Yashim’s surprise was not at all affected. Behind the seraskier, up the stairs, two extraordinary figures had made a silent appearance. One was dark, the other fair, and they were dressed like believers, but Yashim could have sworn that the last time he had clapped eyes on these two they had been wearing frock coats and cravats in the British embassy.
“Excusez-tnoi,” the fair one said. “Mais—parlayvoo fran$ais?”
The seraskier spun round as though he had been shot.
“What’s this?” he hissed, turning a wary look on Yashim.
Yashim smiled. The fair young man was glancing round the seraskier, putting up a hand to wave.
“Je vous connais, m’sieur -1 know you, don’t I? I’m Compston, this is Fizerly. You’re the historian, aren’t you?”
There was a tinge of desperation in his voice which, Yashim thought, was not misplaced.
“They are officials at the British embassy,” he told the seraskier. “Much more modern than they look, I imagine. And efficient, as you say.”
“I’ll kill them,” the seraskier snarled. He jabbed his gun at them, and they shrank back.
“I wouldn’t if I were you,” Yashim said. “Your republican dawn could quickly turn into dusk if you bring British gunboats to our doorstep.”
“It’s of no consequence,” the seraskier said. He had regained his composure. “Tell them to get out.”
Yashim opened his mouth to speak but his first words were drowned by a muffled crump that sounded like a clap of thunder. The ground trembled beneath their feet.
As the sound of the explosion died away the seraskier jerked the watch from his pocket and bit his lip.
Too early, he thought. And then: it doesn’t matter. Let them begin the barrage.
He waited, staring at his watch.
Fifteen seconds. Twenty seconds. Let the guns fire.
The sweat had broken out on his forehead.
There was another bang, slightly fainter than the first.
The seraskier looked up and flashed a look of triumph at Yashim.
But Yashim had turned away. He was standing on the roof, hands held aloft, staring out over the city as the wind caught at his cloak.
Beyond him, the seraskier saw the burst of light. It glanced off the pillars of the dome, flinging Yashim into brilliant relief where he stood against the skyline. The seraskier heard the rumble of the guns which followed. There was another burst of light, as of an exploding shell, and another deep rumble, and the seraskier frowned. He knew what was puzzling him. The sound and light were the wrong way round.
He should have heard the guns roar, and then seen the light flash as the shell reached its target, The seraskier leaped from the archway and began to run, his feet making no sound on the thick lead sheets.
Yashim made a lunge for him, but the seraskier was too quick. In an instant he had seen what he had not expected to see, and with brilliant military intuition he had grasped precisely what it all meant to him. The guns were working the wrong end of the city, the shells exploding far away. He did not break stride. He shrank slightly as Yashim reached out, but a moment later he was over the gutters and half-running, half-sliding down the leaden roof of the supporting half dome.
He moved with a speed that was terrible to see. Yashim darted to the edge and began to lower himself down onto the conical roof, but the seraskier had already dropped from sight. Then he suddenly re-appeared, lower down, loping south across a cat-slide roof.
For a moment the whole city lay spread out beneath the seraskier’s feet. He saw again the dark mass of the seraglio. He saw the lights twinkling on the Bosphorus. He saw men and women streaming through the square beneath him, and in the distance the chutes of flame that peeled away from the sudden yawning gaps that the artillery was making in their path.
As for him, there was only one direction he could take.
For many years after that, an Armenian army contractor who married a rich widow who bore him six sons would tell the story of how he was almost crushed by an officer who fell on him from the sky.
“Not a common soldier, mind you,” he would end his story, with a smile. “God, in his Grace, sent me a generaclass="underline" and I’ve been dealing with them ever since.”
[ 128 ]
I need an escort, Palewski,” Yashim was explaining. “You know, somebody with an ‘in’ with the sultan. He’d expect that. And you two are very pally, aren’t you?”
It was Saturday morning. The rain which lashed against Yashim’s windows had been falling steadily since before dawn, much to the advantage of the New Guards struggling to extinguish the city fires. With the breaks their cannon had opened in the night, the fire had been contained to the area of the port, and although the damage was said to be serious, it did not approach the scale of 1817, or 1807, or of almost a dozen major fires which had broken out in that district in the previous century. And the port, when all was said and done, was not the most prized Istanbul quartier.
Palewski put up two fingers and touched his moustache, to hide a smile.
“Pally’s the word for it, Yash. I’ve a mind to present the sultan with a little something which arrived for me this morning, saved by providence from the fire in the port.”
“Ah, providence,” echoed Yashim.
“Yes. I happened to notice that stocks were getting rather low last Thursday, so I ordered another couple of cases out of bond immediately. What do you think?”
“Yes, I think that the sultan would appreciate the gesture. Not that he’d drink it, of course.”
“Of course not. No bubbles in it, for one thing.”
They smiled at each other.
“I’m sorry about the thug last night,” Palewski said.
Yashim yawned, shaking his head.
“I don’t know what you hit him with. He was gentle as a lamb when I got back. Preen and her friend were chatting away with him, you can’t believe. Not that he said much, naturally, but he seemed to be enjoying their company. Preen said she could take him to a doctor. I think she said a horse doctor, but there you are. He seemed very grateful when I explained it to him.”
“In mime?”
“In sign. It’s a language I learned when I was at court.”
“I see.” Palewski frowned. “I didn’t hit him, you know.”
“I know. I’m glad. Will you call for me at six?”
[ 129 ]
Yashim slept deeply until one o’clock, then dozed for another hour, sliding in and out of dreams where he heard only voices speaking to him in tones he knew and languages he didn’t understand. Once he saw the seraskier, talking perfect French with a light Creole accent, and lashed himself awake. Was it a dream that the seraskier had spoken to him in the language of his dreams? A condition of the mind. The phrase rolled around his head, and he sat up, feeling lightheaded.
He got up, leaving his cloak on the divan. The room felt warm, the stove was lit: his landlady must have crept up to light it while he was asleep. He picked up the kettle and settled it onto the coals. He took three pinches of black tea and dropped them into the pot. He found a pan by the stove with a few manti inside: Preen seemed to have cooked his supper and eaten it with her friend; and the mute, too, maybe. They’d saved something for him.
He set it on the stove and watched the butter melt, then stirred the manti with a wooden spoon. He thought of making a tomato sauce with the jar of puree, then decided that the manti were ready and he was too hungry, so he simply tipped them onto a plate and ground a few rounds of black pepper over them.
They were not excellent, he had to admit; slightly hard around the edges, in fact, but wonderfully good. He poured the tea, and drank it with sugar and a cigarette leaning back on the divan and watching the raindrops sparkling on the lattice: the rain had stopped and a weak wintry sunlight was making a last appearance before it faded for the night.