Palewski groped on the table beside him and produced a set of leather boards. Inside was a single foolscap sheet of paper, folded in two, but loose. He opened the sheet and there, to Yashim’s surprise, was a meticulously executed bird’s eye view of Istanbul, in ink. Where the sky should have been, the air was thick with names, notes and numbers.
“You were asking for a map. Last night, I remembered Ingiliz Mustafa,” he said.
“English Mustafa?”
“He was actually a Scotsman. Campbell. He came to Istanbul about sixty years ago, to start up a school of mathematics for the artillerymen. Became a Muslim, too.”
“He’s still alive?”
Palewski snorted.
“No, no. I’m afraid evert the practice of Islam couldn’t do that for him. One of his pet obsessions was the holiness of Istanbul -how the city was steeped in faith. I daresay he became a very good Muslim, but you can’t easily overcome a Scottish training in the sciences. This map shows all the mosques, saintly tombs, dervish tekkes and such that he could locate in the city. He had it printed here, too.”
He dipped into the pocket of his dressing gown for a pair of reading glasses.
“Look, every holy place in the city has a number. The key is up here. Fourteen: Cammi Sultan Mehmed. Mehmed’s mosque. Twenty-five: Turbe Hasan. The tomb of Hasan. Thirty, look, Tekke Karagoz. And another one. Here, too.”
Yashim shook his head in disbelief.
“Only a foreigner would do something like this,” he said. “I mean it’s so…so…” He was going to say pointless, but thought better of it. “So unusual.”
Palewski grunted. “He wanted to show how his adopted faith was embedded in the very fabric of the city. Plenty of Karagozi tekke to choose from too.”
Yashim peered at the map for a while.
“Too many,” he murmured. “Which is the right one? Which is the fourth?”
Palewski leaned back with his fingers over his eyes, thinking. “Didn’t you tell me that the three fire-stations were also the oldest tekkes in the city? Isn’t that what the fire-watchers said?”
Yashim’s mind began to race. Palewski continued: “Perhaps I’m just saying this because I’m a Pole, and all Poles are at bottom antiquarians. This dressing gown, for instance. You know why I wear it?”
“Because it’s cosy,” said Yashim absently.
“Yes and no. It’s Sarmatian. Years ago, you see, we Poles believed that we were connected to a half-mythical tribe of warriors who came from Sarmatia, somewhere in central Asia. I suppose we didn’t know properly where we came from, and went looking for pedigree, if you like. There was a rage for it, and the supposed Sarmatian style— you know, silk and feathers and crimson leather. I found this hanging in a wardrobe when I came here. It’s a relic from another age. That’s what I like best about it. Every morning I envelop myself in history. In the fancied glory of the past. Also it’s jolly comfortable, as you say.
“Well, what makes me sit up is the thought that these tekkes are old, really old. Maybe the first ever established in the city. That’s your pedigree, if you like. That’s where your chaps might want to begin. Maybe the fourth tekke is also one of the original lodges in the city. The first, or the fourth, whatever. So you need to look for a tekke that’s as old as the other three you know about.”
Yashim nodded. The four original tekkes. It fitted: it was what traditionalists would want.
“Which might explain something else that’s been bothering me,” he said aloud. “Not the timing—that’s the Edict— but the number. Why four? If you’re right, if someone is going back to the beginning, trying to start over, then four’s the obvious number. Four is the number of strength, like the legs of a table. It’s a reflection of earthly order. Four corners of the earth. Four winds. Four elements. Four is bedrock.”
“And it’s going back, to the very origins of the whole Ottoman enterprise! Holy War—and Istanbul as the very navel of the world.”
Yashim could hear the soup master explaining that the Janissaries had built the empire: that they, under the guidance of the Karagozi babas, had won this city for the faith.
“Whenever things have gone wrong, people have stepped forward to explain that we’ve simply deviated from the true old ways, that we should go back and try to be what we were when the whole of Europe lay trembling at our
