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.
78
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.
79
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.
80
“ 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.”
Yashim smiled. “You told me once that a girl needs enemies.”
The valide shrugged. “Better an enemy than no one at all. To be regarded, that’s something. But to be truly alone-in here, at least-it’s a kind of death.”
“When you first came here, hanum, you must have been isolated.”
“I, Yashim? What a ridiculous idea.” Unconsciously she raised a hand to her hair. “The place was positively crowded, and I was a French girl, was I not? Espece de merveille! And on the way-well, I had learned more than most of the Circassians. More Turkish, certainly.
“I shall leave in two weeks, inshallah. I will ask Tulin to find out which day would be propitious.” She caught his glance, and raised an eyebrow. “Not for my own sake, Yashim. I do it for the girls.”
“It may be just as well, hanum. There have been-well, some disturbing incidents in the harem.”
“Indeed. The Kislar aga has told me so.”
Yashim looked surprised. “He has spoken to you-about Elif?”
The valide put her fingers to her temples. “Elif, Fatima, Begum,” she intoned wearily. “Really, Yashim.”
“But Elif-” Yashim looked doubtful. “Melda. He told you about Melda?”
The valide frowned. “My son, the sultan, does what he likes.”
“Hanum?” Yashim shifted uneasily on the edge of the divan: it seemed to him that the valide’s mind was drifting toward the past.
“He does exactly what he likes.” The valide raised her chin and looked down her beautiful cheekbones. “He moves his court into that wretched palace of his. Everything French, he says.” Yashim nodded slowly, unable to halt the confusion in the valide’s words. She looked at him severely. “I don’t want people thinking I am to blame. His father never proposed such an absurd thing, wanted us to be comfortable. I had no intention of moving myself, naturellement. I am perfectly comfortable where I am.”
She spoke in clipped tones, not moving her head. When she had finished, she held the pose for a few seconds longer, and blinked rapidly, as though she had something in her eye.
“You have much to do, valide,” Yashim said quietly.
The valide turned to Yashim with the smile that had ravished a sultan. “You are very thoughtful, Yashim. I count you among my oldest and dearest friends. Thank you so much for coming.”
She held out her hand, tilted to one side, like a European.
Yashim stooped, and took it in his: her hand was very small, and mottled, and he felt the fragile bones beneath her skin where he raised it to his lips.
81
At the door he found Hyacinth. The old man looked gray.
“Is it true?”
“True?” Yashim echoed.
“Do you, too, think I am some kind of fool?” Hyacinth whispered with sudden fierceness. “That I sleep and eat and smile like a child?”
His long fingers clamped around Yashim’s arm. His hold was strong, and Yashim checked himself.
“It’s a suggestion, that she should go to Besiktas. I’m sorry,” he added. He had not thought of Hyacinth.
The old eunuch nodded, turning his head from side to side; his nostrils flared. “It was in the air, Yashim efendi.” He spread the fingers of one hand in Yashim’s face. “I felt it, here. The harem, I breathe. You understand? I watch its breath like a mother watches her child. Every breath. Every word. Each tiny glance. When they took the women-” His fingers tightened into a ball. “And now she goes.”
His eyes glittered, and his grip tightened on Yashim’s arm. “And will I go, or stay?”