The Sultan's seal

35

In the days that followed, the old woman no longer spoke with me except to announce that a meal was ready. I understood her completely and didn’t blame her. She had thought she was harboring a decent young woman in danger of her life, but found that her home had become a place of fornication. I smiled at her, but brought the food into my room to eat alone. I knew she was more comfortable that way. Because of her son, she could not object to our presence.

Except for a narrow slot of light where the shutters met, the room was always dark, making it difficult to read the books and journals Hamza brought me. But I didn’t feel imprisoned by the dark. On the contrary, it was there that I became free. I swam in it as I swam in the pond at Chamyeri, when I discovered my body for the first time. My only regret was that Mama, Papa, and Ismail Dayi were worried about me. But Hamza had promised to tell Ismail Dayi I was safe.

Was I safe? I wasn’t sure what that meant anymore. At what point has one sacrificed enough to be safe? Lines by Fuzuli came to me unbidden in the dark:

I have no home, lost

In the pleasure of wondering

When at last I shall dwell

Forever in the dust

Of your street.

The old woman knew something was wrong. Her face was tense and the tendons in her neck protruded. She did not answer when I asked her what was happening, but projected a silent fury. In response she shoved a bowl of rice-stuffed peppers in my direction. The languorous disconnection that had muffled my thoughts for the previous week was dissolved. I left the food on the plate and withdrew to my room, closing the door. I sat on the chair by the bed. It was completely dark. Without even a shadow, what was I, other than a vessel forged in Hamza’s hands? I couldn’t weep. There was too much danger.

Finally, Hamza’s voice at the door, the woman in her hurry fumbling the lock. Hamza came into the room, disheveled, his turban rimed with dirt. The woman spoke four words, hurling them at Hamza.

“My son is missing.” She stood with her back against the door, red hands twisted into her apron. “He has stopped going to his place of work.” Her voice was reedy, wondering, already disbelieving. She was shaping her memories to hold the future. “He never missed a day in fifteen years. He has always been completely reliable, my son.” The room vibrated with her fear.

Hamza sat heavily on the divan. “Shimshek is dead, teyze,” he said finally.

She didn’t react at first.

“What happened?” I asked him. He shrugged wearily.

The old woman began to shake. No sound came from her mouth and no tears from her eyes. Instead, I wept for her. I went to embrace her, but at my touch, she began to struggle and a hoarse scream rose from her fragile, sagging throat.

Hamza rose and grasped her thin shoulders. “Madame Devora, you must be quiet. Please. Please.”

Madame Devora. It was the first time I had heard her name. Over his shoulder, her red-rimmed eyes sought me out by the window. “Damn you.”

My eyes slid away from hers. I was distressed to have caused her this much grief. I too was sick with feeling. I was sick with a surfeit of memories that deprived me of clarity. Should I act or wait? What could I do? What could I ever do now? It slowly dawned on me that not only was I living outside society and outside of time, but there was no way back. My shadow in the world was the effect my actions had on my family. That was all that could still be observed.

The old woman took Hamza’s arm and spat, “Take her out of here,” indicating me with her chin.

“I’ll do what I need to do,” he snapped. “Let go of me.”

I went into my room and brought out my feradje and veil and laid them in readiness on the divan. I had nothing else. Hamza stood beside the open window, peering through the curtains.

“I spoke with your dayi,” he told me, never taking his eyes from the street. “He said you should go back to Chamyeri.”

He turned and looked at me directly for the first time. Dark shadows chased across his face. His sleeves were torn.

I reached for his arm. “You look tired, Hamza. You need to rest first.”

I saw him hesitate.

We both heard the voice at the door, a man’s voice with the same inflection as the old woman’s.

“Madame, we would like to speak with you. It’s urgent.”

A neighbor? I could feel Hamza tense, an animal deciding which way to spring.

The voice at the door spoke quietly, but in my mind I already heard neighbors rustling behind the other doors on the landing. The old woman was backed into the farthest corner of the divan. I went to the door and put my ear to the wood. The man on the other side and I could hear each other breathing. I pulled at the latch, but Hamza sprang forward and caught me by the arm. As he pulled me away, there was a sharp crack; the wood splintered and the latch gave way. Two men pushed their way through. One was short and stocky, the other lean and quick, but it was the small one I distrusted instinctively, like one shies away from a snake even before recognizing what it is. Hiding behind me, Hamza held me by the waist and pulled me with him toward the window. Confused and angry, I struggled to loosen myself until, with a curse, he suddenly released me. I saw a flash of white at the window. The tall man leapt across the room and caught me as I stumbled forward.

“There.” He pointed his chin at the window and the other man turned and ran down the stairs with an agility unexpected in one of his heft.

“Are you all right?” The tall man led me to the divan. “Please sit. There’s nothing to worry about. You’re safe now.”

I nodded, shivering.

He crossed the room to the old woman and squatted before her.

“Are you here about my son?” she asked in a barely audible voice.

“Your son?”

When she didn’t answer, he turned and looked at me curiously.

“Madame Devora’s son has died,” I explained.

His green eyes rested on me a moment, evaluating. “You are Ismail Hodja’s niece?”

“Yes, how did you know?”

“We have been looking for you.” He turned back to the old woman crouched on the divan. She was rocking back and forth, staring uncomprehendingly at the palms of her hands, clenched stiff as claws in a parody of prayer.

“Madame,” he said softly, “Madame, we know nothing of your son’s death. We are here for the girl. Can you tell us what happened? We’d like to help you.”

She continued to rock, as if she had not heard.

“She only just learned of it,” I explained.

“It often takes time for such a message, although heard by the ear, to be understood by the head,” the man said to me quietly. “But never understood by the heart,” he added, shaking his head sadly.

“Are you the police?” I asked anxiously.

“We didn’t involve the police. I am Kamil, the magistrate of Beyoglu. The kadi of Galata asked me to find you. My associate”-he pointed with his chin toward the door-“works for the police, but as a surgeon. He’ll be discreet. No one but your family will know you were gone.”

I didn’t respond. The experience of lying with Hamza that had so transformed me was to remain invisible, then, a footprint on wet sand to be erased by the next tide. While the other experience with Amin in the pleasure garden that had changed my body but left no other imprint was to be known to the world. I would need to formulate an explanation to my family that left out all that was important. I began to see that it was riskier to offer one’s heart than one’s body.

Neighbors were crowding in at the door. The magistrate beckoned to a buxom woman in a pink-striped entari who bustled over importantly.

He identified his position to the somewhat disbelieving woman and told her to take charge of Madame Devora. He sent another neighbor for the rabbi. It occurred to me that Madame Devora had not asked Hamza how her son had died.

The magistrate surveyed the room, pushed the crowd out into the hallway and closed the door behind him. Madame Devora keened softly and rhythmically behind the broad striped back of her neighbor.

“Are you all right?” he asked me. “Are you hurt? Is there anything we can do for you before we bring you home?”

“Home?” I said the word as if I were looking it over for possible meanings. “I can’t go home.”

“Please come over here.” He led me to the side of the divan farthest away from Madame Devora. I sat again and he squatted patiently before me. We were face to face. A handsome man, I thought, but hard.

“Tell me what you can, please, Jaanan Hanoum. Or, if you like, we can discuss this later after I’ve taken you to your father’s house. I’m sure they’ll be happy to see you are safe.”

“No,” I insisted, “I can’t go there.”

“Surely your father will have you back, Jaanan Hanoum. He was very concerned about your disappearance.”

“You don’t understand,” I explained in a whispered rush. “I can’t go back because I’m in danger there.” I told him about my stepmother and Amin Efendi’s plot. I didn’t say where I had learned this.

He nodded but said nothing. There was a commotion outside the door. The magistrate’s associate pushed his way through and shut the door decisively behind him. He was panting and the sides of his forehead were slick with sweat. It seemed improbable to me that this short, bulky man was a surgeon. I put on my feradje and yashmak, hiding my face, as was proper-although some might say I remembered this too late.

The magistrate motioned for him to stay where he was, then joined him. The room was small, however, and sound carried under the vaulted ceiling. Still breathing heavily, the surgeon told the magistrate, “He ran up the street and through the front entrance of an apartment building. I followed but just outside the back entrance is a big hamam. He must have entered the baths by one of the back doors. He could have hidden in any of the alcoves, or even run through it to the street in front of the hamam. I tried, but I couldn’t find him.”

“Did you see his face?”

“No, but his turban fell off. He had curly black hair and a beard. That’s all I saw.”

“I’m sorry. I’m so very sorry,” I whispered to Madame Devora.

She didn’t respond. The neighbor, however, scowled and I backed away.

“Will she be taken care of?” I asked the magistrate. “I’d like to help, if I can.”

“I’ll let you know if anything is needed, Jaanan Hanoum. But usually the community takes care of its own people.”

He crossed the room to Madame Devora and asked the woman in pink stripes to leave them alone for a moment. She frowned again crossly, but moved away. The magistrate squatted before Madame Devora, so his eyes were level with hers. I could feel him willing her to look at him.

“Who was the man that ran from here?”

Madame Devora froze in place, only her eyes in motion, anxiously scanning the room. I looked hard at her, willing her not to answer. Her reddened hands were clenched in her lap.

“What happened to your son, Madame Devora?”

“That woman killed him.” Her eyes locked onto mine.

“That’s not true,” I cried out.

“Was the man who ran from here involved too?”

“It’s impossible,” Madame Devora whispered.

“Impossible? Why do you say that?”

“They were friends.”

“Who was?”

“It must have been…” She didn’t continue. I let out my breath.

The magistrate signaled to his associate to bring Madame Devora tea from the kettle brewing in the kitchen.

When the surgeon arrived with a glass of tea balanced on his thick fingers, the magistrate stood aside. The man handed Madame Devora the tea, took the magistrate’s place squatting before her, and addressed her in Ladino.

Madame Devora’s eyes swept the room and stopped at my face with a look of hate. Then she responded in the rolling syllables of her dying language.

“No.”

I understood that word. Madame Devora put her tea glass on the divan beside her and wrapped her white muslin head scarf around the bottom of her face, hiding her expression and refusing to say anything more. She began to cry.

The surgeon strode across the room and whispered to the magistrate. I positioned myself to hear what they were saying. I had spent long hours in this room and understood the qualities of sound projected by its thick walls and arched ceilings.

“She told me this woman caused everything. If it weren’t for her, her son would still be alive.”

“What does she mean by that? Was her son in an accident?” The magistrate bent his head toward his associate.

“I don’t think so. I think he was killed. She told me a ‘Turko,’ a Muslim, brought the girl to this house. She claims not to know his name. Her son begged her to do this, although she herself thought it was wrong. She said she didn’t know when she agreed what they planned to do here.”

“What did they do?”

“She said they turned her house into a brothel.”

My face burned.

“I see.” The magistrate looked speculatively in my direction and moved farther away. It did him no good, as I could still hear.

“Why did her son agree to this?”

“From what we know of him, I doubt he would ever have dishonored his mother in such a way. Maybe he was coerced by this ‘Turko’ to put the girl up here. That might be a motive for a fight in which he himself was killed. Just speculation, of course.”

“How long did her son know this man?”

“Eight or nine years. She doesn’t know where they met. Her son told her very little-just said they worked together.”

“At what, I wonder.”

The rabbi of Galata hurried in. His velvet kaftan floated open behind him. A red turban wrapped around a felt hat framed his forehead. The rabbi’s eyes surveyed the room, taking in the situation. Seeing Madame Devora, he slipped off his outer shoes and walked toward her. A young man who followed behind carried their Holy Book.

“We should go.” The magistrate’s associate was keeping a crowd of curious neighbors, mostly women, at bay at the end of the corridor.

“Take me to my uncle’s house at Chamyeri, please.”

A crowd of people had gathered on the street. The surgeon stood by an enclosed coach, his eyes darting in all directions. The magistrate spoke to him in a low voice. As soon as we were inside, the man vanished into the crowd.

When we had settled across from each other and the coach began to move, the magistrate said, “I’ve sent ahead to obtain your father’s opinion on the matter of where you are to go.” Seeing my anxious face, he reassured me, “I revealed nothing, but I urge you to tell him what you told me. He is your father.” After a moment, he added, “It might not be as you think.”

His attention was caught by a commotion on the street. When he turned back to me, his face slashed by light from the closing curtains, he offered, “If you wish, I will explain things to him.”

“No, thank you, magistrate bey. I will do it.”

A chain of amber beads slipped through his fingers in patterns as intricate as smoke. His long legs were tucked along the far side of the cab a discreet distance from my own. His eyes rested at a respectful remove, on the empty seat beside me.

“How did you find me?” I asked him as the carriage negotiated the steep, tight curves. Jeering children followed us all the way up Djamji Street.

“My associate’s mother.”

“His mother?”

“The women know everything that happens in the neighborhood. They watch from their windows and pass along gossip.”

I said it sounded frightful.

“But wonderful for enforcing public safety. Although,” he added, “they don’t necessarily tell us what they’ve seen. Your maid fell out of the carriage as it rounded a corner and ran into a courtyard to get help. Apparently no one offered to help her, although she said she attracted a curious enough crowd.”

“I suppose they wouldn’t want to come to the notice of the police,” I ventured, “since suspicion would fall on them before anyone else.”

He gave me a brief, curious look. “Yes, I suppose that would be one reason.”

We fell silent as the carriage passed through a market area, unwilling to compete with the hoarse cries of vendors, alternately aggressive and cajoling, and the quarrelsome voices of prospective buyers.

When we had rounded a corner onto the Grande Rue de Pera, he continued.

“Luckily, your maid remembered the direction of the carriage. South toward Galata. My associate happens to live in Galata. One day, his mother visited a relative on Djamji Street. Some other women there began to discuss the old woman who lives across the street, Madame Devora. For some time, the shutters to her bedroom had been closed in the daytime. The women worried that she was ill, since her son didn’t seem to be around to take care of her and no one had seen her come or go. Yet just the other day a neighbor had seen her lowering a basket on a rope to the vegetable seller. She bought so much fruit she could barely pull the basket back up. They surmised from the quantity of food that she must be expecting guests, but then no one noticed any visitors.”

“They probably knew just how much money was in the basket too,” I exclaimed.

He laughed. “If these women were working for us, we’d solve many more crimes.”

One front tooth was slightly awry. The hidden flaw introduced by its maker into every carpet that marks it as the work of humankind, not Allah who alone is perfect. The stern, efficient magistrate was just another man.

“Once the gossip started, I can imagine them bringing every detail to bear. Someone saw a strange man entering the building, a workman carrying tools, but no noise was heard from the building. The man apparently tried to keep out of sight, arriving in late afternoon, when the women’s husbands weren’t home yet and the women themselves were busy preparing dinner, but he was seen nevertheless. One hot night, the neighbors kept their carpets out on the sidewalk, sleeping in the open air. They said the mosquitoes kept them awake. A strange man came out of the building in the hour before the morning call to prayer. Unfortunately, they didn’t see his face.”

He looked pointedly at me before continuing.

“So they took action. They went to visit Madame Devora. Of course, they knew she was home. They know everything! When she didn’t answer her door, they became convinced something was wrong, and they delegated my associate’s mother to report it to her son, who came to me. We had already been looking in Galata, thanks to your maid’s information. And that is how we came to find you.”

Thus was I found and lost all at the same time, in both cases through the tongues of women, a force that shamed and secluded me for nothing more than losing a bit of flesh, and then rescued me from a shame and seclusion that I desired. We stopped at an official-looking building and the magistrate disappeared inside. When he reemerged he brought with him a taciturn widow in an all-enveloping black charshaf that covered even her lower face, who accompanied me for the rest of the trip home.

At Chamyeri, Ismail Dayi helped me from the carriage. The chaperone, who for the entire trip had stared silently through the gauze-curtained window, refused refreshment and ordered the carriage to return to the city. Ismail Dayi’s shoulders looked stooped and thinner under his robes than I remembered. His face was pinched, his beard flecked with gray, and small spots of red glowed on his cheekbones. I bowed before him, took his hand and kissed it, then touched it to my forehead. He pulled me up.

“Jaanan, my lion.”

“Where is Mama?” I asked, looking past him into the dim interior beyond the doors.

He took my hand. “Come inside, my dear.”

Violet was waiting in the entryway. An egg-yolk-yellow kerchief tied around her head emphasized her black eyes screened by long lashes, eyebrows like an archer’s bow laid across them. She moved toward me and we embraced. I inhaled the familiar smoky scent of her skin. Her cheeks under my lips tasted of salt and milk. But the tinder did not kindle into joy. The cook’s boat had been cut adrift, then burned.

I pulled from her embrace and went to Ismail Dayi. He led me to his study, where we had spent so many happy winter evenings. Now the windows to the garden were open and the familiar scent of jasmine twined into the room.

Ismail Dayi lowered himself onto the divan. Violet adjusted the cushions behind his back. He waved his hand to indicate that she should leave. With obvious reluctance, she backed out of the room. For some moments we sat silently, our limbs wrapped in the scented warmth from the garden.

Finally, Ismail Dayi spoke.

“My daughter.” His voice was husky-with illness? I did not know and I was suddenly ashamed of how much I had tested him.

“My dear dayi,” I said, “you’re the one who has worried and suffered for all of us. I’m so sorry to have been an added burden to you.”

“My daughter, there was never a burden as sweet as you. I thank Allah for bringing you into my life.”

He paused for a moment, then continued.

“Jaanan, I’m sorry, but I must tell you. Your mother has passed away.”

I felt nothing. Or rather, only a rushing sound far away, as if a monumental wave were coming closer, but was still too far away for me to run for cover. How did I know about such waves? They were there in Violet’s sea, in the lost fingers of Halil the gardener. They were the crushing, grinding behemoths that tortured Hamza’s sea glass on their forges of sand until the stones glowed from within like blue eyes.

I was speechless. What opportunities had I missed? My hand remembered the feel of cold satin like a ghost limb.

Ismail Dayi tried to take my hand, but I pulled it away.

“What happened?” My voice sounded too steady, too matter-of-fact, and I felt ashamed of that too.

“She caught a draft and it went to her lungs. It was very rapid. May your life be spared, my dear.”

He squeezed my arm. His touch opened a channel through which a current of sorrow began to flow. But I resisted it. Another vein of weakness when so much of me had run dry.

The waves were nearer. I bowed my head and let them rage through me, but said nothing.

Ismail Dayi stared sadly into the fire. “I never told her you were lost. I told her you had gone to your father’s. I didn’t want to worry her. She loved you greatly, my dear daughter.”