Jenny White - The Sultan's seal

“Amalia Teyze sent me. From Middle Village. She said to tell you that she has some important information for you.” Kamil notes with approval that the boy’s words are unhurried and that he has regained his self-confidence.

“What is the information?”

Hands clasped behind his back, Avi continues in a singsong voice, as if he were reciting, “She said to tell you that some weeks ago the gardener for a konak at Chamyeri found a bundle of clothing by a pond in the forest. She said you would know which house. The gardener burned the clothing, but one of the maids saw him. The maid has relatives in our village. When she came to visit, she learned that Aunt Amalia was interested in such things and came and told her.”

The boy stops, still standing ramrod straight. His eyes, however, stray curiously to the silver inkwell, pens, and open books scattered on Kamil’s desk.

“That is, indeed, important information,” Kamil says, reaching in his waistcoat for a silver kurush. “We thank you for bringing it.”

“I can’t take payment,” he replies. “I was doing my duty.”

Kamil reaches over and plucks a quill pen from its holder. He holds it out to the boy.

“For your service, please accept this pen. If you learn to use it, come back and see me.”

The radiance of the boy’s face as he solemnly accepts the pen shoots Kamil through with a delicious pain, a mixture of regret, longing, and pleasure.

“Thank you, Avi. You may go. Please thank your aunt.”

He turns his back to the boy so that he should not see the emotion on his face, he-the rational administrator, representative of the all-powerful government.

“We’re lost,” I said querulously.

Violet claimed to know her way around the Grand Bazaar, but we had twice passed the same marble fountain on the Street of Caps.

“I know where I’m going,” Violet repeated for the fifth time.

I stopped in the narrow street and took my bearings. Violet looked over her shoulder and, seeing that I was no longer following her, returned and waited impatiently beside me, her eyes roaming over the shop displays. She had assured Aunt Hüsnü that she knew her way through the maze of covered streets, even though Aunt Hüsnü knew as well as I did that this was untrue. As my companion, she went where I went, and I had never been to the Grand Bazaar. Aunt Hüsnü seemed as relieved as we were that she would not be required to accompany us on our expedition to purchase items for my trousseau. I had no intention of purchasing anything of the sort, but adventure beckoned. The glittering bazaar cast its spell over me as soon as I passed through its massive gates.

We were to go to the shop of a friend of Papa’s, a goldsmith on the Avenue of Jewelers, to look at bracelets. At first we dawdled at every shop, overwhelmed by the sheer numbers of slippers, bolts of cloth, carpets, hamam supplies, and precious stones, each with its own street of shops selling the same items in almost unthinkable profusion. When a shop owner spoke to us, we shied away, only to stop again at a different shop a few steps on.

Finally, I said, “Let’s find the goldsmith’s shop. Otherwise Papa will be angry.”

And that is when we became lost on the Street of Caps.

“Look,” Violet pointed. “An entire street of clothing.”

She drew me toward a shop selling brocaded vests. I purchased a vest for Violet and a bolt of cloth for myself and arranged to have them delivered to Nishantashou. Then I asked the shopkeeper for directions to the goldsmith’s shop.

“Follow this street,” he instructed us, pointing deeper into the bazaar, “until you come to a gate. That’s the entrance to the Bedestan. Pass though it. Outside the gate on the other side,” he assured us, “you’ll find the Avenue of Jewelers.”

Violet was already pulling me away.

Before long, we came to a set of thick, iron-studded gates. They led inside a room as large as a building embedded right in the heart of the bazaar. I craned my neck at the high, vaulted ceiling above the narrow lanes of shops. A wooden catwalk stretched around the periphery just beneath the ceiling. Violet nudged me and pointed at a tiny shop crammed with antique silver ornaments and vases. A slim woman in Frankish dress was bowed over a tray of necklaces. The shop next door sold gold jewelry, but of a design and quality I had never seen. Similar shops stretched before us down narrow lanes beneath the dome of this strange room like a stage set in a theater. My father’s goldsmith was forgotten.

“What is this place?” I asked the old Armenian shopkeeper wonderingly as he placed another tray of gold bracelets on the counter before me.

“This is the oldest part of the bazaar, chère hanoum,” he explained proudly. “It’s where all the most valuable things in the bazaar are kept. It’s fireproof and at night, after the gates are locked, it’s patrolled by guards.” He pointed at the catwalk high up under the roof. “This is as safe as any bank in Europe.”

Next door, the Frankish woman was trying to bargain with the shopkeeper, who suddenly no longer understood English. Leaving Violet to pay for the gold bracelet I had chosen, I entered the silver shop.

“Can I help you?” I asked her.

She turned and I was caught up in the startled gaze of her blue eyes. She seemed to see directly into my own, as if through a window. We smiled at the same time and, without another word, turned to the shopkeeper. I did not have much worldly experience, but I had good nerves, and soon the Frankish woman had her silver necklace at less than half the price the shopkeeper had at first demanded.

“Thank you,” she said when we had stepped back into the lane. “My name is Mary Dixon.”

Kamil finds Halil cleaning his tools inside a shed at the back of the garden. By the flickering light of an oil lamp, Kamil sees a single low room. Halil looks up from the bench. His eyebrows are so dense and wiry that his eyes are almost invisible. The front of the room is stacked with neatly organized garden implements and tools.

To Kamil’s question, he answers, “Yes, bey. I found some clothes. It’s true. And I burned them.”

“Why did you do that?”

“They were women’s clothes, bey.”

“What difference does that make?”

“Who knows what went on with those clothes? In the woods. It wasn’t fit for anyone else to wear them. So I burned them.”

As an afterthought, Halil adds, “Why? Did someone complain they were missing?”

“No, but it’s possible that they belonged to someone who was killed recently.”

“Killed.” It is a statement, not a question. With his good hand, he absentmindedly strokes the stumps of his missing fingers.

Kamil wonders how much he knows about Mary Dixon’s murder. Surely the villagers all know.

“Where did you find them?”

“By the pond.”

“Show me, please.”

Without a word, Halil merges into the afternoon shadows outside the door and leads the way through the garden. The air is heavy with bees. They pass the pavilion and climb over the ruined wall into the loamy gloom of the forest. The pond lies behind a screen of rhododendrons.

“There.” He points behind a group of moss-covered boulders.

Climbing carefully over the slippery stones, Halil points to a narrow cleft. “Pushed inside.”

Kamil slips on a patch of wet moss and catches himself on a bush, swinging nearly to his knees as the branches give way under his weight and others flail at him. He hangs there for a moment, breathing heavily, before pulling himself upright.