The Snake Stone

by Jason Goodwin

  Marta had filled a very beautiful vase with late-flowering tulips, the Turkish sort, with frilly petals. It seemed to Palewski, as he ran his finger over the surface of the sideboard, that she had polished that as well.

  He went back to his seat, wedged himself into it with his knees up and his feet against the shutter board, and took a drink.

  It was all very extraordinary, he thought to himself. Poor Marta! This business with Xani must be upsetting her more than he’d thought.

  Where the devil, he wondered, had the wretched man got to?

  58

  YASHIM riddled the stove, threw on some coals, and blew on them until they caught. While the charcoal heated, he unpacked his basket. Flour, rice, oil: he had bought replacements, but he would have to look for some new containers. A pat of butter, wrapped in paper. He frowned, thinking ahead; he had forgotten pepper.

  He went to the window and looked down into the alley. It was empty. He leaned farther out and shouted: “Elvan!”

  He went back to the fire, took out three ripe eggplants, and wiped them with a damp cloth. He laid them on the coals, then took a knob of butter and dropped it into a small pan. On an impulse he lifted the pan to his nose and sniffed: it smelled perfectly clean, however, so he put it down guiltily on the side of the brazier, where the butter would melt.

  He turned the eggplants and went back to the window. “Elvan!”

  The butter was sliding off across the pan, so he stirred it with a wooden spoon, watching it begin to bubble. He took a big pinch of white flour in his left hand and began to sift it slowly over the butter, still stirring; as he watched, it began to form soft crumbs and then a yellow ball.

  He took the pan off the heat, turned the eggplants again, and went to the window.

  A small boy was standing in the alley with his hands on his hips.

  “Elvan! It’s me, Yashim!”

  The boy looked up.

  “Some milk, please. And white pepper, if you can get it,” Yashim shouted. Elvan held up a hand, Yashim flipped a coin, and the boy dived and caught it, as he always did.

  When the skins were charred Yashim swaddled the eggplants in a cloth. He sharpened a knife. After a minute or two he began to scrape the skins with the edge of the blade. Underneath the blackened skin the flesh was white; he remembered Mavrogordato’s arms on the desk, and pulled a face.

  Elvan came in with a jug of milk and a screw of pepper.

  “You remembered, white?”

  “Of course, efendi.” The little face took on an expression of injured innocence, and Yashim laughed.

  “You may keep the change,” he said.

  He wiped the eggplants with a soft cloth, then pounded them in the mortar. He warmed up the pan again and slowly began adding the milk, drop by drop.

  In the French embassy in Pera the ambassador would be penning his report. Word by word the case against Yashim would form and swell, in the smoothest diplomatic style: accusing no one, implying much.

  There was a tap on the door. Yashim frowned. “Elvan?” He called, not taking his eyes off the pan.

  He heard the click of the latch and felt a prickling at the back of his neck.

  Very carefully he set the pan aside. He glanced at the door, slowly swinging inward, then at the knife on the block.

  “Who’s that?” he called. “Who’s there?”

  59

  MADAME Mavrogordato’s face was set. At the opposite end of the long table, Monsieur Mavrogordato cast her a furtive glance and helped himself to a dish of lamb. Madame Mavrogordato watched the footman place the dish on the side table.

  “You may remove Alexander’s setting, Dmitri. When he comes in, he can eat in the kitchen. And tell him that his father wants to see him.”

  “Yes, madame.”

  Dmitri withdrew. Mavrogordato picked up his knife and fork.

  “So!” Her voice was like a milled edge.

  His hands froze in midair.

  “So! You can eat!”

  “We have to eat, Christina, or we’ll die,” said Mavrogordato unhappily. His knife wavered uncertainly over the lamb.

  Madame Mavrogordato stared him down. “Sometimes, Monsieur Mavrogordato, one must choose between disgrace and death.”

  “Now, Christina, please…” He put the knife and fork down gently by his plate.

  “Disgrace, Monsieur Mavrogordato,” she intoned. “This time I want you to speak to Alexander. If he carries on in this way, he will earn a reputation for himself.”

  Mavrogordato nodded.

  “A reputation, Monsieur Mavrogordato. And the Ypsilanti girl is almost seventeen.”

  Mavrogordato nodded.

  “We cannot allow the match to fail. The Ypsilanti may not be so rich, but they have—” Her head quivered gently. She could not quite bring herself to say the word.

  Mavrogordato nodded again. He blinked. After a pause he picked up his knife and fork. “A strange fellow came to see me today,” he said casually.

  Madame Mavrogordato did not reply.

  “He—ah—was called Yashim. I believe he was a eunuch.”

  Five minutes later, when Mavrogordato’s lamb had congealed on the plate, he wished he hadn’t changed the subject, after all.

  60

  YASHIM picked up the knife and took a few steps toward the swinging door.

  A woman was standing in the doorway. She wore a blue traveling cloak edged with satin, its hood drawn up to hide her face. A foreigner. Her hands were loosely clasped in front of her. A small carpetbag with a leather handle lay on the floor beside her.

  Yashim’s fingers relaxed. He took a step back.

  The woman reached up with both hands and pulled back the hood. Brown curls tumbled around her shoulders and a pair of steady brown eyes met his.

  “You are Yashim efendi, n’est-ce pas?”

  Her voice was soft and light. Yashim nodded, unable to speak.

  “Très bien. I am Madame Lefèvre. Where is my husband?”

  Yashim felt the blood pounding in his ears. He heard himself say, “Entrez, madame, je vous en prie,” and he bent down to take her bag. She moved at the same moment, and their shoulders brushed together.

  Yashim gestured to the sofa.

  Madame Lefèvre glanced around his apartment, and Yashim noticed how tall she was, almost his own height. She crossed the room with long-legged grace, smoothed her cloak behind her, and sat down on the edge of the divan. With a shake of her head she ran a hand under her curls to free them from the collar of her cloak. Beneath it she wore a dress of sprigged cotton; the toes of her black pumps could be seen peeping out from below the hem. The evening sunlight reddened her curls and caught the curve of her cheek. Her eyes, Yashim noticed, were huge.

  She gave him a tired smile. “Please,” she said, reaching for the bag. It was in Yashim’s hands. He had forgotten it.

  He laid it on the floor, close to her feet.

  “I was cooking,” he said shyly, “when you arrived.” He didn’t know what else to say. He looked down and saw the knife in his hands. He turned away to put it down. “Madame Lefèvre. I had no idea.”

  She made a face, which meant “What can I say?”

  Yashim passed his hand over his brow. “And you, madame—you have just arrived in Istanbul?”

  “From Samnos, only. I was cataloging some of my husband’s finds.” She laid her finger on the tip of her nose and closed her eyes. “Imam bayildi! I smell the eggplants.”

  Yashim blinked in astonishment. I must tell her, he thought to himself. I must tell her now, before it’s too late.

  “Not imam bayildi,” he said, raising a finger. “Hünkar beyendi.”

  “Hünkar beyendi,” she repeated. “Tell me again, what does it mean?”

  “It means—the sultan approved.”

  “And imam bayildi? The imam fainted?”

  Yashim smiled. “Yes. He was so happy.”

  “Ah, yes. And when you cook—Hünkar beyendi, are you not happy, too? Or d
o you merely approve?” She pulled a frown, like a sultan, then undid the clasp on her cloak and jumped lightly to her feet.

  Yashim laughed. “No. I am—I am happy then.”

  “Forgive me,” Madame Lefèvre said. She glanced around his little kitchen. “I have interrupted your happiness.” She saw the milk jug and peered into the pan. “You are making—it’s a roux, n’est-ce pas?”

  “We call it miyane.”

  “If we’re quick, it will not be too late!” Madame Lefèvre swept her hair off one shoulder and seized the pan. “You stir, monsieur—and I’ll add the milk.”

  Stop her, Yashim thought. Tell her what she has to know.

  He took the pan and laid it back onto the coals, stabbing the ball of flour and butter and milk with a spoon. It was still warm: Madame Lefèvre was right, he needed to carry on or it would spoil. Madame Lefèvre took up the jug and carefully allowed a drop into the pan, and then another, and another. They faced each other across the handle of the pan. Madame Lefèvre looked up and her eyes were smiling.

  “Look, it’s working!”

  The miyane began to spread across the bottom of the pan. A little milk slipped down the outside of the jug and dripped onto the table.

  “There,” he said. “Stop.”

  He reached for the pepper. “We always use white pepper,” he explained, “for the beauty of the dish. It should be very pale.”

  He felt awkward as he said it: he was aware of her own pale skin.

  “En effet, it’s a béchamel,” she said.

  “It’s a very old recipe, in this part of the world. Butter, flour.”

  Madame Lefèvre looked interested. “A nomadic dish? Why not? Perhaps we learned it from you?”

  “Well,” Yashim hesitated, “I think so, yes. Maybe not directly.” This was one of his pet theories—how had they got onto that so soon? “The Italians were in Pera. Perhaps they brought the idea to France.”

  “Catherine de’ Medici,” Madame Lefèvre said.

  “I think so!” Yashim grinned with delight. “I read it in Carême—listen!” Then he remembered. “At least—I had it before.” He went to the shelves. “Carême, here we are!” He flicked the pages. “I was just reading this: ‘The cooks of the second half of the 1700’s came to know the taste of Italian cooking that Catherine de’ Medici introduced to the French court.’ Perhaps you are right, madame.”

  It was her turn to laugh. “Mon Dieu! Carême!”

  “It’s lucky I still have it,” Yashim admitted. “I lost a lot of my books recently. Yesterday.”

  “You were robbed?”

  Yashim smiled. “It doesn’t matter. Nothing important lost. But I’m afraid the apartment is a little bare.”

  “I didn’t think such things would happen in Istanbul,” Madame Lefèvre said. “Max always tells me how safe it is.”

  Max? Yashim frowned: she must mean her husband.

  “Madame Lefèvre,” he said, “Istanbul is not safe. Not safe at all.” He balled his fists. “I have some terrible news.”

  Her eyes widened. “What are you saying, monsieur? Not safe? But what do you mean?” Her voice rose. “Where is Max? Where is my husband?”

  “He’s dead,” Yashim said.

  61

  WIDOW Matalya went out into the yard with the big fan she used for beating her carpets, to shepherd her chickens into their run.

  “Come along, pretty one,” she crooned. She put out a leathery hand. The hen crouched close to the ground, its feathered shoulders raised. The widow took it gently in two hands, lifted it under her arm, and snapped its neck.

  “You were too old anyway,” she said admonishingly.

  She carried the hen through the house, picking up a basket from behind the door, and sat down on a small stool in the alley. The sun had gone, but the wall was still warm against her back. She began to pluck the hen, dropping the feathers into the basket.

  “Soup’s best,” she muttered to the hen. “And this one makes a good stock. A bit of rice. Nice, after a shock.”

  She turned the bird on her lap and began to snatch the underfeathers from its breast.

  “Not but what I’m in shock, too,” she went on. The hen’s head dangled over her knee. “It’s a disturbance, and not at all what I expect at my age. A foreign woman, too. An unbeliever—in my house!”

  She gave an angry little twitch and tore the bird’s skin.

  “Now look what I’ve gone and done.” She paused and made a shape with her fingers, against the Evil Eye. “She ought to go to her own people, poor thing. No husband now, and such a way from her own mother!”

  She worked over the legs, and then the wings. She wondered how many chickens she’d plucked in her life. It must be hundreds. Not that she was greedy. She fed them and they fed her, and that was the way it was.

  How she’d howled when Matalya died! A full day, a real clamor. She was that upset! Not the way it took those Frankish women, perhaps. Thin blood, it might be.

  Widow Matalya made a mighty effort of imagination: perhaps you needed to be around your own people to properly let go, she concluded.

  And there was no denying, it was good to have a bit of soup, for when you got a shock.

  62

  YASHIM dabbed vaguely at the skin that had formed on the miyane. The fire was almost cold; he felt no urge to start again. He wasn’t really very hungry.

  He looked around for a bit of bread or a biscuit, but of course the place was bare.

  He climbed onto the sofa and sat with his knees drawn up, looking out of the window across the rooftops.

  Miyane! It was what you made when a guest showed up unexpectedly: a thicker mix, of course. You turned some pasta into it and ate it cut up into chunks.

  Madame Lefèvre had been, of all things, wholly unexpected.

  She had struck him as beautiful: he who walked permitted and unaffected through the sultan’s harem, among dozens of women selected from every corner of the empire for their loveliness alone. Lefèvre had not been the man he would have imagined for her; he had seemed too cagy and underhanded in his manner. Whereas his wife—but there, he hardly knew what to think.

  More than her beauty had affected him, of course. She had talked to him like a friend. They had even laughed together, as if they had known each other already a long time.

  She had made him laugh.

  He had been too intoxicated to say what he knew had to be said. Too cowardly to break the spell.

  The widow had a kind heart. She would answer for the moment, but tomorrow he would have to see Madame Lefèvre to her own people—the embassy again. He winced at the idea.

  Mavrogordato. What had he learned from Mavrogordato?

  Only that a Frenchman, in a European suit, could raise the kind of loan from a respectable banker that an Albanian in the same city struggled to raise from a loan shark. Two hundred francs!

  Yashim stopped dragging at his hair.

  Two hundred francs, as far as Yashim knew, was about six hundred piastres.

  63

  IT was not yet completely dark when Yashim reached Balat. Dim figures brushed past him in the alleys; doors banged; a little boy carrying what Yashim recognized to be a box of paper leaned his burden wearily against a wall, then hoisted it up again and pressed on. The Jews, he thought, are coming home.

  The idea caught him by surprise. From across the city, the Jewish poor were streaming home with the fading light. The boy with the paper would be at his post tomorrow, soon after sunrise, crying “Carta! Carta!” all day long the way the paper sellers did on the Grande Rue. There were, now that he considered it, so many little trades in the city from which the Jews could draw a precarious living. They shined shoes, they sold flowers, they collected scrap paper and metal; they went out young—and they came home late, plodding through their broken alleyways and dirty streets with a few piastres for the family purse. The Jews were city dwellers: they worked the streets like furrows on the earth, stumbling back to Balat as if it were
their village. Yashim had seen villages more filthy and decrepit than Balat, too.

  He paused to remember the way, then set off down a dispiritingly narrow, twisted alleyway as fast as he dared: he wanted to reach the moneylender’s courtyard before it was dark.

  The courtyard was silent. Overhead, he could make out the dark tiers of balconies, and here and there a stray line of light to indicate a drawn shutter. He knocked softly on the door of Baradossa’s cell, and then, after a minute’s silence, he knocked more loudly.

  He took a few steps back and almost tumbled on a broken tile. A shutter banged open above, and a woman’s head appeared silhouetted against the dim light.

  “¿Qué es?”

  “I’m looking for Baradossa,” Yashim called back. He had no Ladino. The head disappeared and an arm reached out to pull the shutter to.

  Yashim scuffed the tile with his slipper. Nobody came. Another fragment of tile lay on the ground at the side of the door: it must have slipped from the roof of Baradossa’s lean-to porch. Yashim gave up waiting for the woman to reappear and bent down to look at the tile. He wondered why it had fallen.

  He went back to the opening of the courtyard and looked up the wooden staircase leading to the balconies. The stairs creaked as he climbed. He followed the balcony to the corner, passing a couple of doors, and found himself looking down onto the little pantiled roof.

  He could just make out where the broken tile had come from, about halfway up the roof where there was a gap like a wound between the tiles.

  There was no light showing from the room beneath.

  Yashim snaked over the balustrade, which rocked dangerously, and placed his feet on the pantiled roof.