The Sultan's Seal by Jenny White

and I help him whenever I can.” Her voice is defensive.
    “You are far from your family,” he suggests gently. “That is always difficult.”
    It is too much for Sybil. She blinks angrily.
    “Yes, I do miss my sister. I’ve never even met my nephews. I have no other family, except for my aunt and uncle in America and cousin Bernie. My mother, you see, passed away.” She pauses, balancing her head so the tear that has formed in the corner of her eye will not spill and betray her.
    “Health to your head,” he says softly in Turkish.
    The light from the party behind them reflects on her wet cheek.
    “Thank you, teshekkur ederim,” she replies in kind, her tongue tripping over the many consonants.
    Not wishing to draw attention to her distress, he waits silently for her to continue.
    Frightened by her sudden weakness, Sybil straightens her back and continues in English. “That was five years ago. Father keeps her memory alive by staying on here, where she was by his side.”
    “A mother’s memory is precious.”
    “I think he simply finds it easier to bear Mother’s absence if he doesn’t break the rhythm of their life together. He keeps up an endless round of functions and formal visits. I think Father finds the routine soothing. It helps him forget. And this is where he was happy,” she explains.
    “You are to be commended. Our society values a child that looks after his mother and father.”
    “It isn’t difficult to direct the household, and Father doesn’t impose too many other duties on me.”
    “Does this make you happy as well?” he ventures.
    “Of course!” She turns to him indignantly. She sees mild green eyes, full of concern.
    She turns her face from the light. Several moments pass before she speaks again.
    Kamil feels an urge to take her hand, to confide his own father’s seemingly inconsolable grief, his unraveling ties first to work, now to his family, and, Kamil fears, eventually to life. He would like her advice on how to help his father. The death of his wife had catapulted Kamil’s father into training for his own oblivion. After her body was taken to the mosque, washed, wrapped in white linen, and consigned to the tomb under a hail of prayer, Alp Pasha never again stepped foot in a mosque or in the house where she had lived. Instead, he devoted more and more time to smoking opium in a darkened room, eventually giving up any pretense of governing.
    When the grand vizier reluctantly took the office from him, Alp Pasha moved into his daughter Feride’s home. He refuses to visit Kamil in the villa where his mother had lived, preferring the opium-induced vision to the real thing. When he prepares himself with a pipe, Alp Pasha told Kamil once, he can smell the roses in the garden and feel the breeze in his hair. Kamil worries that he hasn’t done enough, that he is not a dutiful son, leaving the entire burden to his sister. He ponders how to bring up such a personal subject, then wonders if it is appropriate. The opportunity passes.
    “I’ve never thought about it, to be honest. I suppose keeping Father happy keeps me happy as well,” Sybil answers finally. She sounds unsure. “I do have other interests,” she continues in a stronger voice, “that keep me amused.” She tells Kamil about the tutor who comes twice a week to teach her Turkish.
    “It’s infuriating when someone speaks at length and then the terjuman translates it with only three words, so I determined to learn it myself.”
    She admits to Kamil that she occasionally slips out on her own, concealed under a feradje cloak and dark yashmak veil, and walks around the city, wanting to try out her Turkish without a retinue of servants, guards, and official translators.
    “They’re probably spies! So how much will anyone really tell me in their presence?”
    Animated now, she shares with Kamil her interest in religion. They discuss Islam, not simply as a revealed book, but as a way of life. He finds that she knows a