"And you let her wear this ring to attend the sultan?"
"I thought it more prudent that she should keep the ring than have an unsightly mark on her finger. I didn't mention it."
The dresser turned and twisted involuntarily from side to side.
"I did right, Chief, didn't I? It was only a ring. It was clean, silver."
The kislar agha fixed him with a stare. Then with a shrug and a wave of his hand, he dismissed him from the room. The dresser backed out, bowing nervously.
The kislar agha picked up a peach and bit into it. The juice ran down his chin.
"Do you think he took it?"
Yashim shook his head. "A bit of silver, why would he bother? But somebody took it. I wonder why."
"Somebody took it," the kislar agha repeated slowly. "So it must still be here."
"Yes, I suppose so."
The black man leaned back and examined his hands.
"It will be found," he said.
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His Excellency Prince Nikolai Derentsov, Order of Czar Peter, First Class, hereditary chamberlain to the czars of all the Russias, and Russian ambassador to the Sublime Porte, watched his knuckles whiten against the edge of his desk.
He was, as he would have been the first to admit, an extraordinarily handsome man. Now in his late fifties, well over six feet, his broad shoulders exaggerated by a high-collared, cutaway coat, his neck in a starched cravat, lace at his sleeves, he looked both elegant and formidable. He wore his steel-gray hair short and his side-whiskers long. He had a fine head, cold blue eyes, and a rather small mouth.
The Derentsov family had found that life was expensive. Despite vast estates, despite access to the highest positions in the land, a century of balls, gowns, gambling, and politics in St. Petersburg had led Prince Nikolai Derentsov to the uncomfortable discovery that his debts and expenses greatly exceeded his income. His success in attracting a very beautiful young wife had been the talk of the late season--although beautiful young women are as common in Russia as anywhere else.
What animated the talk--what spurred the envy and congratulation-- was that through his marriage the prince had also secured the benefit of her considerable fortune. Not that the people Derentsov moved among always put it that way. Behind his back they sniffed that the girl--for all her beauty--was trade. Her father had made millions in fur.
"It appears that you have been careless," Derentsov was saying. "At my embassy I cannot afford to maintain people who make mistakes. Do you understand me?"
"I am so sorry, Your Excellency."
The young man bent his head. Nikolai Potemkin certainly looked sorry. He was sorry, too: not for what he had done, which was not his fault, but because the chief was angry and unfair and sounded as if he was going to sack him on the spot. He had been here only two months, slipping from a dead-end desk job in the Russian army to the diplomatic service on the back of an elderly relative's interest at court--a distant relative, the slenderest interest. The chance would not come again.
He was, like his chief, over six feet tall, but he was not handsome. His face, scarred from a saber cut received in the Turkish war, had never healed well: a livid weal ran from the corner of his left eye to his upper lip. He was very fair, and his almost lashless eyes were watery and pale. In that struggle with a Turkish cavalier, he had grappled the saber with his bare left hand, and three of his fingers were now curled into a useless hook. Young Potemkin had come to understand that it was the diplomatic service or-- nothing. Five thousand acres on the borders of Siberia. A third-rate estate, shackled with debt, a thousand miles from anywhere at all.
Prince Derentsov drummed on the desk with his fingertips.
"The damage is done. In a few minutes we will talk to an emissary of the Sublime Porte. Let's get it clear. You met the men once. You spoke in French. You gave them a lift and dropped them--where?"
"Somewhere near their barracks, I'm not sure. I've only been out in the city a few times."
"Hmph," the prince grunted. "Nothing else, understand?" Potemkin nodded. "Very well."
He rang a bell and asked the orderly to bring in the Ottoman gentleman.
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The Russians noted Yashim's appearance.
An insignificant fellow, the ambassador thought. No rank.
Junior Attache Potemkin felt a surge of relief, struck by the thought that if the Turks themselves gave this interview such low priority, his chief could hardly rank his error as a sacking offense.
They watched Yashim bow. The ambassador did not offer him a seat.
"I'm grateful for your help today," Yashim said. The prince sneered and looked away. Yashim caught the expression and smiled.
"We understand that Count Potemkin spent some time with four officers of the Imperial New Guard last week. You are Count Potemkin."
Potemkin bowed.
"If I may ask, were you friends? You have not been long in Istanbul."
"No. I still hardly know my way around." Potemkin bit his lip: that was supposed to come later. "We weren't friends. Just friendly."
"Of course. Then you had met before?"
"Not at all. We met at the gardens, by pure chance. I suppose we were all slightly curious. We spoke, in French. I'm afraid my French is not good," Potemkin added.
Yashim saw no reason to flatter him.
"And you discussed--what?"
"To tell the truth, I hardly remember. I think I told them about this." Potemkin raised his palsied hand to his face. "War wounds."
"Yes, I see. You are a man of experience in battle."
"Yes."
"What were you doing in the gardens?"
"Looking around. Taking a walk."
"A walk? What for?"
"I thought maybe I could get some exercise. Somewhere quiet, where I would not attract so much attention."
Yashim thought the mangled Russian could probably cause quite a stir in a city street.
The ambassador yawned and prepared to stand.
"Is that all? I am sure we all have our duties to perform."
Yashim bowed. "I merely wanted to ask the attache, how did he leave the gardens?"
The ambassador sighed, stood up, and waved a hand.
Potemkin said, "We left together. I dropped them off, somewhere near the barracks, I think. I don't know the city well."
"No, I understand. You took a cab?"
Potemkin hesitated and glanced at his chief.
"Yes."
"How did you share the fare?"
"I'm sorry?"
"You dropped them off. I assume you came on here, to the embassy."
"That's right."
"So how was the cabman paid? Did you share the fare?"
"Oh, I see what you mean." Potemkin ran his fingers through his hair. "No, no, it was my treat. I paid. I was coming back anyway, as you say."
"Can you remember how much? It might be very important."
"I don't think so," the ambassador intervened, in a voice of deep scorn. "As I just said, we are all busy. So, if you will allow us--"
Yashim had turned to face the ambassador. He cocked his head slightly to one side and put up a hand.
"I am sorry," he said, very deliberately, "but I must insist. Count Potemkin, you see, was the last man to see the guards alive."
The ambassador's eyebrows flickered for an instant. Potemkin's eyes widened.
"Good Lord!" he said. He did not look at Yashim.
"Yes, it is very sad. So you see, anything we can do to trace the men's last movements could be helpful. Such as finding the cabdriver."
"I am quite sure that Count Potemkin will not remember how much the cab cost," the prince said smoothly. "We do not encourage our officials to carry much money. Cabs are paid off by porters, at the entrance."
"But of course," Yashim said. "I am afraid I have been stupid. The porters, naturally, would keep a record of their disbursements."
T
he prince stiffened, realizing his mistake. "I will have Count Potemkin look into it. If we learn anything, of course we will inform you."
Yashim bowed. "I do hope the count has no travel plans. It may be necessary to speak with him again."
"I am sure there will be no need," said the prince, gritting his teeth.
Yashim went out, closing the door.
The prince sat down heavily at his desk.
"Well!" he said.
Potemkin said nothing. The interview, he felt, had gone rather well.
He would not, after all, be going home.
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ONCE outside the prince's office, Yashim stood for a moment in the vestibule, frowning. A liveried footman stood at attention by the open mahogany doors. Lost in thought, Yashim walked slowly around the room until he found himself standing in front of a framed map, which he pretended to examine, seeing nothing.
Nobody, he reflected, had asked him any questions. Was that odd? The work of an embassy was to pick up information, but they had shown no interest in his inquiry. They might have heard that the men were dead, true. But he said that Potemkin was the last man to see the men alive, and nobody asked him how he knew. It was as if the subject failed to interest them, and that was interesting.
Even more interesting, though, was the lie about the cab. The lie--and the fact that the prince had known about it. The fact that the prince himself had attempted to cover up. "Excusez-moi, monsieur."
Yashim turned. For once, he was almost nonplussed. He hadn't noticed her come in.
Yet standing beside him now was the most beautiful woman he had ever seen.
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"MADAME, " he murmured. She was tall, almost as tall as him, and he guessed that this was the princess, the ambassador's wife, although he might have expected someone older. The princess looked barely twenty. Her hair was drawn up to reveal her slender neck and shoulders, though a few black ringlets danced exotically against her fair skin. He noticed the tips of her ears, the soft curve of her chin, the almost Turkish slant of her cheekbones. Her large black eyes sparkled.
She was looking at him with an air of amusement.
Yashim could hardly understand how the footman could stand there unmoved, when the most ravishing creature, dark eyed, black haired, her face seemingly sculpted from the virgin snow, glided in front of him un-chaperoned. Was he blind?
"I am Eugenia, monsieur. La femme de I'ambassadeur le prince."
The ambassador's wife. The ambassador's woman. Her voice was singularly low. Her lips barely moved when she spoke.
"Yashim," he murmured. He noticed that she had extended her hand, the fingers pointing to the ground. As if in a dream he took it and pressed it to his lips. The skin was warm.
"You should be more adventurous, Monsieur Yashim," she said, dimpling her cheek.
Yashim's eyes widened. He felt the blood rush to his face. "I--I am sorry--"
"I meant, of course, looking at old maps of your city." She looked at him again, with curiosity. "You do speak French, or am I dreaming? Wonderful.
"The map? Interesting, of course--it's one of the first detailed maps of Istanbul ever made, shortly after the Conquest. Well, a hundred years or so. Fifteen ninety-nine, Flensburg. Melchior Lorich. All the same, I suggest we look at some of the paintings. Then, perhaps, you can form an idea of what we are like."
Yashim was scarcely listening to what she was saying. The sensation he was experiencing was unlike any he had ever known before, and he recognized that it was not merely the effect of her beauty that produced it. Ordinary men might be staggered, he supposed, but Yashim? Ridiculous! Beautiful women paraded by him every time he entered the sultan's harem. He saw them, sometimes, all but naked: how often they teased him, with their perfumed breasts and full thighs! How they pleaded with him, these perfect creatures, for a stray touch of what was forbidden and unknown! Yet they always seemed to him, in some fundamental sense, to be clothed, veiled, forbidden.
Here was a woman almost fully dressed--though he gazed at her lips, at the hollow in her throat, at her bare slender shoulders. It was she who seemed the more naked.
Never, in a public room, had a woman spoken to him like this. Allowed him to touch her skin with his lips.
She laid a hand on his arm and led him along the paintings that hung on the wall.
"Tell me, monsieur, does this shock you at all?"
The hand shocked him.
They were standing in front of a family portrait of the Czar Alexander, his wife, and children. It was an informal composition, in the French style: the czar seated beneath a tree in the sun; the czarina, like a ripe apple, leaning against him; and several small, fair boys in silk breeches and girls in white frocks grouped around them.
Yashim tried to examine the picture but, yes, she was right.
"It does shock me, a little."
"Aha!"
"Not the woman"--Yashim, you liar!--"but the intimacy. It--it's so public. It makes a show of something that should be private, between the man and the woman."
"So you do not believe in the representation of the human form? Or you would set other limits?"
Even her voice, he thought, was scandalous. Her curiosity was more like a slow caress, as if he were being explored, limb by limb.
"I'm not sure how to answer. When I read a novel, I find there a representation of form. Also the same intimacy--and other states of emotion, too. In the novel they delight me. They seem shocking to me in some of these paintings. You will accuse me of being inconsistent."
"I'll accuse you of nothing, monsieur. When you read--perhaps you possess the characters yourself? What passes between you and them remains private. But the paintings are very public, as you say."
She looked at him shyly from the corner of her eye. "You Turks, I think, understand a great deal about private matters."
Yashim gazed wildly at the painting on the wall.
"Harem--it is forbidden, is it not?"
"But not to you, madame," Yashim replied.
Eugenia stifled a little gasp of surprise. "Oh? As a woman, you mean?"
"Of course. And by virtue of your rank. I have no doubt you could visit the sultan's own apartments, if you wished." He saw the eagerness on her face and half regretted his remark.
"By invitation, surely?" Her voice was coaxing now.
"But I am sure that an invitation could be arranged," Yashim answered thickly, wondering at his own behavior. What was he doing?
"I had never thought of it," she said quietly. "By you?"
Yashim was about to reply when the door to the ambassador's office swung open and the prince appeared, followed by Potemkin.
"What the devil--" The oath froze on the ambassador's lips.
Eugenia gave him a small, cold smile.
"Monsieur Yashim and I were having a most interesting conversation. About art," she added. "Am I right?"
Yashim bowed slightly. "Certainly, Princess."
The prince looked heavily from Yashim to his wife.
"The gentleman was on his way out," he snapped. "I am sure he is very busy. As are we all. Good day, monsieur."
Yashim put a hand to his chest and inclined his head. Once again he kissed Eugenia's slender hand.
She said, "Forgive me for detaining you. I do hope we can continue our conversation another time."
Her tone was impeccably ambassadorial. Cool. Disinterested.
But Yashim's fingers were hot where she had squeezed them lightly with her own.
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AT the baths he wanted heat, and more heat. When his head seemed banded with flaming hoops, he let the masseur pummel him like dough and then lay a long time in the cooling room with his eyes closed, scarcely breathing.
Later on his way home he fell upon the vegetable market in a sort of frenzy: his old friend George, the Greek vendor who arranged his wares like weapons in an armory, or jewe
ls on a tray, actually stepped out from behind his stall to lay a heavy hand on Yashim's arm.
"Slow. Slow," he said in his basso profundo. "You puts in this basket like a Greek robbers, this, that, everything. Say to George, what you wants to cook."
He prized the basket from Yashim's hands and stood there massive and barrel-chested in his dirty tunic, hands on his hips, blocking Yashim's way.
Yashim lowered his head.
"Give me the basket, you Greek bastard," he said.
George didn't move.
"The basket."
"Hey." George's voice was very soft. "Hey." Louder. He picked up some baby cabbages. "You wants?"
Yashim shook his head.
"I understand," George said. He turned his back on Yashim and began to unload all the vegetables from his basket. Over his shoulder he said, "Go, buy some fish. I will give you a sauce. You kebabs the fish, some Spanish onion, peppers. You puts on the sauce. You puts him in the fire. You eats. Go."
Yashim went. When he had the fish, he came back and George was crushing walnuts open with his hands and peeling cloves of garlic, which he put together in a twist of paper.
"Now you, efendi, go home and cook. The pepper. The onion. No, I don't take money from crazy mans. Tomorrow you comes, you pays me double."
When Yashim got home, he laid the fish and vegetables on the block and sliced them with a thin knife. The onions were sharp and stung his eyes. He riddled up the stove and chucked in another handful of charcoal. When he had threaded the pieces onto skewers, he smashed the walnuts and the garlic with the flat of a big knife and chopped, drawing together the ever-dwindling heap with the flat of his hand until the hash was so sticky he had to use the blade to scrape it off his skin. He anointed the fish with the sauce and let it lie while he washed his hands in the bowl his housekeeper set out for him every morning and afternoon.
He laid the skewers over the dull embers and drizzled them with a string of oil. When the oil hissed on the fire, he waved the smoke with a cloth and turned the skewers, mechanically.
Jason Goodwin Page 11