The Baklava Club: A Novel (Investigator Yashim) by Jason Goodwin

Author:Jason Goodwin [Goodwin, Jason]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781429949552
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Published: 2014-06-10T00:00:00+00:00

40

YASHIM waited by a pillar, looking out over the cobbled yard of the Sublime Porte. Two officers in uniform stood to attention by the gates in the full glare of the sun. Several windows were open overhead; from one of them a man with long mustaches was scattering crumbs for the pigeons on the windowsill.

There was no harm in feeding birds. On the contrary, it was a meritorious act, a kindness. Yashim heard a clapping of wings, and took a deep breath.

Perhaps the man with the mustaches had limed the window sill?

“Do you expect a reply, Yashim efendi?”

A door opened on the court and a chaush in yellow livery jogged by, carrying a message. At the gate he saluted; the officers acknowledged him.

Yashim had encountered cruelty before; had been its victim, when his mother was murdered and he had been pinned down, trapped struggling and screaming in the cave.

He remembered the soft hiss of his mentor, years later: mentor, tormentor. “The eunuch.” He’d blotted out the cruelty, moved on; rebelled, finally.

He swayed, as if he stood at the edge of a dark abyss.

“Efendi? Are you all right?”

Yashim blinked. Natasha’s story had dimmed his vision. He saw design in simple gestures, cruelty in gentle faces.

“I’m sorry. What did you say?” There was the courtyard, in the sun, and here was a secretary.

“I wondered if you expected any reply, Yashim efendi.”

He saw a young man wearing the fez and the stambouline, with a gentian in his buttonhole. He was one of those modern young men, undoubtedly fluent in a foreign language, who had joined the service since Yashim’s day, without moving through the traditional palace schools. The gentian signaled ambition, Yashim suspected, rather than romance.

“Possibly. I’ll wait.”

When the secretary had gone, an old man in slippers and a fez emerged from a basement staircase onto the courtyard, dangling a tray of coffee cups from his finger. He crossed the courtyard and pushed open a door and disappeared.

Yashim thought of Natasha’s bundle, of the grave she’d dug in the thawing ground.

A thin gray lizard zigzagged down the pillar and sped off across the stones.

“Yashim efendi? The pasha would like to speak to you.”

He followed the young secretary upstairs, to the creak of his leather shoes.

The secretary knocked at a door.

“Come!”

“Yashim efendi.”

“Very good. You may leave us, Orhan.”

The door closed. Midhat Pasha was standing by the window, erect in his black tailored coat, with tightly curled gray hair cut short and pince-nez on his nose. He looked at Yashim over them.

Eventually, Midhat Pasha removed his glasses and tapped them on a paper he held in his hand.

“Bad business, young man.”

“Yes, my pasha.” Yashim was not sure how much he should reveal he knew. It was supposed to have been a perfect secret, but now …

“Ambassador Palewski has been shot.”

“Hmm?”

“He had Prince—”

But Midhat Pasha raised his hand, dangling the wire spectacles. “Tsk, tsk. If you know, so be it.”

Yashim bowed. He had known Midhat Pasha for many years. Almost twenty years, when as an unhappy youth he had been taken into the palace school.

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