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Authors: Jenny White

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The Sultan's Seal (20 page)

BOOK: The Sultan's Seal
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She nods, wiping at her eyes.

“And that you won’t go anywhere without an escort.”

“I won’t be a prisoner in my own house.” She stares at him, her hands in tight fists at her side. “I couldn’t stand that.”

“Of course not,” he adds soothingly. “You are free to go out, Sybil Hanoum, but I beg you not to go alone, for your own safety.”

She nods, but turns her face away.

Kamil stands by the door, his hand slick on the brass door handle, and watches her carefully for a moment.

“I’m only concerned for you. I’m not angry. You’ve given me some important information and I thank you for it.”

He walks swiftly through the garden. The fog has burned away, replaced by a veil of dust thrown up by animals and carts. At the gate, he spits out the grit that has already accumulated between his teeth.

35
The Dust of Your Street

I
n 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.

 

T
HE 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.

 

F
INALLY
, H
AMZA’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.

 

W
E 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.

 

N
EIGHBORS 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.

BOOK: The Sultan's Seal
12.23Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
ads

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