The Sultan's Seal (8 page)

“Here? In Turkey?”

“There is a lovely orchid with sprays of violet blooms that grows in the forests around Istanbul,
Cephalanthera rubra.
” He smiles at her. “It is our connection to Europe, where this variety is also found.”

Sybil is flustered. “How lovely. Imagine my ignorance. But, but I would so like to see your collection,” she blurts out. She looks down to rearrange her skirts with exaggerated care. “I’m sorry. That would be inappropriate, of course.”

“It would be a great pleasure”—he pauses briefly—“but perhaps it would be better if your father accompanied you.” The sight of her crestfallen face dismays him, but he is unwilling to risk her reputation—or, he admits to himself, his privacy. Still, the image of Sybil bending appreciatively over his scented orchids has taken root in his mind.

Regarding Sybil over the rim of his cup, Kamil lets the warm, eggshell-thin china rest for a moment against his lower lip before he sips from it.

T
HAT EVENING
, K
AMIL
blots the ink on the letter he is trying to write. The words he has written seem to have taken on too much color, lost the dry rustle of truth and factualness that makes them scientific and, thus, to be believed by the recipient, H. G. Reichenbach.

Since the garden party, his thoughts have slipped their accustomed tether and he finds himself dwelling on Sybil’s tapered fingers twined around the stem of the wineglass; the plump mound at the inside of her wrist; the hollow at the base of her neck. He thinks with disquiet, but also a little more sympathy, of his father, who, in his opium dreams, has surrendered to blissful communication with his dead wife. He takes up his pen and continues writing.

Dear Professor Reichenbach,

I write as an amateur botanist, but one with scientific observations that I hope to bring to your esteemed attention. I am in possession of a glorious and most unusual orchidae that to my knowledge has not been described elsewhere. It is a small plant with two roundish, semi-attached tubers and basal leaves with one spike culminating in a single showy flower. The flower is velvety black, with an arched labellum and densely hairy petals. The speculum is divided into two symmetrical halves and is a bright, shining blue, almost phosphorescent. I observed the plant in its habitat over several weeks. The arched labellum attracts male insects that cross-pollinate the flowers, perhaps lured by some volatile chemical compound released from its surface.

I collected this orchid in marshland at the edge of a forest in northwest Anatolia near the Black Sea. I have never seen another, nor does it fit the description of any of the orchidacae in your famous Glossary.

It is but one of many wondrous orchidacae in the Ottoman Empire, some of which I have described in previous letters to you. Many are found only here in Turkish lands; others join us to Europe in a continuous ecology. The tulip, the carnation, the lily, these are everywhere depicted, yet the true treasure of the empire, the orchid, is inexplicably absent.

I most respectfully await your response. If you desire it, I can arrange to have a sketch of the orchid sent to you so that you may inspect it further.

This is not his first letter to Professor Reichenbach, but he has not yet received a response.

H
amza had been my friend almost as long as I could remember. When Mama and I still lived with Papa on the hill in Nishantashou, he engaged Hamza, his sister’s son, as my tutor. Hamza had graduated from L’École Supérieure in Paris and, thanks to Papa’s influence, was awarded a position as translator at the Foreign Ministry in Istanbul. His family lived in Aleppo, where, Papa told me, his father had been a kadi. Since his father was retired and unable to set Hamza up in his own household, Hamza lived with us as part of our extended family. Every morning, he set off for work dressed in Frankish trousers and the long, slim stambouline jacket fashionable among modern Ottomans. Papa too had long since discarded the traditional long robe and turban for trousers and a dashing red fez.

I watched from behind the wooden lattice that screened the women’s quarters from the street as Papa and Hamza got into the carriage for their trip to the Sublime Porte. I caressed the words “Sublime Porte” in my mouth. I imagined it to be the entrance to the palace, an enormous carved wooden door studded with jewels and guarded by Nubian eunuchs, through which Papa and Hamza entered every day to go to their offices. When I was little, driving by in a carriage, my governess had pointed out the palace gates. They were enormous, of white stone, and set into an endlessly high wall the color of dried blood that rose on both sides of the narrow road. That first time, driving past the gates, I panicked and screamed, imagining that, with so little of the sky visible, the walls had begun to move together and would crush us. I learned that this was the Dolmabahche Palace, the home of Sultan Abdulaziz, not the Old Palace of many gates and pavilions that sat like a jewel box on a promontory at the confluence of the Bosphorus and the Sea of Marmara.

Some years later, when Sultan Abdulhamid had replaced Abdulaziz and I was living with Mama at Chamyeri, Hamza pointed these palaces out to me as we slid past them on the bright water in a caïque. Hamza was escorting Mama and me on a summer picnic trip to the islands at the mouth of the Marmara, our caique propelled by six strong rowers. Even though mother and I were invisible under our feradje cloaks and yashmak veils, the rowers studiously avoided looking toward the stern of the boat where we sat on cushioned benches. Hamza sat beside me, not touching, but so close I felt the heat of his body. The Russians had invaded the empire two months earlier and were slowly making their way toward Istanbul, but on this peerless summer day, the horizon was that of a young girl in love.

The first palaces we passed were ornate white confections, first the smaller Chiraghan Palace, crumbling around Sultan Abdulhamid’s elder brother Murad and his family, who Hamza told me were imprisoned there, then the endless expanse of Dolmabahche right along the water’s edge, wing after wing of ornamented white stone behind enormous white marble archways. I realized it must have been the landward walls of Dolmabahche that had so frightened me, but I did not tell him that, so he would not think me a baby. I was, after all, eleven.

“Sultan Abdulhamid’s family and retainers live and work in Dolmabahche,” Hamza told me, “but the sultan wants privacy and security. He trusts no one, not even members of his own family and staff.” He pointed toward the top of the hill. “So he has built himself a new palace on the hill above the old one.”

I looked up and saw a yellow wall snake through the trees. Looking higher, I caught glimpses of pitch-roofed buildings within the forest. From Nishantashou, I could see the lighted Yildiz Palace fill up the night like a hill of stars. I had always wondered who lived there, but since no one in the household ever looked in its direction, I hadn’t wanted to reveal my ignorance by asking.

Finally, as the boat slipped from the narrow Bosphorus into the open sea, Hamza pointed to the breast of land riding the confluence of the Bosphorus, the Golden Horn, and the Sea of Marmara. The Old Palace on the hill was like the magic land from Hamza’s tales, its turrets and pavilions set like jewels among trees and gardens.

“This is Topkapi Palace, where servants and slaves are sent to live out their days when they are old. And the harems and households of former sultans, and their widows.” He pointed to a door in the enormous red wall that stretched along the entire expanse of the waterfront.

“That’s the only door through which the women can leave again. It’s where the dead are taken out for burial.”

Irritated at Hamza for spoiling my vision with his depressing observations, I responded in a determinedly sprightly voice, “Still, I think it’s a lovely place. I should like to live there.”

Hamza looked at me thoughtfully.

“You shouldn’t wish that, princess. They are not allowed to leave, nor are their children. Sultans fear their brothers and their children. If they’re in line for the throne, they might try to depose the ruler. If they’re not, they’ll scheme to eliminate those in line before them. Even the daughters, should they marry, might be used by their in-laws to meddle in palace affairs. Connections and family links between the royal House of Osman and the rest of the empire are always kept to a minimum. One way to do that is to isolate members of your family. Another way is to kill them.”

I averted my eyes from the Old Palace then. A leaden chill made me pull my feradje more tightly about my shoulders. I felt vaguely resentful at Hamza for telling me this. In a small gesture of punishment, I let my yashmak fall forward so it hid my eyes and mouth and didn’t speak again until we landed on Prinkipo Island.

The Sublime Porte, I learned later, was nothing more than a heavy stone building crouching by the side of the Golden Horn.

W
HEN
I
WAS
a child at Nishantashou, only Papa moved freely between the harem, where Papa’s mother and Mama presided, and the rest of the house. As a child I had a certain freedom to explore, as long as I did not interrupt the gatherings of men that my father held many evenings in the salon. That was easy enough to do, as the rumble of their voices could be heard at quite a distance.

Hamza and a succession of other tutors taught me to read and write Ottoman and Persian and introduced me to French and English, all of which my forward-looking father considered necessary skills for a modern Ottoman woman in order for her to be a suitable wife, entertaining and speaking intelligently with her husband’s guests. I overheard Papa explain this to Hamza and wondered at the time why Mama refused to help Papa entertain. Later, I understood that Aunt Hüsnü was willing to dress in a Frankish gown, her face uncovered, and mingle with Papa’s male guests and their modern wives, while my mother was unable to bring herself to drop her veil and stand naked, as it would seem to her, before strangers. Servants used to stretch a tunnel of silk between the front door and the carriage so that Mama could leave the house without being seen.

Of all my lessons, I looked forward to Hamza’s the most. I practiced intensely in order to impress him, to gain the reward of his broad smile and words of praise when he realized what I had accomplished—and to avoid the thin drumming of his fingers on the table when I struggled. I strove to tether his eyes and was anguished when his gaze floated free, perhaps mesmerized by the brilliant reflections on the distant water or drawn through the vivid sky to thoughts that precluded me. I was jealous even of the sea. I was infatuated with Hamza and in love with Papa and, at least in that, I did my duty as a young girl. I learned in order to please them. It was my luck (although some might think it misfortune) that just then I moved into the orbit of Ismail Dayi, who had no such preconceptions about what and why young women were to learn.

But when we moved to Chamyeri, I was heartbroken at leaving Papa and Hamza. I missed the familiar rooms and servants and the view from my window of the minarets of the grand imperial mosques. In Nishantashou, we had countless servants. I was surrounded by the babble of their many languages: Turkish, Greek, Italian, Armenian, Arabic.

Chamyeri, by contrast, was frightening in its silence. The servants came during the day, as needed. For the most part, they did their work silently, sliding sideways looks at Mama and me when they thought our attention elsewhere. I wondered what they gossiped in the village about this unusual household—my uncle, his dreaming sister, and the lonely girlchild no one was raising. But eventually I came to appreciate the silence, the unlimited time to read and explore, the riches of my young life—a library, a wide sky, mine for as long as I cared to hold it, the flexing waters of the strait, a fragrant garden, and, in the forest, the pond with its ebony depths that made me just fearful enough to be satisfied.

I realize now that Hamza’s visits to Chamyeri were possible only because of my mother’s and Ismail Dayi’s loose supervision. We would meet in the pavilion in the darkening afternoon. Sitting cross-legged on the divan, we discussed books and poetry. Hamza described Europe, the boulevards and cafés of Paris. If, on occasion, he seemed distracted, I attributed it to the insignificance of my experiences. After the cook left the kitchen at night, I stole lemons and brought them with me to bed, inhaling their scent under the quilt, imagining it to be Hamza’s citrusy cologne, the roughness of the peel against my nose the sting of stubble on his cheek.

N
OT LONG AFTER
our boat trip to Prinkipo Island, Madam Élise came to live at Chamyeri. Before long, Ismail Dayi forbade Hamza to visit. I heard him tell mother that it was improper for a young man in the crazy blood of youth to spend the night in a house with unmarried women. Mama protested, but Ismail Dayi would not relent. He even forbade visits during the day. Hamza disobeyed him, arriving after Ismail Dayi’s carriage had disappeared down the road. But he came less often and never stayed very long. He told me not to let Mama know he was there. I was sad for Mama because I knew how much she enjoyed his company, but flattered that he had braved the danger of my dayi’s wrath to see me. Still, I missed our ritual and, for a long time, was unable to sleep until the early hours of the morning. I wandered through the dark rooms, listening for the clear chime of his voice, and huddled on the divan in the room where he had slept, the mattresses and quilts now stored away in a cabinet. Though Madam Élise’s French was more fluent than Hamza’s, in her mouth the language was a pale, sticky gum of sounds. Sometimes, sitting in the fragrant garden watching the night fishermen, I imagined I heard his voice.

N
iko’s smile wavers only a moment as he opens the heavy, brass-studded door to find Kamil Pasha next to a skinny man with a face the color of yoghurt and hair like the setting sun.

“Your arrival pleases me,” Niko booms, a gap-toothed grin beneath his luxuriant black mustache. At first glance, the hamambashou appears fat, but his chest is deep and well muscled from kneading the bodies of his charges. It is thatched with wet black hair. A red-checked peshtemal towel covers him from waist to knees.

“I am pleased to see you.” Kamil turns to Bernie and is disconcerted to see his teeth in a wide grin. “Decorum,” he can’t help himself from saying. “Decorum is important.”

“Yeah, right. Sorry, buddy.” Bernie composes his face into a caricature of seriousness.

Kamil is apprehensive. It is the first time he has allowed anyone to accompany him to the hamam. He is no longer sure how it came about that Bernie is standing here now. Had he suggested it yesterday evening, or had Bernie? Either way, a bottle of potent raki had played a part. He has undertaken to bring Bernie to the baths, and he must make sure the experiment does not go awry. He follows Niko into the cooling-off room, trailed by Bernie, whose eyes are everywhere at once. The other men in the room look shocked, then quickly hide their expressions.

There are whispers. “A giavour, a heathen.”

Kamil sees Fat Orhan propped on his side on a divan, a sheet wrapped about his middle. His red face is immobile, but his eyes follow their progress across the room.

Niko gives Bernie the cubicle next to Kamil’s.

“Hang your clothing in there.” Kamil indicates the wardrobe with the palm of his hand. “Then wrap yourself in this towel.”

“What towel? Oh, you mean this cloth.” Bernie picks up the peshtemal. “You could make a suit out of this amount of material. Or maybe a kilt.” He whinnies a laugh, then catches himself.

“Sorry, sorry. Decorum. I know.” He pats Kamil on the back. “Don’t worry. I won’t embarrass you.”

Kamil cringes at the unaccustomed intimacy. He forces a smile. “I’m not in the least worried.” He goes to his own cubicle and, with relief, closes the door. He hears knocking and rustling sounds from next door, as if Bernie is examining everything. Which he probably is, decides Kamil. Perhaps I would do the same. The thought cheers him, with its intimation of scientific inquiry and exploration of new things. But with decorum, he decides. Truth and decorum. The stamen and pistil of civilization, by which it reproduces itself. Either alone is sterile.

He removes his clothing and opens the armoire. Suddenly he hears the door behind him open. He swings around and grabs the peshtemal to cover himself. Bernie is standing in the doorway, the thatch of hair around his organ glowing brilliant red against his lean white thighs. Kamil grabs him and pulls him into the cubicle, his face pulsing with shame at what the men outside must be thinking. He snatches the peshtemal from Bernie’s hands and orders him roughly, “Put this on.” In that first moment of looking against his will, Kamil has seen something even worse—Bernie is uncircumcised.

Bernie wraps the peshtemal awkwardly around his waist so that it trails on the floor.

“Like this.” Kamil indicates his own neatly tucked towel.

“Right.” Bernie reties his. “You looked like you’d seen a ghost when I walked in.” He flushes slightly. “You know, I’ve never been to one of these shindigs before. It’s a bath, right? So, people do take their clothes off.”

“It isn’t proper to show oneself between the waist and knees.”

“Oh.” Bernie looks puzzled. “You know, there are all these engravings and paintings of the Turkish bath that show women in their birthday suits lounging around.”

“Birthday suits?”

“Naked as the day is long.”

“Men have different responsibilities.” Kamil is displeased with his answer. He really doesn’t know why the rules differ for men. He finds the usual answers unscientific: that it’s traditional; that women are like children, irresponsible. He decides for honesty. “I simply don’t know, Bernie. That’s the way it is in the men’s baths. Keep your towel on at all times.”

“Will do, partner.”

Kamil braces himself to leave the cubicle. He imagines what the audience in the cooling-off room will think when two men emerge from the same cubicle. Such a thing isn’t uncommon, nor is it frowned upon, but Kamil doesn’t want it associated with him. Not because of any principle against male intimacy, but because it rends Kamil’s precious privacy. He prefers to be the watcher, not the watched.

S
ITTING IN THE
bar of the Hotel Luxembourg, Kamil wonders at the rapidity with which one’s attitude toward life can alter. Instead of poring over his books and orchids, here he is meeting a friend. After their inauspicious beginning in the hamam, Bernie had followed Kamil’s lead assiduously. The giavour’s red hair occasioned curious, if veiled looks, but nothing else had gone awry. Bernie quailed under the forceful blows of Niko’s massive palms and bone-cracking massage. After only an hour in the steam-filled inner room, ladling hot water over his head with his hamam bowl, Bernie complained of shortness of breath and they retired, each to his own cubicle, in the cooling-off room. Refreshed by cool sherbet and a nap, they parted amicably at the door and summoned separate carriages to take them home. A few days later, Bernie sent a message challenging Kamil to a game of billiards.

Bernie is lifting his raki glass to him.

“Lousy game, friend. To your health, though.”

Kamil lowers the lip of his glass so that it meets Bernie’s below the rim. Bernie counters by lowering his. Laughing, they finally clink their glasses near the carpet, with Bernie winning the contest of showing respect.

“I should never teach you our customs. You then use your knowledge to shame me. You are the guest here and should be honored more.”

“I’ll only accept that if you swear you’ll come to the States, so I can reciprocate and teach you American customs.”

“And how do Americans honor a guest?”

“Well,” says Bernie, rolling the words on his tongue in a thick American brogue, “I reckon we give ’em the last swig outta tha whiskey bottle. We sure as hell don’t strip ’em naked, pour hot water on their heads, and beat the crap out of ’em.”

Kamil laughs. “You survived just fine. That makes you an honorary Ottoman.” Bernie takes out a cigarette and offers one to Kamil, who tamps it into the end of his ebony and silver cigarette holder. He lights Bernie’s cigarette, then his own.

“Any luck on your case?”

“Eleven days, and all we have is a fisherman who heard noises from shore that night, a dog barking, and something being dropped into the water. My associate Michel Sevy and I went up there and looked around. There’s a sea bath, a kind of enclosed bathing pool. We found a dead dog nearby, with its head smashed in. But nothing else.”

“Your associate’s name is Michel Sevy?”

“Yes, why? He’s the police surgeon.”

“Nothing. Just curious. Where was this?”

“Between Chamyeri and Emirgan. There’s a fairly large village there. The body was found halfway down the Bosphorus, but the things I’ve learned all point north to Chamyeri. That’s the place where another British governess, Hannah Simmons, was found murdered eight years ago. Her name keeps coming up. I can’t help but wonder whether the two deaths are related somehow.”

“Chamyeri. It means ‘Place of the Pines,’ doesn’t it?” Bernie asks pensively.

“Yes. I didn’t realize you speak Turkish so well.”

“I need to read some Ottoman for my work, but can’t speak it to shake a stick at.”

Kamil repeats slowly, “Shake a stick at.”

Bernie laughs. “Don’t bother learning that one, old buddy. I can’t explain how to use it. You’ll be shooting blanks.”

“Shooting blanks. Now, that makes more sense.”

Kamil suddenly remembers Sybil mentioning that she had just missed Bernie when she first arrived in Istanbul. Thinking Bernie might have crossed paths with the murdered woman at the embassy, he asks, “Did you know her?”

Bernie looks startled. “Who?”

“Hannah Simmons.”

Bernie looks at the raki glass between his fingers as if he hopes to find an answer there. His boyish face looks older when he frowns, Kamil observes. His skin is thick, like that of an animal. It bends rather than creases. His face will have few wrinkles in old age, he thinks, but deep lines.

“No.” Bernie says finally, avoiding Kamil’s eyes.

Kamil lifts the cigarette holder to his lips, draws deeply, and waits.

After a moment, Bernie asks with what Kamil judges a shade too much enthusiasm, “So what do you make of it?”

Kamil ponders how much to reveal. “I don’t know. The dead woman, Mary Dixon, apparently was friendly with a Muslim girl that lives in the same house at Chamyeri where the other body was found eight years ago. The house belongs to a well-known scholar. The girl is his niece. Odd, isn’t it? Both murdered women were English governesses in the imperial harem.” He shrugs. “It’s probably a coincidence.”

Kamil frowns at his own admission. He doesn’t believe in coincidences.

“The girl, Jaanan Hanoum,” he adds, “was a child at the time of the first murder. She’s in France now.”

“What about the scholar?”

“It’s impossible. He’s one of the most respected religious men in the empire. I simply can’t imagine him having anything to do with an Englishwoman, much less with killing her. He has no connection with the foreign community and he’s not involved with any particular faction in the palace. He keeps his distance from the power struggles. He doesn’t have anything to gain by them. He is head of a powerful Sufi order. His position is unassailable because it’s based on his reputation and on an influential circle of relations and friends. His family consists of famous poets, jurists, philosophers, and teachers. He’s also independently wealthy. Why would he kill young Englishwomen? No, my friend, I think we must look elsewhere.”

Bernie takes another sip of raki followed by a water chaser, then leans back and folds his hands across his stomach.

“I brought the pendant along,” Kamil says. He takes the handkerchief with the jewelry from his jacket pocket and spreads it out on the table. “I thought since you know so many languages, you might have have some idea what these lines mean.” He opens the pendant and holds it out to Bernie. “Is it some kind of writing?”

Bernie takes the small silver globe. It rests on his palm, lobes open, like a fat insect.

“Jesus, Mary, and Joseph,” he exclaims under his breath. Freckles stand out on his blanched face like liver spots.

“What is it?” Kamil’s senses become alert for nuance.

Bernie doesn’t answer. He tilts the open silver shell toward the light and peers into it with great concentration. Kamil becomes aware of the clink of glasses and low murmur of male voices around them, the musk of tobacco smoke. The cigarettes burn down in the ashtray. Finally, Bernie closes the pendant and strokes it with his finger gently as a lover. When he looks up, he seems startled to see Kamil sitting opposite him. The surprise in his eyes is replaced by a look of consternation. He seems to be struggling with something.

He turns the pendant, examining the surface, then holds it to the light and squints to see inside again. Finally, he places it gently on the table between them. He takes a deep breath.

“It’s Chinese.”

“Chinese?” Kamil is taken aback. “Are you certain?”

“Of course. I read it fluently.”

Kamil looks at him curiously. “It’s an amazing coincidence that you should be here to decipher it for me.”

He studies the markings for a moment as if he can decipher them himself. He is thinking, however, about Bernie’s reaction.

“What does it say?”

“The two characters on the pendant stand for ‘brush’ and ‘bowstring.’”

“What?” Kamil is flabbergasted. “What does it mean? Does it mean anything at all?”

“It refers to a Chinese poem, ‘On Seeing an Early Frost.’” He recites:

“You know it by heart.”

Bernie attempts to look modest. “I know a few of them. This is a poem by Chao-lin Ch’un, a concubine to a Manchu prince about a hundred years ago. Apparently, she and the prince shared a love of poetry and calligraphy. It’s said she was his political advisor, which didn’t endear her to the rest of the family. She collected art objects too, a fantastic collection, apparently. Some European travelers wrote about it. She must have been some lady.”

“What happened to her?”

“When the prince died, his son by an earlier marriage inherited his title and he kicked her out.”

“Would she have returned to her family?”

“No, women like that usually choose to become nuns—Buddhist or Taoist nuns. It gives them a lot more freedom and respect than chasing back to their parents, assuming they’d even take them back. It’s a life of contemplation, not very comfortable, but a lot of people find it rewarding. I sometimes wonder whether I wouldn’t like to try it myself.”

“I can see why it would be attractive.”

“You? Really?” He regards Kamil curiously. “I never figured you for the introspective sort. Somehow I can’t see you spending hours reflecting on the transience of plum blossoms.”

Kamil laughs. “You’d be surprised.”

“Well, friend. I respect that.”

“What about the poem?”

“The poem. Well, it’s a bitter poem. Probably written after the prince died.” Bernie takes a long swig of raki and washes it down with water. “But the last couple of lines always struck me as more of a call to action than contemplation. And I’ve always wondered about the ‘you’ in the last line, ‘your brush.’ Who was she referring to?”

“So this is what scholars of literature do,” Kamil comments with a sly smile. “Like cows eating grass. It gets chewed, digested, regurgitated, and chewed again before it becomes the cow’s food.”