The Janissary Tree

[ 106 ]

Yashim curled his fingers around the little cup and stared down gratefully at the black liquid settled heavily inside. No spice and a hint of sweet. As he brought it to his nose, a shadow fell across the table and he looked up in surprise.

“Please,” he said, motioning to a stool.

The soup master placed his enormous hands on the table and sank his weight onto the stool. His eyes swung around the cafe, taking in the other customers, the two stoves, the glittering wall of coffee pots. He gave a sniff.

“The coffee smells good.”

“It’s fresh Arabica,” Yashim replied. “They roast the beans here every morning. Too many people buy the Peruvian kind, don’t you think? It is cheap, but it always tastes stale to me.”

The soup master nodded. Without moving his hand from the table he raised his fingers and nodded solemnly at the proprietor, who came forward bowing.

“Coffee, very sweet, with cardamom. No cinnamon.” The cafe owner walked over to his stove. “I don’t like cinnamon,” the soup master added.

They discussed the question politely until the coffee arrived. Yashim was inclined to agree with the soup master that cinnamon in bread was an abomination.

“Where do we get these ideas?” The soup master’s eyebrows shot up in perplexity. “For what?”

Yashim shrugged and said nothing.

The soup master put down his cup and leaned forwards.

“You wonder why I am here. Last night the guards did not show up for work. It is the first time. I thought you might be interested.”

Yashim cocked his head. He was wondering why the big man had come. He said: “I’d rather talk about the past. Twenty, twenty-five years ago. The Janissaries kicked up trouble, didn’t they? What did they do, exactly?”

The soup master ran his fingers over his moustache.

“Fires, my friend. We had men in the corps who could lead a fire easy as a gypsy with a bear. I said we—I meant they. I was not involved. But this was how they made their feelings known.”

“Where were the fires, mostly?”

The soup master shrugged. “In the port, in Galata, over here by the Golden Horn. Sometimes it was as if the whole city was smouldering, like underground. They had only to lift a cover somewhere and—whoosh! Everyone felt it. Danger all around.”

Like now, Yashim thought. The whole city knew about the murders. They understood what was happening. The place was tense with expectation. There were three days to go before the sultan proclaimed his Edict.

“Thank you, soup master. Did you notice the direction of the wind today?”

The soup master’s eyes suddenly narrowed.

“Off Marmara. The wind has been set from the west all week.”