frigidarium.
Later on his way home he fell upon the vegetable market in a sort of frenzy: his old friend George, the Greek vendor who arranged his wares like weapons in an armoury, or jewels on a tray, actually stepped out from behind his stall to lay a heavy hand on Yashim’s arm.
“Slow. Slow,” he said in his bass profundo. “You puts in this basket like a Greek robbers, this, that, everything. Say to George, what you wants to cook.”
He prised the basket from Yashim’s hands and stood there massive and barrel-chested in his dirty tunic, hands on his hips, blocking Yashim’s way.
Yashim lowered his head.
“Give me the basket, you Greek bastard,” he said.
George didn’t move.
“The basket.”
“Hey.” George’s voice was very soft. “Hey.” Louder. He picked up some baby cabbages. “You wants?”
Yashim shook his head.
“I understand,” George said. He turned his back on Yashim and began to unload all the vegetables from his basket. Over his shoulder he said: “Go, buy some fish. I will give you a sauce. You kebabs the fish, some Spanish onion, peppers. You puts on the sauce. You puts him in the fire. You eats. Go.”
Yashim went. When he had the fish, he came back and George was crushing walnuts open with his hands and peeling cloves of garlic, which he put together in a twist of paper.
“Now you, effendi, go home and cook. The pepper. The onion. No, I don’t take money from crazy mans. Tomorrow you comes, you pays me double.”
When Yashim got home he laid the fish and vegetables on the block and sliced them with a thin knife. The onions were sharp and stung his eyes. He riddled up the stove and chucked in another handful of charcoal. When he had threaded the pieces onto skewers he smashed the walnuts and the garlic with the flat of a big knife and chopped, drawing together the ever-dwindling heap with the flat of his hand until the hash was so sticky he had to use the blade to scrape it off his skin. He anointed the fish with the sauce and let it lie while he washed his hands in the bowl his housekeeper set out for him every morning and afternoon.
He laid the skewers over the dull embers and drizzled them with a string of oil. When the oil hissed on the fire he waved the smoke with a cloth and turned the skewers, mechanically.
Shortly before the fish was ready to flake from the stick he sliced a loaf of white bread and laid it on a plate with a small bowl of oil, some sesame seeds and a few olives. He stuffed a tiny enamelled teapot with sprigs of mint, a piece of white sugar and a pinch of Chinese tea leaves rolled like gunshot, poured in water from the ewer and crunched it down into the charcoal until its base bit into the glow.
Finally he ate, sitting in the alcove, wiping the peppers and the fish from the skewer with a round of bread.
Only then did he pick up the small folded note that had been waiting for him when he got home.
It was from the imam, who sent his greetings. He had done a little research, as well. In a firm hand he had written out the final verses of Yashim’s Sufi poem.
Unknowing
And knowing nothing of unknowing,
They sleep.
Knowing,
And knowing unknowing,
The silent few become one with the Core.
Yashim sat up and crossed his legs. Then he propped the window ajar, rolled himself a cigarette the way an Albanian horse-merchant had shown him how, with a little twist at one end and a half-inch of cardboard at the
