The Snake Stone (3 page)

M
AXIMILIEN
Lefèvre stepped lightly from the caïque and made his way up the narrow cobbled street, carefully avoiding the open gutter, which ran crookedly downhill in the middle of the road. Here and there his path was barred by a tangle of nets and creels, set out to mend; then he would vault over the gutter and carry on up the other side, sometimes stooping to pass beneath the jettied upper floors of the wooden houses, which tilted at crazy angles, as if they were being slowly dragged down by the weight of the washing lines strung between them. Old women dressed from head to toe in black sat out on their steps, their laps full of broken nets; they regarded him curiously as he passed by.

Ortaköy was one of a dozen or so Greek villages strung out along the Bosphorus between Pera and the summer houses of the European diplomats. They had been there two thousand years ago, and more—when Agamemnon had assembled fleets, as Homer sang. Greeks from the Bosphorus had manned the ships that sailed against Xerxes, four centuries before Christ; they had ferried Alexander the Great across to Asia, when he took his helots on their legendary campaigns in the East. An Ottoman pasha, Lefèvre recalled, had explained that God gave the land to the Turks—and to the Greeks He left the sea. How could it have been otherwise? Four hundred years after the Turkish Conquest, the Greeks still drew a living from the sea and the straits. They had been sailing these waters while the Turks were still shepherding flocks across the deserts of Asia.

The thought made Lefèvre frown.

Foreigners seldom visited the Greek villages, in spite of their reputation for good fish; before long, Lefèvre found himself with a tail of curious small boys, who shouted after him and pushed and shoved one another while their grandmothers looked on. Some of the smaller boys imagined that Lefèvre was a Turk, and all of them guessed that he was rich, so when Lefèvre stopped and turned around they drew together, half curious and half afraid. They saw him pull a coin from his pocket and offer it with a smile to the smallest boy among them. The boy hung back, somebody bolder snatched the coin, and pandemonium erupted as the whole pack of children turned as one to chase after him down the street.

Lefèvre took a turn onto an unpaved lane. Swarms of tiny flies rose from stagnant puddles as he approached; he swept them from his face and kept his mouth shut.

The café door stood open. Lefèvre made his way rapidly to the back and took a seat on a small veranda that overlooked the pantiled roofs and the Bosphorus below. After a while another man joined him from the interior of the café.

Lefèvre stared down at his hands. “I don’t like meeting here,” he said quietly in Greek.

The other man passed his hand across his mustache. “This is a good place, signor. We are not likely to be disturbed.”

Lefèvre was silent for a few moments. “Greeks,” he growled, “are nosy bastards.”

The man chuckled. “But you, signor—you are a Frenchman, no?”

Lefèvre raised his head and gave his companion a look of intense dislike. “Let’s talk,” he said.

I
N
the palace at Besiktas, with its seventy-three bedrooms and forty-seven flights of stairs, the Shadow of God on Earth, Sultan Mahmut II, lay dying of tuberculosis—and cirrhosis of the liver, brought about by a lifetime’s devotion to reforming his empire along more Western, modern lines, and bad champagne chased down with spirits.

The sultan lay back on the pillows of an enormous tester bed hung with tasseled curtains, and gazed through red-rimmed eyes at the Bosphorus below his window, and the hills of Asia across the straits. He had, he dimly knew, a world at his command. The fleets of the Ottoman sultan cruised in the Mediterranean and the Black Sea; the prayers were read in his name at the Mosque in Jerusalem, in Mecca and Medina; his soldiers stood watch on the Danube by the Iron Gates, and in the mountains of Lebanon; he was lord of Egypt. He had wives, he had concubines, he had slaves at his beck and call, not to mention the pashas, the admirals, the seraskiers, voivodes, and hospodars who governed his far-flung empire in trembling or, at least, respectful obedience to his will.

In his thirty years as sultan, Mahmut had presided over many changes to the Ottoman state. He had destroyed the power of the Janissaries, the overmighty regiment that opposed all change. He had adopted riding boots and French saddles. He had told his subjects to stop wearing the turban, if they were Muslims, and blue slippers, if they were Jews, and blue caps, if they were Greeks: he had meant all men to receive equal treatment, and to wear red fezzes, and the stambouline, a cutaway coat.

The results were mixed. Many of his Muslim subjects now reviled him as the Infidel Sultan—and many of his Christian subjects had developed unrealistic expectations. Those Greeks in Athens—they had actually rebelled against him. After seven years of fighting, with European help, they had created their own, independent kingdom on the Aegean. The kingdom of Greece!

As for the champagne and brandy, they had eased some of the anxiety that the sultan experienced in his efforts to update, and preserve, the empire of his forefathers.

And now, at the age of fifty-four, he was dying of them.

His hand moved slowly toward a silken cord whose tassels brushed against his pillows, then it fell again. He was dying, and he did not know whom he could ring for.

The sun pulled slowly around, now slanting from the west. There were others he remembered, not just names, but the faces of men and women he had known. He saw the old general Bayraktar, with his furious mustaches, and the astonishment on his face when he burst into the old palace all those years ago and hoisted Mahmut out of a laundry basket to make him sultan. He saw his uncle Selim dead, in a kaftan stained with the blood of the House of Osman, and his favorite concubine, Fatima, alive: fat, cheerful, the one who rubbed his feet the way he liked and expected nothing. He remembered another general who had fallen to his death, and the faces of men he had seen in crowds: a sufi with a gentle smile, a student in the grip of loyalty, clutching the Banner of the Prophet; a Black Eunuch, down on his knees; a Janissary who had cocked his fingers at him, like a pistol, and winked; the pale whiskers of Calosso, the Piedmontese riding master, and the downcast eyes of Abdul Mecid, his son, who had a chest like a girl’s waist; and the beard of the Patriarch—what was his name?—who took the cross of office from his hands, and died twirling at the end of a rope in the hot sun.

There was another face, too…His hand moved out, his fingers groped for the tassel.

But when the slave arrived, bowing, not looking up, Sultan Mahmut could not remember who it was he had wanted to see.

“A glass…the medicine…there, that’s it,” he said.

“Dr. Millingen—” the slave began.

“—is my doctor. But I am sultan. Pour!”

“T
AKE
care on these stairs, monsieur. They are very worn—I’ve slipped on them myself.”

“But only on the way down, Excellency! I’m sure of that.”

Stanislaw Palewski, Polish ambassador to the Sublime Porte, frowned and carried on up the stairs to Yashim’s apartment. Was the Frenchman implying that he got drunk?

He put a hand to his cravat, as if the touch would reassure him: impeccably starched and properly tied, the cravat was not, he was vaguely aware, in the latest fashion; like his coat, like his boots, like his own diplomatic position, it belonged to another age, before Poland had been wiped from the map by the hostile maneuverings of Russia, Austria, and Prussia. Palewski had arrived in Istanbul twenty-five years before, as the representative of a vanished country. Elsewhere, in other capitals of Europe, the Polish ambassador was only a diplomatic memory; but the Turks, the old enemy, had received him with good grace.

Which was, he thought with a frown, in the days before Istanbul became positively overrun with mountebanks, schemers, and dealers of every nationality, and none. Before visiting Frenchmen buttonholed you and invited themselves along to dinner.

But also before he had come to know Yashim.

How they had become friends was still a matter of debate, for Yashim’s memory of the event differed in emphasis from Palewski’s; it involved more broken glass, and less enunciated French. But they had been firm friends ever since. “Together,” Palewski had once declared, weeping over a blade of pickled bison grass, “we make a man, you and I. For you are a man without balls, and I am a man without a country.”

It was an appeal of friendship that Palewski now threw Yashim as Lefèvre advanced past him into the room, flinging out his hand.

“
Enchanté
, m’sieur,” he said. “It’s most kind of you to have us! Something smells good.”

It was not Yashim’s habit to shake hands, but he took Lefèvre’s and squeezed it politely. Palewski opened his mouth to speak when the Frenchman added:

“I was quite unprepared for such a generous invitation.”

He was a small, stoop-shouldered man, delicately built, with a few days’ growth of white stubble and a voice that was soft and sibilant, close to lisping.

“But I am delighted, monsieur—”

“Lefèvre,” Palewski cut in finally. “Dr. Lefèvre is an archaeologist, Yashim. He’s French. I—I felt sure you wouldn’t mind.”

“But no, of course not. It’s an honor.” Yashim’s eyes lit up. A Frenchman for dinner! Now that was a decent challenge.

Palewski set his portmanteau on the table and clicked it open. “Champagne,” he announced, drawing out two green bottles. “It comes from the Belgian at Pera. He assures me that it belongs to a consignment originally destined for Sultan Mahmut’s table, so it’s probably filth.”

“I am sure it will be excellent.” Lefèvre smirked at Yashim.

The ambassador looked at him coolly. “I rather think the sultan’s illness speaks for itself, Lefèvre. It defeats all the best doctors.”

“Ah, yes. The Englishman, Dr. Millingen.” Lefèvre’s hands fluttered toward his head. “Whom I consulted recently. Headache.”

“Cured?”

Lefèvre raised his eyebrows. “One lives in hope,” he said sadly.

Palewski nodded. “Millingen’s not too bad for a doctor. Though he killed Byron, of course.”

Yashim said: “Byron?”

“Lord Byron, Yash. A celebrated English poet.” He reached into his bag. “If the champagne’s no good, I have this,” he added, drawing out a slimmer and paler bottle, which Yashim immediately recognized. “Byron was an enthusiast for Greek independence,” he went on. “Never lived to fire a gun in anger, as far as I know. He died trying to organize the Greek rebels in ’24, at the siege of Missilonghi. Caught a fever. Millingen was his doctor.”

They drank the champagne from Yashim’s sherbet flutes.

“It sparkles,” said Lefèvre.

“Not for very long,” Yashim added, peering into the glass. “Dr. Lefèvre, I welcome you to Istanbul.”

“The city ordained by Nature to be the capital of the world.” Lefèvre fixed his dark eyes on Yashim. “She calls me like a siren, monsieur. I cannot resist her lure.” He drained his glass and set it down silently in the palm of his other hand.
“Je suis archéologue.”

Yashim brought out a tray on which he had set a selection of meze—the crisped skin of a mackerel rolled loose from its flesh, then stuffed with nuts and spices; uskumru dolmasi; some tiny böreks stuffed with white cheese and chopped dill; mussel shells folded over a mixture of pine nuts; karniyarik, tiny eggplants filled with spiced lamb; and a little dish of kabak cicegi dolmasi, or stuffed zucchini flowers. They were all dolma—that is, their outsides gave no hint as to the treasures that lay within, and all made to recipes perfected in the sultan’s kitchens.

Palewski was brooding over his champagne. Lefèvre picked up a zucchini flower and popped it into his mouth.

“How shall I explain?” Lefèvre began. “To me, this city is like a woman. In the morning she is Byzantium. You know, I am sure, what is Byzantium? It is nothing, a Greek village. Byzance is young, artless, very simple. Does she know who she is? That she stands between Asia and Europe? Scarcely. Alexander came and went. But Byzance: she remembers nothing.”

His hand hovered above the tray.

“One man appreciates her beauty, nonetheless. Master of Jerusalem and Rome.”

Palewski buried his face in his glass.

“Constantine, the Caesar, falls in love. What is it—375
A.D
.? Byzance is his—she suits him well. And he raises her to the imperial purple, gives her his name—Constantinople, the city of Constantine. The new heart of the Roman Empire. Nothing is too good for her. Constantine plunders the ancient world like a man who showers his mistress with jewels. He brings her the four bronze horses of Lysippos, which now stand above the Piazza San Marco in Venice. He brings her the Serpent Column from Delphi. He brings her the tribute of the known world, from the Pillars of Hercules to the deserts of Arabia.”

“And his mother, too. Don’t forget her,” Palewski added.

Lefèvre turned to the ambassador. “Saint Helena, of course. She came to the city, and unearthed a portion of the True Cross.”

“They should make her patron saint of archaeologists, Lefèvre.”

The Frenchman blinked. “All the holy relics of the Christian faith were brought to the city,” he added. “Relics of the earliest saints. The nails that fixed Jesus to the cross. The goblet and plate that Jesus used at the Last Supper. The holy of holies, gentlemen.”

He held up his hand, fingers outspread.

“Two centuries later, Emperor Justinian builds the church of churches. Aya Sofia, the eighth wonder of the world. She has come a long way from the fishergirl, Byzance.” He paused. “What to say? The centuries of wealth, monsieur. The perfection of Byzantine art. Ceremony, bloodshed, the emperor as the regent of God Almighty.”

Palewski nodded. “Until the crusaders arrive.”

Lefèvre closed his eyes and nodded. “Ah. Ah, 1204, yes, the shame of Europe. I would call it a rape, monsieur: the rape of the city by the brutal soldiers of Western Europe. Her diadem flung into the dust. It is pain for us to speak of this time.”

He selected a delicacy from the tray.

“And yet she is a woman: she recovers. She is a shadow of herself, but she still has charm. So she seeks a new protector. In 1453: the Turkish Conquest. Let me say: she becomes Istanbul. Mehmed’s whore.”

It was Yashim’s turn to blink.

“The Turks—they love her. And so, like a woman, she becomes again beautiful. Is it not so?”

Lefèvre peered into a silence. “But perhaps my little analogy displeases you?
Alors
, it can be changed.” He spread out his hands, like a conjurer. “Istanbul is also a serpent, which sheds its skin.”

“And you collect those discarded skins.”

“I try to learn from them, Excellency.”

Palewski was studying the tray, a scowl now plainly on his face. “Good meze, Yashim,” he said.

“All dolma—” Yashim began; he meant to explain the theory behind his selections, but Lefèvre leaned forward and tapped Palewski on his knee.

“I have traveled, Excellency, and I can say that all street food is good in the Levant, from Albania to the Caucasus,” he remarked.

Palewski glanced up. Later, he told Yashim that the sight of his face at that moment had brought him the first pleasure of the evening.

Lefèvre licked his fingers and wiped them on a napkin. “The singular contribution of the Turks—I believe this is correct—to the
dégustation
of civilized Europe—you’ll forgive me, monsieur, I am merely quoting—is the aromatic juice of the Arabian bean: in short, coffee.” He gave a laugh.

“I shouldn’t believe everything you read in books,” Palewski said, with another glance at his friend.

“But I do. I believe everything I read.” Lefèvre wetted his lips with the tip of his tongue. “A professional habit, perhaps. Letters. Diaries. Travelers’ memoirs. I choose my literature carefully. Trivial information can sometimes turn out to be very useful, wouldn’t you agree, monsieur?”

Yashim nodded slowly. “Certainly. But for every useful scrap of information, you must reject a hundred more.”

“Ah, yes, perhaps you are right.” He leaned back, touching his thumbs together. “Have you ever heard of Troy?”

Yashim nodded. “Sultan Mehmet once laid claim to Trojan ancestry,” he said. “He presented the fall of Constantinople as a revenge on the Greeks.”

“How interesting.” The Frenchman pinched his lower lip. “I was about to suggest that one day we will uncover the ruins of the city that Agamemnon sacked.”

“You believe it exists?”

Lefèvre laughed softly. “More than that. I think it will be found exactly where legend has always placed it. Scarcely a hundred kilometers from where we sit—in the Troad.”

“Are you to dig for it yourself?”

“I would, if I could get permission here. But for that—and everything else—one needs money.” He smiled pleasantly and spread his hands.

A breath of air stirred the curtains, and a ring chinked softly on the rail.

“Of course,” Lefèvre continued, “sometimes these things may just drop into your lap, if you read carefully and learn where to look.”

He took a sip of champagne. Palewski got up and opened the second bottle with a pop.

“I’m afraid you must find us very careless with the past,” Yashim said. “We don’t always look after things as we should.”

“Yes and no, monsieur. I do not complain. Carelessness of that sort may be a godsend to the archaeologist. One has only to go to your Atmeydan—the ancient Hippodrome of the Byzantines—to see that all its monuments remain intact. With the exception of the Serpent Column, of course. The column has lost its heads, which is no fault of the Turks.”

Palewski suddenly picked up his glass and drained it.

“Nobody remembers anymore, I shouldn’t think,” Lefèvre went on. “But the bronze heads were wrenched off the column little more than a century ago. To think what their eyes had witnessed, in the centuries since they stood beside the Delphic oracle!” He half turned toward Palewski. “It was foreign vandalism, Excellency.”

“Disgraceful,” Palewski murmured.

“Yes.” He frowned and leaned forward, pointing at Palewski. “Do you know, I recall a story that it was perpetrated by compatriots of yours! Young bloods in the Polish diplomatic, a century ago. I am sure I am right. Still, as I say, you never know what may drop into your lap unexpectedly. And profitably, too, for all concerned.” He paused. “I think it so often pays to believe what you read.”

In the silence that followed this remark, Yashim produced his main dish, a succulent agro dolce stew of lamb and prunes, followed by a buttery pilaf. Lefèvre rubbed his hands together and pronounced it excellent. He had seen—and smelled—it cooking on the brazier. They drank off the second bottle while he outlined his plans to leave Istanbul and make a tour through the Greek monasteries in the east. “Trabzon, Erzerum. Wonderful men, ignorant men,” he told them, shaking his head.

‘I must say, Excellency, this has been a delightful evening. They say a visitor is starved for good company in Istanbul these days, but I see no sign of it. No sign at all.”

He left shortly afterward, when all the champagne was gone, insisting that he could see himself home. Yashim took him down to the alleyway, led him to the Kara Davut, and found him a chair.

“One of these days—” Lefèvre called out with a wave; and then the chairmen hoisted him onto their backs and trotted away, and Yashim didn’t catch the end of his farewell.

He turned and made his way back up the alley, thinking over the evening’s conversation. For a moment he had the impression that something had moved at the top of the alley, where a small votive candle burned in a niche; but when he turned the corner the alley was dark, and he heard only the sound of his own footsteps. Once, before he reached his door, he turned his head involuntarily and glanced back.

Palewski whipped the door open as Yashim reached the top of the stairs. He had the vodka bottle by the neck.

“It wasn’t the first time he mentioned those serpents’ heads, Yashim. He was like that when we met.” Palewski seemed struck by a thought. “Do you know, if he ever asks to see me again, I’ll say no. I certainly won’t let him out of my sight,” he added paradoxically, uncapping the bottle.

Long ago, in a moment of exuberance, Palewski had led Yashim to a vast armoire that stood at the head of the stairs in the Polish residency. Turning the key in the lock, he had swung back the doors to reveal two of the three bronze heads that had once adorned the Serpent Column on the Atmeydan. They had goggled at them in horror for a few minutes before Palewski abruptly closed the door and said: “There. It’s been eating me up for years. But now you know, and I’m glad.”

“Even Lefèvre isn’t going to look into that big cupboard for the serpents’ heads, my friend.”

Palewski jerked at the bottle so fast that a splash of vodka landed on his wrist. “For God’s sake, Yash!” He glanced wildly at the door. “That Frenchman would be through it like a dose of salts.” He licked his wrist. “Profitable for all concerned, my eye. He smells them, and I’ve got no idea how.” He poured two shots and knocked his back. “Ah. Better. Cleans out the system, you know. It’s my guess that the man’s some sort of thief, Yashim. He knows too much. I’m sorry I brought him. I just couldn’t shake him off.”