Altai: A Novel (15 page)

13.

Five years earlier, in 1565, the fleets of the Turk had laid siege to Malta. At the head of that expedition had been the same men now seated at the Divan: Muezzinzade, Lala Mustafa and Piyale Pasha. They had thrown the whole of the Ottoman fleet at the bastions of St Elmo’s Fort but could not bring it down. Under the protection of Saint John, the Knights Hospitaller had resisted for four months, until the Turks had finally been forced to give up.

That failed enterprise was a serious humiliation, the specter raised by Sokollu, the same ghost that Nasi had to exorcize from the mind of the vizier. He said he was convinced that for the Sultan’s troops Cyprus would not be a second Malta, it was too big for that. Neither would there be any great bloodshed, because once Nicosia had fallen the Turks would push their way inland, forcing the Venetians to negotiate a surrender.

“Six months at the most and it will all be over. But the invasion will have to happen soon, before the summer.”

It was late winter, so there was no more time to lose.

Palazzo Belvedere was a hive of activity in the weeks that followed. Sometimes Nasi invited me to sit in the little secret room with him, to show me some of the new guests.

“The thin man with the long beard is Emin Mustafa, a former member of the Ulema Council and cousin of the Grand Mufti. His wisdom is boundless, and so is his vanity. On his right, the old man with the cataract is Eli Ben Haim, our chief rabbi. A tough old character. You’d better have him against you than on your side. And never behind you.”

Ralph Fitch, the English guest, was among the most assiduous users of the library. He had a deep liking for books and read them unselfconsciously, many pages a day.

The news came early in the spring. The envoy from the Sublime Porte had sent Venice the order to cede Cyprus. The excuse used was pirates, as Nasi had anticipated.

The event was celebrated with a bottle of the finest wine. But our anxieties did not diminish, not even when, after the Doge’s refusal, the Grand Mufti appealed to the Muslims to reconquer Cyprus “because peace with the infidel is legitimate only when one derives from it use and advantage for the generality of Muslims.” Even the Prophet, in the eighth year of the Hejira, had broken peace with the infidel to conquer Mecca.

During those feverish days, the Venetian ambassador to Constantinople was arrested in his residence.

“
The die is cast
,” was Nasi’s first comment.

He had brought me with him to the Bosphorus, on one of those outings that he said helped him to think. We had taken the smallest boat, with four oarsmen. David was sitting in the bow, and Nasi stayed with me in the stern. It was a bright, hot day, the first really pleasant one since I had come to the city.

“Last year, Pope Ghislieri expelled our people from the territories of the Church. He ordered that all sign of our presence be erased from the city, even from the cemeteries. There are families who escaped from Ferrara with their dead on their backs. For some time he has wanted to unite the Catholic powers for a new crusade. For a bulldog like him, the dispute over Cyprus is excellent news.”

The picture was beginning to take shape as the boat slipped on, and Nasi kept adding details. France and Poland would not take sides. As to Spain, Philip II had no intention of investing his money in an expedition to help Venice. On the contrary, he would pay any sum of money to see St. Mark’s sink into the lagoon. Still, the Catholic world could not oppose the pope’s invitation. They would take their time, trying to guide the war toward Algiers or Tripoli rather than committing themselves to the defense of Cyprus.

“If I know the Catholic sovereigns at all, they will never reach an agreement,” Nasi said firmly. It wasn’t their alliance that concerned him for the time being. He pointed to the building on the coast in front of him, on the slopes of Pera Hill. It was the same one he had pointed out to me the first time I had come to Palazzo Belvedere, on that same boat: the residence of the bailiff, the Venetian ambassador, Marcantonio Barbaro.

“We know for certain that he is communicating with the outside world, and that his messages are reaching Venice.”

“You mean his imprisonment is a farce?”

“It saves face, given that Venice and the Sultan are now in open conflict. But as I have already told you, in Constantinople the party of the friends of Venice is a strong one. And if Venice and Constantinople reach an agreement, our plan could still go up in smoke.”

“Are you referring to resistance on the part of the Grand Vizier?”

“The vision of Mehmet Sokollu is broad and deep, and he has grand projects that might turn out to be useful to us as well. He wants to dig a canal connecting the Red Sea and the Mediterranean. Can you imagine? You could get to India with ten thousand miles’ less sailing. Cyprus would become a hugely important port of call. But Sokollu likes to take his time, and he doesn’t like risky undertakings. He’s a strategist, not a merchant.”

By now we had reached the city, and the Imperial Seraglio loomed magnificently on the edge of the promontory.

Nasi explained to me that Sokollu could count upon support inside the palace: “Nurbanu Sultan, Princess of Light, Selim’s favorite wife. She was raised Muslim, but she is also the niece of Admiral Venier. She certainly wouldn’t be too pleased if her husband declared war on La Serenissima.”

I knew her story; she was the daughter of a noble Venetian family, captured by Turkish corsairs.

“Fortunately for us,” Nasi went on, pointing at the palace, “she is locked up in her rooms, although that doesn’t mean she is cut off from the world. The hall of the Divan and the imperial harem are divided only by a small courtyard, and the head of the Black Eunuchs has intimated to me that Nurbanu sometimes goes and sits behind the grille that you saw, above the head of the Grand Vizier, and secretly listens in on the meetings of the Council.”

We sat in silence until the shores of the Bosphorus began to widen and the outlines of an archipelago appeared clearly beyond the prow, in the middle of the Propontis. Nasi ordered the steersman to turn back. That day seemed inspired by signs and clues that he alone perceived. He waited until we were back below the bailiff’s residence before he spoke again.

He said he could imagine how the ambassador communicated with the outside world. The expedient was a simple one. Barbaro complained of delicate health, and received frequent visits from the doctor to the Venetian community, one Solomon Ashkenazi.

“The Grand Vizier’s personal secretary?” I asked in amazement.

Nasi nodded. It was only a hypothesis, without any proof. No one could understand how Ashkenazi got the messages out, given that the janissaries searched him at the entrance and exit of the bailiff’s house. But certainly Sokollu was informed of the communications between the ambassador and Venice, and secretly served as their bondsman.

Now the picture was almost complete. All that was missing was me.

Me, the Venetian. The spy hunter.

14.

If patience is a virtue, waiting is an art. I had learned it in my Venetian years, lying in wait for spies and conspirators. Staying in the same place for hours, beguiling the time without letting the time beguile me into lowering my guard, had been a crucial part of my job. Perhaps that was why I felt so much at my ease hidden in the shade of the poplars, not far from the villa of the bailiff Marcantonio Barbaro. The prisoner couldn’t have been having too bad a time in there. Seen from the land side, his residence looked even richer, surrounded by a well-tended garden, but above all well guarded, kept under constant surveillance by two orders of watchmen. Inside, I counted four armed men, servants of the bailiff. I imagined there might be a few more inside the house. The janissaries were stationed on the outer circle, by the doors. Grim faces and drooping mustaches, as the code of the Sultan’s chosen bodyguard decreed.

I spent my days studying every detail of the building from different angles. I examined the windows and the balconies, because I knew that sometimes guards communicate with mirrors or little colored flags. I also kept a close eye on the movements of the birds around the building, looking for messenger pigeons, but saw only swallows and crows.

Provisions arrived on a cart on the morning of the second day. Every basket, wineskin and bag was opened and examined before the servants brought it into the building. The janissaries were highly efficient sentinels. No one went in or out—with one sole exception.

It was not until the morning of the fifth day that I saw a sedan chair arrive, and out of it climbed the doctor I was waiting for. I remembered the thin outline of Ashkenazi from the Hanukkah dinner on the day of my arrival at Palazzo Belvedere. He greeted the two janissaries at the main entrance and allowed them to search his clothes before they let him in. They did so without hesitation or compunction, leaving him bareheaded and half naked in the cold of the early morning. Ashkenazi said nothing, got dressed again and crossed the threshold. He stayed in there for half an hour, and when he left, he resignedly submitted to the same procedure all over again. I narrowed my eyes, paying a great deal of attention to the movements of their hands: I had to be sure that Ashkenazi wasn’t actually using the janissaries as couriers.

The doctor climbed back into the sedan chair and was carried down the hill toward the heart of Galata. I watched after the vehicle for as long as I could, then let it go its own way.

What would Consigliere Nordio have thought if he had seen me at that moment, discovering the method by which the bailiff was able to evade surveillance? One of the first things that he, of all people, had taught me was that by choosing simple solutions you reduce risk and error. Sokollu must have been of the same school.

I had already ruled out the possibility that the medium for the message might be Ashkenazi’s prodigious memory. The Venetians would never have trusted the
flatus vocis
, and certainly not if the voice belonged to a Jew. They would certainly demand a letter written and sealed by the bailiff’s own hand.

A different detail had attracted my attention.

The janissaries had missed something.

His shoes.

Ashkenazi, as a privileged Jew, traveled in a sedan chair. Indispensable if you wanted to keep your babouches out of the mud and the puddles, without putting at risk their precious contents. I left my post and set off rapidly toward Palazzo Belvedere. I had just demonstrated to myself that I was still a good hunter.

15.

Two dark-skinned boys were washing their arms in the fountain. They looked like Asians from the East Indies and were so similar that they could have been twins. When one of them released a pin and let his hair fall to his shoulders, I was startled to realize that “he” was a woman. Her breasts were hardly visible under her masculine clothes.

A little way off, a Muslim was finishing his prayers. His robes, his amber skin, his reddish beard all suggested that he was an Arab. He got to his feet and rolled up the carpet on which he had been praying. He also picked up a scimitar. He saw me and nodded his head—a cautious and barely perceptible greeting.

Coming back from the day of investigations and surveillance, I certainly hadn’t expected an encounter like this. The last refugees had returned to their homes, and the drawing room at Palazzo Belvedere was almost always empty.

Last of all, I saw the old man. He was standing beneath the portrait of Donna Gracia and staring at it in silence. The big painting loomed over him. I, too, had often contemplated that picture; I had admired its strength. The
Senyora
’s black eyes looked like lunar eclipses. Her arched eyebrows were bridges hanging over precipices so high, it took the breath away. Her sharp nose was the prow of a ship.

The old man was dressed in the Moorish manner, the darkness of his tunic and turban broken by his white beard. I studied him from a distance, at the edge of the hall. It was impossible to tell how old he was, but his body was still straight, in spite of the stick that he held parallel to his leg.

At that moment a door opened and a servant came rushing into the room. He barely deigned to glance at the other foreigners, but headed straight for the old man. When he was close to him, he slowed his step as if he didn’t want to frighten him. Or perhaps he was the one who was scared.

“Don Yossef is at the Seraglio, Effendi
.
A guest of the Sultan,” he said in Turkish, his voice full of bitterness. “We have managed to warn him, but you will understand that it’s difficult for him to be here before evening.”

“Duarte Gomez?” asked the old man.

“You mean . . . Don
David
?
He was with Don Yossef.”

The old man spoke the name of Donna Reyna, and it was like a revelation to the other man.

“Yes, of course, Effendi, right away, Effendi.” He nodded his agreement and flew toward the stairs. The old man stared at the painting again. Less than a minute must have passed when his voice broke the silence.

“Tell me, you who are observing me: Is it only indiscretion on your part, or have you some other motive?”

I froze. I was sure that he hadn’t turned his head in my direction. In spite of the clothes he was wearing, he had spoken in Italian, and in an accent that was clearly European.

“Might I know who is asking?” I replied.

He turned and walked toward me. I stared at him, keeping the others in the corner of my eye. We found ourselves face to face, and I met his gaze, more out of curiosity than defiance. His eyes were gray and piercing. For some reason the memory of Tuota flashed through my mind.

“I am Ismail al-Mokhawi,” he said. “I deal with the Nasi family’s affairs in the Yemen.”

My sixth sense told me there was more to this than he was letting on. I didn’t yet know the extent to which my presentiment was correct. “Arab name, German accent,” I observed.

“Congratulations; you have a good ear. And your name?”

“My name is Manuel Cardoso.” I gave a slight bow that the old man didn’t return.

“Spanish name, Venetian accent,” he announced, as if we were having a riddling competition. “Are you a businessman, too?” he asked. “Are you in business with João? I don’t think so, or I’d have heard your name mentioned.” He touched my right hand with his stick. “Of course you don’t work with those. No recent marks, only old scars.”

I brushed his stick away. “Your eyesight is enviable, in spite of your age.”

“Indeed. If I’m not mistaken, what you have on your jacket is poplar pollen.”

I instinctively checked my sleeves. On the green of the fabric, some barely visible filaments had appeared, the tiniest pinch. “I don’t remember poplars in the park at Palazzo Belvedere,” he went on. “But there are many in Pera.”

A secret agent should never be dumbfounded, so I maintained my self-control. I don’t know how our discussion would have continued, because we were interrupted by a voice from above: “Don’t upset our man Cardoso, Messer Ludovico. He’s Yossef’s new pupil.”

It was only the second time that I had seen her, and I was very struck. Not an ostentatious woman, but pride shone from her eyes. The old man smiled. He seemed already to have forgotten me and what had just happened.

My mind, meanwhile, was working quickly. He was German. He had introduced himself as Ismail, and Donna Reyna had called him Ludovico. He called Don Yossef and David Gomez by their Christian names. It was clear that he knew the Nasi family well, perhaps since before they had arrived in Constantinople.

With one hand, Donna Reyna pointed to the woman in the painting, her mother.

“Are you paying homage to one who is no more, Messer Ludovico?”

“I am paying homage to one who lives in my heart, Signora.” With these words he touched his chest and bowed to her.

Reyna vanished, reappearing in the drawing room a moment later. Once they stood facing one another, they held each other’s hands for a long time. I looked at the Arab and the two Indians, who remained impassive. I wondered if they had understood even one of the words that had just echoed around the room. In all likelihood they didn’t know Italian.

“It’s still hard to believe you’re here,” said Reyna, without letting go of the old man’s hands. “And yet you are. How much time has passed?”

“Eight years,” he answered, with a half smile. “And they have been a little more kind to you than they have to me.”

It was as if I had ceased to exist.

“You are exactly the same as the man I remember,” said Reyna. “And you have survived a very long journey. You will want to rest and refresh yourself.”

“What my friends and I need more than anything is a hot bath and a bed.” He smiled. “But I’m no longer used to the comforts of a palace. Tell João I will wait for him at Uskudar, in the house where I used to live.”

The woman seemed disappointed, but not very surprised. “You’re not staying here? Yossef will be mortified.” The last sentence sounded like a distant formality.

The reply was a whisper: “Between these walls, memories would keep me from resting.”

“I understand that very well,” said Reyna. “They keep me awake too, every night. And there is nowhere one can go to seek refuge.”

The skin below one of the old man’s cheekbones twitched. I thought that beneath his beard he had clenched his jaw. I wondered what was happening, and what messages were being passed, hidden in their words.

Reyna called a servant. “See to it that our guests are escorted to the other side of the Bosphorus.”

“Thank you,
mia signora
, but that isn’t necessary.” The old man bowed briefly, then turned, saw me and gave a start, as if he had only that moment remembered my existence. He collected himself and walked quickly across the room, using his stick occasionally, followed by the rest of his strange retinue.

The first to catch up with him was the Arab, who immediately addressed him in his own language. The Indian youngsters were slower, glancing around, moving with soft and even steps. They drew up alongside the other two and all four walked on like that, in a row, all talking together, on the path that led through the middle of the garden. Seen from behind, they looked like friends who had just emerged from an evening of drinking and idle chit-chat.

When they had disappeared, I turned back to Reyna.

“Who is that man?”

“He is the past,” she replied. “The past knocking at the door.” She took her leave with a nod of her head. We were left alone, I and the eyes of Donna Gracia. As if those presences had been mirages, the voices the ravings of a lunatic.