The Architect's Apprentice Part 18

He pulled aside one of the draughtsmen a Kurd named Salahaddin. His wife had recently given birth to twin boys. Knowing him to be an honest man, Jahan expected him to tell the truth.

'What's going on? Why's everyone slow?'

Salahaddin averted his gaze. 'We're workin', effendi.'

'You are falling behind why?'

A little blush crept into his cheeks. 'You didn't tell us there was a saint here.'

'Who says that?'

The man shrugged, refusing to give names.

Jahan tried another question. 'How do they know there's a saint?'

'They have seen ... an apparition,' Salahaddin replied, glancing at Jahan, as if for confirmation.

It was the ghost of a martyr a mettlesome Muslim soldier who had met his end while fighting the infidels. An arrow had pierced his chest and entered his heart, yet he had kept on fighting relentlessly for two more days. On the third morning he had fallen and was buried in this area. Now his soul, disturbed by the hustle and bustle of the construction, was appearing to the labourers, who fretted that the ghost would put a curse on them.

'Nonsense. Whoever is spreading this story wants to harm Master Sinan.'

'It's true, effendi,' said Salahaddin. 'People have seen it.'

'Where?' Jahan said, throwing up his hands in exasperation. 'Show me!'

To his surprise, the man pointed with his chin at the scaffolding.

'Has the ghost set up home there?' Jahan asked teasingly.

But Salahaddin was solemn. 'That's where he was seen.'

During the rest of the afternoon Jahan prowled around the scaffolding, checking the planks, tightening the ropes, making sure it was safe, scowling at every man who so much as threw a glance at him.

'You are not paying attention,' said Davud, when they were studying the measurements the next day.

'I'm sorry. My mind ' said Jahan and gasped. In that moment something had caught his eye on the raised wooden platform, down along the third tier. A few labourers were working there, one of them carrying a bucket. He watched the man sway on his feet, as if pushed by an invisible hand, then regain his balance. The hairs on the back of Jahan's neck stiffened. In the past, whenever timber was scarce, they had used platforms dangling from abutments above to save wood. But this one rose from the ground and was attached to the walls, supported by struts and trusses. For it to move to and fro, the ropes must have come loose and a part of the edifice must have been hanging free a part or all.

'Are you all right?' asked Davud, following his gaze.

A scream of panic shattered the hum of work. They watched a board flip in the air, whirling as though it were a leaf in the wind, and plummet to the ground. Another board hit a mason, landing on his head with a sickening thud. People ran left and right as timber and metal rained from above.

'Kiyamet, kiyamet,'* someone wailed.

Oxen bellowed in pain, a horse with a broken leg lay on its side, its body twitching, its nostrils flaring. Jahan could not see Chota in the commotion. In the blink of an eye the scaffolding they had proudly put up only weeks before had come tumbling down. The workers on the higher tiers in the middle section suffered the worst falls, along with those down below who had been hit by the planks. Of these, eight would not survive. Among them was Salahaddin.

Sinan and the four apprentices approached the ga.s.sal.* 'May we stay next to you while you wash him?'

The man hesitated. Then, either because he had recognized the Chief Royal Architect or because he had confused him with a bereaved relative, he said, 'That's fine, effendi.'

Turning to his apprentices, Sinan asked, 'Would any of you like to join me?'

Yusuf avoided his gaze, a light blush rising to his cheeks. Nikola, who wasn't a Muslim, said the man might not have wished him to be present at the washing. Davud, suddenly waxen, said he had still not forgotten the corpses he had seen as a child and did not wish to encounter another until the day he died. Being the only one left, Jahan nodded. 'I'll come.'

Lying on cold marble was Salahaddin's naked body. Bruises of various sizes and shades covered the left side of his head and chest where he had been hit by the falling timbers. Even so, Jahan had the strange sensation that the injuries had been painted on rather than etched into Salahaddin's frame, and that if they washed them off, he could, at any moment, show signs of life.

'G.o.d has built the palace of our body and entrusted to us its key,' Sinan said in a voice so quiet that the ga.s.sal, standing behind, bowed his head, a.s.suming he was praying.

The palace of our body ... What a peculiar thing to say, Jahan thought. All he saw was a pile of wounded flesh. As if he had read his thoughts, Sinan asked Jahan to come closer.

'Man is made in the image of G.o.d. At its centre there's order, balance. See the circles and the squares. See how proportionately they have been arranged. There are four humours blood, yellow bile, black bile and phlegm. We work with four elements wood, marble, gla.s.s, metal.'

Jahan and the ga.s.sal exchanged a glance. Jahan knew what the man was thinking, for he'd had similar thoughts himself. He feared that his master, out of sorrow or weariness, had lost his mind.

'The face is the facade, the eyes are the windows, the mouth is the door that opens into the universe. The legs and the arms are the staircases.' Then Sinan poured water from a ewer, and, by drawing circles with his hands, began to wash the body with such tenderness that the ga.s.sal dared not move.

'That's why when you see a human being, slave or vizier, Mohammedan or heathen, you ought to respect him. Remember, even a beggar owns a palace.'

Jahan said, 'With much respect, master, I don't see perfection. I see the missing teeth. This crooked bone. All of us, I mean, some are hunchbacked, others '

'Cracks on the surface. But the building is flawless.'

The ga.s.sal, craning his neck over their shoulders, bowed his head in a.s.sent, perhaps convinced more by the lull of Sinan's voice than by his views. After that they were silent. They washed the deceased twice once with warm water, once with tepid. Then they wrapped him head to toe in a milky-white shroud, leaving his right hand outside. This they held, gently, and placed on his heart, as though he were saying his goodbyes to this world and his salaams to the next.

The funeral prayer was led by an imam with a goitre so large that it pressed on his windpipe, making his breath come out in raspy gasps. He said it was of great consolation that they had died on a construction site. The men had not been leching after women of ill-repute or imbibing or gambling or uttering blasphemies. Death had found them in an hour of honest, hard work. When the Day of Judgement arrived, which it was sure to do, G.o.d would take this into account.

He said Salahaddin had departed this mortal life while building a bridge for the Sultan no one dared to say that it was in fact while repairing an aqueduct. In return, in the other world, when it was his turn to cross the Bridge of Sirat thinner than a hair, slimier than a thousand eels a pair of angels would a.s.sist him. They would hold him by his hands and not let him fall into the flames of h.e.l.l underneath.

The casket was transported to the cemetery amid wailing and keening. Salahaddin's family were poor, so Sinan had paid for his tombstone.

The father of the deceased, brought low by age and grief, trudged towards them. Touched and honoured that a man like Sinan should attend his son's funeral, he thanked each of them. Salahaddin's brother, meanwhile, kept his distance. It wasn't hard to see he was holding them responsible for his loss, this lad who was no more than fourteen. One glance at him and Jahan knew they had made themselves yet another enemy. When, after throwing spadefuls of earth on to his brother's coffin, he moved towards the back of the crowd, Jahan followed him.

'May G.o.d welcome your brother into Paradise,' Jahan said as soon as he caught up with him.

No response. An awkward moment pa.s.sed between them, as each waited for the other to speak. In the end, it was the lad who broke the silence. 'Were you with him when he died?'

'I was nearby.'

'The ghost pushed them. Did you see it happen?'

'n.o.body pushed them. It was an accident,' Jahan said nervously. Even he couldn't deny the bizarreness of the incident.

'The ghost wants you to stop. There'll be no end to disaster if you disturb him, but your master doesn't care. He has no respect for the dead.'

'That's not true. Master is a good man,' said Jahan.

The boy's face darkened with rage. 'Your friend was right. You are befouling a sacred place. What with your hammers and donkeys. You are all condemned to h.e.l.l.'

The crowd began to disperse. Amid the mourners inching towards the gate, Jahan noticed Sinan moving listlessly, as though pulled by invisible strings against his will. Jahan said weakly, 'Don't blame my master.'

As they left the cemetery, the wind bl.u.s.tered, tufts of dust and dirt rolling in their direction. Later, much later, it would dawn on Jahan that in the commotion he had not asked Salahaddin's brother who this friend he had talked with was and why he had uttered premonitions so dire.

The next day only half of the labourers turned up for work.

'So much for paid workmen!' Davud exclaimed. 'Had we hired chained galley slaves, none of this would have happened. See where kindness gets us?'

'Master will find extra hands,' Nikola said.

He was right. Determined to complete what he had started, Sinan took on new labourers. It wasn't hard to obtain them. There were many in need of a job in this city. The misery of hunger prevailed over the fear of a saint's curse. For a while, things seemed to improve. The work proceeded without incident. Autumn drew in, the air chilled.

Then came the flood. Sweeping down houses, taverns, shrines and sheds, it gushed through the valleys. Because they had not been able to fully unclog the channels leading to the aqueduct, the waters washed away the scaffolding and crumbled the watercourse as if it had been a wafer. The flood had caught them unprepared. No one was injured. But they lost weeks of work and materials of value. The disaster gave credence to the gossip-mongers' rumours, and even those who had previously been unsure now became convinced that Sinan and his apprentices were accursed.

Their spirits sank. Until this point their master had overcome every obstacle, no matter how great or daunting. Yet this was different. How could Sinan possibly defeat a ghost?

The renovation work stopped. Hard as Sinan tried, he could not convince a single soul to keep on working. The labourers accused the Chief Royal Architect of putting them in danger in order to win the Sultan's favour. Who needed water when the water was jinxed? The aqueducts dated from the days of the infidels. Why repair them if not to spread idolatry?

Jahan was surprised to hear they had already forgotten about the ghost of the Muslim martyr. They had found new fears to cling to and cling they did. Silent and compliant on the surface, they whispered malicious gossip as soon as the apprentices turned their backs.

After a week of this Sinan appeared with a small, wiry visitor by his side. The two of them climbed up on to the newly built scaffolding.

'Workmen! Foremen! We are fortunate to have a respectable hodja* with us.'

Sinan extended his hand to the stranger. The man took a step forward, ashen and drawn, unused to heights. Closing his eyes, he chanted verses from the Qur'an. He was called the Nightingale Hodja, they learned. Born in Bosnia, he could commune with G.o.d in seven languages and knew the ways of many creeds and sects. There was something in the voice of this man, who otherwise looked very ordinary, that enchanted the labourers. He told them to move on and never speak evil of others, for if Sheitan could fly so high, it was thanks to two wings: sloth and slander.

The hodja came every day, stood with them from dawn to dusk, dust in his hair, mud on his shoes. He sprinkled blessed water and uttered the prayer of Cevsen, which he said the Archangel Gabriel had revealed when the Prophet Mohammed was afraid and in need of protection for prophets, just like common men, could be frightened of the dangers of this world and he sanctified the aqueducts, calming the fears of Jews, Christians and Muslims alike. Then he concluded, 'It's clean now. This site is as pure as your mother's milk. Go back to work.'

So they did. Little by little. They finished the renovations so perfectly that even those who hated Sinan more than any soul on earth could not raise objections. Sultan Suleiman was pleased. He honoured his architect with gifts and praises, calling him Al-insan al-Kamil.*

It was after this incident that Jahan understood his master's secret resided not in his toughness, for he was not tough, nor in his indestructibility, for he was not indestructible, but in his ability to adapt to change and calamity, and to rebuild himself, again and again, out of the ruins. While Jahan was made of wood, and Davud of metal, and Nikola of stone, and Yusuf of gla.s.s, Sinan was made of flowing water. When anything blocked his course, he would flow under, around, above it, however he could; he found his way through the cracks, and kept flowing forward.

What an awful night it was! Chota was in pain. Roaring, bellowing, growling till the first light of the day, he swayed his trunk this way and that, exhausted. Such was his discomfort that Jahan had to sleep next to him, if sleep he could. One peek into the animal's mouth and he saw the reason for his torment: the molar at the back of his left lower jaw was a nasty black colour and the gum had become swollen with pus.

Jahan recalled how the summer before he had had a terrible toothache himself, and the barber who shaved the Overseer of the Royal Stables had taken pity on him. Amid wailing and groaning, the man had pulled and pulled, ending Jahan's suffering. Even so, Jahan could not think of a single soul in Istanbul brave enough to remove an elephant's molar.

'What's the matter?' Taras asked as soon as he entered the stable and saw his face. 'A head on a pike looks happier than you.'

'It's Chota. His tooth is killing him.'

'If we were only in the Taiga,' said Taras with a sigh. 'I know of a shrub that can mend him in an instant. Grandma is fond of it.'

Jahan gaped at him in astonishment. 'Is your granny still alive?'

'Aye, she's one of the d.a.m.ned,' said Taras. Seeing Jahan's surprise he added drily, 'No worse curse than to bury all your loved ones and still keep breathing.'

Years later Jahan would remember this moment but now the words whizzed by him like a current of air.

'Get garlic, lots, fennel, oil of clove ... a tad of anise, no more ... Mix them.'

Jahan obtained the ingredients from the kitchen and pounded them in a mortar until they turned into a gooey, green paste. When he showed him the concoction, Taras was pleased. 'Now rub it on the beast's gums. This will give him comfort for now. The tooth needs to be pulled out.'

Jahan rushed back to the barn. The elephant resisted his attempts with such fierceness he could apply only half the paste, and he wasn't sure he had swabbed the right molar anyway. Chota's mouth reeked of an unpleasant odour. He had not been able to eat anything and hunger, as always, made his blood boil. St.i.tching together two m.u.f.flers, Jahan placed the remaining ointment inside and tied it around the animal's head, against the inflamed skin. Chota looked so funny he would have laughed had the poor thing not been in such agony.

Out on the streets, Jahan searched for an itinerant tooth-drawer or barber. The first man he asked burst out laughing upon learning the ident.i.ty of the patient. The next was a fellow with such a menacing aspect that Jahan did not dare to take him to the menagerie. He was about to give up when he recalled the one soul in this city who knew everything about everything Simeon the bookseller.

The quarter around the Galata Tower was swarming with people. Merchants walked in tandem with pedlars; emissaries and dragomen moved aside to let ox-carts pa.s.s; an amba.s.sador in a tahtirevan breezed along, carried by black slaves; dogs roamed in packs. He saw men going to cla.s.ses at the yeshiva, the elderly chatting in corners, a woman pulling her son by the hand. Words in Spanish, French and Arabic swirled in the wind.

Rounding a corner, thinking of Chota, he was rushing when he stopped in his tracks. Ahead of him, merely a few steps away from Simeon's house, was the traveller he had drunk with at the roadside inn. Next to him was Yusuf, the mute apprentice, his eyes on the ground. The man said something, after which Yusuf nodded and walked away.

In a burst of memory, Jahan remembered how they had been robbed on the way back from Rome. Suddenly, he suspected that the man in front of his eyes had had something to do with it. 'Hey, Tommaso!'

The Italian turned round. His eyes grew small as he caught sight of Jahan. Sprinting fast as an arrow, he disappeared into the crowd. Jahan gave chase for a while, though it was clear he would not be able to catch him. Dispirited, he strode back, knocked on Simeon's door.

'You all right?' the bookseller asked.

'Was Yusuf here a moment ago? With a blond man?'

'What blond man? I haven't seen Yusuf in weeks.'

'Never mind,' Jahan said with a sigh. 'I need your help.'

'Good timing, a ship's arrived. There're new books from Spain.'

'I'll look at them later. I need to help the elephant first.'

When Jahan told him his problem, Simeon's mouth twisted into a grimace. 'I'm a man of ideas; never operated on an animal.'

'Do you know of anyone?'

'None better than you. Tell you what, I'll see if there's anything in one of the books. Then you can do it yourself.'

'Fine,' said Jahan weakly.

'You'll need to sedate him. Get lots of boza. Better yet, sleeping draught.'

Simeon said that, in the past, physicians had used hemlock, which had killed many a mortal and saved a few. Nowadays they preferred nightshade and mandragora, the latter a plant that unleashed an awful shriek when torn out of the soil. But the best was opium. Galen recommended it for jaundice, dropsy, leprosy, headache, coughs and melancholy. For a man Jahan's age and size, two spoonfuls was the right amount. Since an elephant weighed as much as a mountain and was as tall as a tree ... Simeon's eyebrows arched as he made a calculation. 'You are going to need a cask!'

'Where am I going to find that?'

Simeon said, 'The Chief White Eunuch. There's no miracle he cannot perform.'

Jahan returned to the palace with a book under his arm and misgivings in his head. n.o.body messed with Carnation Kamil Agha. He hadn't forgotten the scolding he had received from him when he had first arrived. Even so, mustering courage, Jahan went to see him. To his surprise, the man was agreeable, kind even.

A cask of opium was provided at a stroke. Jahan did not inquire how it was acquired. Years in the palace had instilled in him the code of silence. Two tamers hoisted up Chota's upper jaw; two others held down his lower one. The elephant, in pain and tired, did not put up much of a fight. For good measure, with the help of a funnel, they poured a jug of mulled red wine into his listless mouth.

Little by little, Chota's breathing slackened off; his face melted like wax, his eyes glazed over. His legs gave way under his enormous weight and he tumbled down. They tied him with hawsers and chains and ropes, in case he woke up and attacked them in a fit of delirium. In this state Jahan started to operate on him.

He began with a chisel, quickly moved to a hammer. Dara the giraffe-tamer, Kato the crocodile-tamer and Olev the lion-tamer took turns pounding, thumping, clouting. Then pulling, yanking, wrenching. After what felt like an eternity, Jahan rooted out a tooth like the fang of a giant snake from a tale a meddah would tell in a coffee-house somewhere.

'Give it to me,' ordered the Chief White Eunuch, his eyes glinting.