The Sultan's Seal (18 page)

“I’ve been here for days with no idea why and no way to tell Ismail Dayi that I’m safe. Allah only knows what he is thinking.”

Hamza was dressed as a simple workman in baggy brown trousers and white shirt, a striped shawl wrapped around his waist. His cotton turban was gray from many washings. He had grown a beard.

“Forgive me, Jaanan. This was the only way I could think of to keep you safe.”

“Safe? Safe from what?”

“I tried to reach you at Chamyeri but your Violet has set up an impenetrable cordon around you. Did you get any of my letters?”

“Letters? No, I haven’t heard from you since that evening at Papa’s house.” A note of bitterness crept into my voice. “That was nearly a year ago. I assumed you had gone abroad again.” Suddenly I remembered Mary’s undelivered messages. Had she intercepted Hamza’s letters too?

Hamza shook his head in frustration. “I was in Paris until recently. I wrote to you.”

When I shook my head, he continued. “So that’s why you never answered. Anyway, when I couldn’t get in touch with you, I hired someone in the village to keep an eye on you. He learned where you were going, then overtook your boat to send me word that you were heading for the Beshiktash pier.”

“You had me watched? Why?”

“You’re in danger. I was worried about you.”

“You keep saying that, but I don’t understand what danger. Why didn’t you just come to see me at Chamyeri and warn me against whatever it is that so worries you?”

“I wasn’t sure Ismail Hodja would have approved. He never liked me.”

“That’s not true,” I exclaimed.

“Anyway, I came by twice when your uncle wasn’t home, but Violet wouldn’t let me in.”

“What? Violet is my servant. She has no control over what I do or whom I see.”

“She told me you were unwilling to see anyone. I waited in the pavilion and called to you.” He pursed his lips and fluted a nightingale call. “But you didn’t come. I suppose Violet kept you occupied indoors when she suspected I was nearby. I don’t know what her motivations were. Maybe she’s in on the plot.”

Exasperated, I raised my voice. “What plot? If you were so concerned about me, why didn’t you meet me yourself at the pier instead of hiding inside the carriage like a thief? Or simply reveal yourself to me once we got in?”

I became agitated as I remembered the details of what I had experienced as yet another assault. “And why the chloroform? I presume that’s what you used.”

Hamza looked down, his long fingers toying with his tea glass.

“I can’t show myself. I’m wanted by the sultan’s spies for sedition,” he added hastily, glancing at me. “I was in Paris when I heard about what happened last year.”

I looked puzzled and he averted his eyes, turning toward the yellow light filtering through the leaves outside the window.

“With that pimp, Amin.” He realized with a jolt his unseemly language and looked at me, finally. His face was red. “Sorry. I’m very sorry.”

When I didn’t answer, he stumbled rapidly on.

“I heard about Amin’s plans for revenge and as soon as the roads were open, I started back. There’s nothing I can do to change what happened, but at least I can make sure you’re safe.”

“You shouldn’t have put yourself in danger by coming back.”

“I know Amin,” he responded fiercely. “You have no idea what he is capable of.”

“What is this plot from which you’re saving me?” I asked, gritting my teeth. “You should have told Papa or Ismail Dayi. What is the point of bringing me here? Everyone will be worried about me and think the worst. Have you considered the consequences?”

“I’m not worried. It’s worth the risk to see you are safe.”

“The consequences for
me,
” I almost shouted.

Grim-faced, Hamza explained, “Amin is a scoundrel who will stop at nothing.”

“Why didn’t you tell me that last year when my father first spoke of an engagement? Why didn’t you tell Papa then?”

Hamza gulped the tea from his glass in one draught and put it down on the saucer with such force that I jumped. I saw the old woman’s eyes skim nervously in our direction.

“I had to spend years in Paris because someone turned me in to the palace as a traitor. When I came back two years ago, it didn’t take long before I was being followed and harassed again. Do you think your father would listen to me? He despises me. He despises my ideas. He has befriended reactionaries in order to advance his own position. And I’m certain he is the one who reported me to the secret police, then and now.”

“I don’t believe that,” I countered with some heat. “Papa would never do that to his own nephew. You lived in our house, ate our bread.”

Hamza barked a short, bitter laugh and shrugged. “There’s a lot you don’t understand, princess.”

“That does me an injustice, Hamza. I know my father and I’m not entirely ignorant of what goes on at the palace. I know there are factions and intrigues. Perhaps Papa doesn’t share your views, but I’m certain that blood also counts. Papa is not always right in his actions, but at heart he is a good man. Who told you it was Papa who betrayed you?”

“I know it was him.”

“Fine,” I snapped. “Make your accusations, but if you care at all about the precious justice you are always going on about, then let me hear the evidence.”

“Your father was promoted to the position of counsellor in the Foreign Ministry just days before treason charges against me were sent from that office to the minister of justice. His friend Amin sponsored him for that position. Now that Amin has been disgraced and transferred, your father’s position is in danger too. Never take a criminal as your patron,” he spit out.

“Well, then we wouldn’t have many people left in government, would we? Papa was your patron,” I shot back.

Hamza looked disconcerted. This conversation clearly was not what he had expected.

“Your father doesn’t respect me,” he mumbled.

“Nonsense. You have no evidence that Papa did this. It could just as well have been Amin. He has no liking for you.” It occurred to me that Amin might have seen Hamza as a rival for my hand, but I didn’t mention this. I remembered the look on his face the evening Hamza greeted me at the soiree at our house. It would have been typical of Amin simply to have the hurdle forcibly removed, rather than attempt the more complex and time-consuming task of winning my affections.

“Possibly,” Hamza agreed reluctantly. “Someone turned me in after that evening at your house. I had to return to Paris or risk arrest.”

I wondered why Hamza was so angry with my father. Was it because Papa had wanted me to marry Amin? Then why had Hamza not stepped forward and offered marriage himself? I had not been formally engaged yet. As my cousin, Hamza had a right to my hand, regardless of what Papa thought of him. Surely he knew I would have agreed. I looked at him carefully. He was different somehow, aside from the beard, but I couldn’t pinpoint what disturbed me.

“Why did you attack me in the cab?”

He was taken aback. “I didn’t attack you, Jaanan. I would never do a thing like that.”

“You used chloroform! And what happened to Violet? You didn’t hurt her, did you?”

Hamza jumped to his feet. “Jaanan, how could you even imagine such things? I had to keep you from crying out or trying to escape when you saw that there was someone else in the cab. I couldn’t risk that you wouldn’t recognize me and cause a scene that would attract attention. The punishment for treason is death, Jaanan. I can’t afford to be noticed in even the smallest way. Violet is fine. She jumped from the cab and ran away. She’s back in the Nishantashou house.

“She’s very resourceful,” he added with a smile. “She attacked me to save you.”

It was the charming, self-deprecatory smile I remembered from Chamyeri. I couldn’t help but return it. A warm current joined us again. What I had perceived before was its absence.

“You still haven’t told me what you needed to rescue me from.”

Hamza sat back on the divan, moving our tea glasses to the tray on the floor. He took my hands, palms together, and pressed them between his hands.

“Amin is plotting to—” He stopped uncertainly, then continued in a low voice, “To damage you. I heard that as soon as you returned to your father’s house at Nishantashou, he planned to take you from there to his konak. Once you were seen to be living in Amin’s house, willingly or not, you would have to marry him.”

“Take me from my own house?” I scoffed. “How could he do that? No one would permit him entry. Has he bribed the servants?” I was so aghast I almost did not believe him.

“My sources tell me he has made an arrangement with your stepmother.

“I’m sorry,” he added rapidly, seeing the look on my face.

“Who are your sources? Are they reliable?”

“Yes.”

“Don’t treat me like a china cup,” I told him impatiently. “Tell me everything.”

“He’s in desperate circumstances. He already laid claim to you once. This would make it irrevocable. Not even Ismail Hodja or your father could avoid the shame if you didn’t marry him then.”

“He neither loves nor respects me. What does he want from me?”

“He gambles too much and has expensive taste in women. He’s deeply in debt. He desperately needs your wealth and he needs it soon.”

“But the wealth is Papa’s and Ismail Dayi’s. I have nothing of my own.”

“You’ll have a substantial dowry when you marry and later a sizable inheritance.”

I could not read Hamza’s face. His eyes were focused on a distant point beside my head. The current between us had become blocked, just as in the days when he was my tutor. He was reciting facts.

I was suddenly engulfed with rage at Amin for stealing both my childhood and my future, and at Hamza for not asking for me in marriage long before and sparing me this grief. He must have known I would agree and I’m sure Papa would have given his consent. I knew marriage now would be difficult, but surely that wouldn’t matter to Hamza.

“So your friends have told you Aunt Hüsnü is helping that man”—I could not say his name—“that he intends to kidnap me from my own house and blackmail me into marrying him.”

“Yes.”

“And that is why you brought me here.”

“Yes. I didn’t know what else to do. I couldn’t get a message to you at Chamyeri telling you to stay there. I wasn’t certain you were safe there either, despite Violet’s precautions. And I wasn’t sure of Violet’s motives.”

Misinterpreting the look on my face, he added quickly, “I know you’re close to Violet, but you should open your eyes. There’s something odd about her, hungry. The way she watches you.”

“Of course she watches me,” I snapped, still defensive of my companion despite my growing doubts. “She sees to my needs. As for…that man, what possible advantage is it for him to do something like this? He must know by now that I would never marry him.”

“Jaanan”—he squeezed the words from between his teeth—“you would have no choice. Believe me. It is his way of returning the harm you have done to him.”

I thought for a few moments. Perhaps he was right. I was untutored in many of the ways of society, but I clearly remembered the warnings and stories that circulated in the summer harems.

“Now what do we do?” I was aware that I had put myself in Hamza’s hands. He leaned forward and laid his hand on my shoulder. His fingers played with a lock of hair that had escaped from the scarf draped over my head.

“I don’t know,” he said softly. “You’ll be safe here for a while, but you can’t go out. The neighborhood women sit at the windows and watch who comes and goes.”

“So I exchange one prison for another,” I said softly, to myself.

“It’s only for a short while, until we figure out what to do.”

We…Was Hamza suggesting he would marry me himself? I waited for him to speak again, but he did not.

I wondered what my disappearance would mean. Did I still have a reputation that could be damaged? I had not had time to think about my future, to test which roads were still open to me. Had this closed another road? So far, the pens of others had drawn the features on the map that was my life.

I regarded Hamza, who was still silent.

“What do you think the consequences of this will be for me?” I asked him, hoping by his answer to decipher the calligraphy of his life on the thin pages of mine.

“Consequences? Of what?”

“Of my coming here.”

“What do you mean?”

“The world will believe that I’ve been abducted.”

“I had thought of it as a rescue,” he responded defensively.

We sat for a while, busy with our own thoughts.

“May I speak plainly?” he asked.

“Please do,” I said, perhaps more emphatically than I wished.

“I don’t mean to hurt you, Jaanan.” He paused, searching my face. “But since the attack by Amin, it has been difficult for you. Society doesn’t forgive. I know.” There was an undercurrent of bitterness in his voice that I had never noticed before. I was curious what his experience might have been. He had never spoken of it.

“I’m aware of that, Hamza. But I’m not alone. Papa won’t forsake me, nor will Ismail Dayi.” Nor would you, I added to myself, but with less certainty.

“You must tell Ismail Dayi that I’m safe,” I insisted.

“I’ll go myself and tell him.” Hamza rose and signaled to the young man.

As her son embraced her, the old woman began to rock and keen quietly. Gently he pulled her hands from his vest and spoke to her again in Ladino, the vowels falling like rain onto her parched, beseeching face.

Y
OUNG ALMONDS
, peeled and eaten raw, leave a raspy feeling on the tongue as if you have eaten something wild. The almond seller exhibited them like jewels: a pile of almonds in their thin brown skins resting on a layer of ice inside a glass box, lit by an oil lamp. Wheeling them about the streets on warm spring nights, the almond seller had no special call—his cart was a sacrament and people flocked to it.

The following evening, Hamza returned and brought me a plate of chilled almonds. We sat on the divan by the window, the plate between us, and talked. I pulled my thumb over the fragile skin. It slipped away suddenly, leaving a gleaming, ivory sliver between my fingertips. The Jewish woman had withdrawn to another room at the back of the apartment. We were alone. This no longer worried me.