The Snake Stone

53

Yashim picked his way through the rubbish that had gathered in the courtyard; three tiers of wooden galleries sagged overhead, blocking out the light. The chill air smelled fetid. Yashim knocked several times before a cracked voice demanded his business. He put his lips close to the door.

“I want to talk about a debt.”

“Talk, talk. What is talk?” There was a long silence, then a click. A small hatch in the door opened, and an eye appeared. “Do I know you?”

“I’m here for Xani. The Albanian. Six hundred piastres.”

“When?”

“About six months ago.”

The hatch slid shut again. Inside, he could hear Baradossa muttering to himself.

The eye reappeared. “Who’s that with you?”

Yashim glanced around. The courtyard was empty.

“I’m alone,” Yashim said.

“Will you step back and show me your hands?”

Yashim stepped into a windowless room. Baradossa slid the bolts home and hobbled to the far end of a table, carrying a candle. The cold air reeked of cabbages and sweat. So clean, Rebecca had said, you could eat off the floor. He’d have liked to fetch her in.

Baradossa set the candle on the table and rubbed his hands. “Cold?”

He was a small man, slightly bent, with a gray, bushy beard and small white hands, which he held up in front of his chest, like a squirrel. He might have been forty-five, or seventy-five, except that he wore, Yashim noticed with surprise, artificial teeth: they clicked in his mouth when he talked. He was dressed in a dark woolen coat, with a patterned shawl across his shoulders. His stillness was expectant.

“Xani,” Yashim said. “I’ve come to pay.”

“Oh yes?” The old man sniffed. “It’s you now, is it?”

“I come as a friend.”

“A friend, is it?” Baradossa rubbed his chin. “Would that be capital or interest, efendi?”

Yashim reached into his cloak and drew out a purse. Baradossa’s eyes flickered toward it. Yashim held the purse softly in his hand. “Interest. Forty piastres.”

“Forty piastres?” Baradossa sounded surprised.

“Xani couldn’t come,” Yashim said.

Baradossa glanced from the purse to Yashim’s face. He moved his head slightly.

“Do you know Xani, efendi?”

Yashim shook his head reluctantly. He felt confused. The old man didn’t move.

“They asked me to come. The interest is due.”

Baradossa slowly raised his shoulders until they almost reached his ears. Then they dropped.

Yashim counted out the money onto the table. “Forty piastres.” He looked up. Baradossa was watching him. Then his upper lip peeled back into a grin, exposing a row of little yellow teeth.

“Forty piastres, efendi? What makes you think I want your money?”

He came around the table and put his hands to the door bolts, sliding them back.

“He owes you six hundred piastres!”

“Is that what they told you, efendi?” Baradossa swung the door wide open and peered out.

Yashim felt the surge of goodwill that had followed him from the kebab shop evaporate.

“There never was a debt, was there?” It was a statement, not a question. There had been a trick. At least he’d saved Marta’s little hoard. “Forgive me, efendi.”

He took a last look around the room. At the doorway Baradossa’s eye wandered to the table, then back to Yashim’s face. Yashim glanced down. It had been there all the time. A sheet of paper, on which was written in a neat Arabic hand the name Xani, and the sum of 600 piastres. Below the rubric, in red ink, a date in the Jewish calendar and the words: Paid In Full.

“The month of Tammuz,” Yashim said dully. “It’s just begun.”

Baradossa merely raised an eyebrow.

“So Xani came and paid it off?”

“Who else?”

It was Yashim’s turn to shrug. “Yes,” he echoed. “Who else?”

The courtyard seemed bright after the dimness of Baradossa’s cell. He picked his way downhill through the crooked streets, toward the Golden Horn.

“Who else?” he muttered to himself. A little breeze touched his cheeks; it came off the water. He didn’t feel it.

Xani had paid off his debt, out of the blue. And then, almost immediately, he disappeared. It didn’t make sense: the waterman should be enjoying his newfound freedom.

Yashim stopped in the street. Enver Xani, he thought, had disappeared for good.