The Baklava Club: A Novel (Investigator Yashim)

by Jason Goodwin

  “To the great Commonwealth of Poland Lithuania!” cried Giancarlo, raising his glass.

  “To a united Italy!” Palewski rejoined.

  “Death to tyrants!”

  “Down with the Inquisition!”

  Miss Lund settled quietly beside Yashim on the window seat. She took a sip of champagne and glanced over the rim of her glass.

  “Politics,” she murmured. “The boys find it exciting.” She had very pretty little ears, Yashim noticed, decorated with bouncing corkscrew curls. She blinked. “And you, Signor Yashim, are you a passionate politician, too?”

  Yashim thought of Palewski with his new toy and his memories of punts and ducks on the Polish lakes, and of these youths, with their noisy enthusiasms. It was all boys, and boyhoods, this evening. “Perhaps,” he said, “I was never quite young enough.”

  Miss Lund chuckled. “The ambassador is not—so young.”

  Palewski was leaning against the mantelpiece, glass raised, expounding something to the young men.

  “Enthusiasm for his cause may keep him young, all the same. Politics.”

  It was Miss Lund’s turn to pull a face. Yashim gave her a sympathetic smile: “United Italy?”

  “Oh yes, in spite of what Fabrizio says. They’re all mad for it, Giancarlo most of all. That’s why we’ve come to Istanbul.”

  “To unite Italy? You seem to be a long way from home.”

  She misunderstood him. “I’m Danish,” she said. “You can call me Birgit. Don’t forget that my ancestors probably sailed up here a thousand years ago, to do business with the Byzantine emperor.”

  “Or to join the Varangian Guard.”

  “The Varang—? Remind me, please.”

  Yashim told her about the Viking warriors who had formed the imperial bodyguard in Byzantine times. “But Palewski knows much more about it than me. Fair-haired giants, he says, with double-edged axes.”

  “Hmm. Do you think Giancarlo could be a Varangian, Signor Yashim?”

  “I’m sure—you at least could rely on him, Miss Lund.”

  She glanced away, with a pleased smile.

  “And you, signor?”

  “I suppose you could say,” Yashim replied thoughtfully, “that I am a sort of nineteenth-century Varangian.”

  She laughed. “And who do you guard, Signor Yashim?”

  He would have said that his role was to protect the sultan’s household and his empire; but then a cork popped, and a boy was shouting across the room.

  “Birgit! Drink up and have another!” Giancarlo sprang from the armchair and took up the bottle.

  Rafael laid a hand on his arm. “She doesn’t need—”

  Giancarlo shook him off with an impatient shrug. “Birgit’s all right. These northerners can drink—eh, Palewski? Fabrizio’s the one we ought to watch.” He stood behind Fabrizio’s chair and circled his shiny curls with the bottle. “Sicilian blood.”

  Fabrizio glanced up, his exquisite little face a perfect mask. Giancarlo swung the bottle toward the window and advanced on Birgit.

  Yashim stood up, smiling. “Your friend was saying that you are in Istanbul to unite Italy? You’ll forgive me, we Ottomans are sometimes out of touch…”

  “Of course.” Giancarlo hesitated, then lowered the bottle. “Birgit—Signor Yashim—some champagne?”

  Birgit shook her lovely head, and laid a hand on her glass. “But I see you have opened the baklava, Giancarlo?”

  “Baklava? Of course. Forgive me.” He returned with the box. “I like the green ones best!”

  “They are pistachio, no?” Birgit’s hand hovered over the honeyed treats. “Will you explain, Signor Yashim?”

  He glanced into the box. “These are pistachio, and these are made with walnut. This one is made with the same thin dough, as fine as a rose petal, shredded first and then baked. They smell very good. Where did you get them?”

  “Not very far from here.” She gave some directions and Yashim nodded. “He’s very good.”

  “I love the way he picks them out, in sheets, with his knife. And this one,” she added, taking a bite, “is my favorite.”

  Giancarlo nodded. “Italy is divided, Signor Yashim. It’s time that Italy belonged to her people, the Italians. Not Austria. Not Piedmont or the two Sicilies. And first we have to deal with the Pope.”

  “The Pope?”

  “I am—or was—a Catholic, Signor Yashim. The Pope should be a man of God but not a despot. He cannot serve two masters.”

  “These boys, Yashim, think the Pope is in a fix,” Palewski said. “On one hand, he’s the vicar of Christ, the conscience of the church, our Holy Father—a sort of Catholic Grand Mufti, whose fatwas are called encyclicals. On the other hand—”

  “The other hand is dyed in the blood of the people!” Fabrizio burst out.

  “Well, certainly. On the other hand he is the temporal ruler of that swath of Italy known as the Papal States, consisting of Rome, naturally, and lands to the north of Rome, and Giancarlo’s beloved Tuscany, or parts of it. Whatever his virtues as a priest, Yashim, as a ruler he is a reactionary idiot.” Palewski drained his glass. “After the 1830 uprising, when the Poles fought against the Russian occupation, we looked to Gregory for support. A word would have carried weight. Yet Gregory was the first to condemn us. Our Holy Father took the side of the Orthodox oppressors against the Catholic Poles, and blamed the insurrectionists for ‘disturbing the peace.’”

  “Gregory is a tyrant!” Fabrizio said. “He is ruthless—but weak. And being weak, he relies on the Austrians to enforce his rule.”

  Rafael, the shy one, nodded. “We stand against arbitrary oppression and the corruption of power.”

  Yashim spread his hands: “Why Istanbul?”

  It was Giancarlo who answered. “Don’t you see? We’re free men here. Italy crawls with papal spies—it’s the same in France. Superstitious clerics, credulous informers. Russia? Habsburg territories? They scent revolution, and they all work together, signor. When a continent is poisoned by lies, truth must be an exile,” he added, waving his hand dramatically. “So we come east, for freedom. Where else could we go?”

  “You could have tried England,” Yashim pointed out. “As Voltaire did.”

  Giancarlo looked blank. “England? Why, yes…”

  Rafael butted in: “It’s just another system—”

  To Yashim’s surprise, Birgit spoke up from the window seat. “It’s too cold for them, Signor Yashim. If a cloud enters the sky their mothers make them wear a scarf!” She laughed, daring them to contradict her. “And none of the Italians in England have class. They are organ-grinders or dancing masters. They sell gelati,” she added, drawing out the word as if it appealed to her.

  Giancarlo flushed. “That’s not true, Birgit. We don’t care if a man is a crossing sweeper or a duke, as long as he’s with the people.”

  “Aha.” Birgit yawned lazily. “But I’m right about the weather.”

  “There are no spies here,” Giancarlo said, appealing to Yashim. “Nobody in Istanbul cares about the Pope. We breathe free air, beyond the reach of the Inquisition.”

  “And what will you do from here, to deal with the Inquisition?”

  Giancarlo caught a glance from Rafael, and returned him a dismissive shrug. “We have to change people’s ideas, and break through this—this crust of feudalism that has formed across the country. My country.”

  Birgit ambled across to the sofa and lay down.

  “And our voices have to be heard,” Rafael added. His eyes shone. “That’s why we have to stay free.”

  “It reminds me of that old joke,” Palewski put in. “The drunken man who searches for his wallet, under a lamppost.”

  They all looked at him, expectantly.

  “They ask him if he remembers dropping it here, and he says no, he dropped it somewhere farther down the road. So they ask him, ‘Why are you searching here?’ And he says, ‘Because the light is better under the lamppost.’”

  Ev
eryone laughed. Only Birgit was silent. Her eyelashes fluttered and her chest gave a slight heave.

  She had fallen asleep.

  4

  THEY made quite a row, of course, going back to their flat through the silent streets, waking up dogs, puzzling the night watchmen. Their landlord, Leandros Ghika, heard them banging up the stairs, and scowled.

  Fabrizio raised a fist. “That Palewski—he is one of us!”

  “A splendid fellow, Fabrizio, I heartily concur. He likes freedom.”

  “He likes champagne.”

  “Champagne is freedom! We should liberate it all!”

  They burst into the flat. Giancarlo flung himself onto the divan, Fabrizio plucked out a bottle, Rafael lit a lamp. Birgit settled down and let Giancarlo slide an arm around her shoulders.

  “And that Yashim—he’s what?” Rafael fiddled with his glasses and sat down on the only chair.

  Giancarlo laughed, showing his strong white teeth. “A man like Farinelli, Rafael. Without the voice.”

  “A castrato?” Rafael’s eyes were round.

  Fabrizio flicked up his hand as if it held a knife. “Toc! They come in all kinds. Only our Pope likes the ones who sing too high.”

  “The Pope takes them young,” Giancarlo said. “He cuts off their balls to sing ‘Ave Maria’—in a sweet voice,” he added, falsetto. “Pah! He cuts off their balls to stop them becoming men. It’s symbolic, no?”

  “Of—?” Rafael looked stubborn.

  Giancarlo waved a hand. “Political emasculation. He turns men into women and so he rules. What chance do we men have in Italy?”

  “But Yashim doesn’t sound like a castrato.”

  Fabrizio grinned. “No. And I know a man from Catania who was just the same. When his house collapsed in an earthquake, he was crushed down there, like that. He had five children already but after the accident that was it. No more. Poor man.”

  “Poor man,” Giancarlo echoed.

  Fabrizio wagged a finger and laughed. “Not so poor, because you know what? His wife was happy ever after—and so were all the beautiful virgins of Catania!”

  “You mean he stopped pestering them?”

  “Pestering? Are you out of your mind? He had them all! One by one, these lovely virgins came to him to be deflowered! They wished to discover the art of love, without any unfortunate consequences. They called him Dell’alba, the man of the dawn. The same as the fisherman who always takes his boat out first after the storm, to test the wind.”

  Giancarlo laughed. “But the other men—why didn’t they kill Dell’alba?”

  Fabrizio gave him a look of exaggerated surprise. “Kill him? They asked for his advice ever after—does she squeal? Is she clean? He knew every girl in Catania.”

  Giancarlo leaned forward. “So when he was crushed—this accident. He lost his balls but he kept, you know, the other part?”

  “Certainly. Just not in his trousers!”

  Everyone laughed. Birgit chuckled and stood up. “I’m going to bed,” she said. “Don’t overdo it.” She stretched and yawned. “That Yashim—he’s a man, anyway.”

  “Should I be jealous?” Giancarlo let her hand go.

  “That depends,” she said lazily. “On how long you mean to stay up. Good night, all.”

  She waved, and they chorused their good nights, and sat about smiling, like good friends.

  5

  YASHIM and Palewski dined together on Thursdays.

  Yashim heard a tread on the stairs as he was dusting the pilaf with pepper and a sprinkling of finely chopped coriander.

  “You’ve come alone?”

  He had spent the afternoon preparing their ritual supper almost without thinking, like a participant at mass.

  At the beginning, when Palewski had suggested that they take turns on Thursdays, Yashim had arrived at the residency to discover Marta exhausted and almost in tears, while the mahogany table in Palewski’s sepulchral dining room was spread with a feast fit for a conclave of Byzantine despots.

  After that, by tacit agreement, Palewski came to Yashim.

  Yashim enjoyed the preparations. On Thursdays he went early to market, and bought the finest ingredients his friend George could bring to his stall: tiny eggplants, peppers as long and curled as Turkish slippers, fresh white onions, okra, beans. Later, Palewski would come into the room, sniffing the air, surprising Yashim by his knack for guessing what he’d made for dinner. A chicken, perhaps, Persian style with walnuts and pomegranate juice; mackerel stuffed with nuts and fruits, and grilled; a succession of little mezes, soups, dolmas, or aromatic rice. Once he had brought a Frenchman to dine with them, too, and as a consequence a man had died—and Stanislaw Palewski had saved Yashim’s life.

  “Alone?” Palewski echoed. He put a bottle of champagne on the table in Yashim’s tiny kitchen. “Certainly. Youth’s all right, but it never knows when to stop. Salvaged this one from the wreckage.”

  “I assumed they would stay late.”

  “In the end I went to bed. Marta tells me they were still at it in the small hours. I rather think she encouraged them to go.”

  “Marta?”

  “She doesn’t mind my reading at all hours, thinks it goes with being a kyrie. Noisy boys are another matter. Marta doesn’t like Birgit much, either.”

  “She’s not Italian, like the others.”

  “She’s a Dane. A beautiful, sleepy Dane, Yashim. Something of a rarity in these parts.”

  He twisted the wire off the bottle; Yashim slid two tea glasses toward him.

  “Of course, I was much the same in Cracow at their age. Up all night talking about revolution, emancipating the serfs, giving power to the people, all that old stuff. In my day it was Saint Simon and Locke. Now it’s some Jew in London, Marx, good journalist—and Owen.” The cork popped and Palewski poured the wine. “The boys raised a row loud enough to get them kicked out of the Papal States. Or maybe they just took a warning and ran. Papal agents lurking in every café and hiding in boudoirs. It’s a rotten little country, and the Pope’s just as bad as they say. Fiercely reactionary, like all of Metternich’s creatures.”

  “The Habsburg minister? He’s behind the Pope?” Yashim thought: we Ottomans allow ourselves to get out of touch.

  “Metternich was the architect of the Congress of Vienna in 1814, Yashim: present—the tsar, the Austrian emperor, the German princes, and Frederick of Prussia, a lot of frightened old men getting together to put a stop to the next Napoleon—and to keep the lid on revolution. All reactionary and afraid. Pope Gregory is their father confessor. Can’t stand change. Instead of chemin de fer he calls railways chemin d’enfer—the road of the devil. Won’t have any railway lines in his little Papal States.”

  “Your Italian friends, Giancarlo and the others—they want to abolish them, do they?”

  “They want to dissolve the Papal States, unite the Italian kingdoms, and create a constitutional monarchy. It should keep them pretty busy.” Palewski laid his head on one side. “I can’t say I blame them. I’m an ally, naturally, as a thorn in the side of the Metternich system, still holding out for Poland. With the help of you Ottomans.” He raised his glass. “Thank you very much.

  “But whether they have the steel, I don’t know. It takes more guts to be an exile than you might guess. More than they know yet. And to keep to an idea—well. It isn’t easy. The champagne runs out, after a while.”

  “So for them it’s just a game?”

  Palewski blew out his cheeks. “For them it’s like a club, with honey and pistachios. The baklava club—they’ll probably end up making their peace and going home. In twenty years they’ll have joined the civil service and be judges on the bench, with paunches and ambitious wives, and this will be an interlude they’ll scarcely be able to remember. Giancarlo, the tall one, will come into his estates and settle down as quiet as any Tuscan gentleman. He pretends to be a man of the people but he’s an aristocrat, obviously.”

  “And Birgit?”

  �
��Oh, Birgit will be all right. She goes along but she doesn’t have much time for all their nonsense, as you must have noticed. Maybe she’ll stick with that Giancarlo—but I wouldn’t bet on it. She’ll smile at someone and before you know it she’ll be married to a fat little councillor and have four children, all in her sleep.”

  “So you don’t think they’re dangerous, at all?”

  “Here, in Istanbul? No more than a crate of puppies.”

  Yashim smiled and nodded. The street dogs of Istanbul pupped quietly in corners, in doorways and stairwells; someone usually found them, and fed them, and put the puppies in a box, where they lay scratching their fleas and nipping at one another’s tails.

  6

  PALEWSKI did not stay late. He was up again in the dark, grabbing the satchel Marta had made up for him. It contained, among other things, the Polish sausage he liked, and a package of baklava. He attended to the contents of his flask himself, with a mixture of brandy, sugar, and water.

  He made his way by starlight to the Ortaköy quayside, and was on the water before the muezzins called the morning prayer. The low chants keened across the Bosphorus as he sat huddled in the caïque, cradling the good Boutet wrapped in an oilcloth.

  He had been up for hours and already had bagged three mallards by the time Yashim emerged from the café on Kara Davut. Dressed formally in a fresh turban, a brown cloak, white chemise, loose breeches, and a pair of soft leather boots, he carried an invitation that had been brought to his door by an imperial chaush the previous afternoon. The formality of the invitation had surprised him. He was on easy visiting terms with the valide; he had wondered for a moment if, perhaps, her mind was wandering. He made his way to the waterfront and took a caïque down the Golden Horn.

  At the Eminönü stage he tipped the caïquejee and started uphill, past the Mosque of the Valide: another valide, another sultan’s mother, who had built the mosque on the water’s edge with money she received from harbor dues at Piraeus. The reigning valide had not yet endowed a mosque. Perhaps it was time to speak to her about this: she was not young, after all.