An Evil Eye (24 page)
P
ALEWSKI glanced around a little furtively, then draped himself over the parapet of the new bridge and inhaled the scent of grilling fish.
It wasn’t bad; not bad at all. The convenience of it! And a little restaurant underneath, too, to sit out in the spring sunshine and watch the boats go by.
He glanced up and down. He wasn’t the only person admiring the new bridge. It was as if the whole of Istanbul had chosen that afternoon to inspect this novel adornment to the city. It wasn’t beautiful. At best, with its sturdy pontoons and hefty plankwork, it was impressively functional.
And its function, Palewski had to admit, was almost sublime. He had thought of it, when it was being built, as a dreary commonplace, a purely commercial affair to allow the passage of goods and men between Istanbul and Pera. People tramping back and forth, muddying the distinction between the two: French hatters opening shops in the bazaar, perhaps; imams sallying forth to wag a finger at the more scurrilous delights of Pera.
And yet—a bridge!
He looked up and, seeing a familiar figure approaching him across the planks, he raised a finger in the frosty air. “You see, Kadri,” he announced. “This bridge is already performing its essential function.”
Kadri looked surprised. He bowed. “I am very pleased to meet you here, Palewski efendi.” After a moment’s hesitation he added: “Its essential function?”
“Yes. I was thinking, a bridge is a forced marriage, if you like. Istanbul and Pera clapped together. Pompous groom. Reluctant bride.”
“But which is which?”
Palewski shook his head. “It’s not altogether like that, Kadri. I see it now. Not a marriage at all. The bridge,” he added, with an air of serious triumph, “is a trysting place.”
Kadri looked expectantly at the older man, and said nothing.
“A trysting place, Kadri. Where the lovers meet.”
“I see,” the boy said doubtfully.
“Not lovers in the literal sense, of course.” He waved his hand. “Air of license. Ladies out for a walk. Pashas saluting. Hobbling Sufis and swaggering tars. Jolly fellows all about. Everyone cheerful and bright-eyed, somehow. You know what it reminds me of? You should know.”
Kadri looked round pensively. “The theater?”
“Intelligent boy. Forget your ragged crew, all that paint and declamation. This is the real theater in Istanbul. Long may it last!”
Kadri raised his arm and pointed. “Here comes Yashim efendi!”
T
HE man with the knife stood in the low doorway of the caravansary, rubbing his chest.
He had hoped the welt would fade; it was less than a scratch, after all, the skin scarcely broken, and there had been no blood. But it did not fade. It felt hot, instead, and around it the skin was flushed. In the mornings, when he moved his arms, the welt was sore.
The guardian of the caravansary received him doubtfully. He was not a merchant, with goods to protect; nor did men wander at this time of year, looking for work.
“Three days,” he said reluctantly. “Three days, then you’ll move on, see?”
For a day and a night the man slept, feverishly. On the second day he showed the guardian his wound.
A doctor was fetched. He frowned at the scratch, and prepared a hot poultice to draw the poison out.
But the man knew what happened when a mad dog bit you and drew blood. It could be weeks, or months, but in the end you went mad, too, and died.
The pasha’s life hung by a tiny thread.
He had so very little time.
Y
ASHIM walked with his head down, lost in the crowd and oblivious to the great stream of humanity that swirled around him as he descended to the shore of the Golden Horn.
“Fine times, efendim! It’s our work, every inch—and every inch will get you closer! Bring the ladies! All safe, all sound!”
Beside him, men were shouting and laughing.
Yashim heard their words and saw their happy faces, but he made nothing of it. He could not rid himself of the possibility that Hyacinth had taken his own life. He may have slipped on the ice and overbalanced. He was an old man, after all. But he had asked, “Is it true?” Yashim had said that yes, he believed it to be true: the valide would be moving to Besiktas. And Hyacinth might not be going.
The memory turned like the wheels of the cart that Yashim was following at a cautious distance, to avoid the splash as it lurched into a puddle of dirty water freckled with recent snow. The cartwheels bounced, and began to drum as if they were running over the deck of a ship.
The traffic was busier than usual: he’d never seen or heard so many carts and porters scurrying about here on a winter’s evening.
He hunched his shoulders against the wind, and looked up for a caïque.
Hyacinth fell, he repeated to himself. Hyacinth fell against the palace balustrade, in the snow.
He blinked and looked around. He saw a balustrade beside him: higher, perhaps, and made of wood.
“Try it, efendim! No charge—Pera to Istanbul!”
Happy men were standing in a knot, urging people on with their arms.
Yashim took a step forward. He glanced down, astonished to see his feet planted on wooden planks. All around him was a seething mass of people, laughing and pointing, dodging the carts that thundered across the planks.
He stopped. An old man was coming toward him, planting his stick carefully on the boards, grinning and nodding.
“See that, efendi! See that! Don’t be afraid. I did it with my stick—seventy years I’ve waited for this day! Never left Stamboul before. Free! It’s free!”
A ragged-looking man with a shock of corkscrew hair shot through the crowd. He was barefoot, and intent, and he carried a small bag in his fist.
The crowd parted automatically to let him through, and through the gap Yashim recognized two familiar faces.
They swept him up, arm in arm.
“I was just telling our young friend, Yashim, that the bridge is a splendid piece of theater. Istanbul meets Pera—the old empire and the new Europe! Preen should mount a tableau.”
Yashim said nothing. Only when they had stepped onto land, and were at the bottom of the steps that led to the Galata Tower, did he stop and turn, looking back at the bridge. He shook his head. “Our navy,” he said at last. “Do you know what it amounts to? Almost nothing. A few ships of the line, ill-trained crews, foreign officers. Our navy is an illusion—a costly one, for us. The grand vizier thinks that it can stop the Russians. It can’t.”
“Not when it’s in Alexandria, certainly,” Palewski said drily.
“No—never. It’s not our style—we’re afraid of the sea. Look at Husrev Pasha. He’s an old Bosniac—what does he know of the sea? We’ve had two great engagements in the last few hundred years, and we lost them both. Lepanto, 1580. Wiped out. Navarino, 1827. Total collapse of the fleet.”
“‘God gave the land to the Turks, and to the Christians he gave the sea.’ I know the saying.”
They began to climb the Pera steps. “It’s the sea that counts, these days,” Yashim said. “We built our empire by land—because our cavalry was faster than the rest, and because we knew how to govern. All that has changed. It’s ships that matter, in trade and war. With ships you can conquer distant lands, like the British in India. On land, nothing much has changed. But you can bombard a city from the sea—guns, men, drawn anywhere in the world at an instant.”
“Istanbul has never been so vulnerable, that’s true.”
“That, too. When Mehmet the Conqueror took the city from the Greeks, he had one huge cannon dragged over the mountains to the city walls. And he attacked by land.” He swept an arm across the panorama. “Today, battleships could reduce Istanbul to rubble in a few days.”
“I had no idea you were such a strategist, Yashim.”
“I’m not. I’ve been thinking, though. For fifty years or more, the empire has been crumbling around the edges. Losing possessions to Russia on the Black Sea. Losing ground to Egypt in the south. It’s been like watching a bear attacked by dogs. In the end, the dogs will always win.”
“Decline, decline.” Palewski shrugged. “All empires, in the end, are doomed to fall.”
“Naturally—unless they receive unexpected aid.”
“Quite. But the Ottomans, as I’ve mentioned, don’t have powerful friends.”
“No—until now, we’ve simply managed our own decline, alone.”
They passed below the Galata Tower.
Palewski’s eyes narrowed. “What do you mean, until now?”
“It was what you said about the bridge that made me see it. Europe comes to Istanbul, is that what you said? For fifty years we’ve been clamped in a pincer between Russia and the Egyptians—and when the Greeks sought independence, the British and the French made sure they got it, too. No, we don’t have friends. We don’t even have an alliance of interests.”
“Pretty tight,” Palewski said. “And gloomy.”
“Until Fevzi Pasha sailed into Alexandria and gave up the fleet.”
Palewski frowned. “Gloomier still, I’d have thought.”
Yashim shook his head. “On the contrary. I think Fevzi Pasha’s defection may save the empire.”
Palewski gave a dry laugh. Yashim turned.
“Britain and France, you said, don’t care who governs Istanbul—as long as it isn’t the Russians. But the British are very touchy about anything that crops up along their line to India. Since Napoleon’s day the French feel they have a sort of proprietary interest in Egypt and the Middle East. Protecting the Catholics, for example. Both want to preserve the balance of power in Europe.”
“What are you suggesting, Yashim?”
“Fevzi Ahmet may have inadvertently done what no one has managed to achieve for twenty years—least of all Husrev Pasha. He fights yesterday’s battles, Palewski. Two fronts—the Russians and the Egyptians. Until now, we haven’t had allies. Don’t you see?”
“That by defecting to the Egyptians—?”
“Fevzi Ahmet has forced the issue. Either the Powers let it go, in which case the Russians organize a protectorate in Istanbul, and the khedive rattles his saber over the Middle East—”
“Or the British have to intervene. Yes, I’m beginning to see what you mean. The empire needed outside help—and now it can’t refuse.”
“It was the bridge that made me see it. You said it yourself: the bridge is theater. And so is diplomacy. Fevzi Pasha built a bridge that would bring European Pera into Istanbul. The next thing, ambassador, is a diplomatic approach to the French.”
Palewski startled. “When you say ‘ambassador’—?”
“It can’t be Husrev Pasha. It isn’t his job to spell out the weakness of the Ottoman state. I can’t do it. The only Englishman I know is a thirdgrade secretary to the ambassador.”
“Ah, yes. Mr. Compston. I can’t quite see him shaping European policy for years to come.”
“But you could. You’re neutral and you have the rank. The French ambassador is a friend, isn’t he? Just have a word in his ear, and let him do the rest.”
Palewski glanced around. They were passing the mouth of the lane that led down to the British embassy. “Speaking of Compston, he dropped in earlier. Rambled on about how you saved his watch or something. Seems to feel he’s under some sort of obligation to you.”
Yashim waved his hand impatiently.
“Well, he was most anxious to talk to you, Yashim. Felt he owed you something, can’t remember what it was about.” Palewski screwed up his eyes. “A tip about some papers, I think. He said to get in touch—you’d know why.”
Yashim pulled a face. “I’ve no idea.”
“No matter. He’s at the embassy, apparently—and we’re just passing. Perhaps …”
Yashim stopped. “All right. I’ll drop in, now.”
T
HE wrought-iron gates of the British embassy were surmounted by an escutcheon that showed a unicorn and a lion pawing at a crown.
Yashim gave the unicorn a mental salute as he passed under the gate: the mythical beast amused him. On the face of it the British were a supremely practical people, interested in trade and fond—like Compston—of speaking their own mind, but the unicorn suggested a fanciful streak. Compston’s obsession with the poet Byron was a case in point: the beefy English boy who appeared with a startled look at the top of the stairs was obviously not a soul in romantic torment.
He came down the stairs dragging on an overcoat.
“I say, Yashim efendi, what?” He took Yashim by the arm and steered him across the hall. “Coffee? Good little French place around the corner.” He glanced around, and lowered his voice. “New boy from London. Wretched little sneak. Best not to be seen hanging about here.”
A pimply young man looked up from a desk. “Going out, Mr. Compston?”
“Change of air. Been a bad smell in here these last few weeks, daresay you haven’t noticed?”
Compston crammed on his hat and stepped outside. “Good dig, what? Bad smell, ha ha!”
Yashim let him lead the way to a small café on the Grande Rue.
“Messieurs? Qu’est-ce que vous désirez?”
The owner was a Frenchman, stout and bald, with an elegant mustache. He had a napkin draped over his arm.
Compston ordered coffee, in his execrable French; Yashim asked for a verbena.
He watched as Compston spooned sugar into his cup and stirred it nervously.
“I say, Yashim efendi—” he began; then he seemed to check himself. “What price the new bridge?”
“The bridge? What of it?”
“Do you think it’ll ever work? Fizerley says no, bound to collapse. Esterhazy—he’s at the imperial embassy—says it’ll stand. We’ve got a bet on it.”
Yashim felt a twinge of impatience. “Forgive me, Mr. Compston. Our friend Palewski mentioned something you wanted to talk to me about. The bridge? I don’t quite understand.”
“Ah, yes, well—never mind about the bridge, efendi. Silly question.” Compston flushed slightly. “My pater’s not awfully keen on gambling himself. No, what I really wanted to talk about were these.”
He fished in his waistcoat and brought out a packet of papers.
Yashim gave a start. “I’ve seen these before. But how on earth—?”
“Found ’em, efendi, just lying in the grass. The night you saved my watch, on Chalki.”
He set the packet on the table and patted it, then pushed it over toward Yashim.
“I—I wanted you to have ’em. Never occurred to me you might have dropped them, but I see that now. You know what they are?”
Yashim eyed the packet. “Not exactly,” he admitted cautiously. “I glanced through them. I didn’t have much time, and my Russian’s none too fluent anyway.”
“I read Russian, Yashim efendi.”
He said it with modest diffidence, as if he expected Yashim’s reaction.
“You?”
Compston gave an apologetic shrug. “Never found much time for it, until I came across Pushkin.”
“Who?”
“Alexander Pushkin. He’s a Russian poet, dead now.” Compston absently reached into his waistcoat pocket and ran his fingers up a silver chain. The watch appeared in his hand. “Killed in a duel just a couple of years ago. Affair of the heart,” he added wistfully.
“Like your Byron?”
“Not bad, Yashim efendi. Put like that, you’re right. Pushkin is the Russian Byron. Languages don’t agree with me, but somehow Russian works.” He gave a short laugh. “They’re letters, written to your Kapudan pasha. I sort of pieced it together. Didn’t think much more of ’em, not until we heard about the Egyptian business. Then I thought of you. Here they are.”
“You didn’t think about them?” Yashim could not keep the note of surprise out of his voice. “Why not?”
It was Compston’s turn to sound surprised. “Well, there’s not much to them, efendi, is there? Or didn’t you read them? Sorry, of course …” He frowned. “They’re nothing too important, judging by the hand. Common threats—I know your secret, a word from One Who Knows, that sort of thing. You know—your time is running out.”
“Blackmailing letters? From Galytsin?”
Compston raised an eyebrow. “Galytsin? No, no. But blackmailing letters, all right. Damned obscure. Full of spelling mistakes, just what you’d expect from some Russki blackmailer. Lowest form of villainy, blackmail. I don’t say Galytsin wouldn’t stoop to it, but he could never have written those letters.” He pointed at the packet. “Have a look yourself.”
Yashim scooped up the bundle and slipped it into his waistcoat. “Thank you.”
Compston waved a hand. “Please, don’t mention it. Feel much better now—one good turn, all that sort of thing. I say—” He pulled a worried face and bent to catch Yashim’s eye. “As a matter of fact, you won’t mention that we’ve met? Better not. Fizerley, well. He’s a bit of a stickler.”
“Of course not,” Yashim murmured. He was not really listening. He was staring into the surface of his tea and wondering whether he had got everything wrong.
After a moment he collected himself. “About the bridge,” he said. “I expect it’ll stand, all right. Fevzi Ahmet may be a traitor, but he’s no fool.”
“That’s just what I was afraid you’d say, Yashim efendi,” Compston replied unhappily. “Oh God, it’s going to be awful!”