across the dry cobbles.
40
A T this hour of the day when the sun slanted almost horizontally across the landscape, you could sometimes make out dark forms behind the latticework that protected the upper windows of every Ottoman house. Men spoke of glimpses of a pretty hand, or a pair of liquid eyes, to which imagination attached the figure of a houri from Paradise. Yashim ducked under the pears and walked quickly across the courtyard to the back door.
My name is Yashim: I am a lala from the palace , he could say. We have been concerned for your safety while the pasha is away .
Nobody answered his knock. He listened. No footsteps; no whispers.
Yashim tried the shutters. They were fastened from the inside, but overhead was a balcony facing away from the church and toward the hills. With a swift glance around, he shinned up from the shutter to the balustrade.
A lattice door pierced by a thousand little openings was shut fast by an inside hook. Yashim slipped a knife from his belt and slid the blade into the jamb. It clicked against the hook and the door swung free.
He stood, breathing heavily in the doorway.
Once before he had entered a harem like this, by stealth. He’d been looking for a man hiding among the petticoats—and Fevzi Ahmet had been waiting for him downstairs.
Now it was Fevzi’s house. Fevzi’s harem.
He stepped through the doorway.
“Ladies! Ladies! I am Yashim, a lala from the palace! Come out, and do not be afraid!”
41
F EVZI Ahmet, coming into the guardroom. Pulling off a pair of gloves.
He spits.
“Nothing. A time waster.”
“Perhaps I could talk to him? I’ve been wondering—perhaps he doesn’t realize what he knows?”
Fevzi pours himself a glass of tea. “No. There’s no point, Yashim.”
“Never give up—you say that yourself, Fevzi efendi.”
The bloodshot eyes. “There’s no point. He’s already dead.”
42
T HERE was no reply to Yashim’s call; he knew he had not expected one. He slipped off his shoes and stood at the head of the stairs, gazing at the doors that led off the upper landing and wondering where to begin. There was a faint smell of starch and roses.
The house was an old country villa built by some Greek merchant, with wide, scrubbed oak boards, walls of planked and polished cedar, and a plaster ceiling decorated a long time ago with a painted motif of flowers. Here and there the ceiling needed repair.
Gingerly he tried a door. It swung back onto what might have been an apartment for one of Fevzi’s ladies, but when Yashim stepped cautiously inside he was reminded of a linen merchant’s warehouse. Even in the Grand Bazaar in Istanbul, the greatest emporium on earth, with its fourteen miles of covered alleys, its workshops and restaurants and cafés and hammams, Yashim would have been surprised to find such a collection of printed cotton quilts, hammam towels and sheets. In teetering piles on the divan, spilling onto the rugs on the floor, stacked against the walls, were pantaloons, with frills, and pretty striped chemises; handkerchiefs and pattens with cotton sides; yards of muslin of a fine grade, and bolts of cloth—blue, green, a deep indigo, patterned cotton, figured silks.
Out on the landing he stopped to listen. The silence rushed in his ears.
He pushed the door to the room that overlooked the entrance.
In the corner, a narrow pallet lay rolled up on the floor. Otherwise the room looked empty. The shutters were closed in the room beyond, and Yashim stood for a while on the threshold to let his eyes adjust to the slatted shade.
Two blue eyes were staring at him across the room.
He stumbled back, shocked: it was a child. He looked again. Its eyes were fixed on him, under a cascade of light brown hair.
His heart was thumping as he crossed the room. It was only a doll, a ferenghi doll nestling in shavings packed into a cardboard box. The lid of the box lay beside it, as if someone had lifted it to take a peek; on the lid were the
40
A T this hour of the day when the sun slanted almost horizontally across the landscape, you could sometimes make out dark forms behind the latticework that protected the upper windows of every Ottoman house. Men spoke of glimpses of a pretty hand, or a pair of liquid eyes, to which imagination attached the figure of a houri from Paradise. Yashim ducked under the pears and walked quickly across the courtyard to the back door.
My name is Yashim: I am a lala from the palace , he could say. We have been concerned for your safety while the pasha is away .
Nobody answered his knock. He listened. No footsteps; no whispers.
Yashim tried the shutters. They were fastened from the inside, but overhead was a balcony facing away from the church and toward the hills. With a swift glance around, he shinned up from the shutter to the balustrade.
A lattice door pierced by a thousand little openings was shut fast by an inside hook. Yashim slipped a knife from his belt and slid the blade into the jamb. It clicked against the hook and the door swung free.
He stood, breathing heavily in the doorway.
Once before he had entered a harem like this, by stealth. He’d been looking for a man hiding among the petticoats—and Fevzi Ahmet had been waiting for him downstairs.
Now it was Fevzi’s house. Fevzi’s harem.
He stepped through the doorway.
“Ladies! Ladies! I am Yashim, a lala from the palace! Come out, and do not be afraid!”
41
F EVZI Ahmet, coming into the guardroom. Pulling off a pair of gloves.
He spits.
“Nothing. A time waster.”
“Perhaps I could talk to him? I’ve been wondering—perhaps he doesn’t realize what he knows?”
Fevzi pours himself a glass of tea. “No. There’s no point, Yashim.”
“Never give up—you say that yourself, Fevzi efendi.”
The bloodshot eyes. “There’s no point. He’s already dead.”
42
T HERE was no reply to Yashim’s call; he knew he had not expected one. He slipped off his shoes and stood at the head of the stairs, gazing at the doors that led off the upper landing and wondering where to begin. There was a faint smell of starch and roses.
The house was an old country villa built by some Greek merchant, with wide, scrubbed oak boards, walls of planked and polished cedar, and a plaster ceiling decorated a long time ago with a painted motif of flowers. Here and there the ceiling needed repair.
Gingerly he tried a door. It swung back onto what might have been an apartment for one of Fevzi’s ladies, but when Yashim stepped cautiously inside he was reminded of a linen merchant’s warehouse. Even in the Grand Bazaar in Istanbul, the greatest emporium on earth, with its fourteen miles of covered alleys, its workshops and restaurants and cafés and hammams, Yashim would have been surprised to find such a collection of printed cotton quilts, hammam towels and sheets. In teetering piles on the divan, spilling onto the rugs on the floor, stacked against the walls, were pantaloons, with frills, and pretty striped chemises; handkerchiefs and pattens with cotton sides; yards of muslin of a fine grade, and bolts of cloth—blue, green, a deep indigo, patterned cotton, figured silks.
Out on the landing he stopped to listen. The silence rushed in his ears.
He pushed the door to the room that overlooked the entrance.
In the corner, a narrow pallet lay rolled up on the floor. Otherwise the room looked empty. The shutters were closed in the room beyond, and Yashim stood for a while on the threshold to let his eyes adjust to the slatted shade.
Two blue eyes were staring at him across the room.
He stumbled back, shocked: it was a child. He looked again. Its eyes were fixed on him, under a cascade of light brown hair.
His heart was thumping as he crossed the room. It was only a doll, a ferenghi doll nestling in shavings packed into a cardboard box. The lid of the box lay beside it, as if someone had lifted it to take a peek; on the lid were the
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