The Sultan's seal

9

This is Kamil’s third visit to the British Embassy and he is still not inured to the paintings on the reception room wall. He has elected not to bother the ambassador with any further questions; it is Sybil who generally answers them in any case. He wishes to ask her about women’s activities, he tells himself. The door opens and he rises, expecting the butler to lead him to another area of the cavernous embassy.

Instead, it is Sybil herself, in a gown embroidered with blue flowers. Emerging from the lace collar, her throat has the same round solidity of the woman in the painting behind him.

“Hello, Kamil Pasha. What a pleasure to see you again so soon.”

“It was a lovely evening, Sybil Hanoum. Thank you.” Kamil tries but fails to stop himself from looking into her eyes. “It’s good of you to see me again.”

Sybil lowers her lashes, although Kamil can still feel the weight of her gaze. She holds out her hand toward a comfortable chair near the fire. “Please sit.”

Kamil realizes with some distaste that they are to remain in this most inappropriate room.

He sits, his back to the painting, but remains distracted by the thought that Sybil, who has settled herself in the chair opposite him, will have to look directly at it while they speak.

She doesn’t seem to notice the painting, but sits smiling, her eyes on his face. Her face is slightly flushed. “Can I offer you some tea?”

“Yes, that would be most agreeable. Thank you.”

Neither looks directly at the other.

She stands and tugs at the bellpull on the wall behind the settee. Above the lace collar, the back of her neck rises white and smooth until it is lost in a widening arrow of brown hair. Her hips swell beneath the gown. Kamil looks at his hands and forces himself to think of Mary Dixon, dead, a body, a cipher. That is what he has come for-an answer.

Sybil settles herself back into her chair.

“To what do I owe the pleasure of your call, Kamil Pasha? I imagine it must be something quite urgent.”

“I wanted to speak with you about my investigation into Mary Dixon’s death. Perhaps you have some insight where I have none.”

Pleased, Sybil leans imperceptibly forward. “Whatever I can do to help.”

The lack of demurral and false modesty pleases Kamil. The maid pushes in a trolley of tea and ginger cakes. She pours the tea and leaves.

It soon emerges that Sybil has little to add to what is already known about Mary Dixon. She had been in Istanbul for just over a year. Her position had been arranged by a member of the board of trustees of Robert College in response to a letter from her minister attesting to her good character. She traveled to Paris and was given instructions and papers by someone attached to the Ottoman Embassy there. A week later, she took a coach to Venice and a steamer from there to Stamboul. She had complained to Sybil about having to share a compartment with three other women for the fourday trip. She was met at the landing by a closed coach that took her directly to the women’s quarters in Dolmabahche Palace.

“She came here several times to deal with visa matters. At first she was quite mocking of her new environment and so put out about her accommodations, one would think she was coming as a guest rather than as a governess. She said the girl who showed her to her room…” Sybil hesitates, but decides that in a murder investigation, she has no right to let modesty censor her account. “She said the girl was dressed in nothing more than, as she put it, knickers and a wrap.” Kamil swallows a laugh. Sybil blushes, then hurries on. “And she complained that her room was completely unfurnished. She was horrified when she realized they expected her to sleep on a mattress that they brought out of the cupboards at night and to eat, as she put it, on the floor.”

“It must be a great change for someone used to beds and tables and chairs.”

“I thought it a bit unreasonable in someone coming out here to work. Surely she should have expected the experience to be different. Or else, why would she have come?”

“I’m sure she was paid well.”

“I suppose she must have been, although, of course, we never spoke of that sort of thing.”

“How did she get on with her employer?”

“Perihan Hanoum? Mary didn’t seem to like her. She said she was haughty and unreasonable.”

“You know Perihan Hanoum?”

“No, but I met her mother, Asma Sultan, many years ago.”

“The wife of Ali Arslan Pasha, the grand vizier?”

Sybil nods. “It was the winter of 1878. I remember because it was snowing. A young Englishwoman, Hannah Simmons, had been killed that summer. She was employed as a governess and Mother was visiting the royal harems to see if she could find out anything. The police seemed to have thrown up their hands.” She looks up at Kamil, smiling sadly. “You didn’t know my mother. She was very determined.” She pauses. “It’s such a sad story, but, you know, what I remember best is that we rode there on a sleigh. Isn’t that awful of me?”

“You were very young then.”

“Fifteen.” Sybil smiles shyly.

An image of Sybil in the snow comes unbidden to Kamil’s mind. “It’s commendable of you and your mother to do so much.”

Brushing off the praise, Sybil responds, “It’s not right to be nostalgic when another young woman has been killed.

Kamil ponders a moment. “Do you know anything specific that Mary Dixon disliked about her employer? Did they ever argue?”

“She never mentioned anything specific. I wonder, in retrospect, whether Mary liked anyone. It’s improper to speak ill of the dead, I know, but she seemed so disaffected. The only time I saw her happy-although I suppose animated is a better word-was at the soirees she attended at the Residence. She attracted quite a bit of attention with her short hair and bold manner.”

“What kind of attention?”

“Men. Men seemed to be drawn to her.”

Kamil smiles. “Anyone in particular?”

“Not that I know of. Well, she did have a rather lively discussion with a young Turkish journalist, Hamza Efendi, not long before she…passed away. But I don’t think it meant anything,” she added briskly. “Just a conversation. I only mention it because other people noticed.”

“She seems to have taken you into her confidence.”

“Oh, no. Not at all. I think she needed someone to complain to, but we never had a real conversation. We spoke only a handful of times and I remember feeling quite put off by her reticence. That is, well, I shouldn’t think such black thoughts, but it did occur to me at the time that perhaps she sought me out simply to gain invitations to the Residence.”

“Do you know if she had any friends?”

“I didn’t see her very often.” Sybil pauses. “But I do remember that one evening last autumn she spent quite some time chatting with a young Turkish woman. I wondered about it at the time. It seemed as if they knew each other well.”

“Do you remember the young lady’s name?”

“I think it was Jaanan Hanoum, the daughter of an official, I believe, at the Foreign Ministry.”

“The niece of the scholar Ismail Hodja?”

“Yes, that sounds right. I believe someone mentioned that he was a relation. I suppose it’s possible that Mary met her before at one of our soirees. Jaanan Hanoum sometimes came with her father. I just never noticed them together before.”

Kamil leans forward, pondering this further link to Chamyeri.

Sybil looks down, her fingers entwined in her lap. “Oh, dear, you must think me quite wicked for being so critical, when the poor woman is no longer here to defend herself.”

“Not at all, Sybil Hanoum. You’ve been extremely helpful.”

She doesn’t look up.

“Please don’t worry yourself. You’re mistaken to think you are somehow unjust to Miss Dixon’s memory by telling me what you know of her. On the contrary, you are helping me sort out what I believe you English call a ‘fine kettle of fish.’”

Sybil laughs. “Your English really is remarkable.” Then, turning serious violet eyes on Kamil, still sitting with his back to the offending paintings, she ventures, “Could I entice you to stay for lunch?”

“I would be honored.”

Sybil calls the maid to give instructions, then, to Kamil’s great relief, leads the way out of the reception room.

“From whom did you inherit your discerning palate, then?”

A servant in a pressed black suit stands just inside the French doors, far enough away that he cannot hear their conversation, although Kamil sees the young man’s head straining their way. They sit on the patio, cooled by breezes from the Golden Horn.

“From my grandmother. Since my parents were abroad so much, my sister, Maitlin, and I lived with my grandmother in Essex. Nana was quite a bon vivant. She had the most fabulous dinner parties with coq au vin, flans, these delicate almond fingers…I can almost taste them now. You know, she hired a French cook for her kitchen. It was quite a radical thing to do, since the French were-and still are-quite unpopular. In fact, some of her kitchen staff quit because they refused to work under a “Frenchie.” But the cook, Monsieur Menard, was such an unassuming person that the staff eventually accepted him. His passion was cooking and he produced the most remarkable meals. Other people served stodgy English fare, but Nana’s dinners were always interesting. Not all of her guests approved, of course.” She laughs, exposing tiny round teeth. “I remember one particular lamb chop that was so tender that I can still, to this day, taste the bubble of flavor that burst in my mouth when I took the first bite.”

Sybil stops abruptly and leans forward, embarrassed. “You must think me trivial to be obsessing over a lamb chop when you are here on a matter of murder.”

“One’s past is never trivial. Your description made me think of the house I grew up in, my mother’s house in Bahchekoy. I still live there.” Sybil’s vivid account of her grandmother’s house has pulled him into a conspiracy of memories from which he doesn’t have the will or the desire to disentangle himself.

“My father was governor of Istanbul, and he was also responsible for the police and the gendarmes, so he was busy much of the time. Even when he was at home, we rarely saw him. The governor’s palace was enormous, with so many rooms always crowded with servants and guests and people coming to petition my father or pay social visits to my mother as the governor’s wife. I think it was all a bit too much for her. So when we were still quite young, she moved my sister and me to her childhood home. It’s a lovely villa, surrounded by gardens. You can see the Bosphorus from the gardens. And instead of your Monsieur Menard, we have Fatma and Karanfil,” he adds with a smile.

“Are they your relations?”

“No, they’re local women who cook for the household. Fatma lived in the cook’s quarters that were behind the house then, at the back of the yard. She never married. Her sister Karanfil came in the morning and then returned to her own home. Her husband was a water carrier.”

He remembers them as they appeared in his childhood, two short, round women, their baggy, brightly flowered shalwar trousers expanding upward to meet layers of brightly patterned sweaters and cardigans. Their faces are full moons, but set with disconcertingly delicate features, as if the women have different, slender selves that somehow have been mistakenly absorbed by their heavy bodies.

A powerful, sensual memory of the kitchen of his childhood floods him as he waits for Sybil to refill his water glass. He toys with the fried mullet on his plate.

The women were in continual motion, cooking and cleaning. In summer they brought their work into the yard. He has an image of Fatma, squatting beside a basin of soapy water, her powerful arms twisting a rope of wet laundry. In winter the blue-washed kitchen walls were festooned with ears of corn and strings of red peppers, pulsating with color. A ceramic water urn stood just inside the door, a tinned copper plate across the top to keep out dust. A copper mug rested on the plate. Kamil remembers lifting the plate and looking into the urn, which stood almost to his chest, the hollow quality of the air and the loamy smell of wet clay, the resistance of metal against the skin of water and the satisfying whirlpool entering his mug. Water directly from this urn always tasted like an entirely different substance than water drunk from a glass. To this day, he keeps a clay jar of water and a tinned mug on the dressing table in his bedroom. He drinks from it to clear his mind and calm his senses.

He sips from his glass. Sybil waits expectantly for him to continue, unwilling to break his reverie by prompting him.

He tries to describe the garden, the kitchen, the fresh, lightly spiced cuisine: roasted aubergines, chicken pounded with walnuts and sesame oil, tart grape leaves stuffed with savory rice mixed with currants. Fatma and Karanfil called him their little lamb and plied him with flaky cheese-filled pastries and sweet cakes, washed down with glasses of diluted sugary black tea. Through the crackle of fire and the slap of dough against wood, Fatma’s husky voice wove Turkish fables and legends and cautionary tales of djinns and demons.

“What happened to them?”

“Karanfil’s husband died in a fire and now she, her son Yakup, and Fatma live in an extension I had built onto the kitchen house after my mother died. With the help of a few other servants, they keep house. They cook for me and tend the garden and my plants.”

“You live there alone, then, with your servants.” A statement.

“Yes.”

This time, the silence is awkward. One word carries an insupportable burden, where an hour-long conversation has flown by with unguarded wings.

Sybil’s face and neck flush red. She motions brusquely to the servant waiting by the door and asks for tea to be served in the garden. She stands and leads Kamil to a table set beneath an incongruous palm tree.

“Tell me about your plants,” Sybil suggests in a voice too charged with interest.

“I have a small winter garden, I believe you call it. I collect orchids.”

“Orchids? How delightful! But how do you get them here? Aren’t they from South America? I’ve heard they’re quite delicate.”

“Not just from South America, Sybil Hanoum. There are many varieties of orchids all around us.”

“Here? In Turkey?”

“There is a lovely orchid with sprays of violet blooms that grows in the forests around Istanbul, Cephalanthera rubra.” He smiles at her. “It is our connection to Europe, where this variety is also found.”

Sybil is flustered. “How lovely. Imagine my ignorance. But, but I would so like to see your collection,” she blurts out. She looks down to rearrange her skirts with exaggerated care. “I’m sorry. That would be inappropriate, of course.”

“It would be a great pleasure”-he pauses briefly-“but perhaps it would be better if your father accompanied you.” The sight of her crestfallen face dismays him, but he is unwilling to risk her reputation-or, he admits to himself, his privacy. Still, the image of Sybil bending appreciatively over his scented orchids has taken root in his mind.

Regarding Sybil over the rim of his cup, Kamil lets the warm, eggshell-thin china rest for a moment against his lower lip before he sips from it.

That evening, Kamil blots the ink on the letter he is trying to write. The words he has written seem to have taken on too much color, lost the dry rustle of truth and factualness that makes them scientific and, thus, to be believed by the recipient, H. G. Reichenbach.

Since the garden party, his thoughts have slipped their accustomed tether and he finds himself dwelling on Sybil’s tapered fingers twined around the stem of the wineglass; the plump mound at the inside of her wrist; the hollow at the base of her neck. He thinks with disquiet, but also a little more sympathy, of his father, who, in his opium dreams, has surrendered to blissful communication with his dead wife. He takes up his pen and continues writing.

Dear Professor Reichenbach,

I write as an amateur botanist, but one with scientific observations that I hope to bring to your esteemed attention. I am in possession of a glorious and most unusual orchidae that to my knowledge has not been described elsewhere. It is a small plant with two roundish, semi-attached tubers and basal leaves with one spike culminating in a single showy flower. The flower is velvety black, with an arched labellum and densely hairy petals. The speculum is divided into two symmetrical halves and is a bright, shining blue, almost phosphorescent. I observed the plant in its habitat over several weeks. The arched labellum attracts male insects that cross-pollinate the flowers, perhaps lured by some volatile chemical compound released from its surface.

I collected this orchid in marshland at the edge of a forest in northwest Anatolia near the Black Sea. I have never seen another, nor does it fit the description of any of the orchidacae in your famous Glossary.

It is but one of many wondrous orchidacae in the Ottoman Empire, some of which I have described in previous letters to you. Many are found only here in Turkish lands; others join us to Europe in a continuous ecology. The tulip, the carnation, the lily, these are everywhere depicted, yet the true treasure of the empire, the orchid, is inexplicably absent.

I most respectfully await your response. If you desire it, I can arrange to have a sketch of the orchid sent to you so that you may inspect it further.

Yours most sincerely,

Kamil Pasha

Magistrate and Fellow Lover of Orchids

This is not his first letter to Professor Reichenbach, but he has not yet received a response.