Two Empresses

by Brandy Purdy

  Musicians, dancers, singers, the palace dwarves, jugglers, acrobats, magicians, and puppeteers all came to perform for the lady laboring in agony upon her glittering gold birthing chair with only a sheer red curtain not quite modestly veiled between them and her open legs. The midwife had only to move away for them to see everything.

  Everyone believed I was going to die and they had all come to see it. The triumphant reign of the golden-haired kadin was about to end. Her pearl-white skin would be even whiter when all the blood had drained out of her, they whispered.

  There was so much red in the room it seemed awash in blood. I was unbearably hot; the maids assigned to fan me only annoyed rather than cooled me with their cruel eyes and malicious chatter. One of them kept “accidentally” resting her hand on the back of the birthing chair, just where my hair fell, and pulling it. If I hadn’t been in so much pain I would have gotten up and slapped her; I was just mad enough to do it. Even Naime’s tears falling on my face as she stood over me, wiping away my sweat with a perfumed handkerchief, failed to cool me. My eyes kept fading out of focus, I was light-headed and nauseous, and twice I vomited.

  The noise was simply unbearable! Why couldn’t I have peace and quiet? I caught hold of Lâle’s hand and begged him to make them all leave. He looked down at me with sad eyes and said he was sorry, but that was not permitted, this was a centuries-old tradition. I didn’t want all these people dancing, juggling, singing, telling jokes, and performing puppet shows, acrobatics, and magic tricks all at the same time through a hazy red curtain, all trying to distract me from my pain, ingratiating wives kneeling beside my chair to show me the gifts they had brought me and my unborn child, servants offering me sherbet, candied fruits, Turkish delight, feta cheese, and cool melon slices to help keep up my strength, dwarves making funny faces capering in circles around my chair making me feel even dizzier, and the harem women all watching me with hard, narrowed eyes, waiting to see the life leave me. My head began to spin and I had to close my eyes. There was a high-pitched ringing in my ears drowning out the noise on the other side of the curtain. The pain was like a red fist pummeling my stomach and then reaching up, between my legs, deep inside of me to savagely grab and twist. My nails raked furrows in the gilt arms of my chair and blood streamed from my lips when I bit them to keep the screams from flying out.

  Untold hours passed; sometimes I was encouraged to rise and walk about, or to lie upon the bed and rest, but nothing eased the pain and I always ended up back in the chair again with the midwife kneeling between my legs. She massaged my stomach and sometimes had me kneel on all fours upon the bed while she crouched behind me, attempting to shift the child within. She said it seemed to be turning cartwheels inside of me.

  The Sultan’s physician was summoned and the midwife stepped away, into a corner, to consult with him. The midwife gestured frantically, adamantly, and the doctor frowned and shook his head. His expression was very grave and she seemed close to tears. And then my enemy Senieperver, head to toe in black encrusted with rubies, with ropes of those big bold red sparkling stones entwined in her turban and hair, layering her throat and wrists, and bloodred brilliants spotting her veils, swept in like a queen and went to speak with them.

  Lâle, alert at my side, started toward them, but at his approach their intense little cluster broke apart, and Senieperver sailed grandly past him as though she didn’t even see him. Yes, she even dared snub the Kizlar Aga. She came to stand before me, towering over me, and this time I saw pure evil in her soulless black eyes.

  “They are going to try to save your child by cutting it out of you with a knife,” she said coolly, “but you will not live to see it. The harem is full of beautiful women; one more or less will not matter to Abdul Hamid. Do not bother to beg for it; your life is worth nothing.”

  Silence, I suddenly noticed, had fallen all around us. There was a rustle of heavy silk behind Senieperver and all fell to their knees as Abdul Hamid approached and laid a jewel-heavy hand upon her shoulder.

  “You do not speak for me, Senieperver,” he said, his soft tone more ominous than any words shouted in anger. He thrust her aside, ignoring her when she threw herself down upon her knees and began kissing the hem of his robe.

  “You!” He pointed to the doctor and the midwife. “Attend her!” He indicated me as I groaned and writhed and grasped the arms of my chair, determined to hold on to my life and the one laboring to be born inside me. “Look at me and listen well,” the Sultan said as they knelt before me, peering between my legs and shaking their heads and frowning helplessly. “If there is a choice to be made you will save her. You will do everything possible to save the Lady Nakshidil, and if that fails, then you will do the impossible and save her, or else her labor will be as nothing, smooth as silk, compared to the pain that you shall suffer before you die.”

  He then turned to regard the harem women, performers, palace servants, and dignitaries’ wives all staring at us in amazement. Such a scene had never transpired in the history of the harem. The Sultan had never entered a birthing chamber before. What Senieperver said was generally held true—a woman’s life counted for nothing, her sole purpose was to please the Sultan, and if she died in childbirth she died gladly sacrificing herself for the gift she was giving him.

  Abdul Hamid’s stare seemed to take them all in one by one. But this time the women trembled with terror at having the Sultan’s eyes linger upon their faces.

  “She is worth more to me than all of you,” he said.

  Senieperver was still groveling and kissing the hem of his robe and he kicked her away like a man annoyed by a dog trying to mate with his leg.

  He came to me and knelt at my side, unclasped my quaking hand from the arm of the chair, kissed it, then held it tight, entwining his fingers with mine.

  “Come, Nakshidil,” he said gently, “hold on to me, and we shall do this together. . . .”

  And that is what we did. I don’t know how, but God, or Allah, gave us another miracle. With a last wrenching, tearing pain my son slipped from my body in a gush of blood, still and blue as my eyes.

  “He is dead,” the midwife said, laying his body in the golden basin on the floor between my open legs. She said it as though it were nothing at all, in the same voice as she might have said, It is going to rain.

  “Give him to me!” I cried, and when she hesitated I slapped her. I had never struck anyone in my life before, but, weak as I was, I slapped her so hard I left the print of my hand on her face and my rings cut into her cheek, bringing bright rivulets of ruby-red blood. I snatched up my son and gave him my own breath. I massaged his little heart through his tiny blue chest and begged him please to “Live! Live!” In desperation, I pounded his small back. “Breathe!” I begged. And he did. God, or Allah, someone, answered my prayers. My son coughed and spluttered and the blue began to fade from his skin, replaced by a healthy pink. And then he cried, hearty and loud, protesting the indignity of being struck on his first day of life.

  “We have a son,” I said as I cradled his little body against my breast.

  “Allah be praised!” Abdul Hamid said as he enveloped both of us in his arms. “We have a son! A son with hair of gold just like yours, Nakshidil! This is a good omen.” He touched a tiny gilt curl, glimmering through the blood of my body. “His name shall be Altin—Golden! And when he is sultan, with you as his mother to guide him, he shall usher in a golden age; in Turkey everything shall be golden! If only I could live to see it!”

  I had never seen Abdul Hamid so happy before.

  “You will!” I promised him with tears streaming from my eyes. “Come what may, you shall live forever in my heart, and in our son’s—I shall see to it!” I swore.

  “Nakshidil”—he leaned his brow against mine—“for me, everything already is golden; it has been since the day you came into my life.”

  CHAPTER 36

  In Martinique we have a saying: When you have bad luck, a grain of rice will break your head, a butter lea
f will cut your foot open, a snake will bite you with the tip of his tail.

  We were too happy. Some might say the loas, the djinns and ifrits, whatever name one wishes to give evil spirits, saw us and envied our happiness, so they had to take it from us.

  * * *

  I was in my room one day, lying on my bed cooing over little Altin, when one of the black eunuchs rushed in. I must come at once, he said; Abdul Hamid had been taken ill and was asking for me with what might be his dying breath. I didn’t think; I leapt up, leaving Altin in the care of his nurse, Esimee, and raced from the room with Kuvvetti dashing after me, our feet flying over the Golden Path.

  I found the Sultan sitting on his divan with his jeweled hookah, perfectly well and surprised to see me. The eunuch who had summoned me had seemingly melted into the walls. I thought he was right behind us, but I hadn’t given him another thought after he had delivered his message.

  My heart stood still and then started racing right along with my feet as Kuvetti and I ran back to my room. But we were too late. Esimee lay atop the splintered remains of my son’s ruby-encrusted ebony cradle, the precious stones scattered upon the carpet like drops of blood mingling with her own. When I turned her over blood burbled from the deep gash in her throat as she struggled to speak. “I tried . . .” Her eyes drifted toward the window as her life took flight.

  “Do not look!” Kuvetti cried. She swept me up in her arms and carried me, fighting futilely, from the room. Over her shoulder I saw my son silhouetted against the setting sun glowing like orange embers through the gold-latticed windows. He was dangling from a silken noose tied to the curtain rod.

  * * *

  The eunuch who had lured me away was found with his throat cut, floating facedown in the Bosphorus. Not a soul in the harem claimed to know or to have seen anything. No one had seen me rush out of my room nor anyone enter in my absence. No one had heard Esimee’s dying screams or the wood of the cradle smashing. If Altin had cried before he died no one heard that either.

  Abdul Hamid swore vengeance, he promised me he would discover who had done this terrible thing and kill them in the most merciless manner possible, but I didn’t care; more deaths would not bring Altin back to life. And I knew who had done this; even if no evidence pointed to Senieperver the truth did.

  But Senieperver was also the mother of Abdul Hamid’s son, the former favorite I had supplanted, and he could not bring himself to condemn her without proof. Anger and instinct were not enough. Of course, she swore both ignorance and innocence. She deluged me with condolences and sympathy so sickeningly sweet that just the sight of her, or the sound of her voice, made my stomach churn.

  * * *

  I sank into a deep depression. All I did was sleep and weep. I pushed all food away. I neglected my person and Abdul Hamid. I no longer went to him and didn’t care if any of the other women did. I didn’t care about anything anymore. No one could even offer me the consolation that I might someday have another child; birthing Altin had wrecked my womb.

  One night I awakened to see Abdul Hamid standing over my bed.

  “I have something for you,” he said.

  He stepped aside and an ebony-skinned woman approached carrying a small boy in her arms. His skin was the golden rich color of caramel and his eyes dark and almond shaped beneath a fringe of straight black hair. He clung to his nurse and stared down at me with a grave dignity combining wariness and curiosity. He seemed so solemn and still for such a little boy.

  “This is my son Mahmoud,” Abdul Hamid said. “He is two years old. His mother died giving life to him. I give him to you now.”

  The Sultan motioned to the nurse, she bent, and, of their own accord, my arms rose up to accept Mahmoud. The moment his arms closed around my neck and our eyes met I knew this was meant to be. I felt the grief drain from me and life, and love, come surging back up to fill me again. In that instant I found, I knew, beyond a shadow of a doubt, my purpose in life.

  “Take him and make him the sultan our son would have been, the sultan that I should have been,” Abdul Hamid said.

  He laid a gentle hand on his son’s dark head in blessing. “May he be gentle with his women, ferocious and victorious on the field of battle, humble in the mosque, and superb on the throne.”

  “He will,” I said with absolute conviction.

  * * *

  I think I truly discovered what love means when Abdul Hamid gave Mahmoud to me. It was the only way he could give me a part of himself to be with me after he was gone, and another child, to cherish and call my own, since my damaged womb could never bring forth another, and to give Turkey the golden future he had promised on the day our own son was born.

  There is so much weight already on these little shoulders, I used to think whenever I looked at my adopted son, but I will help you bear the burden.

  * * *

  We astonished the court, long accustomed to regarding women as possessions and ornaments, by becoming a happy, contented little family. Not only did I defy the odds and survive childbirth and keep the Sultan’s favor, but Mahmoud salved my grief and saved me; as his mother I found purpose and meaning. I flourished and regained my health and beauty, and Abdul Hamid loved me more than ever before. At every court ceremony and entertainment, I was there at Abdul Hamid’s side, often seated on a cushion at his feet with my head resting against his knee, and Mahmoud was always right there with me. I would not make the same mistake again and leave him alone and vulnerable the way I had Altin. Now whenever Senieperver’s gaze lighted upon me and Mahmoud my eyes flashed back a warning, telling her that I would fight like a tigress for this little one. Lâle had told me once that there were no second chances in the harem, but I had been given one, and I would never take that precious gift for granted.

  * * *

  Even as he was learning his native tongue, I began to teach Mahmoud French and we studied the Koran and the Bible together and compared and contrasted their tales and teachings. As he grew, every day without fail I told him stories—fables and fairy tales, of heroes like Alexander the Great, the Emperor Charlemagne, and more ambiguous ones like Robin Hood, the thief who stole from the rich to give to the poor, the titillating but altruistic tale of Lady Godiva’s naked ride, and of every other heroine, saint, king, queen, hero, and villain I could remember, meet, or rediscover in Selim’s books. I told Mahmoud of my own life, the magical isle of Martinique with its voodoo queen, my family, Mama and Papa, little Marthe and wild cousin Rose, my voyage across the sea to France, the tedious years I had spent in the convent matching my will against Mother Angélique’s, and everything I knew of history, law, humanity, and religion, the good and the bad and the in-between, acts of courage and cowardice, justice and injustice, even the terror and turmoil of revolution sweeping through France, destroying all its beauty and grace. I told my son anything and everything I could think of that might prove useful and valuable in molding Mahmoud into a man of wisdom, refinement, and enlightenment, a man who would embrace progress, not shy away from it, a sultan who would preserve the best of his country’s customs and cast away the worst, and use his power for the greater good. I even told him the proverbs, the memorable, dearly familiar sayings unique to Martinique.

  The serpent doesn’t hate the man who kills him; he hates the man who said: “Beware! A serpent!”

  The monkey never finds her child ugly. (I applied this one to Senieperver and Mustafa.)

  Women love scandal more than bees love honey.

  Words in the mouth are not heavy; talk is light.

  You must sleep on the riverbank to understand the language of the fish.

  If you would eat the ox’s head you must not fear the eyes.

  A dog has four legs, but he cannot take four roads.

  A good foot saves a cowardly body.

  Every firefly gives light for his own self first.

  The monkey knows which tree to climb; he will not attempt to climb a thorn tree.

  The thief does not like to see his
partner carry the sack.

  Teeth are not the heart. A smile does not always mean a good heart.

  My son would not be the lazy, pampered, selfish creature Senieperver had whelped if I could help it, and I would move heaven and earth if I had to, to keep my promise to Abdul Hamid. I borrowed books from Selim and read whenever I could to further my own knowledge and when Mahmoud was given a tutor I sat veiled behind a latticed screen and learned along with him.

  Abdul Hamid gave me a walled garden all my own where roses, jasmine, honeysuckle, and the bloodred amarantus flowers called “love lies bleeding” grew around a gilded kiosk. There was a pond filled with gold and silver fish and water lilies beside a gray granite bench and black cypress tree at the heart of it, and here I would sit every day and talk with Mahmoud. Sometimes Selim joined us in our conversations, though I was always careful not to appear overly familiar with him lest Abdul Hamid’s heart and head be troubled by jealous stirrings again.

  * * *

  In the winter of my twenty-second year, Abdul Hamid developed a bad cough. He simmered with a persistent fever yet shook always with a chill. No fire or furs, not even my love, could keep him warm enough. The doctors dosed him and leeched him and purged him, but really they could do nothing, my beloved’s fate was in the hands of God, or Allah.

  I hardly ever left his side. Abdul Hamid wanted it that way. Even when he tended to matters of state, conferring with the Kizlar Aga and the Grand Vizier, foreign ambassadors, and the Chorbaji-Bashi, the chief of the Janissaries, I was always there, silent and shrouded in my veils, watching secretly from a latticed gallery above the Council Chamber. It comforted him to know I was there. When he was too weary, I made the decisions. When he grew forgetful, I was his memory. He said my common sense was good for Turkey and I was the best tonic of all for its ailing sultan.