The Snake Stone: A Novel

Yashim’s natural instincts were to help douse a fire, but not this time. A group of men outside started back in astonishment as Yashim barreled past. One, more quick-witted than the rest, made a lunge for his cloak; Yashim twitched it away and pelted for the street, not attempting to look round.

He ran without stopping until he reached the Fener, his own district. His heart was pounding.

The Jew had been killed that afternoon; no later. In rigor, Baradossa’s mutilated body had slowly stiffened, raising itself from the floor on which it lay; the tendons in the arms had pulled tight. Those artificial teeth had sprung open and slipped forward in the dead man’s mouth, a horrifying chaplet of wire and bone: the grin hadn’t been meant for him.

Whoever killed him had escaped the way Yashim had gone in: through the roof, leaving the door locked from the inside.

And a book on the table.

A book that demonstrated, beyond all doubt, that Xani had had a friend. Someone who had discharged his debt in good French silver. Two hundred francs.

Yashim’s thoughts turned to a Frenchman, now dead, whose wife was asleep in Widow Matalya’s apartment.

He went in quietly through the front door, into the silent house.

64

YASHIM slept badly. In his dreams he saw Baradossa’s livid face, and the teeth protruding; then the dead man’s eyes turned dark and as the flames rose he saw it wasn’t Baradossa but the brazen serpent that was staring at him in all the terror of victory. And Lefevre was there, cramming his money into the serpent’s maw.

When he woke up, it was with a nagging doubt in his mind. He lit a lamp and took out Gyllius’s book, in French translation.

All other cities have their periods of government, he read, and are subject to the decays of time. Constantinople alone seems to claim a kind of immortality and will be a city as long as humanity shall live either to inhabit or rebuild it.

He turned the page. Gyllius described the layout of the city, and its walls, discussing Aya Sofia in detail, with reference to ancient sources. There were a few remarks about the Hippodrome and the Serpent Column: Yashim made a penciled note beside them, intending to check against Lefevre’s copy.

He could feel his concentration slipping. First someone had surreptitiously searched his flat, leaving nothing more than a few scattered grains of rice; next time they had smashed it apart. He thought of some of his books with a pang of anxiety. For Yashim regret was an emotion that held nothing but danger, and he had long ago succeeded in achieving a distance from it. But books were the glory of Ottoman art, and he had some he treasured. He flicked through Gyllius’s book, and opened it at random.

The Cistern remains. Through the inhabitants’ carelessness and contempt for everything that is curious it was never discovered, except by me, who was a stranger among them, after a long and diligent search for it. The whole area was built over, which made it less suspected that there was a cistern there. By chance I went into a house where there was a way down to it and went aboard a little skiff. I discovered it after the master of the house lit some torches and rowed me here and there across through the pillars…

He read the passage again, wondering what it could mean. Never discovered, except by me. Typical scholars. What of the man whose house stood over the cistern—had he not discovered it? With a skiff, no less! Yashim smiled to himself; scholars were all the same, at all times, in all lands.

He was very intent upon catching his fish, with which the Cistern abounds, and speared some of them by the light of the torches.

Yashim blinked. An underground lake, full of fish? He wondered how the fish would taste: pale, perhaps blind, their flesh would be insipid. More likely, Gyllius had simply made the whole thing up.

But the image stuck with him as he lay there in the dark, trying to sleep, of a man rowing under Istanbul in a little boat, spearing fish by torchlight.

65

WIDOW Matalya bobbed from foot to foot. She didn’t know what to suggest: the Frankish lady had woken up hours before, but whenever she looked in she said nothing, simply stared at her with sad eyes. Eventually Widow Matalya brought her something to eat, and a glass of tea.

The girl sat up in bed. “Chai,” she said shyly.

Widow Matalya nodded encouragingly. She pointed to the plates one by one. “Bread. Cheese. Olives. Eat up,” she added. “It’s good.” She patted her stomach. Then, quite unconsciously, she stroked the girl’s cheek. “I know how it is.”

The Frankish woman gave her a small smile. Widow Matalya sat down on the bed, encouraged.

“Even for me, it was a shock. We have them and then we lose them. Why should we be surprised? The men, always racing to and fro—one day they’re just little boys, and the next—well, they’re gone. But at least—” She checked herself, for once. At least they leave something behind, she had been going to say. But she couldn’t presume. She took the little white hand in hers and patted it. Then she picked up an olive and popped it into the girl’s mouth.

The woman said something. Widow Matalya smiled and nodded. “That’s right. There’ll be a lot of crying to be done, and you could do with building up your strength.” She carefully broke a bit of bread and dipped it in the olive