And before I could respond Peterson would answer, “His Majesty’s business.” And rush to the rail, where he would be sick again.
We never took the goldfoil-wrapped gift out on deck with us for fear the wind would knock it from my hands and soil the handsome package with its golden cords. Indeed, when I made my salaams and practiced “the Walk of Prostration,” I always used a box which replicated in size and weight the one that Peterson kept locked safe in his courier’s diplomatic pouch.
He had shown me the splendid original once or twice and I was more than a little curious as to what it contained. His Royal Highness’s descriptions of a prince’s playthings had piqued my interest.
“What’s in it, Peterson?”
“I don’t know I’m sure.”
“Well let’s open it up then and see what the King got the little guy.”
“We can’t do that, Mills.”
“Why can’t we then? Ain’t I one of Nature’s true-born shipping clerks? I could pop that parcel open, toss its contents about and button it all up again as if the gift, box, foil, gold string and all were part of the same single piece of material, like a doll carved from driftwood say, or a bench from stone.”
“His Majesty’s business. Against all diplomatic procedure.”
“You removed it from the pouch. Ain’t that against all His Majesty’s messenger boy diplomatic procedure too?”
His face was whiter than the canvas sails which drove the ship through the Aegean and toward the Dardanelles.
“Hey,” I said, “not to worry. I’m no blurt tattle.” But he had run to the rail to pitch his insides. “Hey,” I tried to reassure him, “hey, do I look like some blab squeak? You think I’d peach on a pal? I ain’t no snitchwhisper, what do you think?” But he was retching now something beyond the contents of his stomach, something beyond digestion itself. “We’ll forget about what the King sent whoosis — Abdulmecid. It’s none of my business. I shouldn’t have asked. If even one person knows it can ruin the surprise.”
They’re called Janissaries.
They’re called Janissaries and they’re this elite corps, very famous, very feared.
For their cruelty.
They’ve existed as a fighting force since the second half of the fourteenth century and were originally recruited from among young Balkan Christians, often made over to the Ottoman Empire by the parents themselves according to a policy known as devshirme, a human payment collected in lieu of taxes. These “tribute children,” as they were known, were dispersed among Muslim families, who instructed them in the ways of Islam. When the local mullahs were convinced they were ready, they were converted and formally sworn to repudiate their parents, a ceremony which involved a vow to take, if the state required it, the lives of everyone in their family, from a mother or father to a distant cousin. If they were considered fit enough for the rigorous life of a Janissary, they were sent to Constantinople and received into the Corps. This was not actually a formal induction. There was no formal induction; no loyalty oath was ever sworn to the Sultan or any representative of the Empire, only a pledge of celibacy. Then the recruit simply began his training. If he survived he was a Janissary. If he died, as many did, during the course of his preparations, his corpse was used to help train the others.
They were — we are — slaves.
Because the King knew his man, understood to his giblets and neckbones not just the proximate character and quality of each royal counterpart and political analogue throughout Europe and the Orient, but the taste and aroma of his very soul. Because he knew him as a cordon bleu chef knows vegetables, meat.
It wasn’t the length finally, it was the height. Slender pillars, high as trees, vaulting into heavy blocks of shrewd color faceted as gem which supported a great fanned ceiling like some Persian rug in stone. The height, the weight of the height.
Peterson presented his letters to the Grand Vizier’s secretary, who started to call for a translator. The courier shook his head vigorously. “No,” he said. “They’re in Turkic. In Turkic.”
The secretary looked up. “Eh?”
“In Turkic,” Peterson repeated, and made a great show of writing in the air. “Turkic.”
The man smiled and duplicated Peterson’s gesture. He held up the letters. “Turkic?”
Peterson nodded and I looked at His Majesty’s courier.
We were told to return to the embassy and wait for instructions.
As Christians are distrusted and are discouraged from having official, long-term connections with the Ottoman government, the British ambassador to the Court of Mahmud II is a Jew.
“I am Moses Magaziner,” the ambassador said, a shaggy-bearded, great hook-nosed old fellow with long curling earlocks and a shiny black skullcap that seemed cut from the same bolt of gabardine as his jacket and trousers. “Is His Majesty vell?”
“Quite well, thank you, Mr. Ambassador,” Peterson said.
“Oy, tenks God,” the ambassador said. “His veight, he’s vatching his veight?”
Peterson frowned. “No one can know for certain, sir, but his intimates estimate he’s above twenty-two stone by now.”
“Tventy-two stone. A good eater. He vas alvays a good eater.”
“Indeed,” Peterson said.
“Vell,” the ambassador said, rubbing his hands together, “you boys come a lung vay. You’re ready a little lunch?”
“I know I am, Mr. Ambassador,” I said.
“Dot’s nice,” Moses Magaziner said affably. He indicated Peterson. “Your mate, the langer locksh, the skinny merink, he’s also ready a nibble grub?”
“At your convenience, sir,” Peterson said.
The strange diplomat shrugged the large, fringed prayer shawl that fell like a scarf about his arms and shoulders and clapped his hands twice. “Mrs. Zemlick,” he told the maternal-looking woman who appeared in the doorway, “tell Gelfer lunch for three. The state dining room.” The woman smiled at us, nodded and left. “Very pleasant, very refined. A doll,” Magaziner said when she’d gone, “a regular baleboste. I vish only the best for Yetta Zemlick.” He sighed. “Listen,” he said, “a heppy steff is a busy steff.”
“She seems quite cheery,” I said.
His Highness’s representative shrugged. “A vidow. A vidow voman finf years. I vould like to arrange maybe a shiddech vit her and the tchef. Don’t be shy, hev a fig.” Magaziner held a bowl out to us. I accepted but Peterson declined. “You don’t like figs?” Magaziner said, “try a date. Sveet like sugar.”
“I’m afraid I should ruin my appetite,” Peterson said coolly and Magaziner looked as if he were surprised to discover that Peterson possessed one.
“He’s had a rough time with his stomach, Mr. Ambassador,” I said. “The voyage.”
“Oh yes,” he said, “the woyage.” Mrs. Zemlick reappeared in the doorway and waited till she caught the ambassador’s eye. “Lunch, Mrs. Zemlick?” He turned to us. “Vell gents,” he said, rising, “soup’s on.”
In the state dining room Moses Magaziner recited Hebrew prayers over each course that the servant, Eli Nudel, set before us. Peterson and I looked down at our laps.
“You don’t got an eppetite for brisket, Mr. Peterson? You hardly touched.”
Peterson mumbled something that was difficult to hear.
“He says he filled up on soup,” Eli Nudel said. “He says he’s all shtupt from cholleh.”