The Oracle of Stamboul

by Michael David Lukas

  “That’s good enough for me.”

  “And I assume you know the young Miss Cohen,” said the Bey, stepping aside to bring Eleonora into the conversation. “A very fine young lady on every account and, as I discovered last night, quite an expert backgammon player.”

  “Is that so?”

  Eleonora averted her eyes, looking down at the contrast of her pale green shoes with the deck.

  “She beat me twice in a row,” said the Bey. “And soundly. I wish I could attribute her success to luck, but as we say, a person does not seek luck, luck seeks the person.”

  “Indeed,” said the Reverend, continuing in the slightly more sonorous tone he reserved for quotations. “Luck affects everything. Let your hook always be cast. In the stream where you least expect it, there will be a fish.”

  “I don’t think it’s luck at all,” Yakob interjected. “As I told you on the ship. She’s read nearly every book there is.”

  “Every book?” Reverend Muehler repeated. He caught Eleonora’s eye and grinned. “Well then, Miss Cohen, if you have read every book, which is your favorite?”

  “Go on, Ellie,” said her father, resting a hand on her shoulder. “Tell him your favorite.”

  She looked up at the trio of men, squinting a bit in the sun. The truth was, she hadn’t read more than a few dozen books.

  “So far,” she said, “my favorite is The Hourglass.”

  “How old did you say you are?” the Reverend asked, bending down to her level.

  “Eight years old.”

  “Eight,” he repeated. “And already reading novels? That is very impressive. Very impressive.”

  Reverend Muehler was on the verge of expanding this thought when a bubbly young woman tapped him on the shoulder and whispered something in his ear. She was wearing a striking mandarin-colored dress, the bright orange fabric trimmed at the bodice with white lace and gathered at the back into a bustle of enormous proportions. Eleonora thought she resembled an exotic snail.

  “Excuse me,” said the Reverend. “Madame Corvel has reminded me of an urgent matter that we must attend to. It will only take a moment.”

  “Not at all,” said the Bey. “In fact, I was just planning to show the Cohens the view from the stern of the boat. It is quite stunning. Feel free to join us there if you like.”

  “Excellent,” said Reverend Muehler and, turning to Yakob, added, “My friend, we must discuss business. Don’t think I’ve forgotten about that Tabrizi carpet you recommended for my office.”

  “Yes,” said Yakob. “The Hereke. We can discuss that later.”

  “Later,” said the Reverend as he was led away by Madame Corvel.

  The view from the stern was indeed stunning. The light bright blue of the morning had slipped a few shades toward yellow and there were, as far as Eleonora could see, no clouds in the sky. Topkapi Palace had shrunk to the size of her thumb held out at arm’s length, and all but the tips of the tallest minarets were obscured by hills. At this point, the banks of the Bosporus were overwhelmed by a thick swath of conifers, interrupted every few kilometers by a small village, a dock, and a few men in tattered fezzes drinking tea. The air was crisp and smoky, with a touch of pine. Inhaling deeply, Eleonora examined and deposited the smell in her memory. This would be the smell by which she would remember Stamboul.

  Memory, however, is as fickle as fate.

  Not long after the Bey brought them back to the stern, the ship hit a patch of rough water. At the first jolt, Eleonora grabbed for her father’s arm and he grabbed for the rail. Swallowing a grimace, Yakob turned to ask his daughter a question. He looked as if he had been shaken by a ghost, his cheeks sunken and paled the same color as her dress. Mumbling something about seasickness, he clutched his stomach and, rushing to the head, nearly tripped over a loose oar.

  “Excuse me.”

  As her father’s footsteps fell away, the sounds of the celebration drifted back from the front deck. Eleonora blinked, and the Bey opened his mouth to speak. Then there was an explosion, the ship lurched hard to port, and, amid screams below deck, began quickly to sink.

  Chapter Ten

  The morning came smothered in a heap of goose down and shadows. Muffled footsteps mingled with whispers and a small flight of cormorants swept over the water like marionettes, their caws swirling with the calls of early-morning bread peddlers. In time, these lonely cries faded into the general traffic of the city, the clatter of carriages and fish mongers, a distant call to the faithful, and the plaintive ululation of stray dogs, all evidence that life and Stamboul would continue. In spite of everything, they would go on.

  As the morning insinuated itself into her room, Eleonora lay curled around herself like a dried tea leaf, shrouded in a tangle of bedclothes and breathing the short, ragged breaths of restless sleep. A knock at the door drew her further from the world of sleep; still, she was only awake enough to know she wanted to go back. There was a shuffle of slippers in the doorway and the dull clank of metal against her bed stand. Then she felt the thin, calloused hand of Mrs. Damakan resting at the back of her neck. Eleonora shivered as the warmth of this other body spread through her limbs.

  “Your breakfast is on the bed table,” said Mrs. Damakan and she shuffled out of the room.

  Eleonora waited for the click of the door closing before she rolled onto her back. The smell of hardboiled eggs and flatbread seeped under the lid of the breakfast tray, but she was not hungry, not in the least. Pulling the blanket over her head, she closed her eyes and curled back into a ball. Her head throbbed against the walls of her skull, and the lining of her stomach roiled with apprehension. She was fully awake now, but her memory of the night before was still wavy and indistinct, like a camel caravan cresting over the horizon of a massive dune. There was the cold sweetness of water, a jellyfish stinging her ankle, the hairy outstretched arm of the Bey, then, all of a sudden, the realization that her father was dead.

  She gagged and felt her stomach rise into her throat. She exhaled until her lungs were empty, then let them fill again with air. It was a heavy blow. A life-shattering tragedy of the sort we comfort ourselves into thinking only happens to other people, to characters in a novel, to neighbors, or to the poor souls one reads about in the newspaper. And here it was happening to her. Clutching a pillow to her stomach, she stared up at the white lace canopy over her bed. Her father was dead, lying at the bottom of the Bosporus, in a pile of bodies on the shore, freshly buried in the earth, or somewhere else she couldn’t even imagine, but dead nevertheless. She approached this same idea over and over, from hundreds of different perspectives, but the thought of it was like looking into the sun. You lost your sight trying to see.

  All that morning, a swirl of malevolent questions circled her bed like ravens, landing sporadically with a thump to whisper in her ear. What about the hoopoe on the windowsill? What about her wish to stay in Stamboul? Could it be that the boat accident, her father’s death and the death of nearly two dozen others, was no accident at all? Could it be that her wish, her childish desire to stay in Stamboul, had caused all this? Eleonora shivered and pulled the pillow down over her head. She wanted to fall asleep, to wake up and find everything back to normal, or at least to put these questions out of her mind for a few hours. But no matter what she wanted, the grounds of fate were fixed, and that blackening unwelcome swirl followed her into her dreams with ever more persistence and bile.

  Sometime later that afternoon, or perhaps it was the next, the Bey knocked at her door and called out her name. She was awake, but she did not respond. She did not feel much like talking. She did not feel much like anything, really, but lying in bed—and even that was for lack of a better option. After knocking and calling out twice more, the Bey opened the door. He wore his usual crisp blue suit and tie, but his face was rumpled and his eyes sunken in exhaustion. He did not notice her at first, buried under a pile of blankets and pillows, like a frightened fox hidden in the hollow of a tree, but eventually their eyes met. They
regarded each other for a long while before he closed the door behind him and took a seat on the red velvet chair next to her bed.

  “I have attempted to contact your aunt, Ruxandra.”

  Eleonora poked her face out into the entrance of her hollow so she could better understand what the Bey was saying.

  “I’m not sure how much you remember,” he began again, clasping his hands in front of his mouth. “Of yesterday.”

  She felt her lip quiver as she nodded, affirming that she remembered, that she knew.

  “The authorities are searching still for survivors,” he said, placing a hand on the corner of her bed. “Though it’s highly unlikely they will find any.”

  In the silence that followed, the Bey stood and walked over to the window from which Eleonora had made her wish. He scanned the activity on the water below. Then, pulling his watch out of his vest pocket, flipped it open and shut a few times.

  “I have attempted to contact your aunt,” he repeated, smoothing down the ends of his mustache. “Unfortunately, I haven’t yet received a reply.”

  The Bey crossed the room and seated himself again in the chair next to her bed.

  “Surely she will reply soon,” he continued. “In the meantime, you are more than welcome to stay here.”

  Eleonora nodded. She thought she should say something, thought that saying something was in order, but the idea of talking, of articulating her thoughts into the world, was too much to bear.

  “Are there any other family members I should attempt to contact?”

  Her chin tensed and she could feel the tears gathering along her eyelashes. There was no one else. She was alone in the world, with no family to speak of but Ruxandra. With a whimper, Eleonora turned back into the hollow and smothered her sobs in its warm darkness. When she awoke again, the Bey was gone.

  Eleonora spent that first week almost entirely in bed, slipping in and out of a restive sleep slicked with ghostly perspiration and night terrors. Every morning and every evening, Mrs. Damakan came into her room with a tray of food, then returned an hour later to remove the meal, untouched but for a corner of cheese or a nibble at the top of an egg. Eleonora left the comfort of her bed only to relieve herself and to wash her face. Other than that, she slept and did her best to drive away unwanted thoughts. She had not said a word since the crash. It was becoming a habit, the silence, a heavy garment under which to cloak herself. Beyond her bedroom, the world was a thick blur. She had no idea whether her flock was still with her or not, and she didn’t much care either way. She did loosely recall glimpsing a flash of purple at the corner of her window, though that could just as well have been a dream.

  One morning, toward the beginning of the second week after the accident, Mrs. Damakan came into her room carrying a towel instead of a breakfast tray. Recognizing that surrender was the path of least resistance, Eleonora allowed the old handmaid to coax her into the bathroom, strip the dirty sheets off her bed, and scrub the limp casing of her body. After the bath, Mrs. Damakan left the room and Eleonora found herself alone in front of her dressing table mirror, wearing the same itchy blue velvet dress she had worn that first night in Stamboul. She felt weak, clean but drained of all spirit and aspiration. She crossed the room, opened the bay window for the first time in a week, and, inhaling the tentative smell of early spring, remembered a passage from the second volume of The Hourglass, describing Miss Holvert’s condition less than a month after the death of her beloved parents.

  The first buds of spring blossomed without remorse, each petal a tiny knife embedded in the membrane of her most vital organs, slashing her veins like a thresher separating wheat, and reopening those scars she thought were healed. But such is the season. In spite of our best efforts to smother its growth, to lie down on the tracks of its progress, life persists. And enduring, it issues a cruel taunt to the memory of death, to memory, and to death.

  Closing the window, Eleonora drew a deep breath and felt the sharpness of the air in her lungs. She then left her room and walked downstairs to the dining room. The Bey was just finishing his breakfast when she entered. Standing framed in the doorway between the antechamber and the dining room, she held a fountain pen in one hand and a sheet of paper in the other. Her mouth was a tight line and her hair still damp from the bath.

  “Good morning, Miss Cohen.”

  Eleonora nodded and sat down in the chair across from him. Studying his face, she uncapped her pen and wrote her reply across the top of the page.

  Good morning.

  The Bey read what she had written and nodded, as if it were perfectly normal to communicate in this manner.

  “Would you like breakfast?”

  Yes, she wrote. Then she added, please.

  It was the same breakfast Eleonora had eaten every morning of her stay in Stamboul. Still, the sight of it on the tray in front of her made her sick. She knew, however, that she needed to eat something. Staring down at the food, she lifted an olive to her mouth, nearly gagging as she chewed and swallowed the salty, slick meat. Removing the pit from her mouth, Eleonora next attempted a bite of raspberry jam on flatbread, but the sweet seediness of the jam was an affront to her fragile taste. So, too, was the overwhelming salinity of the cheese. Despite what she had written, it was not a good morning. She could not imagine it would ever be a good morning again.

  As she sat across from the Bey in that cold and vacuous dining room, memories of the accident scurried across her mind like mice on a countertop. She had been with him when the boat sank, clinging with him to an errant piece of wood. Later, wrapped in a dirty wool blanket on shore, she hung heavy to his elbow, eyes wide to the shock of the cold and the slow, descending realization that her life was forever changed. Eleonora and the Bey stayed there on the edge of the shore until late that night, shivering as the rescue parties scurried about trying to locate more survivors. As night wore on, the reality of the situation emerged. Anyone not huddled on the shore was dead. The American Vice Consul was dead, as was Madame Corvel, the French Ambassador, most of the ship’s crew, a famous Russian General named Nikolay Karakozov, and her father, Yakob. They were all dead.

  “There are times in life,” the Bey said, then stopped and seemed to reconsider his thoughts before continuing in a slightly different tone of voice. “We still have not heard from Ruxandra. I fear she may not have received our telegrams. I want you to know that you are welcome to stay here as long as you wish. Your father was a great friend and I owe him that at least.”

  Clearing his throat, he swallowed a last muddy sip of coffee and turned his cup upside down on the saucer. He waited a few moments, allowing the grounds to bleed down the side of the cup. Then he lifted it off the saucer and lost himself examining the ghostly residue of striations. He stared into the grounds for a long while, shaking off the excess, tilting what remained toward a shaft of light, before he met Eleonora’s gaze.

  “Fortune,” he said derisively and stood from his seat. “I must be off. Is there anything you want me to get while I am out, anything you need?”

  She shook her head.

  No, thank you.

  The Bey held her eyes for a moment, as if asking the same question again, in the language of silence. She shook her head.

  Wishing her a good day, the Bey left, and she was alone again. For a long while she stared into the surface of the table, watching her blurred reflection move in the gloss, the chandelier hanging over her like a crystal blade. When she looked up again, Monsieur Karom was standing next to the buffet, timid and expectant as a dog searching for a new master. He had intended to clear the breakfast dishes, it seemed, but did not want to disturb her grief.

  Taking up her pen and paper, Eleonora pushed back from the table and wandered away from the dining room. She made her way along the main hallway of the house, the walls of which were hung with the doleful faces of the Bey’s ancestors. The first door she came upon was the library. She stood staring at it for a long while before she tested the handle. It gave, and the l
ock mechanism clicked. Closing the door behind her, she crossed the room and crumpled into the same light-brown suede armchair she had sat in the night before the accident. Could it be that her father was sitting in that very chair just a week ago, drinking tea and playing backgammon with the Bey? Could so much have changed in such a short amount of time? Releasing a sob, she pushed her nose into the crease of the chair, trying to recover her father’s scent. But it was gone, masked over by the musky smell of suede.

  Over the next few weeks, Eleonora developed a routine that, although it did little to diminish her sadness, succeeded at least in giving structure to her days. Each morning after her bath, she trudged downstairs to the dining room and put forth her best effort at breakfast, usually no more than a piece of flatbread or a hardboiled egg. After breakfast, when the Bey was gone and the dishes were cleared, she would occupy herself with wandering through the house, napping on the chaise lounge in the drawing room or reading upstairs in her room. She spent untold hours reading next to the bay window, The Hourglass propped up against her thighs and a strand of hair between her lips, whittling the afternoon away with the dull narcotic of literature. Reading the book a second time, with full knowledge of the characters’ eventual fates, she had a small comfort in the sentiment that our paths in life are laid according to a plan more grandiose than we could ever conceive or comprehend. Occasionally, she glanced up from her reading and lost herself in contemplation of a passing cloud. In the later afternoon, when boat traffic hit its peak, she would let her eyes drift along with the caïques cutting across the straits or the slow progress of steamers puffing toward the Black Sea, but most of all she read. She read as a distraction, to forget herself in the distant worlds of Bucharest and Trieste, with only the call to prayer and a steady darkening of the sky to remind her that time in her own world was passing as well.

  As the weeks progressed and still there was no word from Ruxandra, no answer at all, it became clear that Eleonora would be staying with Moncef Bey for an indefinite future. She was not displeased with the idea of continuing on in Stamboul, nor did she ever wish that Ruxandra would come and bring her back home to Constanta, but there was a ticklish sting in her complete lack of reply. Perhaps the Bey was right, perhaps Ruxandra had not received their telegrams; still, Eleonora could not help feeling abandoned, by her aunt, by the very hand of fate. It was as if she had been forgotten entirely, erased from the Book of Life and marooned on an exotic island in the middle of the ocean.