“Over here.” Bernie gestures at a piece of paper lying on Sybil’s writing desk.
They read Sybil’s letter together. Kamil is startled by the revelation that she was waiting for him to ask for her in marriage.
“Damnation. Let’s go find her.” Bernie calls down to the butler, “Get Sami. We need the phaeton.” He turns to Kamil. “It’ll be faster.”
When they arrive downstairs, Freddie is gone, but the gatekeeper is there. They ask who picked Sybil up that morning.
“The, er, the eunitch”-the gatekeeper blushes scarlet as he pronounces the word-“the Negro, ’e gave me a paper.” He holds out a piece of expensive parchment with a gold-embossed crest. On it are two lines of Ottoman in a practiced calligraphy, sealed in red. “I couldn’t read it, sir.”
Bernie snatches the paper out of his hand. “It never occurred to you to ask someone what it said? If anything’s happened to Miss Sybil, it’ll be on your head.” The gatekeeper looks horrified.
“Miss Sybil?” he stutters. “What’s ’appened to ’er?”
Ignoring him, Bernie shows the paper to Kamil. “What does it say? I have trouble with this kind of fancy writing.”
“It’s an invitation to lunch.”
“From Asma Sultan.”
“No. From Shukriye Hanoum.” They look at each other speechlessly.
Kamil adds, “It’s her family’s seal.”
“What in damnation…?” He looks over Kamil’s shoulder. “Where?”
“It doesn’t say. It only specifies the date and time and that Shukriye Hanoum’s servant will pick her up.”
“But the eunuch brought it when he came to get her. It wasn’t sent ahead of time.”
“There must have been an earlier message. Clearly, this one is meant to deceive anyone looking for her.”
“Mother of God. If Sybil hadn’t left that letter, we’d be off on a wild goose chase. Come on in here. Be quick, man.”
Bernie runs into a room off the main hall, pulls a volume from the bookshelf, and extracts a key. He unlocks a drawer and pulls out two pistols. He checks to see if they are loaded, then holds one out to Kamil. Kamil points at his feet. “I’m armed.”
“You mean with that religious mumbo jumbo in your boots?” Bernie snorts. “That won’t get you very far against a bullet!”
Kamil pulls a needle-thin blade from his boot. “Allah helps those who help themselves.” He opens his coat to reveal the holster on his hip. “I need some paper.”
Bernie points to a writing desk.
Kamil takes out a blank sheet and writes several lines in Ottoman, the script flowing smoothly right to left. He signs with a flourish, then rummages in the drawer and pulls out a cylinder of sealing wax. He removes a small brass seal from his pocket and imprints the insignia of his office on the bottom of the letter and again on the envelope.
Sami is waiting at the door with the phaeton. Kamil takes him aside and hands him the envelope.
“You are to mount the fastest horse in your stables and ride ahead of us to Middle Village. Do you know where that is?”
“Yes, efendi. I know the area well.”
“Take this letter directly to the headman of Middle Village. It asks him to take his sons and go to the commander of gendarmes, not to the police. Sybil Hanoum’s life may be in danger. Do you understand?”
“Yes, efendi. Not the police.”
“Go with him. The headman is to show them this letter. It commands the gendarmes to issue them weapons and to accompany them to Asma Sultan’s summer house in Tarabya immediately. Allah willing, their presence will be superfluous.”
Kamil jumps into the phaeton. Bernie is already seated, hunched forward and restlessly twisting the reins.
“If we alerted the British guards, we’d have to tell the ambassador,” Kamil shouts. “And I’m not sure of the loyalty of the police anymore. This is the best way.”
The horses clatter down the drive toward the gate.
46
I wanted a celebration, a proper setting for my response to Mary. Violet insisted on coming, saying she had prepared special foods for us. By the time we arrived at the sea hamam and the driver was dispatched with instructions to return in three hours’ time, the lip of the sky bled magenta. But inside the walls of the sea hamam, we could see only the sky’s unclouded blue eye following Violet as she spread the covers, set up the brazier, and unpacked the copper pans of dolma, cheese pastries, fruit, and savories. It was a feast. I slipped off my feradje, revealing a new gown of sheerest apricot silk under a striped satin tunic of apple and ginger. My breasts were wreathed in a transparent cloud of silk gauze. My hair was woven into a hundred braids wrapped in diamonds and pearls.
Mary had taken off her shoes. Her slim white feet dangled over the pool. In water, she was slippery as an eel. Like most women, she couldn’t swim, but the water in the sea hamam wasn’t very deep. I remember it made her anxious when I ducked below the surface. I used to slip along under the boards and burst up in a spray behind her so that she shrieked with fear. The hamam walls protected us from the wind, and the strait here was tamed, drawn continually like a fan across the sand. The water was so clear one could mistake it for a shadow.
I wondered whether anyone else had come here since we had abandoned it the previous year. The winter damp had warped some of the boards. I noticed that our mattress, the mattress Mary had hired someone to bring here in anticipation of our first visit, was stained where it had not been stained before. I supposed anyone could have come here while we were gone, perhaps young boys thrilled at being masters of a realm that soon would be off-limits, haram, dangerous. Once we had spread our new quilt, though, we were almost as before.
“Why did you bring your maid?” she whispered, looking at Violet sitting in a cubicle near the brazier.
“Violet? She can serve us. Don’t you like being served?” I cocked my head at her, but I could see she hadn’t decided whether I was joking.
“Well, I suppose.”
“She insisted on coming and I couldn’t say no. She’s so unsettled by everything, even though my father has found her a good husband-so she won’t be alone.”
Mary looked at me expectantly, but I said nothing more.
I knew Mary didn’t like to undress in front of strangers, so she wouldn’t go into the water tonight. It was too cold, in any case.
“We’ll just chat, then.” I pulled the quilt out to the walkway circling the water and lay on it with my face to the sky. She came and sat next to me.
“Lie down, Mary. Come see the stars.”
She let herself down, using her elbows, and arranged her skirts so that they covered her legs. She wore a simple white blouse. Her cap of hair shone gold in the dark.
The quilted satin smooth against our palms, we looked up into the square of night sky revealed by the geometry of the hamam walls.
“It looks like your hair, Jaanan. Braided with diamonds,” she whispered.
I took her hand.
47
Agibbous moon floods the Bosphorus with light and throws into sharp relief the trees and bushes rushing by as the phaeton races north.
If anything happens to Sybil Hanoum,” Kamil points out, “the blame would fall on Shukriye Hanoum, since the invitation is written in her name. Clever. I wonder why Shukriye Hanoum, though. She’s not a threat to anyone.”
“Well, someone sure doesn’t like her.”
After a while, Kamil adds, “Sybil Hanoum said she thought Perihan Hanoum was angry because she had wanted to marry Prince Ziya but he became engaged to Shukriye instead. Apparently Perihan Hanoum’s marriage is unhappy.”