The Sultan's seal

18

After dinner, Sybil and Kamil stand on the balcony off the second-floor reception hall and look out at the dimly lit city beyond the high stone wall surrounding the compound. Dusk has taken them by surprise. The Bosphorus is an emptiness beyond the city, sensed rather than seen. In the middle distance, a garland of lamps swings between the minarets of a mosque marking the holiday that celebrates the breaking of the month-long fast. The moon, slim as a fingernail paring, hangs above the dome.

“Do you really believe in kismet, that our fate is written on our foreheads?” asks Sybil.

“There’s no such thing as kismet. It’s just an expression, a superstitious belief, the resource of those too lazy to struggle to make something of themselves.”

“That’s rather uncharitable, isn’t it? Think of all the people out there”-she waves a hand toward the dark city-“who try their best, but still lead miserable lives.”

“Yes, that’s true. But I think many people don’t try as hard as they might. I mean, the thought of being completely responsible for one’s own future is exhausting to contemplate. It’s an enormous responsibility, some might say a burden, to place on the ordinary man.”

Sybil turns to him in surprise.

“So you think people are simply too lazy to better their lives, or incapable of taking the responsibility?”

“I suppose it does sound rather mean-spirited, when you put it that way.”

“I think that people can be relied upon to do their best with what they’re given. A poor man, with only a shilling in his pocket, will nonetheless spend it to clothe and feed his children.”

“Or buy rounds for his friends.”

“That’s terribly cynical.” Sybil’s voice has risen.

“I suppose it’s true,” he agrees, attempting to smooth the tension between them, “that I’ve been blessed with a wealthy, well-placed family, a house, an education, so it’s easier for me to be progressive.” He spits out the final word, surprising even himself. When did I become so cynical? he wonders.

“Do you think it’s Islam that is holding people back?”

“Kismet has nothing to do with Islam. It’s simply a superstition, like the evil eye.”

“People need religion, don’t they?” Sybil asks thoughtfully. “How else could they bear up under all the misery and hardship?”

“Religion is the scaffolding within which we build our lives. It falls away when we no longer need its support.”

“What a curious definition of religion. What is religion without belief, without faith? Isn’t faith necessary?”

“I wouldn’t know,” he answers wearily. “Religion seems to me nothing more than a set of empty rituals and linguistic niceties that mean nothing more than what they say.”

“Everything means more,” Sybil counters adamantly. “What you describe isn’t a life, it’s a shell of a life. What is progress, then, when nothing means anything?”

“Progress means to act rationally, on the basis of known facts, not according to one’s kismet or the mumblings of a hodja.”

“Surely it also means to lead a morally correct life. To give your shilling to your children, instead of drinking it away, as you yourself said.”

“Yes, of course. Civilization doesn’t mean everything is acceptable. On the contrary. There are standards that everyone can learn.”

“And where do they learn moral standards? In church, in the mosque.”

“From parents. And in schools that can correct for the parents’ shortcomings. Proper schools that teach science and the arts, the truly great moral triumphs of the modern age, not the niggling do’s and don’t’s of the prayer books.”

“Niggling? My God, those do’s and don’t’s are civilization. They’re a moral compass. Without them, people are empty vessels, no matter how clever and rational they might envision themselves to be.”

Kamil does not like heated arguments, but respects Sybil for holding her ground. He is tired, his investigation finding no foothold.

“I should go, Sybil Hanoum.” He sees the sadness in her face and feels ashamed that he was the cause of it. He doesn’t move.

“Yes.” She seems at a loss for words. They remain on the balcony, leaning on the wrought-iron railing. Looking out at the dark shapes of trees and buildings, Kamil reflects on how many colors there actually are in what is carelessly called black.

Finally, she says, “I do agree that religion isn’t the only way to learn moral behavior. And it is true that religion is often used unscrupulously to manipulate people and to encourage and justify uncivilized behavior. We’ve had enough of that in England, with our various kings and wars and injustices. But it would be so sad to lose”-she tilts her chin and looks up at him-“those ‘little niceties.’”

“Yes, perhaps you’re right.” He is intrigued by the discussion and finds himself oddly at peace. She is standing by his left elbow, turned to face him. Their hands on the rail are almost touching. I could stand here forever, he thinks. He looks at her closely in the light spilling from the room behind them. Large, guileless eyes in an earnest face, plump neck, the pearl nestling in the indentation at its base, a faint lilac scent. Her hair is coiled loosely at the back of her head, tendrils escaping around her forehead and ears. He senses pressure behind the cloth stretched across her bosom, a will to expand toward him. As he looks, he sees Sybil’s cheeks warm. The pearl stands out like a full moon against her flushed skin. Gerdanlouk, he thinks. An evocative Turkish word, with Arabic roots. It means jewelry, but only jewelry adorning a woman between her lower neck and the top of her breasts. Gerdanlouk. He looks away.

Kamil lingers on the balcony, looking out toward the darker space beyond the trees, hoping the chill, bracing air will cleanse his mind of distractions. The distant pinpoint lights above the mosques waver and wink in the wind, marking the end of Ramadan. A new season, he thinks, a new moon. People cleansed by a month of fasting. Maybe that’s a good thing, to be able to start over every year, fresh as a newborn. Free of sin and vices, the Christians would say. For Muslims, who have no concept of sin, reform means to readjust one’s behavior so that it is impeccable in the eyes of others. It’s never too late for that. What others don’t see, well, that’s another story.

He turns abruptly and enters the room. A moment later, Sybil follows him. Neither looks at the other’s face in the appalling light.

Early the following morning, Kamil rides to his sister Feride’s house. One morning every week, he visits his sister and her twin daughters, Alev and Yasemin-aptly named Flame and Jasmine, the one restless and inquisitive, the other amiably tranquil. They breakfast together. Sometimes they are joined by Kamil’s father, Alp Pasha, who lives in a separate wing of Feride’s mansion. Kamil avoids coming at times when he would encounter his brother-in-law at home. He does not like Huseyin Bey, a distant cousin and a minor member of the imperial family. To Kamil’s mind, his brother-in-law is a palace loyalist, but more crucially, an opinionated and self-centered man.

Kamil senses that, despite her large house filled with servants and children and a constant round of visiting, his sister is lonely. For Feride, social life is a desperate, well-oiled mechanism.

Commotion alienates the heart, he muses. It’s easier to be at peace when the world has retreated to an observable distance. But he knows Feride doesn’t understand this and wouldn’t believe him if he tried to explain it to her. As a girl, she desperately wanted to go on social outings and visits, yet when she returned, he remembers her face as wistful and bewildered. She rarely brought friends to the villa. He thought at the time that she was ashamed of living in such an unfashionable house, but now thinks she was lonely even then. The difference between them is that he relishes his solitude, while Feride fights it with continual activity. He spears a piece of melon from his plate and chews slowly, watching Alev try to squirm out of her mother’s grip as Feride reties the satin bow at the back of her dress and then tells her to sit at the table next to her sister.

His father sits at the head of the table, gaunt and bowed over his untouched food. His lips and fingers are stained brown. Kamil can see the naked scalp through his father’s thinning hair, a sight that pierces him with regret. Kamil tries to get his father to look up, so that he can see his eyes. Regret gives way to anger. Alp Pasha does not look up or respond to his son’s attempts to draw him out. Alev and Yasemin also are unusually silent, their eyes drawn inexorably to the shadowy figure hunched beside them. Feride continues chatting amiably, as if she were in full command of her audience.

“When are we going to find you a bride?” she asks with a teasing smile. “The other day, I visited Jelaleddin Bey’s household. His daughter is lovely, educated, and of the right age. She is as beautiful as a rose. Don’t wait too long or another family will pluck her from under your nose.”

Kamil circles his palm in the air to signal exasperation, but he is smiling. This is an old game between them.

“A well-run marriage will bring you back to us.” She looks at her silent daughters and gaunt father. “If you were married, we would all go on outings together with our new sister-in-law. Wouldn’t that be fun, girls?” Feride has two sisters-in-law, her husband Huseyin’s formidable sisters, but they are not the friends she seeks. The two women jealously guard their brother’s interests against any encroachment by his wife.

“Yes, Mama,” Kamil’s nieces answer in unison.

His father heaves himself to his feet and, with unseeing eyes, moves toward the door. A servant shadows him, in case he should fall.

Feride looks meaningfully at Kamil, but he doesn’t meet her eye. He fights down the anger his father’s rejection always evokes in him. It is an unworthy feeling that he tries to hide from Feride.

Kamil uses his bread to capture a piece of goat cheese from his plate and glances surreptitiously at his sister, who is helping the girls finish their breakfast. He wonders how, despite all her duties and worries, she always manages to look so calm, her hair sleeked back under an intricate cloth cap festooned with ropes of tiny pearls, her gown pressed, her hands resting quietly in her lap or working efficiently at some task. Her long, pale face, with its straight nose and thin lips, is not conventionally pretty, but has a seriousness about it, a peaceful radiance that is attractive. Has this life made her content?

It is a contentment that can kill, he thinks. Always forgiving the gentle violence done to one’s time and aspirations. Making minutes into hours and days into years, when there is so much to be done. He does not want to pour his life into a leaky hourglass.

There is no concept of time in the Orient, he thinks grimly. Time is when you marry and have children, then your children marry and have children of their own. That is how lives are reckoned. Between those markers, people sit in the shade, drink tea with their fellows, and make their neighbors’ hills into mountains or cause mischief.

He prefers to measure his time and calculate what can be done with it minute by minute. His hand automatically finds the pocket watch his mother had given him before he went away for his year at Cambridge. He strokes it absentmindedly.

When the girls have finished eating, they run off. Feride and Kamil move to the sitting room. Feride closes the door.

“I don’t know what to do,” she whispers anxiously. “You saw Baba just now. It has become unbearable. He rarely speaks and never leaves the house. All he does is sit in his quarters smoking his pipe. Not only does he refuse to speak with Alev and Yasemin, now he avoids them in the house. When I asked him about it, he claimed that they’re of an age where it’s inappropriate for them to be in the same room with an older man. He wants them to cover their hair!”

“But they’re only children.”

“I know. It’s ridiculous,” Feride says crossly. Two vertical lines between her eyebrows spoil her otherwise smooth face. “He’s their grandfather, after all. No rules forbid him seeing them. The girls love their grandfather. He used to play with them when they were younger. Now they think they’ve displeased him somehow.

Kamil has a sudden insight. “You know, Feride, the girls are beginning to look just like their grandmother, with that reddish hair and freckles. And their voices, especially Alev. Do you remember how you once described Mama’s voice, like doves cooing? Maybe Baba can’t bear to be reminded,” he suggests.

“Nonsense. He’s simply allowing himself to be old and unpleasant.”

“Have you told him that they’re upset and miss his company?”

“Of course. But he says, ‘It’s Allah’s will.’ Since when has he cared a kurush about Allah’s will? The only will he ever cared about was his own,” she adds bitterly.

Kamil suddenly perceives that Feride has a very different experience of their family. Certainly he has never thought of his father as strong-willed-just the opposite. What else has he been blind to?

“I can’t figure out what’s happening to Baba. And he’s not eating anything,” she adds in a pained voice. “You see what he looks like.”

Kamil takes her hand. “It’s the opium, Feride. After a while, it weakens the appetite. Have you noticed anything unusual about his eyes?”

“His eyes?”

“Are they darker?”

“I haven’t noticed. Is that a symptom?”

“I believe so.”

She stares at him, then pulls her hand away. “Why didn’t you tell me this before?”

“I only just learned it myself. I read it in a book,” he lies. “It happens in the later stages of addiction.”

“You and your books. Well, what should I do? Should I try to stop his opium? I can order the servants not to get it for him, but he might have other sources, and it would only make him angry. What should I do?” she asks again, exasperated.

Kamil is reminded of Sybil and her father. He wishes he could talk to her about his father. Perhaps he will. Why not? He looks again at his sister and wishes he could smooth the frown from her face as he had done as a boy. How would she and Sybil get along? Like fire and fire, he thinks. Or ice and ice. He leans over and brushes his index finger along her brow as if wiping away her frown. For a moment, Feride is stiff and silent, then she begins to cry.

“Don’t cry, my soul.” Kamil sits next to her and holds her until she is quiet. Then he pulls out a handkerchief and hands it to her.

Kamil sits back, frowning, and reaches for his beads. “It might be possible to take Baba’s opium from him, but it will make things worse for a time, much worse. And it’ll be you who bears the brunt of his wrath.”

“But what else can we do? Things can’t go on like this. He’ll starve to death.”

They sit silently for a while, side by side.

“Maybe we can arrange for the opium to be diluted slowly until he’s weaned.” Feride sits up straight, her eyes still blurred by tears, but excited by her idea. “Yes, yes. That’s what we must do. Do you think he’ll notice? If we do it very, very slowly? The servants will help me.”

“I don’t know, Feridejim.” Kamil pats her hand. “The paste is very distinctive. He’s sure to notice any change. I’m not even sure it can be diluted. I’ll do some more reading about it. For now, try to cut down the quantity and make sure the servants don’t smuggle in more. In the meantime, you should prepare the little ones for a difficult period. Baba might lash out at them. That will be even worse than neglect.”

“Maybe I should send them to Huseyin’s mother for a while.” Her voice is unsteady and she begins to cry again.

“You know you don’t get along with your mother-in-law, Feride. Let the girls stay here for now. Just keep them away from Baba if he begins to act differently. It’s a big house.”

“Yes, my little brother. Yes, that’s what I’ll do,” she says with more confidence than she feels. “Thank you. You always know what to do.”

You will face the consequences if I’m wrong, he thinks, but does not say to her.