Perhaps there wasn’t one.
What if the fourth location wasn’t a tower at all?
But if there wasn’t a tower, what was he looking for?
The second verse of the Karagozi poem came to his mind.
Unknowing
And knowing nothing of unknowing,
They seek.
Well, here he was. Unknowing, searching. And the refrain?
Teach them.
All well and good, he thought, but teach them what? Enlightenment? Of course, it would be that. But it meant nothing to him. As the poem said, he didn’t even know what he didn’t know. He could go round in circles like this for ever.
So who were these other people, the people who were supposed to teach? Teachers, simply. Imams, for example, dinning the Koran into their restless little charges with the cane. Ferenghi gunnery instructors, perhaps, trying to explain the rules of mathematics to a fresh-faced batch of recruits. And at the medreses, the schools attached to city mosques, clever boys learned the rudiments of logic, rhetoric and Arabic.
Outside on the pavement the dervish had finished his dance. He pulled a cap from his belt and passed through the cafe, soliciting alms. To everyone who gave him something, he put out a hand and murmured a blessing. Out of the corner of his eye, Yashim saw the proprietor watching with folded arms. He had no doubt that had the man been a simple beggar he would have shooed him away, maybe with a coin, but a dervish—no, the babas had to be given respect because they showed people the way. The path to a higher truth.
The dervish were teachers of higher truths.
The Karagozi, also, were teachers of their Way.
Yashim hunched his shoulders, trying to concentrate.
He’d had that verse in his head, recently. Unknowing they seek. Teach them. And he had said—or perhaps it was just a thought—that he must be a slow learner.
Where was it? He had an impression that he had, after all, learned something then. He had thought of that verse, and heard something useful. But the time and place eluded him.
He shut his eyes. In his mind he groped for an answer.
A slow learner. Where had he thought that before?
His mind was blank.
He had guessed that there were four towers. Old Palmuk, the fire-watcher, had denied it.
Then he remembered. It wasn’t the old man; it was the other one, Orhan. It was Orhan who had told him about the towers as they stood on the parapet of the Galata Tower, in the fog. He’d described the tower that was lost, and how they raised the Beyazit Tower to compensate. The old tower had burnt, he’d said: along with the tekke. A tekke, like the one downstairs.
So both towers had been furnished with a Karagozi tekke. He couldn’t yet be sure about the fire-tower at Beyazit, but a tekke was certainly where the truth was taught, as the Karagozi perceived it. Unknowing they seek. Teach them. And the tekkes in the fire-towers were, coincidentally, the earliest tekkes in the city.
“I’ve had the whole thing back to front,” Yashim announced. He stood up abruptly and saw a dervish blinking, smiling, putting out his cap for alms. The dervish’s cap swam under his nose.
Yashim walked out.
The dervish stretched out both his arms in blessing. In his cap he had seen a whole silver sequin.
[ 69 ]
“Charmante! Tout a fait charmante!
Eugenia blushed slightly, and curtseyed. There was no doubt in her own mind that the valide, who was reclining against cushions scattered around a window seat, must have been ravishing herself. With the soft light at her back she had the easy poise of a beautiful woman. And the cheekbones to go with it.
“I am so glad we were able to persuade you to come,” the valide continued, without a hint of irony. She raised her lorgnette and peered at Eugenia’s dress. “The girls will think you quite a la mode,” she pronounced. “I want you to sit here by me, before they come to devour you. We can talk a little.”
Eugenia smiled and took a seat at the edge of the divan.
“It was so kind of you to invite me,” she said.
“Men don’t think it, but there is so much we women can arrange, n’est ce past Even from here. Tu ne me crois pas?”
“Of course I believe you, valide.”
“And you Russians are very much in the ascendant these days. Count Orloff, your husband’s predecessor, was a good friend to the empire during the Egyptian crisis. He had a very plain wife, I understand. But no doubt they were very happy together.”
Eugenia’s eyes narrowed a fraction. “She was a Voronsky,” she replied.
“Believe it or not,” the valide said, “I have never been impressed by the claims of old family. Neither I nor my dear childhood friend Rose were precisely Almanac de Gotha. We were clever, and that counts for much more. She became Empress. Her husband Napoleon, of course, came from nowhere at all. The Ottomans, I’m delighted to say, have no snobberies of that kind.”
Eugenia blinked lazily, and smiled.
“Surely,” she said carelessly, “there’s one old family in the empire whose claims have to be respected?”
The valide put out a hand and rested it on Eugenia’s arm. “Perfectly right, my dear. But my son was brought up to defend those claims, rather than rely on them. It doesn’t matter if you’re the fifth or the twenty-fifth or—in Mahmut’s case—the twenty-eighth sultan of the Ottoman empire, and in direct descent from Osman Bey himself, if you can’t prove that the empire needs you. Mahmut has exceeded my expectations.
“I’d like you to meet him. He would be delighted by you, of course.” The valide saw the surprise in Eugenia’s expression, and laughed softly. “Oh, don’t be alarmed. My son is no Suleyman.”
Eugenia found herself laughing. Suleyman the Magnificent, the great Renaissance sultan, had fallen head over heels for a Russian courtesan, Roxelana. He wound up marrying her—the last time any sultan had married at all.
The valide gave her arm a squeeze. “And entre nous, he prefers them rather more upholstered. You’ll see.”
She raised her hand. As if by magic, two girls entered and bowed. One of them held a tray containing coffee in tiny china cups. The other, a narghile.
“Do you smoke?”
Eugenia gave the valide a startled look. The valide shrugged.
“One forgets. It is a harem vice, I’m afraid. One of several. Parisian fashions are another.”
She gestured to the girls, who set down the tray and the pipe. One of them knelt prettily at Eugenia’s feet and presented her with a coffee cup.
“The inspection has begun,” said the valide drily. Eugenia took the cup and murmured a thank you. The girl made no effort to move, but touched her hand to her forehead and addressed a few words to the valide.
“As I expected,” the valide said. “The girls have been wondering whether you would like to join them in the bath.”
[ 70 ]
As Yashim climbed the spiral staircase he was still elated by the news.
The boy had found him on the pavement outside the cafe. He stood very stiffly to attention and blurted out the message he had memorised on the run back from Preen’s landlady.
“The lady says your friend is not going to die and I should not ask about such things. She says she has hurt her arm and needs a lot of rest. She says…she says…”—he screwed up his face. “I cannot remember the other thing, but it was like the first bit. I think.”
Yashim had made him repeat the message. He stood stock still for several moments, then he laughed. “You’ve done very well -and brought me the best news. Thank you.”
The boy took the coin with grave ceremony and ran back into the cafe to show it to his mother. Yashim turned up the street and limped away in the direction of the Golden Horn, humming.