The Oracle of Stamboul

by Michael David Lukas

  Afterward, wrapped up in a thick white towel, Eleonora felt like a newborn baby, as if all the discomfort and worry of the past week had been scrubbed away and was swirling down the drain with the bathwater. She was still tired and her hip bones stuck out like tent poles, but she felt like a new person.

  “Now let us hope this fits.”

  Eleonora turned and saw Mrs. Damakan standing behind her, a beautiful blue velvet dress draped over her arm. Handing Eleonora a fresh set of underclothes, she helped her into the dress and buttoned it up the back. As Mrs. Damakan secured the last clasp, the butler, Monsieur Karom, knocked at the open door. He conducted Eleonora wordlessly downstairs to the dining room. Her father and the Bey were already seated, but both rose as she entered.

  “Stunning,” said the Bey. He pulled out the chair next to him and motioned for her to be seated. “That dress really does suit you beautifully.”

  Timid in the light of the Bey’s compliments, Eleonora pulled the lace collar of her dress away from her neck and glanced at her father. He had changed into his best suit. A proud smile rose under his freshly trimmed mustache as he reached across the table to squeeze her hand.

  “You look beautiful, Ellie.”

  A moment later, Monsieur Karom emerged from the kitchen with three roasted game hens crouched on beds of saffron rice. Eleonora normally would have paid more attention to the conversation, about business and the political scene in Stamboul, but famished as she was, her concentration was reserved for her game hen and the tiny, plump currants buried in the rice. She did, however, overhear a piece of the conversation in which her father and the Bey discussed the circumstances of Mrs. Damakan’s niece. She had been with the Bey for a number of years before marrying a young Tartar man who made his living as a blacksmith outside Smyrna. The dress Eleonora was wearing, in fact, had once belonged to Mrs. Damakan’s niece. The two women had brought it and a few other pieces of clothing to sell when they arrived in Stamboul, though for some reason this particular dress never found its way to the clothing bazaar. After a dessert of quince pudding, the men retired to the library and Eleonora, exhausted, went upstairs to bed.

  The next morning, rested and revived, they took the Bey’s carriage to the Galata station, posted a telegram to Ruxandra, and rode a red lacquer funicular car up the hill to Le Grande Rue de Pera. Standing at the base of the gently sloping boulevard, Eleonora felt as if she had been dropped into the middle of Bucharest or Paris, as if she had stepped into the pages of The Hourglass or some other equally elegant book. Watching the fashionable European ladies fan out into the crowd, Eleonora closed her eyes and inhaled the sweet, tannic smell of sugared almonds drifting down the street from a vendor in front of Café Europa.

  “Come, Miss Cohen,” said the Bey, his heels clicking against the cobblestones. “I think you will take a special interest in our destination.”

  In his gray three-piece suit and red wool fez, Moncef Bey cut a striking figure. Even the European ladies watched with silent approval as he led Eleonora and Yakob up the street—past a haberdasher, a pharmacist, and a photography studio—stopping finally in front of a shop with the words Madame Poiret, Dressmaker written across the window in gold. As they entered, a bell tinkled and the woman at the counter, presumably Mme. Poiret herself, looked down at them over her eyeglasses.

  “Good afternoon,” she said. “May I help you?”

  “We would like to have a dress made,” said the Bey, sitting on a divan in front of a triptych of mirrors. “For the young lady.”

  The young lady, Eleonora realized, was herself.

  “Really.” Her father coughed into his handkerchief. “Moncef. There’s no need.”

  “Oh, but I object,” said the Bey. “There is every need.”

  “She needs new clothes, of course, but I think this shop is a bit beyond our means.”

  Mme. Poiret raised her eyebrows and ran a hand through her graying brown hair.

  “I can tell that your products are of the finest quality,” Yakob continued, addressing himself now to Mme. Poiret. “But she’s just a little girl and we are, well, we don’t want to be any trouble to anyone.”

  Still seated on the divan, the Bey crossed his legs and, pulling out a gold pocket watch, flipped it open to glance at the time.

  “I insist,” he said. “And truly, it’s no trouble. We were lucky Mrs. Damakan had this dress on hand, but every girl should have at least three beautiful dresses. Don’t you agree, Miss Cohen?”

  Eleonora fiddled with the ruffles at her waist. It was true. She couldn’t very well wear the same dress for the rest of her time in Stamboul, and the samples in the window really were quite beautiful. More than a new dress, though, Eleonora most wanted not to upset anyone, not her father and certainly not the Bey.

  “Of course,” Mme. Poiret interjected finally. “A young lady without a beautiful dress is like a swan without feathers, and one can’t very well think she will do with just one or two. Now, Miss Cohen, if you will have a seat, we can choose the fabric that best suits you.”

  “Very well,” said her father, seating himself next to Eleonora. “I have been overruled.”

  They emerged quite some time later with a stack of white paper packages and rode the funicular back down the hill. In addition to a more formal silk evening gown with puffed sleeves and a large bow, Moncef Bey bought Eleonora three everyday dresses, two pairs of shoes, and a raft of what Mme. Poiret called the necessary accessories. The dresses would be finished within a few days, but the shoes and accessories they could take with them.

  “Thank you, Moncef,” her father said as they clattered over the Galata Bridge. “We can settle up after our visit to Haci Bekir.”

  “Yes,” said Eleonora. “Thank you. I really do appreciate it.”

  “Not at all,” said the Bey, waving them both off. “Not at all.”

  Just before the entrance to the Egyptian Bazaar, the carriage turned up a steep alleyway crammed with market stalls, stevedores, and mules. They turned left, right, and left again, before stopping at the top of a dingy cul-de-sac rowed in on either side by gold merchants. Disembarking, they walked past a line of old men fingering prayer beads over tea and backgammon. At the base of the cul-de-sac was a battered green door that led into the storeroom of the most important carpet dealer in the city, a Syrian by the name of Haci Bekir. Eleonora had heard stories from her father about Haci Bekir and his hoard of carpets, but to see the storeroom with her own eyes was something else entirely. Lit with a single gas lamp and whatever sun could make its way through the dirty windows overhead, the cavernous room was lined on either side with piles and piles of carpets, each as tall as a man. There must have been at least a thousand carpets in that room alone and many more in the catacombs that adjoined it.

  “Moncef Bey.”

  An obese, pockmarked man dressed in an immaculate white robe and green fez appeared from behind one of the piles. Haci Bekir raised his arm in greeting before lumbering across the room.

  “Mr. Cohen,” said the Bey, coughing into his fist. “I would like you to meet my friend and business partner, the esteemed Haci Abelaziz Ibrahim Bekir.”

  Nodding, Haci Bekir reached out and violently shook Yakob’s hand. Then, motioning to the bench that ran along one wall of the store, he clasped his hands together and said a few words to the Bey. Since Haci Bekir spoke only Arabic, Moncef Bey was compelled to translate.

  “If you don’t mind,” he said, “Haci Bekir would like to examine the carpets you have brought.”

  “Yes, of course.”

  Stroking the ends of his mustache, Eleonora’s father watched impassively as the shop boy unlatched his trunks and began removing their contents. In the time it took to drink the small glasses of tea that Haci Bekir offered them, the boy had removed all of the carpets. At Haci Bekir’s direction, the boy laid them out into two piles. Sucking his teeth, Haci Bekir pulled down on his jowls and glanced at the carpets lining the walls of his storeroom. Then, clearing his throa
t, he pointed to the smaller of the two piles and said a few words to the Bey. Somewhat taken aback, the Bey began to ask a question, but Haci Bekir shook his head and repeated those same three words, blowing up toward his nose as if trying to get a mosquito off his face.

  “Haci Bekir says that your carpets are very beautiful,” the Bey began. “But at this time he would like only the pieces on his left. He can offer five hundred pounds for the lot.”

  Eleonora watched her father’s reaction closely. Five hundred pounds was a great deal of money, but she could tell from his face that the carpets were worth much more than that. At the same time, she thought he might agree to the price. Haci Bekir did not seem like the kind of man one would want to push too far. He had twice snapped at the shop boy and raised a hand to strike him before remembering the assembled company. Eleonora troubled a loose fringe of carpet with the toe of her shoe as she watched her father rise from the bench and amble toward the center of the room. Without so much as a glance at Haci Bekir, he squatted down next to the carpets in question, lifted them off the pile, and laid them out gently, one by one, like a farmer tending his crop. Whereas Haci Bekir had given each piece no more than ten or fifteen seconds, Yakob took his time, turning up the corners and bringing the weave to his nose. When he was finished inspecting the carpets, he spread his legs and pressed his lips together. The two men stared at each other for quite some time before Yakob spoke.

  “I will sell them for no less than nine hundred.”

  The Bey began to translate, but he was cut short. Snorting in disbelief, in mock pain and insult, Haci Bekir repeated his previous offer, then said he could raise it to six hundred. This was his final offer, he said, through the Bey.

  “Eight hundred,” said Yakob.

  When the Bey translated this counteroffer, Haci Bekir bit his bottom lip and muttered something under his breath. The Bey flinched.

  “What did he say?” Yakob asked.

  “Nothing of importance,” said the Bey. “He was just speaking to himself.”

  The haggling went on for nearly an hour, Haci Bekir shouting and waving his arms in the air while Eleonora’s father stood rooted to eight hundred.

  “That is what they are worth,” he said over and again as Haci Bekir raised his price in erratic fits and starts.

  Finally, when it looked as if Haci Bekir was on the verge of collapse, his face red and wheezing, when they had reached an unsurpassable barrier, Yakob relented.

  “Seven hundred and fifty.”

  At that, Haci Bekir sprang from his corner and, shaking Yakob’s hand, began barking orders at the shop boy. Before there was time for a second thought, the carpets were packed up, the money was exchanged, and they were on their way out the door.

  On the carriage ride home, after being rebuffed again in his offers to repay the Bey for the dresses, Yakob asked what it was that Haci Bekir had muttered under his breath.

  “You don’t want to know,” said the Bey.

  Yakob considered this and, nodding, glanced at Eleonora.

  “You’re right,” he said. “We probably don’t.”

  Chapter Eight

  The ceiling of the Sultan’s audience chamber was decorated with a gilt, purple, and green design, an interlooping nest of circles that always reminded him of a peacock’s tail unfurled in sunlight. By the standards of the palace, it was a relatively small room, no larger than the quarters of the head physician or the confectioners’ kitchen, but the audience chamber played an essential role in the affairs of the empire. It was here that the Sultan heard the concerns and requests brought to him by his subjects, here that he came in contact with the daily existence of his dominion. Flanked on either side by a pair of deaf palace guards, His Excellency Sultan Abdulhamid II sat cross-legged on his divan, leaning forward to listen to the Sanjak Bey of Novi Pazar present his appeal. Apparently, a provincial tax collector had been set upon by a mob of landowners and strung up in the town square. In light of these events, the Sanjak Bey was requesting military assistance from the palace; a battalion or two would be sufficient, he said, to preserve order.

  It was not at all likely that imperial troops would be committed to such a distant and irrelevant conflagration, but seeing as the Sanjak Bey had come all the way from Novi Pazar to make his request in person, it seemed only right to let him present his petition. Making the case for immediate action, the goat-faced former military officer trampled about the audience chamber, pausing occasionally to scratch the back of his head or wipe a fleck of spittle from his lips. Before being tapped to administer the territory of Novi Pazar, the Sanjak Bey had served for thirty years in the Third Division of the Ottoman Army, where he was known primarily for his brutality. It was rumored, for example, that he had ordered the massacre of an entire Bulgarian town for refusing to quarter his troops. As far as Abdulhamid was concerned, such behavior should not be rewarded, but General Sipahoglu had suggested the Sanjak Bey specifically for the position and the Grand Vizier had concurred. Unfortunately, the Sanjak Bey had proven inept so far as an administrator, unable to put down even the simplest tax revolt. It was yet another instance in which the Sultan would have done best to keep his own counsel, another instance in which he was failed by his advisors.

  Leaning back onto his elbow, Abdulhamid examined the sleeve of his caftan and, rubbing the fabric between his thumb and middle finger, felt the individual cords of silk against each other. There were so many other, more important matters he and Jamaludin Pasha could be attending to. As they listened to the Sanjak Bey’s increasingly irksome appeal, the Serbo-Bulgarian War was intensifying, Jews and Poles were being expelled en masse from Prussia. Why should he concern himself with a distant tax revolt? He was much more worried about the Greek nationalist cell Jamaludin Pasha had uncovered in Selonika, or the rising clamor of the constitutionalists advocating for a new parliament. As he abided this barbarian in administrator’s clothing, the Sultan let his mind wander back over the previous year, landing as he often did on that maddening conference of Great Powers in Berlin. At the personal request of Bismarck, Abdulhamid had sent a team of his best diplomats to aid Sadoullah Bey in Berlin, but his men turned out to be nothing more than pawns, extra votes in support of the Prussian position. While the Great Powers divided the spoils of a continent, his emissaries smoked and drank aquavit with the representatives of Sweden-Norway. The once great Ottoman Empire, its territory stretched from the gates of Vienna to the shores of the Persian Gulf, respected and feared around the world, was equal now to a middling nation of fishermen and drunks.

  “As you know,” said Jamaludin Pasha, finally interrupting the Sanjak Bey’s appeal, “we have in the past ordered troops to facilitate the collection of taxes, in the Levant and in parts of Bosnia. You will appreciate, however, that our troops are a limited resource and thus we cannot pursue this policy in every case.”

  “Of course.”

  “In an ideal world,” the Grand Vizier continued, smoothing down the ends of his mustache, “we would like to be able to assist with every predicament that is brought to us, we would like to be able to send aid wherever aid is needed, but as you know, this is not an ideal world.”

  “Far from it.”

  Jamaludin Pasha paused to write a few words in his notebook.

  “I hope you will not interpret our inaction as a slight.”

  “Not at all.”

  “It is not that we are not concerned with the recent events in Novi Pazar, or the collection of taxes. To the contrary, we are very concerned with both. Given the best of circumstances, there is no doubt that we would send the troops you requested forthwith. However, in a world of not-unlimited resources, we must prioritize.”

  “Of course,” said the Sanjak Bey. “Thank you, Jamaludin Pasha, for allowing me to voice my concerns.”

  “You are most welcome.”

  “And thank you,” said the Sanjak Bey, bowing deeply to the Sultan. “Your Excellency, I am honored you would deign to accept an audience with someone
as humble as myself.”

  “I am always eager to advance the condition of my subjects,” said the Sultan. “Especially those in the more distant provinces.”

  “Yes, Your Excellency. You can have every confidence that the citizens of Novi Pazar are advancing apace.”

  “I am glad to hear that,” said the Sultan. “And please excuse us for cutting your audience short.”

  With that, a palace guard saw the Sanjak Bey of Novi Pazar out of the audience chamber and the door was closed behind him.

  The Sultan reorganized himself on the divan before turning to the Grand Vizier.

  “Tell me,” he said. “What further business needs attending to before lunch?”

  “We have received another letter from von Siemens.”

  Abdulhamid released a puff of breath through his nose and closed his eyes. It was beneath his station to attend constantly to these bankers and industrialists. And yet, he knew the Baghdad Railway could not be built without their backing.

  “How do you suggest we respond?”

  “I would recommend inviting him to the palace. You can speak with him briefly, in general terms, and leave the details to the chairs of the Treasury and the Public Debt Administration.”

  The Sultan ran his thumb along the edge of the cushion.

  “They will be involved?” he asked. “The Public Debt Administration.”

  “I imagine they would like to be.”