preparation. Or, I should say, their selection. Sometimes the best meze are the simplest things. Fresh cucumbers from Karaman, sardines from Ortakoy, battered at most, and grilled…Everything at its peak, in its season: timing, you could say, is everything.
“Now take these murders. You were right—they’re more than isolated acts of violence. There is a pattern, and more. Taken together, you see, they aren’t an end in themselves. The meal doesn’t end with the meze, does it? The meze announce the feast.
“And these killings, like meze, depend on timing,” he continued. “I’ve been wondering over the last three days, why now? The murders, I mean, the cadets. Almost by chance, I discover that the sultan is set to issue an Edict in a few days. A great slew of reforms.”
“Ah yes, the Edict,” Palewski nodded and put his fingertips together.
“You know about it?” Yashim’s argument collapsed in astonishment.
“In a roundabout way. An explanation was given to, ah, selected members of the diplomatic community in Istanbul a few weeks ago.” He saw that Yashim was about to speak, and raised a hand. “When I say selected, I mean that I for one was not included. It isn’t hard to see why, if I’m right about the Edict and what it means. One of its purposes—its primary purpose, for all I know -is to make the Porte eligible for foreign loans. Poland, obviously, is in no position to influence the bond market. So they left me out. It was essentially a Big Power arrangement. I heard about it from the Swedes, who got it from the Americans, I believe.”
“You mean the Americans were invited?”
“Odd as it seems. But then, you know what Americans are? They’re the world experts at borrowing money in Europe. The Porte wants them on side. Perhaps they can co-ordinate their efforts. And, to be frank, I don’t think the Porte has ever quite managed to work out whose side the Americans are on. Your pashas are still digesting the Declaration of Independence sixty years after the event.”
Palewski reached for the teapot. “The idea of a republic has always fascinated them, in a schoolboy sort of way. The House of Osman must be the longest-lived royal line in Europe. Some more tea?”
Yashim put out his cup and saucer. “I’ve been stupid,” he said. “I’ve been wondering who knew about the Edict. Foreign powers never occurred to me.”
“But foreign powers,” said Palewski, with patient cynicism, “are the whole point: Foreign Powers, foreign loans.”
“Yes. Yes, of course.”
They drank their tea in silence for a moment, marked only by the ticking of the German clock.
“Your Janissaries,” Palewski said, after a while. “Do you still believe that they exist?”
Yashim nodded. “Like it or not, I’m sure. You saw them blotted out, you told me. Very well. Poland, as the world supposes, vanished fifty years ago. You can’t even find it on a map. But that’s not what you tell me. You say it endures. Poland exists in language, in memory, in faith. It lives on, as an idea. I’m talking about the same thing.
“About the fire-towers, I was only partly right. I made a link between the three fire-towers I knew about—the two still standing, as well as the one which was burned and demolished in 182,6—and the cadets, whose bodies all turned up nearby. I needed to find a fourth fire-tower, didn’t I? But I can’t. There never was a fourth tower. But I knew the pattern was right. The fire-towers had the hand of the Janissaries on them, just like these murders. It had to be right.”
“Perhaps. But without a fourth tower it makes no sense.”
“That’s what I felt, too. Unless there was something else about the fire towers that I couldn’t see—something that could link all three of them to another place which isn’t a fire-tower at all.”
Palewski thrust out his lower lip and sighed. “I hate to say it, Yash, but you’re skating on very thin ice. Let’s forget my reservations for a moment. You suspect the Janissaries of murdering these cadets, because of the wooden spoons and all the rest of it.” He wrinkled his nose. “The pattern of the fire-towers comes to you because the Janissaries once manned them, as the city’s firemen. Abandon the fire-towers, and what happens to your Janissary theory? Tell me that. You can’t have it both ways.”
Yashim smiled. “But I think I can. I found what I needed to know a couple of days ago, but it wasn’t until today that I saw how it all fits together. The Galata Tower housed a Karagozi tekke, a place sacred to the Janissaries. The lost watch tower at the Janissary barracks had one, too.”
“But the Beyazit Tower,” Palewski objected, “is modern. And that’s exactly what I mean. By the time it was built the Janissaries—and the Karagozi, too—were already history. Really, Yash, this Janissary obsession is only getting in your way.”
“I don’t think so. I just discovered that the Beyazit Tower was built smack on top of an old Karagozi tekke at the Eski Serai. So that makes three. What I’m looking for now is another Karagozi tekke—and I don’t even know where to start.”
