The Oracle of Stamboul

by Michael David Lukas

  She was in this same position when Monsieur Karom came to her door with dinner.

  “Is everything all right?” he asked, placing her tray on the bedside table.

  Eleonora reached above her and fished a piece of paper out of the top drawer.

  The cannon.

  Monsieur Karom stifled a smile.

  “The cannon shot,” he said, helping her up, “marks the end of the fasting period. Today is the first day of Ramadan. You knew that, didn’t you?”

  Eleonora shook her head. She knew about Ramadan, the fasting during the day and the sumptuous meals at night, but she had never heard of using a cannon to mark the end of the fasting period. What Muslims there were left in Constanta employed a pious man to tromp through the town beating a large drum.

  “Yes,” said Monsieur Karom. He leaned out the open window and peered down at the barges. “You will have a perfect view of the fireworks.”

  Eleonora ate her lentil soup alone at her desk, watching stars light up the empty darkness like so many wordless candles. Stamboul was silent for the length of her dinner. Then, as she was finishing her date pastry, the city burst to life. The lanterns strung between the minarets of the New Mosque were lit, spelling out the words HAPPY RAMADAN. Sherbet vendors and fortune-tellers set up stalls along the water. Tents of swirling red and blue fabric sprung up in the courtyard of every neighborhood mosque. The streets filled with young children and their parents, cousins, great-uncles, and older boys in ragged packs pushing through the crowd. The first firework went up with the sound of a yowling cat and exploded in a burst of green. Then there was another, this one white, and the crowd let out a cheer. Launched from the barges beneath Eleonora’s window, shoots of red, blue, green, and white illuminated the Ramadan night sky with smoky phosphorescence, continuing with the festivities until dawn.

  Whether it was the sight of her flock that evening, the beginning of summer, Ramadan, or something else entirely, Eleonora didn’t know. All she knew was that she felt different now. Standing in front of her closet that next morning, she touched a bare floorboard with the tip of her big toe and shivered. She had woken up late, and sleep lingered still at the corners of her eyes, but however sleepy she was, she could not deny that something inside her had shifted, the ice sea was breaking up. She stood considering her closet for a long while—a pale garden of silk, lace, and chiffon, seeded at the far left with a boy’s wool suit—before choosing an elegant light purple dress from her second visit to Mme. Poiret. Slipping the dress over her head, she stepped into a matching pair of shoes and turned to look at herself in the mirror. Without Mrs. Damakan’s assistance, she couldn’t properly fasten the back of the dress, but she went downstairs regardless. There was something she intended to ask Moncef Bey and she wanted to do it now, before she lost her nerve.

  “Good morning, Miss Cohen.”

  The Bey had already begun his breakfast, and was spreading cherry preserves on a piece of bread.

  Good morning, she wrote on a scrap of paper. She paused for a moment and looked up at him, then continued with her question. Moncef Bey, may I come with you today? Out to Pera? I promise I won’t be a bother.

  He tightened his gaze and rested the jammy knife on the edge of his plate.

  “Of course,” he said. “You are always welcome to join me. And you are never a bother. I only worry you will be bored.”

  I won’t be bored. Not at all. And I will be as quiet as a mouse.

  The Bey took up his knife again. Spreading the remaining preserves on the edge of the bread, he broke off a piece of crumbly white cheese.

  “All right then,” he said. “But you must promise to keep quiet as a mouse.”

  She nodded her agreement and the Bey turned to Monsieur Karom.

  “Tell the stable boys to prepare the carriage. Miss Cohen will be joining me.”

  “Yes, sir,” the butler replied, bowing out of the room.

  Before either of them could reconsider, Eleonora found herself seated in the Bey’s carriage, watching the world pass through the latticework screen. As the last yellow of his house receded behind the Beşiktaş Mosque, she felt a cord inside her tug and snap. She had left. She was outside, a cool touch of wind on her forearm and the sharp, salty smell of the Bosporus in her nose. Purple wildflowers lined the edge of the road and the clouds overhead were white as spun sugar. She folded her hands in her lap, following along with the mosques and municipal buildings, mansions, fountains, plane trees, and fishermen. They passed a donkey pulling a cart laden with mounds of bright orange loquat, a string of Ramadan tents, and the remnants of the festivities from the night before. Eleonora looked down at her hands, her own open palms. She cupped her face and inhaled their soft soapiness.

  “We must disembark here,” said the Bey as the carriage rolled to a stop. “Beyond this, the streets are too steep.”

  The Galata funicular station was just a few steps from where the carriage stopped. Shaded by a gilded grotto of pink and yellow tile, European ladies, their porters, and an assortment of uniformed men stood in groups of two or three. Glancing occasionally at the dark cavern from which their train was supposed to emerge, the passengers spoke in hushed tones and watched each other with suspicion. After a few minutes, a gas light appeared at the top edge of the tunnel. With a pneumatic screech, the red-lacquer trolley stuttered to a halt in front of them. They boarded the front car and, although there was little to see through the darkness, Eleonora rode the whole way with her nose against the glass, straining to make out what lay ahead.

  “Here we are,” the Bey announced when the funicular stopped and they filed out of the station.

  Pera was just as Eleonora had remembered it. The arcades were draped with painted cloth banners. Store windows jostled to advertise the new summer stock. And posh ladies glided up the boulevard in their dainty cream-colored dresses. She felt as if she were surfacing finally after a long dive, emerging from the silent, watery depths of herself into a hot and salty world. As she stood at the base of La Grande Rue de Pera, taking it all in, Eleonora felt the weight of a new sadness crushing down on her. She had stood in this very place with her father just a few months ago. He had taken her hand and walked with her up the boulevard. The tears welled up in her eyes as she recalled his smell, the feeling of his palm against the back of her neck. She and the Bey stood for a moment in silence. When it passed, Eleonora wiped her tears away. The Bey offered her two fingers. She reached up to take them, and they walked together up the boulevard toward the Café Europa.

  Holding the red double doors for her, the Bey led Eleonora through the clattering, smoke-filled main room of the café, out the back door, and down a steep wooden staircase into a cobbled patch of foliage he called the back garden. As they descended, Eleonora noticed shreds of green-and-white fabric waving from the handrail, perhaps the scattered remnants of a Ramadan celebration. A pair of wizened old men in fezzes smoked narghiles under an almond tree, and directly beneath the staircase, a bespectacled young European man read the paper while his companion took notes in a small book. The Bey chose a table near the back of the garden, next to an empty birdbath, and they gave their orders to the waiter: two teas and a croissant. When the waiter left, the young man who had been taking notes approached their table with a backgammon board under his arm. He was a slight, nervous man dressed in a short blue frock coat, light gray pants, and a velvet smoking cap embroidered with tiny flowers. Eleonora couldn’t quite place his accent, but it hinted toward the Caucasus. After exchanging a brief stream of greetings with the Bey, he pulled up a chair and began setting up the board. As he did, a stark-white cat with one blue eye and one yellow eye jumped into his lap. He stroked it absently with one hand, and with the other continued setting up the game.

  Glancing into the cat’s eerily unmatched eyes, Eleonora sat on her hands, the cold black metal of the chair indenting itself into her palms. This was not how she had expected the Café Europa to look, this sleepy tableaux of iron furniture and vines
. She wasn’t sure exactly what she had imagined, but it was not this. In any case, it was nice to be outside. There was so much she had forgotten. The warmth of the sun on her neck, the smell of grapes. As she took in her surroundings, the call to prayer echoed out across the city like a low, wispy cloud, and a member of her flock landed at the edge of the table. It stayed for a moment, twitched its head at the cat, and flew off, but neither the Bey nor his opponent noticed.

  “Three-four,” said the young man and bumped one of the Bey’s pieces off the board.

  The Bey scooped up the dice and blew into the cavity of his palm. He needed a five or a one to bring the bumped piece back into the game.

  “The Viceroy,” said the Bey’s opponent, referring apparently to a previous strand of conversation. “He is not without options.”

  “Indeed,” said the Bey. He rolled, a three-five, and moved the bumped piece back onto the board. “But perhaps the best option is to wait.”

  “One can only wait for so long.”

  For a few rolls, the two men played in silence. The Bey was winning. His pieces were unexposed and moving steadily toward home. Leaning in, Eleonora let herself fall into the rhythm of the game, the clatter of pieces and the click of the dice. She burrowed into it as she might a dense philosophical argument, letting the walls of the simple wood board close around her. A breeze rustled through the vines and she could feel the warmth of the chair against her shoulders.

  “I see you are not fasting for Ramadan,” said the young man, indicating the tea and croissant.

  The Bey stirred his tea and sipped it.

  “No,” he said. “I abandoned that practice many years ago. Though I would prefer you not mention my lack of observance to any of our colleagues. Fasting for Ramadan is like tithing. No one truly does it, but society depends on the illusion that we all do.”

  “Surely the lumpen classes fast.”

  “They might,” said the Bey pensively, rubbing the dice together. “But I can guarantee no one you know does.”

  “And your young friend?”

  Eleonora was raising a piece of croissant to her lips.

  “What about her?”

  “Is she not Muslim?”

  “No,” said the Bey. “She is a Jewess.”

  He paused, weighing whether this explanation would suffice. When he saw that it would not, he continued.

  “She is the daughter of my former business partner, Yakob Cohen. You remember the boat accident a few months ago?”

  “The one the Tsar is upset about?”

  The Bey nodded. He did not, apparently, need to elaborate beyond this. Their conversation continued, thrusting and parrying obliquely around the cause of the boat accident, for a few more rolls. When they had reached a stalemate, the young man turned to face Eleonora directly.

  “What is your name?”

  She glanced around for a piece of paper, but there was none on the table.

  “Miss Cohen has not spoken since the crash,” the Bey explained. “She communicates through writing.”

  “She can write?”

  “Yes,” said the Bey and, with evident pride, began naming the languages she could write in: “Latin, Greek, French, Turkish—”

  “Is that so?” said the young man and, pulling the notebook out of his pocket, handed it with a pen to Eleonora. “Write something.”

  She took the notebook and opened it to a blank page.

  What would you like me to write?

  “Anything you like,” he said. “A passage from Virgil, perhaps. Do you know The Aeneid?”

  She nodded and began from the beginning.

  Arms and the man I sing, who, forced by fate, / And haughty Juno’s unrelenting hate, / Expelled and exiled, left the Trojan shore.

  Eleonora handed the notebook to the young man for his inspection. As she did, she noticed the Reverend’s name, James Muehler, written in small letters and underlined at the top of the facing page.

  “Very good,” he said, glancing at what she had written. “Very impressive.”

  He turned to the Bey.

  “How old did you say she was?”

  “Eight,” said the Bey. “Nearly nine.”

  The young man shook his head in disbelief.

  “You will never cease to amaze me, Moncef Bey.”

  He then stood from the table, setting the cat at Eleonora’s feet. Their game was not yet over, but neither of them seemed to care.

  “Our friend,” said the young man, doffing his smoking cap. “He will meet you tomorrow afternoon at noon in Le Petit Champs du Mort.”

  The Bey nodded and handed an envelope across the table. Without another word, the young man slipped it into his pocket and left the garden.

  After he left, Eleonora finished her tea and played a few games of backgammon with Moncef Bey. She didn’t ask anything about this strange young man. She didn’t ask why the Reverend’s name was in his notebook. She didn’t ask whom the Bey was going to meet tomorrow in Le Petit Champs du Mort. She didn’t ask anything, though she wondered many things. In particular, she wondered whether there was any connection between the young man and the note the Reverend had shown her, the Greek letters that spelled Wednesday at noon. The back of Café Europa. It was not Wednesday, but they were indeed at the back of Café Europa. Perhaps there was a connection. As much as she understood about the world, as much as she knew, there were still many things she didn’t understand.

  Eleonora reached down to stroke the cat, which was pacing at her feet, and she looked into its eyes. It was aloof, as cats usually are, but there was something strange about its manner, the way it jumped into her lap and purred with such purpose. It was almost as if the cat were urging her to stop asking questions, to stop wondering, and lose herself in its blank white fur.

  Chapter Fourteen

  The Commander of the Faithful, His Excellency Sultan Abdulhamid II put down his book and stared out the green tiled doorway of his mother’s quarters. Her courtyard was much quieter than normal. A young odalisque was practicing the kemenche in a niche between two columns, and water gurgled up through the mouth of the marble fountain in the middle of the courtyard. As the Sultan watched water spill over the side of the top basin, a purple-and-white hoopoe landed on its rim, took a mouthful of water, and flew off. It had the same coloration as the bird he had spotted a few months earlier. Or perhaps it was the very same bird. In any case, it was quite an unusual color.

  Glancing at his mother, the Sultan tried to read a few more pages of his book, an English mystery novel called The Woman in White, but the grumbling of his stomach ruined his concentration. It was only the second day of Ramadan and already he was wracked with an unbearable hunger. Abdulhamid chuckled at the irony. Here he was, Caliph of Islam, Servant to the Holy Cities, and yet his stomach growled during Ramadan just like anyone else’s. Indeed, it is true what is written in the Sura of Maryam, To Us shall return all that he talks of and he shall appear before Us bare and alone.

  The Sultan laid his book down again and watched his mother practice her calligraphy. Pen pinched between thumb and forefinger, she sat at a low walnut table, her shoulders stiff and legs crossed underneath. She had taken up calligraphy upon her arrival in the court of his father, Sultan Ahmed IV. While the other girls lounged about plucking the oud and gossiping, she sat alone in her private chambers, practicing an endless series of loops and dots in the hopes of improving herself and enhancing her standing. She didn’t need to impress anyone now, of course. She was the Sultan’s mother. When she spoke, the harem girls scattered like deer. It was incredible to think that someone of her birth, a lowly Circasian peasant, taken from her family and brought to the palace at the age of twelve, could rise through force of will and beauty to become one of the most important personages in the empire. She had been able to efface the coarseness of her upbringing almost completely, but Abdulhamid could still recognize his lowly ancestors in certain of his mother’s personality traits—her irritability, for instance. He could
tell from her posture that she was still upset with him, and he knew from long experience that he would have to make a concession if he wanted peace.

  “If it means that much to you,” he said, breaking a long silence, “I will cancel the meeting.”

  His mother finished the word she was working on before she raised her head.

  “It doesn’t mean anything to me, Your Excellency. I couldn’t care less whom you invite to the palace. I am only worried about the impression your meetings might have on others. Once rumors get started, they are very difficult to stop. You remember, of course, the difficulties of your uncle Cehangir.”

  The Sultan nodded gravely, as he always did when his uncle’s name was spoken. A voracious glutton, libertine, and the source of much malicious gossip, Cehangir had died at the dinner table with a piece of lamb lodged in his esophagus.

  “Mother, I agree that rumors are dangerous, but meeting with a palm reader is not the same as eating an entire sheep.”

  “It’s not just the palm reader,” his mother said. “It’s the snake charmers, the Sufi mystics, the dog with two tails, the talking parrot. People are saying you would rather meet with a beggar than the Ambassador of Genoa.”

  “That is not what happened.”

  She lifted the piece of paper and inspected the accuracy of her hand.

  “Mother, you know that’s not what happened.”