I looked at him and smelled Italian cooking on his breath. I wondered if he had ever actually left Venice at all, that he could be so naively convinced there was only one way—the Italian—of doing anything.
“I mean the janissaries,” he explained, “and the pashas and the viziers—all of them, born into Christian homes. There is no reason why this empire should not be the greatest in the world, with so many well-trained members of the True Faith at the helm.”
“The Turks,” I told him, “say that all men are born Muslims. It is only their parents that corrupt them and raise them otherwise.”
I wanted to go on and suggest that if he thought my master, the Grand Vizier, had any vestiges of his birthplace left on him, he obviously had not been paying attention in the Divan. And what made him think, I wanted to ask, that a Turkish Christian state should be any more moral than the European ones with which he was already familiar—broken treaties, injustices, and all?
But the young man had already raised his eyebrows, startled, at my first expression of pessimism. It was, after all, only pessimism in Christian eyes. A fine Oriental fatalism had begun to impress me, in a curious mirror image, as optimism.
And I took some comfort in the knowledge that Andrea Barbarigo could not truly know Baffo’s daughter, or he would have known that any true religion, Christianity or otherwise, was the farthest thing from her mind. Her child was healthy, he was male, but, most importantly, he was an Ottoman, heir to the world’s greatest Empire: these were the things she cared about.
Venice, I thought, should have seen that their man Barbarigo was married and settled before sending him on this mission. His eyes, as Safiye had noted, were too full of idealism and romance. His unused lust manufactured heady visions of what must be behind the harem walls: helpless, languid females, exploited and waiting for a deliverer.
At the time, I thought there was no harm in allowing him to keep these delusions. But such images of herself played the young diplomat’s intelligent but unharrowed mind right into Safiye’s hands, her lily-white hands which he never actually saw, but dreamed about. They manipulated him like a puppet on strings.
XXVII
I remember that first evening of autumn. There was a drizzle of rain outside, a blessing after the heat of a long and tedious summer. Esmikhan’s eyes had lit up like the fire itself when she’d seen old Ali’s wife bring in the tinderbox from the kitchen to fuss with the brazier for the first time that season. This was a definite sign that both Sokolli Pasha and Safiye and her young son would soon be returning to the capital, and then things would be lively again.
Such musings assured my lady there was no need to manufacture excitement that evening. The musicians and dancers she often required to pass away the hours until she could retire without arousing rumors that she was dejected or out of sorts were allowed to keep to their quarters. Surely no one would think it amiss if she spent this first rainy fall evening quietly playing chess with her eunuch.
Those who saw Esmikhan on a normal night—with her musicians and dancers—would hardly notice how four years of marriage had changed her. If anything she appeared more lively, now that all entertainments were in her control. “She’s gained a little weight,” might be their only remark which they would brush aside with, “That’s a sure sign she’s happy and well-treated. “
But I had the privilege of her quiet nights, and I knew that the bright little princess for whom every day was a wonder and a joy—she was a rare visitor in our house these days. One might almost say it was a mask or a veil put on for the guests.
It was not so noticeable in winter when she had Safiye and all her old friends to keep her company. Then it was quite easy for her to be carefree and teasing again, and the color bloomed in her cheeks like forced roses. But during that summer they had faded. There was no hiding the truth: Esmikhan was not making a very happy wife. And, for some things, a eunuch was just not a good substitute.
Let me put it this way: Sokolli Pasha was not making a very good husband. I had overestimated the ability of duty to bring bliss. Or I underestimated the truth of the old Turkish proverb, “Duty never got a son.”
Esmikhan liked to brush her causes for complaint off with a laugh. “Allah be praised, and He should make every woman cursed like me a daughter of the Sultan’s house. I have no fear of ever being divorced for childlessness, considering who my fathers are. That is some gift.”
But I was more convinced than ever that the fault was with the master, not with my lady. Sokolli Pasha had suppressed his personal desires for so long that he was no longer capable of feeling them. No wonder the sons he got had little taste for life!
Sokolli’s old mother had died quietly over her needlework one day some six months after her son was married. She never said, of course, but I got the distinct feeling that she realized there was only enough of her son to be dutiful to one woman, and she had the graciousness to bow out. But what had been sufficient for a tiny, frail, old woman was hardly enough for a girl—now a budding young woman—like Esmikhan.
From the station of mere Pasha, my master had risen through a short stint as Kapudan Pasha, admiral of the fleet, until, at the death of
