Impatience, I knew, was one sure way to drive the price up, but I would not let Husayn make even the briefest show of leisure. I drove him up and down the colonnade until I spied a familiar face—Sofia Baffo’s maidservant. The woman sat with a pair of young Circassian children in one particularly fine shop. She had been given a needle and thread and was supposed to be demonstrating her fine stitchery. Unfortunately, tears so shook her form that she found work impossible.
“Foolish woman,” Husayn said with a shake of his head. “She should appear cheerful even if she is not. The sort of master she will find with a face like that will assure her misery for the rest of her days.”
My friend sat down at the table beneath this arcade and waited for sherbet, but I could not constrain myself. I ran to the maidservant immediately.
“Maria, Maria!” I said. “Where is your mistress?”
The woman was startled from her grief and could not speak for a moment or two. This allowed the young salesman to see my interest and to come to my side.
“You are interested in such a slave woman, my friend?” he asked. “You have good taste, indeed. You could not have made a better selection had you spent days combing all of Constantinople—no, not months going throughout all the lands of Islam. She is a bit thin from the long sea voyage, but a few weeks in your generous kitchen, sir, will see her fat and fit. She is skilled. She will work and do your bidding. She is eager to learn any task. She is not yet thirty-five years old and, though married once, it was to some body-hating Christian who gave her but a single child. The child died of the damp climate of her homeland. But you will see that here in our climate, with her health and vigor, she may yet bear you a pair of sons and prove an excellent, loving mother to them. Three or four sons, perhaps, if it is Allah’s will and your major interest, my honored sir. In any respect, she will pay you back the price within the year, I can assure you.”
I wasn’t well enough acquainted with Maria to know if a third of what he said was the truth, nor, if it were, how he had possibly come to know it. My speaking knowledge of Turkish stopped me at, “I was looking for...”
Fortunately, Husayn saw my difficulty and came to my aid. “Actually,” he said, “we were on the ship that brought this woman here and—”
“Praised be Allah! What a happy coincidence!”
“And we were wondering about another woman—one younger than this—with golden hair. We are interested in her.”
The young man pressed his lips together and nodded thoughtfully. Then “Excuse me,” he said and disappeared into the shop. Shortly he returned proceeded by the short, greasy merchant I recognized from the quay. The young man bent his head and spoke in an agitated stream into his elder’s ear.
“I am Kemal Abu Isa,” the older man introduced himself graciously, “and this is my son. Please, you are welcome here.”
Husayn returned the greeting and introduction with profuse confessions of the honor it was for us to be in that shop. They made my flesh creep.
XVII
“Please be seated,” the merchant said. “My son will bring you a smoke, a tray of sweets.”
This rigid politeness continued for what seemed like another century. The merchant stroked his greasy chin, Husayn stoically sampled a tray of preserves and made up more pleasantries than I imagined existed in any language. I passed the time bouncing my knees nervously under the low table.
At long last the merchant broached the subject. “My son tells me you are interested in a particularly fine young slave I have recently acquired. Is this slave for yourselves, or are you merely acting as agents for another?”
“We are not agents,” Husayn said.
“Forgive me for being so frank,” the old man said, “but this is business, is it not? A man must make a living, with the help of Allah. So tell me, just how much were you gentlemen expecting to pay?”
Husayn hummed a little note of indecision, but I blurted out, “I have two hundred ghrush.”
“Two hundred ghrush” the merchant repeated. “Again, forgive my frankness. But for such a prize as that fair-haired one—a prize I shall not see again if Allah wills me a hundred years—I expect to get three hundred, maybe more. No, do not try to bargain me down, my friends. I told you this in frankness. If I expected you to bargain, I would have started out at half again so much. I mean no offense, but such a prize—a jewel—is not for common merchants like you and me. Indeed, I am charging a quarter of your price in earnest money of any client I will even allow to see her.
“Now, for two hundred ghrush, I would be glad to sell you her companion here. She is also of European origin and equally fair-skinned. No, for you, my friends-—one hundred and fifty. No? You are not interested? Come, do not take offense, my friends. I am a man, after all. A man who must, with the help of Allah, make a living. The golden-haired one is a virgin, my friends. I had the midwives certify. I shall not see another such prize—no, as Allah is my witness, not in a hundred years.”
I was ready to bolt to my feet and grab the old man by his greasy neck, but Husayn constrained me.
“Your concern is most understandable, sir,” Husayn said. “She is a prize indeed. But tell me, would you allow us just to see her?”
“Fifty ghrush” the merchant said, stroking his chin. “That is my price. And usually I bring such merchandise to the privacy of your own
