Jason Goodwin - An Evil eye

“The sultan?” Her lips trembled. “How? How, efendi, could that be?”

She covered her face with her hands and began to sob.

Yashim murmured a few words: he hardly knew what to say. He stood up and went to find the Kislar aga.

“ Tell me-” He hesitated. “Was Elif a gozde?”

The aga looked puzzled. “A gozde? Certainly not. Elif was a musician, Yashim. She played in the ladies’ orchestra, and she and Melda were also kalfas. They look after a little girl.”

“And before she came here? Three, four months ago, when Abdulmecid was still a prince?”

Ibou shrugged. “I don’t understand your questions, Yashim.”

“I want to know when Elif met the sultan. Perhaps while he was still crown prince?”

“She didn’t meet him. Not face-to-face, not to be introduced. The only time she’s seen Abdulmecid is at our concerts. We do not have the sultan roaming the corridors, meeting ladies.”

“Ibou,” Yashim said gently. “It seems that Elif was pregnant.”

The silence between them prickled like toasted spice.

“Do you know what you are saying?” Ibou whispered. His face was waxy with-what? Astonishment? Fear?

“Elif died from bleeding,” Yashim said. “What you saw, those marks, were made by her own nails. She was clawing at her own flesh.” He paused. “What you haven’t seen is the sheet under the bed. It’s soaked in blood. If Melda is right, I would guess that Elif miscarried.”

The aga collected himself. “No. Pembe was the sultan’s gozde before he became sultan-with the unfortunate results you know about. Since then, he has taken only two other women. Leyla and Demet, both of them selected by-b-b-by me, and B-Bezmialem. To suggest that the sultan would take another woman into his bed, without protocol, is absurd. He is ruled by the traditions of the house of Osman. And Demet and Leyla would prevent it, anyway.”

“To the death?”

Ibou frowned. “They would only have to speak to me, Yashim. There would be no need to talk of death.”

Yashim sighed. The legitimate gozde would hardly stand idly by while the sultan dallied with another girl.

“This is not a house in the city, Yashim. The sultan never goes alone. Every minute of the day, every hour of the night, he is watched and cared for.”

“Was Elif watched every minute of the day? At night?”

“She is with the others, Yashim. You now how it is.”

“But if Elif was pregnant, and she did not sleep with the sultan

…”

Ibou’s face clouded. “Impossible.”

If what Yashim implied was true, it was not just about one girl, or the lapse of a single aga. This was a taint that would spread like the blood across the quilt, but more fatal, more insidious, than either of them could imagine.

“Could she-have slept with another man?”

The aga slowly turned his head. His lips peeled back. “Is this what the girl Melda says? What to do, Yashim efendi? I cannot let her say such a thing.”

Yashim had known agas who would have strangled a girl with their bare hands without hesitation or remorse; but not Ibou.

“We need to get Melda away,” he said. “Somewhere she can feel safe.”

Melda startled at the water. Through the black gauze of her burka the Bosphorus looked dull and menacing, speckled with white.

Perhaps the water was to be her grave.

She entertained few illusions. The lala who had asked her questions had said they were going somewhere safe. She had read the expression in his eyes and thought that it could have been reassurance: but then she was not sure what reassurance looked like anymore, or how to tell the real from the false.

What had happened to Elif was real. Evidently so: the blood was real blood, the agony unfeigned. And then Elif was dead.

Her secret killed her.

And she, Melda, shared the secret.

The lala gestured for her to seat herself. When he smiled, did he smile with his eyes, or only move the muscles around his mouth? It was hard to tell from behind the mask she wore.

The engine was terrible enough. Perhaps there were other engines that he had prepared. Other systems.

The caique shot forward, over the gray water.

Hyacinth padded softly across the polished stones, jangling his keys. Today he had started to wear his woolen slippers; he felt the cold. The valide had ordered the fires made up, and when he was called from his own snug cubicle he startled at the wind that blew down the Golden Road.

“Evet, evet,” Hyacinth grumbled as he approached the little door.

Yashim, with a woman.

“Well, well,” he said, blinking up at them both. “Another mouth to feed?”

Yashim said quietly: “Another mouth, Hyacinth, if you want to put it like that.”

The woman stepped into the vestibule. The wind caught at her veil and she raised it with gloved hands, revealing a face Hyacinth could not recall.

The corners of his mouth turned down. “Coming, going, there’s nothing regular anymore, is there?” He peered at Melda more closely. “I don’t know you.”

She said nothing, so he added: “You don’t look well. Pretty and young, not like the rest of them here, perhaps. But not very well.”

“Melda needs rest, Hyacinth.”

“What does the valide say, Yashim efendi?”

“You needn’t trouble the valide, Hyacinth,” Yashim said firmly. “I’ll look in on her now. Anyway, it’s just for a short while.”

“I’ll put her in the old dormitory. Light the fire.” He took the girl by the arm. She flinched, but either he didn’t notice or he chose to ignore it. “Melda, is it? You’ll be all right. Old Hyacinth will see to that.”

He hefted the keys in his other hand. Yashim put his hand to his chest, and bowed.

Dogs barked and pulled on their chains as the man approached the farm.

He fingered the knife in his satchel. He was very tired and had gone two days without food.

“I am very strong,” he said. “I can work.”

The farmer did not understand his words, but the man showed his biceps and he nodded. He was not inhospitable.

The man worked for him for two weeks. In return he received food and a place to rest.

One morning, he was gone.

“ So my grandson needs me after all.” The valide plucked at an invisible thread on her shawl. “I blame myself.”

“Valide?”

“My son preferred fat girls, Yashim. Imagined they lacked energy. So I picked out Bezmialem. A foolish prejudice of mine.” Her silver bangles tinkled on her arm. “I thought Bezmialem was stronger than she turned out to be. More intelligent.”

Yashim nodded in sympathy.

“She is merely thin, au fond.” The valide gave an expressive little shrug, as if to dismiss the whole affair. “One learns, Yashim. The new palace at Besiktas was, of course, Mahmut’s mistake,” she added. “I told him so.”

“You will find it-strange,” Yashim suggested.

“I am aware of that. Perhaps I should have gone before, but I am a stubborn woman.”

Yashim tried to imagine the valide at Besiktas, with its gauzy windows and chandeliers, its stiff upholstered chairs and yards and yards of open, empty space.

“I shall rely on you,” the valide continued. “And Tulin knows Besiktas quite well. A cause de sa flute. ”

“You’re fond of her, valide.”

“Fortunately for you, she can’t read French.” The valide wagged her finger. “Tulin plays the flute with the other girls. The sultan’s orchestra. Very pretty. And it keeps them occupied. Here at Topkapi she sees an old woman and some superstitious eunuchs. I am thinking of her interests, as it happens. I do not wish her to be too much alone,” she added. “Isolation is dangerous in the harem, Yashim. A girl must have friends.”