Sybil notices Asma Sultan’s daughter, Perihan, sitting next to Shukriye, her hand occasionally reaching to smooth Shukriye’s robe. She remembers that Shukriye had been engaged to the man Perihan wanted to marry. Perhaps, she thinks, they are united as friends in sorrow at his death.
An old woman in a corner of the divan by the window moves her head rhythmically side to side, intoning a litany of prayer, interspersed with loud sighs and appeals to Allah.
“That is Shukriye’s grandmother.”
“May Allah protect her. She is praying for her son.”
There is a commotion among the women, a rising whisper and flurry of silk as they make way for a tall eunuch that Sybil recognizes as the one that had ushered her into Asma Sultan’s house. The women fall silent. Behind him, Asma Sultan enters the room. She looks tired and older than Sybil remembers from the circumcision party two weeks before. She is dressed in a tight-waisted European gown and walks stiffly past the row of women in loose Turkish robes propped comfortably on the divan.
Leyla hurries toward her, arms extended in welcome. Signaling to Shukriye and Perihan to follow her, she leads Asma Sultan into an adjoining private room. As Asma Sultan passes Sybil, she stops and, with an amused smile, gestures that she should come with them. This occasions a flurry of whispers among the other visitors. The eunuch waits beside the door, arms folded, and when the five women have passed through, closes it behind them.
Sybil finds herself in a sitting room furnished only with a low cushioned divan around three sides of the room. In the middle is a carpet of cheerful colors on which are scattered small low tables of wood inlaid with ivory and mother-of-pearl. The windows behind the divan open onto the Bosphorus, quaking with light. She hears the sad query of a dove from the garden.
Asma Sultan is given the seat of honor in the corner of the divan, Perihan beside her. With a curious look, Leyla seats Sybil to Asma Sultan’s left.
This is followed by the formalities of introduction and inquiries about health. Servant girls bring refreshments, then withdraw. Shukriye slumps on the divan. She does not eat or speak beyond the required formulaic responses.
Finally, Asma Sultan asks, “What is the matter with her?” To Shukriye she says encouragingly, “Pull yourself together, dear girl, and tell us what has befallen you in these eight years since we last saw you.”
Leyla, beside her, adjusts the cushions at her back and gently draws the veil back from her face. She speaks to her in a low, soothing voice, as to a child.
“My rose, remember, I’ve petitioned the palace to bring you back to the city. Everything will be all right.”
Shukriye stops crying and sits up straighter. She squeezes her sister’s hand. Her eyes are red-rimmed, but her face is white and round as a full moon, with even features and a small red mouth. A headdress of tiny gold coins sweeps across her forehead.
Asma Sultan continues in a kind voice, “That’s better. Now we can see you. What is it that is troubling you, my dear? I know. Your poor father, of course. May his illness pass.” Sybil knows this is simply a formula of comfort. She has heard that the man is near death.
Leyla holds her sister’s hand and strokes her cheek, murmuring, “Shukriye, my dearest, my rose. You’re home at last. We’ve missed you very much.”
Shukriye sighs deeply, as if reaching for all the air in the room. When she finishes, she says to no one in particular, “What is to be done? It is in Allah’s hands.”
She notices Sybil for the first time.
“Who is that?” she asks.
Leyla introduces Sybil again, emphasizing the fact that her father is the British ambassador.
Sybil begins repeating the ritual formula of greeting. Leyla interrupts, waving her hand exhaustedly and says, “Sybil Hanoum, you are welcome. We consider you a member of our house. Please sit.”
Leyla calls to the servant waiting by the door and tells her to bring coffee and then to leave and make sure they are not disturbed.
When the girl has served the coffee and gone, Leyla says, “When you’re ready, my rose, tell us everything.”
“I have a large house,” Shukriye begins slowly, “with enough servants that I cannot say I’m not comfortable. And people say that my husband is a good man.” She pauses and loses her eyes in the play of light beyond the window. “Perhaps he is,” she whispers, “but he’s also a weak man. I feel as if I’m married not to him, but to his mother.” Her face winds into a grimace and she begins to cry again, an ugly outraged crying.
“She is responsible for the death of my children,” she chokes out.
The other women sit tense and rapt. Sybil is startled to see a smile of satisfaction flash across Perihan’s face, but then decides she must have been mistaken.
Finally, Shukriye calms down and continues in a hoarse voice. “My daughters fell ill after eating her food. I think she poisoned them out of spite because I hadn’t borne a son. She didn’t allow me to take the children to the doctor in town. Instead, she called her faith healer. All he did,” she says disgustedly, “was write some Quranic verses on a piece of paper and throw it in water, then had the girls drink the water. Can you imagine?”
Perihan says softly, “Imbibing the word of Allah is a blessed remedy, Shukriye dear. Perhaps they were not meant to live. It is Allah’s will.”
Shukriye closes her eyes. “Surely treating illness with medicine also finds favor in Allah’s eyes.”
Asma Sultan asks, “Are you not worried about your son during your absence?”
“Of course I am, but he has a guardian now.”
“Your husband?”
“No, he’s still his mother’s slave. After my children died, my husband took a kuma. His mother suggested it, of course. Then she handed him the stick for our backs,” she adds angrily.
A second wife, thinks Sybil, appalled.
Seeing the women’s stricken faces, Shukriye tells them, “It’s not so bad. She became like my daughter. I tried to protect her, but every month laid a year on her face. She became pregnant and miscarried in midwinter, with no midwife able to reach her through the snow in time. She can have no more children, the poor girl.”
Shukriye’s hand traces the flowers on a cushion.
“Since her misfortune, her spirit has hardened. Even our husband fears her temper. And she has the support of three brothers who live nearby. My son is safe in her hands.”
The room falls silent.
Finally, Sybil ventures, “You must miss your family terribly. I haven’t seen my sister in England in more than seven years, and I’ve never met my nephews at all. Sometimes it’s hard to bear. Tell me, why did you marry so far away?” Flustered, she adds, “I mean, if it’s not impertinent of me to ask.”
“I don’t know, chère hanoum. I was engaged to marry my cousin, Prince Ziya.” She struggles to control her voice. “He was killed and then my life was taken from me. Whoever killed him, killed me too. I refuse to believe that my life in Erzurum was kismet. Someone besides Allah had a hand in it.” She adjusts her veil so that it covers the lower part of her face, then looks up at the women and adds softly, “Those who take fate from the hands of Allah are guilty of pride and will surely be punished.”
“Allah knows our fates,” Perihan counters. “They are written on our foreheads at birth. No earthly being can alter them.” Her voice has a sharp edge that can easily be confused with sorrow. She pulls her veil across the bottom of her face, but Sybil sees the deep crease between her eyes.
“Perhaps you’re right. But what was the point of his death? I don’t believe for a moment that he was killed by thieves in a house of ill repute, as they told me. I’m sure the palace had him killed. They think all the Turks in Paris are plotting against the sultan. But they’re wrong. Ziya was there to oversee the signing of a trade agreement, nothing more.”