[ 77 ]
The Russian ambassador put a monocle to his eye and then let it fall without a sound as his eye expanded in surprise.
“This I do not believe!” he muttered, to no one in particular. A Second Secretary, standing close by, stooped as if to gather up the remark and put it to his ear; however he heard nothing. He raised his head and followed his master’s gaze.
Standing by the entrance with a glass of champagne in one hand and a pair of kid gloves in the other was Stanislaw Palewski, the Polish ambassador. But he was like no Polish ambassador that the Russian had ever seen.
Palewski was dressed in a calf-length, padded riding coat of raw red silk, fantastically embroidered in gold thread, with magnificent ermine trim at the neck and cuffs. His long waistcoat was of yellow velvet: unencumbered by anything so vulgar as buttons it was held at the waist by a splendid sash of red and white silk. Below the sash he wore a pair of baggy trousers of blue velvet, stuffed into flop-topped boots so highly polished that they reflected the chequerboarding of the palace floor.
The boots, Yashim’s tailor had said defiantly, were beyond his help.
But now, thanks to a some judicious polishing of the ambassador’s feet, it was impossible to detect that the boots were holey at all.
“It’s an old trick I read about somewhere,” Palewski had earlier remarked, calmly blacking his toes with a brush. “French officers did it in the late war, whenever Napoleon ordered an honour guard.”
[ 78 ]
Yashim pulled the door closed behind him, releasing the handle gently so as to make no sound.
He was just in time: even as he put his ear to the door he could hear the other door being flung open. Someone marched into the room, and then stopped.
In five seconds they’ll be through this door, too, Yashim thought. He looked round, hoping to find a hiding place.
And realised immediately that the Russian ambassador’s gorgeous young wife, wearing a shimmering sable cape, was sitting at a mirror, gazing at him open-mouthed.
And apart from the fur, she was naked.
[ 79 ]
Prince Derentsov flung a look at the Austrian ambassador, a man with no visible neck, a vast moustache and a belly like a Bukovina wineskin. He had been standing with his back to the doors, so that Derentsov had the satisfaction of watching his reaction to Palewski as, noticing some change in the expression of the little man he was speaking to, he turned and caught sight of the Polish ambassador.
His heavy jaw dropped. His eyes bulged from his head. He went from sallow to a sort of imperial purple.
Silly fool, Prince Derentsov thought. Certainly the Pole’s coming here tonight, dressed like that, was a deliberate insult to the Powers that had silenced his bickering little nation forty years before. But that Austrian sausage-merchant’s reaction would give the Pole some satisfaction.
The Austrian was trying to catch his eye, dabbing a plump paw in the air like a wounded seal. Derentsov turned on his heel and began to speak to his Second Secretary.
The British ambassador, without disturbing his conversation, allowed his eyes to flicker now and then from his Austrian counterpart to Prince Derentsov. He tugged at his lip to restrain a smile.
The American ambassador said: “i’ll be danged!” He wanted to walk right up and shake Palewski by the hand, but he was new, not only to Istanbul but to the ways of diplomatic protocol. I’ll talk to that fellow before the evening’s out, he thought.
The French ambassador edged around slightly so that when Palewski moved into the room he quite naturally gravitated into the Frenchman’s little group.
And the imperial bandmaster, Giacomo Donizetti, being Italian and highly romantic, held a whispered discussion with the first violin. His programme of light German occasional music drew to a discreet end and, after a moment of rustling scores, the band launched into the latest Chopin polonaise. Some of the cleverer people in the ballroom broke into applause. Prince Derentsov, naturally, continued his conversation.
Sultan Mahmut chose this moment to enter the room. He heard the applause and, feeling his confidence revive—for he hated these international affairs—moved to speak to the French ambassador.
Later on he tried to explain it to his mother.
“I thought he looked damn fine. So did Concordet, I suppose. I wish we could have regiment like that, all sash and colour. Palewski looked like one of us.”
“That much I understand,” the Valide Sultan broke in crisply. “What I can’t understand is why you had to have him locked up.”
The sultan twisted his fingers.
“Don’t be ridiculous, valide. Nobody was locked up. I merely had him escorted to a side-room. I…I interviewed him later. Same with the Russian, Derentsov, and it was all his fault, suggesting the duel. Practically under my nose!”
The valide saw his point. It was on her advice, several years ago, that the sultan had issued a formal decree, backed by the ulema, forbidding the practice of duels within the empire. It was aimed principally at those stubborn Circassian mountaineers whose distant feuds occasionally brought heartache and anxiety into the sultan’s harem, and irritated the Valide Sultan; but it applied also to the touchy foreigners of Galata.
“The British ambassador brought Palewski within earshot of the Russian,” the sultan explained. “So it was his fault, too. I wasn’t there, but Stratford Canning apparently made some effort to catch Derentsov’s attention and the Russian swerved so abruptly that he elbowed Palewski’s glass and ended up with champagne all down his shirt. You know what they’re like. Well, you can imagine, anyway. Derentsov claimed he had been insulted. The Pole pulled out a handkerchief and started to swab Derentsov’s chest—hee hee hee!”
“Mahmut!”
“Well, it was funny, valide. The Russians have never once acknowledged Palewski’s existence. They always pretend they haven’t seen him. But here was Derentsov calling for pistols at dawn, and the Polish ambassador dabbing at him with a napkin!”
The valide, too, gave herself up to the humour of the situation.
“But what did the Pole say?”
Mahmut rocked about, his eyes closed.
“He said—hee hee hee—he said—ah ha ha—“Well in that case I accept the challenge and you can use your own handkerchief!” Hee hee hee!”
The Valide Sultan, who had not laughed for several years, felt carried along by her son’s laughter. It was many years since she had been to a party, but she knew how funny men could look together.
Sultan Mahmut simmered down first, with an occasional snort of hilarity interrupting his story.
“After that, I had to separate them. The Pole came away very politely. I talked to him, and let him go. Derentsov was snarling by the time I got to him—jabbered about infringement of his diplomatic rights and all that. I let him rant and then I said my piece about duels and the law, just as I’d told the Polish ambassador. I said that the mark of a civilised nation was its respect for the individual, and the individual’s respect for law, and that of course I understood that other nations had different principles, but that within the empire which I control duelling is forbidden. This, I said, is why we have laws—and laws, I added, that will be strengthened and clarified in a matter of days. In the meantime, I asked only for his apology.”
“And?”
“If his release had been dependent on his apology, valide, the Russian ambassador might still be waiting in that room. I took some mumbled words—curses, I’m sure—as a sign of contrition, and told him so. Then I suggested he go home, and walked out.”
“Flute, mon bravel You are very clever!”
The valide took her son by the ears, and gave him a kiss.
[ 80 ]
Before Yashim could recover himself, Eugenia had pointed with an imperious finger.
“You could try under the bed,” she said.
Yashim needed no second bidding. He fairly dived for the bed, and wriggled beneath it. He saw Eugenia approach the door in he
r bare feet; she plucked something from the bed as she passed. A silk peignoir swished through the air and swirled around her ankles.
There was a knock on the door. Yashim strained to hear, but all he could make out was Eugenia’s ‘nyet—nyet’ and a few murmured words. The door closed, and the feet stood again by the edge of the bed. Then the peignoir slid to the floor in a soft cloud, and the feet disappeared.
Eugenia was sitting in bed, right on top of him. She was waiting for her Turk to emerge. She wore a little smile, and nothing else.
Feeling ridiculous, Yashim scrambled to his feet and bowed.
“Forgive me, Excellency,” he said. “I lost my way. I had no idea—”
Eugenia pouted. “No idea, Monsieur Ottomane? You disappoint me. Come.”
She ran her hand down between her breasts. By the jewels, Yashim thought, she is lovely: lovelier than the girls in the sultan’s harem. Such white skin! And her hair—black as shining ebony.
She drew one knee up and the silk sheet rode up, exposing a long, slender thigh.
She wants me, Yashim thought. And I want her. Her skin: he longed to reach out and stroke it. He longed to inhale her strange, foreign fragrance, figure her curves with his own hands, touch her dark lips against his own.
Forbidden. This is the path of passion and regret.
This is where you cannot go. Not if you value your sanity.
“You don’t understand,” said Yashim desperately. “I’m a…a…” What was that word the English boy had used? It came back: “I’m a freelance.”
Eugenia looked puzzled.
“You want me to pay?” She laughed incredulously and shook her curls. Not only her curls. “What if I don’t?”
Yashim was confused. She saw the confusion on his face, and held up her hands.
“Come,” she said.
She put her hands flat on the bed, behind her back. Yashim groaned softly and closed his eyes.
Five minutes later, Eugenia had discovered what Yashim meant by freelance.
“Better and better,” she said, and threw herself back against the pillows. She raised a slender knee.
“So take me, Turk!” she gasped.
[ 81 ]
Far away, in the first great court of the sultan’s palace at Topkapi, the carriages rolled away across the cobbles and through the high gate, to disappear towards the Hippodrome and the darkness of the city. Only one fine carriage still remained, its driver motionless on the box, whip in hand, two footmen standing behind like men of stone, impervious to the light drizzle. As the wind whipped the torches hung up along the inner wall the flare caught the glossy black shellac of the carriage door and lit up the royal arms of the Romanovs with its double-headed eagle: the symbol that so many centuries before had originated in this very city.
If all was ghostly still in the Russian ambassador’s carriage, in the boudoir of the Russian ambassador’s wife matters had reached a distinctly lively crisis.
With a heave of her shoulders, Eugenia let out a long, satisfied sigh.
Moments later, she was smiling lazily into Yashim’s ear.
“I may be vain, but I don’t suppose,” she whispered, “that this is why you came?”
Yashim propped himself up. His eyes were squeezed shut, as though he were in pain. Eugenia put out a hand and stroked his damp forehead. “I’m sorry,” she said, simply.
Yashim blew out, and opened his eyes. Taking a deep breath, he said: “The—map—in—the—vestibule. Where’s it got to?”
Eugenia laughed, but when she caught the look in his eye she whipped aside and knelt on the bed.
“Are you serious?”
“I need to look at that map,” he said. “Before your husband gets home.”
“Him?” A look of scorn crossed her face. “He won’t come in here.” She bounced off the bed and retrieved her peignoir, tying the sash with an angry tug.
“He has never forgiven me for marrying him. And you have no idea how bored I am.”
Yashim frowned. It was hard to believe that the prince could keep his hands off his wife for a moment. But there it was. Perhaps he, Yashim, was no better than those westerners who imagined the sultan in a scented paradise of houris.
“I’ve been here six months. I never go out. I change my dress three or four times a day—for what? For who? The sentries? Once a week my husband hosts a very dull dinner.”
She gathered her black curls in one hand and raised them to the back of her head. Then she let the curls fall.
“At home there’s a ball every night. I see my friends. I ride out in the snow. I—oh, I don’t know, I laugh, flirt, talk about literature and the arts, everything. I suppose that’s why I seized on you. You were the first Turk I ever had a chance to speak to. My first Turkish lover.”
Yashim lowered his eyes. Eugenia laughed again.
“I’ll show you the map. It’s just there.”
She pointed over his shoulder. He looked round and there it was, leaning against the wall, the familiar shape of the city like an animal’s snout, rootling the shores of Asia.
“I need to compare,” he explained, reaching for his cloak. He took out Palewski’s map, unfolded it, and crouched down by the Hontius map, smoothing Palewski’s against the glass.
“I just can’t imagine what you’re up to, but can I help?”
She laid a hand on his shoulder.
Yashim explained.
“On this map, we have all the religious buildings in Istanbul as they stood about thirty years ago. The ones I’m interested in are the Karagozi tekkes—the symbol seems to be an Arabic letter B, like this.”
“They’re awfully difficult to make out,” Eugenia said, pouting. “It’s a complete forest of Arabic squiggles.”
Yashim’s eye swept the map. “Originally I was looking for a fire-tower, but I’ve had to change my mind. The old map, this one of yours, shows us all the buildings which were standing in 1599. By comparing the two, we should be able to work out where the oldest Karagozi tekkes were.”
“You mean if something shows up on both maps, it was built before 1599.” Eugenia bit her lip. “You’d do best to split the city into several strips, north-south, say, so that you know where you are and don’t miss anything out.”
“That,” Yashim said, “is a very clever idea. Let’s do it.”
Eugenia took Palewski’s map and folded it into four pleats. Then she turned the first pleat over, and they began to plot the tekkes.
After twenty minutes they had covered the first quarter of the city and dismissed about a dozen tekkes as being too modern. Yashim struck them off. They were left with two possibilities.
“Next strip,” Eugenia said.
They worked on.
“Some people might think this was an odd way to spend time with a half-naked Russian girl in the middle of the night.”
“Yes. I am sorry.”
“I like it.” Eugenia’s eyes crackled. She hugged her knees. “All the same, you might take me back to bed quite soon.”
They completed the second leaf. A possible candidate had popped up by the city walls, but this time it was the newer map which sowed the confusion, making it hard to say exactly which building had been the tekke.
“Halfway now,” Yashim reminded her.
“More than,” she said. “The city gets progressively thinner from here on, until it reaches Seraglio Point.”
“Quite true. Go on.”
About ten minutes later they identified the Stamboul Tower as a tekke.
“That’s good,” Yashim said. “It proves the system is working.”
“Pouf! I’m glad you told me now.”
The last fold of the map brought out the Galata Tower and also the old tekke in the Janissary headquarters, now buried beneath the Imperial Stables. As Eugenia had predicted they completed their comparison quicker, for not only did the city dwindle but much of it was covered with the palace and grounds above Seraglio Point. They found nothing there to surprise them.
“It’s late,” Yashim said. “I should go.”
Eugenia stood up and stretched, first on one foot, then the other.
“How? Perhaps it hasn’t occurred to you, but the embassy is locked at night. High walls. Vigilant guards. A mouse couldn’t get in—or out. Fortunately for me, you are not a mouse.”
With a flourish she slipped the sash from her waist. Her peignoir swung open and she gave a shrug of her shoulders and stepped from it.
“The pleasure is all mine,” Yashim said, with a smile.
“We’ll see about that,” she said, and held out a hand.
[ 82 ]
The master of the soup-makers’ guild took the ends of his moustache in either hand and tugged on them thoughtfully.
Then he picked up the ancient key which the guard had just returned and slipped it back onto the big ring.
He knew that the investigator from the palace had to be right: only the night watchmen could have organised the theft. But why? It had to be some foolish prank, he supposed. Maybe some sentimental ritual of their own. When he explained that one of the cauldrons had gone missing he had expected them to look shifty and ashamed. He had expected them to confess. Confide. He had hoped they would have confidence in him.
Only they stared at him blankly, instead. Denied it all. The soup master had been disappointed.
The soup master began again. “I am not looking for punishment. Perhaps the cauldron will be returned, and perhaps we need say no more about it. But—” he raised a heavy finger, “I am troubled. The guild is one family. We have difficulties, and we sort them out. I sort them out. It is what I do, I am the head of this family. So when some outsider comes to tell me about problems I know nothing about, I am worried. And also ashamed.”
He paused.
“A snooping fellow, from the palace, comes to tell me something that has happened in my own house. Ah—I’m getting through now, am I?”
2006 - The Janissary Tree Page 20