“A shame we can’t always face the Venetians on dry land, where the superiority of our army is devastating. Their power lies in their fleet.” He leaned forward slightly from his chair. “So we will postpone our accounts until we have also defeated their floating fortress,” he concluded. “As-Salaam ’Alaykum, gentlemen.”
The audience was over. No provision had been made for us to speak; he hadn’t even had the intention to talk to Nasi. He had just informed us of how things were. He had put us in check with a simple calculation of expenses.
I thought that on paper Sokollu was on the losing side; after all, Cyprus had fallen. And yet he seemed sure of himself, and we appeared before him silent and with no chance of appealing his verdict, just as we had before Selim.
“He knows about the agreement with the English,” I said, as we left the palace, heading toward the Golden Horn.
Nasi looked at me grimly. “He has suspicions and wants to put salt on our tails.”
“Suspicions? You mean spies. Yossef, in your house. .”
“Reyna doesn’t know anything,” Nasi interrupted me irritably. “It is certainly no secret that Ralph Fitch is my guest.”
“Why do you trust her?”
The city passed slowly around us.
“She has done her duty by our family. She married me.”
I cursed under my breath. I had very bad presentiments: I was sure there was more trouble to come. “We’re missing something, Yossef.”
“That’s true,” he admitted. “Sokollu is keeping me at a distance from Selim. He wants to convince him that Cyprus was a bad business. But the Sultan still needs me.”
“Cyprus was madness,” I said.
He didn’t reply. I watched him from the corner of my eye, regretting having spoken.
For the first time, that great Jew struck me as alone and vulnerable.
13
Hafiz and Mukhtar were washing their hands in the fountain. They flashed me a shy smile. A little way off, Ali finished his prayers, then got to his feet and rolled up his sajjada. They were here for their last farewell.
I had a great lump in my throat, and however much I tried to swallow, I couldn’t get rid of it. In the whirlwind of my life, I hadn’t had the time to understand, and it was only now that I realized, what they had become for me.
The people you go through hell with are friends.
The people you escape from hell with are friends.
These were my friends, and I would never see them again.
The bags were piled up in a corner of the drawing room. They covered the far edge of the mosaic: Sinai, Suez, the beginning of the Red Sea. I wondered if it was a coincidence or if they’d put them there for good luck. Among the bags and bundles sat the little boy. He looked less lost than he had on the day of the crossing.
Finally I saw Ismail. He was contemplating the portrait of Donna Gracia, as he had been the day I met him.
“So you’re returning to Mokha,” I said to his back. “It won’t be easy to look at Scutari from the window, and think that Ismail and his friends aren’t there any more.”
“The center of the empire isn’t a place for someone like me,” he replied even before he turned round. “I’m going back to where I can be useful.”
I approached, and we stood face to face.
“So you’ve had the confirmation you were looking for.”
“I’ve had it, but I hadn’t come here to look for it. I only tried to accept an invitation and honor a debt. I arrived too late.”
“Perhaps we all arrived too late.”
“Or too early, who knows. Perhaps men like Yossef look too far back, and see too far ahead. The present will always be a cage, for them and for the people who follow them.”
Ali had joined him. They said nothing more, but I understood their mute request.
“I can’t leave Yossef. Not now that things are taking a turn for the worse. He’s done a lot for me. He killed Emanuele De Zante, and saved Manuel Cardoso.”
Perhaps Ismail still had something to say, or perhaps he didn’t. A servant arrived and told us that Yossef was waiting in the library. Our last conversation ended with my name.
Limping, the old man made for the bags. I saw him picking up a bundle and putting it under his arm. A few moments later, he slipped through the doorway to the library. I was left on my own next to Ali. Hafiz and Mukhtar looked at each other in silence. Then Mukhtar spoke. In Turkish, so that I, too, would understand.
“Ali, tell them the story of the khalifa and the parasites.”
“Yes, tell it,” her brother joined in.
Ali looked at the girl. “You tell it, Mukhtar. Our friend is fed up with the sound of my voice.”
The warrior hesitated. “I’m not very good at telling stories.”
“That’s like saying you’re not good at breathing.”
“You have a lovely voice, Mukhtar,” her brother said. Mukhtar blushed slightly and a cheerful smile appeared on her face. She drew a deep breath, and a minute later I witnessed a transformation. The creature I had seen dancing and killing, but from whose lips I had heard only a few syllables, began telling the story, backing it up with expressive gestures.
“One fine day, a khalifa encounters a group of men, all sitting doing nothing. He asks them who they are, and they reply, ‘We’re the ones who trust in the will of God. He, the Merciful and the Compassionate, will support us, because we have faith in Him,’ ‘You’re just lazy parasites!’ the khalifa says, shaking his fist in the face of the one who spoke. ‘For people like you, I feel only disgust.’ ‘Why are you talking so harshly?’ asks the one who spoke. ‘He who has faith in God,’ the khalifa explains, ‘first plants seeds in the ground, and only then does he trust to His will.’”
Mukhtar declaimed the last phrase, gave the hint of a bow, then raised her head.
“And here ends the story.”
“Thank you, Mukhtar,” I said.
The idea came as an impulse. I rummaged in my pocket and took them out, the least expected objects. The dice carved at the mouth of the Po. I put them in Mukhtar’s hand, an incongruous destination.
Mukhtar showed them to the others. Ali looked at the twelve faces, the Roman numerals I, V, III. . “The Book prohibits games of chance,” he said.
“Games of chance are over. I no longer consign myself to fate with my eyes closed.”
Then I pointed to the tiny figure of the little boy, in the middle of the bundles. “What will become of him?”
“We’ll take him with us,” Ali replied.
“We’ve got another brother now,” Hafiz added.
The little boy looked at us with confusion, as if he had understood that we were talking about him. I silently wished him good luck. I exchanged hugs with the others and started toward the door.
My throat tightened as I crossed the threshold. I swallowed hard, and it was right then that the tears started flowing.
14
Many autumns before the Hejira, during the migration toward the hot lands, a family of ducks had taken a break on the waters of a river on the borders of Absurdistan. All the local animals had their own territory, and the ducks hadn’t had time to settle anywhere before a snake or a frog came to reclaim the place and chase them away. The poor birds were about to resume their journey without settling again, when they saw a big tree trunk floating on the water. It was green with algae and moss, and because no one claimed it, the ducks chose it as their resting place, quacking contentedly, but immediately afterward they began arguing about who should occupy the most comfortable positions. They were so busily engaged in their disputes that only one of them saw the tree trunk open its mouth wide, but he didn’t have time to escape. A moment later he and all his fellows ended up in the belly of the crocodile.