The Architect's Apprentice

by Elif Shafak

  Jahan stared at him.

  ‘Tomorrow, as you know, the buildings shall be razed. The instruments. The books. It happened so fast Takiyuddin did not have time to save much. The doors are locked and no one can get in.’

  Jahan nodded, finally beginning to see what he was suggesting.

  ‘If we could get at least a few books, it’d be some consolation to our friend.’

  ‘It would indeed, master.’

  ‘You don’t have to accept, of course,’ Sinan said, dropping his voice to a whisper. ‘It could be a bad idea.’

  ‘I think it’s an excellent idea.’

  ‘It could be dangerous, son.’

  ‘Stealing always is, master, if you pardon my saying so.’

  Sinan regarded his apprentice with a wistful smile, his head cocked to one side, as if the very sight of him both hurt and restored his spirit.

  ‘This has to remain a secret between us,’ Sinan said after a pause.

  ‘And Chota,’ Jahan said. ‘He can walk more quietly than a horse. And he can carry more things.’

  ‘All right. We’ll take him with us.’

  ‘We? You mean you’re coming with me?’

  ‘Certainly. I cannot send you on your own.’

  Jahan thought about this for a moment. If he were caught, he would be taken for an ordinary thief. If Sinan were caught, he would lose his reputation, even his position in the court. His workers, his family, his students, each of whom looked up to him as a father figure, would be devastated. He said, ‘I cannot work with someone else beside me. It’s against my nature.’

  The master objected. The apprentice resisted. Sinan said he was calling the whole thing off. Jahan said it was too late, now that he had heard about it he would do it anyway. It was a bizarre war of words. They quarrelled without quarrelling.

  ‘Fine,’ said Sinan, conceding in the end with a perfunctory wave of his hand, which Jahan took as less a gesture of defeat than a sign of trust.

  Afterwards the master handed Jahan a pouch of coins. If he were to run into the night watchman, he should try to bribe him. It might work. It might fail. It depended on the man’s disposition and what Providence had in store for Jahan.

  At the sound of an approaching footfall they both flinched. A boy appeared, carrying a tray with a bowl of steaming soup, bread, water and baklava. They waited until he had served the food and left.

  ‘Eat,’ the master said. ‘It’ll be a long night.’

  Jahan tore a piece of bread, dumped it into the soup and swallowed it down, scalding his tongue, as a thought occurred to him. He said, ‘Is there anything in particular you want me to carry off?’

  ‘Well,’ Sinan replied, raising an eyebrow, expecting to be asked this. ‘Not the instruments; they are too big. The books should be saved, as many as possible. If you can, find his zij; you know how he exerted himself on it.’

  The map of the moon, the sun, the stars and the celestial bodies. Years and years of work. Why hadn’t the Chief Royal Astronomer taken it away with him?

  As if reading his mind, Sinan said, ‘Takiyuddin kept his valuable things in the observatory. That was his home.’

  Jahan had a few spoonfuls of soup; then he popped another piece of bread into his mouth and put the rest into his sash. ‘I’m ready to go.’

  There was a full moon glowing over the city, a bonfire from a bygone age. Amid shadows, Jahan rode Chota towards Tophane.

  Against the leaden sky the buildings resembled two sorrowful giants hugging each other. A stab of pain went through Jahan as he realized that by this time tomorrow they would be gone. He jumped down and listened to the night to make sure there was no one around. Quietly, he told Chota to wait for him there, rewarding him with pears and nuts, which the beast instantly gobbled up. Jahan had brought large sacks to carry the books. After grabbing them and kissing Chota’s trunk three times for good luck, he made straight for the observatory.

  First he tried the main entrance. There was a rusty padlock dangling from it. He fiddled a bit, making use of the blade and the spike he had brought with him in his sash. It would not be too hard to prise it open, he judged; yet he would be unable to put the thing back together in one piece. Tomorrow morning everyone would know someone had broken in.

  He crept behind the walls and checked the back doors on both sides. Since there was a passage between the buildings, it made no difference which door he went through so long as he found a way. Then he saw what he needed: a round window on the ground floor. He recalled that this winter it had come loose and never been fully repaired. Takiyuddin had complained, saying the labourer had done a mediocre job. Then he had forgotten all about it. So had everyone else.

  The next moment Jahan was there, prodding. In a little while, the hinge gave way with a click. Pushing the window open, he slipped in. It was so dark inside, and he was so unprepared for this, that his knees buckled under him. He waited till his eyes had adjusted to the gloom, after which he began to identify things. He climbed up the spiral stairs and reached the library; a powerful smell of paper, vellum, ink and leather hit him in the face. Each shelf was an open wound bleeding into the night. Staggering, he glanced left and right. There were thousands of books, maps and manuscripts. How was he to know which ones were more precious than others? How could he judge? By their age? By their author? By their theme?

  Jahan scampered from row to row, picking up the books at random, sniffed and touched them, then brought them near the window, where a wedge of moonlight shimmered. Words in Latin, Arabic, Ottoman, Hebrew, Greek, Armenian, Persian rained on him. He gasped. Suddenly, he was furious at himself. He was losing precious time with his doubts. Panicking, he took out the sacks he had brought and began to fill them with whichever books he could lay his hands on. Since he could not choose, he would not. He would save them all.

  In went the first shelf, then the second and the third. One sack was full already. The second sack swallowed the next three shelves. That was it. He took a step forward, doddering like a drunken man. It was too heavy. He had to remove some of the tomes, his hands trembling, his teeth chattering as though he had been left in a cold shaft of air.

  ‘I’ll be back,’ he whispered.

  He went out, found Chota, unloaded the books up into his howdah and returned, running, panting. He cursed himself for not having thought of bringing a wheelbarrow. That would have been smarter. Again he filled the sacks, five more shelves, and again he dashed out. He could not count how many times he was able to make this return trip. He was puffing so hard he feared someone would hear him and it all would come to naught.

  Swallowing with a dry mouth, he tried to recover his composure. Outside the window the dawn was breaking. He told himself this had to be the final trip. This was it. Whatever he could save, he saved; whatever he could not, he let go. That was when something happened, something he would never reveal to anyone even years later as an old man. The books and manuscripts and maps and charts started to call his name: first in muted, then in increasingly shrill tones, begging him to take them with him. Jahan could see their mouths of ripped paper, their tears of ink. They threw themselves off the shelves, stepped on each other, blocked his way, their eyes wide with horror. Jahan felt like a man in a boat searching for a dozen to save in a storm while hundreds were drowning around him.

  His eyes watered. He filled three more sacks and left quickly, as though being chased by an invisible force. How he mounted Chota, how he reached Sinan’s home, he would not remember afterwards. He gave all the books to his master and refused to get anywhere near them for fear they would talk to him again.

  ‘Indian apprentice, you’ve saved so many,’ Sinan said.

  ‘I abandoned many more,’ Jahan said dourly.

  A line of worry furrowing his forehead, Sinan emptied the sacks, wiped the books and hid them in his library. Later on he would inform Jahan that he had rescued 489 books.

  Only when Jahan returned to his room and put his head on his mattress and managed t
o calm his breathing did he realize that he had not, in his haste, remembered to look for Takiyuddin’s zij. In the end the court astronomer had not been able to stave off what he most despised. Knowledge and wisdom had to be cumulative, an uninterrupted flow from one generation to the next; and yet the young astronomers who would come after him would have to start from the beginning all over again.

  The next day, shortly after dawn, the sky bleeding into the city, there they stood, the six of them – Sinan, the apprentices and the elephant, ready to destroy what they had erected. Not a pigeon ruffled its wings in the eaves, not a breeze stirred. Jahan noticed tears in Sancha’s eyes. No one uttered a word.

  All day long, in charge of the teams of labourers who arrived with their sledgehammers and mallets and powder, they smashed up the doors and windows, caved in the walls. Chota pulled with all his might at the ropes tied to the wooden posts. People came to watch. Some of them cheered and clapped; most stood in stunned silence. Five days later, as the last stone was hauled away, there were prayers, just as there had been three summers ago when Sinan’s apprentices had laid the foundation stone. Only this time the spectators were thanking God for knocking down an edifice of sin.

  Something inside Jahan shattered along with the observatory. If it weren’t for his love of Mihrimah and his loyalty to Sinan, he would have abandoned this city of broken bricks and burned wood. Go away, whispered a voice within – but where? He was too old to undertake adventures new. Go, implored the voice – but how? Much as he took umbrage at her ways, Istanbul had seized hold of his soul. Even his dreams did not happen elsewhere. Go, warned the voice – but why? The world was a boiling cauldron, the same stew of hopes and sorrows near and far.

  For years on end he had devoted his life to a city where he had been – and still was – a stranger; his love to an unattainable woman; and his youth and strength to a craft that, though valued, was dismissed at the slightest change of events. What they raised in years, stone upon stone, could be destroyed in one afternoon. That which was treasured today was treated with contempt tomorrow. Everything remained subject to the whims of fate, and by now he had no doubt that fate was whimsical.

  The ensuing weeks were his most sombre days in Istanbul. He could not help asking himself why they worked so hard at small details when no one – not the Sultan, not the people, and surely not God – minded how much effort they expended. They seemed to care for nothing but the size and the stateliness of the buildings and not offending the Almighty. Why did Sinan pay this much attention to the finest details when only a few noticed, and fewer appreciated them?

  Nothing ruins the human soul more than hidden resentment. Outwardly, Jahan kept doing the things he always did – toiling alongside his master and feeding Chota, even if he did not attend to his every need any longer. Inwardly, however, numbness seized his heart, wiping away signs of joy, like melting snow erasing the footprints of life. He was losing his faith in his workmanship. Little did he know, back then, that the worth of one’s faith depended not on how solid and strong it was, but on how many times one would lose it and still be able to get it back.

  The coldest day in forty years, they called it – the day Mihrimah died. Street cats in Scutari froze while jumping from one roof to the next, hanging in the air like crystal lamps. The mendicants, the pilgrims, the roaming dervishes and those of no fixed abode had to seek refuge in alms houses for fear of turning into ice. Why she chose such a day to leave this world, Jahan would never know. She was born in spring and loved flowers in bloom.

  She had been ill for months, her health declining despite the number of physicians around her increasing every day. Jahan had seen her six times during those dire months. On each occasion she was a bit thinner. More often he had seen Hesna Khatun, the reluctant courier. The old woman would come to the menagerie bringing messages from the Princess and wait to one side while Jahan composed his answer. Jahan would take his time, choosing his words carefully, despite the nursemaid huffing and puffing beside him. Finally, with a glare she would take his sealed letter and vanish.

  Thus it was a letter Jahan was expecting that January morning in 1578 when the nursemaid appeared in the menagerie, wrapped in a fur cloak. Instead she said, ‘Your Highness would like to see you.’

  Closed gates opened wide before him; hidden halls were illuminated. The guards who saw him coming turned their heads, pretending not to notice. Everything had been arranged. When Jahan reached her chamber he fought hard to keep his smile intact. Her face was inflamed, her body swollen. Her legs, her arms, her neck, even her fingers were bloated, as though she had been stung by the wasp she had been running from as a girl.

  ‘Jahan, beloved …’ she said.

  Jahan stopped feigning equanimity and buried his nose into the trimming of her bedspread. That was where he had been all this time – somewhere on the edge of her existence. Seeing him crying, she lifted her hand and said softly, ‘Don’t.’

  Immediately Jahan apologized. Again, she said, ‘Don’t.’

  The air in the chamber felt stale, because of the closed windows and the heavy curtains. Jahan had a sudden urge to open them but he stayed put, motionless.

  She ordered him to come close, closer, despite the burning gaze of Hesna Khatun. She placed her hand upon his hand and, though they had touched before, always on the sly, this was the first time he felt her body open up to his. Jahan kissed her on the lips. He tasted the earth.

  ‘You and your white elephant … have brought joy into my life,’ she said.

  Jahan tried to utter something to raise her spirits, but he could find no words that she would allow. A while later a servant brought her a bowl of custard, flavoured with rosewater. The sweet scent that any other day would have whetted her appetite now made her retch. Jahan gave her water instead, which she drank thirstily.

  ‘When I am not around you may hear things about me that you might not like.’

  ‘No one may dare to say such things about your Highness.’

  She gave a tired smile. ‘Whatever happens after I am gone, I want you to think of me with warmth in your heart. Will you promise to take no notice of gossip-mongers and slanderers?’

  ‘I shall never believe them.’

  She seemed relieved but instantly frowned as a new thought crossed her mind. ‘What if you doubt me?’

  ‘Excellency, I’ll never –’

  She didn’t let him continue. ‘If you ever have suspicions about me, remember, behind everything there is a reason.’

  Jahan would have asked her what she meant had he not just then heard a shuffle of approaching feet. Her three children were brought in, walking in single file. Jahan was surprised to see how tall Aisha had become since the day he had last seen her. One by one they kissed their mother’s hand. A deferential silence hung in the air, the youngest boy pretending to be composed, though the tremble of his lower lip betrayed him.

  Once they had left, Jahan gave Hesna Khatun a painful look. He could see from her constant fidgeting that the nursemaid wished him to leave. He didn’t want to go. It was a small relief when Mihrimah, sensing his discomfort, said, ‘Stay.’

  As darkness descended, her breathing turned shallow. Jahan and Hesna Khatun waited on each side of her, she praying, he remembering. Hours passed in a haze. Well past midnight Jahan fought to keep his eyes open, seized by an irrational conviction that so long as he watched over her she would be fine.

  The call to prayer woke Jahan up. There was no movement in the room, not a sound. Seized by a cold panic, he staggered to his feet. He stared at the old woman, who looked like she had not slept a wink.

  ‘Gone,’ Hesna Khatun said acidly. ‘My gazelle has gone.’

  Ten months later Sinan and the apprentices put the finishing touches on Sokollu’s mosque. A central dome, eight arches, eight piers and a two-storey courtyard. An enclosed portico bathed with sunlight from copious windows adjoined the nigh-on square prayer hall. The minbar was of pure white marble framed with turquoise tiles.
Around the interior of the mosque ran a balcony, dainty and elegant. Though not as majestic as a Sultan’s mosque, it had a strong character, like the man himself.

  The Grand Vizier Sokollu arrived to view the construction, escorted by advisers, sentinels, lackeys and flatterers. He inspected the building that would make him immortal, asking endless questions, impatient for the labourers to finish. He carried himself with dignity, the most far-sighted man in the empire, always astute. By now he had served under three Sultans: Suleiman, Selim and Murad. How he had survived for so long, when many a statesman had lost his head for the slightest failing, was a question many asked. He was rumoured to be assisted by a female djinn who was besotted with him and whose name no earthling could pronounce. Whenever Sokollu was in danger, this djinn warned him.

  Jahan watched the fuss from a distance. He had not forgotten that faraway day in Szigetvar, when they had placed into Chota’s howdah the body of the deceased Sultan Suleiman, all the while pretending that he was alive. Since then, like a dedicated carver, time had chiselled Sokollu’s features, giving his face a stern look. It was in that moment, as Jahan was thinking how much the man had aged, that the Grand Vizier stopped and turned back. His eyes gleamed when he saw the mahout.

  ‘The elephant-tamer,’ the Grand Vizier exclaimed with a contemptuous snap of his fingers. ‘Why, you have white in your hair. You have aged!’

  Jahan bowed respectfully and said nothing. Since Mihrimah had gone, he felt his years more heavily than ever.

  Sinan joined in. ‘Jahan is one of my best apprentices, my Lord.’

  Sokollu asked Jahan how he was doing and where the elephant was, though he did not pay attention to the answer to either question. In an hour the Grand Vizier galloped away. Jahan did not take his eyes off him until he became no more distinct than the shadows along the road and was, eventually, swallowed by the dusk. That same night a storm blew down the staves, bent over the trees and flooded the pits, leaving everything in disarray.