Yes, Grandmother.
All right, that's what happened in this case. During the last twenty-odd years when we've been aware of it, and obviously before that when we weren't, the enterprise in question has been cleverly bought piece by piece. Bought right out from under our noses. And since our very foundations were long ago established there, the effect on the House of Szondi could be catastrophic.
What enterprise was bought from under your noses?
The old woman glared through her spectacles. Her face darkened.
The Ottoman Empire, she hissed.
The what?
That's right, you heard me correctly. The evidence is there and there can no longer be any doubt about it.
A little over thirty years ago, as unreal as it seems, someone secretly began to buy up the Ottoman Empire.
You mean the Russians have been intriguing with the French or the English again? They've formed a secret alliance with the Germans?
No that isn't what I mean. Politics aren't involved. This is a straight business proposition and only one man is involved. One man has bought the Ottoman Empire.
But that's impossible, Grandmother.
Of course it is. We've been telling ourselves nothing else for years. Haven't we, girls.
She looked sternly around the room and his mother and aunts and grandaunts and female cousins all nodded vigorously. Then they all began talking at once to each other, loudly and rapidly, not listening to what anyone else was saying.
That's enough, girls, shouted his grandmother. Instantly the room was silent.
So you see, young man, the situation before us is more than staggering. It's critical and perhaps even fatal. The House of Szondi was founded on the basis of Levantine trade and now we find one man has bought the entire Levant. Who is he and what does he want? Why did he buy it? What does he intend to do with it?
You're sure it's a man? asked Munk.
His grandmother snorted contemptuously.
Of course it's a man, no woman would ever act so crudely. Perhaps some substantial and influential role behind the scenes, but not a whole empire in one ruthless grab. That's the work of a man.
Munk clicked his heels.
Yes, Grandmother.
Please don't interrupt again.
No, Grandmother.
Now to continue. We've gone back to the beginning to try to reconstruct events and the best we can do, the earliest scenes we can conjecture, are vague reports of an Egyptian emir and a Baghdad banker and a Persian potentate holding shadowy interviews in Constantinople in 1880, sitting down. Remember that, sitting down. The man seems to have been unnaturally tall, but it's impossible for our informants to say how tall because he was always seated. I say man, rather than men, because it's obvious to us that this emir and banker and potentate, forget the apparent nationalities and the way he paired them up with status for alliterative affect, were one and the same man, a dissembler able to disguise himself cleverly.
And how did he disguise himself? Always as a Levantine, which to us means he was obviously a European being clever again. So the available facts are these. A European of untold personal wealth, a man so unusually tall he feared his height would betray his real identity, remained carefully seated while buying all the wells in Mecca and all the wells on all the haj routes to Mecca, while becoming the secret paymaster of the Turkish army and navy, while buying up all Turkish government bonds and issuing new ones, while consulting with pashas and ministers and laying aside trust funds for their grandsons, while firing and rehiring every religious leader in the Middle East so they would have to answer to him, while consummating a hundred other such deals with the goal of making himself the sole owner of the Ottoman Empire. Now only one European in the last century fits that description. Do you know who he is?
No, Grandmother.
Strongbow. First name, Plantagenet. An Englishman who was the twenty-ninth Duke of Dorset. Seven feet, seven inches tall. He took a triple first at Cambridge in botany and was considered the greatest swordsman and botanist of the Victorian era, but he abandoned plants to become an explorer. In 1840
he disappeared from Cairo after attending a diplomatic reception held in honor of Queen Victoria's twenty-first birthday. And in order to outrage English decorum and sense of fair play, which he so dearly loved to do, Strongbow appeared at that diplomatic reception stark naked, save for a portable sundial strapped to his hip that hid nothing. About forty years later a publication of his appeared in Basle, which is the next time we hear of him, just prior to his appearance in Constantinople in various disguises. But the odd thing is, that publication had nothing to do with business or banking. If it had it might have warned us about what was going to happen in Constantinople.
What did the publication have to do with?
His grandmother smiled faintly. She raised her chin.
Sex. It's a study of Levantine sex in thirty-three volumes.
The old woman paused. Around the room dozens of knitting needles erupted into a cacophony of clicks.
Munk stood at attention staring at his grandmother, who finally lowered her eyes and removed a lace handkerchief from her sleeve. With slow, delicate motions she dabbed at the beads of perspiration that had appeared around her mouth.
Tut tut, young Munk. Tut and ho. This has nothing whatsoever to do with the matter at hand but you seem to want an explanation, and considering what you're going to do for us, I'll give you one. Well then.
Strongbow's study was published in Basle and quite naturally the House of Szondi acquired one. I mean of course we did. Everything having to do with the Levant must be our special concern. We can't afford to ignore even the smallest item of scholarship, and Strongbow's study is hardly that. But since it's been banned, and also because it's rather an explicit work, we felt it best to keep it under lock and key and not advertise the fact that we own a copy.
Munk stared at his grandmother in awe.
You mean none of the men in the family has ever known about this?
That's right, and you aren't to tell them. Such matters could only be disruptive to a musician's work. A musician must have discipline and concentration. He needs order in his life to be creative. And let me tell you the information in Strongbow's study is about as disorderly as anything you can imagine. It utterly defies concentration and leads to a complete breakdown of discipline.
I don't doubt that, said Munk. But do you mean to tell me that all of you here have been reading these volumes in private for years?
Strictly for professional reasons, young Munk. Strictly because we handle the business in this family and there would be no music for our men if we didn't pursue business in a conscientious manner. If the House of Szondi is to continue to prosper, we must all be current with every aspect of the Levant. That is the Sarahs must be. It's our inevitable responsibility. And then too I might add that at the end of a day of hard banking, we find it necessary to take our minds off work. Strongbow's study serves that purpose.