An Evil Eye

40

At this hour of the day when the sun slanted almost horizontally across the landscape, you could sometimes make out dark forms behind the latticework that protected the upper windows of every Ottoman house. Men spoke of glimpses of a pretty hand, or a pair of liquid eyes, to which imagination attached the figure of a houri from Paradise. Yashim ducked under the pears and walked quickly across the courtyard to the back door.

My name is Yashim: I am a lala from the palace, he could say. We have been concerned for your safety while the pasha is away.

Nobody answered his knock. He listened. No footsteps; no whispers.

Yashim tried the shutters. They were fastened from the inside, but overhead was a balcony facing away from the church and toward the hills. With a swift glance around, he shinned up from the shutter to the balustrade.

A lattice door pierced by a thousand little openings was shut fast by an inside hook. Yashim slipped a knife from his belt and slid the blade into the jamb. It clicked against the hook and the door swung free.

He stood, breathing heavily in the doorway.

Once before he had entered a harem like this, by stealth. He’d been looking for a man hiding among the petticoats-and Fevzi Ahmet had been waiting for him downstairs.

Now it was Fevzi’s house. Fevzi’s harem.

He stepped through the doorway.

“Ladies! Ladies! I am Yashim, a lala from the palace! Come out, and do not be afraid!”