Birds Without Wings (35 page)

Leyla practised a while on her oud, until she grew bored with being unable to concentrate, and then combed the long white hair of her cat Pamuk, who, as usual, became wild-eyed, carried away by the ecstasy, and started to kick and bite when she was grooming its stomach. “Gentle, gentle,” reproached Leyla. “I don’t want any scratches and holes in my hands tonight. You and I have got to be beautiful, both of us.” She went and sat in front of her mirror, mesmerising herself until she was dizzy with the effort. Finally she blinked her eyes, and told her reflection, “This is as beautiful as we shall ever be.” She and her image smiled confidingly at each other. She placed a kiss upon her fingers and touched them to the kiss
on the fingers of her reflection. “Wish me luck,” the two of them said, adding “Nazar deymesin” in case there was anyone about with the evil eye.

She supervised the setting out of the low table and the cushions in the inner courtyard, and then she went to the room where she could inspect the results of the children’s hunt on the hillside. She set a servant, albeit one mightily bemused by the task, to dealing with the business of the candles. It was all very satisfactory; the nearer that it came to the time, the more confident she grew, and the more triumphant in advance.

Leyla returned to the mirror and carefully outlined her eyes in kohl. She dabbed rouge on each cheek, combed her eyelashes and eyebrows, put musk on her wrists and neck, and sprinkled rosewater on the clothing that she had laid out on the bed. She undressed, sat on the side of the bed, and carefully trimmed her dark wedge of pubic hair neatly with a small pair of scissors, not too much, and just enough. It was important that nothing should seem unnatural. She stroked herself a little to make sure that it felt soft and inviting to the hand, finding that it did. She put a little musk on the insides of her thighs, where the soft flesh begins, just above the knees. She stood in front of the mirror and massaged something milky and sweet into her flesh, kneading her breasts, relishing the cool slipperiness of the lotion and the sensations that rippled down to her belly.

Finding that she had an hour or two to kill, she lay down and dozed, forcing herself to sleep a little so that later she would have the vivacity to face a long night. Pamuk settled on her bosom and purred too loudly. The cat had a habit of dribbling when it was happy, and Leyla tolerated this with some displeasure. The worst thing was getting a drop of saliva down your ear when you were sleeping on your side at night.

The sun fell behind the hill, and Rustem Bey came home to his konak at the appointed hour, unsure of what was in store, but with good presentiment. Leyla met him in the selamlik as he came in, and he stopped dead when he saw her. Not only did she smell delicious, but never before had he seen her looking so free and so lovely. She was dressed very lightly in loose baggy shirt and shalwar, scarlet, with a lilac-coloured sash around her waist. Her waistcoat was of black velvet with embroidery of heavy gold thread, and her slippers were of the same design and material. Her fingers were heavy with silver rings. Her black hair was superbly brushed and shining, and her eyes seemed huge and infinitely dark. They glittered in the half-light. Across her forehead glowed the string of gold coins that he had bought for her in Smyrna on their travels, and from the lobes of her
ears hung more gold coins, in descending order of size. “Hanim, there is a beautiful moon tonight,” said Rustem Bey. “One can see in the dark quite clearly.”

“Like last night,” said Leyla Hanim.

“You too are very beautiful,” he said awkwardly, after a hesitation.

She held out her hand, took his, placed it to her heart, kissed it and then touched it to her forehead. “My beauty, if I have any … it’s for you,” she said. “Come, I have something to show you.”

Rustem Bey allowed himself to be led by the sleeve. When they reached the door to the inner courtyard, Leyla Hanim said, “Close your eyes.”

A few steps later she said, “Open them.”

Rustem Bey beheld something so marvellous, so unwonted, that he fell speechless. He put one hand to his forehead, and laughed out loud with delight. Finally he asked, “What have you done? Have I come to paradise?”

The inner court was a sea of glimmering, moving golden-yellow lights. There was no pattern to it. Some of the flames were momentarily still, and others were travelling, meandering slowly among the lemon trees, the pots of pelargonium, oregano, mint and rose. It was as if the stars had been captured from Heaven and been set in motion there in that small square of the lower world. Leyla laughed with pleasure to see him so amazed. “I did it for you,” she exclaimed. “I did it for you.”

Rustem Bey stepped forward and bent down to look. “By the Prophet!” he exclaimed. Each light was the flame of a candle, and each candle was borne upon the back of an animal. “It’s wonderful,” he said. “Where on earth did you find so many tortoises?”

“The children,” said Leyla. “I got the children to go out and find them.”

“It’s wonderful,” repeated Rustem Bey. “I have never seen anything so pretty in all my life. You did this for me?”

“Yes, my lion.”

“My lion,” he repeated. “You have never called me that before.”

“I have,” she replied, softly, “but not so as you would hear.”

“I might have heard.”

They stood facing each other, looking into each other’s eyes, the emotion of this encounter transporting them somewhere new and strange. “Come and eat,” she said at last. “I have prepared a feast.”

Outside the kitchen Rustem Bey found a low table, decorated with tiny lamps, set up with a mezze of small dishes. “Sit down,” said Leyla, her hand upon his shoulder.

Leyla knelt beside him, breaking bread and dipping the pieces by turn in the humus, the cacik, the yellow lentil, the patlican salatasi. These she fed into the mouth of Rustem Bey as if he were a child or someone sick. “Eat, my lion,” she encouraged him, “eat.”

Rustem Bey closed his eyes and let the flavours overwhelm him. “So much garlic,” he said, over and over again, “I have never eaten so much garlic.”

The bulbuls and nightingales set themselves to song, and in the distance the bereaved woman wailed for her slaughtered sons. An owl shrieked, and another whooped. The moon, just at the beginning of the wane, was like a swan adrift on a dark lake. The myriad candle flames wandered slowly about the courtyard, disorientating the senses.

With her right hand Leyla fed the morsels of lamb into her master’s mouth, chanting, “Eat, my lion, eat.” The fumes of garlic filled his head and intoxicated him. Leyla gave him tumblers of water mixed with lemon juice to clean his palate between mouthfuls. She gave him the glasses of spiced and honeyed camel’s milk, and made sure that he drank it. “This is strange, a strange taste indeed,” he said. Pamuk sat expectantly nearby, patiently waiting for scraps to be handed down.

A servant brought forth a small clay dish, and lifted the lid. The steam cleared, and Rustem Bey exclaimed, “An entire head? A whole head of garlic!”

“Baked with olive oil, with its clothes on,” said Leyla. She broke off a clove and squeezed the soft sweet pulp out of the crisp golden skin and on to a sliver of bread. “Eat,” she said.

Rustem Bey chewed, and shook his head. “It’s astounding. I have never had such a feast in my life, not even at a wedding.”

“Eat,” said Leyla, “there are no sweets afterwards, so that the taste will not be spoiled. This is all there is. Eat.”

When Rustem Bey had tried all the dishes and was replete, Leyla disappeared to the kitchen. On the embers of the brazier she placed the small brass cezve. She waited for the magical moment when the foam began to rise off the coffee, and just when it was about to overflow the rim she took it off and let it settle. Then she put it back on to the embers and waited for it to rise again. Only then did she tip it carefully into a small cup, and take it out to Rustem Bey. A servant brought out the narghile, along with an ember in a pair of tongs. Rustem Bey sipped at the coffee and inhaled the cool smoke, which had a flavour, heady and rich, that he had not encountered before. He felt as though adrift. A servant brought out a copper
with a few hot cinders in it. From a linen bag Leyla drew out handfuls of the skins from the heads of garlic that they had consumed. “Smell this,” she said, tossing them a few at a time into the dish, and Rustem Bey leaned over and caught the rich but delicate incense in his nostrils. It was exquisite. He looked up at the stars, at the moon, around at the errant candlelight, and then at Leyla. He caught her intently watching his face.

“All my life, hanim,” he said, “all of it that is granted to remain, I shall remember this night, this feast, these pretty lights, you, your great beauty. What is better, after this? After this, there is only death.”

“I will sing,” said Leyla. She clapped her hands, and a servant brought out her oud. She sat cross-legged on the cushions, took the instrument, tuned it, and began to pick out the notes with a long plectrum shaved from cherrywood. When she had established the melody with its little rushes and hesitations, its melismas and its small sadnesses, she set to singing, all the while gazing into the face of her companion, as if to hypnotise him:

“My lion, when I kissed you it was night.
Who saw?
The night stars saw, and the moon saw,
And the moon told the sea,
And the sea told the oar,
And the oar told the sailor.

When you kissed me my lipstick was on your lips,
Who saw?
The eagle saw, and went in search
Of an equal shade of red,
And the eagle found it
On the lips of a princess.

Let’s light the lantern
And go down to the shore.
What if the waves are too big
And carry us far away?
We’ll turn ourselves both into boats,
And our hands will become the oars.”

“Sing something sad,” said Rustem Bey. “If there is too much happiness in one night, someone will give us the evil eye.”

Leyla stroked the strings, composed herself, and sang, her voice deepening with sorrow:

“As death approaches,
My only wish
Is to die in the place
Where I was born.
Life is painful,
But on it goes.”

She stopped quite suddenly, and Rustem Bey looked at her. She smiled back, but he asked, “Why are you crying? You have tears in your eyes.”

“I can’t help it. It’s the sad song.” She wiped her eyes with the back of her sleeve, and added, “I will never again see the place where I was born.” She sang again:

“Where can I plant you, my red rose?
I fear the sailors
If it’s by the shore.
I fear the cold
If it’s out upon the mountains.
I’ll plant you by a mosque,
I’ll plant you by a church,
By a beautiful sainted tomb,
Between two apple trees,
By two bitter-orange trees,
So that all their blossom and
All their fruit will fall
On you, my red rose,
And by your root,
There will I lie asleep.”

Her warm voice, full of passion and melancholy, carried out over the town and echoed among the ruins of the Lycian tombs, where the Dog lay on a slab and listened. “Have you noticed?” said Rustem Bey. “The nightingales have stopped.”

They sat silently for a moment. Out in the town the puritanical women and rigid men, decent and narrow, good Muslims and Christians all, tutted in their little rooms and said, “I don’t know what’s happened to our

Rustem Bey. First he gets himself a whore, and then he lets her play an oud like a man, and sing. It’s a disgrace, it isn’t right, it’s not respectable, and we’ve got to sit here and listen to it, whatever is the world coming to?”

Leyla and Rustem Bey looked into each other’s faces obliviously. The world had become very small. Very tentatively Leyla leaned forward and placed a soft kiss on Rustem’s lips. She took up her oud and, the corners of her mouth curling upward in the slightest of smiles, sang softly, delicately, salaciously:

“My lips are sugar,
My cheeks an apple,
My breasts paradise, and
My body is a lily.
O, my lion,
I wait for you
To kiss the sugar,
To bite the apple,
To open paradise, and
Possess the lily.”

An owl hooted in the momentary silence, and Rustem Bey felt a kind of drunkenness come over him. Leyla carefully laid the oud upon a cushion. She stood up, shook her hair back, and held out her hand. “Come,” she said, “it’s time. The night is warm and good. The eagle must fly at last to his nest.”

CHAPTER 40

The Veiling of Philothei