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 round 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 aubergines, 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 sun-up.
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 backwards 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 half a mo, 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, amphitheatres and acropolises of okra, aubergines and waxy yellow potatoes, or of dates and apricots, in blocks and bands and fancy patterns of colour. 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 recognised them quickly; and 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 up the other quacks and entertainers who had crowded in for the Friday market: the Kurdish story teller 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
