But my voice echoed without reply off the polished brass of a wall of shields.
I thought I would save time in the infirmary, because the sick could reply if they had seen a little girl and boy that day. But they would hardly answer, grabbing my clothes and demanding news of the fire. All their doctors and attendants, as well as any who could walk, were out carrying pots of water, and those left behind had suffered the greatest anxiety, smelling the smoke for hours.
Had the children gone beyond the Imperial Gate, then, out of the palace altogether? To Aya Sophia, perhaps, whose great domes were even now casting long shadows over the wall? They were not allowed there, but it was better to think they had the whole wide world to wander in rather than that they were still somewhere in the harem.
I had gone so far, close to running all the time. It had been several hours, through one call to prayer at least. And my heart, which fear sent racing even faster than my pace would actually have caused, begged for rest. Who knows? I rationalized. Someone else may have already found them. I should at least check with my lady to see how she fares.
I took the long way round through the Gate of the Dead (“Allah shield us,” I said for protection against the restless souls, louder than usual). The shorter routes were blocked by flames. I met Ghazanfer on my way and he told me, in no more than eight words, that they’d found nothing, that his mistress had gone one more to look in the Eve of the Sultan and sent him to look in the garden again. His face, which was as tight and as hard as a mustard seed, told me he was blaming himself, as he always did when things did not go well for Safiye.
Some enterprising soul had set up the division of haremlik and selamlik there in the garden—a row of cypress and a rose hedge were the demarcation—so at least there was the relief of modesty. How they had moved my lady to this place I do not know, for she was too prostrate now even to take the water her ladies were offering her, and she had to take it on her wrists and temples with a cloth instead. One glance at her was enough to tell that she had had no news, either.
Esmikhan met my eyes with her huge brown ones and I shrank from them. I remembered the night of the lovers’ nightingale in Konya, how those eves had fixed me in that same way and demanded a miracle. And I had given it to her, given her a man’s love in the only way I knew how, given her the blessed wonder of that child.
Even the cuckoo has fled this garden this afternoon. There will be no nightingale in the smoke tonight. I can work no more miracles.
I tried to pass that message to those eves, but they would not hear it. If I offered no comfort, they would not let me near. So I left with just that glance. I must appear to still be full of hope in the search. I must.
XIX
I stumbled across the men’s section, unseeing, unconscious of where my feet were. Someone, I became aware, was giving the call to prayer. At this point no one thought carrying one more pot of water could be more important than an appeal to the One Without Equal. All around me, men instantly dropped what they were doing and, rugless, turned to face across the ashes of the kitchen, across the Sea of Marmara. They faced that City which for most would always remain only a dream, but which, at that moment, was more real than anything else in between.
My mind was in such confusion that I remained standing, and might have stayed so, a scandal and, to some, a curse to all the proceedings. But fortunately a tug at my hem brought me to my knees in time for the first prostration.
The slow, rhythmic movements of the ritual brought a calmness to my heart I had almost forgotten. We progressed through the form—but progress is not the right word unless going around in a circle and ending up where one started is progress. But as we followed our cycle, I began to see that it was grass into which I buried my face. There were tulips blooming beside me with the dull black scent of their anthers. And overhead were trees. Trees! Plane trees with their new yellow-green foliage! And I had begun to feel as if all life had ceased. The end of the sunlight filtered through those leaves and came down upon us like a shower of gold coins. A shower of gold coins, the ancients said, brought the god to a maiden and gave her new life. These coins, too, would buy nothing in the market. Only in one’s soul did they purchase the love and peace of God.
At the final prostration my ransomed soul at last looked out for others. I noticed the man beside me, the one who had tugged me down, and then I saw I knew him. It was the long-headed overseer of the kitchen supplies.
Why is he not still by the fountain in the fire line? I asked myself, but immediately received the answer: Both of his hands were swathed in rags. He must have burned them quite badly. How careful he was, even laying them on his knees as he prayed. With those hands he had tugged me down, saving me blasphemy, bringing me peace. What pain had it caused him? I was grateful.
We smiled at one another in the peace at the end of the prayer, and when that was past, I asked him politely how he’d got his hurt.
He made a brave attempt to smile, though the memory tinged it with grimace as he replied,
