The Bellini Card

32

She had let her scarf drop before she caught sight of Yashim. Now she snatched it and pulled it across her face, but not before Yashim had seen the same high cheekbones and the big mouth he remembered from fifteen years before; her eyes were her mother’s, he supposed.

He stood up.

“Forgive me, hanum. I am Yashim lala — I met Yamaluk efendi at the Topkapi Palace, many years ago.”

She hesitated with the scarf. Lala was the honorific Yashim often used: guardian, uncle, it was given to a certain class of men who were not exactly men. And Meliha hanum was herself no dimpled maiden. Stouter and shorter than her father, she was a mother and a grandmother, too. But she knew the ways of the palace.

She let the scarf drop.

“You gave me a fright, Yashim lala, sitting there,” she said. “I thought you were my father.”

“I am sorry, hanum, I did not mean to intrude. When no one answered the door, I looked inside. I am afraid I was overcome by the beauty of this place.”

“It is-very tranquil.” She sounded uneasy.

“I had hoped to speak to your esteemed father,” Yashim said hurriedly. He felt awkward. “Please. I can come another time.”

Meliha hanum closed the street door and took a few steps into the courtyard. “I have not seen you before, Yashim efendi. Are you a friend of his?”

“We have met, hanum. I come as a friend.”

“Yamaluk efendi passed away a month ago.”

“My condolences, hanum. I am sorry to hear it.”

A silence gathered between them.

“The peace of God be with him. I did not mean to intrude upon your grief.” He moved past her, toward the door.

“It is no intrusion. He was an old man,” she said. “I–I could show you the room he worked in.”

There was a pride in her voice. Yashim turned.

“I would be honored,” he said simply.

“My name is Meliha,” she said. “My mother died giving birth to Matun, my little brother. He died when he was eight years old. I was fourteen.”

As she turned to unlock the door, Yashim began to understand. Yamaluk had been her father and her mother. Yet she would have had to look after him, too.

“This is the knife for the brushes. This dawat — the inkpot-is of Persian lacquer. We kept the best paper here, away from the sunlight.” So she guided him around the room, pointing out the articles of her father’s craft, touching them with her strong fingers.

A calligrapher’s fingers: she had her father’s hands.

“I’m told your father did some of his best work after he retired from Topkapi,” Yashim remarked. “As if he had rediscovered his energy.”

“It’s not for me to say,” she said quickly. “He liked it here.”

“Did you grind his pigments for him, Meliha hanum?”

She didn’t reply. Yashim bent over the paper on the table and was struck immediately by the fluid strength of line, the beautiful and painstaking coloring of the margins. He recognized the sura; it was from the Koran.

He took a breath. The ink, he thought, was still fresh.

“Is it forbidden,” he asked slowly, “for a woman to transcribe the word of God, when she does it as well as any man?”

Their eyes met.

“It is not forbidden,” she said. “But I did it for him.”

Yashim dropped his gaze. Yamaluk had trained his daughter; she had equaled him. Now Yamaluk was dead and this might be her last Koran.

He looked around in silence. Yamaluk-or his daughter-worked in patterns, too, transcribing beautifully colored geometric designs. Yashim knew that they represented the mysteries of Creation and were attempts to reveal an underlying form. The Iznik tiles he had rescued drew on the same tradition.

He stopped in front of an iridescent pattern of twelve flowers blooming at the edges of a circle.

“The Tree of Life,” Meliha said, smiling.

“And this one?”

“It’s an astronomical pattern. An old one. It doesn’t have a name.”

“And this? I’ve seen this one before.”

“Yes-it’s Greek. We call it the Sand-Reckoner’s diagram, from Archimedes.”

Yashim nodded. He knew something about the mathematician who was wantonly killed by a Roman soldier in Syracuse eight centuries before the birth of the Prophet, peace be on him. He did not know that the diagram belonged to him.

“It looks familiar, all the same.”

Meliha followed the pattern with her eyes. “The Greeks-I mean the later Greeks, in Byzantine times-liked the diagram, so perhaps you have seen it somewhere in the city.”

There was no need to ask which city. To the Byzantines, as to the Ottomans, there was only one city. One Istanbul.

“Think of it as a diagram of possibilities. Explored and unexplored.”

Yashim studied the figure. “But couldn’t that be infinite?”

“Possibilities aren’t infinite. Only impossibilities. The realm of the possible has limits. The grains in a handful of sand could be counted. It’s within the bounds of the possible.”

Yashim nodded. They stepped out into the courtyard.

“Your father lived alone?”

Meliha smiled. “He was never alone while he had his books. And we live so close. He was always welcome in our house.”

“He had a lovely garden,” Yashim said.

“He loved the lemon tree. He would sit there for hours in the evening, efendi,” she said. She gave a little shiver. “That was why you gave me a fright, sitting there. It was just-where I found him.”

“I’m sorry, hanum. But it is a place of sublime peace.”

Meliha bit her thumb and looked away. “I–I suppose so.”

“A place he loved, his family close by, his books.” Yashim sought to reassure her. “It’s a gentle way for an old man to go.”

“I don’t know, efendi. I wish I thought so. He looked-he looked so awful. His eyes open. So afraid.” She put her fist to her mouth.

Yashim looked her in the eye. “I’m sorry,” he said. There was nothing else to say, nothing that could be said. The knowledge of death was an unspoken bond between them all. “What was he working on?”

“He didn’t work much. He had his address to write-he worked on that.”

“Address?”

“He wrote an address to celebrate the accession of the young sultan. It was so beautiful. In kufic.”

Yashim knew the style: the Arabic letters pointed and sharp. “A warrior’s script?”

She smiled. “My father said it would suggest the responsibilities of rulership. The sultan is no longer a child: he understood.”

“The sultan acknowledged the address?”

“My father presented it to him in person,” she said proudly.

Yashim nodded, glad for her and for the old man, glad that the new sultan had had the grace to receive him, too.

There was one last thing. “I was told that your father had a wonderful book of drawings. By a Venetian.”

Meliha looked at him sharply. “Told? By whom?”

“Aram Malakian. His friend, and mine.”

“Malakian,” she echoed. Then her tone hardened. “And did Malakian also tell you about the diagram?”

Yashim blinked. “Forgive me, hanum. The diagram?”

She stared at him intently.

“The Sand-Reckoner’s diagram.” She gestured to the calligrapher’s room. “Which we just discussed.”

Yashim returned her gaze. “I’m sorry. I don’t understand.”

Meliha sighed and let her shoulders fall. “No, Yashim efendi. I should apologize. And Malakian is a good man.” She bit her cheek. “My father’s death is still too fresh for me. The diagram was in the album, which he loved. The Bellini album.” She hesitated. “I wondered if he had taken it to show the sultan.”

“Did he?”

She shrugged helplessly. “I don’t know. I didn’t notice it had disappeared until after my father’s death.” She frowned and added, “But I wouldn’t think so. It came from the palace years ago, into our family. I think if he had taken it to show the sultan…” She trailed off.

“Yes-the sultan might have thanked him for the thoughtful gift.” Yashim frowned. “But you can’t find it?”

She smiled brightly. “It will appear, inshallah.”

“Inshallah.” Yashim bowed. “I am grateful to you, hanum. I am sorry I could not meet your father, but it has been an honor to meet his daughter.”

On his way down to the shore he passed a little mosque and stepped inside.

When he knelt on the carpet, and looked up, he saw that inside the dome was written There Is No God but God in black against the white plaster. He bowed his head and murmured a prayer for the dead.

When he lifted his head again he noticed the imam sitting by the screen, reading a Koran.

The imam nodded at him.

“The inscription-it’s by Yamaluk efendi?”

“Indeed so, efendi. A light gone from our world.”

“I have met his honorable daughter, imam. She said that he died-strangely.”

The imam pursed his lips. “Yamaluk efendi did not fear death.”

“But?”

“But the fear of God was in his face when he died.” He placed his finger in the book. “I am sorry for his daughter. Her father must have died after she left him one evening. In the morning he was already cold. He had apoplexy, I suppose. Well, it was quick. God is merciful, efendi.”

“God is indeed merciful, imam,” Yashim replied uneasily.