An Evil Eye

153

Preen took Kadri’s chin in her hand.

“What was it, darling? Theater life too dull?”

Kadri smiled, and ducked away. “Too exciting, maybe.”

“I was about to teach you to juggle,” Preen said, with mock reproach. “Juggling’s another whole two kurus a week.”

“I’m going to try it on my own,” Kadri said. “Will you give me a job when I’m finished at school?”

Preen waved a hand. “Oh, you’ll be on your way by then. Grand vizier by thirty.”

They both glanced at Yashim, who stood at a discreet distance pretending to read a playbill tacked to the wall, his hands clasped behind his back.

“Not my idea,” he announced, without turning. “The Great Kadri! The India Rubber Man!” He swept his hand across the playbill. “Dropped from a roof! Fired from a cannon! It’s safer than politics,” he added.

As they were leaving, he took Preen by the hand.

“That party,” he said. “Where you saw Fevzi Pasha-and the girl.”

“Hmm?”

“Husrev Pasha wasn’t there, too, by any chance?”

Preen frowned. “As a matter of fact-why do you ask?”

“I just wonder-I don’t know. Perhaps we all had Fevzi Pasha slightly wrong.”

“Wrong? The man’s a monster, Yashim.”

“Of course. Of course. I know that.”

She gave him a curious look. “You’re not going soft on him now, darling? I don’t know what it is about you and that man-if he’s not the devil, he’s got to be an angel. But that’s not the way it works.”

Yashim nodded. “I know. I met him-” He shrugged. “I suppose it was an impressionable age. Kadri’s got you, luckily.”

“Kadri, Yashim, is not a fool.” She smiled. “Go on. Take him back to the school.”