The Sultan's Seal (14 page)

T
hey turn into a narrow alley, Kamil leading the way. It is dark, but a faded moon sheds some light. The day has been rainy and unseasonably cold. Yellow mud has congealed into viscous waves and troughs. Bernie slips and Kamil catches his arm. A faint tendril of music snakes through the alleys. They follow it like the lost children in one of Karanfil’s tales. Kamil ducks through a low doorway into a smoky room lit by oil lamps. The proprietor hurries over and welcomes him effusively. He motions a young man to take their coats, then leads them to a table at the front of the room. Kamil whispers in his ear and the man bows his head and leads them instead to a small alcove at the back where they can converse undisturbed, but which still affords a view of the performance. A young male soprano is singing an Italian canto, accompanied by a mixture of European and Oriental instruments that add an air of lamentation to the song.

Two glasses of raki and small dishes of hummus, stuffed vegetables, yoghurt sauces, spiced fried liver, and bread appear magically on the table before them. As the evening wears on, empty dishes disappear, to be replaced by new and different delicacies. Empty glasses are refilled. Kamil and Bernie engage in spirited discussions on Italian opera and the role of folk songs in classical music.

“I must say,” Bernie comments, stretching his legs contentedly, “people here certainly know how to have a good time.” He nods at the plates spread across the table before them.

“We call it keyif. A feeling of well-being.” Kamil tilts his chin toward the sweating musicians and the tables buzzing with conversation and laughter. “In the presence of friends, fine food, and a pleasant setting.”

Very late, they stumble out of the low doorway, this time Bernie supporting Kamil. They head toward the Grande Rue de Pera, where carriages await customers until late into the night. Behind them, the compact shape of a man glides through the darkness, moving from one doorway to another. Suddenly an enormous black object hurtles forward and jumps on Bernie’s chest, its weight throwing him backward. Kamil reaches for his dagger. The kangal dog’s massive jaws struggle toward Bernie’s throat, kept only centimeters away by Kamil’s grip on the dog’s neck. A sharp blast, then a high-pitched scream, and the kangal falls heavily to the ground.

Kamil shields Bernie, who is doubled over and gasping for breath, a small silver pistol dangling from his left hand. A tavern door opens for a moment as a patron peers curiously into the street. The light spilling from inside illuminates the face of a man pressed against the wall, watching intently. His eyes meet Bernie’s before he slips around the corner into the alley.

“What in damnation was that?” Bernie coughs out.

“A kangal dog. They’re bred to guard villages. One rarely sees them in the city.”

Kamil puts his arm around Bernie, feels a sticky wetness on his shirt.

“Where are you hurt?” he asks anxiously.

Bernie stands up straight and pats himself, then brings his hands closer to his face.

“I think that’s from the dog, but my hands are pretty darned banged up. Jesus,” he whistles. “That was a close call.” He looks down at the dog and nudges it with his foot. “It’s good and dead.”

“Come on.” Kamil puts his arm around his friend, completely sober now. “Let’s get you cleaned up. Do all Americans carry a firearm?”

Bernie attempts a weak grin. “Even in the bath, buddy. Even in the bath.”

I
n April, the slick currents teemed with fish struggling north to spawn in the Black Sea. Lufer, palamut, istavrit, kolyos, kefal, tekir. Large, heavy-bodied fish moved more slowly with the bottom currents, long-lived fish with histories and personalities, unlike the extroverted, superficial crowd above, dripping silver as they leapt and foolishly displayed themselves to the larger creatures haunting the shore. Kalkan, iskorpit, trakonya, kaya. Fishermen called these “deep fish.” Their bodies had the meat and heft of an animal. They were hoisted by the tail to hang in the poisonous air. Their wounds bled where the rope cut their flesh. People wandered over and marveled at the animals that lived in the deep. Each was as big as a child.

Violet never minded these fish, hung from a wooden beam in the thatched café where the fishermen and other men gathered, but I felt wounded by their deaths. I laid my hand once against the belly of such a fish, almost as tall as me. Although the fish was dead, its brown eye fixed on a single, last point, its flesh felt muscular and vibrant, and I almost expected it to breathe. This was more startling to me than if the fish had been slippery cold and slack, as my inexperienced hand had expected, and I was torn between recoiling and continuing to stroke the dead body.

Despite my refusal, the date of the engagement ceremony had been set for two months hence, the next step after Papa’s acceptance of Amin Efendi’s suit. I waited for Hamza to call on me, but he sent no word. I felt if only I could speak with him, the path before me would become clear. Papa said he didn’t know where Hamza was, but I didn’t believe him. I thought of confiding in Mary Dixon, but when we met for our weekly lunch at the Palais des Fleurs and she made me laugh with her stories of the palace women, I realized I simply wanted to enjoy the bright company of my new friend without burdening it with earnestness.

Amin Efendi brought me a gold watch to seal the pledge, but I refused to open the box. Papa may have promised me, but I had promised nothing. Nevertheless, Aunt Hüsnü had allowed Amin Efendi to sit with me in our parlor attended only by the ever-present servants, while she disappeared.

I tried to make the best of things, but found little in common with him. He was a man whose eyes looked to himself and who saw the world only peripherally. Perhaps it was simply shyness. Violet did not like him.

As for me, I could not imagine spending all the evenings of my life sitting with such a man. I tried to engage him in political discussions, but he was a loyalist and understood as treachery all criticism of the sultan or talk on the merits and demerits of political alternatives. I knew that such things were discussed openly in my father’s house and that Amin Efendi was present at these conversations, but I suspected he was concerned that as his future wife my ideas flew too wide. Perhaps Papa was right. Perhaps I had been raised by wolves and it was their spoor that set Amin Efendi’s nostrils alert above the sharp line of his mustache. I sometimes thought that he did not see me, but sensed a disturbing presence that both attracted and repelled him.

I had given him no reason to think I was in agreement with plans for our engagement and, indeed, had tried to hint that I did not wish it. I considered the possible effect of stating this to him outright—perhaps he would agree to drop his suit. I would happily return the watch. But I feared not. He had the tenacity of a hungry street dog. I was uncomfortable when he looked at me. His eyes owned me. I consistently refused to meet with him, but Aunt Hüsnü ambushed me with his presence. I was too polite to walk away, as I wished to do. A guest is sacred, and I dared not breach the custom of welcoming one, even one that is unwelcome.

One day, Aunt Hüsnü announced that Amin Efendi and I would make our first public excursion, walking together in the pleasure garden of his patron, Tevfik Pasha. The pasha had agreed, all the preparations had been made, and the guests invited, she told me. Not to go would shame my father in the high circles to which he owed his position. I decided to go, but planned to use the occasion of a stroll, away from the ears of the household and Aunt Hüsnü, to tell Amin Efendi that I did not wish to marry him. I would give him the chance to save face by being the one to break it off.

I arrived in a closed carriage. He was waiting at a marble archway at the entrance to the park. I saw no servants to help me climb down from the carriage and, after a moment’s hesitation, accepted his hand. His long fingers curved around mine. They were cool and dry as parchment. In deference to the unseasonably hot weather, I wore a white silk feradje. A yashmak of delicate silk gauze covered my head and lower face. As I descended from the carriage, the heel of my shoe caught on the step. I stumbled slightly and his hands flew up to hold me. The palms of his hands pressed against my feradje and seared my breasts. I was flustered and confused. Should I have expressed gratitude for his assistance or outrage? I looked at Amin Efendi closely but saw only solicitous politeness. Where were the pasha’s servants?

Amin Efendi told the carriage driver to leave. He then led me through the gate into the park, where I expected at last to see our company and the other carriages. But we were alone. It was utterly quiet; even the birds were waiting.

“Where are the servants and the guests?” I asked, willing away the quaver in my voice.

Amin Efendi smiled. I saw his teeth under his mustache, stained brown with tobacco. “They’re waiting for us at the lake with the refreshments. I thought it would be good for us to have some time together away from the others.”

“I am not comfortable with this arrangement,” I stated, trying on the haughty voice Aunt Hüsnü used to put errant servants and tradesmen in their place.

“Well”—Amin Efendi smiled tightly, pointing to the empty road behind and the red path ahead—“there’s nothing to be done now.”

He held out his arm. “Surely you can put up with your fiancé for a short walk along the sea.”

“You are not yet my fiancé.” I ignored his arm and strode ahead.

His steps were longer, and he easily kept pace with me. I opened my parasol and kept it between us. I knew we should not be alone before we were married, or at least formally engaged. It was very hot and my linen dress had many layers. The veil clung to my sweating face, making it hard to breathe. I slowed my pace. The hem of my feradje turned red from the dust of the path.

“Papa will not be pleased that we are unchaperoned. What is it you wish to speak with me about that requires such a breach of honor?”

He did not look startled by my words. Instead, his smile widened.

“Your father doesn’t mind.”

I turned to look at him. “He agreed to this?” I asked incredulously.

“Your father will do what is in his best interest.”

“His best interest,” I repeated blankly. “What do you mean?”

“I’ve watched you since you came back to live at your father’s house and I’ve decided that you are exactly what I want, beautiful, smart, but with spirit. You don’t want me. That much is clear. But that will keep things interesting. I’ll make you into the perfect wife. It will be my great pleasure to instruct and form you, and you will eventually be grateful that I did so.”

I backed up until stopped by the trunk of a pine tree. I was so angry, I could only repeat his words. “Instruct me? Form me?” He made it easy to speak my intentions. “I will not marry you.”

One step brought him in front of me. “Yes, you will.” He gripped my wrists and pushed me against the tree. The scent of roses was overpowering.

“You’re hurting me. Stop it! Now!”

I could feel the entire length of his body pushing against me through the layers of my skirts. He placed a thick, hard object into my hand, like an eel, but warmly alive and with the silkiness of skin. I recoiled and tried to throw the object from my hand. Amin Efendi uttered an epithet that was as shocking to me as if he had slapped me. Using my wrists, he pushed me down onto the red earth. I struggled against his grip but my wrists were as delicate in his grasp as the pine needles on the ground around my head.

With sudden clarity, I remembered stories told by the women in their summer villas about young women compromised who were unable to marry or whose families or husbands rejected them. Stories spun in the minds of little listening girls who later weave lives from them. Or deaths.

He lifted my skirts over my face and trapped my arms in them. His sharp knees dug into my thighs, pressing them apart. Then my body was cut by a knife of pain that pierced even my brain. I was certain that I screamed, but I heard nothing except the grunting of an animal nearby. The sounds took on the same rhythm as my pain and I realized it was Amin Efendi. I could not see what he was doing. I saw only the red inside my head.

He shouted a blessing, a sacrilege, and my thighs were flooded with hot liquid. Suddenly the knife-edge dulled, and I could hear myself moaning. I opened my eyes and saw light through the cotton gauze. My arms and legs ached and something had opened a wound in my very center. The sky was a hostile witness.

The light blinded me as he pulled the skirts away from my head and disentangled my arms.

“Here.” He pushed a towel into my hands. I realized with a start that he had planned this. I had not opened my eyes. They were still innocent.

I could feel his presence astride me, the toe of his boot pressing my knee outward. His gaze seared my wound, and I struggled to cover myself. I heard him chuckling.

“Now you will have to marry me, my lady. No one else will.”

I opened my eyes. He looked exactly the same. His suit was immaculate. His fez rode his head like a demon.

“I will never marry you,” I spit. “You can kill me first.”

He chuckled. “I won’t have to. Your father will insist, if he doesn’t wish his honor to be stained. A daughter who gives herself like a common woman of the street. Imagine what that would do to his career.”

“You did this to me against my will. He will believe me.”

“If word gets out, that will make no difference. And whether anyone finds out…well, my silence will be my bride payment.”

I thought of Hamza and Ismail Dayi. They would not accept this as a stain on me. They would avenge me. I was certain of it. Society’s demands that a woman remain innocent of such cruelty clearly could not always be met. Nor should society’s angry expectations always be honored that a wronged woman cleanse her sins—
her
sins?—by death or exile. I realized this in a momentous rush of clarity that was to change my life forever.

I sat up and gasped at the pain and the sight of blood on my dress.

“I’ll take you somewhere nearby where you can clean yourself up. Then you can get back in the coach and go to the picnic or you can plead illness and the driver will take you home. No one will know what happened except your father, and he’ll want to keep it that way. Come. The coach is waiting by the gate.”

He reached his hand down for me, but I struggled to my feet unaided. My stomach heaved at the thought of his touch. My parasol was covered with pine needles. When I lifted it, the needles showered my hand in a caress. The forest forgives me, I thought.

I straightened myself to face Amin Efendi. His hands were clasped behind his back, eyes unfocused, lips parted slightly, as if reliving a pleasurable moment. I cast the tip of my parasol deep into his right eye.