An Evil Eye

33

The boys’ dormitory in a long, narrow room high up under the eaves contained twelve cots and a table with a washbasin. On a stand lay a copy of the Koran, transcribed by gifted boys over the years; Yashim thought he recognized his own hand in the pages, but he could not be sure. It was a long time ago.

The fire in the grate was cold.

A barred window at the end of the room looked out over the many-domed roof of the refectory. Beyond it, across a narrow lane, he could see the leaded dome of a small mosque.

“Took him from Anatolia,” the tutor said. “He’d been living wild.”

“Wild?”

“In a cave, apparently. One of the clansmen found him. Sent him on.”

Yashim nodded. It wasn’t unusual for boys to be sponsored to the school. No doubt one of the clan chiefs of Anatolia had recognized Kadri’s talents and sent him to Istanbul in the hope that one day he would be in a position to repay the favor.

The tutor shrugged. “Long time ago, Yashim efendi. For Kadri, I mean. He was only seven or eight-half a lifetime ago, in fact. Been in training ever since.”

“He left from here?”

The tutor made a gesture of bewilderment. “Must be so. We do a roll call every night. Kadri was marked in.”

Yashim squatted in the fireplace and looked up the chimney. “Maybe another boy answered for him?”

The tutor shook his head. “Kadri took the roll himself. I could show you the register. The boys agree that Kadri was there when they turned in.”

“After the register, the doors are locked?” Yashim stood up, rubbing his hands. The chimney was narrow and capped with a cowl. “And in the morning, someone beats the gong.”

The tutor nodded. “Older boys bring tapers to the dormitories. That’s when they found Kadri missing.”

“But he’d slept in his bed.”

“Yes.”

“And then?”

“The boys looked around, then came down to the mosque and told me what had happened. I came up and searched, too.”

“Let’s go downstairs,” Yashim said.

It was a stone staircase, with a landing between the floors. Yashim stopped to contemplate the landing window, high in the wall. Then he moved on downstairs and into the courtyard, to study the dormitory block from the outside. It was just as he remembered, built in the spare classical Ottoman style, with deeply inset windows and dressed stone walls.

Beyond these walls so much had changed in the years since Yashim was there. Laws had been changed, the Janissaries suppressed. Egypt, the ancient grain store of the empire, had slipped from the sultan’s grasp under its charismatic Albanian overlord, Mehmet Ali Pasha; Russia had moved closer.

“Fazil!”

One of the boys coming out of the gymnasium broke away from his companions and salaamed.

“Fazil shares the dormitory with Kadri. Tell the efendi what happened this morning.”

Fazil gave his account. Kadri hadn’t been in his bed when the gong went.

“Did you look under all the beds?” Yashim asked the boy again.

Fazil scratched one leg against the other and admitted that he couldn’t be sure.

“How about your own bed?”

“I–I think so, efendi. Or one of the boys would have looked.”

“And the chimney?”

“I can’t remember, efendi. Later, I looked for sure. I am sorry.”

“It doesn’t matter,” Yashim assured him. “Thank you for telling me.” He was surprised how little seemed to have changed since his day. The boys, it was true, were dressed differently, in Frankish uniforms-but they were the same boys as before, lanky, handsome, darting from one classroom to the next holding their books.

He half smiled to himself as he caught sight of an imam in his white cap and long brown robes, treading solemnly along the cobbled path. That element of the curriculum, at least, was unchanged.

“Either Kadri is still here, tutor, or-” Yashim squinted up at the side of the building. “Is the catch on that landing window fastened?”

The tutor heaved a sigh of impatience. “Anyone who jumped from that window, Yashim efendi, would be dead at the foot of the wall.”

Yashim nodded. “Let’s find someone with a ladder.”