2006 - The Janissary Tree

by Jason Goodwin

  [ 69 ]

  “Charmante! Tout a fait charmante! If I were younger, my dear, I would be positively jealous.”

  Eugenia blushed slightly, and curtseyed. There was no doubt in her own mind that the valide, who was reclining against cushions scattered around a window seat, must have been ravishing herself. With the soft light at her back she had the easy poise of a beautiful woman. And the cheekbones to go with it.

  “I am so glad we were able to persuade you to come,” the valide continued, without a hint of irony. She raised her lorgnette and peered at Eugenia’s dress. “The girls will think you quite a la mode,” she pronounced. “I want you to sit here by me, before they come to devour you. We can talk a little.”

  Eugenia smiled and took a seat at the edge of the divan.

  “It was so kind of you to invite me,” she said.

  “Men don’t think it, but there is so much we women can arrange, n’est ce past Even from here. Tu ne me crois pas?”

  “Of course I believe you, valide.”

  “And you Russians are very much in the ascendant these days. Count Orloff, your husband’s predecessor, was a good friend to the empire during the Egyptian crisis. He had a very plain wife, I understand. But no doubt they were very happy together.”

  Eugenia’s eyes narrowed a fraction. “She was a Voronsky,” she replied.

  “Believe it or not,” the valide said, “I have never been impressed by the claims of old family. Neither I nor my dear childhood friend Rose were precisely Almanac de Gotha. We were clever, and that counts for much more. She became Empress. Her husband Napoleon, of course, came from nowhere at all. The Ottomans, I’m delighted to say, have no snobberies of that kind.”

  Eugenia blinked lazily, and smiled.

  “Surely,” she said carelessly, “there’s one old family in the empire whose claims have to be respected?”

  The valide put out a hand and rested it on Eugenia’s arm. “Perfectly right, my dear. But my son was brought up to defend those claims, rather than rely on them. It doesn’t matter if you’re the fifth or the twenty-fifth or—in Mahmut’s case—the twenty-eighth sultan of the Ottoman empire, and in direct descent from Osman Bey himself, if you can’t prove that the empire needs you. Mahmut has exceeded my expectations.

  “I’d like you to meet him. He would be delighted by you, of course.” The valide saw the surprise in Eugenia’s expression, and laughed softly. “Oh, don’t be alarmed. My son is no Suleyman.”

  Eugenia found herself laughing. Suleyman the Magnificent, the great Renaissance sultan, had fallen head over heels for a Russian courtesan, Roxelana. He wound up marrying her—the last time any sultan had married at all.

  The valide gave her arm a squeeze. “And entre nous, he prefers them rather more upholstered. You’ll see.”

  She raised her hand. As if by magic, two girls entered and bowed. One of them held a tray containing coffee in tiny china cups. The other, a narghile.

  “Do you smoke?”

  Eugenia gave the valide a startled look. The valide shrugged.

  “One forgets. It is a harem vice, I’m afraid. One of several. Parisian fashions are another.”

  She gestured to the girls, who set down the tray and the pipe. One of them knelt prettily at Eugenia’s feet and presented her with a coffee cup.

  “The inspection has begun,” said the valide drily. Eugenia took the cup and murmured a thank you. The girl made no effort to move, but touched her hand to her forehead and addressed a few words to the valide.

  “As I expected,” the valide said. “The girls have been wondering whether you would like to join them in the bath.”

  [ 70 ]

  As Yashim climbed the spiral staircase he was still elated by the news.

  The boy had found him on the pavement outside the cafe. He stood very stiffly to attention and blurted out the message he had memorised on the run back from Preen’s landlady.

  “The lady says your friend is not going to die and I should not ask about such things. She says she has hurt her arm and needs a lot of rest. She says…she says…”—he screwed up his face. “I cannot remember the other thing, but it was like the first bit. I think.”

  Yashim had made him repeat the message. He stood stock still for several moments, then he laughed. “You’ve done very well -and brought me the best news. Thank you.”

  The boy took the coin with grave ceremony and ran back into the cafe to show it to his mother. Yashim turned up the street and limped away in the direction of the Golden Horn, humming.

  His mood didn’t change when he put his head through the hatch and saw old Palmuk, the fire-watcher, leaning on the parapet with his back turned towards him. On the contrary. With a smile he moved quietly onto the roof. He stood behind Palmuk and made a sudden grab for his waistband. Before the fire-watcher could react he had hoisted him over the parapet.

  “Aaargh! Aaaargh! Don’t do that! Orhan! Aaaargh! Let go! You bastard. Oh. Oh. Me heart. Orhan?”

  “It isn’t Orhan,” said Yashim levelly. “It’s the man you lied to yesterday. The tower? Remember? I think you said, too, that you don’t like heights. But what am I to believe?”

  “I don’t like ‘em, effendi, I don’t. And I swear I never lied.”

  Old Palmuk’s legs were thrashing about but his arms were too far over the parapet to reach back. Yashim gave him a little shove.

  “No, please!” He was almost screaming now, the words coming in rigid little bursts. “What I said—I wanted the money. I’ll give it back.”

  “A tekke,” Yashim shouted. “There’s a fourth tekke, isn’t there?”

  But the man had gone limp. Yashim’s eyes narrowed. He wondered if it was a ruse. He’d pull him back and then—wham! Old Palmuk would be at his throat.

  “Over you go, then,” he said loudly.

  Either old Palmuk was in a faint or he was a very steely customer.

  Yashim thought of the assassin, plunging himself into the boiling dye. He pulled old Palmuk back onto the roof.

  The man’s face was the colour of putty. His eyes moved wildly to left and right, and he seemed to be having trouble breathing. He emitted a series of dry clicks.

  Yashim laid him on his back and tore at the neck of his shirt. He massaged his chest, pumping with his forearms. A little colour returned to old Palmuk’s cheeks, and the rapid movement of his eyes slowed. At last he drew a long, shuddering wheeze and closed his eyes.

  Yashim said nothing. Waited.

  The old man’s eyes half-opened, and slid towards him.

  “You didn’t ought to have done that,” he mumbled. “You took advantage, didn’t ya? Eh? Effendi?”

  Yashim, squatting, rocked back on his heels and breathed hard through his nose.

  “You lied to me,” he said coldly.

  A sly grin spread over old Palmuk’s face, and he hiccupped mirthlessly.

  “It’s what you wanted, innit?” He spoke very quietly. “Old Palmuk, serve the customer. Hey, Palmuk, tell us a story.” He closed his eyes again. “You didn’t ought to have done that.”

  Yashim bit his lip. Last night he’d as good as murdered a man. And today—

  “I’m sorry,” he said.

  Palmuk put a hand to his chest and clawed at his shirt, crumpling the torn edges together.

  “It was a new shirt, effendi.”

  Yashim sighed.

  “I’ll get you another. I’ll get you two. But first, tell me this. Did the Karagozi have a tekke at the Beyazit Fire Tower? Like the one here?”

  Old Palmuk stared. “Tekke? The Beyazit Tower?” He began to wheeze. It took Yashim a moment to realise that he was laughing.

  “What’s the joke?”

  “A tekke at Beyazit, you said?” Old Pamuk rubbed his nose with the palm of his hand, sniggering. “There was a tekke there, all right. The whole tower was built on it.”

  Yashim froze. “The Eski Serai?”

  “It’s what I heard. Way back when, them Janissaries used to guar
d the old palace. It fell apart, didn’t it? But the Karagozi didn’t abandon the tekke. They found a way to keep it—protected, like. They got the whole fire-tower built atop of it, see?”

  Yashim saw. “Another tekke, then. That’s what I need. The fourth.”

  The fire-watcher cracked a smile. “There were dozens, effendi. Hundreds.”

  “Yes. But for the fire-watchers? Was there…a special one?”

  Old Palmuk wrestled himself upright. He swayed over his lap, shaking his head.

  “I wish I knew, effendi. I wish I knew what you were on about. I don’t know who you think I am, but you’ve got the wrong man. I…I don’t know what you mean.”

  He turned to look at Yashim, and his grey eyes were round.

  “I used to be a gofer. On the docks.” He was nodding now, staring at Yashim as if for the first time. “Get this, effendi. I weren’t there.”

  Yashim thought: it’s true.

  I give the fellow money. I buy him shirts. And he really doesn’t know a thing.

  [ 71 ]

  Yashim found the Polish ambassador in a silken dressing gown, embroidered with lions and horses in tarnished gold thread, which Yashim supposed was Chinese. He was drinking tea and staring quietly at a boiled egg, but when Yashim came in he put up a hand to shield his eyes, turning his head this way and that like an anxious tortoise. The sunshine picked out motes of dust climbing slowly towards the long windows.

  “Do you know what time it is?” Palewski said thickly. “Have tea.”

  “Are you ill?”

  “111. No. But suffering. Why couldn’t it be raining?”

  Unable to think of an answer, Yashim curled up in an armchair and let Palewski pour him a cup with a shaking hand.

  “Meze,” Yashim said. He glanced up. “Meze. Little snacks before the main dish.”

  “Must we talk about food?”

  “Meze are a way of calling people’s attention to the excellence of the feast to come. A lot of effort goes into their preparation. Or, I should say, their selection. Sometimes the best meze are the simplest things. Fresh cucumbers from Karaman, sardines from Ortakoy, battered at most, and grilled…Everything at its peak, in its season: timing, you could say, is everything.

  “Now take these murders. You were right—they’re more than isolated acts of violence. There is a pattern, and more. Taken together, you see, they aren’t an end in themselves. The meal doesn’t end with the meze, does it? The meze announce the feast.

  “And these killings, like meze, depend on timing,” he continued. “I’ve been wondering over the last three days, why now? The murders, I mean, the cadets. Almost by chance, I discover that the sultan is set to issue an Edict in a few days. A great slew of reforms.”

  “Ah yes, the Edict,” Palewski nodded and put his fingertips together.

  “You know about it?” Yashim’s argument collapsed in astonishment.

  “In a roundabout way. An explanation was given to, ah, selected members of the diplomatic community in Istanbul a few weeks ago.” He saw that Yashim was about to speak, and raised a hand. “When I say selected, I mean that I for one was not included. It isn’t hard to see why, if I’m right about the Edict and what it means. One of its purposes—its primary purpose, for all I know -is to make the Porte eligible for foreign loans. Poland, obviously, is in no position to influence the bond market. So they left me out. It was essentially a Big Power arrangement. I heard about it from the Swedes, who got it from the Americans, I believe.”

  “You mean the Americans were invited?”

  “Odd as it seems. But then, you know what Americans are? They’re the world experts at borrowing money in Europe. The Porte wants them on side. Perhaps they can co-ordinate their efforts. And, to be frank, I don’t think the Porte has ever quite managed to work out whose side the Americans are on. Your pashas are still digesting the Declaration of Independence sixty years after the event.”

  Palewski reached for the teapot. “The idea of a republic has always fascinated them, in a schoolboy sort of way. The House of Osman must be the longest-lived royal line in Europe. Some more tea?”

  Yashim put out his cup and saucer. “I’ve been stupid,” he said. “I’ve been wondering who knew about the Edict. Foreign powers never occurred to me.”

  “But foreign powers,” said Palewski, with patient cynicism, “are the whole point: Foreign Powers, foreign loans.”

  “Yes. Yes, of course.”

  They drank their tea in silence for a moment, marked only by the ticking of the German clock.

  “Your Janissaries,” Palewski said, after a while. “Do you still believe that they exist?”

  Yashim nodded. “Like it or not, I’m sure. You saw them blotted out, you told me. Very well. Poland, as the world supposes, vanished fifty years ago. You can’t even find it on a map. But that’s not what you tell me. You say it endures. Poland exists in language, in memory, in faith. It lives on, as an idea. I’m talking about the same thing.

  “About the fire-towers, I was only partly right. I made a link between the three fire-towers I knew about—the two still standing, as well as the one which was burned and demolished in 182,6—and the cadets, whose bodies all turned up nearby. I needed to find a fourth fire-tower, didn’t I? But I can’t. There never was a fourth tower. But I knew the pattern was right. The fire-towers had the hand of the Janissaries on them, just like these murders. It had to be right.”

  “Perhaps. But without a fourth tower it makes no sense.”

  “That’s what I felt, too. Unless there was something else about the fire towers that I couldn’t see—something that could link all three of them to another place which isn’t a fire-tower at all.”

  Palewski thrust out his lower lip and sighed. “I hate to say it, Yash, but you’re skating on very thin ice. Let’s forget my reservations for a moment. You suspect the Janissaries of murdering these cadets, because of the wooden spoons and all the rest of it.” He wrinkled his nose. “The pattern of the fire-towers comes to you because the Janissaries once manned them, as the city’s firemen. Abandon the fire-towers, and what happens to your Janissary theory? Tell me that. You can’t have it both ways.”

  Yashim smiled. “But I think I can. I found what I needed to know a couple of days ago, but it wasn’t until today that I saw how it all fits together. The Galata Tower housed a Karagozi tekke, a place sacred to the Janissaries. The lost watch tower at the Janissary barracks had one, too.”

  “But the Beyazit Tower,” Palewski objected, “is modern. And that’s exactly what I mean. By the time it was built the Janissaries—and the Karagozi, too—were already history. Really, Yash, this Janissary obsession is only getting in your way.”

  “I don’t think so. I just discovered that the Beyazit Tower was built smack on top of an old Karagozi tekke at the Eski Serai. So that makes three. What I’m looking for now is another Karagozi tekke—and I don’t even know where to start.”

  Palewski groped on the table beside him and produced a set of leather boards. Inside was a single foolscap sheet of paper, folded in two, but loose. He opened the sheet and there, to Yashim’s surprise, was a meticulously executed bird’s eye view of Istanbul, in ink. Where the sky should have been, the air was thick with names, notes and numbers.

  “You were asking for a map. Last night, I remembered Ingiliz Mustafa,” he said.

  “English Mustafa?”

  “He was actually a Scotsman. Campbell. He came to Istanbul about sixty years ago, to start up a school of mathematics for the artillerymen. Became a Muslim, too.”

  “He’s still alive?”

  Palewski snorted.

  “No, no. I’m afraid evert the practice of Islam couldn’t do that for him. One of his pet obsessions was the holiness of Istanbul -how the city was steeped in faith. I daresay he became a very good Muslim, but you can’t easily overcome a Scottish training in the sciences. This map shows all the mosques, saintly tombs, dervish tekkes and such that he could locate in the city. He
had it printed here, too.”

  He dipped into the pocket of his dressing gown for a pair of reading glasses.

  “Look, every holy place in the city has a number. The key is up here. Fourteen: Cammi Sultan Mehmed. Mehmed’s mosque. Twenty-five: Turbe Hasan. The tomb of Hasan. Thirty, look, Tekke Karagoz. And another one. Here, too.”

  Yashim shook his head in disbelief.

  “Only a foreigner would do something like this,” he said. “I mean it’s so…so…” He was going to say pointless, but thought better of it. “So unusual.”

  Palewski grunted. “He wanted to show how his adopted faith was embedded in the very fabric of the city. Plenty of Karagozi tekke to choose from too.”

  Yashim peered at the map for a while.

  “Too many,” he murmured. “Which is the right one? Which is the fourth?”

  Palewski leaned back with his fingers over his eyes, thinking. “Didn’t you tell me that the three fire-stations were also the oldest tekkes in the city? Isn’t that what the fire-watchers said?”

  Yashim’s mind began to race. Palewski continued: “Perhaps I’m just saying this because I’m a Pole, and all Poles are at bottom antiquarians. This dressing gown, for instance. You know why I wear it?”

  “Because it’s cosy,” said Yashim absently.

  “Yes and no. It’s Sarmatian. Years ago, you see, we Poles believed that we were connected to a half-mythical tribe of warriors who came from Sarmatia, somewhere in central Asia. I suppose we didn’t know properly where we came from, and went looking for pedigree, if you like. There was a rage for it, and the supposed Sarmatian style—you know, silk and feathers and crimson leather. I found this hanging in a wardrobe when I came here. It’s a relic from another age. That’s what I like best about it. Every morning I envelop myself in history. In the fancied glory of the past. Also it’s jolly comfortable, as you say.

  “Well, what makes me sit up is the thought that these tekkes are old, really old. Maybe the first ever established in the city. That’s your pedigree, if you like. That’s where your chaps might want to begin. Maybe the fourth tekke is also one of the original lodges in the city. The first, or the fourth, whatever. So you need to look for a tekke that’s as old as the other three you know about.”