard, not the flat on Aya Paşa looking all the way to the Sea of Marmara. Anna where?

He shook his head. “I don’t want to move Anna. She’s doing so well now. Real progress. A move now-” The lie effortless, one of the reasons he’d been the best.

“She’d do even better in the States, if you ask me. They could do something for her there. Hospitals here-” He stopped. “You look all funny. What is it? The money?”