Reign of the Favored Women (45 page)

Here the great eunuch shrugged and said, “I suppose I only mean to apologize for the cold way my lady has treated yours since these events. Without cause, I believe, and because it is causeless, it cannot last long.”

His prophecy was true and the grudge, which hurt my lady deeply, did not last past Ali Pasha’s remarriage. But this was not so much because Safiye had learned restraint but because there were other plots afoot. Not the least of these was the marriage of Prince Muhammed and my Gul Ruh.

Safiye was in the midst of paying court to Gul Ruh with a new jeweled caplet and rather-too-intimate caresses on the hair: “Ah! how my son will love these dancing braids.”

My young lady replied with the words—one could almost hear the tones—of Nur Banu, “Aunt Safiye, you know full well my cousin Muhammed cannot marry me—or anyone—until he is circumcised and becomes a man.”

It angered Safiye to be told so—and in such tones—but she could not deny it was true. No matter how she influenced Turkish taste towards the Venetian in everything from fabric and costume to medicine—for which the Republic should always be financially grateful—this she could not change. Even the Hand of Allah in the form of the terrible fire that had thwarted the first attempt to make her boy into a man could not put it off forever. Muhammed could not rule unless he was a full Muslim and he could not be a Muslim with his foreskin intact.

And every year it was put off meant only a greater danger of serious infection accompanying the operation. In fact, it clearly seemed to be Nur Banu’s plan to put off the rite forever so that Muhammed might never rule.

This taunt placed in the mouth of unsuspecting Gul Ruh was enough to call Safiye to her duties as a Turkish rather than a Venetian mother. She proceeded at once to do what she could to circumvent Nur Banu’s authority and once more set the preparations in motion. Nonetheless, the planning did take nearly a full year in total. And this was not all on account of Murad’s desire to see that his son and heir was circumcised in glory such as the world had never seen before. It was also in part due to Nur Banu’s constant and often successful attempts to see that the rite might never be celebrated, with or without glory.

Whenever the flurry of preparation grew white hot, Gul Ruh shied and sulked from it as if it was preparation for her own wedding as, in a way, it was. At such times, even Nur Banu’s rooms were hardly far enough away for my young mistress, and I think she was particularly grateful to Umm Kulthum when one day the Mufti’s widow invited my young lady to join her and her daughters for a picnic in the country.

* * *

Early on Friday morning, the party was ferried up to the end of the Horn where the Sweet Waters of Europe flow through a park to the Sea. The Turks are connoisseurs of waters as Italians are of wine. They know the various qualities of every major spring from Zem-Zem in Mecca northward and will often pay dearly for a flask of some famous source packed in by caravan. Bottled waters, however, are universally declared to be but pale compared to sampling the product on the spot. And within an easy journey of Constantinople, only one or two privately owned springs in the foothills are more desirable than the Sweet Waters of Europe.

At this time of year when the streams were swollen and ice-cold from the melting snow, it was doubted if even the springs could vie. The water, pure from any sediment, was delightfully tasteless in any season. But in spring, when one’s mouth was not too numbed by the cold, one could taste something more—the sweetness that gave the waters their name and their fame.

As if the waters were not sufficient in themselves, Umm Kulthum devoted one whole boatload to picnic dainties and sweets. Upon our arrival, the slaves spread these out in dizzy array on carpets on the sward. Sweetmeats and pistachios were unpacked. Dried figs and dates and apricots and raisins, olives and meatballs and balls of rice and ground chickpeas, stuffed pastries sweet and savory, all were heavily spiced and sprigged with fresh-cut mint. The eye could easily confuse the bright colors and intricate detail of the foods on their brass and china platters for the floral patterns on the rugs.

Umm Kulthum and some of her older, matronly friends were content to sit before these mounds and feed like browsing sheep. But eating was not that for which her daughters, their young slaves, and my Gul Ruh had come to the country. One could eat at home.

We had ferried those girls over in tight bundles, wrapped like roses cut in the bud when hardly a shadow peeking out from the green hull hints at the color within. Now, as if those roses had been brought into the heat and stuck in water, they burst into bloom as they played hide-and-seek and catch and danced to improvised music among the great old chestnut and plane trees.

The trees heaved the grass in their shadows up into mounds with their trunks. People turn red when drunk, grass turns but a lusher green and this grass on the banks of the Sweet Waters was far gone. The blades could hardly keep their bleary, heavy heads up. When bruised, they stained with an uncommon vigor. I saw my lady with dark green stains on the knees of her shalvar and on both elbows. She had worn her best clothes to honor the occasion, but they would probably have to be given away now, beyond all hope of salvage.

But to see her running and laughing as if she were a child again, and to see the old bloom come back in her cheeks—I hadn’t the heart to forbid her. The grown-up sobriety of the last few years was all very well, I thought. Indeed, it was probably necessary. Like the green sheath of a rose, it would be good protection against the sorrows and hardships of life that were bound to fall. But it was heartening to see that in sunlight and pure water, she could still bloom.

Umm Kulthum had had her slaves set up the camp in a broad hollow into which an arm of the waters curled for a moment’s privacy before rolling on about its public business. It was the perfect spot because, even by the time it reached our ears—we khuddam perched on the surrounding hillocks in a protective cordon—even the most frantic squeal had all but faded. And as no man with any self-respect would take another step towards the first glimpse of a eunuch’s robes he saw, the girls’ games, delicious like stolen fruit, would always remain our secret.

I regaled in the sight—pitying all mankind for whom it must ever be forbidden—of the beautiful girls more beautiful still in their jewels, their bright yellows and pinks and deep reds, both on shalvar and cheeks. Their carefully braided hair now working its way loose like the linen of their undershirts. They flashed into sunlight, vanished into shadows, as if that hollow had a pulse and they were it.

Over their heads, the leaves of both chestnut and plane were as vet fragile and thin, but clouds of the lesser Judas trees in pink-violet bloom were like spun-sugar mist and hid magical worlds of fairy tale. In the rain of their petals, I forgot the myths of my childhood that were beyond redemption. I felt pure joy.

Only when the sun was directly overhead did the muezzin from the nearby Eyüp Mosque call the party to more sober pursuits. A quiet time was something it would be foolish to do without in the heat of the day. But the girls were so exhilarated they would have ignored that need were it not for the all-wise Word of Allah.

Eyüp is the burial place of the standard bearer of the Prophet who died in 672 of the Christian era during the first Muslim attempt to take Constantinople. It is such a sacred place that no man can be considered Sultan until the Sword of his ancestor Othman has been girded on him with those blessed walls.

Eyüp is a popular place for the living to come as pilgrims and for the dead to come and await the Day of Resurrection. Their tombs clustered at the feet of his who first made the ground holy. Some of the girls, my young lady among them, expressed their desire to go and visit the shrine themselves. But that would have to wait for another day. A woman would have to be desperately poor, old, and mad to attempt to jostle with the crowds of men on a Friday. Wealthy young ladies whose griefs could never be allowed a depth to shatter sanity must make other arrangements. The girls knew it was true.

A curious look of satisfaction came to Umm Kulthum when, naturally but regretfully, she had to refuse the request with a “Maybe next month sometime...”Although I saw the satisfaction, I soon dismissed and forgot it as no more than a simple woman’s delight at all outward shows of piety.

In about two hours, the Friday sermon was over and the mosque emptied itself. Then we khuddam made an attempt to shake off our drowsiness. A good number of the males decided, having come so far out in the country, that they would take advantage of the pleasant air and visit the Sweet Waters as well. We ruffled ourselves like threatened cocks and stood to attention so we would be more visible. And all the men did stay removed from our hollow. Why mar newly gained sanctity from the shrine of Eyüp by contact with strange women?

One party, however, did not immediately take the hint. As my colleagues and I moved closer to answer the threat, however, aw understood that it was not ignorance on the part of the men but knowledge that drew them. The leader of the small group of young scholars was Umm Kulthum’s youngest son Abd ar-Rahman. Soon Umm Kulthum’s eunuchs were carrying the remains of our picnic to them, After a while, when the young men were refreshed, Abd ar-Rahman himself came halfway up the hillock and his mother and sisters came halfway down to exchange formal, heavily guarded greetings.

Abd ar-Rahman was full of the day’s sermon. The imam he found brilliant and learned. He thanked his mother for the suggestion to come there that day and he would try and do so as often as he could in the future to learn more from the man.

Now his youngest sister Betula, a girl not much older and about the same size as Gul Ruh, stamped her foot angrily “Oh, Brother, why must always be so tedious? It’s spring! It’s a beautiful day and here we are in this park with the birds singing like mad. Can’t you for once be just a little romantic?’

“And you are such a silly girl!” her brother retorted with self-righteous indignation. “So brazen in that color. I should be ashamed to give you to any one of my friends to wife. He would blame me and say I gave him a harlot.”

The girl blushed, but not with shame. She was rather pleased. Her brother was indignant: She must have succeeded in being truly attractive. And “that color”—pink—must be one he found particularly pleasant for him to raise such a fuss about it. Pleasure always made him uncomfortable. He was so unused to the sensation.

Abd ar-Rahman recited some part of the sermon to his sister, advised her to take heed and sent her back into the hollow in giggles, It was only then that I recognized her dress. It was Gul Ruh who had taken the spill that had seriously stained the right arm, not the Mufti’s daughter. It was Gul Ruh who had worn her best pink dress that day. The Mufti’s girl had been in green when we left Constantinople. For some reason of girlish vanity I could not fathom (for Gul Ruh looked too sallow for my taste when she wore green), the two had exchanged outer dresses. I had better keep a closer eye on the pair from now on.

Abd ar-Rahman lowered his voice and spoke a few more polite words to his mother and his older sisters, then took formal leave of them, making his way back down through the trees to his companions. His friends must have known where he’d gone-—the picnic had not appeared out of the clear blue, of course. But they were a polite and very religious bunch, so they made no more comment than if he had just gone off to answer a basic call of nature. Their thoughts were not driven from the discussion of Holy Law as presented by the sermon for a moment. And Abd ar-Rahman was very glad to escape back into that niche where he felt most at ease.

Suddenly, however, Abd ar-Rahman’s Friday afternoon ease was shattered. So was that of everyone else in the park. At first I pretended to ignore the commotion. A chorus of high, shrill voices was shouting and crying, but I assumed it must be a band of rowdy boys. If it was women, as another moment convinced me it must be, it must be a congress offish mongers’ wives fighting over slippers. Surely such hysteria could not be from our women in such a public place. But just another moment told me that indeed it was.

A copse of trees and a hillock blocked my view of what was happening. It centered on the fast moving stream. And before I had time to get to my feet, the chaos’ focus had drifted past the protection of the hollow and into the open. I thought at first a bough of pink Judas blossom caught my eve. But the splash of color occasionally defied the pull of the water and displayed a mind of its own. And the pink was turning such a dark purple as Judas blossom will take on only after a day of wilt.

My heart suddenly pumped aching fear to every limb—as fine satin will the minute it touches water and begins to soak up deadly weight.

The entire hillside of eunuchs and women was now running like rainwater down to the lowest level. Abd ar-Rahman, too, was drawn on by that color he recognized from his recent interview with his sister. He reached the water first.

A pair of eunuchs quickly formed a solid chain to the bank lest Abd ar-Rahman, like the log burned light and white with study that he was—be likewise caught in the current. But it was the young man himself who made the rescue. Though he staggered a moment under the unaccustomed physical load, with the strong eunuchs’ arms to right him, he insisted on carrying the burden to the safety of the copse. He wanted the personal pleasure of scolding his wanton sister himself.

But it was not his sister. I had suspected the rereversal in clothing all the way down the hill. And as I ran up to the excited rabble that clustered around, hardly giving the drowned soul a taste of precious air, my worst fears were confirmed. She who had become an object of such display was my young lady. That she had nearly drowned was the least of my worries: She’d be better off dead than seen by a hundred men in Friday-after-sermon righteousness.

The same instant I knew the truth, Abd ar-Rahman did, too. Any woman not his close kin was like a jinni to him, something supernatural and as scalding as sparks from heaven. He dropped her none too gently and fled without a word.