by Boris Akunin
“Who c-could ever have imagined it?” commented Fandorin.
“Are you stammering? Concussion? Don’t worry about it, it’ll pass. Near Kokand a blast wave flung me against the corner of a mosque so hard my teeth were chattering for an entire month—would you believe, I couldn’t even get a glass anywhere near my mouth. But after that I was all right; it passed.”
“And where did you c-come from before here?”
“That, brother Erasmus, is a long story.”
The hussar ran an eye over the club’s habitués, who were observing him with undisguised curiosity, and said: “Don’t be shy, gentlemen, come closer. I’m relating my Scheherazade to my friend Erasmus here.”
“Odyssey,” Erast Petrovich corrected him in a low voice, retreating behind the back of Colonel Lukan.
“An Odyssey is what happens in Greece, but what happened to me was a genuine Scheherazade.” Zurov paused to whet his listeners’ appetites and then launched into his narrative. “And so, gentlemen, as a result of certain circumstances known only to myself and Fandorin here, I found myself in Naples, totally washed up, high and dry. I borrowed five hundred rubles from the Russian consul—the old skinflint wouldn’t give me any more—and set out for Odessa by sea. But along the way the devil prompted me to arrange a little game with the captain and the navigator. The scoundrels cleaned me out completely, right down to the very last kopeck. Naturally I protested vigorously and, having caused some minor damage to ship’s property in the process, at Constantinople I was thrown off the ship. I mean to say, I was put ashore—without any money or any possessions, not even a hat. And it was winter then, gentlemen. A Turkish winter, but even so it was cold. There was nothing else to be done, so I set out for our embassy. Broke through all the barriers, went all the way up to the ambassador himself, Nikolai Pavlovich Gnatiev. A most understanding kind of fellow. I can’t lend you any money, he says, on account of my being opposed in principle to lending of any kind, but if you like, count, I can take you on as my adjutant—I’m in need of a few valiant officers. In that case you will receive the usual start-up expenses and so on and so forth. And so I became an adjutant.”
“To Gnatiev himself?” said Sobolev with a shake of his head. “The cunning old fox must clearly have seen something special in you.”
Zurov shrugged modestly and continued.
“On my very first day in my new post I provoked an international conflict and an exchange of diplomatic notes. Nikolai Pavlovich sent me with a request to the well-known Russophobe and religious hypocrite Hassan Hairulla—he’s the top Turkish priest, a bit like the pope in Rome.”
“Sheikh-ul-Islam,” interjected McLaughlin, scribbling in his notebook. “He’s more like the chief procurator of your synod.”
“That’s it,” Zurov agreed with a nod. “That’s what I meant. This Hairulla and I took an immediate dislike to each other. I addressed him with appropriate respect, through the interpreter: ‘Your Grace, an urgent letter from Adjutant General Gnatiev.’ But the rotten dog blinks his eyes and answers me back in French—deliberately, so the dragoman can’t moderate what he says: ‘Now is the hour of prayer. Wait.’ He squatted down with his face toward Mecca and started repeating over and over: ‘Oh, great and all-powerful Allah, extend thy favor to thy faithful servant and let him live to see the vile infidels who are unfit to trample thy holy earth burning in hell.’ Very nice indeed. Since when did they start praying to Allah in French? Very well, I think, in that case I can introduce something new into the Orthodox canon. Hairulla turns toward me, feeling very pleased with himself now that he’s set the infidel in his place. ‘Give me the letter from your general,’ he says. ’Pardonnez-moi, éminence,’ I reply. ‘This is the very time set for us Russians to say mass. Won’t you pardon me for just a moment.’ Down I go, bang, onto my knees and start praying in the language of Corneille and Rocambole: ‘Lord of all blessings, delight thy sinful servant the boyar, that is, the chevalier Hippolyte, and let him rejoice in the sight of Muslim dogs roasting in the frying pan.’ In short, I caused complications in Russo-Turkish relations, which were already very far from straightforward. Hairulla refused to take the letter, began swearing loudly in his own language, and threw the dragoman and me out. Well, Nikolai Pavlovich gave me a dressing down for the sake of appearances, but I thought he seemed quite pleased. He obviously knew who to send to whom on what errand.”
“Smartly done, Turkestan fashion,” said Sobolev approvingly.
“But not very diplomatic,” put in Captain Perepyolkin, gazing at the unduly familiar hussar disapprovingly.
“I didn’t last too long as a diplomat,” Zurov sighed, then added thoughtfully, “Obviously, that’s not the way my path lies.”
Erast Petrovich snorted rather loudly.
“There I am walking across the Galat Bridge one day, displaying the Russian uniform and taking a look at the pretty girls. They might wear veils, but the she-devils choose the most transparent fabric they can find, and that just makes the temptation even greater. Suddenly I see this divine creature riding toward me in a carriage, with huge velvet eyes sparkling over the top of her veil. And sitting beside her is this Abyssinian eunuch, a great huge brute, and behind them another carriage with the servant women. I stopped and bowed—in a dignified manner befitting a diplomat—and then she removed her glove and blew me a kiss” (Zurov pursed up his lips ) “with her little white hand.”
“She removed her glove?” Paladin inquired in his French accent with the air of an expert. “That is no jest, gentlemen. The Prophet regarded fine, delicate hands as the most seductive part of the female body and categorically forbade noble Muslim women to go without gloves in order not to subject men’s hearts to temptation. And so removing a glove—c’est une grande signe, like a European woman removing . . . But then, I had better refrain from drawing parallels.” He stopped short, casting a sideways glance at Varya.
“There now, you see,” put in the hussar. “After that, how could I possibly offend the lady by ignoring her? I take the shaft horse by the bridle and stop it, because I want to introduce myself. Then that eunuch, the boot-blacked oaf, lashes me smartly across the cheek with his whip. What would you have me do? I pulled out my sword, ran the lout through, wiped my blade on his silk caftan, and went home feeling sad at heart. No time for the pretty lady now. I had a feeling things would end badly. And it was prophetic—they turned out very nastily indeed.”
“But why was that?” Lukan asked curiously. “Was she a pasha’s wife?”
“Worse,” sighed Zurov. “The wife of His Infidel Highness Abdul-Hamid II himself. And of course the eunuch was the sultan’s, too. Nikolai Pavlovich did the best he could for me. He told the padishah in person: ‘If my adjutant had accepted a blow with a whip from a slave, I myself would have torn off his shoulder straps for disgracing the name of a Russian officer.’ But what do they know about the meaning of an officer’s uniform? They threw me out within twenty-four hours. Off to Odessa on a packet boat. It was a good thing the war started soon anyway. When he said good-bye to me, Nikolai Pavlovich told me: ‘You should thank God, Zurov, that it wasn’t the senior wife, but only a “little lady,” kuchum kadineh.’ ”
“Not k-kuchum but kuchuk,” Fandorin corrected him, and suddenly blushed, which Varya thought strange.
Zurov whistled: “Oho! And how do you happen to know that?”
Erast Petrovich did not answer, but he looked highly disgruntled.
“Mr. Fandorin spent some time as the guest of a Turkish pasha,” Varya declared provocatively.
“And the entire harem took care of you?” the count asked with keen interest. “Well, tell us about it, don’t be such a swine.”
“Not the entire harem, only a kuchuk-hanum,” the titular counselor mumbled, clearly reluctant to go into the details. “A really splendid, good-hearted g-girl. And entirely modern. She knows French and English and is fond of Byron. She is interested in medicine.”
This was a new and unexpected
side to the secret agent, and one which for some reason was not at all to Varya’s liking.
“A modern woman would never agree to live as the fifteenth wife in a harem,” she snapped. “It’s humiliating and altogether barbaric.”
“I beg your pardon, mademoiselle, but that remark is not entirely fair,” said Paladin, continuing to roll his Russian r’s in the French manner. “You see, during my years of traveling in the East, I have made quite a serious study of the Muslim way of life.”
“Yes, Charles, yes, do tell us about it,” said McLaughlin. “I recall your series of essays on the life of the harem. It was quite excellent.” The Irishman positively beamed at his own magnanimity.
“Any social institution, including polygamy, has to be viewed in historical context,” Paladin began in a professorial tone, but Zurov pulled such a long face that the Frenchman thought better of it and began speaking like a normal human being. “Actually, in the conditions of the Orient, the harem is the only means capable of offering a woman a chance of survival. Judge for yourself—from the very beginning, Muslims have been a nation of warriors and prophets. Since the men spent their lives waging war, they died, and a huge number of women were widowed or were unable to find themselves a husband in the first place. Who was going to feed them and their children? Mohammed had fifteen wives, but not at all because of his excessively voluptuous inclinations. He accepted the responsibility of caring for the widows of his fallen comrades in arms, so these women could not even be called his wives in the Western sense. What, after all, is a harem, gentlemen? You imagine the soft murmuring of a fountain, seminaked odalisques indolently consuming Turkish delight, the tinkling of coin necklaces, the heady aroma of perfume, and the whole scene veiled in a dense haze of debauchery.”
“And in the middle of it all, the lord and master of this henhouse, wrapped in his robe, with a hookah and a blissful smile on his bright red lips,” Zurov mused dreamily.
“I am afraid I must disappoint you, captain. In addition to the wives, a harem is also poor female relatives, a throng of children, including other people’s, countless female servants, old female slaves living out their final days, and God knows what else. And this entire horde has to be fed and supported by the breadwinner, the man. The richer and more powerful he is, the more dependents he has and the heavier the burden of responsibility he bears. The system of the harem is not only humane, it is the only possible system in the conditions of the East—without it many women would quite simply starve to death.”
“What you describe is some kind of phalanstery, and you make the Turkish husband sound like Charles Fourier,” Varya protested impatiently. “Would it not be better to give women the chance to support themselves, rather than keeping them in the position of slaves?”
“The society of the East is sluggish and little disposed to change, Mademoiselle Barbara,” the Frenchman replied deferentially, pronouncing her name so sweetly in French that it was quite impossible to be angry with him. “It has very few jobs, every one of which has to be fought for, and women would not survive in competition with the men. And in any case, a wife is by no means a slave. If a husband is not to her liking, she can always reclaim her freedom. All she need do is to make her husband’s life so unbearable that he cries out angrily in the presence of witnesses: ‘You are no longer my wife!’ You must agree that it is not very difficult to reduce a husband to such a state. After that, she can collect her things and go. Divorce in the East is not what it is in the West; it is simple. And at the same time, the man is solitary, while the women form a collective. Is it any wonder, therefore, that the real power lies with the harem and not with its master? The most important figures in the Ottoman Empire are not the sultan and the grand vizier, but the padishah’s mother and his favorite wife. And also, of course, the kizlyar-agazi—the head eunuch of the harem.”
“And just how many wives is the sultan allowed to have?” Perepyolkin asked, with a guilty glance at Sobolev. “I’m only asking as a matter of information, of course.”
“Four, like any true believer. But in addition to fully fledged wives, the padishah also has ikbal—something like his favorites—and very young gediklas, or ‘maidens pleasing to the eye,’ who are aspirants to the role of the ikbal.”
“Now that’s a bit more like it,” said Lukan with a satisfied nod. Spotting Varya’s scornful glance, he gave one side of his mustache a smart twirl.
Sobolev (another fine goose) asked in a voluptuous voice: “But surely in addition to wives and concubines there are the slave girls?”
“All the sultan’s women are slaves, but only until a child is born. Then the mother immediately acquires the title of princess and all the privileges that go with it. For instance, the all-powerful Sultana Besma, mother of the late Abdul-Aziz, was once a simple bathhouse attendant, but she lathered Mehmed the Second so successfully that first he took her as a concubine and then he made her his favorite wife. The career opportunities for women in Turkey are truly unlimited.”
“But, all the same, it must be devilishly tiring, having a crowd like that hanging round your neck,” one of the journalists mused. “I’d say it’s a bit too much.”
“Several sultans have also come to the same conclusion,” said Paladin with a smile. “Ibrahim the First, for instance, grew terribly weary of all his wives. It was easier for Ivan the Terrible or Henry the Eighth to deal with such a situation—send the old wife to the block or to a convent, and then you can take a new one. But what can you do if you have an entire harem?”
“Yes, what can you do?” inquired one of the listeners.
“The Turks, gentlemen, do not surrender in the face of adversity. The padishah ordered all the women to be stuffed into sacks and drowned in the Bosphorus. When morning came his majesty was a bachelor again and he could acquire a new harem.”
The men chortled, but Varya exclaimed: “You ought to be ashamed of yourselves, gentlemen. This is really quite appalling.”
“But almost a hundred years ago, Mademoiselle Varya, manners at the sultan’s court were moderated substantially,” Paladin reassured her. “And all thanks to one exceptional woman who just happens to be a compatriot of mine.”
“Then tell us about it,” said Varya.
“The story is as follows. One of the passengers on board a French ship sailing the Mediterranean was an exceptionally beautiful seventeen-year-old girl whose name was Aimée Dubucque de Riverie. She was born on the magical island of Martinique, which has given the world many legendary beauties, including Madame de Maintenon and Josephine Beauharnais. In fact our young Aimée knew the latter (at the time still plain Josephine de Taschery) very well; they were even friends. History has nothing to say on the subject of why this delightful Creole girl decided to set out on a voyage through seas teeming with pirates. All we do know is that off the coast of Sardinia the ship was seized by corsairs and Aimée found herself in the slave market of Algiers, where she was bought by the dey of Algiers himself—the very one who, according to Monsieur Popritschine, had a lump under his nose. The dey was old and no longer susceptible to female beauty, but he was very interested in good relations with the Sublime Porte, so poor Aimée made the journey to Istanbul as a living gift to Sultan Abdul-Hamid the First, the great-grandfather of the present-day Abdul-Hamid the Second. The padishah treated his captive gently, like a priceless treasure. He imposed no constraints on her and did not even oblige her to convert to Mohammedism. And for the patience shown by the wise ruler, Aimée rewarded him with her love. In Turkey she is known by the name of Nashedil-sultan. She gave birth to Prince Mehmed, who later ascended the throne and is known to history as a great reformer. His mother taught him French and gave him a taste for French literature and French freethinking. Ever since then Turkey has looked toward the West.”
“You’re a great spinner of tales, Paladin,” McLaughlin commented cantankerously. “No doubt you stretched the truth and embroidered it a little, as always.”
The Frenchman smiled
mischievously without saying a word, and Zurov, who for some time had been showing clear signs of impatience, exclaimed in sudden inspiration: “Yes, indeed, gentlemen, why don’t we arrange a little game? All this talk, talk, talk. Really and truly, it’s just not natural, somehow.”
Varya heard Fandorin give a dull groan.
“Erasmus, you’re not invited,” the count added hastily. “The devil himself deals your hands.”
“Your excellency,” Perepyolkin protested. “I hope you will not permit gambling in your presence?”
Sobolev brushed his objections aside like an annoying fly.
“Stop that, Captain. Don’t be such a pain in the neck. It’s all very well for you, in your operations section. You at least have some kind of work to do, but I’m rusting away from sheer idleness. I don’t play myself, Count—I’m far too impetuous—but I will certainly watch.”
Varya saw Perepyolkin staring at the handsome general with the eyes of a beaten dog.
“Perhaps just for small stakes, then?” Lukan drawled uncertainly. “To reinforce the ties of soldierly comradeship.”
“To reinforce the ties, of course, and just for small stakes,” Zurov said with a nod, tipping several unopened decks of cards onto the table out of his sabretache. “A hundred in the pot. Who else—gentlemen?”
The bank was made up in a moment, and soon the marquee echoed with the magic phrases:
“There goes the old whore.”
“We’ll beat her with our little sultan here, gentlemen!”
“L’as de carreau.”
“Ha ha, that’s beaten it!”
