Part 22 (1/2)
MELDA collapsed onto the divan, weeping.
She was dressed in the usual harem motley, a jumble of tailored and traditional costume bought in Paris and the Grand Bazaar, Turkish slippers peeping out from beneath French petticoats, a slashed and striped velvet jacket over a bodice of ruched silk, a corded girdle and a muslin shawl.
Yas.h.i.+m drew up a stool and perched on it, one leg drawn up, wrists dangling.
”Melda, my name is Yas.h.i.+m. I want to talk about what happened to Elif.”
The girl covered her face with her hands.
”She was ill, Melda, wasn't she? Something inside, that was hurting her very badly. She should have seen a doctor.” He frowned. ”You know what a doctor is, Melda?”
Melda's shoulders heaved. Very gently, Yas.h.i.+m took her wrists and lowered her hands.
”Melda?”
She turned her face away.
”Tell me,” Yas.h.i.+m urged. ”Tell me what happened to Elif.”
She shook her head convulsively.
”I-have-seen-the engine,” she gasped.
”The engine?”
She dragged her hands free and clapped them over her ears, rocking to and fro.
”I don't understand, Melda.”
Her eyes grew very wide, and she moved her hands to cover her mouth. Outside, the muezzin was calling the faithful to Friday prayers.
”How could you understand?” she burst out. ”You-did you step out from a rock, or drop from a stork's beak? Did I grow like an apple on a tree? No!” Bright spots had appeared on her cheeks, and her hands were clenched. Gone was the court lisp, the fluting voice, the trembling eyelash. Melda spoke in the stony voice of the mountains where she was raised; and she evoked an ancient bitterness, as old as the pagan G.o.ds of Circa.s.sia. ”Men plant children in our bellies, and we bear them until we die.”
Yas.h.i.+m rocked slowly back.
Melda turned her eyes on him and then, like a snake, she drew back her head and spat.
”Elif was pregnant.”
Yas.h.i.+m remained motionless, gazing at the girl's face. ”The sultan chose her?”
The Kislar aga had said nothing about that, Yas.h.i.+m thought. Everything about a girl was carefully considered before she was promoted to gozde: her looks, her bearing, her conduct. To be selected to share the sultan's bed was a very high honor: from it, with ordinary luck, flowed all the rewards the sultan could bestow upon a woman-rank, and fortune, and power within these four walls.
”The sultan?” Her lips trembled. ”How? How, efendi, could that be?”
She covered her face with her hands and began to sob.
Yas.h.i.+m murmured a few words: he hardly knew what to say. He stood up and went to find the Kislar aga.
76.
”TELL me-” He hesitated. ”Was Elif a gozde?”
The aga looked puzzled. ”A gozde? Certainly not. Elif was a musician, Yas.h.i.+m. She played in the ladies' orchestra, and she and Melda were also kalfas. They look after a little girl.”
”And before she came here? Three, four months ago, when Abdulmecid was still a prince?”
Ibou shrugged. ”I don't understand your questions, Yas.h.i.+m.”
”I want to know when Elif met the sultan. Perhaps while he was still crown prince?”
”She didn't meet him. Not face-to-face, not to be introduced. The only time she's seen Abdulmecid is at our concerts. We do not have the sultan roaming the corridors, meeting ladies.”
”Ibou,” Yas.h.i.+m said gently. ”It seems that Elif was pregnant.”
The silence between them p.r.i.c.kled like toasted spice.
”Do you know what you are saying?” Ibou whispered. His face was waxy with-what? Astonishment? Fear?
”Elif died from bleeding,” Yas.h.i.+m said. ”What you saw, those marks, were made by her own nails. She was clawing at her own flesh.” He paused. ”What you haven't seen is the sheet under the bed. It's soaked in blood. If Melda is right, I would guess that Elif miscarried.”
The aga collected himself. ”No. Pembe was the sultan's gozde before he became sultan-with the unfortunate results you know about. Since then, he has taken only two other women. Leyla and Demet, both of them selected by-b-b-by me, and B-Bezmialem. To suggest that the sultan would take another woman into his bed, without protocol, is absurd. He is ruled by the traditions of the house of Osman. And Demet and Leyla would prevent it, anyway.”
”To the death?”
Ibou frowned. ”They would only have to speak to me, Yas.h.i.+m. There would be no need to talk of death.”
Yas.h.i.+m sighed. The legitimate gozde would hardly stand idly by while the sultan dallied with another girl.
”This is not a house in the city, Yas.h.i.+m. The sultan never goes alone. Every minute of the day, every hour of the night, he is watched and cared for.”
”Was Elif watched every minute of the day? At night?”