Jason Goodwin - An Evil eye

He thumped on the door and felt the frame quiver. A chunk of snow fell from the roof of the porch. Without waiting for an answer, Yashim pushed inside.

Inside it was even colder, but Yashim knew better than to linger in the darkened hall. He took the stairs gingerly, two at a time, using the rail to guide him.

He paused at the top. Palewski would be reading in his comfortable chair by the fire, perhaps working on his translation, surrounded by sheets of paper, a glass at his elbow. A band of light showed beneath the door.

Long ago, when they were new to each other, there had been courtesies on both sides, bows, salaams, even little speeches in the proper Ottoman style, and in good French. Yashim would have found it unthinkable that he should slip in unannounced, and unacknowledged; but years of friendship and understanding had knocked off the courtesies like so many rococo embellishments.

Yashim entered without knocking.

A comfortable heat radiated from a crackling log fire. The shutters were closed, the candles were lit, and across the room an oil lamp cast a pool of yellow light across a small round table covered with a green chenille cloth.

Palewski was sitting at the table, both hands laid flat on the chenille cloth. Opposite him sat his housekeeper, Marta. She too had her hands on the table.

A thread of blood was trickling from Palewski’s nose.

Behind Marta stood a man with a rifle, and the muzzle of the rifle was pressed against the nape of Marta’s neck.

Behind Yashim the door closed.

A voice he knew all too well spoke in his ear.

“So, Yashim. After all these years.”

“ I am sure you can appreciate your friends’ position,” Fevzi Ahmet said. “The ambassador made an effort to rearrange it, but you see I was able to change his mind.”

Palewski spoke without turning his head. “I’m sorry, Yashim. I thought it was you earlier, on the stairs.”

Yashim tasted bile in his mouth.

The pasha smiled. “I won’t detain them longer than necessary.”

“Necessary for what?”

“Securing your cooperation.”

Fevzi Ahmet folded his arms. In ten years his face had grown thinner, and his hair was gray. He had lost some of the thuggish beauty that had attracted the late Sultan Mahmut to him, but his black eyes were as deep and cold as ever.

What do you want?”

“Just put your hands up, over your head.”

Yashim glanced at Marta. Her eyes flickered toward him as he lifted his hands. He saw her jaw clench, and her eyes rolled upward. She blinked slowly, then looked at Palewski, and forced a little smile.

Palewski rubbed the tablecloth with his fingertips and held her gaze.

“You wonder why I have risked coming back to Istanbul?”

“Of course.”

Fevzi Ahmet considered him for a while.

Yashim glanced back at Marta. Kadri: Kadri wasn’t here. He was upstairs. Asleep.

“Just before I left with the fleet,” Fevzi Ahmet said, “one of Galytsin’s agents came to see me. He brought me some unwelcome news.”

“A Baltic German, blond, scarred. He was blackmailing you. You killed him.”

Fevzi’s eyes were like snow holes. “Four out of five. You’re losing your touch.”

Fevzi Pasha sat down in Palewski’s armchair, making Yashim wince. He picked up the poker and riddled the fire. A log crashed down, emitting a shower of sparks. “I need your help.”

“You seem to have help already,” Yashim said, nodding to the man with the gun.

“Oh yes, the caiquejees. Splendidly loyal, I must say, to one of their own. But I’m afraid this is rather beyond them. Beyond any man, except you.”

Yashim frowned. “Why me?”

Fevzi Ahmet let out an exasperated sigh, and stabbed the fire. “Four years ago, when I was promoted to Kapudan pasha, the Russians approached me with an offer.”

“I thought it was earlier than that,” Yashim said drily. “Saint Petersburg? Ten years, at least.”

“Saint Petersburg, Yashim.” Fevzi Ahmet frowned. “The Russians gave me a whore…?”

Yashim looked at him. “You gave Batoumi away.”

“Batoumi was already lost. My job was to let it go.”

“What do you mean, it was your job? To exchange Batoumi for a woman?”

A flash of irritation crossed Fevzi Ahmet’s face. “I took my instructions from the grand vizier. They didn’t involve you-and I thought you were too green. Perhaps you still are.” He fixed Yashim with a stare. “Ironic, isn’t it? Now I need your help.”

“So you say. Four years ago, what offer did the Russians make?”

“Galytsin made me an expensive offer, in return for news. My inactivity.” He shrugged. “All that matters is that I turned them down.”

“Oh?”

“The Russians are hard, Yashim. I didn’t reckon on the cost of ignoring them. A few weeks later my home was burned to the ground.” Fevzi Pasha clinked the poker against the grate. “My wife was inside. A concubine, and the old lala who looked after them.” He paused. “And my daughter, too.”

Yashim looked away.

“But I saved her, Yashim.”

Yashim glanced up quickly. Fevzi Pasha’s eyes were bright with triumph.

“Yes-I saved her. The lala dropped her into my arms.”

Kadri opened his eyes in the dark and wondered what had woken him.

He glanced at the window; it was a dark night, and he could not tell what time it was.

He pushed his blanket aside and swung his bare feet onto the floor, cocking his head, listening to a faint murmur from somewhere downstairs.

Perhaps Yashim had come?

He was about to get back into bed when he realized that he was thirsty.

He would go down to the kitchen and fetch a glass of water without disturbing the two men.

He pulled on a woollen coat the ambassador had lent him, and padded to the stairs.

Somewhere below, a floorboard creaked.

Kadri had lived wild in the hills of Cappadocia, and he was not afraid of the dark, but he paused at the sound.

“All ready?”

Kadri was suddenly alert.

Someone had whispered on the landing below.

He bent over the banister, listening.

Fevzi Pasha rested the tip of the poker against the grate. “The fire taught me that as long as I had a family, I would never be safe. The Russians might try again, and next time they would use my daughter. So I gave her up.”

Yashim thought back to the horrible doll in Fevzi Ahmet’s house.

“The sultan had appointed me to command the fleet, and to build a bridge across the Golden Horn. I had to put her somewhere safe.”

“The sultan’s palace,” Yashim murmured.

“I arranged for her to enter the sultan’s harem, yes. Only an old eunuch would know who she was. So I thought.”

“Hyacinth?”

“Full marks, Yashim. But then you know the story, don’t you? It was me and Hyacinth-until someone told the Russians, after all.”

He was staring at Yashim, but Yashim was aware only of something unlocking in his mind-something about Hyacinth, and the harem, and the dead girls.

“Someone who wished me harm,” Fevzi Ahmet added. “In the circumstances, I imagine it was you.”

Yashim blinked. “Me?”

“‘Me’! You can do better than that, Yashim. But I don’t have time to listen to your outraged innocence. You wouldn’t think it, ambassador, would you?” Fevzi Ahmet called over his shoulder. “Yashim sold my little girl to your old friends. Quite Galytsin’s confidant, I hear.”

“You should have stuck to rowing,” Palewski said glumly.

Fevzi Ahmet’s face twitched as he faced Yashim. “You will bring my daughter here. Hyacinth will find a way.”

“Hyacinth is dead,” Yashim said.