The Aviary Gate (10 page)

‘It isn't?'

There must have been a note of alarm in Elizabeth's voice because the woman gave her a sudden amused smile. ‘Don't look so worried. Please …' she indicated a second string chair next to her.

Elizabeth was so surprised she sat down.

‘You slept well?'

‘Yes,' Elizabeth stared at her. ‘Thank you.'

‘I'm so glad. You have slept, you have eaten, and in a moment you shall tell me your plans. But first, please take some tea with me. Have you ever tried our apple tea?'

‘No …' Elizabeth realised that she must be staring almost rudely at the woman. She forced herself to glance away.

‘No? Then you must try some. My name is Haddba, by the way. I am very pleased to make your acquaintance.'

‘How do you do?' Elizabeth found herself shaking a proffered hand. ‘Excuse me, but if this isn't a hotel …'

‘One moment please – Rashid!'

A boy of about ten appeared, and was despatched to get the tea.

‘Now.' Haddba gave Elizabeth an appraising look. Her eyes, Elizabeth saw, were exquisitely shaped, like teardrops; their lids, which had the thick creamy consistency of gardenia petals, drooped over them heavily, giving her a sleepy look, totally belied by a pair of piercing black eyes. ‘I feel I should explain, we are a guest house, not a hotel.'

‘Oh, I see!' Elizabeth said, relieved. ‘So that's why you have no name?'

‘Here in Beyoglu we are known simply as number 159.' The woman gave the name of the street. ‘That's the address to give your people.' Her English, although heavily accented, had a clipped quality to it, as if it had been learnt from an Edwardian phrase book. ‘Our guests usually stop here for some time: several weeks, sometimes even months.' The heavy eyelids blinked, once, twice, very slowly. ‘One tries not to be in any of the guide books.'

‘I wonder how the taxi knew to bring me here.'

‘But you are planning a long stay.' A statement, not a question.

‘Well, yes.' Elizabeth frowned. ‘But I don't remember telling the taxi driver that.'

‘It was late,' with exaggerated fastidiousness Haddba picked a piece of white fluff from the sleeve of her cardigan. ‘And no doubt he saw the size of your suitcase.' She laughed, making the golden earrings dance.

Except for the Valide herself, none of the senior palace women were present in the House of Felicity the day Celia was taken to the Sultan, an unusual occurrence which meant that the ritual ablutions – the scenting of her clothes and body, the careful choice of dress and jewels, and all the other preparations that it was customary for a new concubine to undergo – had been performed in the event by Cariye Lala, the Under-Mistress of the Baths.

No one could remember when Lala had first come to the House of Felicity. It was said amongst the other
cariye
that she had been there even before the Valide Sultan herself, as a still-young woman, had arrived, and was one of the very few to have served under the old Valide Nurbanu and her Harem Stewardess, the powerful Janfreda Khatun. At Sultan Murad's death most of the old guard, his women and his daughters, had moved, as was the custom, to the Eski Saray, the old palace. ‘“The Palace of Tears”, they call it,' Cariye Lala used to say when one or other of the younger women, curious about her life, asked her. ‘I remember the day they all left. How we cried. And the little princes, dead, all dead, killed to keep the new Sultan safe.' Her rheumy eyes watered over. ‘And some no more than babes. We cried until we thought we should go blind.'

Cariye Lala, her bones now bent and her skin beginning to weather, her face gradually subsiding into the featurelessness of age, had never been beautiful enough, even in her first youth, to catch the Sultan's eye. After she had been sold into the palace she had been trained, as was the custom for all women entering the Sultan's
household, in each of the palace departments, ending up with the Mistress of the Baths, under whose supervision, all these years later, she still remained. Never clever or ambitious enough – or so it was always assumed – to rise to the top of that hierarchy herself, none the less she had become something of a feature in palace life, a last dusty link to the old ways, an expert on palace ritual and etiquette.

‘It is not the only kind of etiquette she knows about,' the first handmaid had once told the two new slaves, Ayshe and Kaya.

‘They say she knows all the tricks,' agreed the second handmaid.

‘What kind of tricks?' Celia had asked.

But the others just stared at her and laughed.

‘Then you must bribe her to tell you,' Annetta had said in her definite way that very morning, the morning Celia had first learnt the news she was
göde
.

‘Bribe her?' Celia was still bemused.

‘With money, of course, you numbskull. You have got some saved?'

‘Yes, like you said.' Celia showed her the purse.

‘A hundred and fifty aspers! Good.' Annetta counted out the money quickly. ‘And I've got another hundred. What did I tell you? No use spending it on fripperies like the others do. This is what our daily stipend is for. Here, take them.'

‘Annetta, I couldn't—'

‘Don't argue with me. Just take them.'

‘But that's two hundred and fifty aspers!'

‘Probably no more than a week's wages for our old Lala,' Annetta said shrewdly, ‘not much for the experience of a lifetime. Or so we hope. All I can say is, she'd better be good! I remember a poem my mother used to recite – before she put me in the convent, that is.
Cosi dolce e gustevole divento/Quando mi trovo in letto …'
Annetta spoke the words mockingly, ‘“So sweet and appetising do I become, When I find myself in bed, With him who loves and welcomes me, That our pleasure surpasses all delight.” You are to find out how to make yourself sweet and appetising, that's all. Poor Celia!'

Bending over, Celia cupped her hands together under her left ribs and moaned softly to herself. ‘Couldn't you go in my place?'

‘Why?' Annetta said tartly. ‘Because I was brought up in a brothel?
Santa Madonna
, I think not.'

‘But you … you know about these things.'

‘Not I, sweet Celia,' Annetta replied lightly. ‘Not I.'

‘But you do, you know about so many things. And I,' Celia shrugged her shoulders despairingly, ‘I am all at sea.'

‘Tsh! Are you mad?' Annetta gave Celia's arm a sharp pinch.

‘Ow!'

‘Can't you see? Haven't you noticed how they all look at you, now you are
gözde
? Spare us your maidenly blushes,' Annetta almost spat into her ear. ‘We've been given a chance and you, my dear, are it. And this may be our only one.'

They came for Celia later that day, and took her without ceremony straight to the Valide's private hammam. Cariye Lala was there to meet her.

‘Undress, undress, don't be shy,' Cariye Lala peered at Celia. The irises of her eyes, Celia saw, were still startlingly blue, the whites very white.

Her servant, a very young black girl, no more than twelve years old, helped Celia take off her overdress and her shift. She seemed so in awe, Celia noticed, that she barely raised her head, far less her eyes, or looked either of them in the face. Her hands, with their small pink undersides, were like the hands of some poor caged creature, probing softly and tremblingly at the long row of tiny, stiff pearl buttons down the front of Celia's dress.

I wonder where you have come from, Celia found herself thinking. Are you happy to be here, as many women here say they are, or do you wish yourself back home, as I do, every moment of the day? A sudden feeling of pity for the little girl swept over her. She tried to smile some encouragement, but her smile only seemed to make the girl's efforts all the more tremulous.

I must seem so far above her, Celia thought with a sudden insight. The Sultan's new concubine! Or perhaps I might be, she reminded herself, since I am not his choice after all, but I am to be a gift from his mother, the Valide. How different it would have been if Annetta had been chosen instead of me. Annetta – clever, restless, as sharp-witted as a monkey – would know just
how to play the part. But how strange, how unreal, it feels to me.

Cariye Lala took Celia by the hand and helped her into a pair of high wooden pattens, their sides inlaid with chips of mother-of-pearl. From the disrobing chamber she led her into a second room. It was warmer in here, and almost dark except for a small brazier burning in a corner. Steam, scented faintly with eucalyptus, hung in the air like wisps of cloud. On three walls were marble niches from which water cascaded, filling the room with their sound.

‘Lie down – over there.'

Cariye Lala pointed to an octagonal-shaped slab of marble in the middle of the room. Positioned in the ceiling above it was a small dome, its sides pierced to let in the natural light.

Cautiously, Celia walked across the room, the unfamiliar wooden pattens clacking on the floor. Although she was now four inches taller than normal, her nakedness made her feel somehow shrunken in size. For the first time she hesitated. Instead of lying down, she sat herself awkwardly on the slab, the small shock of cold white marble stinging her buttocks. She held the purse that Annetta had given her awkwardly in one hand.

‘
Cariye?
'

Celia's heart beat faster now. She must delay no longer. In her palm the purse felt heavy, and strangely unreassuring. What if Cariye Lala did not understand? How could she possibly ever explain what she hoped to receive in exchange for this money, all two hundred and fifty aspers of it, a small fortune to Celia herself, who in spite of being
gözde
still carried the ranking of one of the lowliest members of the harem? The very thought made two spots of shame rise to Celia's cheeks. She thought of Annetta, and willed herself to have courage.

‘Cariye Lala?'

But Cariye Lala was far away in a bathhouse world of lotions and depilatory creams, priceless vials of attar of roses, balm of Mecca, and jars of honeyed unguents, all set before her in gleaming rows like an apothecary's shopfront. As she worked, she sang to herself: her voice, surprisingly sweet and clear, echoed from the marble walls. Celia's mouth was dry; beads of sweat, like tiny seed pearls, pricked her brow. Desperately she rose to her feet on the teetering pattens.

‘For you, Cariye Lala.' Celia touched her gently on the arm. Wordlessly, the old woman took the purse from her. Then it was gone, vanished. Had she secreted it away in some hidden fold of her robe? Celia blinked. Where did it go? Two hundred and fifty aspers! She tried not to think what Annetta would say. The whole transaction had been accomplished so quickly it was as if it never happened.

Celia blinked again, uncertain what to do, but now Cariye Lala was leading her back to the marble slab. The little room was hotter than ever. With a shiver she imagined the unseen hands behind the walls feeding the furnace beneath the floor with gargantuan logs brought specially on the Sultan's own timber boats all the way from the forests of the Black Sea. The women had often watched them coming up the Bosphorous from the palace gardens.

Washing Celia was wet work. In preparation Cariye Lala had stripped herself almost naked; a thin cloth was tied around her bony shanks, but her old dugs swung freely as she worked, their nipples long and shrivelled, the colour and texture of dried plums. Sometimes they knocked against Celia's back and legs as she lay face down on the marble.

What now? Poor Celia was tormented. What should I do now? Shall I say something to her, or just keep silent? The marble, burning to the touch now, stung her cheek and neck. For a woman who seemed so frail, Cariye Lala was full of surprising energy. She gripped Celia by the upper arm, and set to with a will.

As she worked the servant girl handed her water in silver pitchers, first hot, then gasping cold. Cariye Lala sluiced and scrubbed. On her hand was a rough hessian mitten with which she rubbed Celia all over. Celia's skin was so fair that soon that milky whiteness, which the Sultan would in a few hours be offered for his enjoyment, had flushed to a rosy glow, and finally, a stinging crimson blush. A small moan escaped from Celia's lips. She tried to pull herself away, but she found herself now in a vice-like grip. Cariye Lala was able to hold her down with as much ease as if she were a prize-fighter. Celia struggled briefly, then lay still.

Turning Celia over on to her back, the old woman began again, with renewed vigour this time. No part of Celia's body, it seemed, could escape this cleansing zeal: the tender skin of her breasts and belly, the soles and arches of her pretty feet. No part of her was too
private. Celia blushed and flinched to feel Cariye Lala's hands spreading her buttocks, fingering the rose-coloured creases at the tops of her thighs.

From the brazier the girl now brought a small earthenware pot, its contents full of the clay that Celia had learnt was called
ot
. Since entering the House of Felicity, she had become accustomed to the bathing which took place constantly amongst the palace women, the ritual cleanliness that was a requirement of the new religion which they must all now espouse, and which normally took place in the cheerfully crowded and gossipy fug of the communal baths in the courtyard of the
cariyes
. This activity would have been regarded with amazement, and quite possibly dismay, by her distinctively muskier English and Italian friends who bathed rarely, if at all. Even when she was first brought to the palace, Celia had found herself enjoying those long scented hours in the bathhouse, some of the few in which she and Annetta could whisper freely with the other girls, uninvigilated, and unrestrained. The appliance of
ot
was the one bathhouse requirement, however, that Celia still regarded with both repulsion and dread.