“My God, I thought she was dead.”
“She married someone in Erzurum. But she’s back in the city, so Sybil Hanoum went to see her. Sybil Hanoum told the women there that both Hannah and Mary had the same pendant with a tughra inside. She probably also told them about the poem. Shukriye Hanoum apparently thinks she was punished because the sultan wrongly thought Prince Ziya was part of a plot to overthrow him.” He looks at Bernie. “Maybe no one made the connection,” he adds hopefully.
“Who else was there?”
“Shukriye’s sister, Leyla, Ali Aslan Pasha’s wife Asma Sultan, and her daughter Perihan.”
Bernie closes his eyes. “Jesus, Mary, and Joseph.”
44
Sybil and the eunuch pass noiselessly through enormous, high-ceilinged rooms, past vases taller than a man and table-tops of semiprecious stone balanced on elegant pedestals. Every surface is crammed with vases and statues. The room’s contents are multiplied in enormous mirrors in gilded frames that line the walls. Sybil stops to admire a life-sized dog in translucent jade. She does not see the tiny figure, a statue come to life among the multitude, approaching her in the mirror.
Asma Sultan wears an unadorned brown gown with a simple veil of silk gauze draped over her head, a wren in a peacock house. She leads Sybil by the hand to a patio paved in intricately patterned colored tiles and overlooking the Bosphorus. There, behind a windbreak, waits a table laid with sweets and savories and a silver platter of fruit. The thin eunuch stands next to a brazier ready to brew coffee. Sybil wonders where the other servants are. She has seen no one else.
“Forgive my informality, Sybil Hanoum. As you see, this is more a picnic than a proper meal. I hope you don’t mind. I am honored by your visit, but at my age, I prefer good company unadorned by the usual pomp and frippery.”
Sybil is startled at Asma Sultan’s command of English. They had spoken Turkish at previous meetings, so she had assumed Asma Sultan didn’t know English.
“Thank you, Your Highness. I much prefer that myself.”
“So I have heard.”
Sybil straightens her skirt and tries to remember the correct manners. She remembers that it is rude to look someone directly in the eye. In the harem, women usually are seated next to one another, but here she is face to face with her hostess. She compromises by looking at a spot above Asma Sultan’s left shoulder.
“Your English is flawless, Your Highness. Where did you learn it?”
“From my mother, a rare woman. She had a dazzling mind, a rage for life. She surrounded herself with the best art and literature from around the globe, in French, English, Persian, even Chinese. Particularly those designed or created by women. My mother herself was Russian, you know. She grew up in Paris and traveled a great deal before she was captured from a ship and sold to the harem. Once here, though, she made good use of the power and wealth that comes to a woman in the sultan’s household, especially if she captures his eye.”
“These artists were all women?” Sybil asks curiously.
“Some were wealthy women, like my mother, who commissioned art, and even played a role in designing it. But there are such creatures, you know, women artists and scholars. They are less well known because, sadly, only the men find patrons. My mother was a great patron. I profited from growing up surrounded by such a wealth of foreign culture and knowledge. In a sense, I was the ultimate project completed under her patronage. Few can appreciate that in a woman,” she adds, with an undertone of bitterness. “Perhaps as an amusement when one is newly wed, but one that does not wear well. What use has one for such novelties in a harem, eh? Better to excel in needlework than foreign languages. That has been my daughter’s approach, though I cannot say it has helped her.”
Sybil does not know what to say and looks at her hands.
“As I said to you last week, my daughter had different expectations. She foolishly fell in love with her cousin Ziya. I was fond of my nephew and pushed for the match, but my husband gave her to a family with which he wanted an alliance. Where would politics be without brides, Sybil Hanoum? Empires would grind to a halt and begin to crumble. Perihan is unhappy, but uncomplaining. I point out to her that she escaped the fate of Shukriye, married off to the provinces.” She smiles fondly. “And she spends as much time as possible with her dear mother.”
“I think it shows a generous spirit that Perihan is so close to Leyla and Shukriye.”
“Yes, she keeps an eye on them.”
Sybil feels uncomfortable discussing Perihan’s personal life in such detail when she isn’t present. She is ashamed for Perihan.
To change the subject, she says, “You must have had a lovely childhood.” She plucks a pastry filled with minced lamb from a serving plate and takes a bite.
“I suppose I did, but it was a childhood in a hundred rooms. I was never allowed to go out into the world and see it for myself. Still, I feel I have my hand on the pulse of the world, even here. My mother gave that to me.” Asma Sultan silently regards the opposite shore as if seeking something there. “I remember the exact day she died, February 15, 1878, in the Old Palace. The Russian army was just outside the city. I could see the smoke of their campfires.” She smiles. “I couldn’t help but wonder if their generals were our relations. It’s almost as if they were signaling to Mother, telling her to hold on, that they were almost there.”
Sybil shifts uncomfortably in her seat. A breeze has begun to blow and she is feeling chilled.
“But they were too late.” Asma Sultan turns back to Sybil. “She fell from the window of a small observation tower above the harem where she often went to get away from the other women. She told me once that from there she imagined she could see Paris and Saint Petersburg. They said it was an accident, but I never believed it.” Her voice is bitter. “She would never have leaned out that window. She was afraid of heights.”
“How awful,” Sybil exclaims, shivering with cold and an unnamed anxiety. “Who would have done something like that?”
“She was Russian, Sybil Hanoum. The enemy was at the gates of the city. Perhaps they listened in on her silent communion with her uncles. I’m sure Sultan Abdulhamid feared her. He destroyed her like he destroyed my father.”
Asma Sultan suddenly scrapes her chair back and stands. She leads the way to a plush divan on a sheltered portion of the terrace.
“Let us sit over here. It’s more comfortable. Tell me about your life, Sybil Hanoum,” she says lightly, as if nothing of consequence has been revealed.
Sybil sinks gratefully onto the soft pillows and wraps her shawl around her shoulders.
“I’ve hardly been anywhere. I came here when I was young. I have memories of the Essex countryside, a very brief stay in London, and then Stamboul. Which is lovely,” she adds hastily.
“Ah, then you have traveled much farther than I, my dear. Tell me about Essex. You spoke of it the other day, but we were interrupted.”
As they reminisce, the sun edges closer to the wooded hills. The eunuch serves coffee.
When Sybil has finished sipping from the tiny cobalt blue cup, Asma Sultan reaches for it and turns it upside down on its saucer. She smiles slyly.
“I can tell your fortune.”
“Your Highness has unexpected talents,” Sybil laughs. She feels reckless, but also lulled by the jewellike fruit on her plate, the flashing expanse of water at her feet, the precious memory already framing itself in her mind of dining with royalty in the most beautiful spot in the world.
Asma Sultan tests the bottom of the cup several times with her slender finger. When she judges it to have sufficiently cooled, she picks the cup up and peers into it intently. After a few moments, she tilts it slightly to show Sybil.