by Elif Shafak
‘Man is made in the image of God. At its centre there’s order, balance. See the circles and the squares. See how proportionately they have been arranged. There are four humours – blood, yellow bile, black bile and phlegm. We work with four elements – wood, marble, glass, metal.’
Jahan and the gassal exchanged a glance. Jahan knew what the man was thinking, for he’d had similar thoughts himself. He feared that his master, out of sorrow or weariness, had lost his mind.
‘The face is the facade, the eyes are the windows, the mouth is the door that opens into the universe. The legs and the arms are the staircases.’ Then Sinan poured water from a ewer, and, by drawing circles with his hands, began to wash the body with such tenderness that the gassal dared not move.
‘That’s why when you see a human being, slave or vizier, Mohammedan or heathen, you ought to respect him. Remember, even a beggar owns a palace.’
Jahan said, ‘With much respect, master, I don’t see perfection. I see the missing teeth. This crooked bone. All of us, I mean, some are hunchbacked, others –’
‘Cracks on the surface. But the building is flawless.’
The gassal, craning his neck over their shoulders, bowed his head in assent, perhaps convinced more by the lull of Sinan’s voice than by his views. After that they were silent. They washed the deceased twice – once with warm water, once with tepid. Then they wrapped him head to toe in a milky-white shroud, leaving his right hand outside. This they held, gently, and placed on his heart, as though he were saying his goodbyes to this world and his salaams to the next.
The funeral prayer was led by an imam with a goitre so large that it pressed on his windpipe, making his breath come out in raspy gasps. He said it was of great consolation that they had died on a construction site. The men had not been leching after women of ill-repute or imbibing or gambling or uttering blasphemies. Death had found them in an hour of honest, hard work. When the Day of Judgement arrived, which it was sure to do, God would take this into account.
He said Salahaddin had departed this mortal life while building a bridge for the Sultan – no one dared to say that it was in fact while repairing an aqueduct. In return, in the other world, when it was his turn to cross the Bridge of Sirat – thinner than a hair, slimier than a thousand eels – a pair of angels would assist him. They would hold him by his hands and not let him fall into the flames of hell underneath.
The casket was transported to the cemetery amid wailing and keening. Salahaddin’s family were poor, so Sinan had paid for his tombstone.
The father of the deceased, brought low by age and grief, trudged towards them. Touched and honoured that a man like Sinan should attend his son’s funeral, he thanked each of them. Salahaddin’s brother, meanwhile, kept his distance. It wasn’t hard to see he was holding them responsible for his loss, this lad who was no more than fourteen. One glance at him and Jahan knew they had made themselves yet another enemy. When, after throwing spadefuls of earth on to his brother’s coffin, he moved towards the back of the crowd, Jahan followed him.
‘May God welcome your brother into Paradise,’ Jahan said as soon as he caught up with him.
No response. An awkward moment passed between them, as each waited for the other to speak. In the end, it was the lad who broke the silence. ‘Were you with him when he died?’
‘I was nearby.’
‘The ghost pushed them. Did you see it happen?’
‘Nobody pushed them. It was an accident,’ Jahan said nervously. Even he couldn’t deny the bizarreness of the incident.
‘The ghost wants you to stop. There’ll be no end to disaster if you disturb him, but your master doesn’t care. He has no respect for the dead.’
‘That’s not true. Master is a good man,’ said Jahan.
The boy’s face darkened with rage. ‘Your friend was right. You are befouling a sacred place. What with your hammers and donkeys. You are all condemned to hell.’
The crowd began to disperse. Amid the mourners inching towards the gate, Jahan noticed Sinan moving listlessly, as though pulled by invisible strings against his will. Jahan said weakly, ‘Don’t blame my master.’
As they left the cemetery, the wind blustered, tufts of dust and dirt rolling in their direction. Later, much later, it would dawn on Jahan that in the commotion he had not asked Salahaddin’s brother who this friend he had talked with was and why he had uttered premonitions so dire.
The next day only half of the labourers turned up for work.
‘So much for paid workmen!’ Davud exclaimed. ‘Had we hired chained galley slaves, none of this would have happened. See where kindness gets us?’
‘Master will find extra hands,’ Nikola said.
He was right. Determined to complete what he had started, Sinan took on new labourers. It wasn’t hard to obtain them. There were many in need of a job in this city. The misery of hunger prevailed over the fear of a saint’s curse. For a while, things seemed to improve. The work proceeded without incident. Autumn drew in, the air chilled.
Then came the flood. Sweeping down houses, taverns, shrines and sheds, it gushed through the valleys. Because they had not been able to fully unclog the channels leading to the aqueduct, the waters washed away the scaffolding and crumbled the watercourse as if it had been a wafer. The flood had caught them unprepared. No one was injured. But they lost weeks of work and materials of value. The disaster gave credence to the gossip-mongers’ rumours, and even those who had previously been unsure now became convinced that Sinan and his apprentices were accursed.
Their spirits sank. Until this point their master had overcome every obstacle, no matter how great or daunting. Yet this was different. How could Sinan possibly defeat a ghost?
The renovation work stopped. Hard as Sinan tried, he could not convince a single soul to keep on working. The labourers accused the Chief Royal Architect of putting them in danger in order to win the Sultan’s favour. Who needed water when the water was jinxed? The aqueducts dated from the days of the infidels. Why repair them if not to spread idolatry?
Jahan was surprised to hear they had already forgotten about the ghost of the Muslim martyr. They had found new fears to cling to and cling they did. Silent and compliant on the surface, they whispered malicious gossip as soon as the apprentices turned their backs.
After a week of this Sinan appeared with a small, wiry visitor by his side. The two of them climbed up on to the newly built scaffolding.
‘Workmen! Foremen! We are fortunate to have a respectable hodja* with us.’
Sinan extended his hand to the stranger. The man took a step forward, ashen and drawn, unused to heights. Closing his eyes, he chanted verses from the Qur’an. He was called the Nightingale Hodja, they learned. Born in Bosnia, he could commune with God in seven languages and knew the ways of many creeds and sects. There was something in the voice of this man, who otherwise looked very ordinary, that enchanted the labourers. He told them to move on and never speak evil of others, for if Sheitan could fly so high, it was thanks to two wings: sloth and slander.
The hodja came every day, stood with them from dawn to dusk, dust in his hair, mud on his shoes. He sprinkled blessed water and uttered the prayer of Cevsen, which he said the Archangel Gabriel had revealed when the Prophet Mohammed was afraid and in need of protection – for prophets, just like common men, could be frightened of the dangers of this world – and he sanctified the aqueducts, calming the fears of Jews, Christians and Muslims alike. Then he concluded, ‘It’s clean now. This site is as pure as your mother’s milk. Go back to work.’
So they did. Little by little. They finished the renovations so perfectly that even those who hated Sinan more than any soul on earth could not raise objections. Sultan Suleiman was pleased. He honoured his architect with gifts and praises, calling him Al-insan al-Kamil.*
It was after this incident that Jahan understood his master’s secret resided not in his toughness, for he was not tough, nor in his indestructibility, for he was not in
destructible, but in his ability to adapt to change and calamity, and to rebuild himself, again and again, out of the ruins. While Jahan was made of wood, and Davud of metal, and Nikola of stone, and Yusuf of glass, Sinan was made of flowing water. When anything blocked his course, he would flow under, around, above it, however he could; he found his way through the cracks, and kept flowing forward.
What an awful night it was! Chota was in pain. Roaring, bellowing, growling till the first light of the day, he swayed his trunk this way and that, exhausted. Such was his discomfort that Jahan had to sleep next to him, if sleep he could. One peek into the animal’s mouth and he saw the reason for his torment: the molar at the back of his left lower jaw was a nasty black colour and the gum had become swollen with pus.
Jahan recalled how the summer before he had had a terrible toothache himself, and the barber who shaved the Overseer of the Royal Stables had taken pity on him. Amid wailing and groaning, the man had pulled and pulled, ending Jahan’s suffering. Even so, Jahan could not think of a single soul in Istanbul brave enough to remove an elephant’s molar.
‘What’s the matter?’ Taras asked as soon as he entered the stable and saw his face. ‘A head on a pike looks happier than you.’
‘It’s Chota. His tooth is killing him.’
‘If we were only in the Taiga,’ said Taras with a sigh. ‘I know of a shrub that can mend him in an instant. Grandma is fond of it.’
Jahan gaped at him in astonishment. ‘Is your granny still alive?’
‘Aye, she’s one of the damned,’ said Taras. Seeing Jahan’s surprise he added drily, ‘No worse curse than to bury all your loved ones and still keep breathing.’
Years later Jahan would remember this moment but now the words whizzed by him like a current of air.
‘Get garlic, lots, fennel, oil of clove … a tad of anise, no more … Mix them.’
Jahan obtained the ingredients from the kitchen and pounded them in a mortar until they turned into a gooey, green paste. When he showed him the concoction, Taras was pleased. ‘Now rub it on the beast’s gums. This will give him comfort – for now. The tooth needs to be pulled out.’
Jahan rushed back to the barn. The elephant resisted his attempts with such fierceness he could apply only half the paste, and he wasn’t sure he had swabbed the right molar anyway. Chota’s mouth reeked of an unpleasant odour. He had not been able to eat anything and hunger, as always, made his blood boil. Stitching together two mufflers, Jahan placed the remaining ointment inside and tied it around the animal’s head, against the inflamed skin. Chota looked so funny he would have laughed had the poor thing not been in such agony.
Out on the streets, Jahan searched for an itinerant tooth-drawer or barber. The first man he asked burst out laughing upon learning the identity of the patient. The next was a fellow with such a menacing aspect that Jahan did not dare to take him to the menagerie. He was about to give up when he recalled the one soul in this city who knew everything about everything – Simeon the bookseller.
The quarter around the Galata Tower was swarming with people. Merchants walked in tandem with pedlars; emissaries and dragomen moved aside to let ox-carts pass; an ambassador in a tahtirevan breezed along, carried by black slaves; dogs roamed in packs. He saw men going to classes at the yeshiva, the elderly chatting in corners, a woman pulling her son by the hand. Words in Spanish, French and Arabic swirled in the wind.
Rounding a corner, thinking of Chota, he was rushing when he stopped in his tracks. Ahead of him, merely a few steps away from Simeon’s house, was the traveller he had drunk with at the roadside inn. Next to him was Yusuf, the mute apprentice, his eyes on the ground. The man said something, after which Yusuf nodded and walked away.
In a burst of memory, Jahan remembered how they had been robbed on the way back from Rome. Suddenly, he suspected that the man in front of his eyes had had something to do with it. ‘Hey, Tommaso!’
The Italian turned round. His eyes grew small as he caught sight of Jahan. Sprinting fast as an arrow, he disappeared into the crowd. Jahan gave chase for a while, though it was clear he would not be able to catch him. Dispirited, he strode back, knocked on Simeon’s door.
‘You all right?’ the bookseller asked.
‘Was Yusuf here a moment ago? With a blond man?’
‘What blond man? I haven’t seen Yusuf in weeks.’
‘Never mind,’ Jahan said with a sigh. ‘I need your help.’
‘Good timing, a ship’s arrived. There’re new books from Spain.’
‘I’ll look at them later. I need to help the elephant first.’
When Jahan told him his problem, Simeon’s mouth twisted into a grimace. ‘I’m a man of ideas; never operated on an animal.’
‘Do you know of anyone?’
‘None better than you. Tell you what, I’ll see if there’s anything in one of the books. Then you can do it yourself.’
‘Fine,’ said Jahan weakly.
‘You’ll need to sedate him. Get lots of boza. Better yet, sleeping draught.’
Simeon said that, in the past, physicians had used hemlock, which had killed many a mortal and saved a few. Nowadays they preferred nightshade and mandragora, the latter a plant that unleashed an awful shriek when torn out of the soil. But the best was opium. Galen recommended it for jaundice, dropsy, leprosy, headache, coughs and melancholy. For a man Jahan’s age and size, two spoonfuls was the right amount. Since an elephant weighed as much as a mountain and was as tall as a tree … Simeon’s eyebrows arched as he made a calculation. ‘You are going to need a cask!’
‘Where am I going to find that?’
Simeon said, ‘The Chief White Eunuch. There’s no miracle he cannot perform.’
Jahan returned to the palace with a book under his arm and misgivings in his head. Nobody messed with Carnation Kamil Agha. He hadn’t forgotten the scolding he had received from him when he had first arrived. Even so, mustering courage, Jahan went to see him. To his surprise, the man was agreeable, kind even.
A cask of opium was provided at a stroke. Jahan did not inquire how it was acquired. Years in the palace had instilled in him the code of silence. Two tamers hoisted up Chota’s upper jaw; two others held down his lower one. The elephant, in pain and tired, did not put up much of a fight. For good measure, with the help of a funnel, they poured a jug of mulled red wine into his listless mouth.
Little by little, Chota’s breathing slackened off; his face melted like wax, his eyes glazed over. His legs gave way under his enormous weight and he tumbled down. They tied him with hawsers and chains and ropes, in case he woke up and attacked them in a fit of delirium. In this state Jahan started to operate on him.
He began with a chisel, quickly moved to a hammer. Dara the giraffe-tamer, Kato the crocodile-tamer and Olev the lion-tamer took turns pounding, thumping, clouting. Then pulling, yanking, wrenching. After what felt like an eternity, Jahan rooted out a tooth – like the fang of a giant snake from a tale a meddah would tell in a coffee-house somewhere.
‘Give it to me,’ ordered the Chief White Eunuch, his eyes glinting.
Jahan now grasped why the man had been so nice to him from the start. Having appropriated the cabinet of curiosities that had once belonged to Hurrem Sultana, he wanted to add Chota’s tooth to it. Jahan felt a shudder as he wondered where he kept this cabinet and what else it might contain.
Upon learning that Rustem Pasha had passed away, Jahan felt many things at once, but sorrow wasn’t among them. Princess Mihrimah’s husband … the father of her three children … the royal favourite who had touched her every night … the devshirme who had risen too fast … the great Grand Vizier, much respected and much feared … The man who had sent Jahan to the dungeon and expected him to kiss his hand upon release … had gone the way of all flesh. He had been suffering from dropsy for a while, that much Jahan knew. For no matter how he had tried to keep the man away from his thoughts, every passing day Jahan had heard something new about him and hated him more.
/> A month later Mihrimah summoned Sinan – sending word that he should bring along his Indian apprentice.
‘Chief Royal Architect, I want you to build an exquisite mosque for my late-lamented spouse, may heaven be his abode.’ She was wearing sombre colours befitting a widow.
Jahan waited behind his master, his hands clasped, his gaze fixed on the carpet, and he thought to himself he would be in charge of this mosque and put a sign in it, somewhere, subtle but obvious to the knowing eye. He would etch his dislike of Rustem Pasha into the very monument dedicated to him. If it were a sin to think such things, he was sinful, for sure.
Unaware of his thoughts, Mihrimah kept talking. There was no need to fret about the sums, as she would cover all the costs. She demanded a spacious courtyard and a row of vaulted shops to provide revenue for the mosque. She was keen to make generous use of the best Iznik tiles: sage-green, sapphire-blue and a red as dark as yesterday’s blood.
‘It shall be as you wish, your Highness,’ said Sinan.
‘I want it to be glorious,’ said Mihrimah. ‘Worthy of my late husband’s noble name.’
Jahan sighed inwardly. Resentment coiled inside him like a serpent. He lamented, almost against his will, having accompanied his master into this house of riches. But then, as if she had noticed his discomfort, Mihrimah turned to him.
‘I haven’t seen the elephant in a while. How is the beast doing?’
‘Chota missed you, your Highness,’ said Jahan quietly.
She inspected him, taking in the marks of time. ‘How can you tell?’
‘Many a day I found him waiting with his eyes fixed on the path your Highness had graced.’
Mihrimah raised her hand, as if to touch the air between them. ‘Well, tell Chota that I was away, trapped in another life, but I shall come back and visit him, for I have never known a white elephant like him.’
‘He will be happy to hear this, your Highness.’