Prayer-Cushions of the Flesh

by Robert Irwin, Magnus Irvin

  ‘It was true that during the reign of Bayezit’s father, a couple of young men had succeeded in penetrating the Harem several times in the disguise of dressmakers. But eventually their imposture was discovered and the whole matter secretly and summarily dealt with. How exactly it was dealt with was not known until some five or six months later, when a diver, one of those who swim in the Bosphorus and make a living from scavenging in the sunken wrecks, was diving off Palace Point. The water there is quite shallow but murky, so it was hard to see in. However, the salvage divers have a trick for this. When they plunge in, they do so with a mouthful of olive oil. Then, when they have made their way to the bottom, they let out the oil and look through it. The oil is like a lamp in the dark waters. So the diver let out his oil some way below the surface off Palace Point and then, looking through the great golden gob of oil which shook in the currents of the Bosphorus, he saw weighted sacks resting on the sandy bottom and they too undulated in the currents and it was plain to the diver that the forms which filled the sacks were, or at least had been, human. He returned to the surface and advised his fellow swimmers against thinking of salvaging in that particular stretch of water.’

  ‘Those were great and fierce days. But all that was in the past. In my own time, no one has got past the Janissaries – no human being that is. So after a while I began to get complacent and even a little lazy in my job as guardian of the virtue of the Harem. I was young and the girls were young and pleasant. After a few months, however, I started noticing white stains on some of the sheets in the dormitories. I taxed the concubines whose sheets were so suspiciously marked. They were all glib and smirking. Why, they replied, those were nothing but the stains left by egg whites! It was their new passion late at night – to eat raw eggs in bed. Well, I was a young and inexperienced eunuch, but even so I was doubtful. Why, after all, did the yolks of the eggs leave no stains? At about the same time, I was slowly becoming aware of hearing a tinkling sound only just within the limits of the audible. Then my skin would prickle. This did not happen all the time, but it was happening more and more often.’

  ‘I continued to make surprise inspections of the dormitories, but never did I find a concubine in the arms of a young man – nor for that matter did I ever catch them eating raw eggs. I might have let things drop, were it not for the fact that I was noticing that some of the young girls were looking haggard and pale. I would walk in on them unannounced and I would find them, singly or together, softly moaning and writhing about on the floor or on a mattress for no visible reason. As you know, Bayezit used to favour strapping, vital young women and we were at pains only to buy the healthiest specimens in the slave market. But now his Harem seemed drained of all vitality. The girls were not even interested in the dear old Carpet of Mirth any more and those who greeted me on my rounds of inspection were often wild-eyed and sweaty. The Sultan also was in no better state. I noticed that his hands had become clammy and they shook slightly, like leaves in a breeze.’

  ‘Then one day a couple of the youngest concubines came to me and complained that they were having difficulty in seeing. They were afraid that they were going blind. I realised then in a flash how stupid I must be not to have seen immediately what the trouble was. No wonder the concubines were having problems with their vision!’

  Emerald paused for solemn effect,

  ‘The whole Harem was infested with peris.’

  Anadil snorted, but Emerald continued,

  ‘I believe that I am the only person in this room ever to have seen a peri. They are by no means easy things to see. They are like the jinns, but they are smaller. A jinn may often be bigger than a man and sometimes he or she will find it a tight fit to squeeze into a man’s body. But the peri is a different matter. Oh who can see the peris? The largest is no bigger than the top of my thumb here. Their appearance is as faint as dreams, but madder than dreams. And they are so fast, like mercury racing over the surface of things, looking for resting places, but never finding them, all the time in and out of pitchers, hiding in eyebrows, exploring the lingerie chests, dancing on pillows, swinging on cobwebs, curdling milk, scavenging in ants’ nests, dancing from one hiding place to the next, teasing the eyes of those who try to look on them. I could have a troop of peris dancing on the back of my hand and not be aware of them until I thought about it – the drumming of their feet being no more than itching on my skin.’

  ‘I know that there is the blood of peris in my family,’ said Perizade. ‘That is why I am able to tell the future.’

  Anadil smiled, but Emerald was stern,

  ‘Fairy blood is not a thing to boast about.’

  And he continued,

  ‘It was no wonder that some of the concubines were starting to go blind. The peris were so small and, besides, one needed to squint to see them and they were as nimble as thought. I have observed that sometimes for sport they would plunge into a perfumed bead of sweat on a concubine’s flesh and in such a manner they would travel fast as a quicksilver pearl down her body. A marvellous things to see – and all but impossible to catch at. A man could be as fast as a fishing cormorant and still find himself snatching at air.’

  ‘Now you,’ said Emerald, pointing at Orkhan, ‘I know that you really are a big man, almost as tall as the door of the room you entered by. But your image is a different matter. Your image has to shrink to enter my eyeball, so that I can see you. That is right, is it not? So it is that I see you as a little mannikin, no bigger than my eyeball. Nevertheless, not being mad, I know that you really are a big man. The peris, now … the peris are different. Their image neither shrinks nor grows. A peri’s image is always the same size as its actual body, which is smaller than an eyeball and so hard to see. I could always tell when a concubine was watching a peri, as her pupils would dilate so as to accommodate the tiny creature’s image.’

  As Emerald paused to puff at the hookah, it suddenly struck Orkhan that the blacks of the eunuch’s own pupils were preternaturally large. Emerald blew a few smoke-rings and continued,

  ‘The peris were as pretty as motes of dust caught in a shimmering dance in a shaft of sunlight, but I was like a man possessed, for, though pretty, they did such bitter mischief. They rubbed themselves against the lips of the concubines so fiercely that the mouths of those ladies scorched. They tinkled and hung upon the ladies’ nipples and milked them as if they were a herd of cows. They left little threads like snail’s tracks on the velvets and brocades of the Harem’s wardrobe. What was most sad to me was that those lovely girls who used to come to me for ideas for their games or arbitration in their little quarrels, now fled as soon as they saw me coming. When I did succeed in cornering a concubine, she would look back at me so big-eyed in her seeming innocence, as if I could never guess at what hankypanky she had been getting up to with her secret little friends. Nobody was saying anything. They only wanted to be in huddles together, all giggling and smirking. Some of the girls used to smear jam on their breasts, so as to amuse themselves by trapping peris in the sticky mess. They were always asking the housekeeper for more jam. Also I recall that there was a strange new passion for cucumbers. I now know that the prick of fairy lusts led them to the cucumber, but at the time I was mightily puzzled. You will never guess how this was.’

  At this point Emerald looked round the room to see if any of his audience could hazard a guess as to why the concubines should want cucumbers, but no one said anything. Perizade had been listening wide-eyed to everything Emerald was saying, but Anadil’s attention was more fitful and she kept smiling at Orkhan, in such a way as to show that she did not believe a word of what they were hearing.

  ‘Well, I will come to it presently’, said Emerald. ‘The little peris were skilled at archery, they carried bows strung with spiders’ threads and practised on the bellies of the concubines. Then, when they were tired of archery, they would hold miniature orgies also on the bellies of the concubines. The peris would act out acrobatic sexual scenes for the young women and rehearse the sa
me obscenities again and again, until the foul sequence of acts was known by heart. The girls on whose bodies the peris performed would pant and blush and sweetly moan at the delight of it all.’

  ‘The Sultan was also afflicted, though differently. I sometimes took it upon myself to watch over him at nights as he slept. Then, usually in the grey hours of the dawn, my wake would be rewarded. Half dozing, I would hear the tell-tale thin, tintinnabulation and, coming close to the bed and squinting, I would observe the peris sitting on the Sultan’s prick. Some would be embracing it, while others would be hammering on it with their tiny fists and imploring it to rise. Then, as it would begin to extend and rise, the peris all struggled to hang on like mad. Usually they would all be thrown off, but occasionally one of them, stronger and more determined than the others, would be triumphantly carried up on the knob of the rampant prick. Then all the others who had been thrown off would caper about it and hug its base and tickle the Sultan’s balls. Finally, they would stand about waiting to be showered in the foaming white stuff and their tinkling glee would be louder than ever. In the daylight too my Sultan was plagued by these little folk. I would often see the Queen of the peris in a miniature skirt of green performing a high-kicking dance on the bridge of the Sultan’s nose. He would be looking at this phantasm of delight cross-eyed and moistly drooling with lust. His prick would have shot up like a giant toadstool and he would be mad to do the impossible and get it inside her, but that was an impossible liaison. And she was sad too. They all were. The peris all wanted to have intercourse with ordinary mortals. In the end, his heart would come into his hand and they both had to be content with that. As I looked on the Sultan slumping back all pale and exhausted, I would hear their tinny giggling and I thought to myself … ’

  Emerald puffed again at the hookah. His hands ran up and down its mouthpiece as if it were a flute. Anadil now diffidently raised a hand,

  ‘Emerald, dearest Emerald, it is time for us to be making our way to the hammam, for Orkhan must be washed and massaged before his meeting with the Valide Sultan and his introduction to the Rapturous Chamber.’

  ‘But I want to know what happened to the peris!’ wailed Perizade. ‘Where are they now?’

  ‘Too hear is to obey,’ said Emerald, ‘I will escort you to the hammam and, as we walk, I will tell you how it all fell out. But, first the Sultan might like to see me make water?’ He roared with laughter.

  Orkhan required some urging before he could be got to follow the eunuch into a little cubicle off the reception room. Emerald stood over the hole in the floor and reached up for a silver tube which he kept embedded in the folds of his turban. Then he pulled apart his gown and inserted the silver tube into a curiously fashioned device of ivory which seemed to be embedded in his groin. When he turned the ivory spigot, a stream of golden liquid spurted out of the silver tube. He laughed at Orkhan’s surprise.

  A few minutes later, they set out for the hammam down a long corridor of lotus columned arches. Now they were escorted not just by Emerald, but also by a pair of deaf mutes. From time to time, Orkhan fell back a little, so that he could admire Perizade from behind and watch the rise and fall of her large bottom. As it moved under her shiny, tight dress, he imagined that he could hear it hissing. He thought of her initial reluctance to submit to him in the pavilion and of her final hug. She appeared to pay him no attention.

  After they and their escort had gone only a little way, Emerald resumed talking about the great days of the peris.

  ‘I recall that they loved the warmth of the bathhouse. Even more, they liked to hide in lavatories. They were like cockroaches in this preference and, indeed, I often observed them fighting for the territory and using their bows and arrows to drive off the fierce insects. The peris liked to come upon a lady when she was crouching to urinate and then they would scamper under her thighs, so as to shower in the golden rain. I often watched them doing this. They were endlessly fascinated by the most private functions of female bodies, they loved intimate smells and they would spend hours carousing in the Tavern of the Perfume-Makers. In those days (this was in the days when Nargis was chief concubine, before your mother, the revered Sultan Valide, sent her the venomous hat) in those days there was a passion among the concubines for satin knickers trimmed with lacy frills, silk petticoats and silk stockings with garters. Such was the fashion that every concubine seemed to float on her own cloud of pink or yellow frothy foam. I believe that the peris were behind this fashion, for they loved this kind of gossamer-delicate and intricate wear. They would clamber into the stocking tops of the concubines and ride about in this manner. They used to tiptoe into the girls’ knickers and snuggle there for warmth and soft comfort … and, of course, the girls liked them being there for they would receive feathery tickles from the little creatures nestling in their underwear. There was also a fashion for an infidel contrivance called the bodice which held the breasts erect and firm. Every concubine was mad to squeeze her breasts into such a garment and the peris would follow the breasts. Then, harnessed by these dainty things, the peris would take their ease under the soft paps of their chosen girl.’

  ‘Once, being curious to know what pleasure the concubines derived from all this, I seized a pair of Nargis’s knickers. They were pink and silky and the inside swarmed with frolicking peris. Having taken them off Nargis, I wriggled into the knickers myself, so as to expose my groin and bottom to the peris’ delicate attentions. When I looked in the mirror, I could see them rippling under the silk and, when I looked at Nargis’s face, I could see that she could see them too. However, since I was a clean-cut eunuch, there was nothing for the peris to get a hold on and, as for having a peri up the arse, I did not enjoy it. So, the peris having failed to enchant my lower parts, I was no wiser than before concerning the subtle congress between my concubines and those fairy folk. Oh, it used to drive me mad to hear the faint rustling of the peris in the silken underwear sported by the Harem! So then I and the Keeper of Lingerie used to hold regular knicker inspections and any garments that I judged unsatisfactory had to be sent to the laundry, for the peris could not stand soap. The concubines hated me for that. Even so, it was no use, for the peris were cunning at concealing themselves in the gussets and the lacy trimmings of the girl’s underwear. In the end, I had to give orders that there should be no more wearing of underwear in the Harem. For, after all, no one really needs underwear. It just slows things down. And from that day to this there is no wearing of underwear in the Imperial Harem and we are all much better for that!’

  ‘And the post of Keeper of Lingerie was abolished!’ cried Perizade. ‘I should have liked that rank.’

  ‘Why are you telling us this story?’ Orkhan wanted to know.

  ‘Why! For no purpose at all, save my pleasure in the stringing of words together and in the telling of it. Must everything have a purpose?’

  And Emerald shot Orkhan a look that seemed full of meaning, even if it was not possible to decipher what that meaning was. He continued,

  ‘However, I was still a troubled man,’ he continued. ‘For the peris did not disappear with the underwear and I found that I could still hear them tinkling under the skirts of the concubines. Oh it is a subtle and sinister sensation, to hear the sound of fairy bells from under a woman’s skirts! On investigating further, I found that the peris were still clambering up into the skirts and sheltering in the warmth and intimacy there afforded and the mad things used to hang on to the pubic hairs of the women and, from that safe refuge, they used to bait me by swinging and ringing their tiny bells. The madness of the bells! Those bells were driving me crazy! I tried getting the girls to lift their skirts, so that I could dust down the insides of their thighs with my hands, but really they were so disagreeable about this and, besides, there was more work in this respect than I could handle. So then I gave orders that, from that day on, all the concubines should shave their pubic hairs and that practice too has continued from that day to this. Now I was even more out of favour with
the young ladies of the Harem, which saddened me, but I did it out of love for them and their innocence. And consider that one concubine had gone blind from playing with the peris!’

  ‘However, to continue, despite having got rid of underwear and pubic hair, I remained a troubled man, for the numbers of the peris did not diminish. Indeed, I thought that I could detect new faces in their wild rout. It puzzled me how they were getting into the Harem. Then I thought about the young concubines and their passion for cucumbers, which I remembered seemed to have started at about the same time as the Harem became infested with peris. Now, the cucumber I have always thought is a rather dull vegetable. It has very little flavour. Is that not so? It is pale and watery with just a taint of bitterness. Therefore I was suspicious of the passion of the young ladies for this dull-seeming vegetable and once again I was right to be so.’

  Emerald paused to ensure he had his hearers’ full attention.

  ‘The next time a consignment of cucumbers was delivered into the Harem, I pounced on them and took them into my rooms where you have been, and, on cutting a cucumber in half with my scimitar, I discovered that its centre had indeed been hollowed out and there, in the hollow, lay a sleeping peri. I brought my scimitar down once more and cut her and her vegetable chamber into tiny pieces. The next cucumber was the same. Each and every one had been cunningly hollowed out so that it could serve as a comfortable chamber for the peri who was in this manner smuggled into the Harem. So I started to work through the rest of the cucumbers with my sword, until the floor of my little room was awash with little bits of cucumber and severed limbs of peris. I gave orders that, from then on, cucumber would only be allowed into the Harem after having been thoroughly diced first. There was then naturally a problem with – ’