At the end of the stairs, she stops. The birds are gone. Now there is a crowd, a forest of legs and trunks. They are gathered around the room at the top of the tower, waiting for the message to arrive. She shows them the message. She waves the piece of paper in front of them and tells them that she is the one with the message. Here it is, she yells. Here is the message you’re waiting for. I am the messenger! But no one is listening. And even if they were listening, it wouldn’t matter. Because the piece of paper in her hand is blank.
When she awoke, Eleonora was sweating along the ridge of her forehead, and her pillowcase was wet with saliva. Morning spread over the city like a sheet of gauze, its pink-orange fingertips smothering tufts of fog and sleeping night watchmen. Rolling onto her back, Eleonora gazed up at the lace canopy over her bed. Her dreams were usually little more than incoherent strips of memory—the smell of bleach, an injured deer, a view of a distant port—nothing like this. This dream was something entirely different. Like Penelope’s vision of the geese, Pip’s dream of himself as Hamlet, or Jacob wrestling with angels, this dream was real, something she could hold on to. She could feel that it meant something. What, she had no idea.
Unable to fall back to sleep, Eleonora slid out of bed and pulled on her dressing gown. Feeling the weft of the carpet with her bare feet, she shuffled across her room to the bay window and watched the city come to life. Compared to its image in her dream, Kiz Kulesi looked ponderous and sad. A boxy stone tower topped with a watch room and a thin copper spire, the building had been used variously as a prison, a lighthouse, and a customs station. It was empty now, as far as she knew, the tiny island uninhabited but for birds. There was a pair of black storks poking their beaks in the shallow water around the island, and a lone goldfinch on the sill of the watch room. Watching the finch hop from one end of the sill to the other, Eleonora thought she saw a flash of purple inside the tower. She squinted against the sun, leaned forward, and opened the window a crack to dispel the glare, but all she could see was the finch. If that had been a member of her flock inside the tower, it was gone now.
As the goldfinch took flight, Eleonora noticed a carriage pull up the front drive of the Bey’s house. This was unusual. The Bey rarely had visitors at home and never so early in the morning. Tightening the belt of her dressing gown, she watched the ornate purple-and-gold coach slow to a stop at the edge of the water. Once the horses were settled, the carriage door opened from the inside. Without so much as a glance to either side, a man in a purple uniform walked straight up to the front door of the house and knocked. Overcome by curiosity, Eleonora pulled on a proper dress and rushed out to the landing above the antechamber. Peering through the bars of the railing, she watched Monsieur Karom open the door in his usual haughty manner. When he saw who it was, however, he took a step back and knelt down on one knee.
Eleonora could not hear what they were saying, but when Monsieur Karom stood again he looked back over his shoulder in the direction of her room. Seeing her there on the landing, he called up.
“Miss Cohen. Could you please come down for a moment? There is someone here who would like to speak with you.”
As she descended, Eleonora got her first real glimpse of the man in the purple uniform. He was standing at attention, his chest stiff, hat cocked, and purple satin coat pierced with crystal buttons. There was a hint of lavender in the air around him and he held in his left hand a silver tube the size of a cucumber. In order not to stare, she kept her eyes on the carpet as she crossed the anteroom. When she reached the door, Monsieur Karom began with a formal introduction.
“May I present Miss Eleonora Cohen, daughter of Yakob Cohen, formerly of Constanta and late of Stamboul, the current charge of Moncef Barcous Bey.”
Straightening his back even further, the visitor cleared his throat.
“Miss Cohen,” he said. “The Servant to the Holy Cities, Caliph of Islam, Commander of the Faithful, and Supreme Padishah of various realms, His Excellency Sultan Abdulhamid II, requests an audience with you at the palace.”
He held out the silver tube and she took it.
“We will send a carriage tomorrow morning at this time,” he continued. “I trust that is convenient.”
Eleonora looked down at the exquisite object she had been given. She held the tube, engraved with an overlapping floral pattern and topped by a hinged ivory cap, in both hands like a sword. It was similar in workmanship and design to the document holder from which the Reverend had produced his puzzle. She could hear a torrent of blood rushing through her temples and the anteroom felt as if it were closing in on itself.
“Yes, of course,” she heard Monsieur Karom say.
With a single motion, he took the document holder from Eleonora’s hand, removed the invitation inside, and returned the empty holder to the herald.
“We are honored,” he said, scanning the invitation. “Miss Cohen is honored by His Excellency’s attention.”
The afternoon passed in an anxious haze of disbelief. How the Sultan knew who she was and why he wanted to meet her, of all the thousands of people in Stamboul, of all the millions of people in the Ottoman Empire, Eleonora had no intimation whatsoever. The air in her room that afternoon was thick with questions that could not possibly be answered, at least not by her. Pacing from dresser to bed to desk, paging blankly through her book, sitting in the armchair next to the bay window with her hands crossed in her lap, she tried her best to absorb this news. Tomorrow she was going to meet the Sultan. The sovereign of millions, the ruler of lands from Selonika to Basra, he who could meet with anyone he wanted, had requested an audience with her, Eleonora Cohen.
Dinner was served early that evening. She sat in her normal seat and Moncef Bey sat in his. Monsieur Karom served a plate of stewed beef with broad beans. She thought she was not hungry, but as she cut a piece of meat and raised it to her mouth, her stomach growled audibly.
“It is an honor,” said the Bey, unfolding his napkin in his lap. “You have been given a distinct honor.”
Eleonora nodded as she chewed. If she understood anything about the invitation, it was this.
“I myself have been invited to the palace twice, but never for a formal audience with His Excellency.”
The Bey cut off a piece of beef and speared it with his fork.
“I do wonder, however, what His Excellency’s motivations might be. He is known to have a strong interest in—”
He paused, searching for the right word.
“The extraordinary—fortune-tellers, talking birds, and the like. At first I suspected this might be the motivation behind his invitation, that he had heard about your abilities of memory, which are quite extraordinary, and wanted to discuss them with you.”
Eleonora swallowed and laid her silverware on the edges of her plate, waiting for the Bey to continue his thought.
“I wonder, though, whether there might be other motivations as well,” he said. “Perhaps he is curious about our relationship. Perhaps he wants to know if you have seen anything suspicious in the house.”
Eleonora had not considered this possibility. In fact, she had not considered the Sultan’s motivations at all.
“You know I have nothing to hide,” the Bey continued, extending his arms as if inviting anyone to search him. “We discussed this the other day at Rumelihisari. I just want to be sure, for both of our sakes, that you are careful about what you tell the Sultan tomorrow. I am not, in any way, suggesting you should deceive anyone, least of all His Excellency or the Grand Vizier. Just be cautious and be sure to consider how your words might affect others.”
She nodded. She understood.
“You see, of course, how our fortunes are interconnected.”
Eleonora picked up her fork and lifted a single dull green bean to her mouth. She saw very clearly how her fortunes were connected to those of the Bey. He, his handmaid, and his butler were the closest thing she had to family. He was, as Miss Ionescu said of her father, the stone castle overlooking my orch
ards, the rain that nourishes them, and the team of horses to which my plow is attached. The last thing Eleonora wanted was to do anything that would adversely affect his fortunes. She found it somewhat curious that the Bey would be so adamant in pressing this point, but it was understandable that, as a former victim of undue political persecution, he would be anxious about the Sultan’s motivations.
After dinner, Eleonora excused herself and went upstairs to her bedroom. It was still very early and she was not tired in the least, but she wanted to be alone with her thoughts. She had already decided which dress she was going to wear, but she was still unsure on the question of jewelry. Pulling out the top drawer of the dressing table, she looked through her small collection of bracelets and necklaces. Here was the pear-shaped emerald pendant the Bey had bought for her on her third day in Stamboul. Here were the bangles from that cramped gold dealer in the textile market. As she slipped the bangles over her hand, Eleonora’s gaze fell on the wooden bookmark she had taken with her from Constanta, her mother’s bookmark, with which she had jimmied the lock of her father’s trunk. She picked it off the dresser, held it like a magnifying glass, and considered her reflection through the negative spaces in the wood. She opened her mouth and inspected the iridescent reddish-yellow space where her tongue rested. Tomorrow she would have an audience with the Sultan.
Eleonora knew from Machiavelli that she should not offer advice unless the Sultan asked her. If he did ask, however, she would tell him the truth as best she could. As for how she should comport herself, she had no idea. None of the characters in The Hourglass had ever been granted an audience with their king, though Miss Holvert had been invited on a riding party with a Hapsburg Prince. That episode, of course, had ended disastrously—the only remnants of the day a box of dried wildflowers, tears, and a stack of unposted letters—though it was useful as a counterexample. She should not expect too much of the Sultan’s attention during their meeting. It was likely that he would be distracted by other concerns.
She did not know how long she had been standing in front of the mirror when the door opened and Mrs. Damakan stepped into the room. She had neither towels nor sheets, nor any other pretense for visiting. Eleonora laid the bookmark on top of the dressing table and closed the drawer.
“You are going to the palace tomorrow,” said Mrs. Damakan, placing a light hand on Eleonora’s shoulder. “It is an honor.”
Eleonora looked up at the old handmaid and caught a mischievous spark at the corner of her eyes.
“It is an honor,” Mrs. Damakan repeated. “But I think you are nervous.”
“I don’t know—”
The words slipped out so easily, Eleonora hardly noticed what she had done until it was done. She had not thought about speaking, or not speaking, for some time now. Her silence was a comfortable habit—the listening, the nodding, the writing out of any responses that were absolutely necessary—but it had long ago lost its power. She realized this now, now that she had discarded the cloak of voicelessness, letting it pool at her feet. The spell was her own to break; it had been all along. Mrs. Damakan nodded, waiting for her to continue her sentence.
“I don’t know what I should say,” Eleonora whispered. After so many months of silence, her voice was soft, and scratched in her throat.
Mrs. Damakan let her hand slide down to Eleonora’s arm, and squeezed it gently.
“How can you know the answer if you haven’t heard the question?” she said. “Trust yourself. You know even more than you think.”
The old handmaid leaned forward and kissed Eleonora on the forehead. Then she turned and waddled out of the room.
Chapter Nineteen
Trimmed with gold and black rubber, the imperial carriage sat at the edge of the water, its doors, roof, and under-gear shining the brilliant purple of an unripe eggplant. Eleonora held her dress above the cobblestones as she followed the herald across the drive. She wore a pale blue silk gown with black patent-leather shoes, her hair arranged in a wispy spray. The entire morning had been spent preparing, bathing, choosing her jewelry, and sitting still while Mrs. Damakan pinned up her hair. It was only now, however, that the reality of the situation fell upon her. She, Eleonora Cohen, was going to the palace for an audience with the Sultan. If there ever had been, there was no turning back now.
Halfway across the drive, Eleonora could see the horses’ skin gleaming with the dull radiance of meerschaum and their eyes like sad, black marbles. As she approached the great beasts, they stiffened their posture and, like soldiers presenting arms for review, each raised its left foreleg. She nodded, acknowledging their tribute, and the lead horse flared its nostrils, a signal that the rest of the team could relax. The coachman held the door for her and she stepped up into the carriage. As she did, a seagull cried out from the roof of the Bey’s house and took off flapping across the Bosporus, its yellow-orange beak pointed toward the palace.
The interior of the carriage was upholstered in dark purple velvet with ivory fixtures and a seam of gold around the baseboard. Eleonora smoothed down the back of her dress and seated herself across from the herald, facing backward. Horses clomping along the shoreline, she watched the Bey’s house slide out of view, shrinking smaller and smaller in the back window until finally it disappeared behind a curve in the road. She looked down at her shoes, into the shiny black patent leather pinching her toes together, and she inhaled deeply to calm herself.
“You have been granted an enormous privilege.”
Eleonora looked up at the herald. His nose was framed between sunken eyes and he had a large mole just above his left nostril. She had thought at first he was the same man who had called on her the day before, but now she was unsure. In any case, he expected a response.
“Yes,” she said. She spoke quietly, as she was still getting used to the feeling of a voice vibrating in her throat. “I am very honored.”
“It is a great honor to be given an audience with the Sultan.”
“I am greatly honored.”
Rattling across the wooden planks of the Galata Bridge, they turned left at the Egyptian Bazaar, dispersing a crowd of pigeons set up under the exterior arches of the New Mosque. From across the water, Eleonora could see the Galata Tower leaning over the city like a stern finger. There was Beşiktaş, sprawled out languid along the shore: the pier, the Beşiktaş Mosque, and the waterfront houses, in the middle of which she could easily pick out the yellow facade of the Bey’s. She leaned closer to the carriage window, until the tip of her nose touched the glass. There, on the second floor, third from the left, was the bay window behind which she had spent so many afternoons, reading, watching the ships pass, and imagining the lives of the people across the water. Whether anyone on this side of the straits—a fish monger, a servant buying turmeric in the spice bazaar, or a faithful shopkeeper performing ablutions at the public fountain outside the New Mosque—had ever glanced up and speculated about her own life, Eleonora could never know.
“Are you at all familiar with the protocols of the court?”
“No,” she said, raising her chin.
The herald made a small sound at the back of his throat and his face took on the glaze of great solemnity.
“In the Sultan’s court there are certain rules one must follow. Entire books have been written on the subject. Unfortunately, we do not have time for that now.”
Eleonora nodded.
“The three most important rules to remember are as follows: First, you must bow as soon as you enter the audience chamber. When you bow, touch your forehead to the ground.”
She touched her forehead with her thumb to show she understood.
“Second, you must always address the Sultan, if you address him at all, as His Excellency.”
“His Excellency,” she repeated.
“Your Excellency,” the herald corrected. “If you address the Sultan, call him ‘Your Excellency.’ If you were talking about him to a third party, which you should not do, you would say ‘His Excellency.
’”
“Your Excellency.”
“Third, you must remember always to face the Sultan. No matter who is speaking to you, do not turn your back to the Sultan.”
Eleonora repeated the three rules to herself.
“Those are the three pillars of court protocol. There are many more rules. You must never contradict the Sultan, for example. You must never interrupt His Excellency when he is speaking. And you must never offer him advice, unless advice has been explicitly requested. However, we do not have time for these rules.”
By then, the carriage had turned onto a steep, curving street, edged in by shops and choked with a dusty stream of supplicants. The horses slowed as they passed through the multitudes—the crisp white head garb of the Bedouin, Caucasian knives hooked through brightly embroidered sashes, and geometric tattoos on the chins and foreheads of Berber women—all clamoring up the hill toward the palace. The Gate of Greeting was a sight unto itself. Topped with a shingled green roof like a wave, it was protected by six guards, two to unlock the gate and four to hold back the pilgrims. At the front of the crowd, Eleonora noticed an ancient peasant wearing a tattered red fez. Clutching a sheep under one arm, he was waving his staff in the air and repeating a single word over and over again, as if repetition might somehow rectify whatever wrong had been done.
“What does he want?” Eleonora asked as they stepped down from the carriage.
The herald looked at her for a moment with a blank face. When he realized who she was referring to, he snorted contemptuously.
“There is no end to what people want from His Excellency.”
She might have pursued the conversation further, but at that moment the inner gates were opened and a guard ushered them into the palace proper. Redolent of jasmine, the palace gardens were arranged in gently sloping concentric circles, each planted with a different variety of fruit tree. The herald led Eleonora up a wide path lined with topiary, past pashas and janissaries gliding silent as snakes through water. He walked quickly, leaving no time for her to admire the great blue-and-white-tiled fountain at the center of the gardens or to linger on the buildings peeking through the leaves. He stopped finally at the far end of the gardens, in front of a gate nearly as large as the one they had just passed through. It was guarded by four men in uniforms the same bright purple color as the imperial carriage. They were, without a doubt, the largest men Eleonora had ever seen, each as tall as a horse and leg muscles bulging through their uniforms.
The Oracle of Stamboul Page 17