“Incroyable. And with that pillow. You have to be firm, Yashim, as I have always said.”
Yashim glanced down at the dead girl.
The bullet had got her just above her eyes.
“I have spent a great deal of time with my vieux papa, these last few days, Yashim,” the valide said wearily. “Or is it weeks? Long ago, on Martinique, he taught me how to shoot. I suppose it’s one of those things you don’t forget.”
Yashim’s legs felt weak. He sat down on the divan. “Where did you get the gun?”
“I’ve had it for years, Yashim. The sultan gave it to me. My sultan, of course—Abdülhamid. I think it amused him to watch me shoot. He was rather a dear man, in many ways.” A filmy look came into her eyes; then she tossed her head, and said: “You can put it away now. The case is under the divan.”
The pistol case was made of red leather and bore the tughra of Sultan Abdülhamid on the lid. Inside was a yellow silk lining, and the pistol’s twin, nestling in its groove. It bore an English label: J. Purdey, London.
Yashim slotted the pistol back into its case and closed the lid.
“You might ask someone to take her away,” the valide said. “I’m feeling rather tired, and these days I prefer to sleep alone.”
Yashim stood up. “Of course, valide.”
“We’ll talk in the morning, Yashim.” She yawned. “I expect I’ll have … rather exciting dreams.”
He bowed.
And went to find the colonel of the halberdiers.
146
PALEWSKI stood by the fire with his elbow on the mantelpiece.
“And so,” he concluded, “they sped across the frozen lake, the prince and the princess, to the gates of the ice castle. And when the ice maidens flung back the gates to welcome them, they went in, and sat down to the most beautiful banquet there ever was.”
“What did they eat?”
“Yes, what did they eat? They ate, um, tiny kebabs.”
“Why were they tiny?”
“They were tiny because that way they could eat more of them,” Palewski said.
The little girl nodded, as if that made sense.
“Ah, here’s Marta!” Palewski cried. “And that, Roxelana, is the end of the story.”
Roxelana nodded again, and looked serious. “I’d like tiny kebabs,” she said.
Palewski cast a hopeful look toward Marta.
“If the young lady will come with me to the kitchen …” she said with a smile.
Roxelana slipped off the armchair. She bowed gravely to Palewski and slipped her hand into Marta’s.
At the door she gave a little shiver, and turned. “I wouldn’t like to live in an ice castle forever,” she pointed out.
Palewski nodded. “It’s unlikely, Roxelana, that you ever will,” he said, thinking of Egypt.
When the door had closed he turned to Kadri, who was sitting in a window seat, and said: “Any sign?”
Kadri shook his head. “I enjoyed the story, too.”
Palewski ran his hand through his hair. “Good, good,” he said absently, and moved toward the sideboard.
“Here he comes,” Kadri said.
“Yashim?”
“I don’t think so. No. It must be Fevzi Ahmet Pasha.”
Palewski sighed. He picked up a pair of candles from the sideboard.
He heard the sound of someone yanking on the bell; the dry slither of the bell chain in the metal eye, then muttering.
He went downstairs and opened the door.
Fevzi Pasha was standing on the steps, frowning down at the bellpull, which had come away in his hand.
“Please, do step in.”
Fevzi Ahmet dropped the bellpull to the ground. “Where’s my daughter? Where’s Yashim?”
“If you’d be so kind as to follow me,” Palewski said, holding up the candles. “Just mind the first step,” he added, as he reached the stairs.
In the drawing room he introduced his visitor to Kadri. Fevzi Ahmet looked suspiciously around the room.
“Tea, my dear fellow?”
Fevzi Ahmet scowled and shook his head.
“Perhaps—if you’ll allow—a little brandy?”
The hunted man turned and stared at Palewski.
“Yes.”
“Capital! Capital! Do you know, efendi, I think I’ll join you.”
147
THE man with the knife stood in the shadows, watching the lighted window.
He did not think the doors would be locked. He was not expected.
He shivered, though the sweat sparkled on his forehead. He felt the ice on his face, and the fire in his chest.
So many doors, so many windows! Istanbul was bigger than any town he had ever seen. At first he had been bewildered; even afraid. But he could track his prey through a maze of alleys and squares more easily than hunting in the hills.
And now, standing there fingering the blade, the man with the knife swallowed and smiled a small, sad smile of satisfaction.
A pasha, too, was only a man. He would beg for mercy. He would bleed.
And then he would die.
148
YASHIM came slowly up the dark stairway.
At the top he paused.
The light was drifting from beneath the door, and he could hear voices beyond.
“They say that the Greeks did have a bridge,” Palewski said. “Under Justinian.”
“Maybe. Maybe not. There was an Italian, later on.”
“Leonardo da Vinci. It was never built.”
Fevzi Pasha spat. “I saw the plans. Too complex. It would never have worked.”
Yashim pushed the door. “Good evening,” he said, with a bow. “I’m afraid I was detained at the palace.” He advanced into the room. “Where’s Roxelana?”
Palewski came past him, to the door. “Marta!”
149
ROXELANA came in reluctantly, her eyes on the carpet. As she advanced she glanced once over her shoulder, and at the door Marta nodded with an encouraging smile.
Roxelana bowed, lowering her hand to the floor.
“Efendim,” she whispered. She did not look up.
Fevzi Pasha took a step toward her. “You—you know who I am?” He grinned awkwardly and thrust his head forward. “Your baba!”
The little girl shrank back. “I’m Roxelana,” she whispered. “I’m big now. I’m five.”
Fevzi Ahmet dropped to one knee and opened his arms.
“My—little—girl,” he said.
Yashim and Palewski both turned their heads and looked at each other; but out of the corner of his eye Yashim saw the little girl take a hesitant step forward, twisting her fingers.
“Baba?” Her whisper was scarcely audible.
Fevzi lunged and snatched her up. Then he took her off, toward the window, whispering something in her ear.
“It’s a cold night,” Palewski said. “Have a glass.”
Yashim declined. “Too many surprises in one day,” he said, and dropped into the armchair. “I’ve come from the valide.”
There was a silence. Marta spoke from the doorway.
“The little girl was just eating her dinner,” she said.
Fevzi Ahmet let her down. “Finish your dinner.”
When she had gone, Fevzi turned to the window. “Long ago,” he said, addressing his own reflection in the glass, “I lost someone very precious to me. Never again.” He glanced around. “My daughter comes to Egypt. With me.”
Yashim considered him. His enemy. His mentor.
“My men are waiting.”
They went downstairs, Yashim holding the candles. In the hall Marta came through with Roxelana, who climbed sleepily into Fevzi Ahmet’s arms, and wound her own around his neck.
Fevzi Ahmet stroked her hair. Over the top of her head he said, “We had a deal, Yashim. Or have you forgotten?”
Yashim shook his head.
“Then you are afraid?”
“Yes. I am afraid.”
Fevz
i Ahmet bent and peered into Yashim’s face. “Why do you think I chose you, all those years ago? Why?”
“Because I spoke Greek and—other languages,” Yashim answered. He looked into Fevzi Ahmet’s face, watched the shadows flicker across his scars. “Because I can be invisible.”
Fevzi Ahmet gave a dry laugh. “It takes some courage, Yashim efendi. I think you have some. That’s why I chose you.”
Yashim said nothing, but for a moment the candles dipped in his hand.
Fevzi’s voice was a whisper. “Shamyl.”
Yashim stood woodenly at the door.
“Shamyl? That’s not possible.”
“The Lion of the Caucasus,” Fevzi said. “The great hero.”
Yashim blinked. Almost single-handedly, Shamyl had fought the Russians to a standstill in the mountains of Georgia. He was a figure of myth, pure and beyond reproach.
It made no sense.
“Ask Shamyl.” Fevzi laughed. “A promise is a promise.”
He wrenched at the door and flung it back. The candles guttered in the sudden draft, and Yashim heard his boots on the stone steps. He heard him cross the graveled courtyard. He heard the sound of men assembling on the road outside. He saw a lantern, and its feeble light swinging in the air; and then the light and the pasha were gone.
The candelabra was still in his raised hand.
He lowered his hand, closed the door, and made his way back, slowly, treading carefully up the dark stairs.
150
PALEWSKI stood in front of the fire, rubbing his hands together.
“The trouble with the pasha, Yashim, is that he has no manners. I rather noticed it the first time he visited us.”
“Manners?”
“A word of thanks, I’d have thought. Well, well.” He put two glasses on the mantelpiece and poured the brandy. “The little girl goes back to her father, in Egypt. Tülin gets her just deserts, thanks to the valide. The English have begun negotiations to return the fleet to Istanbul, too. It’s only a beginning, but I rather think the Ottoman Empire has found the outside help it needed.”
Yashim nodded.
“And Mickiewicz wrote from Paris, to approve the first few pages of my translation.”
“I’m very pleased,” Yashim said.
“You don’t seem awfully pleased.” Palewski set the brandy on the sideboard. “Go on, what is it?”
Yashim sighed. “The only people who could have known about Fevzi Ahmet’s daughter were Hyacinth, who took her into the harem, and Tülin, who recognized her there. Galytsin had set up an elaborate method for receiving Tülin’s reports—but apparently she never filed one. She broke off communications with him at the very moment she discovered that Roxelana was still alive. So how did the Russians know?” Yashim glanced up at his friend. “Or more precisely, who told Galytsin’s agent about Roxelana?”
Palewski frowned. “Don’t tell me you think it was Hyacinth?”
“A quiet old man who scarcely left the harem in his life? Hyacinth was loyal.”
“Impasse, Yashim.” Palewski sighed.
But Yashim shook his head. “Unless Tülin did file her report. Not to Galytsin, but to someone else.”
“Who?”
Yashim patted his fingertips together, concentrating. He remembered Tülin playing her flute as he descended the stairs, and how the music had nagged at him. Not only because it seemed so dismissive—there had been something else, some idea at the back of his mind that had failed to emerge.
“When I asked Galytsin why Pervyal had been so cheap, he said that was a question Fevzi Ahmet should have asked.”
“What does that mean?”
“At the time, he meant to say that Pervyal was a witch. The dealers couldn’t wait to get rid of her. But there’s another explanation. We know that the Russians fixed it up so that Tülin could enter the sultan’s harem. What if it wasn’t the first time? What if her entry into Fevzi Ahmet’s household was a setup, too?”
“Arranged by the Russians?”
“Not necessarily. After the fire, Galytsin couldn’t believe his luck when Pervyal—Tülin—turned up on his doorstep. He should have realized that it was too good to be true. The whole event was cleverly fixed so that even if someone suspected her—and why should they?—the trail would lead to the Russians.”
Palewski looked interested. “I can take a lot of this,” he said. “Misleading the Russians.”
Yashim went on: “Inside, by a stroke of fate, Tülin became the valide’s handmaiden.”
“Which allowed her to steer clear of Roxelana.”
Yashim studied his friend absently. “Yes. But it also meant that she wasn’t sent away with the other women when Sultan Mahmut died. She stayed with the valide, while the harems changed over.”
“You mean that whoever put her there knew the sultan was about to die?”
Yashim nodded.
Palewski said: “Who?”
“You keep asking me,” Yashim said. “But you already know. Who would want a spy in Fevzi Ahmet’s house? Who would be most threatened by Fevzi Ahmet’s promotion to three horsetails—so much so that he would get Tülin to burn his house to the ground?”
Palewski shook his head. “I don’t see—”
“You do! You do!” Yashim was excited now. “It was you who pointed it out in the first place. You said he needed a crisis, to stay in power.”
“Husrev Pasha? The grand vizier?”
“Husrev Pasha was always afraid of Fevzi Ahmet,” Yashim said. “And terrified of losing power. He needed access to the valide, to the sultan, everything. Once Abdülmecid came to the throne, he and Tülin saw their chance. They planned to let her reach the sultan’s bed.”
“So he and Tülin worked together?”
“She was a Bosniac—like Husrev Pasha. They both come from Bosnia.”
“You mean Husrev Pasha told the Russians about Roxelana? Granted he wants power, hates Fevzi Pasha, all that—but why would he tell the Russians anything?”
Yashim hunched forward. “Not the Russians, Palewski. Just one Russian. One Russian greedy and gullible enough to think that he could use the information for his own, private ends.”
Palewski raised an eyebrow.
“At the outset of this … investigation, I made two guesses. The first, that Fevzi Ahmet murdered the man in the well. The second that the man in the well—let’s call him Boris—was working for Galytsin.”
Palewski shrugged. “The Totenkopf, Yashim. My contribution.”
“And a very good one—only it misled me. Boris was blackmailing Fevzi Ahmet because he knew his daughter was alive. He knew where she was, too. But Fevzi Ahmet didn’t kill him. He maybe a monster but he’s not so stupid that he’d drop a body where it was bound to be discovered.”
“Who did?”
“Galytsin. Not personally. He sent his thugs—who are not reliable. Later, when the body was recovered, Galytsin was at pains to get the branded piece of skin, which could identify the man. First the little man on the ferry, then the invitation to take a carriage—an abduction, in effect.”
“But—you went to see him, later that morning.”
“Yes—but it was too late to have me disappear. I’d spoken to the grand vizier. And anyway, I gave him what he wanted.”
“But why would Galytsin want … Boris killed?”
“He had him killed because the man was working privately, on his own account. He was using information to blackmail Fevzi, instead of sharing it with his nominal employer.”
Palewski whistled through his teeth. “Is that why you let Fevzi Ahmet go?”
“Partly that. Partly because his treason is more complicated than it looks. He defected because he knew his career was finished once Husrev had taken power. But also because he had to get away, and save his little girl. Egypt is the safest place for her.”
Palewski stood up and went to the windows. “Why did Husrev tell Boris about the girl?”
“I think he had two reasons.
First, he wanted to cultivate Boris himself—to provide himself with a friend on the other side. Also, to terrify Fevzi.”
He stared for a long time into the dark.
“If anything you’ve told me is true, Yashim, I hope you plan to keep it to yourself. That little gap, after all.”
Yashim gave a curious smile. “You surprise me.” He stared at his friend’s back. “If I keep quiet, we’ll never know for sure.”
Palewski turned around. “You’ll be dead, Yashim.”
Yashim nodded. He thought of the Ceremony of the Birth: the dying child, the mother’s grief. He thought of how he stood apart from the central mystery of life.
“That wouldn’t be so terrible either, in the scheme of things,” he said. “Fevzi Pasha gave me a way to serve—all that.” He waved a hand. “The sultan. The empire. Its people, too, I hope. It’s what I do.”
He smiled again, remembering Kadri on the banks of the Golden Horn.
“It’s the only thing that makes any sense of my own life,” he added. “And in the end, it isn’t about people, or sultans, or corruption. It’s about the truth. The little gap, in this case, is for me.”
Palewski looked at him without speaking. Then he gave an imperceptible bow.
“Of course, Yashim.” Tears stood in his eyes. “Forgive me. I was only thinking selfishly.”
Yashim took his hand in his.
“Truth is the only protection we have,” he said. He glanced at the dark windows. “Husrev always works late.”
“Now?”
“Now is as good a time as any.”
Palewski accompanied him to the front door.
“Be careful, my old friend.”
Yashim nodded, and went out into the dark.
151
“YASHIM?”
The old pasha raised his eyes to the door, but the shadow was deep, and his eyes were ruined by years of scrutinizing papers.
“Yashim? Is that you?”
A figure stepped into the lamplight.
“Who are you?” The pasha was not afraid. Not yet. “What do you want?”
An Evil Eye: A Novel Page 26