by Saygin Ersin
After a few moments she regained her usual composure and spat out the cloth. “What do you want?” she sneered.
The cook took a few steps toward her and said, “Your tongue. I need your sweet-talking tongue, Sirrah. Will you give it to me?”
“What do you want?” Sirrah repeated. She was a woman of the world and knew when her life was in danger and when it wasn’t.
The cook cut to the chase: “The Darıcızade heir is in Istanbul. You will entertain him at the House of Pleasure tonight.”
Sirrah narrowed her eyes. “He won’t come,” she said. “He’s busy. Preparing for a wedding.”
When she realized what she had just said, it was too late.
“He will come,” the cook said between clenched teeth. “You will go to the Darıcızade mansion with Master Adem. You will ask, beg, do whatever it takes to get that bastard to come here tonight. The Slow Brothers will come with you. If you can’t convince him, if you try anything underhanded, they will cut your throats on the spot. Do you understand?”
Sirrah shifted her gaze to the two blades gleaming in the hands of the two men on either side of her. The cook turned toward the Slow Brothers and said, “Take her upstairs so she can get ready. Find yourselves something to wear as well.”
After the Slow Brothers left with Sirrah, it was time to deal with Master Adem. “Master Adem,” the cook said. “Go and get changed.”
In about an hour, the seven were ready: the Slow Brothers in servants’ uniforms of green velvet, the three robbers disguised as guards, Master Adem, and Sirrah. They left the House of Pleasure in a fancy carriage drawn by four horses.
Tekir and the rest of his men who remained behind roamed through the Great Mansion’s rooms, collecting their spoils, while Master Bekir, his assistants, and the cook were in the kitchen nervously waiting for news from the Darıcızade mansion. Only the cook was standing. He was looking at his hands, examining the scars on his fingers and palms, each the relic of a memory rooted in that kitchen.
The deep crescent-shaped scar in the middle of his left palm was from when he was nine years old. He had been cutting a quince as he was preparing a dessert, and as he pressed down on the knife, the point cut into his palm and the blood gushed forth. He’d screamed. Master Adem had run in, squeezed his wrist tightly, and covered the wound with a pinch of salt. After bandaging his hand with a cloth, his master had pointed at the half of the quince on the floor and told him to go on with his work. That was how the cook learned that as long as his hands and his fingers were working, a cook had to finish whatever he started.
The burn scar running across his right palm came about as the result of a large pan. He was eleven or twelve at the time. Master Adem had asked him to lightly fry some pieces of aubergine. After the cook put the pan on the stove, he’d turned his attention back to the meat he was mincing and had only realized what was happening when he caught the scent of the aubergine. He’d known that if he left them for a second longer, they’d be overdone and there wasn’t a single piece of cloth nearby, so out of instinct he’d grabbed the iron handle of the pan with his bare hand. He may have saved the dish, but he was rewarded with a scar that would stay with him for the rest of his life, reminding him that even the slightest absentmindedness could result in disaster.
The deep scars on the middle and index fingers of his right hand could be thought of as Kamer’s doing. One day the cook was grating some lemon peels when Kamer started singing, and when he heard her voice, his thoughts wandered. He noticed he had finished grating the lemon peels and had moved on to his fingers only when she stopped singing. Thankfully Kamer had sung a short song, and he hadn’t felt any pain at all.
He stood there in the middle of the kitchen, lost in his reminiscing. Master Bekir tried to strike up a conversation once or twice, but the cook responded curtly each time as he examined every pot, every knife, every corner of the kitchen, trying to remember each moment he had spent in that house.
What he was doing struck him as being somewhat silly and brought him more sorrow than joy, but he felt that he had no choice. Some of the things he remembered may have pierced his heart like a thousand thorns, but that was the only place he could call home, with all its good and bad; after all, it was proof of his past.
He did have a past, whether it lay in ruins or not, and he knew he had to reclaim it.
The cook snapped out of his reverie when the main gate clattered and he heard the sound of horses’ hooves on the stony path.
Master Bekir and his assistants leapt to their feet and they all went outside.
Master Adem emerged from the carriage first, followed by Sirrah and the Slow Brothers. The cook approached Sirrah.
“It has been arranged,” she said. “He will come tonight.”
The expression on Sirrah’s face betrayed, perhaps for the first time in her life, a sense of defeat at having accomplished something.
The cook looked at the Slow Brothers for confirmation.
“Don’t worry, my Master,” the larger of the two said. “Darıcızade will be here tonight.”
The tense expression on the cook’s face softened. “Thank you,” he told them. “Now I have one final request.”
The Slow Brothers nodded.
“Bring all the women of the House of Pleasure into the garden. Musicians, dancers … the whole lot of them.”
Then he turned to Master Bekir and his assistants and said, “Let’s go, Aghas,” he said. “It’s time to get to work.”
They went to the kitchen.
“We’re done with the worst of it. Now it’s time for us to show what we can do. We must prepare a banquet that will put the Royal Kitchen to shame.”
Master Bekir thought for a moment and said, “In that case, saffron rice is a must. Do they have good saffron here?”
The cook nodded. “The best, Master. Sirrah isn’t stingy with the ingredients. What else shall we cook?”
One of the more experienced assistants offered, “Since there’s saffron, if we can get fresh bass from Üsküdar, I could roast it.”
Another assistant piped up, “Whoever is going to Üsküdar should buy some prawns, too. I’ll make a cold salad with them; it will go well with the rest.”
The cook silently nodded his approval when he found a suggestion sensible and brushed off those he did not like with a sour look. The banquet for Darıcızade was slowly coming together: “Hummus, almond soup, goose kebab, chicken with pomegranate syrup, mutton leg over cherry rice, guards’ stew, and mahmudiye.”
The cook gave his approval to a brave suggestion put forward by an assistant: minced meat with sauce over rye bread. He turned to Master Bekir. “What shall we do for dessert?”
“Baklava, of course,” the master replied without hesitation.
The cook was unsure. “Will it stay fresh?”
Master Bekir smiled. “But of course.”
“That’s good,” said the cook. “But we should have something light as well. All these dishes are quite rich.”
Master Bekir was likely thinking the same thing, because he came up with a solution: “In that case, let’s make helatiye. The cold fruit with syrup will be refreshing.”
“So be it,” the cook said. Then he looked out into the garden through the open door.
In the meanwhile, Master Bekir asked the question everybody had been wanting to ask: “And what will you cook?”
The cook smiled. He was listening to the nervous murmurings coming from outside. “I’ll decide in a moment,” he replied and stepped outside.
The Slow Brothers had brought all the women of the House of Pleasure into the garden, nearly thirty of them altogether.
The cook looked at the gathering of women at length, and sent about twenty of them back to their rooms. He told the others to line up in a row in front of him, and he approached the girl on the leftmost side, standing close as he looked at her at length. He closed his eyes and secretly breathed in her scent.
Scents of spring stirre
d in his mind, like the newly flowered branches of plum and almond trees swaying in the breeze. Too innocent, he thought and moved on to the next girl.
She had a sharper scent, but many of the aromas were bitter and sharp: black pepper, cinnamon, mustard, and an undertone of coriander. He moved on to the next girl.
Under the uneasy gaze of the women, he had almost made it halfway through the line in this manner, eyes closed. He liked a few of the girls with crisp scents, like fresh mint or basil, but they were either too dull to be any use to him, or the bouquet of their scents was too complex. Some of them evoked scents that were completely unremarkable compared with their remarkable physical beauty. The cook was about to pick a lesser of two evils when a scent filled him and brought back his cheer.
That scent was a blend of dozens but managed to work as one, as if expertly created from a hundred thousand spices. Unique, hot, and prickly, yet soothing and enticing. As one of the Pashas of Cuisine, he knew the word for that scent, and the moment he repeated its name to himself, the scent was transformed into a taste he could feel first on his tongue and then on his palate; it then became a feeling that worked its way from his heart to his stomach and from there to his groin. Quickly he banished the fantasies crowding his mind and repeated the name of the scent once more. The result was the same. It was the right scent and the right woman.
The cook was momentarily stunned when he opened his eyes because the woman standing in front of him resembled a young version of Sirrah. Pleased by this turn of events, he asked the young woman what her name was.
“Nihan,” she replied.
When he looked into her eyes, he saw the timidity of youth and little more.
The cook repeated softly, “Nihan.” Then he said, “Darıcızade Mahmud Bey will be visiting the House of Pleasure tonight. Were you aware of this?”
“No,” she replied.
“Well, now you know. And you will be his favorite. You will dance for him and serve him. So dress for the role.”
The young woman’s eyes gleamed with a sparkle of ambition that sent chills down the cook’s spine. Just then a woman’s voice behind him said, “No, not her.”
It was Sirrah. She was wise in the ways of the world, and she sensed impending danger. Perhaps she didn’t know exactly what would transpire, but she sensed something was amiss. Rushing up to the cook she repeated, “Not her!”
“Why not?” the cook asked.
Sirrah paused and then said in a low voice, “There’s something sinister about her. People call her the wrecker of mansions.”
The cook looked at the young woman. He had no doubt she would live up to her reputation. He reached out, plucked a strand of her hair, and told her to get ready. Then he quickly made his way to the kitchen.
By the time the others caught up with him, the cook had already placed the strand of hair at the bottom of a pot and was preparing the ingredients he would need.
Master Bekir looked at the cook’s table piled with lamb neck, shallots, truffles, a small beet, a handful of chestnuts, some dried plums, fresh ginger, basil, rosemary, and oregano. He asked the cook, “Are you going to make gerdaniye?”
The cook smiled. “Yes, something like that.”
Master Bekir turned to his assistants and said, “Take up your knives!”
At his command, the kitchen was suddenly filled with a flurry of action. Knives were sharpened, pots and pans clattered, and sacks, bags, and baskets were carried up from the cellar into the kitchen. The cook was lost in that culinary symphony he loved so passionately, and as he was rubbing freshly ground ginger and rosemary into the meat on the table, he heard Tekir’s voice on his left: “What shall we do with these two?”
The cook turned around, first looking at Tekir and then at Sirrah and Master Adem, both of whom were awaiting their fates as they stood between the Slow Brothers.
Putting down the piece of meat, he told them to follow him.
He walked toward the small, windowless, cold, dark room between the two kitchens.
The room in which Sirrah had kept Kamer locked up all those years ago.
He opened the door and looked inside. An image of Kamer appeared in his mind. She was sitting there surrounded by sacks of coal and planks of wood with her knees pulled up to her chest. Without taking his eyes from room, the cook said, “Put them inside.”
Sirrah walked into the room without waiting to be pushed in, but Master Adem stood at the threshold, looked at the cook, and said, “Listen to me—”
The cook interrupted him: “That’s enough from you, Master.”
But Master Adem was insistent. “Whatever I did, I did it for you. I did it for the name you bear, so that you could become the true Pasha of Cuisine and live up to your title.”
The cook scowled. He was hurt, almost on the verge of tears. “Master,” he began, “the Pasha of Cuisine is a title, but it is not my name.”
7
The Power of Names
AFTER THE COOK had spent more than a year at that stone mansion on the shores of Hormuz Island, he set out on a long sea voyage with the Lady of Essences.
He had spent the previous year doing almost nothing, or to put it more precisely, doing nothing different from what the other residents of the mansion did: he worked at the spice storehouse, read books, thought, remembered, and talked.
During all that time, talking was probably what helped him the most. He was surprised to find that the people whom he couldn’t tell apart when he first arrived at the mansion soon became distinct individuals the more he spoke to them and got to know them. By taking them as seriously as they took him, he learned that he could only become close with others if they allowed him to do so.
Every September, the Lady of Essences would set out on a journey, as did all the merchants in the region. That was when the rains abated and the merchants rode the monsoon winds still blowing in from the sea and set sail for the coast of India and islands further east.
Around the middle of September that year, the Lady of Essences told the cook to get ready for a journey. She offered no explanation, keeping her thoughts to herself as she always did. Perhaps she wanted to expand the cook’s knowledge and experience, or perhaps she thought a change of scenery would do his soul good. The cook did not ask any questions. He had learned long ago to not question the Lady’s wisdom.
A few days later a familiar ship docked at the pier in front of the stone mansion: Captain Behrengi’s black-sailed ship. The residents of the mansion helped them load the ship with provisions, spices to be sold and traded, and the Lady’s pearl-inlaid chest. They bade the two farewell on the pier. As the ship set sail, they sang the ancient farewell song of those who remained behind. The ship glided over the calm sea, passed through the straits, and before sailing out into the open ocean they veered to the southwest toward the harbor of Muscat, which was their first destination.
Muscat was one of the most enthralling cities the cook had ever seen. They spent two nights in that small bustling harbor town where every kind of spice imaginable was bought and sold, filling the ship’s hold with various spices, particularly frankincense, myrrh, and mastic.
The cook watched in astonishment as the Lady of Essences bought a small jar of Mecca balsam, paying twice its weight in silver without even bothering to haggle. Later, when he brought up the subject, the Lady laughed and said, “You should feel lucky we found any pure balsam at all.” As she sold the very same jar for its weight in gold to a Portuguese merchant at a market near the Bay of Bengal, she winked at the cook.
After Muscat, they traveled to the Island of Ceylon, where the Lady of Essences wanted to buy a large amount of cinnamon. After mooring their ship, they traveled inland for half a day with some of the sailors until they reached the cinnamon groves in the middle of the forest. Since the owner of the groves did not protest when the Lady asked for certain trees to be marked for cutting, the cook assumed he must have had an abiding respect for the renowned customer gracing the island.
But that wasn’t the Lady’s only condition and desire. The sailors were to oversee the peeling of the trees and wait until the bark had dried, becoming sticks of cinnamon. The payment was to be made after the Lady completed the rest of her journey and stopped by on her return trip, whereupon the price would be calculated based on the weight of the dried cinnamon.
After leaving the Isle of Ceylon, they steered toward the Bay of Bengal. The cook thought they would continue hence until they reached the Indian coast, but when he woke up one morning and went up on deck, he saw that the ship had dropped anchor off the coast of a mysterious island.
The ocean, which was calm enough where they were anchored, churned wildly along the rocky shores of the island, and giant waves pounded the stone coast.
When the cook saw that the Lady of Essences was getting ready to go ashore with two sailors who were carrying her chest, his face went white with fear. It seemed impossible to him that the ship’s small rowboat could stand up to the waves crashing along the coast. Even if the boat didn’t capsize, the waves would smash the boat against the rocks.
In the end, none of the boats were lowered into the water. The Lady of Essences remained on deck with the sailors, watching the island impatiently. Minutes later, a few shadowy shapes appeared among the waves and started to approach the ship. As they drew nearer, the cook saw that they were long narrow canoes. Each was paddled by four men, and as their short oars sliced at the water as if taming a beast, the canoes slipped through the waves rather than fighting against them.
The canoes easily navigated the rocky shore, and when they reached the calm open water, they shot forward, appearing at the side of the ship in what seemed like seconds.
The Lady of Essences ordered the sailors carrying her chest down into one of the canoes, and as she climbed down the rope ladder, she gestured for the cook to follow her.
The cook had no choice but to comply. As he sat there among the islanders—whose language he didn’t speak and whose religion he knew nothing of—he looked at their dark skin adorned with white tattoos and their unfriendly faces. He prayed silently all the way to the island.