The Lake of Sorrows (14 page)

Eminee’s voice fell to a whisper. “I gave birth to two sons.” Tears filled her eyes. “But in here, true mothers, those who can afford to be kind, are the mutilated men. The eunuchs.”

“If I bear a child, it will not be the same.” Yulebahar spoke desperately, as if to herself.

Eminee granted her a sad smile, the one experience reserves for the young. Then she spoke with ominous finality. “For the time being, what you should do is just listen carefully and obey. Nothing more. That should, Allah willing, give you a slight hope of surviving to see your son grow up.”

E
arly morning shrouded the small chapel within the ruins of old Yannina castle in dew. A heavy smell of wet moss on the ancient stones filled Froshenie’s nostrils and she listened in vain for the singing of bird or even cicada. She knelt in the secluded, half-demolished chapel, but could not focus on her prayers.

Seeing only the ruins, the decay, the long-gone splendor, she found herself wondering how her own house would one day be a ruin like this, how only God would be here forever. Which was why, she forced herself to remember, she had sought refuge here, for God’s succor. And his forgiveness.

But God’s answer to her halting prayers came in the form of heavy steps behind her and a smell of oil, leather and fine tobacco that her heart already had learned to recognize with such frightening ease. She sensed, too, how this set her heart pounding with what she wanted to believe was utter shame.

Froshenie bolted out of the chapel, panting, but Muhtar caught up with her easily. He pinned her gently to a ruined wall nearly hidden in gold-leafed wallflowers and covered her mouth with his palm.

“Please do not shout. Or be scared.” The Bey was pleading. “All I want is talk to you.”

Eyes begging her for understanding, he took his hand away.

For a few fearful moments, they both looked around them, like cornered animals. But the chapel had no other visitors that morning.

He returned his gaze to her. “I will say this quickly, before anyone sees us, or hears us. I know your husband is in Yannina. But I have to see you.”

“Impossible.” Froshenie tried to get away, but his arms kept her in place.

“Please. Do not be afraid. Listen to me. Any day now, the French emissary will marry a girl of your people. A Greek. All prominent and wealthy men in Yannina will be invited to attend. Your husband included.”

“Women of my class do not attend such events along with their husbands.” Froshenie tried to speak with outrage in her voice, but she found herself barely breathing her words. And her eyes rebelled, they would not close, they widened and her gaze was as if chained to Muhtar’s face.

Barely breathing, she capitulated to her eyes’ wishes, desperately hoping it would distract her from the feeling of his body against hers.

“I know women of your class will remain at home while your husbands go to such a wedding.” Muhtar failed to hide a smile. “I will come to find you then.”

“What are you saying? This is utter madness!”

“Please. Do not make me beg you again.”

His eyes widened like her own, shining like two copper-colored pearls that made her forget to forget his body against hers.

“Have you not yet realized my true feelings, lady Froshenie? Are your lovely eyes so blind? Or is your heart?”

The searing hurt in his eyes was too much. Her hands found his chest as if on their own. To comfort him, she wanted to believe.

Neither one of them knew how the kiss began, it was long and breathless, and when they finally tore away from each other, they both knew there could be no way back.

“You will do as I say. I know. You must. Tell me you will.” Muhtar softly caressed her lips with his fingertips. Then he wrenched himself loose from her and disappeared once again within the castle ruins.

Froshenie remained leaning against the wall, watching him go, her hands still on her just-kissed lips. She knew she should shout after him he was completely wrong, that they could never meet again. Her lungs refused to provide breath for this, her tingling lips would not shape the words. The heavy perfume of the flowers, brought out by the rising sun, engulfed her like a mind-numbing poison, and she hardly felt herself fall down into the deep grass.

T
hat morning, the harem of Alhi Pasha was no gentle place of quietude and languor, but bustling with shrieks and excitement. For Anesso, the harem peddler, was expected to visit the them, bringing new clothes, jewelry, combs, perfumes and spices, so rich and varied it was a delicious torture to choose one and forgo the other.

The cunning Greek woman was the only merchant to enter the harem, being a woman, and female merchants being few and far between. Other than the Pasha himself, men were only allowed in the harem if they would give up their manhoods; despite the enticing prospect of an exceptionally fine profit, even the greediest male merchant thought this price of admission too high. So Anesso had made a small fortune from her monopoly. She could afford to buy the best of the best from other merchants who lacked her privileges — then she would sell it all to the harem girls at twice the price, and they were happy to pay, for they were, of course, not allowed to go the bazaar themselves.

Yet Anesso was also cheerful and open-hearted woman, full of life and always with a smile and kind words - lots and lots of words - for the women in their luxurious prison. That, it was whispered, was why Eminee had made her husband grant the monopoly to Anesso. That, and because Anesso was such an encyclopedia of gossip that listening to her was almost as good as traveling all over Hyperus yourself.

She also read in her cards the fortune of anyone who wished it - noone believed it, or admitted that they did so. But when your fate is set in stone, it is a delightful distraction to be told it will be good to you, so the days of her visits were days of joy and celebration for the entire harem.

She barged in, carrying her treasures with the help of a eunuch and the girls happily flocked around her with screams of excitement. Eager, exploring hands swarmed like flies on fine silks, noble satin, glittering jewelry and a nose-numbing cornucopia of scents and ointments.

“Easy, my little girls. There is plenty for all.” Anesso smiled at their eagerness and the gold it promised. “I have brought treasures for every taste. I am out of breath carrying them all up here. You be thankful to God that my son Alexis helped me to the garden door. He brought me here, with our cart. I do not know what I would do without him. Such a good boy, you know.”

The girls joined in her playful tone of voice, teasing. “Besides being a good boy, is your son handsome, too, Anesso?”

“Handsome indeed. Like a God. He must have taken after his father, I guess.” Laughter rippled through the harem.

“What? You do not believe me?” Anesso pretended to be hurt, fooling noone. Yet the smile never left her radiant face. “If not, see for yourselves. He is still outside, waiting for me. Have a look. Just tell me if I am right or not. Shouhrae. You too, my sweet.” She nudged the girl playfully.

Like a flock of birds, the girls fluttered to the windows, gazing through the intricate ironwork that masked with beauty their function as bars of a prison cage. Only a mother could have seen god-like handsomeness in the youth outside, slender muscles straining under a heavy bale of silk he was unloading from his mother’s cart. But his hair was black, his skin was bronze, and he looked lively as a young colt. Compared to the chubby - and rarely young - eunuchs that were the girls’ daily companions, the young Alexis was enough to make them giggle, and to tease one another for doing so.

Shouhrae, timid as always, had not followed them. Only when Anesso fixed an almost pleading gaze on her did she finally join her sisters.

But, looking through the window, she seemed all of a sudden to lose all strength in her legs. They buckled, all blood drained from her face. This cannot be true!” The girls turned to her in surprise, some in shock, for Shouhrae was well known to be very fond of Anesso. “Not here! Not now. Not this late.
This cannot be your son, Anesso!
”

Yulebahar managed to catch Shouhrae just in time, as the young girl collapsed.

“What is the matter Shouhrae? You look like you have seen a ghost.”

“Anesso did not come here today just to sell her merchandise.” Shouhrae’s words, a painful whisper, barely reached Yulebahar’s ears. “Her son … Alexis … he knows me.”

Yulebahar half-helped, half-carried Shouhrae from the chamber. “The heat, just the heat. I will take care of her.” The assurance made the other girls heave a shared sigh of relief and return to Anesso’s wares, chirping like agitated birds as they fought playfully over this item and that.

Easing Shouhrae down onto a bed in the next room, Yulebahar hissed at her friend. “How could Anesso’s son know you? Or even know
of
you? That would be impossible? You never leave the harem.”

“I knew him before I became … one of you. I waited many, many days beneath the walls of the palace while my mother tried and tried to gain admission and to see the captain Tahir. Alexis took pity on me. I just did not know he was Anesso’s son.”

“Ahh — Alexis! The Alexis of your dreams, yes?” Yulebahar’s voice was more triumphant than comforting.

Tears burst from Shouhrae’s eyes. “But I was a Muslim and he a Christian. So once he disappeared I thought he had abandoned me. Then my mother died. The rest you already know.”

“Disappeared? Silly girl, he must simply have left because his mother wanted to buy new wares in the cities around Yannina. She may be gone for months, but she always comes back.” Yulebahar checked herself. “And you loved him?”

A burst of defiance shot through Shouhrae and into her voice. “And he loved me!”

“Oh, Allah! And you imagine he still does? How would you know? Forget him, silly girl. You would but torture yourself by thinking of such things.”

Before Shouhrae could retort, Anesso approached them with her deck of cards in her hand. “Shouhrae, it is your turn today to be told your future, my sweet. Come on, sit down and let us start.” She spoke loudly and cheerfully to be heard by the rest of girls. But as she laid out the cards, she whispered softly to Shouhrae. “Do not say a word, my sweet. Just listen carefully. I begged my son on my knees to forget about this, but there is no way to change his mind. He truly loves you and he will find a way to get you out of here. I just had to know if you still cared for him.”

She looked around her and announced her reading in a booming voice. “What astounding cards! You are fortunate indeed, my dear girl. Soon great joy will be yours. Look! Just look.”

The harem girls, content to participate in the fortune-telling just by listening, remained at the glittering pile of Anesso’s wares and did not approach. After all, the misfortune of others make a heartening tale indeed, but who wants to listen to tales of someone else’s happiness?

Anesso leaned closer to Shouhrae and whispered again. “On the day of the French emissary’s wedding, all of you will go out to the patio as the custom requires. Try to stay back, to not be seen. Hardly anyone will pay attention as they will focus on the bride. At the first opportunity, you must go down the stairs and my Alexis will meet you in the garden.”

I
n the past, Froshenie had always sought refuge in the library of the Vassiliou house. There, among the heavy European-style oak furniture and the hundreds of books, she could sit down at Dimitros’ formidable desk and slip away to the other worlds hidden in those books. Slip away without having to pretend shame at such unwomanly pursuits - and slip away from the unnerving world outside the house.

But today she would have given anything to run from the library, for her husband was there and while she trusted him completely, she distrusted herself just as completely.

Especially when her husband was all but begging for her forgiveness. “I am leaving tomorrow, Froshenie. I know it is not fair. You are very young, and I should spend much more time by your side.”

Froshenie tried to reply, but could only shake her head weakly, thankful that the dusty semi-darkness of the library hid the blush that shame drove to her face.

Dimitros looked shameful himself. “But I need to expand my business more than ever now. Make as much money as I can, and outside Yannina. As all other wealthy Greeks already do. Too much is at stake. Our fortunes will be more than helpful to the cause.”

For a moment, Froshenie forgot shame and tasted fear. “Too much at stake? What cause?”

“The cause of our independence, my darling.” Dimitros gave her a sheepish look, then his gaze drifted to the mediocre portrait painting hanging above the library’s fireplace, a painting far inferior to the masterpieces hung elsewhere in the house, but given pride of place in the library. She had never asked who the man in the painting was, because Dimitros had always seemed strangely reluctant to talk about it - and because the face in the painting seemed to her to be that of the saddest of madmen. “Now is the best time ever, what with this Bonaparte’s ideas about republics instead of Kings and Sultans.”

A gasp escaped Froshenie. “Are you … ” Her voice trailed off. She did not know exactly what she wanted to ask. Mostly, she wanted to ask ‘are
you
a rebel?’, but she could not even begin to imagine her gentle husband such a thing.

He looked at her sheepishly. “Four hundred years under the rule of the Ottomans is enough. The
Filiki Eteria
is growing by the day now.”

“The Society of Friends?” Froshenie feared she would faint. “You are … you are risking your life. If the Pasha ever even suspects you of … “

“The Pasha is only a friend of the Sultan because the Sultan made him Pasha. It is said he would gladly throw off the Sultan’s yoke. As would we. Yet he is not Greek, we must put our trust only in ourselves. But revolutions and weapons take a lot of money. We must all do the best we can.”

“The Ottomans are the greatest empire in the world. How can a sensible man like you — “