Halil laughed as he stood up to embrace Salman.
“Even I would not be so crude as to blame the short-sightedness of our Sultans for your interminable flatulence. You move too little and you eat too much. The East has not been good for you. When you return I really would not recommend Istanbul as a residence. There you will only get bigger and slower, like a female elephant about to give birth. The indigestion, as you so delicately put it, will get much worse. The city I would suggest for you is Ankara. The air is clean and vices are few.”
Salman stroked his brother’s cheeks affectionately. “You can bury me in Ankara, if you please, Halil, but not till I’m dead. It will cost you to shift this carcass from Istanbul, but you have my permission. The Baron is our witness.”
Salman’s departure brought the evening to a close. Iskander Pasha was very pleased with himself for having manipulated the discussion so successfully. There had been no personal reminiscences of the family, no discussion of our past, and this pleased him. His speech had been paralysed, but his memory had not weakened and there were recollections with which he wanted no contact at all. I felt close to him again. He had once told us that whenever he returned to Istanbul after a stay in Paris or Berlin, he found the odour of stupidity at home extremely reassuring, but was terrified that it might suffocate him if, for whatever reason, he was never able to travel again. I would ask him about that before the summer was over, but not tonight, when he looked so happy. I kissed his head and took my leave.
Silently, I followed the Baron and Uncle Memed to the moon-drenched terrace. We sat down at a table beautifully laid with silver bowls filled with almonds of three different varieties, walnuts and fruits. Petrossian uncorked another bottle and served the two men. Memed told him they would help themselves and instructed him to retire for the night.
I looked at the stars in the sky and wondered whether I would ever find true happiness and be content with my life. I often felt that my mother had sacrificed too much for the sake of a comfortable existence. She had allowed her own personality to be dwarfed by the family of Iskander Pasha. If she had married someone else her biography would have taken a different course. She had spoken once to me, in a slightly embarrassed way, of another man. She had liked him a great deal, but he was poor and when her father had rejected the suit he had emigrated to New York, where he became a very successful painter. She often wished she knew what it was that he painted. I mused over whether her true and intimate feeling for my father was one of disgust, but my thoughts were interrupted.
The two men resumed their conversation. Strange, I thought, that my presence never seems to bother them. They trust me. Perhaps they imagine that like them I, too, am unconventional. Whatever their reasons, I am flattered by their confidence.
“I sometimes get the impression, Memed, that despite our knowledge of each other, you doubt my intelligence.”
“Intimacy can breed doubt and contempt in equal portions, Baron.”
“So, in other words, you had no doubts regarding my intellectual superiority when I was your tutor in Istanbul.”
“None whatsoever, but surely you could not have forgotten that it was also the period of our courtship, which was very intense. You taught me a great deal. Your language, German poetry and philosophy and a love of books. I can still remember the words of the first poem by Heine that you recited and your pleasure when I told you I had understood every word. We talked often of god and religion and the elasticity of so many dogmas. You showed me Berlin and Paris. You compared the growth of learned societies in German towns with the lack of any intellectual movement in provincial France. It was only after I had fully penetrated that world that I could permit you to penetrate me.”
Both men burst out laughing.
SEVEN
Nilofer tells the Stone Woman that Selim has stroked her breasts in the moonlight and she is falling in love with him; she is shocked to discover that her mother has been eavesdropping
‘I DON’T KNOW WHERE to begin, Stone Woman. It happened suddenly, without warning, and now I may be in worse trouble than ever before. It happened yesterday in the light of the moon. I wanted to go and count the stars on the beach and I wanted to be completely alone. So I took the tiny path that leads from the cliffs to the entrance of the cave overlooking the sea. When we were children we used to believe that it was our little secret and we were convinced that no adult knew of the path. Even if they did they would find it difficult to follow us because the track was truly little.
As I heard the gentle noise of the water caressing the sand I felt at peace with myself. When I look at the sea glistening in the moonlight and then gaze upwards to catch the stars it somehow puts everything in a different perspective. My own problems shrink into nothingness. Compared to nature, we are but tiny specks in the sand. I was in deep meditation when a familiar voice came from the dark.
“Forgive me, hanim effendi, but I thought I should make my presence known just in case you were overcome by a burning desire to bathe in the silken waters of this sea.”
It was Selim, the grandson of Hasan Baba. I had spoken to him on a number of occasions since the circumcision. He had come to inspect Orhan’s wound and make sure it was healing properly. Orhan had grown to like this young man and I, too, had to admit I found his company pleasing. I liked the fact that he never averted his eyes when I addressed him. His eyes were melancholy for so young a person, but when he laughed they shone like diamonds. I was pleased by his presence.
I know what you’re thinking, Stone Woman. You have seen so much over the centuries and you think I had willed him to be present, but I swear by everything I hold dear that I had not thought of him at all. The social chasm between us was so vast that he never entered my mind except as a kind barber from Istanbul who had travelled a whole day to circumcise my son. He was, undoubtedly, an intelligent man and I must confess I was surprised when he declared his passion for the operas of Donizetti Pasha. The music was alien to me, but the way he talked about it made me yearn for the opera. Of course, none of this can explain what happened yesterday, Stone Woman.
“What are you doing here, Selim?”
“I came to watch the sky.”
“And think?”
“Yes, hanim effendi, and think. In my world solitude is a precious commodity. I live in a house with six other people. I can’t even hear myself think. This place is like paradise. You must have missed it very much when you were in Konya.”
“I did, and please stop calling me hanim effendi. When we are alone you may call me Nilofer.”
“You are beautiful, Nilofer.”
“I did not give you permission to talk in this fashion. Control your tongue, you insolent boy.”
He fell silent.
“I heard you making Orhan laugh yesterday. Tell me a story, Selim. Make me laugh.”
He stood up and began to throw pebbles in the sea. Then he came and sat in front of me.
“I will obey you, princess. Listen, then, to my story. Once long ago in the reign of a Sultan, whose name I cannot recall, there lived a young and beautiful princess. She was a younger sister of the Sultan and he was very fond of her, largely because she kept a storehouse full of jokes. She had been blessed with prodigious powers of recollection. Her memory was the envy of the Court. She never forgot a face, its name or a conversation. She made the Sultan laugh and he rewarded her by never compelling her to get married. She would veil herself and, accompanied by six armed eunuchs, she would visit taverns and places of ill-repute and all this to collect the latest lewd jokes.