An Evil Eye

71

Yashim clapped his book shut with an exclamation of surprise. “ Everything that is useful,” Gautier had written, “ is ugly.”

Yashim contemplated the nutcracker in his hand, with its chased brass handles and polished iron jaws. He let his eyes wander around the apartment, from the shelf beside the divan, with its collection of porcelain and books, to the stack of crocks and pans in the far corner where he cooked. What sad world did this Gautier inhabit, that everything useful could be described as ugly? It was a fault of the Franks to make their slightest opinions sound like revealed laws, of course.

At his thigh were a marble mortar and the knife with Ammar made me inscribed on the Damascus blade. These useful things, Yashim felt, were also beautiful. With half-closed eyes he thought about Istanbul-its lovely minarets for calling the people to prayer, the scalloped and fluted fountains, which relieved the people’s thirst. He considered the slender caiques, which bustled people across the water in all directions, and cracked another walnut, smiling as his thoughts turned to the sultan’s palace.

The loveliest women that the empire could provide-would Gautier call them useless, then? Yashim knew the harem as a school, an arena for ambition, a human factory geared to the production of royal heirs. Many a pasha had blessed the Circassian girls for drawing a headstrong sultan away from delicate affairs of state and into their beds. The mere effort of observing the intricate etiquette of the harem quarters was enough to keep a sultan busy.

Gautier, he felt, had got it the wrong way around.

He laid the book on the divan, careful not to let his oily fingers stain the green leather binding with walnut juice.

Yashim took the mortar to his kitchen, set it on the bench, and put a small open pan on the coals. He began to pound the walnuts with a stone pestle. When the pan was hot he threw in a scattering of cumin seeds. He rattled the pan on the coals and poured the seeds into a black iron grinder. He turned the handle and ground the cumin over the walnuts. He added a pinch of kirmizi biber, which he had made in the autumn. He sprinkled the end of a dry loaf with water, then carried on pounding the walnuts. Eventually he squeezed the bread dry and crumbled it into the mortar between his fingers, along with a generous dollop of pomegranate molasses.

When the muhammara was finely pounded, he stirred a thread of olive oil into the mix. He tasted the puree, added a pinch of salt and a twist of pepper, and poured it into a bowl, which he covered with a plate and set to one side.

For the next hour he worked at his remaining meze: a light salad of beans and anchovies mixed with slices of red onion and black olives, and another made with grated beetroot and yogurt. Finally, he made soup with leeks and dill.

He was almost done when there was a knock on the door. A chaush in palace uniform stood at the top of the stairs, carrying an invitation on vermilion paper.

The chief black eunuch requested Yashim’s presence at the Besiktas palace that afternoon.

Yashim bowed, placed a hand to his chest, and murmured: “I shall attend, inshallah.”