Kamil Pasha: The Sultan's Seal Part 7

Bernie looks startled. "Who?"

"Hannah Simmons."

Bernie looks at the raki gla.s.s between his fingers as if he hopes to find an answer there. His boyish face looks older when he frowns, Kamil observes. His skin is thick, like that of an animal. It bends rather than creases. His face will have few wrinkles in old age, he thinks, but deep lines.

"No." Bernie says finally, avoiding Kamil's eyes.

Kamil lifts the cigarette holder to his lips, draws deeply, and waits.

After a moment, Bernie asks with what Kamil judges a shade too much enthusiasm, "So what do you make of it?"

Kamil ponders how much to reveal. "I don't know. The dead woman, Mary Dixon, apparently was friendly with a Muslim girl that lives in the same house at Chamyeri where the other body was found eight years ago. The house belongs to a well-known scholar. The girl is his niece. Odd, isn't it? Both murdered women were English governesses in the imperial harem." He shrugs. "It's probably a coincidence."

Kamil frowns at his own admission. He doesn't believe in coincidences.

"The girl, Jaanan Hanoum," he adds, "was a child at the time of the first murder. She's in France now."

"What about the scholar?"

"It's impossible. He's one of the most respected religious men in the empire. I simply can't imagine him having anything to do with an Englishwoman, much less with killing her. He has no connection with the foreign community and he's not involved with any particular faction in the palace. He keeps his distance from the power struggles. He doesn't have anything to gain by them. He is head of a powerful Sufi order. His position is una.s.sailable because it's based on his reputation and on an influential circle of relations and friends. His family consists of famous poets, jurists, philosophers, and teachers. He's also independently wealthy. Why would he kill young Englishwomen? No, my friend, I think we must look elsewhere."

Bernie takes another sip of raki followed by a water chaser, then leans back and folds his hands across his stomach.

"I brought the pendant along," Kamil says. He takes the handkerchief with the jewelry from his jacket pocket and spreads it out on the table. "I thought since you know so many languages, you might have have some idea what these lines mean." He opens the pendant and holds it out to Bernie. "Is it some kind of writing?"

Bernie takes the small silver globe. It rests on his palm, lobes open, like a fat insect.

"Jesus, Mary, and Joseph," he exclaims under his breath. Freckles stand out on his blanched face like liver spots.

"What is it?" Kamil's senses become alert for nuance.

Bernie doesn't answer. He tilts the open silver sh.e.l.l toward the light and peers into it with great concentration. Kamil becomes aware of the clink of gla.s.ses and low murmur of male voices around them, the musk of tobacco smoke. The cigarettes burn down in the ashtray. Finally, Bernie closes the pendant and strokes it with his finger gently as a lover. When he looks up, he seems startled to see Kamil sitting opposite him. The surprise in his eyes is replaced by a look of consternation. He seems to be struggling with something.

He turns the pendant, examining the surface, then holds it to the light and squints to see inside again. Finally, he places it gently on the table between them. He takes a deep breath.

"It's Chinese."

"Chinese?" Kamil is taken aback. "Are you certain?"

"Of course. I read it fluently."

Kamil looks at him curiously. "It's an amazing coincidence that you should be here to decipher it for me."

He studies the markings for a moment as if he can decipher them himself. He is thinking, however, about Bernie's reaction.

"What does it say?"

"The two characters on the pendant stand for 'brush' and 'bowstring.'"

"What?" Kamil is flabbergasted. "What does it mean? Does it mean anything at all?"

"It refers to a Chinese poem, 'On Seeing an Early Frost.'" He recites: In autumn wind the road is hard, Streams fill with red leaves.

For crows what is left but stony soil and barren hills?

I can endure, a withered pine clinging to a cliff edge, Or set out on the road brocaded by frost.

Your brush is the bowstring that brings the wild goose down.

"You know it by heart."

Bernie attempts to look modest. "I know a few of them. This is a poem by Chao-lin Ch'un, a concubine to a Manchu prince about a hundred years ago. Apparently, she and the prince shared a love of poetry and calligraphy. It's said she was his political advisor, which didn't endear her to the rest of the family. She collected art objects too, a fantastic collection, apparently. Some European travelers wrote about it. She must have been some lady."

"What happened to her?"

"When the prince died, his son by an earlier marriage inherited his t.i.tle and he kicked her out."

"Would she have returned to her family?"

"No, women like that usually choose to become nuns-Buddhist or Taoist nuns. It gives them a lot more freedom and respect than chasing back to their parents, a.s.suming they'd even take them back. It's a life of contemplation, not very comfortable, but a lot of people find it rewarding. I sometimes wonder whether I wouldn't like to try it myself."

"I can see why it would be attractive."

"You? Really?" He regards Kamil curiously. "I never figured you for the introspective sort. Somehow I can't see you spending hours reflecting on the transience of plum blossoms."

Kamil laughs. "You'd be surprised."

"Well, friend. I respect that."

"What about the poem?"

"The poem. Well, it's a bitter poem. Probably written after the prince died." Bernie takes a long swig of raki and washes it down with water. "But the last couple of lines always struck me as more of a call to action than contemplation. And I've always wondered about the 'you' in the last line, 'your brush.' Who was she referring to?"

"So this is what scholars of literature do," Kamil comments with a sly smile. "Like cows eating gra.s.s. It gets chewed, digested, regurgitated, and chewed again before it becomes the cow's food."

Bernie lets out a guffaw that threatens to spill the drink in his hand. "And we all know what comes out at the end!" Wiping the tears from his eyes, he adds, "You should be a book critic."

When their laughter subsides, Bernie muses, "She had a lover, a scholar named Kung, who published some fiery articles urging reform of the Manchu government. He left Peking in a big hurry the year after Chao-lin Ch'un disappeared. Reportedly went to Hang-chow. Makes you wonder, though, doesn't it? Maybe he's the one with the aggressive brush." He holds up his gla.s.s. "Here's to love and revolution."

Kamil hesitates, then touches the rim of his gla.s.s to Bernie's. He puts it down without sipping.

"Why revolution?"

"A few years after the two of them left Peking, there was an attempt to overthrow the Manchus. Unsuccessful. Might have nothing to do with these two, but it makes a good romantic yarn."

"Is this poem well known?"

"Not at all. I'm not sure whether it was even published. I got hold of it as a privately circulated ma.n.u.script. Looks like someone at Dolmabahche Palace has the same ma.n.u.script, although I don't know of any sinologists who would have been around here to translate it."

"Why do you think the pendant came from Dolmabahche? Why not Yildiz Palace?"

Bernie appears nonplussed. "Well, that's where most of the women are, right? They'd be the ones wearing a pendant."

"And reading Chinese poetry?"

"Probably not. I know some of them have really good tutors, but learning Chinese is a lifetime project. Unless the sultan has a concubine from China or from the tribal peoples that border it."

"The palace prefers Circa.s.sians, but it is possible. There's no way to know; there are hundreds of women in the imperial household."

Kamil reflects on the coffered ceiling. "I guess it was too much to hope that the necklace would offer some kind of clue. Perhaps someone simply had unusual taste in jewelry and it wasn't made here at all." He turns it over with his thumbnail. "But what about the tughra?"

Bernie's smile does not reach his eyes, which seem fixed on a deep memory, as if the present moment were no more than thin ice. He shakes his head and faces Kamil.

"It's an odd thing. Can't help you there. Maybe the pendant was made somewhere else and inscribed with the Chinese characters, then found its way here and was monogrammed with the tughra. Or maybe someone at the palace was interested in Chinese poetry and had it made, then gave it to Mary as a gift."

The tone is in the wrong key, too lighthearted. Kamil is sure Bernie is hiding something.

"It's possible. Mary was here for almost a year. But who would know Chinese?"

Besides Bernie. Kamil frowns. He will have to find out more about his friend. The thought saddens him. Kamil rises to go, pleading an engagement.

12.

The Old Superintendent The young boy tamps a golden wad of fragrant tobacco into the bowl of the old man's narghile. As he kneels, head lowered, to attend to their water pipes, Kamil can see the whorls of his short hair, like the grain in wood, and the f.l.a.n.g.es of his ears.

Ferhat Bey waits until the boy leaves and he has taken a deep draught of fresh smoke before turning to Kamil and continuing.

"There isn't much I can tell you. We searched the area thoroughly. There were no clues."

They are sitting in a coffeehouse in the Beyazit quarter, not far from the entrance to the Grand Bazaar. The coffeehouse is part of a large complex of buildings attached to a venerable old mosque. It is late afternoon, a hiss of rain on the flagstones. They sit on a bench, feet tucked under their robes against the wet chill. An old man reclines on the bench in the far corner of the room, his eyes closed, a gnarled hand curled around the mouthpiece of his narghile. The air is redolent of scented tobacco and drying wool.

Kamil takes the amber mouthpiece from his lips and exhales slowly. The light from the window shudders and is gone. Kamil adjusts his woolen mantle around his shoulders.

The former superintendent of police is a wiry, gray-haired man with a deeply seamed face but hands incongruously unmarked by time, as fair and supple as a girl's.

"We thought immediately of Ismail Hodja's household, of course. The body was found right behind his property, after all, and there are no other residences in the area."

"Yes," Kamil murmurs his a.s.sent. "That would be the first place to look. Did you find anything?"

Ferhat Bey does not answer for a moment, his eyes fixed on the coals, then returns his attention to Kamil. He is painfully aware that Kamil has neglected to defer to him and a.s.sumes this is because Kamil is the son of a pasha and used to taking on airs. Still, in deference to his age, Kamil should speak less directly. One shows respect through formality, through indirection; there are necessary locutions within which questions and responses should be couched, m.u.f.fled, like winter padding on a horse's hooves, so that the ring of fact on stone remains the prerogative of the elder, the teacher. What has he got to teach this upstart? thinks Ferhat Bey bitterly. He had failed and this brash young man will fail too.

"Who made up the household at that time?" Kamil asks.

The old man sighs and answers slowly, showing his displeasure at being interrogated. The young upstart should read the file; he had noted at least this much before he stopped writing.

"Household? Ismail Hodja, of course. His sister and niece. The niece's governess, a Frenchwoman. She found the body. A gardener and a groom that live on the property. Daily maids and a cook that live in the village."

He stops and draws on his pipe. Kamil waits until Ferhat Bey has expelled the smoke into the room, but when the old superintendent does not continue, he presses him eagerly.

"Can you tell me what they said, where they were that day and the night before? Did they see anything?"

Ferhat Bey wishes he had not agreed to this meeting. Stubbornly, he draws out the silence.

Kamil understands that he has been too forward. This man is too old to be converted to a modern approach to solving crime, Kamil thinks. To him, the important thing is that he is an elder who was once a man of rank. The puzzle of a crime is worth nothing when measured against your place in society. The fact that Kamil resists this himself does not mean that others agree. He adjusts his manner accordingly.

"Superintendent Efendi," he says, using the man's t.i.tle out of politeness, "I would much appreciate any help you could give me in solving this crime. I wonder whether your experience with the other investigation could help me shed light on this one. There seem to be some similarities, although I could be wrong. I defer to your judgment in this."

Mollified, Ferhat Bey's interest is piqued.

"What similarities?"

"Both young women were English and had positions as governesses with members of the imperial family. Both bodies were found in water. The second woman probably was thrown into the Bosphorus between Emirgan and Chamyeri." He tells Ferhat Bey what the night fisherman saw. He does not mention the pendant, or the dilated pupils.

The superintendent looks up at Kamil craftily, his eyes scanning Kamil's face for a reaction to what he says next.

"Do you think there's a connection to the palace?"

If there is, Ferhat Bey is thinking with satisfaction, it will ruin this man like it ruined him-left with a pension that barely covers his tobacco. The scorpion, he knows, has made its nest in the magistrate's woodpile. Feigning disinterest in the answer, with a barely discernible smile, he brings the tea gla.s.s to his lips, then sets the empty gla.s.s down.

Kamil doesn't answer right away. He signals to the boy, who rushes over to refill their gla.s.ses from the enormous bra.s.s samovar huffing on a corner table. The men silently go about the ritual of preparing their tea. Each balances the saucer and gla.s.s on the palm of his hand, measures sugar from a jar, and stirs up a small whirlpool that skirts the lip of the gla.s.s but remains confined within it as if by a mysterious force. Kamil holds his gla.s.s up to the light, admiring the amber red of the liquid.

"Excellent tea!"

Ferhat Bey doesn't care about the color of his tea. He is waiting for an answer. He wonders if Kamil is being insolent or whether he truly doesn't know. Well, if he doesn't know, I won't tell him, thinks the old man. Let him find out the hard way that crimes linked to the palace are crimes best left unsolved.

Still, he is curious about the new case.

"It may be a coincidence," he offers slyly, hoping to get Kamil to lower his guard and tell him about the present case. He isn't interested in discussing history.

Kamil sets his gla.s.s down carefully.

"Perhaps." He sits quietly, eyes caught by the motes of dust jostling in the beam of light from the window. Such chaos, he muses, yet the world is by its nature orderly. There is always a pattern.

The loud click of gla.s.s meeting saucer brings his attention back to the superintendent. He is impatient, Kamil thinks. Good. Perhaps he is willing to share some of his memories of the case. He turns to the old man.

"I can't tell whether there is a link because I know so little about the first murder." He does not add that Ferhat Bey's case notes were so incomplete and poorly organized that it had been impossible to gain insight from them.

Ferhat Bey sighs. It seems he will have to pay for his entertainment with memories after all, but he will not reveal everything. Let him figure it out for himself. And by then it will be too late. He can't help smiling at the thought, but it appears on his face as a smirk.

"What do you want to know?"