The Janissary Tree

[ 20 ]

Yashim had, in fact, found time to visit the harem that day; but he had gone in quietly, alerting no one, simply to see where the body had been found, and where the girl had lived.

Her room, which she had shared with three other girls, had iron bedsteads and several rows of pegs on which the girls hung their clothes and the bags which held the scented soaps they were fond of, a few shawls and slippers, some well-laundered strips of linen, and such bangles and jewels as they possessed. As cariyeler, harem maids, her room mates had not yet been advanced to the rank of gozde: but they were hoping.

Two girls had spread an old sheet across their bed, and were busy depilating themselves with a sticky green ointment they took from a plain brass bowl that stood on a small octagonal bedside table. One of them, a redhead with green eyes and pale skin, was carefully anointing herself with a spatula when Yashim came to the door and bowed. She chucked her chin in a casual greeting.

“The gozde’s bed?” Yashim enquired.

The girl on her knees gestured with the spatula.

The other girl, spreadeagled, raised her head and squinted down her body.

“They ought to take her stuff out, poor thing,” she said. “It’s not very nice for us.”

“I’m sorry,” Yashim said. “I just want to see what there is.” He ran his hands over her clothes, then pulled two bags off the pegs and emptied their contents onto the bed. “You must have been friends.”

The girl who was kneeling got off the bed and came across for a better look. She had her elbow out, to keep the ointment on her armpit in the air, and with one hand she tugged her black hair back into a pony tail. Her skin was olive, and her lips were dark like old wine, the same colour as the nipples of her breasts, rising in firm curves.

Yashim glanced back, and then stirred the belongings strewn across the empty bed.

“She was my size,” the girl said, reaching forwards to pick up a bundle of transparent gauze. “We all knew that.”

The girl on the bed giggled.

“She was!” The girl shook the thing in her hand and then gathered it to her chest, working her free arm so that it lay across one breast, the transluscent silk ribbons dangling against her tummy. There was something so innocent and so obscene about the gesture, that Yashim blushed.

The girl on the bed saved him from speaking.

“Put it back, Nilu. It’s too creepy. Have you, lala, come to take her things away?”

Nilu let the bustier flutter back onto the bed, and turned to her friend.

Yashim carefully surveyed the gozde’s belongings.

“What was she like?” He asked.

The girl called Nilu climbed back onto her friend’s bed; Yashim heard the mattress creak. There was a silence.

“She was…all right.”

“Was she a friend?”

“She was nice. She had friends.”

“Enemies?” Yashim turned around. The two girls were sitting side by side, staring at him.

“Ow!” The girl suddenly put a hand between her legs. “It’s stinging!”

She jumped off the bed, her pale breasts swinging, one hand clamped between her slender legs.

“Come on, Nilu. I’ve got to wash.”

Nilu reached for a towel on a peg.

“She had friends,” she said. She scampered to the doorway. “Lots of friends,” she added, over her shoulder.