Jason Goodwin - The snake stone

“A secret society, doctor?”

Dr. Millingen had begun to let the coin run across the back of his hand, weaving it in and out between his fingers.

“In my experience, there are many Greek secret societies. It’s in the blood. Some are for trade. Some for family. In the kingdom of Greece, so I’ve heard, some agitate for a republic, or socialism.”

“Yes, I see. And the Hetira?”

“I’ve heard of them. You are a friend of Malakian’s, so I’ll tell you what I know: it’s not to be repeated, if you understand me. The Hetira are anti-Ottoman, in a fairly subdued way. Most secret societies are, or they wouldn’t exist. But the Hetira really despise the kingdom of Greece. They believe that the kingdom was constructed by secret negotiation between the Ottoman Empire and the European powers, to keep Greeks in the Ottoman lands quiet.”

“A conspiracy?”

“Between a cunning sultan and compliant foreign ambassadors. For the likes of the Hetira, Greece is nothing more than a sop to European opinion. In the meantime, they indulge a dream. They want a new empire. Greeks don’t live in Greece alone. Trabzon, Izmir, Constantinople: they’re full of Greeks, aren’t they?”

Yashim watched in fascination as the angelus rippled between Millingen’s knuckles. “But also Turks. And Armenians, Jews. What of them?”

The doctor turned his wrist, and his fingers closed around the coin. When he opened his hand, it had gone.

Yashim smiled and stood up. “That’s a pretty trick,” he said.

“Missilonghi was a very long drawn-out affair.” Dr. Millingen laughed. “As I say, we had time on our hands. But interesting company.”

He flexed his fingers.

The ancient coin winked in his palm.

“Who is it now? Any more builders, and I swear I’ll scream. You’re quite fat enough, Anuk, put that pastry away. Read this, Mina sweetie. Tell me if it’s spelled properly. If it’s not a builder we’ll see him.” She opened her arms. “Yashim!”

Preen went into a mock swoon. Nobody in the room paid the slightest attention except Mina, who looked up and smiled. Preen snapped out of her swoon and threw her arms around Yashim’s neck. “I thought you were a builder! I might not have recognized you anyway. It’s been months.”

Yashim grinned. Preen’s sense of time had always been elastic, stretching or shrinking according to her mood; but she lived in a world that was more vivid and extravagant than his, where the boundaries between reality and make-believe were fluid. Long ago, as a boy, Preen had been trained as a kocek dancer, as sultry and provocative as any of the kocek “girls” who danced at weddings and parties and reunions in the great city of Istanbul. No one knew exactly how or when the kocek traditions had evolved: perhaps they had danced for the emperors of Byzantium, perhaps they had come with the Turks from the steppe; but they were, like the dogs or the gypsies, as much a part of the city as the sunshine or the damp.

Preen had not lost her zest, nor her sense of humor, when she set aside her wigs and bustiers in favor of a bristled scalp and loose pajamas. There was gray in the bristle now, and her face bore no trace of makeup beyond a little rouge, some antimony, and a touch of the eyebrow pencil and the kohl. She was wearing an embroidered scarlet waistcoat. Two of the fingers of her right hand were permanently crooked, the result of an accident involving an assassin and a tricky flight of stairs.

“Months, Preen? More like a week.”

“A week for me-it’s a month! I don’t have time to sleep, Yashim, honestly.” Her fingers fluttered to her eyes. “Do I look tired?” She sounded chirpy, but Yashim was familiar with Preen’s methods, her underlying anxieties.

“Tired? You’re crackling with energy, I can feel it. You look like a new-”

“I am a new woman, Yashim.”

They both laughed.

“It’s true-that accident was the best thing that could have happened to me. It made me think. Face it, Yashim, I was getting too old to dance every night.”

“You were dancing as well as ever.”

Preen smiled. “I’ve seen too many dancers grow old, Yashim. The theater will be something different.” She pronounced it tay-atre, the French way Yashim had used when he first explained the idea. “I’ve got jobs for three of the older girls when we open, selling tickets and sherbet and coffee.”

Yashim had been astonished by Preen’s talent for organization. Gone was the dancer who worked for tips from clients, who fretted about her vanishing good looks, who slept and danced and whiled away whole days in the hammam. As soon as she had grasped the idea of a theater she had set about it with enthusiasm. She tracked down good premises in Pera, found a team of builders and bent them to her will, planned the bill and organized the decor-all in the space of a few months. Preen had an unexpected streak of steel. She took no nonsense, brooked no contradictions. But she lavished praise where it was due.

She lavished it on him, of course. Yashim only hoped that he was right: that Pera could support a theater. It would be something between an English music hall and a Parisian revue; he had read about such places. Many people would disapprove. Yashim, if he were honest, disapproved slightly himself. But for Preen’s sake-and the sake of all her tribe-he hoped it would work.

“I came into a little extra money,” he said, holding out Alexander Mavrogordato’s purse. “Can you use it?”

Preen turned her head away. “We despise it, Yashim. You know that.” Her arm snaked out and he dropped the purse into her hand.

“Thanks. Do you want a coffee?”

“No. But I’ve got a favor to ask.”

“You surprise me. Shall we not despise the money, after all?”

“Better not. A wealthy boy, Preen. Greek, rather good-looking.”

“Mmmm.” Preen arched a delicate eyebrow. “Sash, skirts, and hairy legs, too?”

“More like lace-ups and a stambouline, I’m afraid. And whiskey breath.”

Preen turned her head and traced a pattern idly on her scalp. “Academy boy?”

“That’s my guess.” Since Greek independence ten years before, many rich Greeks had been sending their sons to be educated in Athens. “Alexander Mavrogordato. The bankers.”

“Ah, those Mavrogordatos,” Preen said roguishly, as if there were any others. Then her expression changed. “We might need the purse, at that.”

Yashim laid the basket on the floor and fished out three onions and a handful of zucchinis. He pulled down the chopping board and set it on the little high table where he kept his salt, rice, and dried spices. He took a sharp knife from the box beside him and honed it on an English steel that Palewski had given him once, as a surprise. Cookery wasn’t about fire: it was about a sharp blade.

He ripped the outer skin from the onion using the blunt edge of the knife. He halved it and laid the halved pairs face down, curves touching. The knife rose and fell on its point. The board gave a momentary lurch and rocked to one side; Yashim continued chopping. He swept the slices to the edge of the board. The board rocked back again. Yashim raised one edge and swept his hand beneath it, dislodging a grain of rice.

For a few moments he stared at the tiny grain, frowning slightly. Then he glanced up and poked his finger into the spaces between the rice crock and the salt cellar and the spice jars at the back of the table. A few grains of rice stuck to his fingers. He moved the crocks and jars to one side, and found several more.

Yashim rubbed the tips of his fingers together, opened the lid of the rice crock, and looked inside. It was almost full, the little scoop buried in the grain to its hilt.