Harem (22 page)

Once, a man would have had the flesh flayed from the soles of his feet for raising his voice above a whisper in this court of plane and chestnut trees, the sanctum of Allah's Deputy on Earth, the Lord of the Lords of this World, Possessor of Men's Necks, King of Believers and Unbelievers, Emperor of the East and West, Refuge of All the People in the Whole World, the Shadow of the Almighty Dispensing Quiet in the Earth.

Once, only the mumble of pages and viziers disturbed the grazing deer and parades of peacock, as the business of an empire that encompassed the Seven Wonders of the World was conducted in murmurs.

Once there was silence.

But today Mercedes buses rumble through the Sublime Porte, past the sleeping church of St. Irene, and the fountain where the
bostanji-bashi
washed the blood from his sword after an execution. Now grey-haired and superannuated executives from Frankfurt and Chicago and Osaka, armed with digital cameras and their wives giggling like schoolgirls, are ushered through the crush at Ortakapi by guides wearing Raybans who do not even glance up at the niches in the wall high above them, to point out that they were once the resting places for the heads of the Sultan's viziers.

Beyond the Ortakapi, close to the Hall of the Divan, there is a sign on the stone wall that reads: 'The Harem.' Four matrons from Ohio pose underneath while one of their husbands focuses a camera.

'Don't lean on the wall, Doris,' he drawls, 'I don't know if it can take the weight.'

The black doors swing open and the tour is herded inside, into the cool and cobbled darkness. A young Turk in an open-necked shirt and unpressed trousers, his English distorted by his lisp, stands to one side to address them.

''Harem' means 'Forbidden',' he says. 'Forbidden to men. Once the Sultan was the only man - the only complete man - who could pass through that gate. Any woman who entered there would never pass out again.'

Once there was silence. It was broken not by the shouts of war and invasion, but by laughter, the laughter of a woman.

All of the background events in this novel can be found in histories of the Ottomans in this period. What can never be known is what happened behind the iron-studded doors of the Sublime Porte to incite so much violence and so much passion. Historians have described it, but been unable to explain it.

This is a work of fiction, and also an attempt to imagine an explanation. In this respect this is a work of fiction. Only the long dead could ever tell us how much is true.