[Marianne 5] - Marianne and the Lords of the East

by Juliette Benzoni

  "Our own naval carpenters being unaccustomed to the ways of your great western ships," the Valideh had written, not without a touch of humor, "we have begged Mr. Canning to procure for us the services of some of the English carpenters employed on repairs to vessels putting in to our harbors to give our men the necessary instruction in order to restore this ship of ours to her former condition…"

  This admirable example of officialdom at work succeeded in dissipating Jolival's ill humor. He began to laugh and Marianne found herself laughing with him.

  "If there was ever any doubt that this imperial kinswoman of yours is still a Frenchwoman at heart, this would be enough to do away with it," the vicomte said at last. "Only someone born of the same country as Voltaire and Surcouf could have thought of anything so ingenious as getting the English ambassador to refit an enemy vessel, and force him to foot the bill. For Mr. Canning can scarcely be so curmudgeonly as to send in his account. Really, it's too good! Long live the sultan's royal mother! She's a credit to her family."

  Marianne said nothing. She was glad to see him looking happy again. She herself was deeply touched by Nakshidil's gesture, for with her wholly feminine instinct the Creole had put her finger unerringly on the very thing that meant most to her young cousin: Jason's ship, the thing he loved as much and maybe even more than the woman whose image she bore.

  By making this gift with such delicacy and such truly royal generosity, and at the very moment when Marianne was on the point of facing fresh dangers for the sake of her lover, the Valideh had made it a symbol of her sanction, a sign of encouragement and moral support. It was a wonderful way of telling her: "You are going to suffer but in the midst of your suffering you will remember this ship, because while you have her you will hold the key to the future and to all your hopes in the palm of your hand. Death cannot touch one so powerfully armed…"

  Marianne closed her eyes, seeing herself already on board the restored Sea Witch, putting out from Constantinople with all sails flying and scouring every port in the world in search of her one true captain. Suddenly, the outlook was much wider and brighter. When the sun rose tomorrow there would be great plans for the future crowding around her bed to help her back to health, but already, mistress of the American brig and strong in the backing of her powerful kinswoman, Marianne was beginning to feel that the world was hers.

  She opened her eyes and bestowed on Jolival a smile so radiant that he had not the heart to utter another word of protest.

  "I must go," she said. "We've wasted too much time already. Keep these precious papers for me. I know they will be safe with you and I can't take them with me where I'm going. Kiss me goodbye now—"

  With a warm rush of affection, he put his arms around her and kissed her on both cheeks. Suddenly, he was feeling happier. The fear that had been gnawing at his stomach all day was fading. Miraculously, the letter had set him thinking, like Marianne herself, that nothing really dreadful could happen to a woman with such forces to protect her.

  "Take care of yourself," he said simply. "We'll see if God will still listen to the prayers of an unbeliever that all may go well."

  A calm voice spoke suddenly from behind the white veil that hid the Turkish woman's face.

  "All will be well," it said. "The Jewess knows that she will be beaten to death if there should be any accident, so do not worry." In another moment, Marianne was seated in the cushioned araba and leaving the onetime Franciscan convent. The mule began pulling strongly up the steep, roughly cobbled street. A chill wind whistled down the narrow thoroughfare, parting the curtains of the vehicle. Marianne's companion snatched up a white muslin veil and hurriedly covered the girl's face with it.

  "It's better so," she said as the other put up a cautious hand to her face. "Our customs can be very useful when one wishes to escape notice or recognition."

  "No one knows me here. I have little to fear—"

  "Look—there is the night watchman beginning his rounds. He has only to catch sight of an unveiled woman in an araba to set a whole host of unlikely rumors afoot."

  A tall, thin man in a rough linen caftan with a broad belt and a brimless red felt hat with a piece of dirty muslin tied around it had just come around a corner. He had a lantern in one hand and with the other he was tapping the pavement at regular intervals with a long metal-tipped staff. As he passed, he glanced idly through the curtains, which were still blowing in the wind, at the occupants of the araba. Marianne needed no telling to hold the veil close across her face. She shivered.

  "It's cold tonight, and yesterday it was stifling—"

  The other woman shrugged indifferently.

  "It is the meltemi, the cold wind off the Caucasian snows. When it blows the whole city freezes, but the weather here changes very swiftly. And now, let me introduce myself. My name is Bulut, which means cloud."

  Marianne smiled, liking this cloud. The ferej could not disguise the fact that she was plump and comfortable, and her bright eyes twinkled merrily above her white veil and did not avoid one's gaze.

  "I know nothing of your country's manners. How ought I to address you?"

  "I am called Bulut Hanum. Hanum signifies 'madam' and is used in conjunction with the first name. With Your Highness's permission, I shall address you in the same way to avoid attracting attention. Rebecca must not know who it is that she has in her care tonight."

  "So I am to be Marianne Hanum?" Marianne said with a smile. "It makes a pretty name."

  This small excursion into local customs had broken the ice. Madam Cloud began chattering like a magpie, visibly delighted with a task that made a striking change from the monotony of her usual existence. She could not have been as young as her eager, girlish voice suggested, for she disclosed that she was an old friend of the Valideh, whom she had known since her first arrival in the harem as a little fair-haired slave girl, terrified by her capture in mid-Atlantic, her stay in the pirate city of Algiers and her voyage to Constantinople aboard the Barbary xebec. At that time Bulut herself had been a member of the harem and had attained the rank of Ikbal,1 having twice enjoyed the favors of the imperial bed. But after the death of the old sultan she had been one of those "pensioned off" by the new master and bestowed as a convenient gift on various senior court officials. Bulut had been married off to one Halil Mustapha Pasha who held the onerous but enviable position of Defterdar, or minister of finance.

  This change in her situation had in no way displeased Bulut, now rejoicing in the title of Bulut Hanum, for she had never minded being included among the harem's expendable property. Her marriage had procured her a lofty social station and a mild, easygoing husband whom she ruled with the carefully concealed firmness that any Turkish wife worthy of the name brought to the management of her husband. According to his wife, Mustapha Pasha was a perfect kibilik, the very model of a henpecked husband, and one who had adopted as his private motto the Kurdish proverb which said that he who did not fear his wife was less than a man.

  Alas, this model husband had been gathered to Allah in paradise some years since and Bulut Hanum, being left a widow, had entered the household of the Queen Mother, with whom she had remained on the friendliest terms, as mistress of the robes. It was to this friendship that she owed her familiarity with the "Frankish tongue," which she spoke easily—and with breathtaking rapidity.

  While Bulut chattered on, the araba pursued its way through the steep streets of Pera, crowded with vines, Christian religious houses, European embassies and the houses of rich merchants, preceded by a man with a lantern who gave vent from time to time to a nasal shout of "Dikka-a-at," like a muezzin with a bad cold. The tiny cafes lining the main street, which were run by Venetians and Provençaux, were all shut by now, since except during the nights of Ramadan, which had ended some three weeks earlier, few people stirred out of doors after sunset in the Ottoman capital. The districts of Pera and Galata, where the law was less severe, were something of an exception to this rule, but even here it was necessary to carry a lantern
or pay the penalty. Thus it was that those few pedestrians who were about all carried the swinging lanterns made of pleated paper in a metal frame which gave to the city its air of being permanently en fête.

  The carriage made a sudden right turn along the side of a building whose immense walls were surmounted by cupolas and a minaret that gleamed in the light of the rising moon. The talkative Bulut was silent for a moment, listening. The thin notes of a flute came trickling from the building like a tiny mountain spring.

  "What is it?" Marianne asked in a whisper. "Where is the music coming from?"

  "From within. It is the tekke—the home of the Mevlani Dervishes. It means that they are beginning their prayers and they will whirl and whirl all night, like planets around the sun."

  "How sad the music sounds. Like a lament."

  " 'Listen to the reed flute,' was the teaching of Mevlana the mystic, 'for it says: from the time that I was first cut from the reeds of the marshes, men and women have lamented in my voice… All things that have been severed from their roots look to the time when they shall be joined again.' "

  Madam Cloud's voice had grown remote, and for a moment Marianne was carried away by the poetry of her words which found a strange echo in her own heart that was aptly underlined by the music of the flute. But then she noticed that the araba had stopped at a sign from her companion and that Bulut Hanum, who had glanced backward several times in the past few minutes, was turning around again to peep through a gap in the curtains.

  "Why have we stopped?"

  "I want to make sure of something. I think we're being followed. When I gave the order to stop, I saw a figure slip behind one of the buttresses of the tekke wall. Someone who didn't want to be seen, because they were not carrying a lantern. Well, we'll see."

  She tapped the driver briefly on the shoulder as a signal to move on and the araba resumed its progress down the sloping street. At that precise moment Marianne, who was also peering through the gap, distinctly saw a shadow detach itself from the deeper darkness of the wall and follow at a respectful distance.

  "Who can it be?" Bulut muttered. "It's a bold man who would dare to follow a lady of the court, and bolder still to walk abroad without a light. I hope it's not an enemy."

  There was a quiver of alarm in her voice, but Marianne was not afraid. The darkness inside the carriage hid her smile. She was very nearly certain that she knew their mysterious follower. It must be either Jolival or Gracchus-Hannibal—if not both, for she had a strong impression that there were two shadows.

  "I can't think who could be interested in us," she said, so calmly that an involuntary sigh of relief broke from her companion's ample bosom. "Is it far now to where we are going?"

  "Ten minutes or so. The Nightingale River runs along the bottom of this valley into which we are descending now, beyond that line of cypresses. Beyond that again you have the buildings of the Arsenal and the whole of the Golden Horn as far as the sweet waters of Europe."

  The view from below the tekke was certainly a magical one, taking in all the area of the harbor which shone like quicksilver in the moonlight, pricked out with the black needles which were the masts of ships. But the beauty of the scene had no power to captivate Marianne, for she was in a hurry to reach her destination and get it over with. Delay now made her vaguely uneasy. After all, she had no proof that the shadowy forms were Jolival and Gracchus… Latour-Maubourg had not concealed the fact that the embassy was watched, and the British ambassador might still be hoping to lay hands on Napoleon's envoy. His spies were so well organized that he could not fail to be aware of the length of the previous night's audience. So it was with a trace of nervousness that she asked: "When we reach this woman's house—will we be safe there?"

  "Absolutely. The guard of janissaries responsible for the protection of the Arsenal and the naval dockyards is within easy reach of the synagogue and can watch that also. The slightest disturbance in the neighborhood will bring them in a moment. We shall be as easy in Rebecca's house as inside the walls of the seraglio. But the main thing is to get there… Hurry, driver! Faster!"

  She repeated the order in Turkish and the mule went like the wind. Fortunately, the way, which had been steep at first, had leveled out a good deal and the uneven cobblestones had given way to beaten earth. In a short while they were traveling along a narrow lane that ran along the valley bottom beside the stream.

  Seen at close hand, this was infinitely less poetic than from the heights of Pera and gave no hint of deserving its romantic name. It was full of rubbish and gave off a nasty smell compounded mainly of ooze and rotting fish. Indeed the whole district, huddled up against the walls of the Arsenal, which lay between it and the sea, reeked of poverty. The wooden houses, their walls eaten by the salt winds, crowded about an ancient, half-ruined synagogue, their flat roofs and gutters etched against the slate-blue of the sky. Many of them had their ground floors given over to shops, shuttered at this hour, and here and there was a low door of a warehouse or the heavily barred windows of a moneylender with the star of David displayed above the lintel.

  But although the houses were old and decaying, the strange thing was that the doors were all stout enough and the locks shone with care. Banks and warehouses were guarded by massive locks and iron bars that showed no trace of rust.

  "This," said Bulut Hanum, "is Kassim Pasha, and Rebecca's house lies over there."

  She pointed to a garden wall that made a kind of bulge which adjoined the synagogue. The black spires of three cypress trees showed above it and the summit of the gray wall itself was softened by snowy drifts of jasmine.

  "Is this the ghetto of Constantinople?" Marianne asked, struck by the cheerless desolation of the houses.

  "There are no ghettos in the Ottoman Empire," Bulut answered gently. "On the contrary, when the Jews were driven out of Spain by the Inquisition they found a welcome here where they could be free and even respected, for racial prejudice is a thing unknown to us, as it has always been. Black, yellow or brown, Arab or Jew, it is all one to us as long as they contribute to the prosperity of our empire. The Jews live where they will and gather of their own free will about their synagogues, of which there are now some forty in the city. The greatest number are to be found in the adjoining district, but this community is not to be despised."

  "But even if they are not forced to live here, surely they must be very poor, if not actually in want?"

  Bulut laughed. "Don't be taken in by the impoverished look of the houses hereabouts. They are very different inside, as you will see for yourself. The children of Israel are a prudent race, for although they get on well enough with us Turks they are like cat and dog with the rich Greeks of Phanar, who hate them because of their all too often successful rivalry in trade. For this reason they prefer to keep their wealth hidden away from prying eyes and not to provoke their enemies by the splendor of their homes."

  Yet in spite of her companion's reassurances Marianne could not overcome a feeling of inexplicable discomfort and uneasiness. It might have been due to the two shadowy forms which, whether they were there or not, had now become discreetly invisible, or to the valley itself, which might have been charming in spite of its tumbledown hovels if it had not been built up against the forbidding walls of the Arsenal, scarcely more cheerful than a prison with the warlike figures of the janissaries mounting guard on the battlements, the lighted matches for their muskets in their hands. But there the Arsenal was, solid and menacing, like a dike built to stand between this wretched district and the sea. Even the little river vanished beneath its walls, as though it, too, were flowing into captivity through the low arched opening guarded with thick iron bars.

  But when she tried to explain this gloomy impression of hers, remarking that it was sad to see the Nightingale River ending in a cage, her companion only laughed again.

  "We aren't mad!" she exclaimed. "Of course we've sealed the valley off from the Golden Horn! None of our sultans wants to see another invader repeating Mehmet th
e Great's exploit."

  And she described with pride how, in the spring of 1433, the Sultan Mehmet II, in his determination to reduce the city of Byzantium by sea as well as by land, had had his fleet carried over the hill of Pera with the aid of a slipway made of planks of wood greased with mutton fat and lard. Having been hauled up to the head of the valley by a system of rollers and pulleys, the ships had gone swooping down through Kassim Pasha and into the Golden Horn, to the terror of the besieged.

  "We have been careful to take precautions," Bulut finished. "It never does to give one's enemies ideas."

  In the meanwhile, the araba had come to a halt before a carved cedarwood door opening into a garden wall. Underneath a thick coat of dust could be seen a lot of rather primitive designs of flowers and leaves, above which hung a small bronze doorknocker which Bulut Hanum was already working with an impatient hand. The door was opened almost at once.

  A servant girl in a saffron robe stood there bowing deeply. The many scents of the garden leaped to meet them, filling their nostrils as though they had each been handed a bouquet of flowers. The sharp tang of the cypress trees mingled with the sweetness of the jasmine, and the fragrance of fruiting orange trees with that of dying roses and clove pinks, and there were other, less easily identifiable scents.

  It was a garden full of contrasts. The rampant jungle growth of the roses contrasted with the neat, well-ordered beds, marked out with box, which were the domain of the medicinal plants. Herbs both beneficent and deadly grew there thickly, around a semicircular pool into which a trickle of water splashed endlessly from between the worn jaws of an antique stone lion.

  The maidservant, still bowing obsequiously, trotted before them toward the house which, although somewhat less dilapidated than its neighbors, forfeited all this slight advantage by an architecture so improbable that Marianne could not restrain a grimace of distaste. The thought of spending as much as twenty-four hours in this nightmare of wood and stone depressed her unutterably. It was made up of a weird juxtaposition of brick and carved wood, interspersed with panels of Brusa tiles decorated with fabulous monsters, the whole surmounted by an astonishing assortment of turrets, balconies and onion domes. Bulut Hanum, however, was evidently well accustomed to the oddness of it, for without abating one jot of the dignity due to a friend of the Valideh she directed her well-rounded person to a brassbound door beneath a flattened arch and passed inside.