Wu Ming - Altai

The burned-out ruins of an old wooden house offered us shelter from the eyes of passers-by.

“What’s going on?” she asked me impatiently.

“I’m worried that Donna Reyna knows about us.”

She laughed, not troubled in the slightest by that possibility. A rat-squeak from a pile of rubbish echoed her laughter. “If she knew, she would have dismissed me already.”

I wasn’t satisfied. “Have you said or done anything that might have alerted her? Think very hard.”

“Certainly not. Calm down.” She stroked my cheek with her hand. “Now let me go, I’m in a hurry.”

“What do you have to do that’s so urgent?”

She tried to push past me, but I stood in her way. “Donna Reyna’s business.”

“Business!” I tried to smile, but I couldn’t. “What kind of business?”

“None of yours, Manuel. Let me go.”

I pushed her away so that I could stare into her eyes. “You know what my job is at Palazzo Belvedere. Don Yossef has chosen me to collect rumors and clues. There is no business within the Nasi family that is not my business too.”

She gave me a glance that I couldn’t interpret. It might have expressed annoyance, surprise or disappointment. A drop of sweat ran down her forehead from under her veil.

“Has the frenzy of battle gone to your head, Manuel? Perhaps seeing all those janissaries in a row, ready to crush the enemy, has made you want to do the same?” And with those words she pushed me aside and returned to the street.

Panting, I waited for my breathing to slow. The air was hot and smelled of ashes and carrion. With no particular haste, I stepped into the Imperial Road, recognized her yellow kerchief and started following her toward Santa Sofia. A pack of unhealthy-looking dogs decided to do the same to me. I hoped their barking wouldn’t make Dana turn round, before a few lobbed stones persuaded them to shut up and go somewhere else.

Past the ancient church, now turned into a mosque, was the Augustus Gate, the chief entrance to the walls of the Seraglio. I saw Dana dart inside and decided to follow her. No particular formalities were required to enter the first courtyard. As soon as I was inside, I slowed my pace and kept my distance, concerned that I might be noticed. Unlike the first time I had been here, there wasn’t much activity along the avenue, but I certainly couldn’t hide myself behind a cypress tree, nor could I go another way: This was the only possible route. On the other hand, for the same reason, it wasn’t hard for me to keep my eye on my quarry, even from a distance. Dana stopped at the second gate, chatted with the guards and was allowed in shortly afterward.

I experienced a moment of indecision. My eye fell on the fountain to the right of the entrance, where the hangman is said to wash his hands and his sword once his work is done.

Taking care not be too hasty, I turned around and went back where I had come from, hoping that no one had noticed my strange behavior. I had come in, I had walked to the middle of the courtyard, and now I was turning on my heel, all for no clear reason. I remembered the stories I had heard in Galata, of merchants beaten on the spot, just for having raised their voices or ridden their horses too quickly.

Once outside, I thought about what I had seen. I tried to remember which buildings opened onto the second courtyard. I recalled the kitchens, the stables, the Sultan’s harem, the Council Chamber and the rooms leading off it for the private audiences of the various viziers.

I thought that Donna Reyna’s message must be meant for a member of the Divan. And it couldn’t have been an innocent one. Otherwise, why would Dana have been so reticent? Couldn’t she have told me quite straightforwardly what was going on at the Seraglio?

I had just blocked one dangerous correspondence, and already another was requiring my attention. I felt the blood quickening under my skin, and then I turned into the street that ran down to the Golden Horn and allowed myself to be filled by the hunting instinct.

Somehow, Nasi had got ahead of me. I found him in the central hall, beneath the menorah, confronting a bent old man. I immediately realized that I had seen him before, but it was a few moments before I recognized the chief rabbi, Eli Ben Haim. The contrast between the two men was apparent. Nasi stood splendidly in his brightly colored ceremonial robes, and his resolute expression took years off his age.

The rabbi didn’t seem to notice my arrival. He opened his toothless mouth as if biting the air. “I am just warning you, Don Yossef,” he croaked. “Remember the Proverbs of Solomon: ‘Pride goes before destruction, and haughtiness before a fall. It is better to be of humble spirit than to share plunder with the proud.’ You want to buy the kingdom of Zion, but only the Lord can give Israel its due.”

Nasi looked fearlessly at him. “In the Proverbs it is also written that ‘a wicked man listens to evil lips, a liar pays attention to a malicious tongue.’ I am neither malicious nor a liar. I want the welfare of our people, and I tell the truth.”

The old man raised a finger and shouted, spraying saliva. “Remember the Shir ha-Shirim Rabbah : ‘And do not rise from exile as a wall is raised. Indeed, why will the Messiah come? To bring together the exiles of Israel.’ ”

Nasi walked around him, his hands behind his back, as if he was thinking, then stood in front of him again. “Tell me, Rabbi Eli, why the Lord should punish those who want to give a land back to His people? For centuries they have persecuted us, chased us, killed us. They have burned our sacred books, they have called us deicides, murderers. I want to put an end to all this, and for you it is an outrage against God. Or do you not mean rather that it is an outrage against you? Against you rabbis who taught us to pray and stay in our place, with our heads bowed.”

The old man’s furrowed face wrinkled still further in a grimace of contempt. “You think you can do business with emperors, when it was an emperor who dispossessed our people and a pharaoh who kept us enslaved in Egypt.” He exploded in a fit of coughing. Nasi came closer and spoke to him without rancor, almost smiling.

“I want to repair the world. That is why I observe the commandments, recite the prayers, perform the rituals. That is why I want to give the Jews what you rabbis are not able to give them. A new Zion where they can live in peace and safety. An example of justice for humanity, because we were slaves in Egypt and we will have the fate of every slave on earth within our hearts. This is tikkun olam , my contribution to the return of equilibrium.”

The lids of the old man’s glaucous eyes quivered within indignation, and a thread of slobber flowed from the corner of his mouth. “Blasphemy! You think you are the Messiah!”

Nasi shook his head. “No.” He leaned forward until his nose almost touched the rabbi’s. “But I would be a good king. That’s what scares you.”

Rabbi Eli gave a sort of roar, as if he wanted to plunge his fangs into his adversary, and then all of a sudden he turned around and limped out of the building, still chewing on his curses. At that moment, Donna Reyna appeared behind me. She must have been there for some time, enjoying the finale of the scene. She stepped forward to the middle of the room, and passed by Nasi with a half bow. “Majesty,” she said in a simpering voice.

The future king of Cyprus didn’t even seem to notice.

I started keeping an eye on Dana and following her discreetly every time she left Palazzo Belvedere. At the Monday market, hidden behind a pile of dried apricots, I saw her buying a bag of grain for her goldfinch.