The Sultan's Seal (21 page)

“T
AKE ME TO
my uncle’s house at Chamyeri, please.”

A crowd of people had gathered on the street. The surgeon stood by an enclosed coach, his eyes darting in all directions. The magistrate spoke to him in a low voice. As soon as we were inside, the man vanished into the crowd.

When we had settled across from each other and the coach began to move, the magistrate said, “I’ve sent ahead to obtain your father’s opinion on the matter of where you are to go.” Seeing my anxious face, he reassured me, “I revealed nothing, but I urge you to tell him what you told me. He is your father.” After a moment, he added, “It might not be as you think.”

His attention was caught by a commotion on the street. When he turned back to me, his face slashed by light from the closing curtains, he offered, “If you wish, I will explain things to him.”

“No, thank you, magistrate bey. I will do it.”

A chain of amber beads slipped through his fingers in patterns as intricate as smoke. His long legs were tucked along the far side of the cab a discreet distance from my own. His eyes rested at a respectful remove, on the empty seat beside me.

“How did you find me?” I asked him as the carriage negotiated the steep, tight curves. Jeering children followed us all the way up Djamji Street.

“My associate’s mother.”

“His mother?”

“The women know everything that happens in the neighborhood. They watch from their windows and pass along gossip.”

I said it sounded frightful.

“But wonderful for enforcing public safety. Although,” he added, “they don’t necessarily tell us what they’ve seen. Your maid fell out of the carriage as it rounded a corner and ran into a courtyard to get help. Apparently no one offered to help her, although she said she attracted a curious enough crowd.”

“I suppose they wouldn’t want to come to the notice of the police,” I ventured, “since suspicion would fall on them before anyone else.”

He gave me a brief, curious look. “Yes, I suppose that would be one reason.”

We fell silent as the carriage passed through a market area, unwilling to compete with the hoarse cries of vendors, alternately aggressive and cajoling, and the quarrelsome voices of prospective buyers.

When we had rounded a corner onto the Grande Rue de Pera, he continued.

“Luckily, your maid remembered the direction of the carriage. South toward Galata. My associate happens to live in Galata. One day, his mother visited a relative on Djamji Street. Some other women there began to discuss the old woman who lives across the street, Madame Devora. For some time, the shutters to her bedroom had been closed in the daytime. The women worried that she was ill, since her son didn’t seem to be around to take care of her and no one had seen her come or go. Yet just the other day a neighbor had seen her lowering a basket on a rope to the vegetable seller. She bought so much fruit she could barely pull the basket back up. They surmised from the quantity of food that she must be expecting guests, but then no one noticed any visitors.”

“They probably knew just how much money was in the basket too,” I exclaimed.

He laughed. “If these women were working for us, we’d solve many more crimes.”

One front tooth was slightly awry. The hidden flaw introduced by its maker into every carpet that marks it as the work of humankind, not Allah who alone is perfect. The stern, efficient magistrate was just another man.

“Once the gossip started, I can imagine them bringing every detail to bear. Someone saw a strange man entering the building, a workman carrying tools, but no noise was heard from the building. The man apparently tried to keep out of sight, arriving in late afternoon, when the women’s husbands weren’t home yet and the women themselves were busy preparing dinner, but he was seen nevertheless. One hot night, the neighbors kept their carpets out on the sidewalk, sleeping in the open air. They said the mosquitoes kept them awake. A strange man came out of the building in the hour before the morning call to prayer. Unfortunately, they didn’t see his face.”

He looked pointedly at me before continuing.

“So they took action. They went to visit Madame Devora. Of course, they knew she was home. They know everything! When she didn’t answer her door, they became convinced something was wrong, and they delegated my associate’s mother to report it to her son, who came to me. We had already been looking in Galata, thanks to your maid’s information. And that is how we came to find you.”

Thus was I found and lost all at the same time, in both cases through the tongues of women, a force that shamed and secluded me for nothing more than losing a bit of flesh, and then rescued me from a shame and seclusion that I desired. We stopped at an official-looking building and the magistrate disappeared inside. When he reemerged he brought with him a taciturn widow in an all-enveloping black charshaf that covered even her lower face, who accompanied me for the rest of the trip home.

A
T
C
HAMYERI
, I
SMAIL
Dayi helped me from the carriage. The chaperone, who for the entire trip had stared silently through the gauze-curtained window, refused refreshment and ordered the carriage to return to the city. Ismail Dayi’s shoulders looked stooped and thinner under his robes than I remembered. His face was pinched, his beard flecked with gray, and small spots of red glowed on his cheekbones. I bowed before him, took his hand and kissed it, then touched it to my forehead. He pulled me up.

“Jaanan, my lion.”

“Where is Mama?” I asked, looking past him into the dim interior beyond the doors.

He took my hand. “Come inside, my dear.”

Violet was waiting in the entryway. An egg-yolk-yellow kerchief tied around her head emphasized her black eyes screened by long lashes, eyebrows like an archer’s bow laid across them. She moved toward me and we embraced. I inhaled the familiar smoky scent of her skin. Her cheeks under my lips tasted of salt and milk. But the tinder did not kindle into joy. The cook’s boat had been cut adrift, then burned.

I pulled from her embrace and went to Ismail Dayi. He led me to his study, where we had spent so many happy winter evenings. Now the windows to the garden were open and the familiar scent of jasmine twined into the room.

Ismail Dayi lowered himself onto the divan. Violet adjusted the cushions behind his back. He waved his hand to indicate that she should leave. With obvious reluctance, she backed out of the room. For some moments we sat silently, our limbs wrapped in the scented warmth from the garden.

Finally, Ismail Dayi spoke.

“My daughter.” His voice was husky—with illness? I did not know and I was suddenly ashamed of how much I had tested him.

“My dear dayi,” I said, “you’re the one who has worried and suffered for all of us. I’m so sorry to have been an added burden to you.”

“My daughter, there was never a burden as sweet as you. I thank Allah for bringing you into my life.”

He paused for a moment, then continued.

“Jaanan, I’m sorry, but I must tell you. Your mother has passed away.”

I felt nothing. Or rather, only a rushing sound far away, as if a monumental wave were coming closer, but was still too far away for me to run for cover. How did I know about such waves? They were there in Violet’s sea, in the lost fingers of Halil the gardener. They were the crushing, grinding behemoths that tortured Hamza’s sea glass on their forges of sand until the stones glowed from within like blue eyes.

I was speechless. What opportunities had I missed? My hand remembered the feel of cold satin like a ghost limb.

Ismail Dayi tried to take my hand, but I pulled it away.

“What happened?” My voice sounded too steady, too matter-of-fact, and I felt ashamed of that too.

“She caught a draft and it went to her lungs. It was very rapid. May your life be spared, my dear.”

He squeezed my arm. His touch opened a channel through which a current of sorrow began to flow. But I resisted it. Another vein of weakness when so much of me had run dry.

The waves were nearer. I bowed my head and let them rage through me, but said nothing.

Ismail Dayi stared sadly into the fire. “I never told her you were lost. I told her you had gone to your father’s. I didn’t want to worry her. She loved you greatly, my dear daughter.”

I
t was late spring that year when Mary finally came to visit me. I hadn’t seen her since the fall. I took her hand and led her into the harem reception room. Now that Mama had cut the thread that bound her to the world, I was mistress of the cool blue and white tiles and splashing water. My body moved to a different music learned in Galata. I felt powerful. I wondered whether something in Mary would stir in response.

We sat on the divan. I signaled Violet to bring us tea. Mary was dressed in a loose white gown embroidered with red flowers that echoed the enamel blossoms in the gold cross she always wore at the base of her throat. It had been her mother’s, she told me when I admired it. A lace bodice hid the mole on her shoulder.

Violet stood by the door, silver tray balanced in her hands.

“Put it here, Violet,” I called, my eyes studying Mary. She seemed absorbed in the movement of the tray, following it to the low table, watching Violet’s strong hands pour the coffee into tiny cups.

We waited for Violet to leave.

“I’m sorry about your mother’s death. I thought, I must come to see you.”

“Thank you, Mary. That is kind of you.”

I said nothing to her about about my stay at Madame Devora’s. It was a willing union that undid the other, unwilling one. I had found Hamza’s sea glass necklace at the bottom of my jewelry casket and now kept it close to my breast.

Our cups chimed in the awkward silence.

“You know, I tried to come see you before, but your maid told me you weren’t here. She wouldn’t tell me anything more. Where did you go?”

“I was at my father’s house in Nishantashou,” I quickly improvised.

“Of course.” She looked at me curiously and I was suddenly afraid she had also sought me there. “I wish I had known. It’s much closer. Why didn’t you send me a message? Didn’t you know I was back?”

Seeing my look of confusion, she spat out, “Violet, again.”

I glanced quickly at the door, then nodded. “I’ve received no letters since winter.”

I could see Mary fighting down her anger. “Well, we’re here now. I know you haven’t gone out much since you speared that bastard Amin last year. I’m sure a stay in the city did you good.”

I was surprised that the mention of his name no longer affected me.

“Well, I haven’t been invited to many society events since then. I suppose people blame me, and perhaps they’re right to. I was very stupid. I always thought I should be able to move about without a chaperone like any modern woman.”

“In England, young women of quality”—she worked the word uneasily in her mouth, like a moldy fruit—“also are guarded by female watchdogs. It has nothing to do with being modern. We still hold the leashes of our own sex.”

Women of quality. Mary did not seem to be quality in the English way, which I presumed to mean much the same as here—wealth and indolence. Was I still a woman of quality? I was wealthy, was I not? And inactive, again imprisoned in my golden cage at Chamyeri.

“You must have been bored out here,” she continued. “That Violet can’t be a very pleasant companion. She’s so sour she’d curdle milk.” I didn’t tell her that the object of her scorn was probably listening on the other side of the door. Her description of Violet irritated me.

“She was my companion when we were younger, and she has been a good and loyal servant to my family. There is no cause to disparage her.”

She reached over and took my hand. “I meant no offense. Forgive me.”

My small hand nestled inside hers like a young bird.

“I’ve missed you, Jaanan. We haven’t seen each other for a long time, but I haven’t forgotten.” She smiled at me uncertainly. “I wrote to you often. And I had to go back to England for a while. I hope you don’t blame me for not coming to see you after I returned. It was impossible to get up here. The roads were impassable and none of the delivery boats would take me. Believe me, I tried. And then, when the roads were open, I thought you went away. I wish I had known you were in Stamboul,” she added fiercely.

I looked into her light blue eyes, the color of beads used to ward off the evil eye. When I didn’t respond, her hands parted the gauze panels of my veil and lifted them behind my shoulders. I felt suddenly naked, as I had never felt in the room in Galata.

To cover my confusion, I said in a polite voice, “Please have some more coffee.” I rang the silver bell by my side.

We sat silently until Violet arrived with the coffeepot. She looked at us slyly from under her lashes.

Had I changed in some fundamental way? People project themselves onto the screen of society like shadow puppets. Perhaps the lamplight was too low and I was no longer recognizable. Had I forgotten my lines? Was there a plot at all? I no longer believed so.

Violet spilled some coffee on Mary’s arm, then tried to wipe it away with her hand. Embarrassed, I pushed her away from Mary and asked her to leave. I dabbed gently at Mary’s arm with an embroidered cloth. Violet had been a restless shadow to my every movement since my return. I asked her to sleep in her old room at the back of the house, but found her waiting for me wherever I came and went. I understood that she must feel guilty about leaving me in that coach, but explained to her that no harm had come of it. I had asked Ismail Dayi to find her a husband, as was his duty as her patron. I suppose she knew of this, since she listened at doors.

Violet still stood by the door, her black eyes intensely following every move of my hand as if she were devouring it. Mary too noticed and shifted uncomfortably.

“Make fresh coffee.” I couldn’t hide the annoyance in my voice. While I was away, she had slipped out of my control.

Mary’s stockinged feet dangled uselessly from the divan, her slippers fallen to the carpet. I had hoped to please her with Mama’s reception room, but she didn’t seem to notice her surroundings. I straightened the gold bracelet on her wrist that Violet had knocked awry, my affection relearning its accustomed channels. I was reminded of her great kindness, and my body relaxed toward her.

“I came to tell you I was leaving.”

“Leaving Istanbul?” I felt regret and relief. I pulled my veil across my breasts. “When?”

“In a few days.”

It was too soon. “Has something happened?” I shivered with dread at losing my friend. The strength of my feeling surprised me.

“A good thing, Jaanan,” she said with a grin. “I still can’t believe it.” “Tell me,” I demanded. “I am full of suspense.”

“Well,” she began, drawing it out, “I am now a woman of means.”

“Means?”

“Rich, Jaanan. I’m rich!” She bounced on the divan.

“Why, that’s wonderful.” I laughed with relief. “I’m so happy for you, my dear friend. Congratulations.”

“It means I can do as I please. When you have money, no one can tell you how to live.”

“How did it happen?” I had assumed that since Mary worked, she belonged to a family without wealth, but I realized then that she had never told me anything about her family.

“My father died.”

“Oh, I’m so sorry. Health to your head, my dearest.” I reached out to comfort her, but she leaned back so she could see my face, grasped my arms, and beamed at me.

“I’m not sad, Jaanan. Not sad at all. My father threw me out when I was young. That’s how I ended up in a boardinghouse, exchanging kitchen work for rent.”

I gasped. “How is such a thing possible?”

“He said I had unnatural inclinations, as he put it. And he didn’t like my friends.”

“But had you no other family to turn to? Your mother? Your siblings?”

“My mother died when I was born,” she explained, a flicker of sadness passing through her eyes, her finger caressing the gold cross at her neck. “I have no brothers or sisters. It’s not like here where you can fall back on dozens of people you call family. In England, you’re on your own.”

“And your friends?”

“Well, I told you about my friends. They turned out less than worthless. On that account, my father was right.”

“That’s terribly sad, Mary, dear. You have a family and friends here, though. I am here for you, and all my family is yours.”

Mary’s eyes fell to one side. “I know,” she whispered. “Thank you.

“Actually, Jaanan”—quickly, almost shiftily, the pink tip of her tongue moistened her lips—“I came here to ask you something.”

There are moments when you understand that something is going to happen before you know what it is. There is an unpleasant weightlessness at the back of your neck. Time yawns as if to show its unconcern, then rushes toward you at breakneck speed.

“Would you come with me to England?”

I was speechless.

“It would be great fun. We could live in a grand place, much nicer than here.” She waved her hand around the reception hall.

She leaned closer and stroked back my veil again.

“We could be together, Jaanan. You and me. We wouldn’t have to sneak off to that shack on the water.” Her lips brushed my ear. “We could be together all the time.”

I admit to confusion and knowledge chasing each other through my heart. Mary was my friend and I loved her. Now she was offering me a new life, a life of novelty and adventure, as had been foretold. I considered carefully. What life was left to me in Istanbul? Perhaps this was my kismet.

Mary mistook my silence for refusal. “If you’re worried about missing your family, Jaanan, you could travel here whenever you like. The Wagons-Lits Company is building a direct rail line. Before long you’ll be able to get on the Orient Express in London and get off in Stamboul.” She clapped her hands. “Wouldn’t it be wonderful? We could have such a life together.”

Hamza, I thought. My hands toyed with the sea glass dangling from my neck. Hamza would never leave here. England would be exile.

“I don’t know, Mary.” I said slowly. “Let me think about it.”

Mary leaned closer to read from my face what she could not read from my words, but I’m certain my confusion made me illegible.

She stroked my cheek, then pulled my veil back across it. “I’ll wait patiently until you decide, Jaanan.”

A
FTER
M
ARY LEFT
, I found Violet in the kitchen wrestling a bucking fish from the pail at her feet onto the cutting board. She pierced its neck with the point of her knife and it stiffened.

“Where is the cook?” I asked her.

“Her mother is ill, so she went home early. I told her I’d prepare the meal.”

The scales sprayed from beneath her knife as it scraped across the firm blue flesh. I watched as she held the fish down and, entering at the throat, slid the knife delicately down the chest and along the belly. Its ruby secrets spilled into her hand.

I
FOUND THE
letter under a pile of manuscripts on a shelf in Ismail Dayi’s study. I had been looking for an illustrated copy of Fuzuli’s romance,
Leyla and Mejnun,
that Ismail Dayi had found for me at the bookseller. It was to be a gift for Mary, in remembrance of our friendship, a celebration of her new life. The letter was on ordinary parchment of the kind used by clerks in government offices, but I immediately recognized Hamza’s handwriting. It was dated two days after I had arrived in Djamji Street. The message began with a standard formula of greeting, then, in a kind of convoluted eloquence:

The honorable Hodja is advised that certain necessary actions must be taken promptly in order to alter to everyone’s advantage the unfortunate circumstances prevailing today. If you succeed in turning minds toward the good and only possible path toward a modern society, this will benefit many, but especially someone close to you.

I
SMAIL
H
ODJA SAT
stiffly on the divan, the tea on the low table before him untouched. I sat beside him, holding the letter in my hand.

“Why did you never tell me about this, dayi?”

“It seemed an innocuous letter, on its face. It says nothing about kidnapping. I wasn’t even sure the writer was asking me to do anything. I brought it to the kadi because it was an odd letter, dropped on my doorstep, while you were gone. Possibly it was an appeal to me to support the reformists. But whoever wrote it was too clever for his own good. He disguised his intention to such a degree that I couldn’t make it out. Nevertheless, I believed there may have been an implied threat in the letter, that if I did not do this, harm might come to someone close to me. I didn’t want to take any chances, my lion. You were missing and I had no idea where you had gone.”

“But you knew who I was with.”

Ismail Dayi looked at me curiously and took my chin in his hand.

“Of course not, Jaanan. If I had, we would have been able to find you sooner.”

“No one came to you?”

“What do you mean?”

“I thought you knew,” I whispered, half to myself.

“The man who kidnapped you was never identified, Jaananjim. We have no way of knowing his motivation.”

Ismail Dayi looked at me oddly as he said this, as if he guessed that I was keeping something from him. Hamza had disappeared out of the window in Galata and out of my life. After my return home, it had seemed inappropriate to speak of Hamza to my dayi and, out of embarrassment, I avoided the subject other than to assure him that I was unharmed. So Hamza had lied about speaking with Ismail Dayi and he had never learned that I was safe. What else had he lied about? The thought infuriated me. He had lied and then he had disappeared again.

It was true that Madame Devora’s son, the only other person who could have identified Hamza, was dead, but I was surprised that no one knew it had been Hamza fleeing through that window. I was certain, for instance, that the magistrate’s crafty-looking associate had learned his name from Madame Devora. While they were speaking Ladino, I’m sure I heard Hamza’s name among the unfamiliar words. I told my dayi that it had been Hamza who “rescued” me from Amin’s plot and kept me in Galata. He looked shocked.

“It’s hard to believe Hamza would do such a thing. I immediately thought of Amin Efendi—that he had abducted you and sent this letter,” he said. “But it seemed an odd thing for him to do. I think he knows that a pinch of prosperity has more value than an okka of revenge. He’s in exile in Crete now and has been very careful not to give any further offense. He wants to improve his chances to be called back to the capital. It would be foolish of him—and very unlike the man I know—to write a letter opposing the government. In his heart, Amin is a coward.”