Jenny White - The Sultan's seal

I thought for a few moments. Perhaps he was right. I was untutored in many of the ways of society, but I clearly remembered the warnings and stories that circulated in the summer harems.

“Now what do we do?” I was aware that I had put myself in Hamza’s hands. He leaned forward and laid his hand on my shoulder. His fingers played with a lock of hair that had escaped from the scarf draped over my head.

“I don’t know,” he said softly. “You’ll be safe here for a while, but you can’t go out. The neighborhood women sit at the windows and watch who comes and goes.”

“So I exchange one prison for another,” I said softly, to myself.

“It’s only for a short while, until we figure out what to do.”

We…Was Hamza suggesting he would marry me himself? I waited for him to speak again, but he did not.

I wondered what my disappearance would mean. Did I still have a reputation that could be damaged? I had not had time to think about my future, to test which roads were still open to me. Had this closed another road? So far, the pens of others had drawn the features on the map that was my life.

I regarded Hamza, who was still silent.

“What do you think the consequences of this will be for me?” I asked him, hoping by his answer to decipher the calligraphy of his life on the thin pages of mine.

“Consequences? Of what?”

“Of my coming here.”

“What do you mean?”

“The world will believe that I’ve been abducted.”

“I had thought of it as a rescue,” he responded defensively.

We sat for a while, busy with our own thoughts.

“May I speak plainly?” he asked.

“Please do,” I said, perhaps more emphatically than I wished.

“I don’t mean to hurt you, Jaanan.” He paused, searching my face. “But since the attack by Amin, it has been difficult for you. Society doesn’t forgive. I know.” There was an undercurrent of bitterness in his voice that I had never noticed before. I was curious what his experience might have been. He had never spoken of it.

“I’m aware of that, Hamza. But I’m not alone. Papa won’t forsake me, nor will Ismail Dayi.” Nor would you, I added to myself, but with less certainty.

“You must tell Ismail Dayi that I’m safe,” I insisted.

“I’ll go myself and tell him.” Hamza rose and signaled to the young man.

As her son embraced her, the old woman began to rock and keen quietly. Gently he pulled her hands from his vest and spoke to her again in Ladino, the vowels falling like rain onto her parched, beseeching face.

Young almonds, peeled and eaten raw, leave a raspy feeling on the tongue as if you have eaten something wild. The almond seller exhibited them like jewels: a pile of almonds in their thin brown skins resting on a layer of ice inside a glass box, lit by an oil lamp. Wheeling them about the streets on warm spring nights, the almond seller had no special call-his cart was a sacrament and people flocked to it.

The following evening, Hamza returned and brought me a plate of chilled almonds. We sat on the divan by the window, the plate between us, and talked. I pulled my thumb over the fragile skin. It slipped away suddenly, leaving a gleaming, ivory sliver between my fingertips. The Jewish woman had withdrawn to another room at the back of the apartment. We were alone. This no longer worried me.

Hamza threw the almond into his mouth without peeling it. In a swift movement he was next to me and had wrapped his arms around me. My face was crushed to his chest and my head scarf fluttered to the floor. He smelled of leather.

“Jaanan.” His voice was thick and rough. I thought of the carnations embroidered on Mama’s velvet cushions in stiff gold thread. They scratched my cheek when I laid it against the rich velvet.

I didn’t struggle. This, then, is the path, I thought. Without hesitation, I opened the gate and stepped out.

Kamil can go neither forward into the second courtyard nor back out the wrought-iron gates. He sits in the guardhouse and waits with increasing impatience for the soldiers to allow him entry. They stand implacably at each entrance to the squat stone building, clutching their rifles. The air smells faintly of flint and leather. Kamil stood waiting at the outer gate of Yildiz Palace for over an hour before he was allowed to advance to the guardhouse. He bided his time at the gate with pleasurable thoughts about Sybil, with whom he is invited to dine the evening after next.

At least, he thinks, here I am allowed to sit. On the opposite bench sits a clearly irritated sharp-nosed Frank in stately clothing.

When the shadows have fallen the length of the courtyard, a blue-turbaned clerk appears at the door. The guards snap into rigid poses and bow in unison, their leather armor creaking as they make the gesture of obeisance. The clerk barks at the ranking soldier and motions peremptorily to Kamil to follow him. The Frank also stands expectantly, but one of the guards steps in front of him, hand on the dagger at his belt. With a heartfelt comment in his own language, the Frank falls back onto the bench. Kamil bows but the clerk’s back is already turned and he is hurrying away. Kamil lengthens his stride to keep up with him. The young man’s lack of decorum and self-importance amuses him. At that moment, the clerk swings around and catches the expression on Kamil’s face.

Cheeks flaming, he demands, “You. Show proper respect. You are not in the bazaar.”

Kamil’s clothing identifies him as a magistrate. He is surprised at the disrespectful tone. The clerk is very young. Probably a youth raised in the palace, Kamil decides, one of the many children of the sultan’s concubines. They are educated and given responsibilities without ever having set foot beyond these yellow walls. Certainly never to the bazaar.

Kamil smiles at the clerk and bows slightly. “I am honored to be received by the palace.”

Mollified, the clerk turns on his heels and hurries through an ornate gate. From behind, Kamil can see the young man’s slight shoulders straighten as more guards snap their weapons into place and salute him. Kamil notes, with pleasure, that the wall is covered in white and yellow banksia roses, passionflowers, sweet verbena, and heliotrope. Silver-gray pigeons waddle complacently on the lawn. In the distance, behind a marble gateway, Kamil sees the square classical façade of the Great Mabeyn, where the everyday business of the empire is conducted by palace secretaries, where the sultan’s correspondence is composed, and where his spies send their reports. His father must have reported to the sultan in that building, Kamil thinks.

They approach a two-story building so long that it stretches out of sight on one side. The clerk leads him through a door, along a narrow corridor, then out again into the blinding light of a large yard. Small workshops line the back of the building. Faint hammering and tapping, a strange creaking leak from their windows. The clerk stops by a room larger than others they had passed. Inside, a group of middle-aged men in brown robes and turbans sit drinking coffee from tiny china cups.

When the clerk appears, the men bow their heads in respectful greeting, but do not rise.

“I’m looking for the head usta.” The clerk’s voice is unnaturally high-pitched.

A man with a neatly trimmed white beard looks up.

“You’ve found him.”

“Our padishah requires you to assist this man”-he looks disgustedly at Kamil-“with his inquiries.”

“And who is this man?” asks the head craftsman, looking benignly at Kamil.

“My name is Magistrate Kamil Pasha, usta bey.” Kamil bows and makes the sign of obeisance.