The Snake Stone

69

A girl came in, bearing mint tea and baklava on a tray. “It’s these girls I am sorry for,” the valide remarked. “They have so little to do with everyone gone to Besiktas. But they know that I can’t go on forever, so. Eat these pastries, and tell me about the big city.”

Yashim told her, sparing none of the details he knew she would enjoy. He told her about the gruesome murder near the Grande Rue, about Goulandris and his adventure in the caique and the two men who had come to destroy his flat. The killing and the attempted assassination interested her; but she was transfixed by the details of the men’s bestial behavior in his apartment.

“Quel sacrilege!” she murmured, quite horrified. “To think that there are men capable of such acts! It must make you proud.”

“Proud, Valide?”

“ Mais, bien sur. Only a milksop has no enemies. To be hated-that is a mark of character. Hold by your friends, take risks, and- ecraser les autres a la merde! ” She raised a delicate eyebrow. “I did not become valide as a reward for politesse, Yashim. But these days people are far too timid and polite. It’s good to hear you talk, even if the details are inappropriate for an old lady’s ears. Go on, have another pastry. I have no appetite.”

“I hope I haven’t spoiled it,” Yashim said.

The valide cast him a mischievous look. “Not at all. Perhaps you have restored it. What are you reading? But of course, your collection is destroyed, and you have come to me for a book.”

“No. It’s something else I want, Valide.” He saw the corners of her mouth harden. “For the sake of the archaeologist, your compatriot,” he began, sweetening the story with a little lie, “I’d like to consult with the master of the watermen’s guild.”

That “consult,” he thought, was a good touch.

“Et alors?” The valide gave a little shrug. “I am so out of touch, my friend.”

It was Yashim’s turn to use the mischievous look. “I don’t think so,” he said.

The valide suppressed the beginning of a smile. “ Enfin, I may be able to write a note. The sultan’s bostanci could help, I think; he deals with the watermen all the time. He’s an old friend, though he goes by some other title these days. Commissioner of Works, or nonsense of that sort.”

She knows his new title perfectly well, Yashim thought. She sits here, in a palace half deserted, and not a thing that goes on here or in Besiktas escapes her notice.

The valide rang a little silver bell. “Notepaper, and a pen,” she told the girl who answered. “In the meantime, Yashim, you may read to me a little from this book. I don’t understand it, and I don’t think I like it. But it also makes me laugh. So don’t be afraid-I shan’t be laughing at your accent.”

And with this whisper of a challenge, the faintest tinkling of her spurs beneath the raillery, she held out a copy of Stendhal’s Le Rouge et le noire.