The Oracle of Stamboul (14 page)

“What is your name?”

She glanced around for a piece of paper, but there was none on the table.

“Miss Cohen has not spoken since the crash,” the Bey explained. “She communicates through writing.”

“She can write?”

“Yes,” said the Bey and, with evident pride, began naming the languages she could write in: “Latin, Greek, French, Turkish—”

“Is that so?” said the young man and, pulling the notebook out of his pocket, handed it with a pen to Eleonora. “Write something.”

She took the notebook and opened it to a blank page.

What would you like me to write?

“Anything you like,” he said. “A passage from Virgil, perhaps. Do you know
The Aeneid
?”

She nodded and began from the beginning.

Arms and the man I sing, who, forced by fate, / And haughty Juno’s unrelenting hate, / Expelled and exiled, left the Trojan shore.

Eleonora handed the notebook to the young man for his inspection. As she did, she noticed the Reverend’s name, James
Muehler, written in small letters and underlined at the top of the facing page.

“Very good,” he said, glancing at what she had written. “Very impressive.”

He turned to the Bey.

“How old did you say she was?”

“Eight,” said the Bey. “Nearly nine.”

The young man shook his head in disbelief.

“You will never cease to amaze me, Moncef Bey.”

He then stood from the table, setting the cat at Eleonora’s feet. Their game was not yet over, but neither of them seemed to care.

“Our friend,” said the young man, doffing his smoking cap. “He will meet you tomorrow afternoon at noon in Le Petit Champs du Mort.”

The Bey nodded and handed an envelope across the table. Without another word, the young man slipped it into his pocket and left the garden.

After he left, Eleonora finished her tea and played a few games of backgammon with Moncef Bey. She didn’t ask anything about this strange young man. She didn’t ask why the Reverend’s name was in his notebook. She didn’t ask whom the Bey was going to meet tomorrow in Le Petit Champs du Mort. She didn’t ask anything, though she wondered many things. In particular, she wondered whether there was any connection between the young man and the note the Reverend had shown her, the Greek letters that spelled
Wednesday at noon. The back of Café Europa
. It was not Wednesday, but they were indeed at the back of Café Europa. Perhaps there was a connection. As much as she understood about the world, as much as she knew, there were still many things she didn’t understand.

Eleonora reached down to stroke the cat, which was pacing at her feet, and she looked into its eyes. It was aloof, as cats usually are, but there was something strange about its manner, the way it jumped into her lap and purred with such purpose. It was almost as if the cat were urging her to stop asking questions, to stop wondering, and lose herself in its blank white fur.

The Commander of the Faithful, His Excellency Sultan Abdulhamid II put down his book and stared out the green tiled doorway of his mother’s quarters. Her courtyard was much quieter than normal. A young odalisque was practicing the kemenche in a niche between two columns, and water gurgled up through the mouth of the marble fountain in the middle of the courtyard. As the Sultan watched water spill over the side of the top basin, a purple-and-white hoopoe landed on its rim, took a mouthful of water, and flew off. It had the same coloration as the bird he had spotted a few months earlier. Or perhaps it was the very same bird. In any case, it was quite an unusual color.

Glancing at his mother, the Sultan tried to read a few more pages of his book, an English mystery novel called
The Woman in White
, but the grumbling of his stomach ruined his concentration. It was only the second day of Ramadan and already he was wracked with an unbearable hunger. Abdulhamid chuckled at the irony. Here he was, Caliph of Islam, Servant to the Holy Cities, and yet his stomach growled during Ramadan just like anyone else’s. Indeed, it is true what is written in the Sura of Maryam,
To Us shall return all that he talks of and he shall appear before Us bare and alone
.

The Sultan laid his book down again and watched his mother practice her calligraphy. Pen pinched between thumb and forefinger, she sat at a low walnut table, her shoulders stiff and legs
crossed underneath. She had taken up calligraphy upon her arrival in the court of his father, Sultan Ahmed IV. While the other girls lounged about plucking the oud and gossiping, she sat alone in her private chambers, practicing an endless series of loops and dots in the hopes of improving herself and enhancing her standing. She didn’t need to impress anyone now, of course. She was the Sultan’s mother. When she spoke, the harem girls scattered like deer. It was incredible to think that someone of her birth, a lowly Circasian peasant, taken from her family and brought to the palace at the age of twelve, could rise through force of will and beauty to become one of the most important personages in the empire. She had been able to efface the coarseness of her upbringing almost completely, but Abdulhamid could still recognize his lowly ancestors in certain of his mother’s personality traits—her irritability, for instance. He could tell from her posture that she was still upset with him, and he knew from long experience that he would have to make a concession if he wanted peace.

“If it means that much to you,” he said, breaking a long silence, “I will cancel the meeting.”

His mother finished the word she was working on before she raised her head.

“It doesn’t mean anything to me, Your Excellency. I couldn’t care less whom you invite to the palace. I am only worried about the impression your meetings might have on others. Once rumors get started, they are very difficult to stop. You remember, of course, the difficulties of your uncle Cehangir.”

The Sultan nodded gravely, as he always did when his uncle’s name was spoken. A voracious glutton, libertine, and the source of much malicious gossip, Cehangir had died at the dinner table with a piece of lamb lodged in his esophagus.

“Mother, I agree that rumors are dangerous, but meeting with a palm reader is not the same as eating an entire sheep.”

“It’s not just the palm reader,” his mother said. “It’s the snake charmers, the Sufi mystics, the dog with two tails, the talking parrot. People are saying you would rather meet with a beggar than the Ambassador of Genoa.”

“That is not what happened.”

She lifted the piece of paper and inspected the accuracy of her hand.

“Mother, you know that’s not what happened.”

“It’s not important what happened,” she said, putting the paper down. “I’m telling you what people are saying.”

Abdulhamid stood and came around to inspect her finished work. She had rendered Al-Mutannabi’s famously acerbic line—
Kings who are rabbits, sleeping with open eyes
—in a subtly squared North African Kufic script. Her workmanship was flawless as ever.

“Very nice, Mother.”

“Thank you, Your Excellency. It is for you.”

He lifted his mouth into a sour smile.
Kings who are rabbits, sleeping with open eyes.
It was not a delicate jab. Al-Mutannabi was known for sly and insulting verses that spared no one, not even his patrons.

“Your allusion is not lost on me.”

“Your Excellency,” she said, standing. “There is one more thing I would like to ask before I take your leave.”

He nodded for her to continue.

“I have been thinking recently about that horrible boat accident.”

Abdulhamid nodded. The accident had taken on new significance in the past weeks. The Tsar’s private investigation
into the matter had concluded that the crash was likely caused by sabotage. Although his report didn’t name a saboteur, the Tsar was demanding financial restitution from Stamboul—for neglecting to properly protect the Russian subjects under its dominion—in the shape of fifty thousand pounds. And he was threatening to take action if his grievances were not redressed. The Sultan would gladly have paid twice that amount in private. However, someone had leaked the Tsar’s demand to the newspapers. If he paid the restitution now, in public, he would look weak. And everyone would be lining up for a handout. If he didn’t pay, the Tsar would have another excuse to rattle his sabers.

“It was a horrible tragedy,” he said. “A tragic loss of life. But what can we do now? What more could we have done? I sent personal condolences to the victims’ families, and to their respective governments. Jamaludin Pasha attended the funeral of the American Vice Consul and the French Ambassador. We even made provisions for an American naval detachment to enter the Bosporus in order to convey the Vice Consul’s body back to New York. The Russians were offered this same opportunity for their general, but they declined.”

“Of course it’s a tragedy,” his mother said. “And of course you did everything you could have done. I am asking if you think it was an accident.”

There were a number of conspiracy theories circling about the palace. He had just listened to the Grand Vizier’s theory—it was a British conspiracy to scare off the Americans and distract attention from Prussia—and he was in no mood to sit through his mother’s. He had to admit, the evidence in favor of sabotage was overwhelming, but he did not want to contradict his own official report, which cited equipment malfunction as the cause of the
crash. Conceding as much, even to his own mother, would only further bolster the Tsar’s argument and weaken his own hand.

“Yes,” he said, doing little to hide his annoyance. “I do think it was an accident. What else could it have been?”

“I believe,” she said, looking over her shoulder, “that it was sabotage, sabotage planned and carried out by the American Consul himself.”

The Sultan snorted in disbelief. He was used to his mother’s conspiracy theories, but this was truly preposterous.

“Why would the Americans sink their own ship? Why would they kill their own Vice Consul?”

“Not the Americans,” she said, grinning coyly. “The American Consul.”

“But—”

“As you know, the American Consul is not only an American. He is also a member of the Hebrew faith.”

Abdulhamid blinked. His mother’s distrust of Jews was no secret. Given her feelings on the topic in general, Abdulhamid was inclined to dismiss the theory out of hand. As theories went, however, it had a certain amount of elegance.

“Think about it,” she said and, setting her calligraphy on the table, she left.

Abdulhamid stood in the doorway of his mother’s private quarters, watching an endless stream of water spill out the top of the fountain. It was a compelling theory, though it lacked a motive. As he tried to puzzle out how the attack might have advanced the cause of the Americans, or the Jews, Abdulhamid’s stomach growled again and a pain stabbed at his kidney. Clutching his side, he felt another wave of pain roll through his gut, and tried to recall the conditions under which it was permissible to break the Ramadan fast. He was not infirm or traveling or
pregnant, but what if the fasting impeded his ability to render judgment? What if it compromised his ability to perform his duties? It was obligatory to break the Ramadan fast if doing so would save a life. Surely there were lives in the balance of the momentous decisions he made every day. With this justification in hand, he glanced at the empty courtyard and stole into the kitchen next door.

The room was bare, its pots and pans stored in their cupboards and the chopping blocks scrubbed clean. The Iftar meal was prepared in the central palace kitchen, which left auxiliary kitchens like his mother’s unused for the month. Surely, however, there must be some food in the larder. Maybe not a chicken, but a few scraps of bread, a dried apricot, or a date, something that would allow him to perform his duties properly until dusk. Glancing out again at the empty courtyard, he opened the larder doors and pawed through spices, a tin of sardines, and a stale piece of flatbread. He was on the verge of eating the bread with sardines when he discovered, at the very back of the larder, a box of baklava. Glistening with syrup, the pastries were dusted with bright green ground pistachios. His mother had a penchant for sweets. It would be no surprise if she had hidden the box specifically for consumption during Ramadan. She was not a young woman, and had been afflicted by the sugar disease for some time now. In either case, she would never know that it was him who had found it. Glancing over his shoulder, he popped one of the pieces into his mouth and swallowed it with only two chews. The next piece he took his time with, savoring the sweet, flaky crunch of the dough and that peculiar tang of ground pistachios.

Licking the tips of his fingers, Abdulhamid snuck back into his mother’s quarters, where he found the Grand Vizier, Jamaludin Pasha, bent over the calligraphy. They regarded each other
for a moment in silence, each fully aware of what the other was doing.

“Your Excellency,” said the Grand Vizier. “I was just looking for you.”

“It’s a beautiful piece of workmanship,” said the Sultan, indicating the calligraphy. “Is it not?”

“Yes, Your Excellency. Your mother has always had a wonderful Kufic script. One would almost think she was born in Fez.”

He paused to scrutinize the line more carefully.

“Though I might have chosen another verse.”

Abdulhamid did not take Jamaludin Pasha’s invitation to carp on his mother, and so he continued with his original tack. The Grand Vizier adjusted his stance and held his wrists behind his back.

“We received reports this morning that the Sanjak Bey of Novi Pazar successfully put down another tax rebellion. Unfortunately, the village he made an example of was primarily composed of Orthodox Christians. You can imagine, Your Excellency, what the Russians will make of this. Just three days ago, their Ambassador told Hisham Pasha that the Tsar is determined to defend the Orthodox subjects of our empire as if they were his own.”

“This is rather unfortunate timing,” the Sultan said, popping his thumbnail off the edge of the doorway. “Is there anything we can do to mollify the Tsar?”

“We could pay the restitution they have demanded,” said Jamaludin Pasha. “But I doubt whether even that will pacify them now. I imagine they will be quite upset. And the European newspapers, if they hear of what happened in Novi Pazar, it will be another Bulgarian Horror.”

The Sultan was silent for a moment and his stomach growled audibly.

“Let us see how the Tsar responds,” he said finally and changed the subject. “Now tell me some good news. How are our spies progressing?”

Covert operations were the personal prefecture of Jamaludin Pasha, and he could always be counted on to tout his successes in that realm.

“Here we do have some good news,” said the Grand Vizier. “Just last week our men broke up a revolutionary meeting in Beyo
lu”.

The Sultan nodded without much interest. Jamaludin Pasha’s men broke up at least two of these supposed revolutionary meetings every week. For the most part, the agitators turned out to be little more than spoiled intellectuals drinking tea and orating for each other.

“It might also be of some interest,” the Grand Vizier continued, “that the code, the code that led our men to this meeting, was cracked by a young girl, an orphan of eight years old.”

“A young girl?”

“A Miss Eleonora Cohen,” Jamaludin Pasha said. “The daughter of a Jewish textile merchant from Constanta. Apparently, she is something of a savant. In any case, her father died in the boat accident and she is living now with Moncef Barcous Bey.”

“Moncef Bey?” the Sultan repeated. “Was this one of his meetings?”

“It was.” Jamaludin Pasha smiled. “Coincidentally. Or perhaps not. The raid, unfortunately, did not yield any new information about him, or his goals. Moncef Bey insisted they want only to read Rousseau, and that the code was just a game. In any case, we have made note of the entire incident in his file.”

The Sultan did not particularly want to have a conversation about Jamaludin Pasha’s overzealous surveillance techniques, so he changed the subject.