by Elif Shafak
‘Come,’ he said. ‘I want you to look at these and tell me what you see.’
Not knowing which scroll belonged to whom, Jahan inspected the three drawings. He compared each with his own. It seemed as if he alone had proposed knocking down the baths and building them anew at the back of the harem. Even though Mihrimah no longer lived there, he had made his design with her comfort in mind. As he studied the sketches, he began to recognize the purposeful strokes of Davud, the meticulous tracing of Nikola and the light flowing hand of Yusuf.
‘What do you think?’ Sinan asked.
Uneasily, Jahan pointed out the best in each drawing. Sinan said, ‘I know what their strengths are. Tell me their weaknesses.’
‘This one was hastily done,’ Jahan said. The other, he explained, in his desire to copy his master, had not contributed from his soul.
‘How about this?’ Sinan asked, showing Jahan his own scroll. ‘I like that it cares about the harem population and makes it easier for them.’
Jahan felt his face burn.
‘But it takes no notice of the surroundings. There’s no harmony between the new additions and the old structure.’
Sinan’s eyes glimmered. He took out the last design. ‘And this?’
‘Careful, balanced. He’s respected the building and expanded it in proportion.’
‘That’s right. What I’d like to know is why your design, which is the better one, pays no attention to the palace.’
Jahan’s face clouded over. ‘I cannot say, master.’
‘Yours was the best but it had one flaw. We do not raise buildings that float in empty space. We reflect the harmony of nature and the spirit of the place.’
Thus the mute apprentice became the Chief Assistant. Blushing up to his ears, a shy smile hovering on his lips, Yusuf kept his gaze on the ground, as if he wanted to disappear therein. As for Jahan he had learned something about himself: that he had reached a point in his craft where he could either improve or destroy his talent. Davud, Yusuf, Nikola – these were not his rivals. His most fearsome rival was none other than himself.
They spent the summer expanding the palace and repairing the areas where the fire had wreaked havoc. Accustomed as they were to toiling on all sorts of sites, this one felt different and oddly quiet. For once there was no idle talk among the labourers, no jokes or quips as they carried the planks, hoisted the pulleys or ate their soup. When they erected an uncut marble column, dozens of men pulling at once, the hawsers slashing their palms, there were no shouts of Allah, Allah. Just as there were no words of praise from the foremen when one of them did a fine job, intent less on commending than on prodding everyone else to toil harder. Even the sounds of the mallets, saws and axes were less ear-splitting than usual. An awkward silence descended on everything, leaving them dazed, as if they had just woken up from a slumber. Such was the impact of being close to Sultan Murad.
During those weeks Jahan met servants he had never come across before and learned about halls he had not known existed. The palace was a maze of rooms within rooms and paths that drew circles, a serpent swallowing its tail. It was lonely enough to make you love your own shadow and crowded enough to leave you gasping for air. There were far more people under its roof than at the time of Sultan Suleiman – more women in the harem, more guards at the gates, more pages serving more dishes. Like a fish that couldn’t sense when it was full, the palace kept absorbing more and more.
Once the apprentices finished rebuilding the kitchens, they started the additions to the outer part of the harem. The concubines, having retreated into the inner chambers, were out of sight. Jahan hoped to see, if not Mihrimah, then something that belonged to her – a handkerchief with her initials, a velvet slipper, an ivory comb. None of these he found. A few days later Mihrimah sent him word. She and dada were going back to her mansion. At midday we shall be passing by the First Gate.
Seated on one of the higher branches of an apple tree, Jahan waited, elated and terrified. In the drowsy heat the sun glowed through the ripe fruits, which nobody dared pick because they belonged to the Sultan – who had no time for such trifles. Jahan flinched at a distant rattle. A carriage appeared, moving slowly. It seemed to Jahan that he and only he had reached a standstill while the world had moved on. Everything was familiar in a strange way. Next to the vastness of the universe his heartbeat was inaudible. He was an observer. No more. The leaves rustled, the slugs inched forward, a moth’s wings beat in the breeze. Jahan savoured every detail, sensing he would never have this moment again. Time became a river. He stood by the grassy bank and stared at the water flowing by, alone and forsaken. The carriage came to a stop. A hand, as graceful as a bird, fluttered out of the window and pulled the curtain aside. Mihrimah looked up to where Jahan was perched, her face softening as she took in his adoring gaze. She saw one more time that, despite the decades and the distances and the wrinkles and the greying hair, nothing between them had changed. Jahan took a long look at her, without averting his eyes or bowing his head; he stared straight into her eyes. Her lips curled into a tender smile and she blushed a little. She pulled out a handkerchief from her bosom, smelled its perfume, glanced up at him and then dropped it for him to come and fetch afterwards.
It was a sweltering afternoon during Ramadan – fasting had slowed them down. Jahan didn’t mind the hunger that much, but the thirst was killing him. No matter how many cups of water he drank at sahur,* as soon as he came to the site the next morning his mouth felt dry as dust. Hours later, unable to bear it any more, he would steer towards the back of the kitchens, where there was a fountain. He would rinse his mouth to get rid of the rusty taste. If he swallowed a few drops at the same time, so be it. It was a sin, cheating like this. Yet he was hoping God wouldn’t mind if he consumed a few droplets of His endless water.
As he headed towards the fountain, Jahan noticed a figure ahead of him. Fast and furtive, it disappeared amid the bushes. He recognized the mute apprentice and began to follow his steps. He decided now was the time to talk to him to find out if he was the traitor.
Yusuf went straight to the pond where Chota would refresh himself now and then; he sat there, his face impossible to read. At first, Jahan thought he, too, had come here to quench his thirst. But all he seemed to be doing was staring at his reflection in the water, sad and subdued, as though he had just departed from someone he dearly loved. Jahan watched him for a while. So quiet and distracted was Yusuf that, save for the movement of his hands and the occasional glance he threw in the direction of the construction site, he might have been inanimate, another queer creature in the Chief White Eunuch’s collection.
Then, as though in a dream, he took off his gloves. His hands were slender and white, without a trace of burns. Why had he lied to everyone, Jahan wondered. What happened next was more baffling. Yusuf began to hum a song. His voice, the voice no one had ever heard, was lilting, dulcet. Realizing he had stumbled on something dark, something he would not know what to do with, Jahan held his breath, studying the apprentice who, all this time, he had taken for dumb.
Yusuf fell quiet again; the moment disappeared. Jahan tried to retreat discreetly but in his haste he stepped on a twig. With a flinch Yusuf turned and saw him. His face fell, his lip jutted out like a child. So deep was his panic that Jahan almost ran to him to say not to worry; he would not reveal his secret. Instead he went back to work and tried to put the whole thing out of his mind. Still, he could not help glancing at Yusuf, who kept his head bowed low, his eyes fixed on the ground.
That evening after supper Jahan allowed himself to mull over the mystery. The hairless face, the long, curved eyelashes, the way he sat demurely with his gloved hands resting upon his lap. It was all beginning to make sense. The next morning he found Yusuf covered in soot and powder, drawing. Upon seeing Jahan, he darkened, his back stiffening.
‘I’d like to talk,’ Jahan said. ‘Come with me, I beg.’
Yusuf followed him. They walked silently until they found a shady s
pot under a tree. They sat on the ground, cross-legged.
Jahan cleared his throat. ‘I always envied you. You have a gift. No wonder master picked you as his Chief Apprentice.’
They were distracted by a passing porter carrying a basket of stones on his back. Once his footsteps faded away, Jahan went on. ‘But you were acting strangely … I suspected you’d had a hand in the accidents.’
Yusuf’s face crumpled in surprise.
‘Now I understand there was a reason why you were secretive. You are not mute. You have been hiding your voice because … you are a woman.’
His – her – eyes clutched at his, wide and frightened, as though Jahan were an apparition. Her lips moved, empty of sound at first – a voice that had not been used for so long it faltered like a chick learning to fly. ‘Will you tell anyone?’
‘Well, I’m not trying –’
Her hands trembling, she cut in, ‘If you tell, it’ll be the end of me.’
Jahan looked at her in awe and nodded slowly. ‘I give you my word.’
Discovering the mute apprentice’s secret had made Jahan curious not only about her but also about Sinan. He was certain his master knew. What’s more, he suspected it had been his idea all along. Sinan wanted, allowed and encouraged her to work with them, a woman among hundreds of labourers, year after year, building after building. The whole week he pondered this dilemma. In the end he went to see him.
‘Indian apprentice,’ Sinan said brightly. ‘You have something to ask, I can tell.’
‘I’d like to know, if I may, how you choose your apprentices.’
‘I pick them from among the skilful.’
‘There are many such in the palace school. They’d make better draughtsmen.’
‘Some might –’ Sinan left the sentence hanging.
‘I used to think we were the best students you had come across. My vanity! Now I understand we have talent but we are not the finest. You do not choose the finest. You go for the ones who are good but are …’ He halted, searching for the word. ‘Lost … abandoned … forsaken.’
It was a moment before Sinan spoke. ‘You’re right. I choose my apprentices with care. Those with aptitude but also with nowhere to go.’
‘Why?’
Sinan drew in a slow breath. ‘You have been to the sea, the big sea.’
Though not a question, Jahan nodded.
‘Have you ever seen sea turtles washed ashore? They keep walking, with all their might, but the route is a wrong one. They need a hand to turn them back, towards the sea, where they belong.’
Sinan pulled at his beard, which had whitened a great deal in the past months. ‘When I saw you, I thought you had a great head on your shoulders, and would learn fast, if only I could turn you away from wrong habits, from the past, and direct you towards your future.’
As Jahan listened to his master, he found the word he was looking for: broken. He was beginning to understand what Sinan was doing, what he had been doing all along. Jahan, Davud, Nikola and Yusuf. The four of them, utterly different yet similarly broken. Master Sinan was not only teaching them, he was also, gently but firmly, fixing them.
Jahan kept his word. He did not share Yusuf’s secret with anyone, not even Chota, seized by a superstition that it would pass on from the animal to the howdah, from the howdah to the people he carried. Gradually, during breaks, Yusuf told him her story – or what remained of it – and her name of many summers ago, Sancha.
There was a big, milky-white house covered in wisteria, she said, in a town called Salamanca. Her father was a renowned man of medicine. Tender with his patients, strict with his wife and children, he wished nothing more than to see his three sons continue his noble profession. He insisted that his daughter, too, should be educated. As a result every tutor who came to the house taught all four children. The summer she turned eight, the plague entered through the city gates. Death claimed the boys one after the other. Only Sancha was left, burdened with the guilt of being alive when those who were more beloved had gone. Her mother, numb with grief, sought refuge in a convent in Valladolid. Only Sancha and her father were left. She took care of him, though he clearly despised her efforts. Even so, little by little, he began to teach her. Not medicine, since he believed that women were by nature incapable of this, but other disciplines – arithmetic, algebra, philosophy. He taught her everything he knew. Being a good student, she learned fast, at first less out of her thirst for knowledge than in the hope of earning her father’s love. In time, she had better tutors. There was one architect, old and in penury, who spent a great deal of time instructing her, and in between lessons tried to steal kisses from her.
Her father had friends like himself, men who cherished wisdom. Conversos and Catholics, and an Arab among them. Still, there was plenty of fear and suspicion. Heretics were burned at the stake, the stench of smouldering flesh polluting the wind. Her father, whose health had begun to deteriorate, declared that in a year she would be married to a distant cousin. A wealthy merchant she had never met before and already hated. Pleading, crying, she tried to convince him not to send her off, but to no avail.
The ship she took to meet her fiancé was raided by corsairs. After weeks of suffering, none of which she wished to remember, she found herself in Istanbul, enslaved. She was sold to a court musician who happened to be an acquaintance of Sinan. The man was a gentle soul and treated her well, allowing her, upon her request, to have pen and paper. His two wives, however, tormented her every day. Jealous of her youth and beauty, they bitterly complained that she did not help them the way a concubine should. They had checked her head to toe and could verify that she had no parts missing, but still they doubted she was a woman. Even though she had been converted to Islam and renamed Nergiz, she was secretly drawing Christian churches with crosses and bells. The musician listened to their carping, but not even once did he ask to see the sketches to which they referred.
One day, while the musician was away on a journey, his wives ripped Sancha’s drawings to pieces and beat her so badly that her clothes were torn to tatters. The same evening he returned. Her fate might have been different had he been back a few days later, when her bruises had healed. As it was, he saw her marred face, swollen eyes. He also found the shredded sketches. One of them had escaped intact. Taking this, he showed it to Sinan. To his surprise the Chief Royal Architect was impressed and keen to meet the owner of the drawing. The musician explained to Sinan that it belonged to a concubine of his, a young damsel, though no longer a virgin, pretty as sunshine, whom he was happy to give to Sinan as a gift. He could do with her what he pleased. If the girl remained in his house, his wives would trample on her like a shoddy rug.
That was how Sancha ended up in the Chief Royal Architect’s house. She was allowed to use the library and make her sketches so long as she helped Kayra, the master’s wife, with the housework from morning till noon. A year into this life, Sinan began to tutor her. He was pleased with this unlikely pupil, yet never considered taking her to construction sites.
The week Sinan laid the foundation stone for the Shehzade Mosque, Sancha begged to be allowed to work with him. Refused repeatedly, she took hold of a pair of scissors and cut her long hair, the colour of burnt umber, which she left in a pile at the master’s door. When Sinan came out the next morning, he stepped on a silky turf of hair. He understood. He provided her with boy’s clothes. When she put them on he was half amused and half astounded. She could easily pass as a lad. The only obstacle was her voice. And her hands. It could be solved by silence and a pair of gloves. Sinan decided she would be his mute apprentice.
Sancha told Jahan all of this one afternoon while they were working on the Molla Celebi Mosque. A hexagonal domed baldachin, four turrets with domical caps. The two of them sat outside on a bench facing the half-dome over the mihrab.
‘No one knows?’ Jahan asked.
‘The master’s wife, Kayra. She does.’
‘Who else?’
‘Only one,’ s
aid Sancha. ‘This Italian architect, Tommaso. He is always following our master. He heard me speak once, I’m afraid.’
Jahan was about to reply when he caught a sound like that of a nocturnal animal rustling off to the side. He turned back with fright. There was an eerie quiet, and he sensed, with all his being, that they had not been alone. His heart thudding against his chest, he stood up, glanced around. He saw a few men in the distance, prowling around. One of them he recognized. It was Salahaddin’s brother. Jahan remembered their bitter exchange at the cemetery. He knew the young man hated Sinan, holding him responsible for his brother’s death. Jahan feared he might have come here to harm the master. Then again, they could be thieves. There were always a few around construction sites, looking for materials to loot. Not wanting to alarm Sancha and add to her distress, he watched the intruders a bit longer and kept his suspicions to himself.
‘I saw you with Tommaso,’ Jahan said after a pause. A shadow crossed his face as a new thought occurred to him. ‘He is blackmailing you.’
Sancha lowered her eyes.
‘But you are not rich. What does he want from you?’
‘He is not after riches,’ Sancha said, twisting the end of her shirt between her fingers. ‘He wants the master’s designs.’
Jahan looked at her in horror. ‘Did you give them to him?’
‘All he’s got is a few mediocre designs. He thinks they belong to Master Sinan. I drew them for him.’
A smile passed between them. A sense of fellowship, which, had Jahan not known the truth about her, he would have called brotherhood. What Sancha didn’t say, then or later, and it would take Jahan a while to discover, was that there was a secret buried in her heart. It had kept her strong. And loyal to the core. On the loneliest nights when she cried herself to sleep, the thought of him being under the same roof, even if a life away, the thought of him caring for her, even if in a fatherly way, had warmed her soul.