The Architect's Apprentice

by Elif Shafak

  Shielding his eyes from the sun, Jahan looked around, unable to see Sancha anywhere. It occurred to him that she might have changed her mind. Perhaps when she woke she realized that the land of her childhood was far and elusive, a dream impossible to reclaim. But then, as he zigzagged his way through the barrels waiting to be loaded, he saw her before him, her shadow extending away from her, as though it and only it had decided to stay.

  To his surprise, she had gone back to her apprenticeship clothes and stood beside him as a man. ‘I like it better like this.’

  Jahan looked over her shoulder for porters. There were none. ‘Where are your things?’

  She pointed at a rucksack on the ground.

  ‘Your robes? Kayra’s gifts?’

  ‘Don’t tell her. I gave them to the poor.’ She opened her bag, showed him the carved box Sinan had made for her. Next to it were a dozen scrolls and a necklace of some worth. ‘I’m taking these. Master bequeathed them to me.’

  They walked silently until they reached the ramp that connected the ship to the land.

  ‘I did not get a chance to wish Davud farewell,’ she said. ‘Give him my regards and good wishes. I can’t believe he is the Chief Royal Architect now.’

  ‘I shall tell him,’ Jahan said pensively. The truth was he had not been able to congratulate Davud himself. He hadn’t felt like it. He inhaled a lungful of air. ‘Make sure nobody finds out you’re a woman. If you sense any –’

  ‘I can take care of myself.’ She held herself ramrod straight.

  ‘I know you can.’

  She lifted her eyes to his. ‘I … had a nasty dream last night. You were trapped. You called for me but I couldn’t find you. Be careful, will you?’

  Someone shouted an order from the stern of the ship. Jahan felt his throat closing. Everything was changing, flowing, like sand between his fingers. Mihrimah had crossed the great divide and he couldn’t wait to join her when his time came; the master and Nikola were gone; he and Davud rarely saw each other; Chota was not long for this world; and now Sancha was leaving. He had been wrong to pity Nikola for being alone. He was just as lonely. For a moment the desire to accompany Sancha, the one person who cared for him, was almost too strong to endure. He would have gone had it not been for the elephant.

  That afternoon, under shrieking seagulls and a wash of sunlight as gauzy as muslin, he watched the prow of the ship slice with ease through the water, at every heartbeat taking the mute apprentice, and her story, further and further away.

  Unable to put his thoughts on paper, Jahan found a scribe to help him write to Davud. After listening, the man set off and scribbled without a pause, save to dip the pen into the ink. When he was done, Jahan was holding a letter dripping with salutations and felicitations. It cost six aspers.

  Jahan wasn’t expecting an immediate answer – not from a man who had risen so high. Yet Davud wrote back: the scroll was sealed in red, the handwriting – by a scribe of an upper rank – elegant. Everything had happened swiftly, he explained. Our gracious Sultan, may he live a hundred years, upon opening the will of Master Sinan and learning about his last wish, bestowed a distinguished honour on me, his humble subject. He threw the precious robe of our master on my insignificant shoulders. How could he have rejected it, Davud asked, as though he needed affirmation. He told Jahan to come to see him. They would share memories and talk about forthcoming works, just like in the old days.

  Much as Jahan wanted to pay him a visit, he could not. His heart was not pure. It worried him that Davud would see it in his eyes, the jealousy oozing out of his pores. Until recently they had been equals. Now his friend was a man favoured by fate. Jahan understood that between people with a similar standing the hardest thing to accept was when one moved up and the other did not. In those rare moments when he managed not to feel envy, he was ridden with guilt. Instead of being happy for Davud and praying for his success, he begrudged him his good fortune. If Sinan were alive, Jahan thought, he would have been ashamed of him.

  So he waited. Days passed by. Whether he wanted to or not, he heard constantly about Davud – how, in a ceremony in his honour, he had been given a golden chisel, pouches of coins and Master Sinan’s seal – a carved jade ring. Snippets of information rained down from everywhere – how he was seen in a kaftan so precious that no one could wear it unless allowed by the Sultan; how he was fond of Circassian concubines and filled his harem with them; how he had married second and third wives, each as winsome as a fairy; how he had peacocks strutting in his courtyard and a falcon brought from Samarkand. Half of these tales Jahan suspected were false. The remaining half were enough to fill his heart with bitterness.

  Jahan kept teaching at the palace school, finding consolation in the innocence of his students. At night, alone in his bed, he designed buildings that would never be built. One of these was a garden where wild animals roamed free and people walked through a maze of tunnels with large panes of glass that enabled them to watch the beasts without putting themselves in danger. Chota lost three more toenails. A mysterious disease, Jahan suspected, and stopped accusing Abe of neglect. The elephant had got old. So had Jahan, though he was unwilling to accept this.

  A month later he received a message informing him that a building was to be raised on the fourth hill – a new mosque – and he had been appointed as head foreman. He would be paid a generous sum. It showed how much Davud trusted him. While he was burning with envy, his friend had decided to honour him. Jahan could not avoid seeing him any longer. Composing a letter – writing it himself this time – he thanked him for the privilege and asked permission to visit. Davud sent a reply, inviting him to his new house in Eyup, by the Golden Horn.

  It wasn’t a hard place to find; the locals raved about it. A mansion with a sweet-smelling garden that extended as far as the eye could see. There was no need to knock on the door; he was expected. A manservant welcomed Jahan at the iron gates; ushered him across a pathway into the house and then into a wide, bright room facing south. Left on his own, Jahan glanced around. There wasn’t much furniture – yet what little there was, was exquisite. A cabinet inlaid with mother-of-pearl and matching low tables; a sofa topped with embroidered cushions; gilded sconces on the walls; a silken Persian carpet so pretty one dared not tread on it; and, in the middle, a brass brazier, now asleep. Somewhere a chime, caught in a breeze, tinkled dreamily. There was an intense silence throughout the house. Neither the voices of women from the harem side nor the clatter of a coach from the street. Even the cries of the seagulls did not seem to reach this roof. He wondered how Davud’s wife had responded to the change – and to the new wives. It was one of those things in life he would marvel about but never discover. In a while, another manservant arrived announcing that his master was ready to see him. Jahan followed him upstairs, one hand on the balustrade as if to draw strength from it.

  Davud had gained weight. Clad in an azure kaftan and a high turban, his beard trimmed round and short, he looked different. Sitting behind a walnut table, he was holding a plume, having just signed a document. Four apprentices attended him: two on each side, their hands clasped, their heads bowed. They were similarly attired.

  When he saw Jahan enter the room on the heels of his servant, Davud stood up and broke into a smile. ‘At last!’

  An uneasy instant passed between them as Jahan puzzled over how to greet this man who until yesterday had been his friend but who was now his master. He was about to bow when Davud, having walked towards him, laid a hand on his shoulder.

  ‘Outside this room I might be senior. Inside, we are friends.’

  Relieved though Jahan was to hear this, his voice, when it came out, sounded hoarse, guilt-ridden. He offered his well-wishes, apologizing for not having visited earlier.

  ‘You are here now,’ Davud said.

  Jahan told him Yusuf had left the city, though he provided no details. If Davud suspected the truth about Sancha, he didn’t give anything away. Instead he murmured, ‘Only two left.’
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  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Out of four, it’s just you and me now. We are Sinan’s heirs. We ought to support each other.’

  A black servant walked in carrying a tray laden with drinks that he placed, quiet as a whisper, on a low table. The apprentices on the other side of the room stood utterly still. Like a row of saplings, Jahan thought, their roots boring holes in the carpet down to the ground floor.

  The rose sherbet was heavenly, served with cloves and chilled with crushed ice from the mountains of Bursa – a privilege exclusive to the wealthy. Next to it was a plate piled with three different kinds of baklava and a bowl of thick cream.

  No sooner had they downed their drinks than Davud said, ‘There’s so much work, I can barely keep up. My wives complain. You are the Chief Royal Architect, yet you don’t even repair the fence around the house, they say.’

  Jahan smiled.

  ‘I need an honest man like you by my side. Be my right hand. We’ll do everything together. You’ll be my head foreman.’

  Beholden, Jahan expressed his gratitude. Simultaneously, he thought about his students at the palace school, realizing unhappily that he would have to stop teaching.

  His confusion must have been obvious, for Davud asked, ‘What is it? Do you find it difficult to receive orders from me?’

  ‘That’s not true,’ Jahan said, although they both knew it was.

  ‘In that case there’s nothing to discuss.’ Davud clapped his hands. ‘Now, eat!’

  While they ate their baklava, Davud told Jahan about the changes he wished to introduce. With a series of rebellions and skirmishes racking the Anatolian plains, it was harder than ever to bring construction materials from the interior. Massive Friday mosques were not commissioned any more. There was not enough in the coffers. Those days were over. Without the spoils of holy war no sovereign could spend so much on constructions. For architecture in the capital to continue to prosper, wars had to be won near and far.

  ‘You see, our master died at the right time,’ Davud said wistfully. ‘He’d have been heartbroken if he were alive today.’

  Outside the window, the sun was setting, painting the room a silken orange. They prattled on about which craftsmen they preferred to work with and which ones they would rather shun, banter that swirled with no immediacy and no weight, like wispy balls of dust.

  Soon a courier brought a letter – important, by the look of it. Davud sat at his desk, his apprentices on either side. Seeing how busy he was, Jahan rose to his feet.

  ‘Stay,’ Davud said into his inkpot. ‘Let’s sup together.’

  ‘I wouldn’t want to take your time.’

  ‘I insist,’ said Davud.

  Having nothing to do, Jahan stood by the window for a while, watching a fishing boat glide with the pull of the current, further and further away from the line where the sea lapped the shore. Slowly, he walked towards the bookshelves in the corner. Inhaling the fragrance of ink, vellum, paper and time, he ran his fingers along the spines. He saw On War against the Turk by this strange monk named Luther and The Book of the Governor that an Englishman called Elyot had dedicated to his king. He found treatises from the library of King Matthias of Hungary. And there, among the leather tomes, some thick, some thin, was Dante’s La Divina Commedia. The gift he had received from Simeon the bookseller and, after reading it again and again, he had given to his master. His hands trembling he pulled it out, feeling the familiar heft of it, and he glanced through the pages. There was no doubt: it was his copy. Clearly, Davud had taken possession of Master Sinan’s collection.

  A servant approached, lighting the candle in the sconce nearby. Jahan’s shadow grew on the wall, tall and restless. He spotted De Architectura by Vitruvius, which he removed and held for a while, the book that had travelled from Buda to Istanbul. It was while he was returning it that he caught sight of a scroll at the back of the shelf, half squashed. He opened it, recognizing instantly the design of the Selimiye Mosque. He admired its magnificence now more than before. Jahan noticed marks made by another pen in lighter ink – as if someone had worked on it after the design had been completed, changing various sections of the construction. It must have been the master, he deduced. Probably Sinan had been studying why and where things had gone wrong. Jahan’s eyes searched the border of the paper for a date. 18 April 1573. He tried to remember what they were doing on that day. Nothing came to mind. The murmurs in the background escalated as Davud, having finished his work, rained instructions on the servants about to prepare the dinner. Quickly, Jahan put the scroll back and joined him.

  They were served cold yoghurt soup, followed by rice with lamb, capons stewed in sorrel sauce, pheasants cooked in beef broth, borek with mutton and a huge, oval platter of steaming meat, which he could not identify.

  ‘This one was sent from heaven,’ Davud said, although it was improper for a host to boast about food.

  ‘What is it?’ Jahan said, although it was improper for a guest to ask about food.

  ‘Venison! Hunted yesterday.’

  Jahan’s stomach clenched as he recalled the stag he had seen in the forest while he was waiting for Sultan Suleiman. So as not to be rude he forced himself to take a bite.

  ‘It melts like sugar. I have observed that the quicker the animal dies the better the taste. Fear spoils the flavour.’

  Jahan chewed, the deer a lump in his mouth. ‘I didn’t know you went hunting.’

  Davud, having noticed Jahan’s discomfort, moved the bowl away. ‘Not I. I don’t have the time for that. Don’t think I have the heart either.’

  As they were parting, Davud saw his guest to the door. Up this close, Jahan caught a scent on his friend’s clothes – raw and leafy and strangely familiar – one that dissolved so fast in the night breeze that he didn’t have time to remember when or where he might have smelled it before.

  Whenever Jahan could get away from his remaining classes at the palace school and his new construction work with Davud, he ran to Chota’s side. Taking his designs with him, he drew in the barn, sitting on a pile of hay that the other tamers called, teasingly, ‘the throne’. Chota watched him, rapt, though Jahan wasn’t sure whether he saw him. His eyesight, which had never been good, had deteriorated.

  Poor Abe was doing his best, and not because he feared Jahan’s wrath but because he liked the white elephant. Despite his efforts, Chota had lost another tooth, one of his last three. He could neither chew nor bite any more. Jahan did not need to put him on those mammoth scales used by the sailors in the port of Karakoy to know that he had lost a lot of weight. Of late, Chota drowsed on his feet in fits and starts and lost his balance, jerking to and fro. While drinking water, taking a bath or plodding around the garden, his movements would slow down, his head would droop and before he knew it he would be fast asleep, roaming the kingdom of dreams. It pained Jahan to see the elephant helpless and confused. A few times he caught him staring longingly at the linden tree, which he so loved to nibble.

  They mashed his food – leaves, nuts and apples – into pulp, mixed it with water and poured this concoction, with the help of a funnel, into his mouth. Though he spilled most, some of it reached his stomach. Chota did not attempt another escape, becoming more and more sedentary, refusing even the briefest excursion to the pond. Abe shovelled up his excrement, cleaned his trough, fed him milk and sherbets, but everyone was aware that the creature was melting like a lump of wax over a fire.

  Back in the dormitory, Jahan found it hard to sleep. He tossed and turned, fretting over how Chota was doing. It was on one such sleepless night, surrounded as he was by the customary silence, that he began to think about his master’s will. He could not believe that Sinan had not mentioned him or Chota in his last wishes. The master he had known and loved would have bequeathed something, however little or large, to the two beings who had worked with him so closely for so long. Sancha had taken away with her a box, a necklace and several designs, saying the master had given them to her. Wouldn’t
Sinan have left something to them too? Perhaps Sinan had, but no one had cared to tell Jahan about a matter this trivial. If the master had a final gift for Chota, Jahan wanted to learn about it without delay, for he had no doubt that the elephant was dying. Thus motivated, he went to see the Chief White Eunuch.

  ‘I wanted to ask you about Master Sinan’s will. Have you seen it?’

  The man squinted his blue eyes lined with kohl. ‘Why do you ask me?’

  ‘Because you are the highest palace official I can talk to.’

  ‘Well … I have seen the will.’

  Jahan’s face brightened. ‘Was there any mention of Chota?’

  ‘Now that you ask, I remember him leaving a pretty mantle for the elephant. I’ll make sure the beast receives it.’

  ‘Much obliged,’ said Jahan, frowning at his feet as if they annoyed him. ‘How about … me?’

  ‘For you, your master left his books.’

  ‘Then why didn’t Master Davud tell me? I have seen Master Sinan’s books in his house. Do you mean those books are mine?’

  ‘Those must be different ones …’ said Kamil Agha impatiently. ‘Too many questions you ask, Indian. I’ll see to it that they send you the mantle and whichever books are yours. Now go back. And stop spending so much time with that beast. You are an architect. Behave like one.’

  Jahan nodded but something was not quite right.

  The following afternoon, three weeks after Chota had escaped, Jahan came back from class to find Abe sitting on a rock, crying.

  ‘The beast,’ Abe said, his sentence hanging in the air.

  Quietly, Jahan entered the barn. Chota was alone, inhaling with difficulty. Jahan rubbed his trunk with his palms, offered him water, which he declined. The elephant fixed his reddish-brown eyes on his tamer, and in those eyes Jahan saw traces of every road, long or short, that they had walked together. He remembered how Chota had disembarked from the ship fifty years ago, covered in dirt and faeces, on the brink of collapse.