The former housekeeper nodded, and dabbed a handkerchief to her eyes. “You are right, my lady. Of course what you say is true, and I must try to be happy with what God has chosen for me. But-oh!”
She crushed the handkerchief to her lips.
Necla hung her head. She found it all too sad, and dull, and awkward. With each bleak encounter she sensed her mother’s spirits rise, as if the spectacle of the rejected women’s grief and abandonment sharpened her awareness of her own good fortune. The sadder they were, the happier her mother sounded.
“Necla, my dear, do try to sit straight. That’s better. Now, say hello to your auntie Pevenna.”
Necla remembered some of them, as they flitted forward with tears and brave smiles, bowed low, and pinched her cheeks.
“How well she looks!”
“Such a treasure, little Necla! I wonder, do you remember your auntie…?”
“You’ll be filling out soon, little one! You will make us all so proud…”
Her mother, gayer than ever, ordered noses to be blown, eyes to be wiped. The valide had been something of an ordeal; but here Talfa had brought life and warmth back into these women’s benighted lives.
Talfa’s quick little eyes darted everywhere.
“And who is that, Hyacinth? There, beside the divan-the girl with the mandolin?”
“The mandolin? That is Melda, my lady. She is staying with us for a short while.”
“Melda? Our Melda?”
“She belongs to the ladies’ orchestra, mama,” Necla said quietly.
“I am aware of that.” Talfa sniffed. “I’m afraid, Necla, it does not explain what she is doing here.”
Hyacinth bent forward. “Her nerves, my lady,” he fluted apologetically. “She needs rest.”
“Rest?” Talfa frowned. “Bring her to me.”
Hyacinth shimmered away, and a few moments later he returned with the girl, who held her mandolin by the neck and her eyes downcast. She bowed, touching the floor.
“I know you, don’t I? I set you to look after the little girl.”
“Yes, hanum efendi,” Melda replied in a small voice.
“Then what-?” Talfa drew herself up and swept her arm slowly around the room: “Then what are you doing here? This is not her place, Hyacinth. It is entirely irregular. If the girl is ill, she should be seen by a doctor, in Besiktas. That is where her duties lie, am I not right?”
“Quite right, hanum efendi,” Hyacinth began. “But the Kislar aga-”
Talfa waved him off. “Does the valide know this girl is here?”
“I’m not sure, hanum ef-”
“That’s enough. The girl can speak. She can tell me why she has come to Topkapi. Well?”
Melda’s eyes flickered uncertainly toward the elderly eunuch, then down to the floor again. Talfa’s expression tightened. Hyacinth wrung his hands, and his head bobbed low. “Hanum efendi, you will allow me to interject. Melda is only staying with us for a short while, until she regains her-her strength. She has had”-he fluttered his fingers in the air, looking for the permissible euphemism-“an inauspicious occurrence, a shock, exactly, so the Kislar aga and Yashim efendi had her sent to us, to recover.”
“Ah!” Talfa barked, as if she had got the truth at last. “Yashim!”
Hyacinth bowed again, and said nothing. He had served in the palace for a long time.
Talfa continued to study the downcast girl. At length her expression softened, and she almost smiled.
“Come, come, little one. I don’t bite, you know.” She tittered, and heaved herself off the divan. “Necla, my love, I want you to stay here a little longer, on my account.” She patted her daughter’s hand. “It’s Melda, isn’t it? Let’s go somewhere quiet, just you and me, and we’ll have a little talk. Let’s see what your auntie Talfa can do for you. Eh?”
She took Melda’s hand in hers.
“Come on, my dear. I know just the spot. I was born at Topkapi, after all.” She turned to Hyacinth, and scrunched up her plump face with amusement. “Don’t look so worried, Hyacinth. Melda and I can have a little chat, and you can look after Necla.”
Hyacinth smiled uncertainly, and bowed. It was a deep bow, because he felt that something was wrong, and when he straightened up, Talfa and the girl were gone.
92
Darkness was falling when Yashim arrived at the Polish residency. As he climbed the stairs he heard the sound of a violin, and when he entered the drawing room Palewski motioned him to an armchair with a swoop of the fiddle under his chin.
He sat for several minutes, eyes closed, pondering the story of Fevzi Ahmet’s youth, the sister’s death, the father’s curse. He only noticed that Palewski had finished playing when the ambassador flopped into the neighboring chair.
Yashim opened his eyes. “Why do you think Fevzi Ahmet chose to defect?”
“Bitterness and greed,” Palewski replied, as if the answer were obvious.
Yashim turned his head. “You think he took Egyptian gold?” He sounded curious.
“I imagine,” Palewski answered more slowly, “that he took Egypt’s gratitude. The gold, I am afraid, was Russian. It often is.”
“But why, if he was working for the Russians, did Fevzi Pasha kill the man in the well?”
Palewski shrugged.
Yashim said moodily, “Husrev Pasha thinks the same as you.”
“Well, I may say that the grand vizier is not a fool. Istanbul is vulnerable without a fleet-and the Russians are very close already.” Palewski sighed. “I’m afraid Fevzi Pasha’s defection makes it likely that they will come, as they might say, to protect the city.”
“The European Powers won’t like that much,” Yashim said.
“Perhaps not,” Palewski said, and Yashim could hear the doubt in his voice. “And they should have thought about that twelve years ago, when they helped the Greeks get independence. I hate to say it, Yash, but your empire hasn’t many friends.”
“The French-or the English-wouldn’t let the Russians take it over,” Yashim said, stoutly.
“If it meant crowning the tsar in Ayasofya, no, they wouldn’t like that. But the Russians can afford to play it softly. They’ve been waiting centuries to restore the empire of orthodoxy to its original seat-Constantinople. A loose protectorate might be a useful start.”
He crossed to his shelves and dragged down an atlas.
“Whatever they say at the British Foreign Office-or on the Quai d’Orsay-about letting Russians into Constantinople, an independent Bulgaria would be popular with public opinion. Free the Moldavians?” He stabbed a finger at the map. “Give the Greeks a Black Sea state? Let the Walachians choose a king? Nations, that’s what the British cotton millers understand. And black the sultan’s eye, into the bargain? They’d love it, Yash.”
“And you? You’d like it too?”
Palewski ran his fingers distractedly through his hair. “I ask only for Poland,” he said. “A Russian Constantinople is not the way.”
“You’re sure?”
“The English cotton millers, Yashim, live far away. They stand in little danger of being spattered with the blood of the Bulgarians, or the Turks, or the Moldavians, if Russia decides to assume control. It would be very bloody. And Russia would be stronger.”
He seemed to sag over the atlas. After a moment he shut it, and walked to the window.
“It would be strange, wouldn’t it, if your Fevzi Pasha’s defection led to women and children being hounded to death in the Balkan hills?” He spread his arms and rested his hands on the sash. “I’m beginning to think that something needs to be done.”
“And yet,” Yashim said sadly, “we have no friends.”
“But between rulers there are no friendships. Only alliances of interest. And your empire, I’m afraid, has
