The Reign of the Favored Women

by Ann Chamberlin

  Not only did the fact that she sat behind her screen serve to disembody my lady’s presence, but an allover dimness and light in irregular and deceptive blotches conspired to do so,-too. Her voice seemed to come not from behind the screen particularly but from everywhere at once, to bathe the hearer like the gloom, to be incorporeal and yet very present and very, very tangible all at once. Like the thick fog that sometimes rises off the Danube, it seemed to enter the lungs as if it were water and they a sponge; it entered the brain like wool stuffed a pillow.

  And suddenly Ali Pasha knew it would be useless to try and fight this fog with his poor weapons—a sharp appearance and swaggering manners. It would be as useless to fight this as to throw one’s dagger and oneself against a Danubian fog for rising unbidden and misleading his troops. Esmikhan’s voice was the voice of conscience if not epiphany.

  “A woman came to see me today,” the voice repeated, having once let us catch our bearings on no ground at all. “I did not remember her, though she had been a serving girl under my stepmother in her youth. Naturally I greeted her as such. She had come to me as the last friend she had in the world. She had no place else to go besides the brothel, being after all a former slave, kin- and defenseless. Of course I said at once that she must stay with me, she and her three children.

  “‘But tell me,’ I could not refrain from asking, ‘how is it you come to be in such a pitiful state? My father, the Sultan of the Faithful, surely he did not leave you so. He would be nothing if not a man of honor and no man with a shred of honor would do such a thing.’

  “Then she told me. She told me how her husband, the man to whom my father had trusted her honor and care, had been swollen by ambition to marry another and had cast her off without a backwards glance at the ten years she had served him in perfect faithfulness.

  “You would have recognized this woman. Pasha, long before I did. She had to spell it out more clearly before I realized—before I could believe—that she was your wife. Pasha, and that I was the one for whom you so carelessly threw her fair face, supple body, and delicate manners away.”

  AH Pasha made some movement to protest that the face and manners of a slave could not compete with those of one of the house of Othman. But he knew full well it was too late and did not get far with his protestations. Esmikhan refuted them all quickly anyway.

  “No! How can you think to debase the royal blood of Othman with a nature so lacking in honor and devotion as that! I’m sure you will consider yourself fortunate if I do not call for your death—the usual punishment for treason against the throne—and simply refuse the suit of marriage that has been brought to me. Beyond that, I can hardly wish you peace and good day. Pasha. As Allah lives, I pray He may harrow your soul with guilt even a fraction of what it deserves. That should be enough to make you long for hellfire.”

  You may be certain Ali Pasha left the palace with her voice licking his heels like flame.

  Safiye was furious when she learned what her creature, or so she counted Esmikhan, had done. At first she tried everything from cajolery to cursing to sway the Sultan’s daughter, but my lady, still harboring the divorcee and her abandoned children, resisted with the spirit if not the physical force of a lion. Finally Safiye desisted, realizing that any more discussion on a point of view Esmikhan found so clearly immoral would only serve to lose her this important ally.

  In the meantime, Nur Banu had sent her emissaries to Ali Pasha with some tempting offers concerning the Ottoman daughters of her slaves...

  “Ali Pasha refused Nur Banu!” Safiye exclaimed, elated, when she learned the news. “He’s refused the old girl. But why? I can’t believe I overestimated him.”

  “No,” Esmikhan said with a quiet smile. “I think you underestimated him.” And she took the hand of the divorcee who’d sought her protection and who sat dandling her youngest on the divan next to my lady.

  There were three months of waiting. The sham marriage to another man, hired for the purpose. And then at last—-but not one day later than the minimum the law allowed—Ali Pasha and his wife were reunited and with hardly less joy and passion than I have seen between love matches and virgins. Within another three months, the new bride vas with child.

  And Ali Pasha, though this business proved to be the end of his ambition, was not totally cut off from all routes to advancement. His wife now had powerful strings to pull in the heart of the imperial harem that she had not had before. The last time I saw the Pasha, I noticed with interest how the bladelike features of his former self had been buried, as it were, in dunes of sand-colored flesh. And though not particularly dashing any longer, one could not say he looked either unbecoming or unhappy.

  “What a remarkable mistress you serve” was Ghazanfer’s comment on the matter, and I had to agree with him. But he went further. “In many another time and place—less civilized, we might say—a woman who had been so used for no other fault than coming in the way of her man’s ambition or his lust, she would have had no recourse. Even the lawyers and jurists in such a situation would be swayed either by the man’s wealth or his power, for she had modestly kept herself from all such things. But see, here, that very modesty and, some might say, helplessness won her favor in your lady’s eye and thus helped her simple desires. And, I may add, a just and merciful Heaven’s will as well. That is how the harem with its all-powerful calls of honor upon the less powerful world of men should work. Your lady understands it well and hence carried the day. If only it were so with my lady! She persists in using the tactics of the selamlik, and everything I try to say to her she takes as treason.”

  Here the great eunuch shrugged and said, “I suppose I only mean to apologize for the cold way my lady has treated yours since these events. Without cause, I believe, and because it is causeless, it cannot last long.”

  His prophecy was true and the grudge, which hurt my lady deeply, did not last past Ali Pasha’s remarriage. But this was not so much because Safiye had learned restraint but because there were other plots afoot. Not the least of these was the marriage of Prince Muhammed and my Gul Ruh.

  LV

  Safiye was in the midst of paying court to Gul Ruh with a new jeweled caplet and rather-too-intimate caresses on the hair: “Ah! how my son will love these dancing braids.”

  My young lady replied with the words—one could almost hear the tones—of Nur Banu, “Aunt Safiye, you know full well my cousin Muhammed cannot marry me—or anyone—until he is circumcised and becomes a man.”

  It angered Safiye to be told so—and in such tones—but she could not deny it was true. No matter how she influenced Turkish taste towards the Venetian in everything from fabric and costume to medicine—for which the Republic should always be financially grateful—this she could not change. Even the Hand of Allah in the form of the terrible fire that had thwarted the first attempt to make her boy into a man could not put it off forever. Muhammed could not rule unless he was a full Muslim and he could not be a Muslim with his foreskin intact.

  And every year it was put off meant only a greater danger of serious infection accompanying the operation. In fact, it clearly seemed to be Nur Banu’s plan to put off the rite forever so that Muhammed might never rule.

  This taunt placed in the mouth of unsuspecting Gul Ruh was enough to call Safiye to her duties as a Turkish rather than a Venetian mother. She proceeded at once to do what she could to circumvent Nur Banu’s authority and once more set the preparations in motion. Nonetheless, the planning did take nearly a full year in total. And this was not all on account of Murad’s desire to see that his son and heir was circumcised in glory such as the world had never seen before. It was also in part due to Nur Banu’s constant and often successful attempts to see that the rite might never be celebrated, with or without glory.

  Whenever the flurry of preparation grew white hot, Gul Ruh shied and sulked from it as if it was preparation for her own wedding as, in a way, it was. At such times, even Nur Banu’s rooms were hardly far enough away for my
young mistress, and I think she was particularly grateful to Umm Kulthum when one day the Mufti’s widow invited my young lady to join her and her daughters for a picnic in the country.

  * * *

  Early on Friday morning, the party was ferried up to the end of the Horn where the Sweet Waters of Europe flow through a park to the Sea. The Turks are connoisseurs of waters as Italians are of wine. They know the various qualities of every major spring from Zem-Zem in Mecca northward and will often pay dearly for a flask of some famous source packed in by caravan. Bottled waters, however, are universally declared to be but pale compared to sampling the product on the spot. And within an easy journey of Constantinople, only one or two privately owned springs in the foothills are more desirable than the Sweet Waters of Europe.

  At this time of year when the streams were swollen and ice-cold from the melting snow, it was doubted if even the springs could vie. The water, pure from any sediment, was delightfully tasteless in any season. But in spring, when one’s mouth was not too numbed by the cold, one could taste something more—the sweetness that gave the waters their name and their fame.

  As if the waters were not sufficient in themselves, Umm Kulthum devoted one whole boatload to picnic dainties and sweets. Upon our arrival, the slaves spread these out in dizzy array on carpets on the sward. Sweetmeats and pistachios were unpacked. Dried figs and dates and apricots and raisins, olives and meatballs and balls of rice and ground chickpeas, stuffed pastries sweet and savory, all were heavily spiced and sprigged with fresh-cut mint. The eye could easily confuse the bright colors and intricate detail of the foods on their brass and china platters for the floral patterns on the rugs.

  Umm Kulthum and some of her older, matronly friends were content to sit before these mounds and feed like browsing sheep. But eating was not that for which her daughters, their young slaves, and my Gul Ruh had come to the country. One could eat at home.

  We had ferried those girls over in tight bundles, wrapped like roses cut in the bud when hardly a shadow peeking out from the green hull hints at the color within. Now, as if those roses had been brought into the heat and stuck in water, they burst into bloom as they played hide-and-seek and catch and danced to improvised music among the great old chestnut and plane trees.

  The trees heaved the grass in their shadows up into mounds with their trunks. People turn red when drunk, grass turns but a lusher green and this grass on the banks of the Sweet Waters was far gone. The blades could hardly keep their bleary, heavy heads up. When bruised, they stained with an uncommon vigor. I saw my lady with dark green stains on the knees of her shalvar and on both elbows. She had worn her best clothes to honor the occasion, but they would probably have to be given away now, beyond all hope of salvage.

  But to see her running and laughing as if she were a child again, and to see the old bloom come back in her cheeks—I hadn’t the heart to forbid her. The grown-up sobriety of the last few years was all very well, I thought. Indeed, it was probably necessary. Like the green sheath of a rose, it would be good protection against the sorrows and hardships of life that were bound to fall. But it was heartening to see that in sunlight and pure water, she could still bloom.

  Umm Kulthum had had her slaves set up the camp in a broad hollow into which an arm of the waters curled for a moment’s privacy before rolling on about its public business. It was the perfect spot because, even by the time it reached our ears—we khuddam perched on the surrounding hillocks in a protective cordon—even the most frantic squeal had all but faded. And as no man with any self-respect would take another step towards the first glimpse of a eunuch’s robes he saw, the girls’ games, delicious like stolen fruit, would always remain our secret.

  I regaled in the sight—pitying all mankind for whom it must ever be forbidden—of the beautiful girls more beautiful still in their jewels, their bright yellows and pinks and deep reds, both on shalvar and cheeks. Their carefully braided hair now working its way loose like the linen of their undershirts. They flashed into sunlight, vanished into shadows, as if that hollow had a pulse and they were it.

  Over their heads, the leaves of both chestnut and plane were as vet fragile and thin, but clouds of the lesser Judas trees in pink-violet bloom were like spun-sugar mist and hid magical worlds of fairy tale. In the rain of their petals, I forgot the myths of my childhood that were beyond redemption. I felt pure joy.

  Only when the sun was directly overhead did the muezzin from the nearby Eyüp Mosque call the party to more sober pursuits. A quiet time was something it would be foolish to do without in the heat of the day. But the girls were so exhilarated they would have ignored that need were it not for the all-wise Word of Allah.

  Eyüp is the burial place of the standard bearer of the Prophet who died in 672 of the Christian era during the first Muslim attempt to take Constantinople. It is such a sacred place that no man can be considered Sultan until the Sword of his ancestor Othman has been girded on him with those blessed walls.

  Eyüp is a popular place for the living to come as pilgrims and for the dead to come and await the Day of Resurrection. Their tombs clustered at the feet of his who first made the ground holy. Some of the girls, my young lady among them, expressed their desire to go and visit the shrine themselves. But that would have to wait for another day. A woman would have to be desperately poor, old, and mad to attempt to jostle with the crowds of men on a Friday. Wealthy young ladies whose griefs could never be allowed a depth to shatter sanity must make other arrangements. The girls knew it was true.

  A curious look of satisfaction came to Umm Kulthum when, naturally but regretfully, she had to refuse the request with a “Maybe next month sometime...”Although I saw the satisfaction, I soon dismissed and forgot it as no more than a simple woman’s delight at all outward shows of piety.

  In about two hours, the Friday sermon was over and the mosque emptied itself. Then we khuddam made an attempt to shake off our drowsiness. A good number of the males decided, having come so far out in the country, that they would take advantage of the pleasant air and visit the Sweet Waters as well. We ruffled ourselves like threatened cocks and stood to attention so we would be more visible. And all the men did stay removed from our hollow. Why mar newly gained sanctity from the shrine of Eyüp by contact with strange women?

  One party, however, did not immediately take the hint. As my colleagues and I moved closer to answer the threat, however, aw understood that it was not ignorance on the part of the men but knowledge that drew them. The leader of the small group of young scholars was Umm Kulthum’s youngest son Abd ar-Rahman. Soon Umm Kulthum’s eunuchs were carrying the remains of our picnic to them, After a while, when the young men were refreshed, Abd ar-Rahman himself came halfway up the hillock and his mother and sisters came halfway down to exchange formal, heavily guarded greetings.

  Abd ar-Rahman was full of the day’s sermon. The imam he found brilliant and learned. He thanked his mother for the suggestion to come there that day and he would try and do so as often as he could in the future to learn more from the man.

  Now his youngest sister Betula, a girl not much older and about the same size as Gul Ruh, stamped her foot angrily “Oh, Brother, why must always be so tedious? It’s spring! It’s a beautiful day and here we are in this park with the birds singing like mad. Can’t you for once be just a little romantic?’

  “And you are such a silly girl!” her brother retorted with self-righteous indignation. “So brazen in that color. I should be ashamed to give you to any one of my friends to wife. He would blame me and say I gave him a harlot.”

  The girl blushed, but not with shame. She was rather pleased. Her brother was indignant: She must have succeeded in being truly attractive. And “that color”—pink—must be one he found particularly pleasant for him to raise such a fuss about it. Pleasure always made him uncomfortable. He was so unused to the sensation.

  Abd ar-Rahman recited some part of the sermon to his sister, advised her to take heed and sent her back into th
e hollow in giggles, It was only then that I recognized her dress. It was Gul Ruh who had taken the spill that had seriously stained the right arm, not the Mufti’s daughter. It was Gul Ruh who had worn her best pink dress that day. The Mufti’s girl had been in green when we left Constantinople. For some reason of girlish vanity I could not fathom (for Gul Ruh looked too sallow for my taste when she wore green), the two had exchanged outer dresses. I had better keep a closer eye on the pair from now on.

  Abd ar-Rahman lowered his voice and spoke a few more polite words to his mother and his older sisters, then took formal leave of them, making his way back down through the trees to his companions. His friends must have known where he’d gone-—the picnic had not appeared out of the clear blue, of course. But they were a polite and very religious bunch, so they made no more comment than if he had just gone off to answer a basic call of nature. Their thoughts were not driven from the discussion of Holy Law as presented by the sermon for a moment. And Abd ar-Rahman was very glad to escape back into that niche where he felt most at ease.

  Suddenly, however, Abd ar-Rahman’s Friday afternoon ease was shattered. So was that of everyone else in the park. At first I pretended to ignore the commotion. A chorus of high, shrill voices was shouting and crying, but I assumed it must be a band of rowdy boys. If it was women, as another moment convinced me it must be, it must be a congress offish mongers’ wives fighting over slippers. Surely such hysteria could not be from our women in such a public place. But just another moment told me that indeed it was.