Kamil Pasha: The Sultan's Seal Part 9

The women smile and greet her in their high-pitched voices. Sybil responds in Turkish, causing murmurs of approval. She moves around the room, stopping before each woman and waiting while the hostess introduces the guest and mentions, in flowery Turkish praise, the positions of each woman's husband or father. The women are introduced in order of their prestige.

"Your coming is welcome."

"I am happy to find myself here."

"How are you?"

"Fine, thank you. And you, how are you?"

"I am fine, thanks be to Allah."

"How are your father and mother? Your family?"

"They are well. And your father, is he well?"

Of course, the hostess will have told the women all she knew about Sybil before her arrival. They would not ask about a mother who was dead, or a child, when Sybil is unmarried at what most would consider the advanced age of twenty-three. Clearly, after the death of her mother, Sybil has devoted her life to caring for her father, forgoing a family herself. A good, dutiful daughter.

All the chairs are pushed against the walls, as if the women are still reclining on a long divan. This makes conversation impossible with anyone other than Sybil's immediate neighbors, so she has trouble following the conversations. One of the women switches to French, but Sybil's French is poor, so they return to Turkish.

The seven-year-old boy who will shortly be lifted into manhood at the point of a knife is dressed in yellow and blue silken robes and struts about among the women like a peac.o.c.k, trailed by his governess.

Later in the afternoon, the women move through the French doors and across the patio toward a shaded grove beyond sprays of jasmine and stands of roses for refreshments. Sybil finds herself walking beside Asma Sultan. Her hair is bound up in a turban of silk gauze edged in pearls and held in place by a diamond and ruby ornament made to resemble a bouquet of flowers. One side of the turban hangs free. The silk slips across her face when she moves.

"Tell me," she asks Sybil as they walk through the garden, "what is life like for a woman in Europe?"

Having had little experience, Sybil tells her about Maitlin's struggle to become a doctor.

Asma Sultan interrupts. "What about Paris?"

"I've never been to Paris, Your Highness," Sybil admits reluctantly, stung by her lack of interest in Maitlin's accomplishments. "But London is a fascinating place," she ventures, launching into a somewhat imaginative account of life in London, where she has been only briefly, but has read about in d.i.c.kens and Trollope. She throws in the new underground railway she heard was recently completed.

Before long, Asma Sultan interrupts again. "My nephew went to Paris many years ago." Then she falls unaccountably silent.

Sybil now realizes that Asma Sultan's previous questions were mere preludes to this, the important matter. She also has the impression that Asma Sultan herself is surprised and disconcerted by her admission but, at the same time, compelled to speak it.

She inquires tentatively, "Did he enjoy his stay?"

"He died there."

This, Sybil thinks, is the key to the matter.

"May your head remain healthy."

They walk in the garden apart from the others.

"Ziya was a good man. I wished him to marry my daughter, Perihan, but as the sultan's granddaughter, her hand was too valuable to waste on a relative. My husband thought it more useful to buy the loyalty of a minister. My husband is clever, a ship with sails that catch the slightest wind. He did well under my father until he helped depose him. Now my husband serves the present sultan."

Sybil tries to hide her surprise at Asma Sultan's admission. "But that's normal, isn't it? When there's a change in government, people serve whoever is in charge of their country."

"You do not understand, Sybil Hanoum. We are all slaves of Allah. But we are also slaves of the sultan. His will determines all our fates. The palace is not a place or a government, but a body that reaches every corner of the empire. My nephew could not escape it even in Paris. I am less than the tip of a small finger. Even though I myself am the daughter of a sultan."

At the palace, Sybil has heard, loyalty counts for everything, kinship and friendship not at all, unless one is born of the same mother. Those closest to the sultan are in the most danger, as they are directly in the compa.s.s of his critical eye. She wonders whether this is true also for the relations of former sultans. Perhaps more so, she decides, since they might be compet.i.tors for the throne. The eldest male of the family inherits.

"I was there when my father was deposed by his own trusted ministers," Asma Sultan continues softly. "They shamed him until he took his own life. The most powerful man in the world and he wasn't allowed to see anyone except his women. Ordinary guards watched his every move, can you imagine? It was unspeakable."

Shocked, Sybil can offer little comfort. "How dreadful, Your Highness."

In a melancholy voice, Asma Sultan continues. "He loved my mother and he loved me because I was her daughter. He loved us most of all. We wiped the blood from his arms with our own veils."

Sybil doesn't know what to say. She had arrived in Istanbul just before the coup and remembers the frightening riots in the streets, the talk of troops and warships surrounding the palace.

"It destroyed my mother," Asma Sultan whispers.

"My mother told me about her, Your Highness. She met her once," Sybil says in a sympathetic voice.

Asma Sultan turns sharply. "When?"

"It must have been 1876, just before..." She leaves the thought unfinished. "Mother visited the harem in Dolmabahche Palace while my father had an audience with your father. I remember she said he had brought a pair of pheasants as a gift for the sultan."

"My father had a pa.s.sion for colorful animals," Asma Sultan recalls fondly. "Parrots, white hens with black heads. He even had a collection of cows of many colors, beautiful animals."

"My mother told me she thought your mother very beautiful."

"She was a highborn Russian lady, educated in France. Her ship was captured on the high seas and she was sold to the palace. Her given name was Jacqueline, but in the harem, they called her Serche, "the Sparrow," because she was so small. The other women were jealous of my father's love for her."

Sybil waits for Asma Sultan to continue the story of her mother, but she turns and walks on without another word. Still curious, Sybil follows her.

After a few moments, Asma Sultan turns to Sybil and says, "There is no loyalty except blood, Sybil Hanoum. One's duty to one's parents is paramount. You have done the right thing by staying at home with your father. The world is in your hands. When one marries, the flame extinguishes."

Sybil is taken aback by this admonition. "But Your Highness, a woman's duty to her parents doesn't have to take the place of having a family and a home of her own."

Asma Sultan turns her sharp eyes on Sybil.

"How is your father, Sybil Hanoum? Is he well?"

Sybil is startled by the sudden change in her tone. She is briefly tempted to say the truth, but instead responds diplomatically, "He is well, thanks be to Allah."

"You use the name of Allah, yet you are Christian."

Sybil has not expected a theological argument. "It is the same G.o.d, Your Highness."

Asma Sultan sighs as if vexed with herself. "Don't mind me. I'm only concerned for your health and that of your family."

She leans toward Sybil, her veil falling across her mouth, and lowers her voice. "Perhaps you could deliver this message to your father."

"A message?"

"Yes, that we are concerned for his health, which is so vital to the health of our empire. It's hard for us to know what is happening outside these walls, and it is really not the concern of women. But I would like your father to know that I rely on him, as the representative of your mighty empire. You have helped us in the past, and you will help us again. Our road is hard, but we endure. Will you tell him this, in these words?"

Puzzled, Sybil responds, "Of course, Your Highness. I will tell him. And we thank you for your trust. We do what we can for freedom in the world." Sybil winces at her own grandiose statements, but reminds herself that this is the way diplomats speak.

"There is no freedom, Sybil Hanoum," Asma Sultan responds dryly, "only duty. We go where our betters command. Equally we do not go where they forbid us. Please deliver the message just as I have spoken it."

Some of the other women are looking at them.

"May Allah protect you." Asma Sultan turns and walks down the path.

Asma Sultan's daughter, Perihan, appears beside Sybil and, giving her a long look, compliments her on her Turkish.

15.

July 1, 1886 Dearest Maitlin, My life has taken quite an exciting turn. Please do not scold me for taking this initiative, dear sister, you who have always known your own mind. I know that you would disapprove of my interest in these murders for fear that I might stir up a hornet's nest and be myself stung. But, dear sister, those fears, while demonstrating sisterly love, are misplaced. After all, I am not a governess and I have a protector, which Hannah and Mary did not. And it is to help Kamil in his inquiries that I am pursuing this matter. I can't imagine that you would behave any differently, given the opportunity to help solve not one murder, but perhaps two. Your life has been filled with such excitement. Do not begrudge me my own small portion. But, as you know, I am nothing if not careful and deliberate in my actions, so there is no need for you to fret.

I have made some interesting discoveries. I hasten to a.s.sure you that I was not pushing myself forward, but that the information fell into my hands much like a ripe apple falls from the tree into the ap.r.o.n of someone standing, quite by chance, beneath it.

Yesterday I visited the grand vizier's wife, Asma Sultan. Her father was Sultan Abdulaziz, who was deposed in 1876 and then committed suicide. The sultan's ministers forced him to abdicate because they wanted a const.i.tution and because he was bankrupting the empire with his extravagances. Mother told me he kept a thousand women in his harems and had over five thousand courtiers and servants. He built two new palaces just to house them. Asma Sultan's mother was one of his concubines. Mother met her once, before the coup. She said she was tiny, with a pale cameo of a face. She thought her beautiful and romantic.

At that time, Asma Sultan was already married, so she escaped the fate of her mother and the other women in the sultan's harem after he killed himself-banishment to the old, crumbling Topkapi Palace. Asma Sultan's husband was made grand vizier in the new sultan's government, so she is now very powerful. I don't know what became of her mother. I hesitated to ask in case the answer was unwelcome. Understandably, she is quite bitter about the coup against her father. Apparently, her husband was involved, and she witnessed her father's suicide. Isn't that dreadful? I feel very sorry for her. Despite all her wealth and power, she is a sad woman.

She seemed quite concerned to wish Father well, as if she knew about his condition. For obvious reasons, we've tried hard to keep it from becoming public knowledge. Still, she did ask me to tell him that she-I think she meant the empire-continues to rely on him, so perhaps I misinterpreted her words and she was not referring to Father's illness at all. I didn't tell Father. If he thinks word has gotten about, it would just make him more anxious.

I did learn something that might be of interest to Kamil. Asma Sultan implied that her nephew, Ziya, was killed on a trip to Paris by someone from the palace. This happened right around the time that Hannah also was killed. I've since learned that Ziya's fiancee, Shukriye, was in and out of the harem where Hannah worked, and that Shukriye too disappeared from the city soon after. She was married to someone in Erzurum, on the other side of the country. So many simultaneous disappearances and deaths of people who knew one another surely can't be coincidence? In any case, Shukriye is returning soon to visit her ill father. Being a man, Kamil won't be able to approach her, so I'll pay her a visit and see what I can learn about Hannah.

Bernie sends his best. He requested that I add a note to Richard. Bernie wants to know whether he remembers the Chinese poem about a brush and a bowstring (I hope I've remembered that correctly), and to tell Richard that he has recently come across the poem again in a surprising place.

Well, with that mysterious flourish, I will end this missive. As always, I send my love to Richard and the boys. Don't let them forget me.

Your loving sister, Sybil

16.

The Clean Soil of Reason On a September day in the Rumi year 1294, or 1878 by your reckoning, I accompanied Hamza as he led his horse toward the main road. Slick yellow leaves plastered the ground. The forest exhaled a dusty, pungent odor of rain. It was one month since I had found the woman in the pond. Madam elise was gone and Ismail Dayi was away, so Hamza had come to visit openly. He wanted to see Mama. She served us tea in the reception room, pleased at seeing him after all this time.

"Mama so enjoyed your visit, Hamza. I haven't seen her this lively in a long time. It makes me happy to see her smile; she doesn't very often. I wish you would come more often."

"Your mother has always been very good to me."

We reached the gate.

"It has always surprised me that your father took a k.u.ma," he said without looking at me, "given his views."

"His views?"

"He's a modernist, Jaanan. A man who believes, as many of us do, that the empire will survive only if we learn the secrets of Europe's strength. Some think it's enough to copy their technology. But there's more to it than that. If we are ever to be respected as a great power again, we have to join the civilized world. That means we must change the way we think and live."

He turned to face me. "Polygamy has no place in this new world."

"Who will decide what's allowed in this new world of yours?" I asked with an asperity that surprised me.

"Scientists, statesmen, writers. There are more of us than you might imagine, Jaanan. Some of us have gone to Paris, but we have many supporters here as well." His voice was low and rapid. "We publish a journal, Hurriyet. Perhaps you've seen it in your uncle's library. I know he collects reformist journals, although I don't know whether he reads them. You should read the journals, Jaanan. We are going to rip the empire up by its rotten roots and plant it in the clean soil of science and rational thinking."

I felt rather alarmed at the extent of what he was proposing. There was nothing rotten here that needed fixing. Science and rational thinking rattled dry as bones in a cup.

But I did not say any of these things. To please him, I would look at the journals later.

Hamza smiled down at me, and tugged gently at a curl that rested on my shoulder beneath the loose drape of gauze.

"I won't be able to come see you for a while, princess." The soft, stretched vowels and sibilant tail of the French word wound themselves about me and m.u.f.fled his unwelcome news in a haze of pleasure. "I'll be traveling."

"For how long? Where are you going?" I asked plaintively.

He shook his head. "I can't say. I have to be careful. The sultan has suspended parliament. He's gambled away a third of the empire to the Russians. If not for the British, we would have lost Istanbul and much more. And just when we need Europe most, he's threatening it with a worldwide Muslim revolt that he claims as caliph he could lead. It's time for us to act. We're Turks, Jaanan. Your ancestors and mine rode the steppes of Asia, women and men together. There's no need for religion in a Turkish empire. Religion is the enemy of civilization." He cupped my chin in his hand and added softly, "But not everyone wants change. I don't want to get you or your family into trouble, so I can't come here anymore."

"It's also your family."

I felt angry at Hamza and his politics that took him away from me. I didn't think my evenings studying Islamic texts with Ismail dayi were uncivilized. I took a step backward in protest. Hamza reached out his hand and gripped my arm so tightly that it hurt.

"Hamza!" I yelped in protest, and pulled away, but he drew me over so that his head was next to mine.

He slid an object into the shawl tied around my waist, his hands leaving a burning trail, and whispered, "Your eyes are as luminous as this sea gla.s.s."

Then he dropped my arm and, without another word, mounted his horse and rode away.

I reached into the folds of silk and extracted a smooth green stone that seemed to glow from within. It was encased in gold filigree, hanging from a slender chain.

Could this beautiful object really be the mundane shard of a medicine bottle after years of being battered by the sea and scoured by sand? I felt then that there was a meaning to be grasped, a parable of some kind, but it eluded me.

17.