The Baklava Club: A Novel (Investigator Yashim)

by Jason Goodwin

  “Well, would you care for a drink?” Giancarlo’s politeness was instinctive.

  “I won’t lie to you, a little splash might have a splendid medicinal effect. Lay the dust, so to speak. I work with dust, sir.”

  Fabrizio fetched the bottle, and poured Father Doherty a glass.

  He talked, and had another.

  “I’m afraid it’s all gone,” Rafael butted in, when Doherty waved the empty glass again in Giancarlo’s direction. “We must go back to the Belgian wine merchant tomorrow.”

  But Father Doherty’s face was a little flushed; it had been a hard day at the library, as he had observed, several times. He wagged his finger amiably at Rafael: “Would it be that you’ve gone solemn on me now?” His blue eyes flashed. “Could it be that”—he lunged forward—“you’re hiding something from me?”

  His eyes narrowed: they were watery and slightly red, and he held up his empty glass.

  Giancarlo actually groaned. “Come, Father. We’d planned to go to the ambassador’s tomorrow, but this fellow Yashim has invited us out instead. No doubt the ambassador will be there—why don’t you join us? I’ll send a note to let him know. In the meantime,” he added rather desperately, “we all need an early night.”

  “Early night.” Father Doherty grumbled. “Early night. Well, I daresay you’re right. It doesn’t do to be abroad late in this city.”

  Everyone got to their feet. It was as if, after pushing for ages against a heavy stone, it had suddenly rolled away. Fabrizio almost staggered.

  “Good night! Good night!” They thumped the priest on the back in their eagerness to see him off. “A domani! À demain! Goodbye!”

  He was out the door, and Giancarlo had begun to close it behind him, when he stuck his bleary head around it again: “The lady! I should give my respects to the lady!”

  “Don’t worry,” Giancarlo said smoothly. “I’ll see she gets them. She’s fast asleep,” he whispered, as if speaking to a child.

  “Heh-heh! The sleep of the just. Then I’ll be away!”

  “That’s right! Good night!”

  They listened to the priest’s heavy footsteps descending the stairs, and eyed one another.

  “My God!” Fabrizio breathed. “I could have killed him.”

  Giancarlo closed the door. “For once, Fabrizio, I couldn’t agree with you more.”

  “You didn’t have to carry his books!”

  “When he asked for the second bottle?”

  “My God, let’s have it at last!”

  Even Rafael broke into a smile.

  There was a thump on the door and Giancarlo leaped away as if it were red hot.

  “I’m afraid I left my books,” said Father Doherty, blinking. He crossed the room and gathered them up from a chair. Nobody spoke.

  Father Doherty nodded. “I’ll be off, then.”

  Giancarlo offered to see him down, but Father Doherty waved him off.

  “He was there,” Rafael said, finally, when they had held their breath for what seemed like minutes, and heard a door slam far away. “He heard us.”

  Giancarlo looked worried. “I don’t know. It doesn’t matter. We were only complaining how he drank too much.”

  “He must have heard we had another bottle.”

  “Where is Birgit?” Fabrizio glanced at the bedroom door.

  “She’s asleep.”

  “Very well.” Fabrizio pulled the cork from the bottle. Rafael fetched glasses.

  Giancarlo felt that a rite had to be observed and waited until the wine was poured.

  “The Rubicon is crossed,” he said meaningfully, pulling the note from his pocket and smoothing it on his knee.

  “Go on.”

  Giancarlo’s voice trembled slightly as he read.

  “It—it’s in Latin. The Rubicon is crossed. The time is coming. Be prepared. There will be shocks but you will know your duty, to the people and to the sacred cause of freedom! Be forewarned—and be forearmed. Vale, La Piuma.”

  “He’s here,” Rafael whispered. His eyes shone. “We are being called.”

  “That’s it! I felt sure something would happen today!” Fabrizio bent forward. “That fucking priest!”

  Rafael giggled. “I couldn’t believe it.”

  “The revolutionaries!” Giancarlo threw out his arms, swaying like Father Doherty. “Home! Onward! Drink!” He started to laugh, showing his gums.

  Fabrizio waved his arm. “The note!” he spluttered. “Let’s see the note!”

  Rafael’s shoulders shook. Giancarlo began to whoop with laughter.

  “Carry these, young man!” Fabrizio crowed, rolling about on the divan. “The whole fucking Patriarchal Library!”

  Their laughter rolled to and fro. “Heh-heh!” Giancarlo wiped his eyes.

  “I should like to pay my respects to the lady!”

  “The lady!”

  “Ha ha ha!”

  Giancarlo stumbled to his feet, tossing off a glass of wine.

  “The lady!” he caroled, through tears of laughter. “And where is the lady, by all that’s holy? Birgit!”

  He darted to the bedroom door and slid inside.

  Rafael looked at Fabrizio, and they burst into uncontrollable giggles.

  19

  YASHIM felt the sunlight on his arm and awoke, blinking, wondering what time it was. The street, always quiet, was silent.

  He rolled from the divan, opened the door, and retrieved the jug of water that his landlady had left for him. He washed and began to dress. Finally he tucked his feet into a pair of slippers, took a basket from a nail on the wall, and went downstairs.

  A few minutes later he arrived at the café on Kara Davut, where the proprietor put a pan on the coals to make his coffee, medium sweet. Yashim ate a corek, drank his coffee, and left the coins on the table.

  Every year, when the city grew hot and sultry in the autumn sun, parties of Stambouliots would take to caïques and go up the Golden Horn to spend the day at the Sweet Waters of Europe, or cross the Bosphorus to enjoy the shade and the peace of the Sweet Waters of Asia, for the Turks were always great lovers of nature.

  These outings could be tumultuous family affairs, with preparations laid in harem kitchens weeks or days in advance. They could be undertaken by a small party of medrese students, perhaps, for reading and poetry, with simple meze, cheese, and fresh fruits. But they were generally constructed around food: and in the provision of food, as in so much else, the bazaars and markets of Istanbul excelled.

  Behind ziggurats of vegetables, George was paring the leaves from artichokes with a small knife, and dropping the hearts into a bowl. Now and then he looked up and called out: “Zucchini-beans-arugula! Zucchini-beans-arugula!” in a singsong voice. He caught sight of Yashim and nodded.

  “Yous early today, Yashim efendi!” he boomed, and added “Zucchini-beans-arugula!” without breaking stride. “Many peoples?”

  “Four or five,” Yashim replied. He wasn’t sure if Palewski would join the party. “I’ll take an oka of the artichokes.”

  George had trimmed and hollowed the hearts, leaving them with a tender stem that reminded Yashim of the domed roofs of the imperial kitchens at Topkapi, each with their massive central chimney. He wondered if the architect Sinan had shared the same thought.

  He bought onions, big and small, and a dozen long slipper-shaped peppers which George slid from a dazzling display arranged on a barrelhead like the spokes of a wheel; he bought a few big knobbly lemons, red and green chilies, an oka of long purple carrots, a large celeriac, and a couple of pounds of zucchini, small and firm with dark glossy skins and rumpled orange flowers. He chose thin green cucumbers, a melon, a pound of Smyrna figs, purple and fat, and plenty of apricots and pomegranates.

  When he picked out enormous bunches of mint, coriander, and flat-leafed parsley, George folded them over and crammed them into the basket. “This is a present,” he explained.

  Yashim did not protest. For months now, George had been trying to
give him vegetables for nothing, because Yashim had saved his life.* His largesse had been threatening to become a burden, to the point where Yashim almost considered buying his vegetables somewhere else, so the gift of mere herbs, generous in itself, came as a relief.

  He left the basket with George while he visited the butcher and the cheesemonger, and then he took his shopping home.

  He thought about the Russian girl while he unpacked his basket. He wondered whether her confidence had returned, so that she could be happy with the valide and her ladies. Today would be hot: a good day to take to the water, and into the woods.

  Before he left for the palace he dropped the artichokes into a bowl of water with lemon juice, grated the zucchini into a colander, and sprinkled them with salt, to sweat.

  The valide was wearing a crocheted jacket and a pair of silk pantaloons. She sat with one elegant wrist resting on her drawn-up knee.

  “I understand, Yashim, you have proposed a picnic! Charmante! I have not been on a picnic for many years. Sultan Abdülhamid adored them, and so did I. It always does the sultan’s girls good, to get them out of doors. It’s how they were raised, after all, on their mountains. Au naturel. Yes, a picnic will be great fun.”

  “That’s what I hoped,” Yashim replied cautiously. Was the valide planning to come as well? Great fun? A nightmare for him! A royal progress—he’d have to redouble the food, find caïques, servants …

  “Of course, it will all be rather rough,” he added.

  “Mais, c’est ça!” The valide clapped her hands. “A little rough—how perfect.”

  Yashim was quite sure that the valide’s idea of rough did not extend to sitting on the ground, or carrying a basket.

  “There’s the question of food,” he said slowly.

  “But you are a good cook, Yashim. It’s famous!”

  “And of course I asked the Italians to come. You might find them rather, well, boyish, Valide hanum.”

  “It doesn’t matter what I think,” she said. She thought for a moment and raised an interrogative eyebrow. “Goodness, Yashim, you didn’t imagine that I would come on your picnic, did you?”

  Yashim looked embarrassed, while the valide laughed.

  “Hee hee! Oh, Yashim!” She wiped her eyes. “What an idea! I am valide—how could I possibly condescend? A picnic, with Franks—and men! Pas de chance!” She waved him away. “Pas—de—chance. The idea!”

  He found Natasha dressed and waiting for him in the Court of the Favorites.

  “Did they pull you apart last night?” he asked; but she only smiled and shook her head.

  “The valide was very kind.”

  Yashim suggested taking a sedan chair to the water, but she assured him that she preferred to walk.

  “Too much luxury will make me fat,” she said.

  He took her arm. Already, as they passed through the First Court, he observed a change in her. She seemed to have grown by inches. When they passed under the great gate she did not flinch—and her bonnet bobbed from side to side. As they made their way through the crowded streets, eliciting glances from the Turks and franker curiosity from the Greeks, she turned to him and laughed.

  “Round, tall, flat, square—I’ve never seen so many different hats!”

  At the back of the Mosque of the Valide they plunged into a rabble of men and goods around the quayside, maneuvering their wares into the Egyptian bazaar.

  “Where is this?” She lifted her head and sniffed the air. “Spices!”

  “Come.” This was something he wanted to show her, a halt on the great caravan that summoned scents from the four corners of the world. He thought of Natasha raised in Siberia on a ribbon of forbidden road, at the far end of which lay Saint Petersburg and the tsar, and the dimly pictured world of quadrilles, braid, carriages, and shoulders under fur, and the lights sparkling in the snow. There was, he imagined, no in-between: only the place of exile and the lost Eden, back to back.

  Which meant, of course, that Eden had a secret door that all the dancing feet and swirling skirts of Saint Petersburg could not entirely disguise: a door that dropped you suddenly to the lonely road, left you thousands of miles away in the howling blackness of a Siberian winter.

  He took her arm, and they plunged into the spice bazaar.

  Natasha’s eyes grew round as they made their way up the cavernous arcade. On either side, baskets and barrels were heaped with spices, mounds of every color—powders, leaves, twisted roots, long strings of dried vegetables, boxes of dates, of dried plums, raisins, figs. She stopped in front of a huge basket crammed with little black berries.

  “Is this pepper?”

  “Black pepper. There’s green there, and red. That’s white pepper.” Yashim spoke to the spice merchant. “It’s Sumatran. He says it’s the best quality. They bring it to the Red Sea and then overland, through Egypt. Most of these spices—”

  He broke off. Natasha’s eyes were sparkling, and he realized she had tears standing in them.

  “I’ve never seen anything like it.” She tried to smile. “In Siberia—pepper! It’s like money. We carry it in little screws of paper.” She gestured to the piles of colored spice. “We know salt. Only salt, and some berries.”

  Yashim nodded, and guided her onward. “Here you see the world under one roof. And we’re buying stuff for our picnic.”

  She glanced at him inquiringly.

  “Some Italians are coming—they are young, like you, and seem to be in some sort of exile themselves. The valide has given me her permission to invite you. For an awful moment I thought she meant to come along as well. I’d have had to hire elephants.”

  Natasha laughed. “No elephants? You disappoint me. I thought every Ottoman picnic had at least one, to carry the musicians!”

  “First I must go home to prepare the food,” Yashim said. He hesitated. “If you like, we could go home and cook together.”

  “I can make soup. And pancakes.”

  “I’ll cook. But I’d like your company.”

  She pressed her hands together. “Oh, I’ll come! Just don’t tell me that you live in a palace, too.”

  “I think, Natasha, you’re in for a shock. And now we will take a caïque, as I promised. It’s always cooler on the water.”

  20

  SHE untied the ribbons of her bonnet and reached up to take it off.

  “This is where you live?”

  She knelt on the divan, and looked out of the window. “I—I have never been so high up. In a house.”

  The juice of the grated zucchini looked like jade in the bowl. He lit a fire in the grate, sprinkled it with charcoal, and set a pan to boil. With a sharp knife he peeled the celeriac, chopped it into small cubes, and dropped the pieces into the water, with the artichokes.

  The pan was boiling: he skinned a dozen small onions and blanched them.

  “I like to watch you work,” Natasha said.

  He had almost forgotten her sitting on the divan.

  “Tell me about Siberia. Tell me about your home.”

  He worked while she talked. He put carrots, onions, artichokes, and celeriac into a bigger saucepan, with a sprig of thyme and a bay leaf, and covered them all with stock.

  “We used to pretend we were in Saint Petersburg. Uncle Sergei had money—they didn’t confiscate his estates, I don’t know why—and he had the opera house built in Irkutsk. We sewed our own clothes, but we threw proper balls, with an orchestra. Everyone always wanted to believe that we would go home.”

  Yashim broke two eggs into a bowl with a cup of flour and beat them together. He gave the zucchini a final squeeze and mixed them in. On the board he chopped onions with a handful of dill and parsley, and pounded some garlic in the mortar with a pinch of salt. He swept it all into the zucchini mixture and stirred it around. Finally he set an open pan on the heat, and threw in butter and olive oil.

  “One by one, the families left. We used to give them a ball on the night of their departure. The boys who were leaving would ask
the girls who were staying for the first dance…”

  Her voice trailed off.

  “Eventually the balls stopped happening, when everyone had gone.”

  “And your father?”

  “He runs the school where I have been teaching. He paints. He is making a book of Siberian wildflowers. It’s very beautiful, very detailed. I think he’s the first person to really study Siberian plants.”

  She laughed a bit awkwardly. “His real problem is me.”

  The butter was bubbling. Yashim began to drop spoonfuls of the zucchini mix into the pan: they spread and blossomed as they fell.

  “Why you?”

  “I think he feels he’s let me down. There’s no society. He feels that.”

  “No one to marry, you mean?”

  Natasha blushed. “I suppose so. Oh, Anton the miller is rich, but he thinks only about trees. And there’s a furrier who sends furs all over the world, and spends the winters in Moscow, but he’s old and has a mustache that gets into his soup. My father says he was a sort of criminal once. I can’t marry him.”

  Yashim slid the zucchini fritters from the pan, then started to make some more. “No, I see that.”

  “Do you? It sounds silly, perhaps. But I think it would break my father’s heart if I married one of the mujiks. As it is, he has very little heart left to break—it’s been broken so many times already.”

  “But you’ve come here to get him out of Siberia.” The vegetables were done. He fished them out of the broth and laid them on a platter.

  Natasha was so silent that Yashim looked around.

  “He has his school and his flowers,” she said, thoughtfully. “My mother is buried there, too.”

  “And you?”

  “Me? I’d stay with him.”

  Yashim cocked his head. “Then—” He waved a spoon. “What are you looking for?”

  “A pardon. I want the tsar’s forgiveness, for my father. He was so young when he joined the Decembrists. I would like to see him as a free man, not a prisoner. It is how he would wish to be seen.”