“Enchanté, m’sieur,” he said. “It’s most kind of you to have us! Something smells good.”
It was not Yashim’s habit to shake hands, but he took Lefèvre’s and squeezed it politely. Palewski opened his mouth to speak when the Frenchman added:
“I was quite unprepared for such a generous invitation.”
He was a small, stoop-shouldered man, delicately built, with a few days’ growth of white stubble and a voice that was soft and sibilant, close to lisping.
“But I am delighted, monsieur—”
“Lefèvre,” Palewski cut in finally. “Dr. Lefèvre is an archaeologist, Yashim. He’s French. I—I felt sure you wouldn’t mind.”
“But no, of course not. It’s an honor.” Yashim’s eyes lit up. A Frenchman for dinner! Now that was a decent challenge.
Palewski set his portmanteau on the table and clicked it open. “Champagne,” he announced, drawing out two green bottles. “It comes from the Belgian at Pera. He assures me that it belongs to a consignment originally destined for Sultan Mahmut’s table, so it’s probably filth.”
“I am sure it will be excellent.” Lefèvre smirked at Yashim.
The ambassador looked at him coolly. “I rather think the sultan’s illness speaks for itself, Lefèvre. It defeats all the best doctors.”
“Ah, yes. The Englishman, Dr. Millingen.” Lefèvre’s hands fluttered toward his head. “Whom I consulted recently. Headache.”
“Cured?”
Lefèvre raised his eyebrows. “One lives in hope,” he said sadly.
Palewski nodded. “Millingen’s not too bad for a doctor. Though he killed Byron, of course.”
Yashim said: “Byron?”
“Lord Byron, Yash. A celebrated English poet.” He reached into his bag. “If the champagne’s no good, I have this,” he added, drawing out a slimmer and paler bottle, which Yashim immediately recognized. “Byron was an enthusiast for Greek independence,” he went on. “Never lived to fire a gun in anger, as far as I know. He died trying to organize the Greek rebels in ’24, at the siege of Missilonghi. Caught a fever. Millingen was his doctor.”
They drank the champagne from Yashim’s sherbet flutes.
“It sparkles,” said Lefèvre.
“Not for very long,” Yashim added, peering into the glass. “Dr. Lefèvre, I welcome you to Istanbul.”
“The city ordained by Nature to be the capital of the world.” Lefèvre fixed his dark eyes on Yashim. “She calls me like a siren, monsieur. I cannot resist her lure.” He drained his glass and set it down silently in the palm of his other hand. “Je suis archéologue.”
Yashim brought out a tray on which he had set a selection of meze—the crisped skin of a mackerel rolled loose from its flesh, then stuffed with nuts and spices; uskumru dolmasi; some tiny böreks stuffed with white cheese and chopped dill; mussel shells folded over a mixture of pine nuts; karniyarik, tiny eggplants filled with spiced lamb; and a little dish of kabak cicegi dolmasi, or stuffed zucchini flowers. They were all dolma—that is, their outsides gave no hint as to the treasures that lay within, and all made to recipes perfected in the sultan’s kitchens.
Palewski was brooding over his champagne. Lefèvre picked up a zucchini flower and popped it into his mouth.
“How shall I explain?” Lefèvre began. “To me, this city is like a woman. In the morning she is Byzantium. You know, I am sure, what is Byzantium? It is nothing, a Greek village. Byzance is young, artless, very simple. Does she know who she is? That she stands between Asia and Europe? Scarcely. Alexander came and went. But Byzance: she remembers nothing.”
His hand hovered above the tray.
“One man appreciates her beauty, nonetheless. Master of Jerusalem and Rome.”
Palewski buried his face in his glass.
“Constantine, the Caesar, falls in love. What is it—375 A.D.? Byzance is his—she suits him well. And he raises her to the imperial purple, gives her his name—Constantinople, the city of Constantine. The new heart of the Roman Empire. Nothing is too good for her. Constantine plunders the ancient world like a man who showers his mistress with jewels. He brings her the four bronze horses of Lysippos, which now stand above the Piazza San Marco in Venice. He brings her the Serpent Column from Delphi. He brings her the tribute of the known world, from the Pillars of Hercules to the deserts of Arabia.”
“And his mother, too. Don’t forget her,” Palewski added.
Lefèvre turned to the ambassador. “Saint Helena, of course. She came to the city, and unearthed a portion of the True Cross.”
“They should make her patron saint of archaeologists, Lefèvre.”
The Frenchman blinked. “All the holy relics of the Christian faith were brought to the city,” he added. “Relics of the earliest saints. The nails that fixed Jesus to the cross. The goblet and plate that Jesus used at the Last Supper. The holy of holies, gentlemen.”
He held up his hand, fingers outspread.
“Two centuries later, Emperor Justinian builds the church of churches. Aya Sofia, the eighth wonder of the world. She has come a long way from the fishergirl, Byzance.” He paused. “What to say? The centuries of wealth, monsieur. The perfection of Byzantine art. Ceremony, bloodshed, the emperor as the regent of God Almighty.”
Palewski nodded. “Until the crusaders arrive.”
Lefèvre closed his eyes and nodded. “Ah. Ah, 1204, yes, the shame of Europe. I would call it a rape, monsieur: the rape of the city by the brutal soldiers of Western Europe. Her diadem flung into the dust. It is pain for us to speak of this time.”
He selected a delicacy from the tray.
“And yet she is a woman: she recovers. She is a shadow of herself, but she still has charm. So she seeks a new protector. In 1453: the Turkish Conquest. Let me say: she becomes Istanbul. Mehmed’s whore.”
It was Yashim’s turn to blink.
“The Turks—they love her. And so, like a woman, she becomes again beautiful. Is it not so?”
Lefèvre peered into a silence. “But perhaps my little analogy displeases you? Alors, it can be changed.” He spread out his hands, like a conjurer. “Istanbul is also a serpent, which sheds its skin.”
“And you collect those discarded skins.”
“I try to learn from them, Excellency.”
Palewski was studying the tray, a scowl now plainly on his face. “Good meze, Yashim,” he said.
“All dolma—” Yashim began; he meant to explain the theory behind his selections, but Lefèvre leaned forward and tapped Palewski on his knee.
“I have traveled, Excellency, and I can say that all street food is good in the Levant, from Albania to the Caucasus,” he remarked.
Palewski glanced up. Later, he told Yashim that the sight of his face at that moment had brought him the first pleasure of the evening.
Lefèvre licked his fingers and wiped them on a napkin. “The singular contribution of the Turks—I believe this is correct—to the dégustation of civilized Europe—you’ll forgive me, monsieur, I am merely quoting—is the aromatic juice of the Arabian bean: in short, coffee.” He gave a laugh.
“I shouldn’t believe everything you read in books,” Palewski said, with another glance at his friend.
“But I do. I believe everything I read.” Lefèvre wetted his lips with the tip of his tongue. “A professional habit, perhaps. Letters. Diaries. Travelers’ memoirs. I choose my literature carefully. Trivial information can sometimes turn out to be very useful, wouldn’t you agree, monsieur?”
Yashim nodded slowly. “Certainly. But for every useful scrap of information, you must reject a hundred more.”
“Ah, yes, perhaps you are right.” He leaned back, touching his thumbs together. “Have you ever heard of Troy?”
Yashim nodded. “Sultan Mehmet once laid claim to Trojan ancestry,” he said. “He presented the fall of Constantinople as a revenge on the Greeks.”