“Well, friend. I respect that.”
“What about the poem?”
“The poem. Well, it’s a bitter poem. Probably written after the prince died.” Bernie takes a long swig of raki and washes it down with water. “But the last couple of lines always struck me as more of a call to action than contemplation. And I’ve always wondered about the ‘you’ in the last line, ‘your brush.’ Who was she referring to?”
“So this is what scholars of literature do,” Kamil comments with a sly smile. “Like cows eating grass. It gets chewed, digested, regurgitated, and chewed again before it becomes the cow’s food.”
Bernie lets out a guffaw that threatens to spill the drink in his hand. “And we all know what comes out at the end!” Wiping the tears from his eyes, he adds, “You should be a book critic.”
When their laughter subsides, Bernie muses, “She had a lover, a scholar named Kung, who published some fiery articles urging reform of the Manchu government. He left Peking in a big hurry the year after Chao-lin Ch’un disappeared. Reportedly went to Hang-chow. Makes you wonder, though, doesn’t it? Maybe he’s the one with the aggressive brush.” He holds up his glass. “Here’s to love and revolution.”
Kamil hesitates, then touches the rim of his glass to Bernie’s. He puts it down without sipping.
“Why revolution?”
“A few years after the two of them left Peking, there was an attempt to overthrow the Manchus. Unsuccessful. Might have nothing to do with these two, but it makes a good romantic yarn.”
“Is this poem well known?”
“Not at all. I’m not sure whether it was even published. I got hold of it as a privately circulated manuscript. Looks like someone at Dolmabahche Palace has the same manuscript, although I don’t know of any sinologists who would have been around here to translate it.”
“Why do you think the pendant came from Dolmabahche? Why not Yildiz Palace?”
Bernie appears nonplussed. “Well, that’s where most of the women are, right? They’d be the ones wearing a pendant.”
“And reading Chinese poetry?”
“Probably not. I know some of them have really good tutors, but learning Chinese is a lifetime project. Unless the sultan has a concubine from China or from the tribal peoples that border it.”
“The palace prefers Circassians, but it is possible. There’s no way to know; there are hundreds of women in the imperial household.”
Kamil reflects on the coffered ceiling. “I guess it was too much to hope that the necklace would offer some kind of clue. Perhaps someone simply had unusual taste in jewelry and it wasn’t made here at all.” He turns it over with his thumbnail. “But what about the tughra?”
Bernie’s smile does not reach his eyes, which seem fixed on a deep memory, as if the present moment were no more than thin ice. He shakes his head and faces Kamil.
“It’s an odd thing. Can’t help you there. Maybe the pendant was made somewhere else and inscribed with the Chinese characters, then found its way here and was monogrammed with the tughra. Or maybe someone at the palace was interested in Chinese poetry and had it made, then gave it to Mary as a gift.”
The tone is in the wrong key, too lighthearted. Kamil is sure Bernie is hiding something.
“It’s possible. Mary was here for almost a year. But who would know Chinese?”
Besides Bernie. Kamil frowns. He will have to find out more about his friend. The thought saddens him. Kamil rises to go, pleading an engagement.
12
The young boy tamps a golden wad of fragrant tobacco into the bowl of the old man’s narghile. As he kneels, head lowered, to attend to their water pipes, Kamil can see the whorls of his short hair, like the grain in wood, and the flanges of his ears.
Ferhat Bey waits until the boy leaves and he has taken a deep draught of fresh smoke before turning to Kamil and continuing.
“There isn’t much I can tell you. We searched the area thoroughly. There were no clues.”
They are sitting in a coffeehouse in the Beyazit quarter, not far from the entrance to the Grand Bazaar. The coffeehouse is part of a large complex of buildings attached to a venerable old mosque. It is late afternoon, a hiss of rain on the flagstones. They sit on a bench, feet tucked under their robes against the wet chill. An old man reclines on the bench in the far corner of the room, his eyes closed, a gnarled hand curled around the mouthpiece of his narghile. The air is redolent of scented tobacco and drying wool.
Kamil takes the amber mouthpiece from his lips and exhales slowly. The light from the window shudders and is gone. Kamil adjusts his woolen mantle around his shoulders.
The former superintendent of police is a wiry, gray-haired man with a deeply seamed face but hands incongruously unmarked by time, as fair and supple as a girl’s.
“We thought immediately of Ismail Hodja’s household, of course. The body was found right behind his property, after all, and there are no other residences in the area.”
“Yes,” Kamil murmurs his assent. “That would be the first place to look. Did you find anything?”
Ferhat Bey does not answer for a moment, his eyes fixed on the coals, then returns his attention to Kamil. He is painfully aware that Kamil has neglected to defer to him and assumes this is because Kamil is the son of a pasha and used to taking on airs. Still, in deference to his age, Kamil should speak less directly. One shows respect through formality, through indirection; there are necessary locutions within which questions and responses should be couched, muffled, like winter padding on a horse’s hooves, so that the ring of fact on stone remains the prerogative of the elder, the teacher. What has he got to teach this upstart? thinks Ferhat Bey bitterly. He had failed and this brash young man will fail too.
“Who made up the household at that time?” Kamil asks.
The old man sighs and answers slowly, showing his displeasure at being interrogated. The young upstart should read the file; he had noted at least this much before he stopped writing.
“Household? Ismail Hodja, of course. His sister and niece. The niece’s governess, a Frenchwoman. She found the body. A gardener and a groom that live on the property. Daily maids and a cook that live in the village.”
He stops and draws on his pipe. Kamil waits until Ferhat Bey has expelled the smoke into the room, but when the old superintendent does not continue, he presses him eagerly.
“Can you tell me what they said, where they were that day and the night before? Did they see anything?”
Ferhat Bey wishes he had not agreed to this meeting. Stubbornly, he draws out the silence.
Kamil understands that he has been too forward. This man is too old to be converted to a modern approach to solving crime, Kamil thinks. To him, the important thing is that he is an elder who was once a man of rank. The puzzle of a crime is worth nothing when measured against your place in society. The fact that Kamil resists this himself does not mean that others agree. He adjusts his manner accordingly.
“Superintendent Efendi,” he says, using the man’s title out of politeness, “I would much appreciate any help you could give me in solving this crime. I wonder whether your experience with the other investigation could help me shed light on this one. There seem to be some similarities, although I could be wrong. I defer to your judgment in this.”
Mollified, Ferhat Bey’s interest is piqued.
“What similarities?”
“Both young women were English and had positions as governesses with members of the imperial family. Both bodies were found in water. The second woman probably was thrown into the Bosphorus between Emirgan and Chamyeri.” He tells Ferhat Bey what the night fisherman saw. He does not mention the pendant, or the dilated pupils.
The superintendent looks up at Kamil craftily, his eyes scanning Kamil’s face for a reaction to what he says next.