“I’m sure. Go on. Tell me about the fourth tower.”
Orhan gave the stranger a look.
“There isn’t a fourth. Galata, Stamboul, that’s it.”
“There must be another. Yedikule, maybe?”
“Yedikule?” The fireman grinned. “Tell me who’d be sorry if Yedikule caught fire.”
Yashim frowned: the fireman had a point. Yedikule was the sink of the city, down in the south-east where the walls of Byzantium joined the sea. Apart from the dirt, and the feral dogs which prowled its mean, dark streets, the tanneries were there; also a grim edifice, old even when the Ottomans took Istanbul, known as the Castle of the Seven Towers, variously used as a mint, a menagerie and a prison, particularly the latter. Many people had died within its walls; still more had wanted to.
“But you can watch Yedikule from the new tower at Beyazit, effendi. Stamboul and Galata, like I told you. Cover the city.”
Yashim winced. The second verse of the poem swam into his head.
Unknowing
And knowing nothing of unknowing,
They seek.
He was obviously a slow learner.
“Look,” Orhan said affably. “You can ask old Palmuk, if you like.”
A whiskered face appeared in the hatch. Palmuk was not really old, only perhaps twice Orhan’s age, with thick white moustaches and a noticeable paunch. He came out of the hatch wheezing.
“Those bloomin’ stairs,” he muttered. Yashim noticed that he was carrying a paper twist of sugared buns. “No babies, then?” He winked at Yashim.
“Now, Palmuk, I don’t think the gentleman wants all that. He is from the seraskier.”
Palmuk took the warning with an exaggerated roll of his eyes.
“Oho, old Frog’s Legs, eh? Well, effendi, you tell him not to worry about us. We get cold, we get wet, but we do our duty, ain’t that right, Orhan?”
“You might not think it, effendi,” Orhan said, “but Palmuk’s got the best pair of eyes in Galata. You’d think he could smell a fire before it’s even started.”
Palmuk’s face twitched. “Steady, there, boy.” He turned to Yashim. “You wondering about them babies I mentioned? It’s fireman’s talk, that is. Baby—that’s a fire. A boy’s a fire on the Stamboul side. We hang out the baskets that way”—he gestured to four huge wicker baskets leaning against the inside of the parapet—“and that puts the lads in the right direction, see? A girl, that’s Galata-side.”
Yashim shook his head. However long you lived, however well you thought you knew this city, there was always something else to learn. Sometimes he thought that Istanbul was just a mass of codes, as baffling and intricate as its impenetrable alleys: a silent clamour of inherited signs, private languages, veiled gestures. He thought of the soup master and his coriander. So many little rules. So many unknown habits. The soup master had been a Janissary once. He looked at Palmuk again, wondering if he, too, wore a tattoo on his forearm.
“You’ve been a fireman a long time, then?”
Palmuk stared at him, expressionless.
“Twelve, thirteen years. What’s it about?”
Orhan said: “Gentleman wants to know about another tower. Not the old barracks place. A fourth tower. I told him there wasn’t one.”
Palmuk dug into his paper twist and took out a bun, looked at it, and took a bite.
“You did right, Orhan. You can cut along now, old Palmuk’s in command.”
