Prayer-Cushions of the Flesh

But then there was another woman… and another. I went away and thought. I was very like my brother and I too feared that I might become obsessed with a woman — or women. And the problem was one not just for me and my brother. All the men in our tribe went about maddened by sex. Moreover, there were not enough desirable women to go around. Things had got to the point that the men of our tribe would go to the river in the hope of sex with crocodiles. (It seems foolish now, but we were all young then.) You know that the female crocodile when she is preparing to mate turns over on her back so that the male may mount her. Whenever they saw that happening, the men of my tribe would rush out and kill or at least drive off the male. The female finds it very difficult to get back to her normal position, so then we would take it in turns to mount her, while she thrashed helplessly about. I had sex with crocodiles twice. I recall how foolish they looked as I caressed their throats. It was supposed to be lucky to do so — an augury of success in one’s future career and so it has proved for me, for now I am Chief Eunuch of the Ottoman Harem.’

Emerald sucked in his breath and looked proudly round him, before continuing,

‘But I digress. I was about to describe the manner of my becoming a eunuch. I realised that if I was not to remain the emotional prey of any passing woman — or crocodile — a more root-and-branch solution would be necessary. I did not want to pass through life without reflecting. Rather, I wanted to direct my future according to the principles of pure reason. I wanted to use the head that was between my shoulders to guide me in my destiny and I did not want a second head, which was between my legs, telling me to do mad things and countermanding the first head. I needed to escape the prison that my sex had made for me and to be free of the rise and fall of my cock.’

‘So I paid to be made a eunuch. It was not cheap and it was not without pain. I had a complete job done. Both the cock and the testicles were removed, so I am one of the sandali, or clean-cut eunuchs. I was buried up to my head in sand for three days to cauterise the wound and I had nothing to drink all that time. But it was worth it. I was not against women, you understand. I liked women. I still do. It was sex I was against — all that ridiculous jigggling up and down and those messy fluids. Even so, things have not quite worked out as I had planned… ’

‘Emerald!’ said Anadil warningly.

‘Ah no, I was thinking about the time of the peris. That was before your time, Anadil. This was in the days when Bayezit still ruled and before our present Valide Sultan had reached even the rank of Parrot. This was when I entered the Harem, for, once I had had myself castrated, I decided to take advantage of my new state and, thinking to advance myself in life, I thought that I should seek to become one of the Imperial slaves. Things went well for me and it was not long before I was purchased in Cairo by one of Sultan Bayezit’s agents and brought to Istanbul, where I was inducted into the service of the Harem. I was still young, but despite my youth, as a sandali — a clean-cut man — I had a certain status and I commanded respect amongst those eunuchs who had only had their balls cut off. As soon as I arrived, I was put in charge of security, my job being to prevent men from having access to the ladies of the Harem — all men other than the Sultan, of course. However, I soon found that this job of mine was really a sinecure, for anyone foolish enough to make the attempt to smuggle their way into the Harem was easily intercepted long before I could even get a sniff of them. The Janissary guards in the Outer Courtyard of the Palace mounted regular and vigilant patrols to protect the virtue of the ladies within the Harem.’

‘It was true that during the reign of Bayezit’s father, a couple of young men had succeeded in penetrating the Harem several times in the disguise of dressmakers. But eventually their imposture was discovered and the whole matter secretly and summarily dealt with. How exactly it was dealt with was not known until some five or six months later, when a diver, one of those who swim in the Bosphorus and make a living from scavenging in the sunken wrecks, was diving off Palace Point. The water there is quite shallow but murky, so it was hard to see in. However, the salvage divers have a trick for this. When they plunge in, they do so with a mouthful of olive oil. Then, when they have made their way to the bottom, they let out the oil and look through it. The oil is like a lamp in the dark waters. So the diver let out his oil some way below the surface off Palace Point and then, looking through the great golden gob of oil which shook in the currents of the Bosphorus, he saw weighted sacks resting on the sandy bottom and they too undulated in the currents and it was plain to the diver that the forms which filled the sacks were, or at least had been, human. He returned to the surface and advised his fellow swimmers against thinking of salvaging in that particular stretch of water.’

‘Those were great and fierce days. But all that was in the past. In my own time, no one has got past the Janissaries — no human being that is. So after a while I began to get complacent and even a little lazy in my job as guardian of the virtue of the Harem. I was young and the girls were young and pleasant. After a few months, however, I started noticing white stains on some of the sheets in the dormitories. I taxed the concubines whose sheets were so suspiciously marked. They were all glib and smirking. Why, they replied, those were nothing but the stains left by egg whites! It was their new passion late at night — to eat raw eggs in bed. Well, I was a young and inexperienced eunuch, but even so I was doubtful. Why, after all, did the yolks of the eggs leave no stains? At about the same time, I was slowly becoming aware of hearing a tinkling sound only just within the limits of the audible. Then my skin would prickle. This did not happen all the time, but it was happening more and more often.’

‘I continued to make surprise inspections of the dormitories, but never did I find a concubine in the arms of a young man — nor for that matter did I ever catch them eating raw eggs. I might have let things drop, were it not for the fact that I was noticing that some of the young girls were looking haggard and pale. I would walk in on them unannounced and I would find them, singly or together, softly moaning and writhing about on the floor or on a mattress for no visible reason. As you know, Bayezit used to favour strapping, vital young women and we were at pains only to buy the healthiest specimens in the slave market. But now his Harem seemed drained of all vitality. The girls were not even interested in the dear old Carpet of Mirth any more and those who greeted me on my rounds of inspection were often wild-eyed and sweaty. The Sultan also was in no better state. I noticed that his hands had become clammy and they shook slightly, like leaves in a breeze.’

‘Then one day a couple of the youngest concubines came to me and complained that they were having difficulty in seeing. They were afraid that they were going blind. I realised then in a flash how stupid I must be not to have seen immediately what the trouble was. No wonder the concubines were having problems with their vision!’

Emerald paused for solemn effect,

‘The whole Harem was infested with peris.’

Anadil snorted, but Emerald continued,

‘I believe that I am the only person in this room ever to have seen a peri. They are by no means easy things to see. They are like the jinns, but they are smaller. A jinn may often be bigger than a man and sometimes he or she will find it a tight fit to squeeze into a man’s body. But the peri is a different matter. Oh who can see the peris? The largest is no bigger than the top of my thumb here. Their appearance is as faint as dreams, but madder than dreams. And they are so fast, like mercury racing over the surface of things, looking for resting places, but never finding them, all the time in and out of pitchers, hiding in eyebrows, exploring the lingerie chests, dancing on pillows, swinging on cobwebs, curdling milk, scavenging in ants’ nests, dancing from one hiding place to the next, teasing the eyes of those who try to look on them. I could have a troop of peris dancing on the back of my hand and not be aware of them until I thought about it — the drumming of their feet being no more than itching on my skin.’

‘I know that there is the blood of peris in my family,’ said Perizade. ‘That is why I am able to tell the future.’

Anadil smiled, but Emerald was stern,

‘Fairy blood is not a thing to boast about.’

And he continued,

‘It was no wonder that some of the concubines were starting to go blind. The peris were so small and, besides, one needed to squint to see them and they were as nimble as thought. I have observed that sometimes for sport they would plunge into a perfumed bead of sweat on a concubine’s flesh and in such a manner they would travel fast as a quicksilver pearl down her body. A marvellous things to see — and all but impossible to catch at. A man could be as fast as a fishing cormorant and still find himself snatching at air.’

‘Now you,’ said Emerald, pointing at Orkhan, ‘I know that you really are a big man, almost as tall as the door of the room you entered by. But your image is a different matter. Your image has to shrink to enter my eyeball, so that I can see you. That is right, is it not? So it is that I see you as a little mannikin, no bigger than my eyeball.