At length, with many apologies, he showed me my own accommodation-a roomy stone cell with windows looking out over the courtyard. I might wander freely about this court and eat if I chose beside the wooden cookhouse.
He left me to my misery, and for three days and nights I lay on the hard wooden bench in my cell, without appetite or desire for company. Desperately I puzzled over the reason for my arrest, and indeed wondered that anyone had dared to order it, since to judge from Ibrahim’s letters I still enjoyed his favor. I passed all my actions in review, and even my secret thoughts, but without finding anything to justify my plight. Yet the more earnestly a man broods over possible guilt, the guiltier he feels. After three days and nights of self-examination I was so keenly aware that at least in my heart I had broken many laws, both of the Prophet and of man, that I was left like a guttering candle, and felt of all outcasts the most wretched.
On the third day the duty onbash came to me with a bundle of clothes, my old copper pen case, and a letter from Giulia. She hinted obscurely that I had only myself and my ingratitude to thank for my hard fate. “Never should I have thought that you would deceive me so,” she wrote. “If you had revealed your base scheme to me I could at least have warned you. And now, but for my tears and prayers, your head would have been cut off and your body thrown into the pit. I can do no more for you; you have made your bed and must lie on it, thankless Michael. I can never forgive your conduct, for soon I shall be forced to pawn my jewels to meet household expenses.”
Her incomprehensible letter put me altogether beside myself. I rushed to the eunuch, burst into passionate reproaches, and ended, “I can bear this uncertainty no longer-I am going out of my mind. What am I accused of, that I may at least defend myself? When the Grand Vizier returns he will inflict terrible punishment on everyone who has dared to lay a hand on me. Have my irons struck off, my good man, and release me at once from this prison, or even you may lose your head.”
The eunuch was annoyed at being disturbed in his exacting work of casting accounts. Yet as became a man trained in the Seraglio he kept his temper and answered pleasantly, “Ah, Michael el-Hakim, in five or ten years when you are a little more composed we will discuss the question again. Very few state prisoners know what they’re accused of, for the essence of the punishment decreed by the Sultan in his wisdom lies in that very torment of uncertainty. Not one of our distinguished guests knows whether he will remain here a week, a year, or his whole life. At any hour of the day or night the deaf-mutes may come and lead you to the brink of the pit; at any hour the gates of the prison may open before you and release you once more into the world of men, to attain perhaps to even higher distinctions than before. You would be wise to devote this favorable time to mystic contemplation, until like the dervishes you come to understand that in the eyes of Allah all is illusion, whether it be imprisonment or freedom, wealth or poverty, power or serfdom. Therefore I shall be happy to lend you the Koran.”
But it was easier to discuss these things in the sweatroom of the bathhouse than behind the iron bars of a prison. I lost all control of myself and began to stamp and shriek until he was compelled to have me seized by janissaries and caned on the soles of my feet. My fury soon dissolved into tears of pain, and the janissaries held me under the arms and half-carried me back to my cell, where they touched brow and floor with their finger tips to convey their continued good will and respect. The swelling and agony of my feet distracted my thoughts, as the wise eunuch had intended, and so in time I composed myself and began to live each day as it came. My one hope was that when the Grand Vizier returned from Persia he would miss me and, Seraglio intrigues notwithstanding, discover my whereabouts.
The five daily prayers and ablutions helped to pass the time, and having nothing else to do I diligently studied the Koran. I also took the friendly eunuch’s advice and performed the breathing exercises of the dervishes, and fasted now and then. But I soon found my faith too weak for me to attain the state of supreme rapture extolled by Marabouts and holy dervishes.
At last, therefore, I abandoned these exercises and was content to maintain my body in good health and to eat with appetite. All day long I strolled about the courtyard while flocks of migrating birds swept with a rush of wings overhead against the turquoise sky of autumn. In this way I came to know my fellow captives, among whom were many eminent Mussulmans and also Christians who were of value to the Sultan for the exchange of prisoners. They idled the days away lying on the grass about the cookhouse, though some of the more industrious busied themselves with carving tallies of the days of their imprisonment, and proverbs, on the smooth stones at the base of the towers. Twice I met Rashid, the Prince of Tunis, and heard him revile Khaireddin and Sultan Suleiman for their dastardly betrayal.
Weeks passed, the acacias in the courtyard shed their leaves, the days grew chilly, and I wearied of the company of my fellows. I was consumed with yearning for my beautiful house on the shores of the Bosphorus, and could imagine nothing more desirable than to recline on a soft cushion on the terrace as dusk fell over the waters and one by one the stars came out. I longed to see again my red and gold fish, to hold my little daughter Mirmah by the hand and guide her steps as she struggled toward the faithful Alberto’s embrace. I wasted away with longing and believed myself abandoned by everyone.
One clear autumn day as I stood on top of the marble tower I looked across the misty blue sea and beheld sails, pennants, and silver crescents, and like an echo from another world I heard the boom of cannon from Seraglio Point. The turrets of the Gateway of Peace shimmered dreamlike in the distance, while at my feet the billowing landscape, sprinkled with white tombstones, glowed golden in the clear autumn air. A dusty, chalk-white road wound its way among the hills and vanished in the distance.
The freedom, the beauty of the scene cut me to the heart, and I was sorely tempted to hurl myself down from the giddy height of the tower and find release from this world’s vanity, suffering, and hope.
Well that I did not, for that day brought an unexpected turn in my fortunes. At dusk three deaf-mutes came to the prison. With dragging steps they crossed the courtyard to the marble tower on the side nearest the sea, where the death pit was. Here in silence they strangled Prince Rashid and cast his lecherous body into the hole, from which incident I concluded that Khaireddin had captured Tunis and so had no further use for Rashid ben-Hafs.
Like all the other prisoners I was aghast at the arrival of these deaf- mutes. Of the three I recognized at once the ashen-faced, cruel Negro who used to visit Abu el-Kasim’s slave. As he crossed the courtyard he gave me an expressionless look, but with his fingers he made a reassuring sign to show that I was not altogether forgotten.
This greeting was the first message I had had from the outer world since Giulia’s letter, and I was seized by so feverish an agitation that I could not sleep that night. On the third day after the deaf-mutes’ appearance I was summoned by the eunuch, who ordered my fetters to be struck off, gave me back my clothes and money, and accompanied me to the gate as a mark of his unchanging regard. Thus I was released as suddenly and mysteriously as I had been imprisoned so many months ago.
Outside, to my amazement, I found Abu el-Kasim awaiting me in a splendid palanquin, and no one will blame me for bursting into tears at the sight of him. I wept like a fountain, leaning against his scrawny shoulder and breathing in the bitter, spicy smell of his kaftan as if he had been my father.