The Snake Stone: A Novel

The valide almost smiles: it reminds her of gentlemen on Martinique.

She glances around, to share her smile with Yashim.

But Yashim isn’t there.

96

THE valide frowned. Minutes had gone by. Prayers concluded, the watermen were beginning to file out into the courtyard through the great doors, under the watchful eye of the sou naziry. In a few moments he would come and present his salaams to the purdah screen. It was really too much! Where was Yashim?

She looked around, just in time to see him emerge from a tiny doorway between two of the great pilasters of the old church. The screen, she observed with relief, concealed him from the watermen. He was brushing his knees, which were covered in old lime, and the hem of his cloak seemed to be wet.

He gave her the blandest of smiles and bowed.

The valide frowned. “Where have you been, scelerat!” she hissed.

Yashim put out his hands. “I saw a door, I went through…I have never been here before.”

The shadow of the sou naziry fell across the screen.

“Valide! Your fragrant presence here this day brings much honor upon us. It shall be known that the company of the sou yolci was not forgotten, by your grace.”

The valide’s face softened at a stroke. “You are most kind, naziry. I do not forget that of all the treasures of Istanbul, that which you guard is the most precious to the people.”

“Valide, you speak the truth. Is it not written that of all living things water is the vital principle?”

“It is written,” the valide replied. Yashim repressed a smile: he doubted, in his heart, whether the valide really knew. “I have a servant, naziry.”

“Yes, Valide?” The sou naziry sounded faintly puzzled.

“Yashim, he is called. A lala. He is an honest man, and desires to talk with you.” She waved Yashim forward, and her bangles clinked.

Yashim stepped out from behind the screen and bowed. The naziry gave a curt nod and then raised his hands.

“You will forgive me, Valide. I have no time for the lala now,” he said. “For two days, I must inspect the bents. On my return…”

He bowed before the screen. The valide made no sound.

97

YASHIM placed the vegetables in his basket and took the money from his purse.

“Yeah, yeah, yeah—and no offense, efendi! But this coin’s light—look, five piastres more, and there’s the deal.” The brother hopped from foot to foot, one hand outstretched, glancing up and down the road. “I’m coming, hanum! Five piastres, efendi.”

Yashim felt a surge of irritation as he counted out the tiny coins.

When he got back to the apartment he was not surprised to find Amelie on the divan, reading a book.

“I hoped you’d come back,” she said.

“You prepared the stove.”

“If you needed it…”

“Yes. I’ll make pilaf,” he said. “Don’t move. Just read your book.”

He stripped two onions from their hulls, chopped them fine, and dropped them with a handful of pine nuts into a pan of olive oil, which he set on the coals. He crushed two cloves of garlic and brushed off their skins with the knife, then chopped them roughly and added them to the onion with the flat of the blade. He drizzled two handfuls of rice from the crock into the pan and stirred it when the rice began to stick. After a few minutes the rice was becoming clear, so he pulled the pan from the coals and looked into the stockpot, which was starting to steam. He let it rise to the boil.

Amelie had been watching him.

“Max never liked to cook,” she said. “He didn’t have a sense of taste. Perhaps, you know, that’s why he never liked to kiss.”

Yashim put the rice back on the heat and ladled out some stock.

“It certainly explains something,” he muttered. When she asked what he meant, he told her about the dolma he’d given her husband.

Amelie laughed. “You chose the wrong Frenchman.”

The rice was drying out. Yashim put a few more ladlefuls of stock into the pan and stirred it in.