The Snake Stone: A Novel

Yashim obeyed. Stanislaw Palewski, Polish ambassador to the Sublime Porte, was leaning on the banisters, waving an arm in ironic salute.

“Oh—it’s you, Yashim! That’s all right. Come inside. Ever since I lost the key I keep finding total strangers wandering around the house.”

“I thought you were being rather well guarded.”

“Guarded? I suppose you mean the Xanis. Ye-es. The little boy shows promise. More than I can say for his father. Come upstairs.”

Yashim followed his old friend to the sitting room, where they rang for tea. Yashim tucked his feet up in one of the ambassador’s leaky leather armchairs while Palewski fell to pacing between the untidy bookcases and the portrait of King Jan Sobieski. Marta arrived with a tray, and Palewski nodded distractedly. Yashim poured the tea.

When Marta had left, Palewski turned around and said: “What do you make of Marta, Yashim?”

Yashim raised an eyebrow. “Marta?”

“My housekeeper.”

“I know who Marta is, Palewski. I’ve known her for years.”

“Yes. Yes, of course. Well, I’m a bit worried about her.”

“You think she’s ill?”

“Ill? No, I don’t think so. It’s just that there’s something—she’s started—oh, I don’t know, Yashim, but she’s gone a bit odd. Dreamy, half the time. I come around a corner and she’s there, leaning on a broom, staring into space. And tears.”

“Tears?”

“She bursts into tears. I ask something, and she goes all red and darts away. Fact is, Yash, I’m beginning to think that she’s not happy.”

“I see.”

“Do you think that’s why she got the Xanis in?”

“The family in the coach house? Yes, for company. You might be right.”

Palewski looked dubious. “Can’t say they’re much by way of company. Mrs. Xani seems to spend the day inside sweeping the coach house, and the children muck about in the courtyard. The boy doesn’t talk, for some reason. I don’t think he’s dumb, just won’t talk. It’s rather odd. But Marta seems very fond of children, so I don’t complain. It was her idea to get them in the first place. Put a roof over their heads. The little girl likes to help her cook.”

“What about the father?”

“Xani? Moved in, all gratitude and smiles. Then he went and joined the watermen’s guild. He became a su yolu. So much for all those little repairs he was going to do.”

“Xani joined the watermen? I thought you had to be born into the job.”

Palewski shook his head. “As a rule, that’s true. But if a waterman dies without a successor, they let someone buy his way in. As long as he’s Albanian, that is. I suppose he had a cousin or someone to propose him. But look, enough about Xani,” he added, waving a hand. He seemed to have forgotten about Marta for the moment, so Yashim told him, instead, about Lefevre’s mysterious arrival—and departure.

“And the forty piastres?” Palewski arched his brows. “I don’t suppose you’ll be seeing them again, either. Really, Yashim, you should have made that scoundrel pay up.”

Yashim sighed. “I did try.”

“But not very hard.”

“No. Not very hard.” How could he explain to his friend how the sight of Lefevre’s pathetic satchel had changed everything between them? “I’ll think of it as a tax. The city is better off without a man like Lefevre in it.”

Palewski nodded. “I wonder what he got away with this time,” he said.

Yashim turned his head and stared out the window. The sky was blue with a touch of heat. Wisteria leaves rustled against the window frame, and a little bird swung on a twig, grooming itself in hurried bursts. “He didn’t have anything, as far as I could tell,” he said quietly.

Palewski snorted. “That’s what you say. I’ve half a mind to go upstairs and check on the wretched heads. He probably got the caique to drop him off somewhere. I wonder what he came for, anyway.”

“Mmm,” Yashim murmured. “Books, I suppose. Old manuscripts.”

“Old books? That would hardly explain his funk. I think he must have been angling for something bigger than that, and they set the heavies on him. What’s the matter?”

Yashim had looked around suddenly, frowning.

“One odd thing happened while I was coming over this morning. The captain of the Ca d’Oro, I saw him outside the fish market. I thought it was him. It was just a glimpse and I lost him in the crowd.”

“Sailing delayed?”

“No, I looked. The Ca d’Oro has gone.”

Palewski put his fingertips together. “Well, you know what Pera’s like these days. More Italians than an organ- grinder’s funeral. More everyone. Half of them foreign and the other half Greeks pretending to be.”

Yashim smiled. Twenty-five years before, when Palewski first arrived to take up his post, foreigners were rare even in Pera. Nowadays the streets were full of them—sailors, tailors, storekeepers, hatters, forwarding agents, old