Marc Levy’s "The Strange Journey of Mr. Daldry," Summary

French writer Marc Lévy’s novel was published in 2011. Set in the early 1950s, the story seamlessly blends elements of romantic drama, detective fiction, and family investigation. At the center of the plot is a search for personal identity, inextricably linked to the tragic events in the Ottoman Empire during World War I. The book is not part of any literary series and remains a completely independent work.

Fortune Telling at Brighton Fair

In December 1950, young Englishwoman Alice Pendlebury lives in London in a Victorian house with a glass-roofed attic. Alice works as a perfumer and possesses a rare gift of smell. Her parents died in September 1941 during the German bombing of the British capital, leaving her an orphan. She spends her free time with four close friends: Anton, a carpenter and trumpeter; Carol, a nurse; Sam, a bookseller; and Eddie, a street musician.

Before Christmas, the group heads to Brighton Pier. As a joke, the friends persuade Alice to enter the van of an elderly clairvoyant. The fortune teller refuses to accept payment and tells the girl strange things. According to her, the man most important to Alice’s destiny has just passed behind her. To reach him, Alice must make a long journey to Istanbul and meet six guides along the way. The fortune teller assures Alice that she was born in the East, and that all her conventional notions of the past will prove to be delusions.

The fortune teller’s words deprive Alice of sleep and trigger terrifying nightmares. Her nightly visions include an unfamiliar eastern city, fires, a steep stone staircase, and a woman’s hand saving her from her pursuers.

An unusual deal with a neighbor

Alice’s neighbor on the landing, the eccentric artist Ethan Daldry, is irritated by the noise through the wall. He paints city crossroads and has long dreamed of setting up a studio in Alice’s bright apartment. Upon learning of his neighbor’s emotional turmoil, Daldry drives her back to Brighton in his car to question the fortune teller again. The old woman merely confirms that the solution to the mystery lies on the shores of the Bosphorus.

Soon, Daldry receives a large inheritance from his late father. He offers his neighbor a mutually beneficial deal: he will fully cover their flight to Turkey and accommodations, acting as the first link in the prophecy. In exchange, Alice allows him to work under her glass roof during her absence. Daldry promises to leave the girl as soon as she meets the second guide.

In January 1951, the companions departed London. After a layover in Paris and a brief stopover in Vienna, where they secretly sneaked onto the podium of the Vienna State Opera for a performance of Don Giovanni, they arrived in Istanbul and stayed at the Pera Palace Hotel.

Searching for traces in Istanbul

At the hotel bar, Daldry hires a local guide and translator named Can. Alice begins to study the methods of her Turkish colleagues. In the Cihangir district, she meets an elderly master perfumer. His work inspires the Englishwoman to create fragrances that capture memories and convey the atmosphere of specific places.

Thanks to Jan’s connections, Alice and Daldry are invited to a gala reception at the British consulate. The ambassador’s wife introduces the girl to the consul, who agrees to check the archives from the First World War.

The diplomat soon reveals startling information: at the end of 1913, the Pendleburys were indeed living in Istanbul’s Beyoğlu district. Pendlebury, a pharmacist, and his wife organized an underground hospital for local residents. In the spring of 1916, the British were evacuated on a neutral Spanish ship through Gibraltar to England. However, there was no mention of a child in the registration lists. Alice realizes that she lived in Istanbul at the age of five, but her memory has completely erased these events.

Can finds an elderly Istanbul resident, Oğuz Zemirli, who lives on Istiklal Street across from the Pendleburys’ former home. The old man fondly remembers the pharmacist who treated his injured leg, but confirms he never saw the pharmacist’s young daughter. Zemirli speculates that the girl may have attended St. Michael’s private school.

Separation and new discoveries

A check of school records yields no results. Daldry decides to return to London, leaving Alice with paid accommodation and living expenses. The artist fears emotional attachment: in a frank conversation with Jan, he admitted that since his youth, he has feared repeating the fate of his father, who destroyed his marriage with infidelity and deceit.

Alice moves from an expensive hotel to the Asian shore of the Bosphorus, to the Üsküdar district. She rents a modest room from Can’s aunt, Mama Can, and gets a job as a waitress in her family restaurant. During the day, she works in Cihangir’s laboratory on the original fragrance "Istanbul," and in the evenings, she corresponds with Daldry. In his letters, the artist describes in detail his work on a painting of the Galata Bridge in her London attic.

In the spring of 1951, a fire in Üsküdar forces Alice and Can to change their usual route. Behind a fence lined with blooming linden trees, Alice smells a familiar scent and recognizes an old building. The elderly gardener turns out to be a former elementary school teacher. He instantly recognizes his visitor and calls her by her name, Anush. The teacher explains that the girl was mute, her father was killed during the pogroms, and she was cared for by a Turkish nanny named Yilmaz.

The Mystery of Origin

Can searches for Mrs. Yilmaz in the city of Izmit, located 100 kilometers from Istanbul. Alice visits the elderly woman, who tearfully reveals the truth about the events of April 1915.

Alice’s real father was an Armenian shoemaker who owned workshops in Pera and Kadıköy. The girl suffered from muteness and was taken to the kindly English pharmacist Pendlebury for treatment. During the Armenian Genocide in April 1915, her father was captured and brutally beaten. Bleeding profusely, he managed to reach home, warned his family of the danger, and died in his wife’s arms.

The mother, nanny, five-year-old Anush, and her newborn brother fled to Izmit. Soon, raids began there, too. That night, while hiding in the ruins of a church, the fugitives came into the sights of a punitive detachment. To save her children, the mother voluntarily went out to meet the soldiers and died.

The nanny hid the orphans with relatives on the Bosphorus. Unable to feed two children, Mrs. Yilmaz handed over the mute Anush to the compassionate Pendleburys before their departure for England. The girl’s younger brother, Raphael, remained in Turkey.

Family Reunion and the True Meaning of Prophecy

Having learned of her brother’s existence, the girl devotes the summer and early fall of 1951 to searching for him among the Istanbul sailors. In October, Can spots a young man in a coastal restaurant who bears a striking resemblance to Alice. Rafael Kaşadorian, who has become a fisherman on a tuna boat, finds his sister.

Alice decides to stay in Turkey permanently, but first flies to London to collect her belongings. At the airport, Rafael points out an important detail: he himself has never left the country and could not possibly have been at the Brighton fair in December 1950.

On October 31, 1951, Alice enters her London apartment. She puts on Daldry’s coat and finds in her pocket an entry ticket to Brighton Pier, dated December 23, 1950. She realizes that the mysterious stranger behind her was Ethan himself, who had been secretly watching her long before their first conversation.

When Daldry returns, Alice shows him the ticket. The artist confesses he’s loved her since the first day, but hid his feelings because of his own inner fears. He inhales the scent of the Istanbul perfume she brought with her, in which Alice captured the atmosphere of the Bosphorus. They reveal their feelings for each other.

A year later, on December 24, 1951, Alice and Ethan return to the Brighton fair. The fortune teller’s booth has been dismantled: the woman died in the autumn, and her ashes were scattered at sea. She turned out to be the old nanny’s sister and immediately recognized the grown-up Anush. All six guides — Can, the consul, Mr. Zemirli, the schoolteacher, Nanny Yilmaz, and Brother Raphael — led Alice to the seventh man, her lifelong companion, who was originally Ethan Daldry.