Jenny White - The Sultan's seal

“Why did her son agree to this?”

“From what we know of him, I doubt he would ever have dishonored his mother in such a way. Maybe he was coerced by this ‘Turko’ to put the girl up here. That might be a motive for a fight in which he himself was killed. Just speculation, of course.”

“How long did her son know this man?”

“Eight or nine years. She doesn’t know where they met. Her son told her very little-just said they worked together.”

“At what, I wonder.”

The rabbi of Galata hurried in. His velvet kaftan floated open behind him. A red turban wrapped around a felt hat framed his forehead. The rabbi’s eyes surveyed the room, taking in the situation. Seeing Madame Devora, he slipped off his outer shoes and walked toward her. A young man who followed behind carried their Holy Book.

“We should go.” The magistrate’s associate was keeping a crowd of curious neighbors, mostly women, at bay at the end of the corridor.

“Take me to my uncle’s house at Chamyeri, please.”

A crowd of people had gathered on the street. The surgeon stood by an enclosed coach, his eyes darting in all directions. The magistrate spoke to him in a low voice. As soon as we were inside, the man vanished into the crowd.

When we had settled across from each other and the coach began to move, the magistrate said, “I’ve sent ahead to obtain your father’s opinion on the matter of where you are to go.” Seeing my anxious face, he reassured me, “I revealed nothing, but I urge you to tell him what you told me. He is your father.” After a moment, he added, “It might not be as you think.”

His attention was caught by a commotion on the street. When he turned back to me, his face slashed by light from the closing curtains, he offered, “If you wish, I will explain things to him.”

“No, thank you, magistrate bey. I will do it.”

A chain of amber beads slipped through his fingers in patterns as intricate as smoke. His long legs were tucked along the far side of the cab a discreet distance from my own. His eyes rested at a respectful remove, on the empty seat beside me.

“How did you find me?” I asked him as the carriage negotiated the steep, tight curves. Jeering children followed us all the way up Djamji Street.

“My associate’s mother.”

“His mother?”

“The women know everything that happens in the neighborhood. They watch from their windows and pass along gossip.”

I said it sounded frightful.

“But wonderful for enforcing public safety. Although,” he added, “they don’t necessarily tell us what they’ve seen. Your maid fell out of the carriage as it rounded a corner and ran into a courtyard to get help. Apparently no one offered to help her, although she said she attracted a curious enough crowd.”

“I suppose they wouldn’t want to come to the notice of the police,” I ventured, “since suspicion would fall on them before anyone else.”

He gave me a brief, curious look. “Yes, I suppose that would be one reason.”

We fell silent as the carriage passed through a market area, unwilling to compete with the hoarse cries of vendors, alternately aggressive and cajoling, and the quarrelsome voices of prospective buyers.

When we had rounded a corner onto the Grande Rue de Pera, he continued.

“Luckily, your maid remembered the direction of the carriage. South toward Galata. My associate happens to live in Galata. One day, his mother visited a relative on Djamji Street. Some other women there began to discuss the old woman who lives across the street, Madame Devora. For some time, the shutters to her bedroom had been closed in the daytime. The women worried that she was ill, since her son didn’t seem to be around to take care of her and no one had seen her come or go. Yet just the other day a neighbor had seen her lowering a basket on a rope to the vegetable seller. She bought so much fruit she could barely pull the basket back up. They surmised from the quantity of food that she must be expecting guests, but then no one noticed any visitors.”

“They probably knew just how much money was in the basket too,” I exclaimed.

He laughed. “If these women were working for us, we’d solve many more crimes.”

One front tooth was slightly awry. The hidden flaw introduced by its maker into every carpet that marks it as the work of humankind, not Allah who alone is perfect. The stern, efficient magistrate was just another man.

“Once the gossip started, I can imagine them bringing every detail to bear. Someone saw a strange man entering the building, a workman carrying tools, but no noise was heard from the building. The man apparently tried to keep out of sight, arriving in late afternoon, when the women’s husbands weren’t home yet and the women themselves were busy preparing dinner, but he was seen nevertheless. One hot night, the neighbors kept their carpets out on the sidewalk, sleeping in the open air. They said the mosquitoes kept them awake. A strange man came out of the building in the hour before the morning call to prayer. Unfortunately, they didn’t see his face.”

He looked pointedly at me before continuing.

“So they took action. They went to visit Madame Devora. Of course, they knew she was home. They know everything! When she didn’t answer her door, they became convinced something was wrong, and they delegated my associate’s mother to report it to her son, who came to me. We had already been looking in Galata, thanks to your maid’s information. And that is how we came to find you.”

Thus was I found and lost all at the same time, in both cases through the tongues of women, a force that shamed and secluded me for nothing more than losing a bit of flesh, and then rescued me from a shame and seclusion that I desired. We stopped at an official-looking building and the magistrate disappeared inside. When he reemerged he brought with him a taciturn widow in an all-enveloping black charshaf that covered even her lower face, who accompanied me for the rest of the trip home.

At Chamyeri, Ismail Dayi helped me from the carriage. The chaperone, who for the entire trip had stared silently through the gauze-curtained window, refused refreshment and ordered the carriage to return to the city. Ismail Dayi’s shoulders looked stooped and thinner under his robes than I remembered. His face was pinched, his beard flecked with gray, and small spots of red glowed on his cheekbones. I bowed before him, took his hand and kissed it, then touched it to my forehead. He pulled me up.

“Jaanan, my lion.”

“Where is Mama?” I asked, looking past him into the dim interior beyond the doors.

He took my hand. “Come inside, my dear.”

Violet was waiting in the entryway. An egg-yolk-yellow kerchief tied around her head emphasized her black eyes screened by long lashes, eyebrows like an archer’s bow laid across them. She moved toward me and we embraced. I inhaled the familiar smoky scent of her skin. Her cheeks under my lips tasted of salt and milk. But the tinder did not kindle into joy. The cook’s boat had been cut adrift, then burned.

I pulled from her embrace and went to Ismail Dayi. He led me to his study, where we had spent so many happy winter evenings. Now the windows to the garden were open and the familiar scent of jasmine twined into the room.

Ismail Dayi lowered himself onto the divan. Violet adjusted the cushions behind his back. He waved his hand to indicate that she should leave. With obvious reluctance, she backed out of the room. For some moments we sat silently, our limbs wrapped in the scented warmth from the garden.

Finally, Ismail Dayi spoke.

“My daughter.” His voice was husky-with illness? I did not know and I was suddenly ashamed of how much I had tested him.