by Elif Shafak
He took a step towards her, only now noticing the snow-white cat curled on her lap. Carefully, he took out the hairpin he had stolen years ago and placed it on a table for her to see. ‘I want to return this. It is yours.’
‘How generous. At my age one needs a hairpin,’ she said scathingly. ‘Is that why you are here?’
‘I came to tell you I’m going away for good.’
‘So long, then,’ Hesna Khatun said with a condescending smile.
‘And before I leave there is a score between us that needs to be settled.’
‘You and me? Don’t think so.’
Stung by her mockery, Jahan closed his eyes for an instant and addressed the darkness inside his eyelids. ‘You were more than a nursemaid. You cared for Mihrimah from the time she was a baby. She adored you, told you her secrets.’
‘I raised her. Sultana Hurrem, may God forgive her rotten soul, had no time for her children. Surely not for her daughter. Not until she reached the age of marriage. Then she wanted to make her an innocent dupe in her games.’ Hesna Khatun paused, short of breath. ‘Do you know I was her wet nurse too? Mihrimah grew up on my milk,’ she said, touching her flat chest with pride.
Jahan said nothing, feeling the encroachment of a sorrow he knew only too well.
‘When Mihrimah burned with fever I, not her mother, waited by her bedside. When she fell down, I swathed her knees. I wiped her tears. When she had her first blood, she ran to me. She thought she was dying, poor thing. We slap a girl in this state. You can’t do that to a Princess. So I held her in my arms. I said, “You are not going to die, your Highness. You are a woman now.” ’
Reaching out her fleshless hand she caressed the cat on her lap. ‘What did the Sultana do? Aside from using her children to write letters to the Sultan? Come back from war, my lion, return to my arms. Your absence kindled in my heart a fire that does not abate. Your infants are desolate. Your daughter Mihrimah is in tears. Always scribbling rubbish.’
‘How do you know what she wrote in her letters?’
A hoot of laughter rose, high-pitched and full-throated. ‘In the harem there are no secrets,’ Hesna Khatun intoned. ‘The Sultana was a cunning wife but a careless mother. She doted on her sons. She forgot her daughter.’
Ambushed by the memory of an afternoon, Jahan puckered his lips. He recalled Mihrimah confiding in him how lonely she was and his own surprise that a woman who had everything could ever feel this way. ‘When she was a child the Princess had the best tutors. Her father wanted her to be well read. You used to attend classes with her. Mihrimah was so fond of you; if you weren’t around, she wouldn’t listen. Everything that was taught to her, you also learned.’
‘So, is that a sin?’
‘Not at all,’ Jahan said. ‘Hurrem didn’t notice how devoted Mihrimah was to you. She was too preoccupied with the Sultan – and her plots. She let you take control of her daughter. Then something happened. Hurrem didn’t want you around any more.’
‘How do you know all this?’
‘Mihrimah told me but I never put the pieces together. Till now. Why was the Sultana upset with you?’
‘The Sultana …’ She began to cough, as if her name was a poison she had to purge from her body. When she spoke again, her voice sounded strained. ‘Once Hurrem wanted to go to Bursa with her children. My Mihrimah didn’t want to travel. She was only nine. She said to her mother, if dada comes, I’ll go. That was when Hurrem understood her daughter loved me more than she loved her.’
‘And she sent you away.’
‘Allah knows she did. She tried to get rid of me. Twice.’
‘What happened then? How did you come back?’
‘Mihrimah stopped eating. She got so ill they feared she would die. They had to bring me back. As soon as I reached the palace I asked for a bowl of soup, fed her myself.’
‘Is that when people started to gossip?’ Jahan asked. ‘They called you witch. They accused you of casting a spell on the Princess.’
‘The biggest zhadi was the Sultana! Everyone knew that. She’s the one who spread rumours about me. Oh, the evil in her!’
‘A war of two witches,’ Jahan said, transfixed.
Hesna Khatun gave him a disdainful look. ‘Well, she’s dead, and I’m still in the land of the living.’
A shudder ran through Jahan. ‘How about the second time? You said the Sultana sent you away twice.’
‘That was … when Mihrimah was betrothed to Rustem Pasha. Hurrem didn’t want me around. Can you believe? She sent me on a pilgrimage when my daughter needed me most. They put me on a ship. How I cried, Allah is my witness.’
‘On the way back your ship was attacked by corsairs, we heard.’
‘Oh, it was a sham.’ She broke off, seized by another fit, her body convulsing. ‘The Sultana wanted to finish me off. She arranged the attack to get me killed or incarcerated. One way or another. Wouldn’t have made a difference to her.’
‘How did you escape?’
She glanced up, her eyes brimming. ‘My daughter saved me. She stopped eating again. She cried so much that Sultan Suleiman sent an Ottoman fleet to save me – me, a nursemaid! Who has heard of such a thing?’
‘Where did your power come from, dada?’
‘Sorcery, you think? It came from love! My daughter loved me.’
Jahan leaned forward, his gaze fixed on the cat. ‘You loved Mihrimah, too. But it wasn’t only her you doted on … I have been thinking about this. You were besotted with the Sultan – how could I have missed this before.’
Her expression darkened.
‘You burned for him,’ said Jahan.
‘He burned for me,’ she said with pride. ‘It was me he wanted, not Hurrem. That vixen was in our way.’
‘Do you really believe that? You are not in your right mind,’ Jahan said so softly that it was almost a whisper. ‘You live in your dreams. And wishes.’
She wasn’t listening. ‘If it had not been for that she-devil, Mihrimah would have been my daughter. But she was, I always knew she was. Our child. Mine and Sultan Suleiman’s.’
For a moment they were quiet – she sourly, he disconcertedly. It was he who spoke first. ‘When the Sultana passed away, Mihrimah became the most powerful woman in the empire. You were in the background. In the shadows. Unseen. Unsuspected.’ Suddenly Jahan broke off. ‘Why is that cat not moving?’
‘She’s sleeping. Don’t bother her,’ Hesna Khatun said. ‘Why are you here?’
‘To find the truth –’
‘Truth is a butterfly: it lands on this flower and that. You run after it with a net. If you capture it, you are happy. But it won’t live long. Truth is a delicate thing.’
Her breath was laboured, her body ached down to the bone. She was tired, he saw, but he was not ready to let her go. ‘Where does Davud fit into all this?’
A shadow crossed her face.
‘He was your puppet for years. It was you who sabotaged my master’s buildings. People died. Why?’
Hesna Khatun caressed the cat harder. Not a purr. Not a swing of its tail.
‘I never suspected you, dada. No one did. Who would have suspicions about a nursemaid? You were clever, left no trace.’
‘There must have been one. Otherwise you wouldn’t be here,’ she said bitterly.
‘The herbs you burned for your asthma. Mihrimah’s hair and clothes always smelled like that. The other day Davud had the same smell. I remembered afterwards.’
‘You have a strong sense of smell, Indian,’ she said, propping herself up.
‘My elephant taught me.’ Jahan paused, stroking his beard. ‘You used Davud, but he got out of control. He would not listen to you any more.’
Pulling her cat closer, she sat still as a stone.
‘Why did you do it? For riches? For mightiness? Who bribed you? Was it the Italians? Did they want to stop my master?’
‘Oh, shut up … What nonsense,’ Hesna Khatun said. ‘You want to know the truth? Hear me out. Y
ou think I could have done it without the consent of your Princess?’
‘You are lying. Mihrimah is dead. She can’t defend herself,’ Jahan said. ‘How can you blame her? I thought you loved her.’
‘I loved her more than anyone. More than anything. That’s why I did as she told me and never asked why.’
‘Liar!’
‘We believe in what we choose to believe,’ she rasped.
Anxiety gathered on Jahan’s face like a brewing storm. ‘Why would Mihrimah wish to weaken my master?’
‘She had nothing against your master. Lots against her own father.’
‘Sultan Suleiman?’
‘He was the greatest of sultans and the greatest of sinners, may God forgive him. I never begrudged him, for I knew he was misled by that hellcat Hurrem. But Mihrimah didn’t see it that way. She could not blame her mother. So she blamed the person she loved the most – her father.’
‘I don’t understand.’
‘Sultan Suleiman and Mihrimah were very close. She was his only daughter, his jewel. When she was a child he used to take her everywhere with him. But then everything changed. He became strict, fearful. He saw enemies everywhere and began to neglect his daughter. Mihrimah was hurt, though she never complained. Then the Sultan executed his Grand Vizier. The man whom Mihrimah had called uncle and loved so much. He killed another Vizier. Your master made a mosque for him. And then he put to death his own sons – Mihrimah’s brothers.
‘She was devastated. Torn between her love for her father and her hatred of him. How many times my beautiful daughter moved her quarters into the harem, just to get away from the Sultan. Then she moved back … She loathed him. She adored him. My confused child.
‘Mihrimah was richer than the treasury. None stronger than her. But her heart was broken. It didn’t help that they married her off to that Rustem. What an awful marriage that was, God knows. Unhappy till the end. She never wanted him. Never.’
Feeling dizzy, Jahan walked towards the chest in a corner and sat on it. From here he could see the cat on the old woman’s lap. It had strange eyes – one eye jade-green, one blue and glazed over.
‘The accidents began with the Suleimaniye Mosque,’ Jahan muttered. ‘You tried to disrupt our work.’
‘Mihrimah knew she could never triumph over her father, and she had no intention of doing so. All she wanted was to make things more difficult for him. The mosque your master was building was going to immortalize Sultan Suleiman and show his grandeur to posterity. We decided to slow you down. It was a little revenge.’
‘And you needed an apprentice to be your pawn,’ said Jahan.
‘We considered each of you. Nikola was timid. Yusuf we couldn’t approach; like a clam, he wouldn’t open up. You, we kept aside. Davud was the best. Angry, ambitious.’
‘But Davud wouldn’t obey you forever!’
‘At the beginning he did. Then he got greedy. We didn’t touch him. We could have. It was a mistake, now I know. After Sultan Suleiman’s death, Mihrimah called him and said it was over. He swore he would stop but he didn’t. Secretly he defied her orders. He had an issue with your master, I believe.’
A feeling of nausea took hold of Jahan. ‘I smelled your herbs on Davud after my master’s death. Why were you still seeing him?’
It was a moment before she responded. ‘Davud wanted me to help him become the Chief Royal Architect. He said if I didn’t help him he would tell everyone what we had been doing for all these years.’
‘He blackmailed you!’
Her jaw went slack.
‘What happened to my master’s will? Did he want Davud as his successor?’
‘No,’ she said calmly. ‘He had you in mind.’
Jahan regarded her, at a loss.
‘Your master had written it down. He wanted you. That was his wish. He kept one copy in his house. One in the archives of architects in Vefa.’
‘Is that why Davud took the entire library? He destroyed the wills.’
‘He wanted to make sure there were no other copies anywhere else,’ she said. ‘Now you know everything. Leave, I am tired.’
She turned towards the window, no longer interested in him. In the light of the setting sun her face was carved stone. Her ways pierced Jahan to the quick, not so much her coldness as her air of nonchalance. She did not regret anything, not even when she was, at her age, so close to death.
Jahan said, ‘Did she ever love me?’
‘Why do you ask such a stupid thing?’
‘I need to know if that, too, was a lie. For years I felt guilty if I desired another woman.’
She regarded him with a mixture of contempt and disgust. ‘Who the hell were you? An animal-tamer? A mouse reaching for a mountain! A servant of the Sultan in love with the Sultan’s only daughter! And you have the nerve to ask me whether she loved you? What a simpleton.’
As she moved her arm, Jahan had a full view of the cat. It was Cardamom, the same grimalkin from years ago. Stuffed. In place of its eyes were two gems – one sapphire, one emerald.
‘She liked you, like a pet, like a gown. Like the lokum she tasted. But you’d get bored if you ate it every day. Nay, she never loved you.’
Jahan pursed his lips, wordlessly.
‘Fool,’ she whispered. ‘My beautiful fool. That’s what she called you. That’s why she adored you so. But would you call that love?’
Rising to his feet, Jahan staggered. He could bring this to an end. He could kill her there and then. Strangle her with her scarf. The door was closed. No one would know. Even if they did, no one would lament her passing. He took a few steps towards her, saw the fear in her gaze.
‘How old are you, dada? You must be way over a hundred. Is it true you were damned with eternal life?’
Hesna Khatun was about to laugh when a dry cough stopped her midway. ‘I … wasn’t the only one.’
‘What do you mean?’ Jahan asked in panic. But even as the words left him he knew the answer.
‘Think, which artisan, which artist, which man of great ambitions wouldn’t want to live for as long as I have?’
Jahan shook his head. ‘If you are referring to my master, he was an exemplary man. Nothing to do with a witch like you.’
‘At what age did he die?’ Her cackle turned into a cough.
Before she could catch her breath, Jahan snatched the stuffed animal from her hands and hurled it into the fire. Cardamom’s fur was set ablaze, the gems glowing amid the flames.
‘Don’t,’ she screamed too late, her voice splintered.
‘Let the dead rest in peace, dada.’
As she watched the burning cat, Hesna Khatun’s chin quivered with fury. She said, ‘May you suffer from my scourge, Architect.’
Jahan headed towards the door as fast as he could. He opened it, but not before he had heard her last words.
‘May you beg God the Almighty, down on your knees, to be taken, for it is enough … it is too much. May He hear you pleading … may He see your agony and pity you, oh, poor apprentice of Sinan, but still … still may He not let you die.’
Every morning Balaban sent one of his men down to the harbour: ‘See if the storm’s passed and the clouds’ve left.’
Each time the beagle came back with the same news: ‘The clouds are there, chief. Not goin’ anywhere.’
Davud’s henchmen were prowling around, inspecting the passengers, checking the freight being loaded. Having learned this, Jahan knew it would have made more sense to give up travelling by sea. He should have slipped into a cart heading out of the city gates. Once out of danger he could try his luck at another port – perhaps Smyrna or Salonika. Yet, dangerous as it was, he was bent on departing from Istanbul the way he had arrived. And somehow Davud, knowing him well, understood this.
Together Balaban and Jahan hatched a plan, deciding it would be safer to arrive at the port in disguise.
‘I could pass as a Roma,’ Jahan suggested. If they went around in similar attire and banded together
, they might pull it off.
Balaban wasn’t convinced. This could make things harder – on land and in the water. ‘You don’t want to be treated like us, brother. It’s no paradise being a Roma.’
Next they considered dressing him up as a merchant. If he gave the impression of being wealthy and important, he might have less trouble while boarding. But as soon as the ship was riding the waves, the sailors would rob him blind. Jahan had to look respectable without looking rich. In the end, it was decided he would pose as an Italian artist – a dreamer of sorts, who had been roaming the Orient selling his talents and was now returning home, older and wiser. Should anyone inquire about his paintings, he would say they had been shipped earlier. If things went as expected, he should reach Florence in ten days.
Finding him the right costume was no problem for Balaban and his men, though getting the correct size proved tricky. They handed Jahan a sack of clothes – a shirt of linen, a doublet with odd sleeves, a leather jerkin and breeches that could be tied above the knee. Each of fine fabric and each too big.
Balaban grinned when he saw Jahan. ‘Signori Jahanioni, you’ve shrunk!’
They laughed like the boys they were deep inside. Balaban’s men had robbed the Venetian Doge’s clerk in plain daylight – a man clearly sturdier than Jahan. Yet, after a few alterations by Balaban’s wife, everything fit perfectly. She insisted on dyeing Jahan’s hair and beard with henna. When she had finished, Sinan’s apprentice could barely recognize himself in the mirror. His outfit was crowned with a velvet hat – purple on black. By now his bruises had healed. Only the scar on his cheek remained, a reminder of a night he would rather forget.
On the day of Jahan’s departure, Balaban and his men climbed on a carriage pulled by a donkey. In his honour it was garlanded with flowers and ribbons. So many had huddled into the wagon that the poor donkey could barely move, let alone trot. Cursing the law that forbade Gypsies from riding horses, then quarrelling among themselves, they tried to persuade one another to stay behind – to no avail. Everyone wanted to escort Jahan. In the end, they arranged three carriages. Up and down the streets they proceeded in a gaudy convoy, ignoring the stares of the townspeople, who gaped at them, half in amazement, half in disdain, as if they had descended from a different Adam and a different Eve.
