The Bellini card yte-3

by Jason Goodwin

  “Resid’s motive is fairly obvious, isn’t it? He sent the Tatar to destroy the evidence that the Duke of Naxos was in fact Sultan Abdulmecid. To save the sultan’s honor.”

  “With Austrian help?”

  Palewski threw up his hands. “I don’t get it, Yashim. Why would the Austrians help Resid?”

  Yashim bit his lip.

  “There’s more to it than the sultan’s honor. Resid was chasing down evidence that the sultan had misbehaved in Venice. Evidence that could safeguard his own position, too.”

  “Blackmail? That’s more like it,” Palewski agreed. “But it still doesn’t give the Austrians a motive.”

  Yashim smiled grimly. “On the contrary, it gives them every motive. What do the Austrians want from the Ottoman Empire?”

  “Peace and quiet, I suppose.”

  “Exactly. The Austrians are overstretched. In Italy, in Poland, in Galicia. They are keeping a lid on things, but only just. Even Carla wanted the money for the cause of Venetian independence. The Austrians would like nothing better than a compliant sultan. Finkel’s instructions were to get the note, but he didn’t do anything until the last minute. And then, thanks to us, it was too late.”

  “You mean Finkel knew about the Tatar? He sat back and waited for the Tatar to do his job for him?”

  “By eliminating the witnesses, one by one. Who’d ever imagine a Tatar assassin would be stalking the streets of Venice? You didn’t believe it yourself, even when Nikola put him in his painting. And that gave the Austrians their alibi.”

  “If the Tatar got the incriminating note, Resid would have the Austrians to thank,” Palewski said slowly. “If he failed, the Austrians would take it themselves. Either way, they stood to gain by cooperating with Resid.” He gave a low whistle. “No wonder Resid didn’t want you hunting the Bellini in Venice. He was handing control of Ottoman foreign policy to Austria.”

  They exchanged glances.

  “This is going to be awfully hard to prove, Yashim.”

  “Yes.”

  “And it isn’t over while Carla-the contessa-is still alive.”

  “No.”

  “And if Resid finds out where we’ve been…”

  “Yes.”

  Palewski looked out to sea and sighed. “Do you know, I am missing Venice much more than I’d expected.”

  114

  The Bosphorus quivered in the summer heat. On the Pera shore of the Golden Horn, where once the plane had extended its grateful shade, sunlight sprang from the rubble of the broken pavement. Across the Horn the courtyards of the mosques were full; people squatted against the walls and moved lazily to and fro between the arcades and the fountains.

  Outside the Topkapi Palace, Yashim stopped by a fountain whose scrolled and overhanging eaves created a welcome strip of shade. He set a book and a small parcel down on the stone bench and washed his hands and face beneath the spigot. Then he went through the main gate of the Topkapi Palace into the First Court.

  There were more people here than was usual, now that the Ottoman court had moved to a new, European-style palace on the Bosphorus. They came for the dappled shade of the trees beneath which they sat cross-legged: elderly men in fezzes and pantaloons, drawing on long pipes; younger men with swathed wives, watching their children scamper through the dust.

  Yashim crossed the court and reached the High Gate, where he knocked.

  A sleepy halberdier opened a wicket.

  “Yashim lala, to see the valide sultan.”

  Inside, the gatehouse was cool and dark. Yashim sank gratefully down onto a stone bench.

  A few minutes later, another halberdier saluted him, and they went out into the glare of the Second Court. Instead of crossing to the far corner and the entrance of the harem, the halberdier took him to the central gate and then right, toward the Treasury.

  He found the valide in the Baghdad Kiosk, lounging on a divan set up beneath the arches.

  She smiled and raised a hand when she saw him, her bracelets tinkling like water.

  “Don’t look so shocked, Yashim,” she said as he approached. “There are limits to our endurance.”

  Yashim smiled and bowed. The valide’s apartments were like ovens in the heat.

  “It’s not the heat, Yashim. I was born to it, after all. It’s the stillness. I thank the sultan, Yashim. He suggested I come here.” She patted the divan. “I have no idea how he intends to rule and frankly I am too old to care. But I approve of his consideration.”

  The Baghdad Kiosk was one of the oldest parts of the palace, a medieval cavern open to the breeze with a view running straight up the Bosphorus.

  “I’m not shocked, valide. I’m only pleased that the sultan-”

  “Remembers me?” She arched an eyebrow, while Yashim shook his head. “I even sleep here sometimes,” she said. “I also like the view. It makes me feel like a sultan myself.”

  A girl came in carrying a tray of cooling sherbet.

  “Tell me about Venice,” the valide said.

  Yashim almost dropped his glass.

  “Venice, valide?”

  “Do the women still sit in their altana on the roofs, making their hair go yellow?”

  Yashim lowered his eyes, nonplussed. The valide’s vision of Venice was so different from the one he’d seen.

  “I brought you something,” he remembered.

  She undid the parcel. Inside, carefully wrapped in tissue paper, was a pair of candlesticks. They were made of a twist of pink Murano glass, and each had a tassel of colored pendants dangling from the rim.

  The valide examined them carefully. “Very pretty, Yashim.”

  Yashim felt satisfied; the valide was never lavish with her praise.

  “I should have liked to have seen Venice,” she continued. “But perhaps it is very ugly now?”

  “It is beautiful, valide. But it is poor.”

  The valide lifted a bangled arm to the balustrade and turned her head. Her profile was still extraordinarily clear.

  “Istanbul could become poor one day. Who knows?”

  “I felt the same, valide,” Yashim admitted. “Istanbul and Venice always ate from the one dish.”

  “I suppose you are right. Istanbul the master, Venice the servant-and when the master has dined, the servant clears his plate.” She looked at Yashim. “Perhaps that’s why the sultan came here last week. To talk about Venice.”

  Yashim felt himself blush. “The sultan spoke of Venice?”

  The valide raised her chin. “In the olden days, Yashim, the sultans left their dominions only in time of war-to conquer. But that age is past. Abdulmecid is young, Yashim, and he has not lived in the world. He knows it. I think he regrets it, too.”

  But he has lived in the world more than the valide might suppose, Yashim reflected.

  “He comes to me because he thinks I know Europe. I don’t discourage him.”

  “You-have traveled, valide?”

  “You might call it traveling, Yashim. Certainly I met some quite interesting men.” A smile hovered on her lips. “I threatened the Dey of Algiers with the vengeance of the French navy. Later, I pulled his beard. I, too, was very young.”

  Yashim smiled. The dey had sent his captive on, to Istanbul, as a gift to the sultan. Perhaps he didn’t like having his beard pulled.

  “But Abdulmecid is less experienced,” the valide continued. “I have encouraged him to read more French, I hope.”

  Yashim remembered the Dumas.

  “I have brought this back, valide. Dumas’s Ali Pasha.”

  She took it with a small smile.

  “I don’t think it’s quite right for the padishah,” she said.

  “No,” Yashim agreed.

  115

  Before he left the palace, Yashim crossed the Third Court and entered the imperial archives, where the vast records of the bureaucracy that had governed millions of lives for centuries were all held.

  He spent an hour going through an elaborate index, waving away
all offers of help until he found the volume he wanted.

  A librarian disappeared into the huge stacks, crammed with volumes of correspondence and reports, ancient scrolls, imperial firmans.

  “The records you’re asking for are not yet bound.” The librarian fluttered his hands apologetically. “They have only just been delivered.”

  “I’d like to see them anyway.”

  The librarian frowned. “It’s against regulations to let out unbound records.”

  Yashim waited.

  “You can’t remove them, efendi.”

  “I’ll examine them in front of you, if you like.”

  The librarian sniffed. “That won’t be necessary,” he said crisply.

  A few moments later, Yashim was leafing through a pile of diplomatic records.

  It took him twenty minutes to find what he wanted.

  116

  “Where yous been, efendi? You have a yali now, I thinks, like some big pasha, hey?”

  Yashim smiled and shook his head. “I’ve been away, George.”

  George scratched his chest. “Is too hot here, Yashim efendi.”

  George grabbed a bucket and roved from piles of spinach to pyramids of tiny cucumbers, sprinkling them with cold water. When he was finished he rubbed his wet hands across his face.

  “Today, you is not busy, efendi.”

  He caught a dozen or so tiny artichokes, one by one, and placed them on his scales. They were no bigger than his thumb.

  “Some tomatoes. Some garlic. Aubergine-here.” He took four long green aubergines and weighed them, too. He carefully placed everything in the basket with his huge hands and crammed a fistful of herbs-parsley, dill, rosemary-on top.

  He puffed up, waved his arms, and subsided with a gesture of calm. “You cooks in the heat and eats in the cool,” he bellowed, miming to suit. “Dolma. A raki. No meat.”

  Yashim paused on the way home to buy bread, yogurt, and olives. When he got back, the little apartment was like an oven. He threw back the windows and left the door slightly ajar to encourage a breeze.

  It was only when he picked up the basket again that he noticed a small parcel by the door.

  He undid the string.

  Inside was his knife.

  With it came a letter.

  My dearest Yashim, I wished to send you a souvenir of Venice, but really, there is nothing. So I sent Antonio to find your knife, in the courtyard of the fondaco.

  You saved my life, which was not important until now. Before, I had no feeling-I lost it, I suppose, when my brother died, and then my mother. Until now I knew neither joy nor tenderness, but only pain, in the way you know about. With Nikola there is pain, but it is another kind, and it is very mixed with something else. Of course I wish-but what do I wish? For nothing. I commune with an angel. Father Andrea is very good.

  I am sorry to have lost the painting, because it would have been good for us to have money. About the letters, I will let the fish read them. I know-and you know-that they did exist. Which is enough.

  Your loving friend,

  Carla A-I

  He put the letter aside and examined the knife. The binding on the grip had come loose, but the steel itself was bright and sharp. He weighed it in his hand.

  “You have traveled a long way,” he said aloud, “since Ammar made you.”

  He wiped the blade with a cloth, glad that the knife was clean.

  “Ammar made you to chop vegetables,” he said.

  He took a board and set to work. With the knife he prepared the tiny artichokes, trimming their leaves. He chopped the tomatoes, slit the aubergines, crushed and salted the garlic cloves. The room filled with the scent of herbs.

  The Tatar had been dispatched to expunge every trace of the sultan’s dishonor. To kill, leaving no witnesses.

  Palewski had said something on the ship, before the porpoises broke the cover of the sea, something he had put from his mind.

  Resid had sent a killer and not him.

  I could have done it, Yashim thought, without killing anyone. I might have retrieved the letters-and the painting, too. That is my job.

  He stuffed the aubergines with tomatoes, onion, a little parsley and garlic, carefully gathering the last fragments from the board.

  If the Austrians already knew about the sultan’s visit, killing the witnesses was a waste. A waste of life, above all, but also a risk.

  With sticky fingers he set the aubergines into a dish.

  He filled an earthenware with the artichokes, drizzled them with oil, a splash of water, and a sprinkling of lemon juice.

  When it was done he stuck his head out of the window and shouted, “Elvan! Elvan! Come!”

  A boy levered himself out of a patch of shade and stood up, stretching.

  “I am here, Yashim efendi,” he called.

  Upstairs, he took the dishes from Yashim and carried them down the street to the baker’s shop, where the baker put them in his oven.

  Yashim went to the hammam.

  An attendant took his clothes and led him through to the steam room, where he spread out a towel for him on the hot slab.

  Yashim lay down. The heat seeped through his limbs. His muscles relaxed.

  Only his mind remained tense.

  He stared upward, at the light shining through the domed ceiling, and remembered the Tatar at the top of the stairs, framed in the dawn breaking through the Byzantine windows.

  Resid’s assassin.

  He wiped the sweat from his eyes with two hands. He went over his conversation with the valide in his mind.

  He did not protest when the hammam attendant slopped over in his pattens to lead him from the slab.

  He let himself be seated by the spigot of hot water and began to mechanically sluice himself from head to foot.

  Seeing nothing. Hearing no one.

  Until a bare foot prodded him in the ribs.

  He glanced around then, surprised, through a film of steam.

  For a moment he didn’t recognize the young man with slicked-down hair who sat beside him on the marble floor.

  “You have disobeyed me, Yashim. I find that-interesting. And unfortunate. We were getting along so well.”

  Yashim recognized the voice. It was Resid Pasha.

  117

  “Disobeyed you?”

  “I told you I would summon you when the time was right. But yesterday you visited the Old Palace. Topkapi. You spoke with the valide.”

  Yashim put his scoop under the flow of water and let it fill.

  “We discussed a book, Resid.”

  “You are supposed to be in Venice, remember? The sultan ordered you to go.”

  “You asked me to stay, my pasha.”

  Resid’s eyes were like gimlets. “Don’t try me, Yashim. I am the slave of the padishah. His lightest wish is my command.”

  “There must be some mistake. Maybe I misunderstood.”

  “Impossible. The sultan’s order was very clear. You were to go to Venice. But you are here.”

  “Yes, my pasha. I am here.” He poured the water over his head. He rubbed a hand through his hair. “The ship docked yesterday.”

  “What ship?”

  “The packet from Trieste.”

  Resid said nothing, but the scoop he was lifting stopped in midair.

  “We are all slaves of the padishah, Resid.”

  Resid let the water trickle onto the floor. “Really, Yashim, this is so interesting.” There was something gravelly in his voice, and Yashim wondered if it might be fear. “Did you-succeed?”

  “I believe so, in a way.”

  “In what way, Yashim?” The young vizier turned his scoop gently between his fingers. “You found the painting, perhaps?”

  “Yes, Resid Pasha. I did.” Yashim put his scoop under the spigot and watched it fill again. “The portrait of Mehmet the Conqueror,” he said, raising his voice slightly above the bubbling water. “Among other things.”

  “Other things?”

 
; “Letters.”

  “Letters. A pity that you decided to go to Venice, after all. I warned you it was a dangerous city.”

  Yashim stared at Resid.

  “It’s not a worry, Resid Pasha. I’m safe home now, in Istanbul.”

  Resid filled his cupped hands with water and splashed it over his face. “I wish I could share your confidence, Yashim. One hears so often these days of accidents, if not banditry. Perhaps we should try to install more lighting, as I hear they have in Venice? Security in the city, however, is not my concern-I deal with foreign affairs.”

  “Curiously enough, it is those very foreign affairs of yours that give me confidence,” Yashim said with a gentle smile. “One particular affair, at least.”

  Resid’s own smile was bland and fixed. “And what-affair-might that be, Yashim lala?”

  “One that a certain Duke of Naxos had with the Contessa d’Aspi d’Istria. As an affair, I gather, it was one-sided, and largely epistolary. Though of course I may be wrong.”

  Very slowly, Resid picked up the scoop. He held it in his hand, empty.

  “I’m sorry to hear you say that, Yashim. At home, or abroad, my loyalty is to the sultan and to his good name.”

  “Even a sultan may be judged by the company he keeps, Resid.”

  A masseur arrived and knelt at Yashim’s feet. Yashim waved him away.

  “You drag the sultan into this?” Resid hissed. “I expected better of you, Yashim.”

  “The sultan? No. Abdulmecid wasn’t a part of this.” Yashim let the water patter into his open palm. “You should have let me go, Resid. Your Tatar wasn’t good enough.”

  “My Tatar?”

  “He’s dead, Resid. Who was he, anyway? A relative of yours perhaps?”

  “You question me?”

  Yashim sighed. “Not really, no. After all, you couldn’t have sent me, Resid Pasha.”

  “You? What could you have done?”

  “A service to the sultan. That’s what I do, Resid. My training. My talent. But in this case, my services were not required.”

  Resid said nothing.

  “Last year,” Yashim went on, “the sultan sent an envoy to Vienna. In Trieste he develops a slight malady, which keeps him there a few days. I’ve checked, Resid. The dates of his mission to Vienna are on the record.”