The Pasha of Cuisine

by Saygin Ersin

  Circassian boza was the ordinary fermented millet drink, while Albanian boza was slightly alcoholic and was sold underneath the counter. Master Adem called out to the shopkeeper standing behind a table topped with large wooden barrels. “Two Albanians!”

  The shopkeeper came to their table a short while later with two earthenware mugs. As he placed the mugs on the table, he caught sight of the brand-new apron around the cook’s waist and the certificate with the red stamp which he had rolled up and tucked into his sash. “My congratulations,” he said. “May God make you proud.”

  “Amen,” the cook and Master Adem replied in unison. After the shopkeeper left, Master Adem smiled for the first time that day and congratulated him once again.

  “Thank you, Master,” the cook replied. “It’s all thanks to you.”

  The master looked at his old assistant at length. The cook knew that proud gaze. His master had looked at him the same way once when he had taken a perfectly prepared dish off the stove. “No,” Master Adem replied after a while, “it’s all because of your skills. I didn’t do much at all, and there is nothing more I can do.”

  The cook was confused. Master Adem continued, “Son, I no longer have anything to teach you. You already knew from birth many of the intricacies of the art of cooking. It’s in your blood, in your soul. I only added what I could. But saying that I’ve got nothing left to teach you does not mean you have nothing left to learn. Do you understand what I am trying to say?”

  The cook nodded and looked away. His expression was glum, as he knew what was coming next. Lowering his voice, Master Adem said, “You are the Pasha of Cuisine! There’s a long road ahead of you, and you’re not even halfway down it yet. What I’ve taught you is merely a few drops in the ocean. There are great scholars, many learned men, who await your arrival. You must visit them and receive their teachings. You’ve a lot to learn before you can truly become the Pasha of Cuisine. Son, you must leave!”

  At that moment, the cook felt like he was bearing the weight of the world on his shoulders. Master Adem had told him that one day he would have to embark on long journeys. But the cook had taken it to be nothing more than a distant story and shrugged it off because taking it seriously would have meant leaving Kamer, which was the cook’s greatest fear.

  He took a deep breath, summoned all his courage and, with his eyes fixed on the mug before him from which he’d only taken two sips, he murmured, “Master, I don’t want to leave.”

  Master Adem responded with a long silence. After a while he asked, “Why?” When the cook didn’t answer, he asked with the utmost frankness, “Is it because of Kamer?”

  The cook merely nodded, still looking down.

  “Look at me,” Master Adem said. His voice betrayed concern. His master repeated, “Look at me!”

  This time the cook did as he was told and his gaze was met with a look of disappointment and anger. “The House of Pleasure is not the place for you,” he said. “Neither the women nor the men there are trustworthy. In the end you’ll be disappointed, son. The women there aren’t for you.”

  The cook pursed his lips, trying to bite back the words that were on the tip of his tongue, and contented himself with saying, “Kamer is different, Master.”

  Master Adem chuckled in response. “Look,” he said, “do you know who is sitting here across from you?” A distant look came into his eyes, a look marked by bitterness and disappointment. After a pause, he said, “I was once the greatest cook in the whole of Istanbul and my place had three floors. It was packed morning and night. We had to turn customers away because there was no room. Pashas and gentlemen begged me to cook for their feasts. I would return home with my arms filled with gifts and my pockets filled with gold. I can’t remember how many times the Kitchen Chamberlain visited me to try to convince me to work in the Imperial Kitchens, saying that I would start in the Royal Kitchen. I refused and sent İsfendiyar in my stead. Even though he was just my assistant, they took him in immediately. I was the best in the art of cooking, I was happy, I had a sterling reputation. I had fame and enough money to last even my grandchildren. And then …”

  Master Adem stopped to take a breath. Quickly wiping away a tear, he continued, “One day, I ended up at the House of Pleasure. Not because I was overly fond of drinking or lovemaking, but because I’d heard good things about their cook. I was only going to try the food and go back home. But I had no idea that it was a cursed place. First, Sirrah’s tongue poisoned me. I stayed five days when I should’ve returned on the same day I visited, and that was with the help of my assistant and my friends. I did manage to get out, but my mind kept wandering back to the House of Pleasure. I was filled with passion.”

  The master averted his eyes. Swallowing with difficulty as if there was a stone stuck in his throat, he went on: “I met her on the third night I was there. She played the lute and sang. She was indescribably beautiful, so much so that no mortal could ever describe her. I was enthralled and couldn’t get her out of my thoughts. I couldn’t even eat a bite of food, let alone cook. Unable to bear it any longer, I sent her a letter. I received a reply the next day. And what a reply it was! I was swept off my feet. I didn’t charge anyone for the food that day, and the next day I was at the gates of the House of Pleasure once again. For ten days, I had the time of my life with her. She was in love with me, too. I was sure of it. Money, work, and fame meant nothing to me anymore. I wanted to spend all my time with her. In less than a year we had to close down my place. But I didn’t care because I could find work anywhere I wanted. I started cooking at the House of Pleasure. Over time, it started to bother me that she sang for other customers and attended revelries and banquets in the mansions. I wanted to be the only person who listened to her songs, the only person she played the lute for, but my desires meant money. After all, the girl was Sirrah’s property. I paid on behalf of every customer so she wouldn’t perform for him. That was how my fortune vanished. And I became indebted to Sirrah by buying the girl’s freedom. She set her free, but the girl ran off with a rich aristocrat. She left me, son. She left me.”

  Master Adem paused and, looking at the cook with tears in his eyes, said his last words on the matter: “Don’t think Kamer will stay with you. Don’t be fooled by fantasies. She’s been poisoned by the House of Pleasure. She will leave you, too.”

  The cook’s hands began to tremble, and the wave of fury building up within him washed away the sorrow he’d felt for his master. Still, he tried to remain calm. “Kamer is different, Master,” he said. “She really is different.”

  Master Adem laughed. “You’re right,” he replied, “Kamer is different. She’s different, because she’s still young. She hasn’t seen anything of the world yet. She knows nothing of wealth or extravagance. She thinks you and I and the House of Pleasure are all there is to life. But mark my words, she will discover the truth soon enough.”

  The cook didn’t open his mouth, fearing what would come out of it next. But with one look, Master Adem could tell exactly what the cook was thinking. “Be as angry as you like,” he told him, “but that is the truth. You have a talent that comes around only once in a thousand years. Don’t waste it. You have to leave.”

  Through clenched teeth, the cook replied, “I’m not going anywhere!”

  After that day, no mention was made of Kamer or traveling, and the matter was consigned to time and silence. The cook went over Master Adem’s story in his mind. Of course, hearing his story saddened him, and he couldn’t quite believe the man he called his master could have been so foolish. But he could neither put Kamer in the place of the girl in the story, nor liken himself to Master Adem. At that moment, his faith in Kamer was unshaken. But the seed of malady known as suspicion had been planted in his mind.

  Even for the wise, it can be hard to tell when the curse of suspicion has become rooted in their minds, so for the young cook, it was impossible for him to know that when he got up from the boza shop, he was a different person. Suspicion insidious
ly wormed its way into his thoughts, gnawing at him from within. People who are untouched by suspicion and firm in their faith do not constantly need to remind themselves of what they believe in. But just as a man of religion whose faith has been shaken begins to pray more fervently, the cook kept telling himself that Kamer would never leave him, that she loved him, and that they’d spend the rest of their lives together. But suspicion, feeding on that litany, seeped from his thoughts into his vision day by day.

  The cook didn’t know if it was just his imagination, but Kamer seemed to grow more beautiful with each passing day. The mischievous young girl was slowly taking on the figure of a gorgeous woman. Sirrah, of course, noticed as well and did all she could to add to the beauty of her new favorite. She had dresses of rare fabrics made for her and adorned the girl’s hair, neck, and arms with the most valuable of jewels.

  The cook also wanted to celebrate Kamer’s beauty. He saved up the allowance Master Adem gave him and the tips he got from the customers. He got permission to leave the House of Pleasure for half a day so he could go to the Grand Bazaar. Once there, he found a jeweler who agreed to make a gold necklace with a small pendant in the shape of an apple. He only had enough money to pay for gold of the lowest quality so the necklace didn’t sparkle like the ones Sirrah gave Kamer, but he didn’t mind. The sparkle in Kamer’s eyes on the night when he gave the necklace to her, in a secluded corner of the large gardens at the House of Pleasure, outshone all the jewels in the world for him. Her hands were shaking so much that she dropped the necklace twice as she was trying to put it on, and in the end she asked the cook to put it on for her. However, the cook’s hands were shaking as well, and the clasp was so small it would have been difficult even with steady hands. When the necklace fell to the ground for the third time, they laughed. As they kneeled down to pick up the necklace, their hands touched on the ground, and the cook’s heart seemed to stop again.

  After the necklace was finally around Kamer’s neck, they sat down with their backs against an ancient oak tree, watching the night sky and the stars through the leaves. Kamer rested her head against the cook’s shoulder. She held his hand with one hand and grasped the apple pendant with the other. After she finished the song, she was whispering into his ear, she said, “I’m never going to take this off.”

  The cook squeezed her hand. “One day,” he said, “I’ll buy you an even nicer one.”

  Kamer said nothing in reply, and the cook understood that her silence wasn’t the silence of bliss. A shiver ran down his spine and a cold sweat broke on his back as he realized that even the mere mention of the future filled Kamer with dread.

  He was also concerned about what Sirrah was planning, as she knew that Kamer met up with him at every opportunity. Had he listened more carefully to Master Adem’s story, he would have noticed that the cunning woman was in fact plotting to take him in as a new cook and keep him bound for the rest of his life. Just as she hadn’t taken Master Adem seriously before, she didn’t think that the cook would dare try to take Kamer away from the House of Pleasure. By pretending to not see what was happening, she was waiting for her prospective cook to sink deeper into her clutches. Sirrah was a lucky woman and clever as well. Then an incident occurred which made her realize that things wouldn’t be as easy as she supposed.

  Kamer may have become Sirrah’s favorite, but she was kept on a tight leash. She was, however, just as obstinate as she had been in her childhood and even more outspoken, meaning that she was so adept at getting on Sirrah’s nerves that the older woman had difficulty handling her on her own. Whenever she had to teach Kamer a lesson in obedience, she had to get help from her slaves, and then all hell would break loose. Kamer would throw whatever she could get her hands on at the slaves, and her screams and curses would echo through the mansion. Of course, the cook could hear her, and he was tormented by the sound of her cries. A few times on such occasions he reached for the meat cleaver, but Master Adem managed to hold him in check.

  One day, he was alone in the kitchen as Kamer’s screams began echoing through the halls again. The cook prayed for patience, but Kamer let out such a pained scream that he lost control. He stormed upstairs with the cleaver, shoving aside the servants who tried to stop him, until he reached the room where two slaves were lashing Kamer. Using the back of the blade, he broke the arm of one of the slaves and gashed the forehead of the other. He turned to Sirrah and growled, “If you hurt her again, I’ll take your life.”

  Of course, that wasn’t the first time Sirrah had seen a man brandishing a meat cleaver. She had dealt with thousands of threats that were a thousand times more serious from men who were a thousand times more dangerous. She shot the cook a contemptuous look and then turned to Kamer, ordering her out. Kamer hesitated, unsure of what she should do. After seeing the two lovers glance at each other, Sirrah snapped, “Kamer! I told you to leave!”

  There was such an insidious threat in her mistress’s voice that Kamer was truly afraid of her for the first time in her life. After she left, Sirrah turned her most condescending smile on the cook, and then gesturing toward the large full-length mirror on the wall, she said, “Cook! Take a look at yourself.”

  Had the wise people he would come to know later in life been there, they would have shouted, “Don’t look!” But the cook was alone. With his naivety, his love sinking deeper into sorrow day by day, and the demon of suspicion constantly whispering within him, he turned around to look in the mirror.

  Just as Sirrah wanted, he didn’t like what he saw. His clothes were stained and his hands were covered with burns and cuts. Cuts could heal and clothes could be washed, but he was unsure about his future. He knew that even if he were the Pasha of Cuisine, he was after all only a cook and would remain one forever. The more he looked in the mirror, the more he saw his handsome face as hideous, and his talent as a curse that was tightening around his neck.

  At the same time, he thought of Kamer and how beautiful she was, which made him think that she deserved to live a splendorous life. As he slaved away in the stuffy kitchen, Kamer danced in lavishly decorated rooms, showered with the compliments of pashas and aristocrats, and slaves and servants fawned over her, doing whatever she wanted.

  “It’s so difficult,” the cook muttered to himself. And when he said that, a dark fog settled over all the dreams he’d had until that day.

  From that moment on, everything seemed to be a twist of fate to the cook. It was as if the world was conspiring against him, trying to shatter his dreams and destroy his future. To make matters worse, he could no longer meet up with Kamer as often as he had before, as Sirrah had started to watch over her like a hawk. Sirrah had been able to perceive what the cook could not—namely, the fact that what was happening was no passing fancy but genuine love, and that the cook was nothing like Master Adem, just as Kamer was nothing like the girl he loved. Sirrah could tell when someone was ready to risk everything, and she was afraid that the couple would elope, so she had her slaves keep a close eye on Kamer.

  The cook, however, was in no state to rationally analyze the situation. No matter how hard he tried to stave off his dark thoughts, part of his mind kept whispering that Kamer no longer wanted to see him as often as she had in the past. The less he saw her, the more concerned he became; the more he concerned he became, the more he thought; and the more he thought, the more his mind gave way to morbid visions. He wondered if perhaps she no longer loved him, if she’d been hoodwinked by one of the guests, or had fallen in love with another man but hadn’t told him so as not to break his heart. The cook thought constantly, and sank deeper and deeper into despair.

  It was at this time that Mahmud Bey, the elder son of the renowned Darıcızade family from Alexandria, decided to visit Istanbul. The Darıcızade family was very wealthy and just as powerful. They owned so much land that the harvests from their fields affected grain prices not just in Istanbul but in the entirety of the Ottoman Empire.

  Mahmud Bey’s arrival in Istanbul, replete w
ith three galleys, was greeted with great fanfare. He moved into a mansion on the shores of the Bosphorus and his entourage settled into two other mansions. He was received by the Grand Vizier who gave a feast in his honor, and the merchants of the city lined up at his door to secure an audience with him.

  Of course, Mahmud Bey couldn’t visit Istanbul without hearing about the House of Pleasure—Sirrah made sure of that.

  His arrival at the House of Pleasure was an event in itself.

  Preparations had begun a week in advance. All the other guests were sent away, the mansions were cleaned and repaired from top to bottom, and all the servants were given new outfits.

  The kitchen had never been so busy. Every ingredient was purchased anew even though the cellar was stocked, and the freshest and rarest of foodstuffs were bought.

  But the cook’s mind was elsewhere. A dark mood had descended on him when he’d heard Kamer would be the lead dancer at the reception to be held in Mahmud Bey’s honor. Naturally, Sirrah had decided to present such an important guest with her best dancer. The cook had already envisioned what would happen days before Mahmud Bey arrived at the House of Pleasure. In his mind, Mahmud Bey would be awestruck by Kamer, prolong his stay just for her sake, and, unable to endure being separated from her for too long, return shortly afterwards to invite Kamer to his home.

  Even his despairing mind did not permit him to imagine what would follow.

  Whether it truly was a twist of fate, or whether because imagining something so many times suffices to make it happen, as the old proverb says, things transpired just as the cook had imagined they would.

  The Darıcızade heir returned to the House of Pleasure a few days after his departure, this time at night. His second arrival wasn’t as grand as the first. He only brought a few servants with him, took up a room like an ordinary customer, and requested neither drink nor services. He wanted only one thing, and that was Kamer.