The Janissary Tree

[ 56 ]

Every city has districts which teeter on the fringes of respectability, which have nothing to do with their proximity to the moneyed and desirable centre. However roomy the houses, however convenient they seem, they are always tainted in some indefinable way by the incessant passage of other people: people who take their lodgings by the week, or even by the night; people who come and go, and may or not come back again, and whose purposes are too fleeting and too diffuse to be properly understood. Nobody asks. Nothing is assumed. Services are paid for in advance, and trust is at a premium. Prices are always a bit higher than elsewhere, but the clientele are happy to save themselves a walk, or know no better, being strangers.

Preen, however, was something of a fixture, and paid rent accordingly. Her landlord had nothing to complain of: he barely knew of her existence, being sent out to a cafe where all day he played backgammon with other old fellows and was only asked back if his wife needed to vet a new applicant or frighten a recalcitrant lodger. Guarding her modesty, Preen’s landlady conducted most of her business by shrieking from behind a latticed screen at the foot of the stairs. There was a small window people could use to pay her: they held the money by the hole and she would snatch it up. If she needed to take a look she could press her eye against the lattice-work. Her own room behind was fairly dark.

At the moment she was watching a small black man struggling with a yoke, from which hung two swaying china pots. Paying no attention to the eyes he knew were watching him behind the screen, the man carried his burden past the door and ran bow-legged into the court outside. The landlady followed his movements with envy and irritation.

It wasn’t that the landlady wanted to haul slops to the drain every morning. It was that the little black man she had engaged to perform the task knew everything that was going on before she did.

The slop-carrier returned with his empty pots and set them down in a row beside the others to dry. He faced the lattice.

“Three gents in number five. Eight not slept in, but it smell werry bad.”

The landlady sucked in her lips and pushed them out again. Number five was let for the week, to a single gentleman. She’d have it out with him when they tried to sneak out later on. As for number eight, it wasn’t the first time she’d stayed out overnight. A bad smell was the reason she discouraged her tenants from bringing food into the premises.

If she had time, she thought, she’d go and get rid of whatever was festering in Preen’s room.

A man came in at the door. She recognised him as a friend of number eight.

She rapped on the lattice with her knuckles.

“You can save yourself the stairs,” she croaked, in what she hoped was a kindly tone. Number eight was her best tenant. “Gone out.”

Yashim squinted at the lattice.

“Gone out this morning, you mean?”

It was an unlikely idea. The slop-carrier picked up a mop and began to poke it around the corridor, grinning.

“Whatever,” the landlady replied. “She’s not there now. I can let her know you called, effendi.”

“Yes, thank you. And give her this message, will you?” He tore a leaf from a little notebook he carried, scribbled a few words and folded it. The flap in the lattice dropped down and a withered hand shot out to take the paper.

“It’s important she gets this as soon as possible,” Yashim added. “You don’t know where she’s gone?”

“I’ll see she gets it,” the landlady said firmly.

Yashim hesitated. Was there anything else he could do? He thought of going up to leave a message in her room, but it was too late for that. The crone at the lattice had the message, and the black servant had already wetted the corridor floor ahead.

He bid the lattice good-day, and went out into the street.