“The late sultan’s ladies came here?”
“From the old palace. The luckier ones got married off, of course. Our sultan sent all the hopeless cases on to me. I suppose it pleased the eunuchs. They lead lives of such ennui at Topkapi, with only me to talk about. But now they have a flock of women to fuss over, and they are happy. As for the ladies, well. It upsets me, I admit. They are so very ingratiating. And they are all so old! Perfect frights, some of them.”
“How many, hanum?”
The valide waved a jeweled hand. “I haven’t counted, Yashim. I’m not a housekeeper. Dozens, I should say. Terribly aged. Some of them”-she lowered her voice, while at the same time speaking more loudly than before-“quite feebleminded now, I’m sorry to say.”
“It must have come as a dreadful shock to them,” Yashim ventured.
“To them, Yashim? Why? Mahmut was my son.”
“Of course, valide. I only meant-”
“Marzipan, for instance. She was such a skinny, shy little thing-that’s why I gave her the name.” Yashim nodded: all the girls got new names when they came to the harem. Often they were mildly ironic. “Yesterday, I saw a fat, frumpy old woman sitting with her knees this far apart, smiling like an idiot. Marzipan. I couldn’t believe it. Why they think to surround me with these dreadful old people, Yashim, I just can’t imagine.”
She glanced at him, a little slyly, he thought. He opened his mouth to speak, then closed it again. The valide had not aged like other women. She was still slender, and her face preserved in outline the beauty that had carried her into a sultan’s arms. But the valide was difficult about flattery: you had to be careful.
“Age is a terrible thing, Yashim,” she added, a little sadly.
He took her hand. He should have spoken, after all. Somehow the arrival of these women had disturbed the valide more than she let on; more, perhaps, than the death of her son. For years now she had been alone in the palace with her memories and dreams; and there was a certain hauteur in her loneliness, in the knowledge that Topkapi was hers. Now that she shared it with the superannuated baggage of the harem, that grandeur had dissipated a little.
He glanced about the room. The mirror that had always hung at the side of the divan had been replaced by a framed inscription.
“You, valide, are as beautiful as you ever were.”
“I don’t enjoy a mirror anymore,” she said unnervingly. Yashim felt his cheeks redden. “I’d rather look at young people now. That’s why I have my Tulin.”
Tulin: it meant “poppy.” “Tulin?”
“My handmaiden, Yashim. I found her the name. I think it’s rather sweet.”
“I hope she’s as sweet as her name, valide.”
“I think I may say that I am something of a judge of character. Tulin appears to me… almost perfect.”
“Almost, hanum?”
“ Tiens, Yashim. Only God can pronounce any woman perfect, absolument. And then only at the hour of her death.”
Yashim gave a sigh, and smiled. The valide was always something of a coquette.
“A book for you, Yashim. Perhaps it will amuse you-I found it ridiculous. It is written by”-she glanced at the cover-“Theophile Gautier.”
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Yashim clapped his book shut with an exclamation of surprise. “ Everything that is useful,” Gautier had written, “ is ugly.”
Yashim contemplated the nutcracker in his hand, with its chased brass handles and polished iron jaws. He let his eyes wander around the apartment, from the shelf beside the divan, with its collection of porcelain and books, to the stack of crocks and pans in the far corner where he cooked. What sad world did this Gautier inhabit, that everything useful could be described as ugly? It was a fault of the Franks to make their slightest opinions sound like revealed laws, of course.
At his thigh were a marble mortar and the knife with Ammar made me inscribed on the Damascus blade. These useful things, Yashim felt, were also beautiful. With half-closed eyes he thought about Istanbul-its lovely minarets for calling the people to prayer, the scalloped and fluted fountains, which relieved the people’s thirst. He considered the slender caiques, which bustled people across the water in all directions, and cracked another walnut, smiling as his thoughts turned to the sultan’s palace.
The loveliest women that the empire could provide-would Gautier call them useless, then? Yashim knew the harem as a school, an arena for ambition, a human factory geared to the production of royal heirs. Many a pasha had blessed the Circassian girls for drawing a headstrong sultan away from delicate affairs of state and into their beds. The mere effort of observing the intricate etiquette of the harem quarters was enough to keep a sultan busy.
Gautier, he felt, had got it the wrong way around.
He laid the book on the divan, careful not to let his oily fingers stain the green leather binding with walnut juice.
Yashim took the mortar to his kitchen, set it on the bench, and put a small open pan on the coals. He began to pound the walnuts with a stone pestle. When the pan was hot he threw in a scattering of cumin seeds. He rattled the pan on the coals and poured the seeds into a black iron grinder. He turned the handle and ground the cumin over the walnuts. He added a pinch of kirmizi biber, which he had made in the autumn. He sprinkled the end of a dry loaf with water, then carried on pounding the walnuts. Eventually he squeezed the bread dry and crumbled it into the mortar between his fingers, along with a generous dollop of pomegranate molasses.
When the muhammara was finely pounded, he stirred a thread of olive oil into the mix. He tasted the puree, added a pinch of salt and a twist of pepper, and poured it into a bowl, which he covered with a plate and set to one side.
For the next hour he worked at his remaining meze: a light salad of beans and anchovies mixed with slices of red onion and black olives, and another made with grated beetroot and yogurt. Finally, he made soup with leeks and dill.
He was almost done when there was a knock on the door. A chaush in palace uniform stood at the top of the stairs, carrying an invitation on vermilion paper.
The chief black eunuch requested Yashim’s presence at the Besiktas palace that afternoon.
Yashim bowed, placed a hand to his chest, and murmured: “I shall attend, inshallah.”
72
Yashim had not seen the Kislar aga for several months, and he was shocked by the change in his appearance. His blue-black skin had lost its sheen, and he looked tired and thinner than he had seemed in the summer; but it was his manner that most surprised Yashim.
He had developed a stammer.
“Ya-Ya-Ya-Yashim!” He clapped his skinny brown hands together. “I just knew you would come!”
Yashim bowed. “You sent for me, Ibou.”
“Of course. Do sit d-d-down. Have a”-his head jerked, and he blinked-“a sweetmeat?”
He gestured to a tray, and then popped a small green lokum into his mouth.
Yashim settled on the divan. “How are the girls? Settling now, I imagine.”
The Kislar aga passed a hand over his face and shuddered. “They’re like Ta-Ta-Tatars.”
Yashim pursed his lips. He thought of the Kislar agas he had known, men of terrifying girth and power, ruling the harem like cruel tyrants. At least, he had often thought them cruel: perhaps they exercised proper discipline. Perhaps that was necessary.
The Kislar aga twisted his long fingers. “They are hard to manage. Impudent and w-w-worse. They don’t listen. But that’s only p-p-part of it, Yashim. Some of them are a bit wild, but I could hope to settle them eventually. It’s the atmosphere. The strain.”
Yashim spread his hands. “A young sultan, new girls. It goes to their heads.”
Ibou shook his head. “It’s not that. It’s as if people were a-a-a-” He blinked, jerked his chin. “Afraid.”
“Afraid? Afraid of what?”
The black man hung his head. “Magic. Evil eye.”
He described the little homunculus he had found, studded wi
th a child’s teeth. His own teeth chattered as he spoke. “And P-P-Pembe, Yashim. With the child that did not survive. She said it was the l-l-l-lady Ta-Ta-Ta-Ta-”
“Talfa? Bah!” Yashim dismissed the story with an angry wave. “Potions and curses, Ibou.” But he could see the trouble in Ibou’s eyes. “The sultan and his girls are very young. And Bezmialem… perhaps…”
“Of course.” Ibou gave an angry shrug. “She is mother to the sultan. That far, she is a valide. But she is not mother to the harem.”
“Talfa, then, herself? Have you talked to her?”
Ibou shook his head. “Talfa can’t organize everything. She only returned to the harem after her husband’s death. She’s still making friends.”
“Making friends?”
“I saw you talking to Talfa, Yashim.”
“She wondered why I didn’t live at the palace.”
Ibou gave him a look of surprise-eagerness, almost. “But then perhaps, my friend-”
Yashim raised both hands. “I explained to her, Ibou, that the sultan wants me elsewhere.”
“The valide at Topkapi? We could a-a-ask her to come.”
It was Yashim’s turn to look surprised. “She’s quite frail.”
The Kislar aga held up his hands, palms upward. “She has the experience, Yashim-and all the girls are terrified of her.” He gave a guilty smile. “I’m terrified of her.”
Yashim saw no reason to dispute the point. He said: “At her age, to move…”
But Ibou was shaking his head. Having taken up the thought, he seemed reluctant to let it drop. “The valide will be very happy,” he insisted. “And she has a handmaiden who is very good, very caring.”
Yashim raised an eyebrow. The valide had run through more handmaidens than Selim the Grim had had viziers; she changed them like gloves. He remembered the last one, an able Circassian with a pleasant, open face. The valide had boxed her ears and sent her to the imperial laundry because, she said, her ankles were too thick.
“I’ve seen her,” he agreed. “The flautist.”
“Tulin.” The Kislar aga nodded. “Very popular girl, actually. She helps to carry the ladies’ orchestra-the valide allows her over to rehearse on Thursdays. She’s a little older than most of the girls.”
“I suppose that’s an advantage.”
“That’s why I bought her. The valide eats the younger ones for breakfast.”
Ibou’s stammer seemed to have improved, Yashim noticed. “You’ve thought this out already, haven’t you?”
The Kislar aga blinked again. “C-c-c-c-certainly not. I wanted your advice, th-th-that’s all.”
Yashim stared at his feet. “I’d miss her, at Topkapi.”
The Kislar aga laid a hand tenderly on Yashim’s knee. “We’ll all miss her one day, Yashim. And you more than a-a-anyone, I’m sure.” He smiled, and patted his knee. “So you will ask her?”
“Ask her?”
“Why, the valide! Ask her to come to Besiktas, Yashim. The harem needs a mother. As for Talfa-” The Kislar aga cocked his head. “What’s that?”
They heard the sound of running feet outside in the corridor, and the door was flung back to admit a eunuch, who immediately hurled himself to his knees.
“Aga!” He was deathly pale. His eyes rolled in his head. Through chattering teeth he cried out: “I think she is dying! Everywhere is blood, aga. Come!”
73
The Kislar aga rolled from the divan and clutched the babbling eunuch by the shoulder.
“Who is dying? Show me.”
Yashim followed. The fluttering eunuch ran half stooped with outstretched arms along the corridor, like a startled hen. Girls clutched their hands to their breasts and pressed themselves to the wall, their mouths ovals of surprise.
At the foot of the stairs the eunuch seemed to droop, clinging to the newel post for support.
“Up there, aga! The dormitory…”
The aga brushed past him, and they mounted the stairs two at a time. At the top the aga whirled down a corridor. He flung a door back with a blow from his open hand and stood there, panting, turning his head from side to side.
A girl sprang from the side of the bed with a scream of fright, her hands to her ears. Ibou strode forward and grabbed her wrist; the girl winced and bent at the waist, refusing to lower her hands.
“What are you doing?” he hissed.
Yashim saw it all like a tableau from the doorway: the girl squealing, Ibou gripping her wrist in his long hand, his eyes swiveling to the bed under the window, and the bed itself, with a white satin quilt embroidered minutely with multicolored flowers.
Beneath the quilt, black hair trailing wide across the pillows, lay another girl, staring straight at Yashim. Her eyes glittered like black pearls. As Yashim stepped forward into the room, the hairs prickling on the back of his neck, the girl in the bed moved very slightly: her jaw sagged.
“He said-blood!” Ibou shook the girl again. “Where is this blood!”
The eyes of the girl on the bed did not follow Yashim.
“She’s dead,” he said quietly.
Ibou turned his head and his eyes grew wide as they moved from the girl’s face to the flowered quilt draped across her body.
In the center of the bed, between the shape of the girl’s thighs, a new flower was blooming on the patterned quilt, growing larger and brighter than all the rest.
74
The Kislar aga twitched the quilt back.
Yashim took one look and turned his head away.
The aga’s jaw dropped. His grip on the girl relaxed. She wrenched herself free and blundered to the door.
Yashim made no effort to stop her.
The girl on the bed lay naked from the waist down, her legs outspread above a dark stain between her thighs. Deep welts were scored across the skin of her belly, as though she had been clawed by a great cat; fresh blood still oozed from the livid marks.
Ibou put his hand to his mouth.
“Go, Ibou. This is what you must do. Get green tea and ginger, straightaway.” Yashim laid a hand on the aga’s arm. “Have it sent to this room. Immediately, do you understand?”
“She’s dead.”
“Yes, she’s dead,” Yashim agreed. “The tea is for me.”
He saw Ibou’s color beginning to return.
“Then go and find the girl. What’s her name?”
“I–I don’t know.” The aga yawned suddenly, flashing his gold teeth. “Her name is Melda.”
“Find Melda.” Yashim spoke slowly, with emphasis. “Find her, and take her to your room. When you are there, wait for me.”
Yashim steered the aga toward the door. All the man’s strength seemed to have drained away: he moved without protest, his head bobbing.
“Tea, Ibou. Then find Melda. I’ll join you in your room.”
With the aga gone, Yashim closed the door and rubbed his hands over his face.
He had no expectation of recognizing the dead girl. He knew a few of the harem girls by sight, but for the most part they were anonymous, like beautiful cattle. Naked, unadorned, only the manner of her death distinguished her from a hundred others behind these walls. He wondered what the aga could tell him; what Melda knew.
He spent some time examining the welts on her belly. He examined her hands. There were faint traces of blood on her thighs, and her skin had already begun to cool when he turned her carefully onto her side. There was a deep pool of blood on the sheet beneath her.
He plucked at the sheet. When it did not give way he looked and saw that it was the thin mattress, and the sheet had gone.
He found the sheet easily, under the bed. It was screwed into a loose ball and it was soaked in blood.
75
Melda collapsed onto the divan, weeping.
She was dressed in the usual harem motley, a jumble of tailored and traditional costume bought in Paris and the Grand Bazaar, Turkish slippers peeping out from beneath French petticoats, a slashed and striped velvet jacket
over a bodice of ruched silk, a corded girdle and a muslin shawl.
Yashim drew up a stool and perched on it, one leg drawn up, wrists dangling.
“Melda, my name is Yashim. I want to talk about what happened to Elif.”
The girl covered her face with her hands.
“She was ill, Melda, wasn’t she? Something inside, that was hurting her very badly. She should have seen a doctor.” He frowned. “You know what a doctor is, Melda?”
Melda’s shoulders heaved. Very gently, Yashim took her wrists and lowered her hands.
“Melda?”
She turned her face away.
“Tell me,” Yashim urged. “Tell me what happened to Elif.”
She shook her head convulsively.
“I-have-seen-the engine,” she gasped.
“The engine?”
She dragged her hands free and clapped them over her ears, rocking to and fro.
“I don’t understand, Melda.”
Her eyes grew very wide, and she moved her hands to cover her mouth. Outside, the muezzin was calling the faithful to Friday prayers.
“How could you understand?” she burst out. “You-did you step out from a rock, or drop from a stork’s beak? Did I grow like an apple on a tree? No!” Bright spots had appeared on her cheeks, and her hands were clenched. Gone was the court lisp, the fluting voice, the trembling eyelash. Melda spoke in the stony voice of the mountains where she was raised; and she evoked an ancient bitterness, as old as the pagan gods of Circassia. “Men plant children in our bellies, and we bear them until we die.”
Yashim rocked slowly back.
Melda turned her eyes on him and then, like a snake, she drew back her head and spat.
“Elif was pregnant.”
Yashim remained motionless, gazing at the girl’s face. “The sultan chose her?”
The Kislar aga had said nothing about that, Yashim thought. Everything about a girl was carefully considered before she was promoted to gozde: her looks, her bearing, her conduct. To be selected to share the sultan’s bed was a very high honor: from it, with ordinary luck, flowed all the rewards the sultan could bestow upon a woman-rank, and fortune, and power within these four walls.
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