Sofia (12 page)

“I’m sorry,” I stammered, then tried brightness on a different tack. “What have you got there in your arms?” She looked hard at me, then came deliberately up to the partition. She whipped the corner of the cloth away from her bundle. My heart skipped a beat and my eyes looked down in confusion. In her arms she held the little corpse of her favorite lapdog. Of aunt and maid, canaries and dogs, this was the last, and now he, too, was gone. His little needlelike canine teeth showed in a mouth half-opened in a sort of bizarre grimace.

I did not know what to say and finally came out with a clumsy, “I’m sorry.”

I’ll bet you are
, her stare told me. She then covered the little creature up once more, carried him to the rail, and silently let him drop into the sea.

A long time passed in silence before she turned to me again. Her eyes, I saw, were dry, as dry as chalk, so it must hurt the lids to close over them.

“His name was Cosi-cosi.” She fixed me with a look whose aridity seemed to drain the moisture from all it touched. “Cosi-cosi. Because he was half brown and half white. I had him for five years, ever since he was a pup.” Her final statement that was worth an hour’s storytelling: “He was a gift from my father before he sailed for Corfu.”

“I’m sorry,” I said again.

“I wanted to say good-bye to him alone. I wanted to be alone. But you are here.”

“I’m sorry,” I said for the third time. “I’ll go.” And I scrambled to my feet.

“Just a minute,” she called. I saw she had come to the partition and was thoughtfully picking at the splintered wood where the Turks’ axes had broken into her possessions.

“Yes?” I asked.

“I have been alone much lately,” she said, “and I have done much thinking.”

“About what?” I asked. She was making my own thoughts verbal.

“Well, I have been wondering.”

“Yes?”

“I have been wondering if you meant what you said to your friend that night before the Knights boarded us.”

“Of course Husayn is a Turk. That must be plain by now.”

“No. I meant... I meant what you said about me. About you...and me...”

“Oh.” I blushed. “That.” She had heard it all.

“You didn’t mean it.” She nodded slowly and began to turn away.

“No! No!” I blurted. “I mean...”

From this stuttering and looking at the ground I was suddenly drawn up into the hollows of her eyes and found myself speaking poetry. Though I had the impression that the whirlpool I felt was caused by her eyes, she, too, seemed caught up in it. We spun thus in a wild, inescapable swirl where time and the world about us meant nothing. We communicated at such a pace that words were rendered obsolete and eyes, gestures, and soon the touch of hands through the partition were called on to second them. It was only common lovers’ talk, the calloused may say. Yet I am constrained from exposing it to paper and possibly their profane eyes much as the Revelator himself was:

And when the seven thunders had uttered their voices, I was about to write, and I heard a voice from heaven saying unto me, “Seal up those things which the seven thunders uttered, and write them not.”

At length—a time that seemed a thousand years in but a minute—we slowly extracted ourselves from the violence of that thundering whirlpool. Being mortal, we had to return to breathe our mortality or die. But I found earth’s air rare and I panted over her hand as I bade it farewell, planting heavy-breathed kisses on its white knuckles, palm, and wrist.

“Be true, my love,” she said.

“My love,” I vowed, “I shall find a way to free you and for us to come together in the end. By my life, I shall.”

We sailed around the rugged sentinels of Lesbos and Limnos, their tops helmeted in rock and plumed with fleecy clouds. The western sun poured on our track, gilded with glory the hither projections of the armor of these Greek watchers and filled the great gorges beyond with dark purple shadows.

Oblivious of natural beauty, my sole purpose was to seek out other times to meet with Sofia and whisper to her through the ax-holes in the crating. The all-consuming passion we had experienced the first time never repeated itself. It returned only like sparks in an all-but-dead fire to light our dialogues. And our dialogues were otherwise composed of little but sighs and long pauses of dark despair between statements which all began with “Oh, if only...!” or “How I wish...!”

Still, there was more than enough kindled between us to drive me to attempt to achieve satisfaction no matter how desperate the chances. I determined to approach Husayn. I did not mean to betray our love, but only to sound the waters of the Turks’ mercy as with a plumb line.

However, I got no further than to say “Husayn, my friend, I was wondering...” before he stopped as with a heavy hand upon my shoulder.

“My young friend,” he said, “do not even ask. Such choices were offered at the first, but now it is too late. Tripoli, where you might have gained your freedom, is now a harbor left long ago in our wake. Constantinople will be reached shortly and Uluj Ali is determined upon his course. Throw your lot in with Allah. Trust to Him, and we shall see what He may do for you in the days to come.”

I said no more, for the hand upon my shoulder was a silent warning. I thought I had been so cautious in my courting, but now it was clear that any more boldness could very well put not only our happiness but our very lives in jeopardy. Fortunately, my inactive wait was not very long. That evening, the Turks prostrated in a slightly different direction for their prayers, for we had entered the Dardanelles and changed our all-important orientation to the Holy City of Mecca. By morning light the other city, Constantinople on the Golden Horn, could be seen, rising from the mist in brilliance like a second sun.

In the confusion of throwing anchor and then unloading, I ventured one last interview with my love. The
Santa Lucia
’s banners of Saint Mark, her crucifixes, and her images of the Virgin were hung upside down along the gunwale. Any boat that was close enough and idlers on the shore saluted this announcement of the Turks’ victory. The Sultan’s customary fifth of the spoils disembarked first and was tendered directly to the daunting seaside walls of the Sarai by wharfage collectors.

I found Madonna Baffo standing at the rail, in the exact spot where she had buried her little dog, watching all of this. I hoped the blasphemy to our icons did not distress her too much. I would tell her heaven could hear and answer the prayers of the righteous even upside down.

I spoke her name and she acknowledged my presence but she did not turn. Indeed, she never let her eyes leave their bewondered study of the scene before them: the myriad boats, tiny fishers and great galleys, bustling on the water like crowds in Venice’s market. The activity on the ridge before the great seawalls and, finally, the city itself rose as a backdrop with minarets and domes, great palaces and the stuffing of teeming slums in between. She was oblivious of insult.

“This is Constantinople?” she asked.

“Yes,” I replied, trying to draw her attention to me by a display of worldly knowledge. But to say, “Yes, this is Constantinople” could have been done by a fool. It was obvious; there was no greater city in the world.

So I began to point out the sights to her. “The Turks like to call it Islambul, which means ‘Islam-abundant.’ That great dome is the Saint Sophia. Named, as your own sweet self, for holy wisdom, it was once the greatest monument of Christian faith in the world. These last hundred years, however, stripped of all but the shell of former glory, she has served the Turks in their heathen worship. There, beneath her great domes, are the lesser domes of Saint Irene and the columns of the...”

But she was not interested in my services as a guide. In a tone that indicated she would become angry if I disturbed her meditations further, she exclaimed, “By God! It is magnificent!”

Husayn had patience with me and was content to linger in the square just inside the seawall after we had disembarked. Here I hoped to try and catch a glimpse of Sofia and see where she might be taken. The landings of Constantinople are a hurly-burly compared to which those of Venice are as regimented as if marching in review beneath the Doge’s balcony. In Constantinople, it is as if an anthill—nay, three or four anthills each with ants of a different size and species— were all kicked together. The collisions, fights, and aimless running to and fro I witnessed were remarkable. Only as a second thought, it seemed, were goods, like bundled ant eggs, being salvaged and transported to safety. Even then, only one move out of twenty seemed to be the right bundle to the right human or animal back headed in the right direction.

It was as if the many decks of cards of all the peoples of the world were shuffled into one by a child who had no knowledge of the rules of any game, but only liked to shuffle. This led to some very curious combinations: a great black African guarding a shipment of dainty Chinese boxes rich with ivory inlay and carving; a tiny Chinaman, stripped—ribs starting—to a thin waist, strained under a heavy, vicious-looking load of elephant and rhinoceros tusks. Cool Indians, slippery like snakeskin, bargained with fat, basted-duck Italians in God-knows-what language for incense from Arabia, while the Arabians, secret, silent, ghostly men, more white robes and headdresses than flesh and blood, eyed sacks of grain as if they were filled with precious myrrh.

And everywhere were the Turks, Turks of all shapes and sizes. There were rich Turks and beggar Turks, Turkish fishermen, merchants, porters, pashas, soldiers, admirals, pickpockets, and customs officials. A Turk in a foreign land is immediately picked out for what he is, but here in their own land, one would be hard pressed to name a single trait that all of them shared. It was the Venetians that seemed more a caricature of nationality here.

I was glad to be able to step out of this melee and view it objectively. I knew from experience how easy it was to become part of such a crowd, taking communion of its madness. I knew how easily that madness could become my own catechism, and I could find myself weeping tears of faith for its litany. And besides, after more than a month at sea, every step I took jarred my frame most painfully. I was obliged to sit upon a great bale of imported woolens so all my attention could be relieved of discomfort and concentrated on my vigil.

Of all the brands of humanity present on the landing, one was conspicuously absent. That was the women, of any race or color whatsoever. Even the painted whores that flounce the 4pcks of Venice were gone. This was the topic of desperate conversation passed between two sailors who had just been released from three months at sea, but they would have to go elsewhere and be much more private to make their talk material. I was certain that Sofia Baffo would stand out here in this male crowd like a circle among squares.

It was Husayn, however, who saw her first. He had had the wisdom to look not for her tall, slender figure, or light-gold gown, but for the short, greasy slave merchant who had spent the morning haggling with Uluj Ali.

Baffo’s daughter and her maid were brought from the ship swathed in veils, looking more like passing shadows than human beings. I could only tell which one she was—even after Husayn pointed them out—by the fact that she was uncommonly tall and because she kept fidgeting with the wrap in order to get a better view of the wonders about her. The slaver tried to correct her of this fault, for, if it gave her a better view of those about her, it also gave them a view of her, his prized merchandise, which he was not prepared to put on display there on the landing like nothing better than a waterlogged bundle of silks. Fortunately, the man had a covered sedan chair waiting, into which Sofia and her maid were rapidly loaded. Heaved to the shoulders of eight monstrous porters, they were carried out of sight with giant strides. Even had the condition of my legs allowed pursuit, Husayn’s heavy hand wisely counseled against it.

Husayn took me then to his home, where I was welcomed with hospitality that could not have been greater had I been indeed his son. Having visited him once before on my last trip to Constantinople, I knew it was not actually his home, but that of his father-in-law. As a native of Antioch, Husayn had found it business-wise to contract a marriage with a young lady of Constantinople, the only child of her wealthy merchant father.

The house, though in town, was located near the Langa Bostani Park and fronted on the Sea of Marmara itself. It sat behind high walls in a small but delightful park of its own, the focal point of which was a large fig tree with the buds just swelling. A confusion of lesser oranges and lemons still in fruit were propped up by rose and mimosa bushes, which, in months to come, would fill the garden with color and scent. Jasmine, protected in a pot, was already in bloom and almost overpowered the garden from corner to corner, like the perfume of some aging courtesan.

The house was not one of those glaring things of Constantinople’s new rich but, being made mostly of wood, it had weathered into its surroundings as if the product of nature. I think it may have predated the Conquest: the pillars that framed the entrance, at least, were of Greek workmanship. Lattices had, however, tang stood guardians over the windows on the second floor where the harem was. I saw no more of the inside during my stay than the three reception rooms of the
selamlik
, or men’s quarters, where the fresh whitewash was pleasantly softened by rugs and cushions. One room in particular enjoyed a view of the sea and its flocks of ships, great and small, from a divan that ran along two full walls.

I never saw the wife, of course, but a small son was sent out of the
haremlik
to greet the father he couldn’t remember and who frightened him with his loud greeting and flash of golden teeth. The little fellow cried, staining the red silk of his new little shirt, and had to be quickly removed. It was the reverend old gentleman Husayn had married, after all, and the two met anew with tender affection and respect such as I have seen between few husbands and wives.

The house had a private bath and the first order of business for these fastidious Turks was to use it. Husayn and his father-in-law invited me to join them in a communal wash, but I declined, enduring the time alone with my thoughts as best I could. Then they retreated together to evening prayers and left me to make my ablutions alone.