The Janissary Tree (35 page)

The
action brigade claimed that this man was different. The realists said he was
human. And the subtlest minds of all quietly observed that the kadi had two
daughters. The eldest, approaching the marrying age, was reputed to be very
beautiful.

The
kadi's fall, when it finally came, was silent and absolute. The rumor of his
daughter's beauty was perfectly true; she was also meek, pious, obedient, and
skillful. It was these very qualities that caused the kadi such agony of mind,
as he tried to choose a husband for her. He loved his daughter and wanted the
best for her, and it was because she was so good that he became so picky. It
was because he was so picky that he eventually settled on a renowned teacher at
the central madrassa, a bachelor from an excellent wealthy family.

The
kadi's fortune was by no means sufficient to provide his daughter with the
handsome dowry and memorable wedding festivities that the groom's family
customarily provided for their own daughters. They didn't mind, of course, but
it tormented the kadi. The cause of the torment was divined by the matchmaker,
a shrewd old lady who chewed betel and wore a gold bangle for every union she
had successfully negotiated: she tinkled like a fountain when she moved. And
she moved a lot: that is to say, she visited almost every house in the district
on a fairly regular basis, and through one of these visits the Kerkoporta
merchants learned of the kadi's dilemma.

The
affair was handled with delicacy and tact.

For
fixing up a splendid wedding, and clubbing together to provide the girl with a
stylish dowry, the merchants asked the kadi for nothing in return. Few markets
were as well served as the Kerkoporta by its kadi, who had brought such order
and regularity and honesty into the business that even a foreigner, as was
widely known, could make purchases there in perfect confidence. Hardly anyone
need even know that the dowry and the feast came as a private act of tribute
from the market to the judge.

Nothing
was said. No deals were struck, perish the thought. The kadi continued to do
his job with rigor, as before. He wasn't even particularly grateful.

He
was simply weary. Being honest was tiring, but it wasn't as exhausting as
carrying on with what he knew: that he had connived with the merchants he was
deputed to regulate.

He
continued to sit in the market house, hearing cases, investigating abuses,
frowning at supplicants, and keeping his own counsel. But he no longer punished
transgressions with such severity. He no longer really cared whether the
merchants cheated their customers or not. If he found gold in his purse, or a
freshly slaughtered sheep delivered to his door, it roused neither gratitude
nor indignation.

He
had another daughter, after all.

100

***********

The
donkeys drummed on the cobbles with their little hooves. The two-wheeled carts
jounced and swayed behind them, with a noise like sliding pebbles. The thin
beams of lamplight careered around the blank walls.

Fourteen.
Fifteen. Sixteen.

Murad
Eslek raised a hand. The night porter gave a nod and let the barrier swing
gently back into the wooden block on the other side of the gate, closing the
road.

Eslek
called out a brief thanks and followed his carts into the square.

Sixty
or seventy donkey carts jostled through the narrow openings, arguing their
passage with a dozen or so much bigger mule carts, a flock of bleating sheep,
and vendors still arriving. Space was constricted by the empty stalls Eslek and
his men had been putting up over the last couple of hours, each one topped by a
lantern. Wagon eight, Eslek noticed, had overshot its stall: no use trying to
back up, it would have to be led around again for a second try, when the others
were out of the way. One of the stallholders, wrapped in a horse blanket tied
on with string, was demanding to know where his delivery was: cart five had got
swept away by an eruption of mule carts coming up from the city. Eslek could
just about make it out, with its high stack of poultry cages swaying
dangerously in the distance. But for the most part everything was in place.

He
began to help unload the leading cart. Baskets of eggplants, jute bags of
potatoes, bushels of spinach thumped onto the stall. When it was almost done,
Eslek wheeled back and began the same routine with the cart behind. The trick
was to finish unloading simultaneously, keep the train together, and move out
in order. Otherwise it was all back and forth, and no rest till sunup.

He
darted across the square to the poultry cart. Just as he feared, it had got
wedged in behind a mule cart loaded with sacks of rice, and no one was paying
any attention to the driver's shouts. Eslek grabbed the mule's halter and waved
his arm at the driver standing in the cart, swinging the heavy sacks into the
arms of a man on the ground.

"Hey!
Hey! Hold it!"

The
driver shot him a glance and turned to pick up another sack. Eslek drove the
mule's halter back: the mule tried to lift its head but decided to take a step
backward instead. The cart jolted, and the driver, caught off balance,
staggered back with a sack in his arms and sat down heavily.

The
stallholder grinned and scratched his head. The driver leaped from his cart in
a fury.

"What
in the name of God--oh, it's you, is it?"

"Come
on, Genghis, get this rattletrap backed off, we're stuck. Here, pull her up."
He gestured to the donkey cart driver, who was sitting on the cart board with
his long driving stick poised and ready. The rice carter backed his mule cart,
the donkey driver whacked the dust from the donkey's flanks, and the little
beast trotted forward.

"Cheers!"
Eslek waved, then jogged alongside his cart with a hand on the board. "Second
time this week, Abdul. You're holding us all up."

He
brought the cart to the back of his own train, told the driver to grab a crate,
and with the stallholder's help they unloaded, dodging up and down the line. Most
of the stallholders were already arranging their stock; the scent of charcoal
hung in the air as the street food vendors lit their fires. Eslek felt hungry,
but he still had to clear the carts out; it was another hour before he saw them
all safely through the gate, where he paid off the drivers.

"Abdul,"
he said, "just keep your eyes open, understand? Those mule men look tough, but
they can't touch you. Not if you don't give them a chance. Just stick to the
tail of the man in front, keep your eyes straight. They're all bluster."

He
walked back to the market. Now and then he had to flatten himself against the
wall to allow other donkey carts to clatter by, but by the time he reached the
square the first hubbub of the night had subsided. The vendors were busy with
their arrangements of fruit and vegetables, vying against each other by
building pyramids, amphitheaters, and acropolises of okra, eggplants, and waxy
yellow potatoes, or of dates and apricots, in blocks and bands and fancy
patterns of color. Others, who had lit their braziers, were waiting for the
coals to develop their white skin of ash, and using the time to nick chestnuts
with a knife, or to load a thick skewer with slices of mutton. Soon, Eslek
thought with a pang of hunger and anticipation, the meatballs would be
simmering, the fish frying, the game and poultry roasting on the spits.

He,
too, had another job to do before he could eat. Once he had checked with his
vendors, and reckoned their bills, he took a tour of the perimeter of the
market. He paid particular attention to dark corners, shadowed doorways, and
the space beneath the stalls whose owners he did not serve. He looked men in
the face and recognized them quickly; now and then he lifted his head to scan
the market as a whole, to see who was coming in and to watch for the arrival of
any carts he didn't know.

From
time to time he wondered what was keeping Yashim.

A
troupe of jugglers and acrobats, six men and two women, took up a position near
the cypress tree, squatting on their haunches, waiting for light and crowds. Between
them they had set a big basket with a lid, and Murad Eslek spent a while
watching them from the corner of the alley beneath the city walls until he had
seen that the basket really did contain bats, balls, and other paraphernalia of
their trade. Then he moved on, eyeing the other quacks and entertainers who had
crowded in for the Friday market: the Kurdish storyteller in a patchwork coat;
the Bulgarian fire-eater, bald as an egg; a number of bands--Balkan pipers,
Anatolian string players; a pair of sinuous and silent Africans, carefully dotting
a blanket spread on the ground with charms and remedies; a row of gypsy
silversmiths with tiny anvils and a supply of coins wrapped in pieces of soft
leather, who were already at work snipping the coins and beating out tiny rings
and bracelets.

He
took another look across the market and thought of food, though he knew it
would be a few minutes yet before he could eat. The air was already spiced with
the fragrance of roasting herbs; he could hear the sizzle of hot fat dripping
on the coals. He lifted a cube of salty white bread from a stall as he passed
by and popped it in his mouth; then, since no one had rebuked him, he stopped a
moment to admire the arrangement of the spit, worked by a little dog scampering
gamely around inside a wooden wheel. Nearby he saw out of the corner of his eye
a man flipping meatballs with a flat knife. He drew a few meatballs to the side
of the pan, and Eslek stepped forward.

"Ready,
then?"

The
man cracked a smile and nodded. "First customer Friday is always free."

Eslek
grinned. He watched the man scatter a few pita breads on the hot surface of the
pan, press them down with the blade of his knife, and flip them over. He pulled
one toward him and opened it up with a quick arc of the point and a sliding
motion with the flat side.

"Chili
sauce?"

Murad
Eslek's mouth watered. He nodded.

The
man took a dab of sauce on the end of his knife, spread it inside the bread,
and scooped up two meatballs and stuffed them home with a generous handful of
lettuce and a squeeze of lemon.

With
the kebab in two hands, Eslek sauntered happily through the stalls, munching
greedily.

He
saw nothing to surprise him. Eventually he went down the alley by the walls and
found the dark passageway Yashim had mentioned. He carefully mounted the steps
and made his way back to the tower. The door was still on its chain as Yashim
had left it. He sat down on the parapet, swinging his legs, licking his
fingers, and looked down through the cypress at the market below.

The
sky had lightened, and it would soon be dawn.

101

***********

When
Yashim opened his eyes again, it was still dark. The fire in the grate had died
out. Wincing slightly, he eased himself upright and slipped his legs over the
edge of the bed. His feet felt bruised and swollen, but he forced himself to stand
upright. After he had hobbled up and down the room for a few minutes, he found
that the pain was bearable. He found his clothes by accident, putting out a
hand in the darkness to steady himself. They were neatly piled on a table where
Marta must have placed them.

He
took his cloak from the hall and stepped out into the early morning air. His
skin was tender, but his head was clear.

He
walked swiftly down toward the Golden Horn. The lines of the Karagozi poem
circled in his head to the rhythm of his footsteps.

Unknowing
And knowing nothing of unknowing,

They
sleep.
Wake them
.

He
quickened his pace to reach the wharves. On the quayside he found a ferryman
awake, huddled into his burnoose against the dawn chill, and once across he
took a sedan chair and ordered the bearers to the Kerkoporta market.

102

***********

"I
saw you arrive," Murad Eslek explained. He'd recognized Yashim immediately and
rushed to greet him before he disappeared into the crowd. Now that the day had
broken, there were plenty of people milling past the stalls, filling their
baskets with fresh produce. "I've been looking about, like you said. Nothing
unusual. A few performers I don't know, that's about it. Quiet, everything
normal."

"The
tower?"

"Yep,
I checked it out. The door you told me about, it's still on the chain. I've
been up there for an hour."

"Hmmm.
There's another door, though, from the other side. On a lower floor. I'd better
take a look. You stay here and keep your eyes open, but if I'm not back in half
an hour, bring some of your lads and come after me."

"Like
that, is it? Half a minute, I'll get someone to go with you now."

"Yes,"
Yashim said. "Why not?"

It
took them only a few minutes to reach the parapet. The porter Eslek had found
stamped along incuriously behind Yashim, who was glad of his presence: the
memory of the dark stairs leading down to that clean chamber still made him
shiver. He unlooped the chain and once more set his shoulder to the door.