The Janissary Tree

by Jason Goodwin

  The kadi of the Kerkoporta market had taken up his job twenty years before and earned himself a reputation for severity. A butcher who used false weights was hanged at the doorway of his own shop. A greengrocer who lied about the provenance of his fruit had his hands struck off. Others, who had gypped a customer, perhaps, or slipped out of the official channels to procure bargain stock, found themselves forced to wear a wide wooden collar for a few weeks, or to pay a stiff fine, or to be nailed by the ear to the door of their own shop. The Kerkoporta market had become a byword for honest dealing, and the kadi supposed that he was doing everything for the best.

  The merchants found him officious, but they were divided as to the best way to deal with him. A minority were for clubbing together to manufacture some complaint against him from which he would be unlikely to recover; the majority shrugged their shoulders and counseled patience. The kadi, some suggested, was merely establishing his price. Will not an ambitious carpet dealer wax lyrical over the colors and qualities and rarity of his carpet, as a prelude to negotiation? Will not a young wrestler hurl all his strength into the contest, while the older man uses no more than he actually needs to use? The time would come, they argued, when the kadi would start to crack.

  The action brigade claimed that this man was different. The realists said he was human. And the subtlest minds of all quietly observed that the kadi had two daughters. The eldest, approaching the marrying age, was reputed to be very beautiful.

  The kadi’s fall, when it finally came, was silent and absolute. The rumor of his daughter’s beauty was perfectly true; she was also meek, pious, obedient, and skillful. It was these very qualities that caused the kadi such agony of mind, as he tried to choose a husband for her. He loved his daughter and wanted the best for her, and it was because she was so good that he became so picky. It was because he was so picky that he eventually settled on a renowned teacher at the central madrassa, a bachelor from an excellent wealthy family.

  The kadi’s fortune was by no means sufficient to provide his daughter with the handsome dowry and memorable wedding festivities that the groom’s family customarily provided for their own daughters. They didn’t mind, of course, but it tormented the kadi. The cause of the torment was divined by the matchmaker, a shrewd old lady who chewed betel and wore a gold bangle for every union she had successfully negotiated: she tinkled like a fountain when she moved. And she moved a lot: that is to say, she visited almost every house in the district on a fairly regular basis, and through one of these visits the Kerkoporta merchants learned of the kadi’s dilemma.

  The affair was handled with delicacy and tact.

  For fixing up a splendid wedding, and clubbing together to provide the girl with a stylish dowry, the merchants asked the kadi for nothing in return. Few markets were as well served as the Kerkoporta by its kadi, who had brought such order and regularity and honesty into the business that even a foreigner, as was widely known, could make purchases there in perfect confidence. Hardly anyone need even know that the dowry and the feast came as a private act of tribute from the market to the judge.

  Nothing was said. No deals were struck, perish the thought. The kadi continued to do his job with rigor, as before. He wasn’t even particularly grateful.

  He was simply weary. Being honest was tiring, but it wasn’t as exhausting as carrying on with what he knew: that he had connived with the merchants he was deputed to regulate.

  He continued to sit in the market house, hearing cases, investigating abuses, frowning at supplicants, and keeping his own counsel. But he no longer punished transgressions with such severity. He no longer really cared whether the merchants cheated their customers or not. If he found gold in his purse, or a freshly slaughtered sheep delivered to his door, it roused neither gratitude nor indignation.

  He had another daughter, after all.

  100

  ***********

  The donkeys drummed on the cobbles with their little hooves. The two-wheeled carts jounced and swayed behind them, with a noise like sliding pebbles. The thin beams of lamplight careered around the blank walls.

  Fourteen. Fifteen. Sixteen.

  Murad Eslek raised a hand. The night porter gave a nod and let the barrier swing gently back into the wooden block on the other side of the gate, closing the road.

  Eslek called out a brief thanks and followed his carts into the square.

  Sixty or seventy donkey carts jostled through the narrow openings, arguing their passage with a dozen or so much bigger mule carts, a flock of bleating sheep, and vendors still arriving. Space was constricted by the empty stalls Eslek and his men had been putting up over the last couple of hours, each one topped by a lantern. Wagon eight, Eslek noticed, had overshot its stall: no use trying to back up, it would have to be led around again for a second try, when the others were out of the way. One of the stallholders, wrapped in a horse blanket tied on with string, was demanding to know where his delivery was: cart five had got swept away by an eruption of mule carts coming up from the city. Eslek could just about make it out, with its high stack of poultry cages swaying dangerously in the distance. But for the most part everything was in place.

  He began to help unload the leading cart. Baskets of eggplants, jute bags of potatoes, bushels of spinach thumped onto the stall. When it was almost done, Eslek wheeled back and began the same routine with the cart behind. The trick was to finish unloading simultaneously, keep the train together, and move out in order. Otherwise it was all back and forth, and no rest till sunup.

  He darted across the square to the poultry cart. Just as he feared, it had got wedged in behind a mule cart loaded with sacks of rice, and no one was paying any attention to the driver’s shouts. Eslek grabbed the mule’s halter and waved his arm at the driver standing in the cart, swinging the heavy sacks into the arms of a man on the ground.

  “Hey! Hey! Hold it!”

  The driver shot him a glance and turned to pick up another sack. Eslek drove the mule’s halter back: the mule tried to lift its head but decided to take a step backward instead. The cart jolted, and the driver, caught off balance, staggered back with a sack in his arms and sat down heavily.

  The stallholder grinned and scratched his head. The driver leaped from his cart in a fury.

  “What in the name of God—oh, it’s you, is it?”

  “Come on, Genghis, get this rattletrap backed off, we’re stuck. Here, pull her up.” He gestured to the donkey cart driver, who was sitting on the cart board with his long driving stick poised and ready. The rice carter backed his mule cart, the donkey driver whacked the dust from the donkey’s flanks, and the little beast trotted forward.

  “Cheers!” Eslek waved, then jogged alongside his cart with a hand on the board. “Second time this week, Abdul. You’re holding us all up.”

  He brought the cart to the back of his own train, told the driver to grab a crate, and with the stallholder’s help they unloaded, dodging up and down the line. Most of the stallholders were already arranging their stock; the scent of charcoal hung in the air as the street food vendors lit their fires. Eslek felt hungry, but he still had to clear the carts out; it was another hour before he saw them all safely through the gate, where he paid off the drivers.

  “Abdul,” he said, “just keep your eyes open, understand? Those mule men look tough, but they can’t touch you. Not if you don’t give them a chance. Just stick to the tail of the man in front, keep your eyes straight. They’re all bluster.”

  He walked back to the market. Now and then he had to flatten himself against the wall to allow other donkey carts to clatter by, but by the time he reached the square the first hubbub of the night had subsided. The vendors were busy with their arrangements of fruit and vegetables, vying against each other by building pyramids, amphitheaters, and acropolises of okra, eggplants, and waxy yellow potatoes, or of dates and apricots, in blocks and bands and fancy patterns of color. Others, who had lit their braziers, were waiting for the coals to develop their white skin of
ash, and using the time to nick chestnuts with a knife, or to load a thick skewer with slices of mutton. Soon, Eslek thought with a pang of hunger and anticipation, the meatballs would be simmering, the fish frying, the game and poultry roasting on the spits.

  He, too, had another job to do before he could eat. Once he had checked with his vendors, and reckoned their bills, he took a tour of the perimeter of the market. He paid particular attention to dark corners, shadowed doorways, and the space beneath the stalls whose owners he did not serve. He looked men in the face and recognized them quickly; now and then he lifted his head to scan the market as a whole, to see who was coming in and to watch for the arrival of any carts he didn’t know.

  From time to time he wondered what was keeping Yashim.

  A troupe of jugglers and acrobats, six men and two women, took up a position near the cypress tree, squatting on their haunches, waiting for light and crowds. Between them they had set a big basket with a lid, and Murad Eslek spent a while watching them from the corner of the alley beneath the city walls until he had seen that the basket really did contain bats, balls, and other paraphernalia of their trade. Then he moved on, eyeing the other quacks and entertainers who had crowded in for the Friday market: the Kurdish storyteller in a patchwork coat; the Bulgarian fire-eater, bald as an egg; a number of bands—Balkan pipers, Anatolian string players; a pair of sinuous and silent Africans, carefully dotting a blanket spread on the ground with charms and remedies; a row of gypsy silversmiths with tiny anvils and a supply of coins wrapped in pieces of soft leather, who were already at work snipping the coins and beating out tiny rings and bracelets.

  He took another look across the market and thought of food, though he knew it would be a few minutes yet before he could eat. The air was already spiced with the fragrance of roasting herbs; he could hear the sizzle of hot fat dripping on the coals. He lifted a cube of salty white bread from a stall as he passed by and popped it in his mouth; then, since no one had rebuked him, he stopped a moment to admire the arrangement of the spit, worked by a little dog scampering gamely around inside a wooden wheel. Nearby he saw out of the corner of his eye a man flipping meatballs with a flat knife. He drew a few meatballs to the side of the pan, and Eslek stepped forward.

  “Ready, then?”

  The man cracked a smile and nodded. “First customer Friday is always free.”

  Eslek grinned. He watched the man scatter a few pita breads on the hot surface of the pan, press them down with the blade of his knife, and flip them over. He pulled one toward him and opened it up with a quick arc of the point and a sliding motion with the flat side.

  “Chili sauce?”

  Murad Eslek’s mouth watered. He nodded.

  The man took a dab of sauce on the end of his knife, spread it inside the bread, and scooped up two meatballs and stuffed them home with a generous handful of lettuce and a squeeze of lemon.

  With the kebab in two hands, Eslek sauntered happily through the stalls, munching greedily.

  He saw nothing to surprise him. Eventually he went down the alley by the walls and found the dark passageway Yashim had mentioned. He carefully mounted the steps and made his way back to the tower. The door was still on its chain as Yashim had left it. He sat down on the parapet, swinging his legs, licking his fingers, and looked down through the cypress at the market below.

  The sky had lightened, and it would soon be dawn.

  101

  ***********

  When Yashim opened his eyes again, it was still dark. The fire in the grate had died out. Wincing slightly, he eased himself upright and slipped his legs over the edge of the bed. His feet felt bruised and swollen, but he forced himself to stand upright. After he had hobbled up and down the room for a few minutes, he found that the pain was bearable. He found his clothes by accident, putting out a hand in the darkness to steady himself. They were neatly piled on a table where Marta must have placed them.

  He took his cloak from the hall and stepped out into the early morning air. His skin was tender, but his head was clear.

  He walked swiftly down toward the Golden Horn. The lines of the Karagozi poem circled in his head to the rhythm of his footsteps.

  Unknowing And knowing nothing of unknowing,

  They sleep. Wake them.

  He quickened his pace to reach the wharves. On the quayside he found a ferryman awake, huddled into his burnoose against the dawn chill, and once across he took a sedan chair and ordered the bearers to the Kerkoporta market.

  102

  ***********

  “I saw you arrive,” Murad Eslek explained. He’d recognized Yashim immediately and rushed to greet him before he disappeared into the crowd. Now that the day had broken, there were plenty of people milling past the stalls, filling their baskets with fresh produce. “I’ve been looking about, like you said. Nothing unusual. A few performers I don’t know, that’s about it. Quiet, everything normal.”

  “The tower?”

  “Yep, I checked it out. The door you told me about, it’s still on the chain. I’ve been up there for an hour.”

  “Hmmm. There’s another door, though, from the other side. On a lower floor. I’d better take a look. You stay here and keep your eyes open, but if I’m not back in half an hour, bring some of your lads and come after me.”

  “Like that, is it? Half a minute, I’ll get someone to go with you now.”

  “Yes,” Yashim said. “Why not?”

  It took them only a few minutes to reach the parapet. The porter Eslek had found stamped along incuriously behind Yashim, who was glad of his presence: the memory of the dark stairs leading down to that clean chamber still made him shiver. He unlooped the chain and once more set his shoulder to the door.

  The porter protested. “I think we didn’t ought to go in there. It’s not allowed.”

  “I’m allowed,” Yashim said shortly. “And you’re with me. Come on.”

  It was darker this time, but Yashim knew where to go. At the head of the steps he put his finger to his lips and led the way down. The tekke was just as he’d left it the day before. He tried the door: it was still locked. The porter stood nervously at the foot of the stairs, looking around in surprise. Yashim went over to the chest and raised the lid. Same collection of plates and glasses. Still no cadet.

  Yashim straightened up.

  “Come on, we’ll go back now,” he said.

  The porter needed no second bidding.

  103

  ***********

  The efendi had told him to keep his eyes open, and Eslek had been doing just that for several hours. He wasn’t sure what he was looking out for, exactly, or how he would recognize it when he found it. Something out of the ordinary, perhaps, Yashim had suggested. Or something so very ordinary that no one would give it a second glance—except, he had explained, perhaps Eslek himself. Eslek knew what went where, and who might be expected at a Friday market.

  He scratched his head. It was all very ordinary. The stalls, the crowds, the jugglers, the musicians: it was like this every time. The market was busier, it being a Friday. What had happened that didn’t happen every day of the week? The meatball man had given him a free breakfast, that didn’t happen to you every day!

  Thinking about the meatballs had reminded him of something.

  He tried to remember. He’d been hungry, yes. And he’d seen that the meatballs were done, before anyone else. Seen that much out of the corner of his eye while he poached a cube of bread—

  Eslek jerked his chin. The little cube of bread. Nobody had noticed. There’d been no one manning the stall, and the little dog running around to turn the spit. Something he’d never actually seen before today, not in the market, at least. But so what?

  He decided to take another look. As he threaded his way through the crowd, he caught sight of the meatball vendor with the flat knife in one hand and a pita bread in the other, serving a customer. But he was looking the other way. When Eslek reached him he was still standing, as though transfixe
d, and the customer was beginning to grumble, “I said yes to sauce.”

  The vendor turned back with a puzzled look on his face. Then he looked down at his knife, and the bread in his hands, as if he wasn’t sure why they were there.

  His customer turned away with a snort. “Forget it. Life’s too short.”

  The meatball man seemed not to have heard. He turned his head and looked over his shoulder again.

  Eslek followed his gaze. The little dog was still trotting in the wheel, with his tongue hanging out. But it wasn’t the abandoned dog that attracted Eslek’s attention so much as the meat hanging on the spit. It had been tightly bound to set it once the heat caught it, but with no one about to baste the meat, it was beginning to shrink. The pack of meat was gradually unraveling, stiffening, revealing to Eslek the shape of the beast it had once been. Two of its legs, paring away from the surprisingly slender body, were thick; the other two were smaller, wizened, in an attitude of prayer. It could have been a hare, except that it was ten times bigger than any hare Eslek had ever seen.