The Snake Stone

by Jason Goodwin

  An elderly man with a thin white beard came carefully down the lane toward Yashim, prodding the ground ahead of him with a stick, and now and then touching the wall for support.

  “Excuse me, efendi,” Yashim said. “I am looking for Baradossa.”

  The old man touched the wall with his knuckles.

  “You need money?”

  “I’m paying a debt.”

  The old man turned his head away, spat, and put out his stick.

  “Do you know where I can find him?”

  The old man mumbled a few words and began to walk away. Yashim felt his fingers tense and flex.

  When the old man had gone, Yashim retraced his steps. Balat was still a maze to him, he who had walked over most of Istanbul in his time, but once he found his way to wider streets he remembered how to find Rebecca’s store.

  Rebecca gave him an ironical smile when he stamped into her shop, setting the bell ringing.

  “Yashim efendi!”

  She was taller than Yashim, with a heap of red hair, dark freckles, elegantly plucked eyebrows, and astonishingly fine lips.

  “I’m lost,” said Yashim brusquely. “Lost and unwanted. Help me, Rebecca.”

  Rebecca laughed. She had three gold teeth. “You look hot and cross. Let’s have some ayran.”

  She brushed past him in two strides and stuck her head out of the door. Yashim heard her give a piercing whistle.

  Rebecca put her hands on her hips.

  “So, you’ve come to our part of the city. You think it’s dirty and the people are unhelpful.”

  “I didn’t say—” Yashim began to protest.

  “No, but I see it. And it’s good. If you go into a house here, it is spotless. So clean you could eat off the floor.”

  “I know that.” Yashim put up a hand. Rebecca folded her arms. A little boy with a shaved head came in with a silver tray.

  “We are the same. Not much to look at, eh? If we are rude, it is like the dirt in the street. Your people do not look for gold in dross. Do you understand what I’m saying?”

  Yashim nodded and took the glass of ayran.

  “That is why we are able to live in peace. Not like those Greeks.” She snorted. “Whatever they have, they like to show it off. If it is jewels or happiness, they wear jewels or go around smiling. If it is sores and afflictions, the long face and the crazy grief. Today they are your best friend, and tomorrow they want to kill you in the street. A Greek, he is like a child. Every day he forgets. A Jew is a man. He is a man who remembers, every day.”

  “Remembers what?”

  Rebecca gazed at him and shook her head. A lock of her hair swung across her face, and she slipped it back. “Ah,” she said, “that you would never understand.”

  Yashim smiled: he knew she was right. Was it Spain, he wondered, whose language they still spoke? That al-Andalus which the Jews—like the Moors—mourned as the Paradise they had lost, treasuring the keys to a vault in Granada, as some old Jewish families did; recalling the pattern of streets and synagogues in Seville? Or was it a promise? Spain was a long time ago. And it must have been many centuries since the Jews had received a sign.

  He drained his glass and placed it carefully on the counter. “If your memory is so good,” he said drily, “perhaps you can tell me where a moneylender called Baradossa lives.”

  Rebecca pursed her lips. “You’re a glutton for punishment,” she said.

  53

  YASHIM picked his way through the rubbish that had gathered in the courtyard; three tiers of wooden galleries sagged overhead, blocking out the light. The chill air smelled fetid. Yashim knocked several times before a cracked voice demanded his business. He put his lips close to the door.

  “I want to talk about a debt.”

  “Talk, talk. What is talk?” There was a long silence, then a click. A small hatch in the door opened, and an eye appeared. “Do I know you?”

  “I’m here for Xani. The Albanian. Six hundred piastres.”

  “When?”

  “About six months ago.”

  The hatch slid shut again. Inside, he could hear Baradossa muttering to himself.

  The eye reappeared. “Who’s that with you?”

  Yashim glanced around. The courtyard was empty.

  “I’m alone,” Yashim said.

  “Will you step back and show me your hands?”

  Yashim stepped into a windowless room. Baradossa slid the bolts home and hobbled to the far end of a table, carrying a candle. The cold air reeked of cabbages and sweat. So clean, Rebecca had said, you could eat off the floor. He’d have liked to fetch her in.

  Baradossa set the candle on the table and rubbed his hands. “Cold?”

  He was a small man, slightly bent, with a gray, bushy beard and small white hands, which he held up in front of his chest, like a squirrel. He might have been forty-five, or seventy-five, except that he wore, Yashim noticed with surprise, artificial teeth: they clicked in his mouth when he talked. He was dressed in a dark woolen coat, with a patterned shawl across his shoulders. His stillness was expectant.

  “Xani,” Yashim said. “I’ve come to pay.”

  “Oh yes?” The old man sniffed. “It’s you now, is it?”

  “I come as a friend.”

  “A friend, is it?” Baradossa rubbed his chin. “Would that be capital or interest, efendi?”

  Yashim reached into his cloak and drew out a purse. Baradossa’s eyes flickered toward it. Yashim held the purse softly in his hand. “Interest. Forty piastres.”

  “Forty piastres?” Baradossa sounded surprised.

  “Xani couldn’t come,” Yashim said.

  Baradossa glanced from the purse to Yashim’s face. He moved his head slightly.

  “Do you know Xani, efendi?”

  Yashim shook his head reluctantly. He felt confused. The old man didn’t move.

  “They asked me to come. The interest is due.”

  Baradossa slowly raised his shoulders until they almost reached his ears. Then they dropped.

  Yashim counted out the money onto the table. “Forty piastres.” He looked up. Baradossa was watching him. Then his upper lip peeled back into a grin, exposing a row of little yellow teeth.

  “Forty piastres, efendi? What makes you think I want your money?”

  He came around the table and put his hands to the door bolts, sliding them back.

  “He owes you six hundred piastres!”

  “Is that what they told you, efendi?” Baradossa swung the door wide open and peered out.

  Yashim felt the surge of goodwill that had followed him from the kebab shop evaporate.

  “There never was a debt, was there?” It was a statement, not a question. There had been a trick. At least he’d saved Marta’s little hoard. “Forgive me, efendi.”

  He took a last look around the room. At the doorway Baradossa’s eye wandered to the table, then back to Yashim’s face. Yashim glanced down. It had been there all the time. A sheet of paper, on which was written in a neat Arabic hand the name Xani, and the sum of 600 piastres. Below the rubric, in red ink, a date in the Jewish calendar and the words: Paid In Full.

  “The month of Tammuz,” Yashim said dully. “It’s just begun.”

  Baradossa merely raised an eyebrow.

  “So Xani came and paid it off?”

  “Who else?”

  It was Yashim’s turn to shrug. “Yes,” he echoed. “Who else?”

  The courtyard seemed bright after the dimness of Baradossa’s cell. He picked his way downhill through the crooked streets, toward the Golden Horn.

  “Who else?” he muttered to himself. A little breeze touched his cheeks; it came off the water. He didn’t feel it.

  Xani had paid off his debt, out of the blue. And then, almost immediately, he disappeared. It didn’t make sense: the waterman should be enjoying his newfound freedom.

  Yashim stopped in the street. Enver Xani, he thought, had disappeared for good.

  54

  “
I don’t know who they were, Yashim efendi. I wouldn’t have let them go up if I’d known. There’s never been anything like this here, and I’ve been here for fifty years next April.”

  Widow Matalya closed her eyes and shook her head. She was not a woman to give way to hysterics. Yashim stood patiently in the dark hallway, where she had been waiting for him, his head bowed.

  “I’m sure you’re right, Matalya hatun. Can you tell me what exactly has happened?”

  “Two men, my efendi. I heard the door go while I was cleaning. I always do my cleaning in the afternoons. You know that, don’t you, my dear efendi? In the afternoons.”

  Yes, and in the mornings, too, Yashim thought. He resisted the urge to hurry. Widow Matalya had had a shock, and she was getting around it in her own way.

  “There was a lot that needed dusting, too. Not that I neglect my dusting, efendi, I wouldn’t have you think that. But the carpets pick it up, have you noticed? I was thinking it was a good day for beating the carpets, with the sun shining in the yard, and the carpets getting a bit dusty—it must’ve been ages since they were taken out, I thought, at least not this year. How could I, with all that rain we had in the spring?”

  “Much too wet, yes,” Yashim murmured. “And these two men—?”

  “I was coming to that, my all-forgiving efendi. It’s like I said, I wouldn’t have let them in if I’d known. I saw you go out earlier, and that’s what I told them. They said they’d wait. Friends of yours, they said.” She clamped her gums together. “I wouldn’t go up there now, efendi. I’ll try to make a bit of sense first, that’s best. Now that you know, that is.”

  “Thank you. You’ve done everything right,” Yashim reassured her. “But there’s really no need to worry. Please. You just go and sit down, and have a glass of tea.”

  He kept talking until he had steered the old lady back into her apartment. He put the kettle on the stove and saw her to the sofa. “The men—were they Greek?”

  “Greek? Maybe, I don’t know. They could not have been Muslims, my only efendi. Like animals,” she added, as he closed the door.

  Yashim took the stairs two by two. The door at the top of the stairs was closed. He pushed it back with his fingertips, and watched as it swung slowly open onto a scene of desecration.

  55

  “SUELA, will you tell your mother something? Tell her that my name is Yashim. I am a lala.”

  A guardian: he hoped that Mrs. Xani would understand. The ordinary eunuchs of Istanbul, the lala, served in families: they acted as chaperones, protectors, messengers, and mediators.

  The girl nodded as if she understood, but when she spoke in Albanian her mother shook her head hopelessly.

  “Tell her that I want to find your father.”

  Suela’s eyes widened for a moment. She looked as if she were about to cry, but instead she bowed her head and murmured something in Albanian. Her mother raised her red-rimmed eyes and looked sadly at Yashim.

  Xani received a salary of forty piastres a month, far more than he had earned as a porter. He had come to Istanbul fourteen years before: he had sold his land in Albania to his brother because it was not enough to keep a family. No, there was no bad blood between them; the brother had supported their marriage, twelve years ago. Both parents were dead. She had a mother living, who had been pleased with the match.

  “So the family have no enemies in their village? No feud?”

  The woman spoke. Suela said: “When Shpëtin was a baby we went to the village. We went in a boat. It was very far.”

  “Where did you stay?”

  “At my uncle’s house. I have four cousins, two boys and two girls. I like the girls very much. We played every day.”

  “And here you have Shpëtin to play with.”

  Suela nodded doubtfully. Shpëtin was six; Suela was growing too old for little boys’ games, perhaps. Yashim pressed on. “Do you have family in Istanbul?”

  “My father’s uncle was here, but he was old and he died. My father was—he—was very sad.”

  Yashim sat back, keeping his eyes on the ground. Instinct told him that Xani’s disappearance had nothing to do with the family: it was entangled, somehow, in events in the city, in the debt. “I want to ask your mother, has anyone been to see you in the last few days? Anyone asking for money?”

  But nobody had.

  “And in his work—your father is happy?”

  “My mother says he is happy. He is proud to be a waterman. I think—I think he works very hard.”

  “I am sure. Your mother—she doesn’t know where he might have gone?”

  Suela gave her mother a frightened glance. “No.”

  “Friends?”

  The girl looked uncertain. She repeated the question to her mother, who merely shook her head and looked sadly again at Yashim. “Istanbul,” she whispered.

  “My father and mother do not have friends in Istanbul,” Suela explained quietly.

  Yashim pulled at his lip. “You say he liked his job, and he worked hard. Did he work the same hours every day?”

  Suela screwed up her face, to remember. “In the beginning, he was always at home for supper. But he stayed at work very late, before he—he…” Her lip trembled.

  “I understand,” Yashim said quickly. “Every evening, or just sometimes?”

  “Just sometimes.” Suela turned to her mother. The two spoke together for several minutes. When Suela turned to Yashim her chin was tilted.

  “My mother says that he stayed out quite late three times last week.”

  “Do you know why?”

  Mrs. Xani cast her eyes vaguely around the room. “My mother,” Suela translated eventually, “says that they had problems with the water.”

  “Yes,” said Yashim slowly. “Yes, I think there have been some difficulties.”

  He got up. He wanted to add, Your debt is paid. But the words stuck in his throat, as if they carried a meaning that no one wanted to hear.

  56

  YASHIM descended the hill by the Sublime Porte and crossed in front of the Nurisyane, where he had found the litter bearers the night before. Passing the entrance to the Egyptian bazaar he hesitated, then plunged in. The rich aromas of cinnamon and cloves, of cumin, coriander, and pounded ginger made his head whirl. Mountains of vividly colored powder rose on every stall, pungent spices gathered from all across the world, from the coasts of India and the mountains of China, from Persia and Arabia and the islands of the South Seas, brought here to this great entrepôt of the world’s trade by dhow, by carrack, by camel train and mule train, over deserts, through wild seas, crossing the passes of legendary mountain ranges, bartered and bought, fought for and pilfered, growing ever more valuable and rare until, at last, they reached this market on the edge of Europe, and vanished into a soup, or a dish of rice.

  Yashim paused, dizzied by the reflection. What a world men had made! What adventures they undertook, simply to give color and pungency to their diet! The bazaar was a treasure-house—yet nothing would be changed if a wind scattered the powders to the skies; no one would starve; empires would not fall. The very stones of the bazaar would reek of spices a thousand years from now: what of it?

  For something as trivial and evanescent, men could be killed. For an idea as immaterial as the scents that rose from the multicolored hillocks of ground seeds, people were prepared to die. An immigrant in the city, struggling to better himself and provide for his children, disappeared: for what? Nothing stolen, as it seemed. No one ate better. But perhaps an idea had been realized, a dream had been served. Lefèvre: dead in the street. No money on him, nothing taken. Killed for a book, perhaps: a few scraps of observation about a city that no longer existed, the thoughts and memories of men long since dead and gone. The city still lived and breathed and ate and slept. A pilaf could be eaten without saffron.

  He left the Spice Bazaar by the northern gate, to wind his way through the alleys and arcades of the Grand Bazaar. He bought a new shawl and examined some old Korassi
an carpets; he dithered over a selection of English padlocks, before deciding that he didn’t need one, bought some plain china plates, and finally walked home through the Book bazaar. Goulandris’s shop was shuttered.

  Widow Matalya and her ladies had done a thorough job. The floors were scrubbed. The walls had been whitewashed again, and they glowed in the golden afternoon light. His landlady had found a carpet for the sofa and replaced some of the cushions, but the empty bookshelves looked skeletal. Of his kitchen and its stores, only the metalware remained, iron pots and knives. The room smelled of soap.

  Yashim sat down on the edge of the sofa and unwrapped a tiny parcel from the Egyptian market. The folded paper contained a single yellow block of ambergris, the strangest substance in the pharmacopeia of spices, and so rare that one sultan had been censured for using it on his beard. Ambergris was gathered from the Atlantic Ocean, hundreds of miles away, taken, so Yashim had heard, from the belly of the whale.

  Its odor was sweet, yet not cloying; it was also irresistible, all-pervasive, the strongest, most penetrating scent in the whole world. Yashim lay back on the divan, with the tiny lump of ambergris resting on his own belly.

  Slowly its scent stole out across his bare room, possessing it invisibly, permeating the air.

  57

  STANISLAW Palewski had tucked himself up in the window seat of his sitting room with a glass at his elbow, Gyllius in his hand, and a bottle not far away, before he became aware that there was something unusual about his room.

  He looked around, mystified. He glanced out of the open window. The girl, Suela, was sitting under the tree, watching her brother playing in the dirt with a stick and with a concentrated look on his face. Palewski sniffed the air, then his glass. His gaze fell on the sideboard, beneath the oil portrait of Jan Sobieski, the victor of Vienna. He looked at the sideboard for quite a while, and then, with a puzzled grunt, he got up and went over to look at the flowers.