Sofia (29 page)

And it happened more than once that a problem which had stumped Selim and all his counselors for weeks found solution in her quick mind. For, in the harem, a mind had the luxury to remain unfettered from the pressures of narrow and particular interests.

When Murad would carry the solution to his father the next day, the young prince would shrug off the praise and say, “Allah smiled on me—I had only to sleep upon it.”

It was a night in autumn with a touch of winter already in the air when I was shown to my bed in the citadel of Kutahiya and then left on my own. A trip to wash the dust of my journey from my face and feet revealed that a long, wide hall marked the barrier between
haremlik
and
selamlik
in this prince’s house. On one side were the various rooms of the harem, on the other side opened the doors to the eunuchs’ quarters and the two chambers of the mabein where the governor and his son could enjoy their women. This hall was paved in rough stone and also opened in a long, high clerestory to the sky above.

I got the definite and purposeful feeling of having gone out of doors and passed from one building to another as I went from the world to the harem. There could be no mistaking the transition, even for the stranger.

That night, the windows had caught a brilliant moonlight in just such a way that it was channeled like sparkling water in a cascade down the walls and into a beautiful dappled pattern—like little waves—on the flagstones below. The beauty of the scene struck me as I’d been too numb to be struck by anything in a long, long time. I paused, all alone, to contemplate it and let my mind follow those waves back to days that were gone. To ships and sea I should never again enjoy.

As I did so, the door from one of the rooms of the mabein opened furtively and a figure joined me in the hall, walking upon the water.

She wore nothing more than a thin sheet caught haphazardly about her tall, slender body, leaving her neck and soft shoulders bare, over which her golden hair tumbled without constraint. Her light, naked feet scampered across the cold stone with a sound like walking in melting snow. There was in her step the haste and warmth of caresses in foreplay.

I knew at once who she was. It was as if all my dreams and nightmares of the past six months had suddenly taken on material form.

“Hello, Sofia.” I said it in Italian, and with surprising calmness.

She started, having heard neither her native tongue nor her Christian name for half a year. Still, Sofia Baffo was never one to let anyone think he had bested her in any situation. She regained her composure with remarkable speed, and even let the sheet drop more loosely over one shoulder to indicate her nonchalance as she said, “Veniero! Well, this is a surprise! Still as foolish and daredevilish as ever. Still climbing convent walls.”

“I am here in Kutahiya at my master’s bidding, not yours this time.”

“A slave, are you? So am I.”

“Well, there are slaves and there are slaves, as my old friend Husayn might say.”

Delusions are the greater part of any infatuation, and removal of my physical reaction to her taught me what a flimsy thing my love had been. I closed my eyes against the pain of my loss, but afterward my speech grew steadier and I spoke in my most flowery Turkish.

“My master is Sokolli Pasha, soon to take Esmikhan Sultan to wife. I am to see his bride safely to Constantinople.”

Baffo’s daughter seemed at a loss for something else to say, as the mighty often are when faced with unwanted, unlooked-for suits. So I drew a paper from my bosom. I knew it from the other two there by its finer Turkish grade. It was an announcement I had picked up in the bazaars of Constantinople as I ran my errands and had kept out of curiosity, never imagining when and where I might use it. Posted by the Venetian embassy to the Porte, in Turkish, Latin, and Italian, it offered in the name of Governor Baffo of Corfu a ransom of five hundred ghrush for the return of his daughter, who, he had reason to suspect, was being held captive somewhere in the harems of Turkey.

I placed the paper in Sofia’s hand saving, this time in Italian, “You might find this interesting as well.”

I had successfully broken down her defenses. To unfold the paper, which her curiosity could not resist, she had to juggle the corners of her sheet most precariously. But a few rapid blinks of her eyes against some tender memory were the only other signs of weakness she would give me, even after she’d read the announcement.

Quickly, firmly, she tore the paper into a hundred fingertip-sized pieces. “My father,” she said, meeting me firmly in the eve, “underbid by a whole sack of ghrush. To people here I am now worth six hundred.”

At that moment, the door to the mabein cracked open and the voice of a young man whispered, “Safiye? Safiye? Are you there? My love, you promised you’d be gone only a moment, and I am dying of desire.”

“You see, Veniero,” Safiye said. “I can’t stand here gossiping with you all night long.”

“Safiye? my love?” the young man said again.

“No,” I agreed in rather brazen, mocking Italian. “Your responsibilities are most onerous indeed.”

I made no attempt to muffle my words and they must have carried quite far. I could usually, with concentration, hold my voice down in a man’s registers and the next thing I knew, a very wiry pair of hands was about my throat. The bubble of my voice escaped and drifted higher, ending in a squeak. I managed to keep my balance during the onslaught, for though he was a few years my senior, my attacker was neither as large nor as strong as I, all bones and angles. But I was forced against the wall by his energy, nonetheless.

Not since Husayn have I heard such abuse in Turkish as I heard then. Subsequent to leaving my Syrian merchant friend, my training had all been geared to courtliness and manners. I did not know the meaning of half the words that were spat into my face by that furious young man. Clear enough, however, was the accusation that I had greatly wronged the honor of his women and that the only satisfaction he could take was my immediate death.

Safiye’s Turkish stumbled as she tried halfheartedly to intervene, “My love! My love!”

I was so busy trying to fend off my unknown attacker’s frenzied blows that I hardly realized when other women entered the hallway. They were drawn by the yells, the thud of his flesh on mine, and my scuffles trying to defend myself. In various stages of undress, the women came to see what the matter was.

I heard the voice I already recognized as that of my new young mistress, Esmikhan Sultan, cry: “Murad! Brother, stop!”

This told me the man was a prince of the blood and I must go easy on him. But months of unexpressed anger were seething within me and, between blows, I grew reckless. By God, what could they do to me that hadn’t already been done? Even if I killed this milksop, all they could do would be a blessing compared to what they’d already done.

Esmikhan cried again: “Murad! A eunuch! Only a eunuch!”

The young prince misunderstood her. He thought she meant to say that he was nothing but a useless eunuch compared to me (he could not help but be aware of the difference in our sizes) and it made him absolutely senseless with hurt and fury. Fortunately, my strength prevailed even against such passion.

“It is just as I said,” exclaimed one of the unseen ladies of the harem.

“Yes,” replied another. “Whatever can Sokolli Pasha have been thinking? To buy such a one for Esmikhan!”

More harem talk came in snatches through the ringing of blows to my head.

“Surely he cannot have been thinking at all.”

“It is even as I was told. The Pasha is too caught up in his work to have any clear thoughts of marriage.”

“Really! Such a young servant! Does he know his duties at all?”

“It is not a question of duties,” another voice chimed in, brimming with delight. “Such a young one, of such handsome face and features! I wonder if he is to guard Esmikhan or to woo her!”

“In my father’s harem,” fussed a stern old hag, “we were given no guard until he was clearly passed his prime or had been well disfigured by the pox. There is a tradition of the Prophet to support such caution. I know. My father was...”

“Sokolli Pasha is so old,” said yet another, nearly hiccoughing with giggles, “that he has sent another man to be groom for him in his place.”

Now the whole hall shrieked with laughter and the sweet young voice of my mistress cried out above them all, “Silence, for the love of Allah.” But they laughed more all the same.

“Where are your eunuchs, ladies?” I managed to gasp. “Is a fistfight such a novelty to you that you can only stand and stare?”

I sparred to the right, but caught the wall behind my opponent instead. “For the love of Allah”—I took a blow to the face and felt the blood swelling at the base of my nose that made my voice sound nasally—”call your eunuchs.” Then I got in a pair of good ones, cleverly fending off a jab to the kidneys. “Tell them to pull him off me”—next I got a hold on the prince’s arm, which he only escaped by ripping the fine damask of his caftan’s sleeve—”or I will do him harm.”

“Do me harm, will you?” The young prince choked with rage and hit me such a blow to the jaw that I was speechless after that. “We’ll see who does the most harm.”

“Ah, Veniero, Veniero!” Safiye’s Italian rose above all the rest. She stood, wringing the corner of her flimsy costume which was, for her, earnest concern. “This isn’t a convent, my dear Veniero. This is a harem. Don’t you know by now that to be found in another man’s harem is death?”

The mortification that she had known me in my former strength (which was, in fact, a weakness, groveling at her feet) was enough to invigorate me to get the prince by the shoulders in a strong hold and keep him there. This same emotion pushed into my throat and could be heard in my next words.

“And don’t you, my beautiful Sofia, know how to tell a eunuch from a man?” I forgot all Italian then and said it in Turkish so there’d be no mistake. “Even now, you look for secret lovers in castrati such as myself? Sofia Baffo, I am a eunuch. Thanks to you—” I turned to the prince. “Master, I have no designs on your women. I am a
khadim
.”

“Come here to the light and let me have a look at what you’ve done to yourself.”

In her own room, Esmikhan Sultan led me by the hand as gently as a child to the lamp that swung on a chain from a low beam.

“That eye will not be good.” She set me on the divan and leaned over to inspect. Attar of roses escaped her bosom as she did so with a scent that was noticeable even through the clots of blood forming in my nose. “And your lip is already swelling.”

With a few quick orders, she sent her maid scurrying off for the equipment that shortly allowed her to sponge my wounds with warm water smelling of steeped comfrey and myrrh. The odor of disinfectant brought back a nightmare of events I had to push from my mind with a physical gesture as if I were struggling with the prince once again. Esmikhan Sultan sat back and waited for the pain to pass me. She said nothing, but the sympathy in her eyes brought me more quickly into control.

“You know,
ustadh
, I haven’t named you yet.”

As if I were a puppy; I stiffened at the thought.

“I’m sorry,” my lady said. “I meant to warn you it might sting. I’ll try to be more gentle.”

I couldn’t tell her that it wasn’t her ministrations that made me flinch. I tried to relax my hand back into hers as she dabbed at my knuckles that had missed her brother’s face and hit the stone wall behind him instead.

“Lulu,” she announced. “I’ve always wanted to name my first khadim Lulu. Lulu if he was white, Sandal if he was black.”

“For the love of Allah!” The words escaped me. “Not Lulu.”

My lady blinked in surprise, as she would have if a puppy—or even an infant—had protested at his naming. I closed my eyes with renewed horror at my situation. These pampered women considered their eunuchs at the mercy of their wills no less than they did infants and puppies. I could not endure it.

“You don’t like Lulu?”

I was incapable of answering such unfeigned astonishment.

“It means a pearl and I thought—Pearl for a white, Sandal, the sweet-smelling wood, for a black. We always name our eunuchs such names. Don’t you know? Hyacinth, Narcissus. For precious metals or perfumes.

“You don’t like Lulu.” She repeated the idea in an attempt to convince herself. “You looked so much like a beautiful, rare pearl when I first saw you this afternoon.” She laughed a little as she gently daubed at my blackening eye. “I must admit you don’t look much like one now. More like blotchy marble. Or a carbuncle. Shall you go through life with the name Carbuncle?”

“My name is Giorgio Veniero.” I hissed at the sting of pronouncing a dead patronym.

My lady rocked back on her heels and blinked at the sounds in incomprehension. That eunuchs should have names—or lives, even—beyond what their mistresses gave them was clearly novel to her.

“Giorgio Veniero,” I repeated. “Veniero.”

She made a couple of attempts at the foreign syllables, making them sound like the sort of disease my uncle once caught from whores. By San Marco, she was simple, protected so unnaturally in that simplicity. And I was to spend the rest of my life with no company but such women? Why had my reflexes of self-preservation taken over once again? I should have let Prince Murad kill me.

Finally, I realized it was hopeless. She would continue to mangle my name that way day in and day out.

“But what shall I call you then?”

“Just call me a man—”

“A man?” There was no insult in her voice. Just surprise.

“No, I cannot be called even that any more. Just call me a soul whom God—Allah—has seen fit to curse beyond any other. Adam got off lightly compared to me.”

Perhaps my struggle with the Turkish failed to convey all the bitterness I meant with it.

“You are Allah’s servant,” she stated.

“His slave, his
khadim
.”

“So are we all, Abdullah. So are we all when we have the humility to know it. Some are more blessed because Allah helps them to learn it more readily than others. Yes, so are we all.” Was she merely reciting something Turks learned by rote? Or was this her own intelligence? “So. I will call you Abdullah—Allah’s servant.”