“My friend,” I began, wanting to blurt out all that I had seen and felt. But I realized at once by his calm demeanor, he knew it all already. Then I could say nothing but “Thank you,” and, as I studied his quiet form longer, I realized that even “Thank you” was redundant.
Thus began my association with the Sufis, which continued throughout the summer. I shared their communal meals, their rites on all but the most solemn occasions. It kept me busy and entertained in a period that otherwise would have meant a great deal of lying about sipping sherbets, and listening to my lady gossip with the governor’s wife. But it was more than just diversion that I found among these ragged men of Allah. I found true acceptance as I had not felt since I was still a man among the sailors on my uncle’s galley.
I was a eunuch? That did not matter. “Many are made eunuchs for the love of Allah,” one Sufi explained to me. “Many take vows of abstinence of their own accord—such as our brother Hajji here who first brought you among us. They realize that children and dalliance with women are mere vanities and distractions from union with the All-Merciful.”
I was a slave? That, too, did not matter. “We are all—like your name—slaves to Allah.”
I knew my informant meant this sincerely, but it was a simple fact that, being a slave more than just figuratively, I could not join them as completely as a free man might. Once or twice, after a particularly moving ritual, it was suggested to me, both by the brotherhood and by my soul, that I should seek to undergo initiation and begin the thousand-and-one-day novitiate to become like them. But it was a simple fact—I was not free to commit myself to serve another master. I could not vow to obey every challenge the sheikh of the order might lay upon my head when the needs of my mistress might call me to her side at any time, or even out of Konya altogether. Many Sufis insist that one can and should be pious while at the same time fulfilling a profession. But it is one thing to be a shopkeeper who can pull down the shutters and lock the door when religion calls; it is quite another to have some other master stand in one’s way to Allah.
“Someday,” I promised my friend.
“Someday, yes.” Husayn nodded quietly. “Allah willing.”
XXXVII
After the first of the Muslim year, towards the end of summer, there was some disquiet. The Persians, we learned, had capitulated and sent lavish presents along with their ambassador and petitions of peace to the Sublime Porte. Besides returning the slaves, horses, and goods of the rebellious Prince Bayazid, they made gifts of more material wealth than symbolic: beautifully illuminated Korans with their covers encrusted with gold and jewels, prayer rugs of the finest Persian wools and craftsmanship, rosaries made of lumps of turquoise as big as hens’ eggs.
In spite of the religious nature of the gifts, many Sunni Turks could not forget that Persians were Shi’a heretics, and the treaty was unpopular. Indeed, an attempt was made on the life of the Persian ambassador in the midst of the formal procession through the streets of Constantinople. The assassin was a holy dervish, and for a while I dared not visit my friends in the Sufi hall. My host, the governor, was contemplating whether or not a small massacre of holy men was needed to prove to the Sultan that he was capable of keeping this sandjak of pilgrims and shrines under control.
Fortunately, such a drastic step never became necessary. The governor, like my religious friends, built up faith from the lesson of these events: “Thanks be to Allah who showed His will in the matter by causing the assassin to be trampled to death by the ambassador’s horse before any more harm could be done.”
By the celebration of the Birth of the Prophet, the Persians were back to private civil war. And Turkish politics and religion had reconciled themselves to such a degree that my host thought nothing of hiring one of the members of Husayn’s order to recite the tales of Muhammed as festival entertainment.
I had decided to take advantage of my option to sit in either half of the house and spend the evening with my lady in the harem. For one thing, the first snow of the year had fallen, bundling Konya up in what felt like a safe, cozy blanket. Being in the harem by the fire would exaggerate that feeling. But there was also the fact that a female reciter had been hired for that side of the curtain and, though the Sufi was my friend and justifiably well known for his performance, this woman was even better than he. Women, I have always found, can get more out of any verse than a man, for though men have been known to be carried away in ritual trances, women play with emotions like they weave color into a rug.
The women and their guests had only just begun to settle, however, when my host’s young son came running in. The ladies petted him, passing him from hand to hand, commenting on his new little festival jacket, and teasing, “Where is our big boy? Our big boy said he was old enough to spend the festival with the men in the selamlik, but see? The festival has hardly begun and he comes running back to us.”
The little lad who was no more than four bore this treatment bravely, with only a hint of tears of shame or homesickness in his eyes. As soon as he could get a word in, he insisted, “I am not a baby anymore. I have been sent by my father with an important message of state.”
“Oooh,” the ladies declared. “‘An important message of state!’“ It seemed clear that the child had been given that lofty phrase by his
