The Baklava Club: A Novel (Investigator Yashim)

by Jason Goodwin

  Yashim was sweating when he overtook a carter urging his ponderous horse up the broken road. He gestured politely, to offer Yashim a lift; but the empty cart jounced and thundered across the cobbles and Yashim found that he preferred to continue on foot.

  “You’re wise!” The carter leered jovially at Yashim. “My next load’s a dead ’un.”

  Yashim doubled his pace. He had hoped that Czartoryski was still alive. He had counted on the widening gap of silence after the assault to mean that the prince was, in some way, protected: more useful to his abductors alive than dead. Balamian’s news was what he had dreaded most. It was scarcely twenty-four hours since Palewski had been shot: if the intention was to cause an éclat, then to hurl the body down from the Frankish cemetery into the Ottoman one could still be counted a success.

  If the aim was to frustrate liberal hopes and to embarrass the Porte, the choice of the Frankish cemetery as the place to murder the prince was, he supposed, impeccable. A dead man in a graveyard caused no comment if he reached it by tumbrel, attended by mourners, and was lowered into a hole in the ground. If he was murdered there—pushed from a cliff, or bludgeoned and left for dead—then the infraction stank to high heaven: it became a story the whole city would soon hear.

  “It’s where the Franks go when they die.”

  He glanced up. In the distance he could already see the little mortuary chapel of the cemetery, tactfully surmounted by a modest wooden cross, but what engaged his attention was a knot of people standing by a low wall, looking down into the Ottoman cemetery.

  He hurried up to them, conscious that he cut a poor figure in his damp shirt, his turban slightly askew, his shoes dusty from the road. He looked about for the kadi, but perhaps he had already gone.

  “Where’s the body?”

  The men at the wall turned to look at him, suspiciously.

  “Over there,” one man said, with a jerk of his head. But it was hard at this distance to see much at all: only a couple of men standing by a dark shape on the ground. Yashim assumed they were gravediggers.

  “The kadi said to let no one through,” the man said. He put out an arm.

  Yashim shook his head. “I’ve brought the cart,” he said, and at that moment the cart itself crested the rise. The man stood back.

  “The cart’s coming,” Yashim explained, as he approached the gravediggers. Above them, the cemetery’s retaining wall rose fifteen feet, ending in a broken line of loose stones and scrub that marked the boundary of the old Frankish graveyard. Yashim looked up at it, and frowned.

  The corpse lay facedown on the stones and grass in a small declivity at the foot of the wall. That he had fallen from above seemed obvious at first sight: one arm outflung, the other awkwardly pinioned beneath the trunk; a knee was bent at an unnatural angle. But what mattered most to Yashim at that moment was the fact that the dead man was dressed in European costume: leather shoes, black trousers and frock coat.

  Yashim squatted down beside the corpse.

  “Does anyone know who he is?”

  The sexton shrugged. “Maybe a Frank.”

  Maybe, Yashim thought. But also, possibly, a Turk.

  Whoever he was, Yashim was certain that he was not looking at the body of Prince Adam Czartoryski.

  It was also plain to Yashim that the man was already dead when he fell.

  46

  DOHERTY, the Irish priest, brought Palewski a vial of holy water.

  “What am I supposed to do with it? Drink it?” Palewski asked testily. He was in a bad mood, and quite enjoying it. Birgit’s failure to rush over, full of concern and warmth, was a legitimate cause of annoyance, of course; but he took a bad mood to be a sign of convalescence, too, and that cheered him. His wounds were still sore, but the leeches had done their work; Dr. Millingen had declared that the danger was, for the most part, over.

  “We’ll have you up and about in a few days,” he’d said cheerfully, in the bedside manner he reserved for foreign diplomats; Palewski resented him for it. “With a few honorable scars.”

  “All my scars are honorable.”

  “Of course, I meant…”

  “You won’t find any on my back.”

  “No, no. Don’t excite yourself—the dressings…”

  Doherty chuckled, and suggested the holy water might be sprinkled over his wounds, a proposition that Palewski treated with marked aversion.

  “Blessed it may be, Father, but I’d rather not douse my wounds in water you’ve lifted from some dank font. Why, the stuff’s alive! Meanwhile,” he added, pointing a finger at a dark bottle on the bedside table, “this is suitable for external and internal use.”

  Doherty uncorked the bottle and sniffed. “Brandy-like, it is. Still, as a friend, perhaps I ought to taste it, to be on the safe side.”

  He had the brandy in a glass before Palewski could think of a reply.

  “Ah. A grand marque, if I’m not mistaken. One of the French houses, am I right?”

  “Doherty, you may be a priest but I think you’re an ass.” Palewski put his hands on the mattress and shifted his position, grimacing. “Here. It’s for my pain.”

  “Of course it is. I came to tell you, now, that my work in this city of infidels is almost done. I leave for Rome at the end of the week, and not, in my opinion, a moment too soon. This is no place for Christians, Palewski.”

  “So you’ll be taking more than half the population of Istanbul with you?”

  “Schismatics, my old friend. Half Turk, the lot of ’em. I’d gladly lead them to Rome if they’d admit their errors and put themselves under the protection of the Vicar of Christ. But they are all frogs in pots, Palewski—and I fear you are, too.”

  “Frogs? What are you talking about?”

  “Come, come. You know the story of the frog that was boiled alive? They heated the water slowly and he could just about bear it, a little hotter, a little hotter, until it was too hot for him, after all. And by then, he was dead. You’ve been here a long time, and I daresay you don’t notice the signs. Why, you’re lying there shot and you call it a decent place for a Christian?” He shook his head. “They’d have me by the heels if they got half a chance, I know it.”

  “Who? The Orthodox?”

  “The Mahommetans,” Doherty said darkly. “It starts with looks, and then it goes onto jostling, and jeering, and it’ll be stoning and burning before there’s an end on it, you mark my words.”

  “Have you been jostled and jeered at, then?”

  “I have. I’ve walked these very streets and been spat on, insulted and reviled. There’s an evil spirit in ’em, Palewski, and it’s gathering strength, when a man of the cloth can’t walk down a public street and escape the dark looks of that pagan race of idolators and blasphemers.”

  “I don’t suppose many Mahommetans would know a Catholic priest from a tattooed Chinaman. You’re simply an object of surprise.”

  “It’s the fires of eternal damnation that’ll be the surprise for them, Palewski. They don’t know it. Can’t see it. You’d best keep your eyes open, too, my friend, after I’m gone.”

  Palewski allowed a pause to develop. “Well, we shall be sorry to lose you,” he said finally, without obvious conviction. He had thought the priest engaging company; he had not expected this fanatic. Anyway, he wanted Birgit. “I expect you’ll be seeing the Italians before you go?”

  Father Doherty jostled his empty glass onto the bedside table, among the books and bottles. “No doubt. And I’ll be telling them the same as I’ve told you. They can’t go on playing games with their souls forever in this life.”

  “Well, somewhere in between the fire and the brimstone, Father, would you mind telling them I’d appreciate a visit, too?”

  “Aye, I can do that much, I suppose.” A puzzled frown appeared on the priest’s face, and he leaned in a little closer to the bed. “Tell me, Palewski, what exactly did happen to you, when you were shot? Your friend said you were at the port.”

  Palewski felt
suddenly very weary; he wished the priest would go. “Look, Yashim has all the details. Ask him. I’m afraid I’m not up to it. Need to rest.”

  “You were alone, I take it?”

  Palewski grunted. His eyes had closed. Father Doherty glanced covetously at the brandy.

  “I’ll be off, then. So long. I’ll drop by again, never fear.”

  Palewski made no reply. His chin dropped onto his chest, and he was snoring gently when Father Doherty tiptoed from the room.

  Father Doherty did not immediately go downstairs. In a room on the floor above, he surprised Marta, who was folding sheets.

  Marta gave a little cry.

  “Peace, dear lady!” He gestured to the window. “I wanted to see the view from here. The view?”

  Marta pursed her lips. Doherty went to the window, from where he could see the roof of the Galata Tower and, in the distance, the woods and turrets of Topkapi Palace across the Horn.

  “Very nice,” he said. He tipped his hat and went off downstairs, leaving Marta puzzled and indignant.

  47

  THE kadi had been summoned when the body was discovered, and Yashim was still at the cemetery when he came slowly up the hill, leaning on a stick, sometimes pausing to catch his breath.

  He looked at the body for a few moments, and shook his head. “Well now, cover him up. Cover him up. It would be just as well to get him down to the mosque, at least. A lot of flies at this time of the year.”

  “I have sent for a sheet,” Yashim said. “The carter here will take him away.”

  The old kadi looked at him with interest. “Are you a relative of the deceased?”

  Yashim stepped forward and bent to speak in a low voice. “Yashim, from the palace. I heard what had happened and came to see.”

  The kadi cocked his head. “The man is dead. It’s a long way to come, Yashim efendi.”

  “Not if a man has been killed, kadi.”

  The kadi planted his stick in the ground and leaned on it, looking up at the cliff.

  “The fall was enough to break his neck,” he murmured.

  Yashim followed his glance. “It’s possible,” he agreed. “But from the position of the body I think he was already dead when he fell. A man’s instinct when he loses his footing is to put out his arms to protect himself. He didn’t. There’s bruising to the neck, too.”

  The kadi’s chin sank. “What to do, Yashim efendi?” He glanced at Yashim out of the corner of his eye. “There’s never been anything like this in all my time. A murder, you think? We don’t even know the poor man’s name, unless it is written in his jacket, perhaps.”

  “I’ve looked,” Yashim said. The dead man was either a Turk or a Jew, youngish, in his late twenties at most, clean shaven, reasonably well dressed at moderate expense in the fashion popularized by the late sultan, which consisted of the frock coat, trousers, and black shoes. The shoes were good, but worn: Yashim had particularly noticed the soles, which suggested that the young man had spent a good time walking in them.

  His pockets contained nothing above a few coins, some shreds of tobacco, and, folded very small and almost lost in the seam of his trouser pocket, a scrap of yellow paper with the words coffee: 2 kebab 4 written in pencil. There was also a pencil, much sharpened, in the inside pocket of his coat; Yashim satisfied himself that it was the same sort of pencil that had been used to scribble the note. Otherwise there were no clues of any kind to the wearer’s identity.

  The kadi sighed. “What took him to a cemetery where he had no right to be?”

  Yashim nodded: it was just what he had been about to say. “Why would a believer be in a Frankish graveyard?” He paused. “We may suppose that he went there for a purpose—to meet his killer, or someone else. Or to avoid him.”

  “Or to examine a grave.”

  “Yes, that’s a possibility.” Yashim looked keenly at the kadi. He might be old and quiet, but he wasn’t missing much. “The chapel. Is it attended?”

  “Only when a funeral is in progress, I believe. But we can ask, can we not?”

  “I wish I could be of more service, kadi, but I am afraid my coming here today was chance. I thought something else might have happened, and I needed to eliminate the possibility that your man was connected in some way.”

  The kadi smiled. “Very little is left to chance, my friend. Come, let us walk down the hill together. You are in a hurry to be off, but the walk will do you good and carry you where you want to go.”

  Yashim blinked. “Very well.” He had a strange sensation in his ears, as if listening to the kadi could be the most delightful thing he had ever done. “His clothing cost him three hundred kuruş, and his shoes half as much.”

  “He pushes a pen, perhaps.”

  “But punishes his feet.” Yashim told the kadi about the excessive wear on the man’s shoes. “The shoes are polished very bright, all the same.”

  The kadi jabbed at the ground with his stick. “Most illuminating.”

  “In what way?”

  “He walks a lot, and jots down his expenses for coffee and a kebab. This tells us that he is literate, of course, and suggests that he is employed while he is walking. After all, to manage his own money a small notebook would be sufficient.”

  Yashim shook his head. “I don’t follow you, kadi efendi.”

  The kadi laid his hand lightly on Yashim’s arm. “So. I was a teacher, long ago. Some of my students carried just such a notebook to help them calculate their expenditure through the week. It helped them work out how much allowance they had left. It was a private book, because some of their expenses were made on—shameful things.”

  Yashim nodded. “So he wrote on paper, and kept a list of expenses to show his employer, rather than for himself. Who could the employer be? What sort of firm employs Turkish clerks?”

  The commercial revolution that had swept Europe, creating armies of clerks to keep the ledgers, had barely touched the Ottoman Empire. Trade, like industry, was still conducted on a personal level, where deals were sealed over coffee; and Ottoman gentlemen did not, for the most part, engage in trade. That they left to Greeks, Armenians, and Jews.

  “Indeed,” the kadi murmured. “A firm? Perhaps the biggest of them all?”

  “The biggest?”

  “I wonder if our friend worked for the government? Well, well, it is a possibility.”

  He picked his way carefully over the rough ground, and at the road he stopped and gestured with his stick.

  “So beautiful, the Bosphorus at this time of year.”

  They walked slowly downhill. At the bottom the kadi nodded. “It requires some thought.”

  “I will let you know, kadi, if anything occurs to me.”

  The kadi turned to him and bowed. “That,” he said, “would be very gracious.”

  Yashim bowed in return, to hide his blush. He was aware that the old kadi was laughing at him.

  48

  IN summer, Istanbul was very hot. In winter, it froze. Ice heaved paving stones from the earth, and the spring rains washed the earth away, to rise as dust all through the long, hot summer. Agreeable as the city was, and perfectly sited to be the navel of the world, it was unquestionably dusty, muddy, and flyblown.

  Yet its inhabitants were among the cleanest people in Europe, for the filth of the city had produced a remedy. At the public baths men and women could be washed, steamed, scrubbed, rinsed, lathered, soaked, bathed, and exfoliated; their hair could be cut, their body hair removed with wax and unguents, their nails pared, their nostrils and ears washed, their skin softened with creams and oils, their muscles manipulated, their hands and feet rubbed, their temples massaged; they could be roasted on hot platforms, and chilled in cold baths; then pummeled and stroked, kneaded and splashed down, before they emerged shining for a glass of tea and a sweet cake.

  The process could be performed express, or it could be—and usually was, by the women of the city—drawn out into a day of rigors and relaxations, accompanied by conversation, l
aughter, and sometimes dancing, performed by troupes of köçek.

  “Ouf!” Birgit raised her head from the hot slab, and winked at Natasha, who was lying on a hammam towel beside her. “Like a sauna, but rather grander.” She rolled over onto her back and adjusted the rolled-up towel under her head. “It’s like being in a church,” she added, gazing up at the dome.

  Natasha did not reply. Eventually she murmured: “In Siberia, the native people have places like this, to sweat and become clean. It is seen as a spiritual purification, led by a shaman.”

  Later, it seemed less like a church; Natasha was not sure that the languorous and intense massage she received led automatically to spiritual purification, and the tea and sweets they were offered, as they reclined in the tepidarium, were anything but shamanic.

  “I could spend days here,” Birgit mumbled sleepily, as she brushed the cake crumbs from her lips. She raised her leg and ran her finger up a shin that had been depilated and buffed by expert hands.

  “Yashim is meeting us at four,” Natasha reminded her.

  “Hmm? It’s six. He said six.”

  Natasha closed her eyes. She reached behind to pull her damp hair to one side, and settled her head on the firm little pillow. “Four o’clock, Birgit. You must have forgotten.”

  “What’s the time now?” Birgit asked, after a long pause.

  Natasha was even longer replying. “It’s Wednesday,” she said finally, and they giggled.