The Aviary Gate (13 page)

The other guests are mostly Turks, if you can call them guests. They don't seem to stay here, but come to drink tea with the owner, Haddba, if she's here, or just sit around doing crossword puzzles or playing draughts.

She looked up again. The Turk was still there, reading his newspaper. The rustle of his paper made a peaceful sound in the otherwise silent room.

I meet the other lodgers over breakfast every morning, and sometimes in the drawing room, which is the most amazing place full of palms in brass pots and stiff Edwardian furniture, and an old record player, like the one my parents once had (strange to think it's more or less a museum piece now). You can stack all these old LPs on to it, one on top of another, and they play for hours, very crackly scratchy music for the most part. Occasionally one of the records gets stuck, and then we all play a kind of game waiting to see who will be the first to crack and get up to unstick it …

As soon as I can I'll look for somewhere else …

Later on, lured by watery sunlight, Elizabeth went for a walk. In her hand, in the pocket of her coat, she felt the smoothness of her phone, like a talisman. Still no messages. She walked through the narrow streets, with their innumerable little
pasajs
, where intellectual-looking men in fedoras sat playing dominoes or reading the papers; past the spectres of the old embassies in the main street, Istiklal Caddesi, past the pudding shops and
büfes
.

Any other time she would have enjoyed the ordinariness of it. But now it was all Elizabeth could do to bow her head against the cold and walk on. Although it was only November, she could smell snow; the air was brittle against her face.

Everything is grey, I am grey, she thought again, dragging herself listlessly across the Galata Bridge. Men with fishing rods lined the balustrades. Beyond them, on the other side, the minarets of the mosques and their curious squat domes seemed sinister, looming over the horizon like fantastic insects.

On the Karaköy docks on the other side of the bridge, Elizabeth stopped. She hovered briefly on the steps of the Yeni Cammi, the ‘new' mosque built by a sixteenth-century Valide Sultan, but did not have the energy to go in. Instead she walked down to where the ferries docked.

So this is Constantinople, she said to herself. And this, the watery inlet that divides it from Galata, is the Golden Horn. Elizabeth shivered. Hardly very golden, she thought, staring into the water moodily. The water was dark, almost black, and clouded by a faint oily iridescence. Men with charcoal burners roasted chestnuts at the water's edge, others carried trays of snacks: bread rings covered with
sesame seeds, pistachio nuts, strange-looking rubbery tubers which turned out to be fried mussels.

Elizabeth bought a bag of pistachios for Rashid and a fish sandwich for herself. She stood eating the sandwich, looking back across the water to where she had just come from, and tried to find the street with Haddba's guest house in it, but at this distance all she could make out was the Galata Tower, and beneath it a tangle of telegraph wires, billboards and buildings, glinting yellow and pink, running down to the water's edge.

The smoke from the roasting chestnuts swirled. Elizabeth gazed across the water. The vanished place known as the Vines of Pera had once been there, where Paul Pindar had lived. She tried to imagine how it must once have looked, the district on the other side of the Golden Horn where the houses of the foreign merchants had once stood, their waterfront wharves filled with bolts of cloth with jewel-like names: cambrics and calamancoes, damasks and galloons, tiffanies, taffetas and cobweb lawn.

The Genoese had been the first to start trading with the Ottomans in Constantinople, then the Venetians, followed by the French. The English merchants were relative newcomers, muscling in with all the energy and brashness of youth, to claim their place amongst the established trading powers. Upsetting the apple cart, I shouldn't wonder, Elizabeth smiled to herself. Is that how they were seen? Upstarts,
nouveaux
. She imagined them: City barrow boys, improbably dressed in doublets and hose.

In her pocket, Elizabeth felt her phone vibrate. She snatched at it, her cold fingers nearly dropping it on the pavement in her eagerness to answer it.

Oh, Marius, Marius my
… But it was not Marius.

‘Hello, Elizabeth,' A woman's voice. ‘It's Berin.'

‘Berin!' Elizabeth tried to sound enthusiastic.

‘I have some good news for you. At least I hope you will be pleased.'

‘You've got my reader's pass?'

‘Well, not yet, but don't worry, it won't be long now. No, something else. Do you remember I told you that I'd been interpreting for that English production company that's making a film here?'

‘Yes, I remember.'

‘Well, I spoke to the director's assistant. I told her about your project, and she was really interested. She says that if you want you can come in with us to the palace when they film there on Monday. The place is usually closed to visitors on that day but they've been given special permission to film inside the old harem. They'll just put you on the list as one of their researchers, and then you can have a really good look around.'

‘That's fantastic, Berin.'

‘Usually you can only get in on a timed ticket, and even then they only allow you to stay in there for about fifteen minutes with a guard breathing down your neck. Somebody up there …'

Berin was still speaking when one of the ferries sounded its horn.

‘What was that?'

‘I said, somebody up there must love you.'

‘Thanks Berin,' Elizabeth managed a wintry smile. ‘I'm glad someone does.'

The house of the astronomer Jamal al-Andalus was at the top of a narrow street in the network of steeply winding alleyways which ran from the Galata Tower down towards the merchants' wharves on the waterfront. Paul and Carew were escorted there by two of the embassy janissaries. It was early still and there were not many people about. The houses leant together, their wooden walls buffed to a rich brown patina. Vines grew on trellises between them, throwing a dappled shade on to the ground.

‘So, who is this fellow, then, this astronomer?' Carew asked him as they walked.

‘Jamal? I've known him since I first came to Constantinople. You know how long I've been here, waiting while the Honourable Company quibbled over what gifts were to be sent to the new Sultan. I heard of Jamal al-Andalus, one-time protégé of the astronomer Takiuddin, quite early on. I tracked him down and asked him to teach me astronomy.'

‘Takiuddin?'

‘The master is dead now, but he was a great man in his day. He built a famous observatory here in Constantinople, in the time of the old Sultan, Murad III. Jamal was one of his pupils, the most brilliant of them all, so they say.'

‘Is that where we're going, to the observatory?'

‘Not exactly. It is an observatory of a kind, but not Takiuddin's. His was destroyed years ago.'

‘What happened to it?'

‘The Sultan was persuaded by some of the religious leaders that it was against the will of God to pry into the secrets of nature. They sent a wrecking squad of soldiers who destroyed the entire observatory. Books, instruments, everything,' Paul shook his head. ‘They say that the instruments Takiuddin had built here were the finest the world has ever seen – more accurate even than Tycho Brahe's in Uraniborg.'

They had now reached a house that looked like a small tower. One of the janissaries knocked on the door with his stave.

‘That's all very well,' Carew said looking round him, ‘but what's his business at the palace? That's what we've come for isn't it, to see if he can help us?'

‘Jamal goes to the palace school where he teaches the little princes their numbers.'

‘Do you know how often he goes there?'

‘I'm not sure. Often enough. People talk – he'd be bound to pick something up if he knew what to listen out for.'

‘And you really think he'd do that for you?' Carew was sceptical. ‘Why would he? Won't it be dangerous for him, spying for a foreigner, a Christian at that?'

‘I'm not going to ask him to spy, just to help us find something out.'

‘Fog wouldn't like it.'

‘Fog will never know.'

Jamal's servant, a boy of about twelve, opened the door and admitted them. Carew waited with the janissaries while Paul, as befitted his superior status, was shown into an antechamber. After a few minutes, a small man of middle years, wearing a long tunic of snow-white cotton cloth, entered the room.

‘Paul, my friend!'

‘Jamal!'

The two embraced.

‘It's early for us to call on you. I hope you weren't sleeping?'

‘Not at all, not at all. You know me, I never sleep. What matters is that you're here. Why, it's been weeks – I thought you'd forgotten me.'

‘Forget you, Jamal? You know I'd never do that.'

‘You've been busy, of course, with the affairs of your embassy.'

‘So I have. Our company's ship, the
Hector
, arrived at last, two weeks ago now.'

‘Indeed, my friend, it would have been hard to miss.' The astronomer's eyes gleamed. ‘The
Hector
is the talk of the town. And they say she has brought our Sultan and our Valide Sultan – blessings be upon them – the most wonderful gifts. An English horse-drawn carriage for our Sultan's mother. And for His Majesty a mechanical clock that plays tunes – can this really be so?'

‘The company is giving the Sultan an organ as a gift. But I believe that it also incorporates a clock, angels that blow trumpets, a bush full of songbirds that sing and I don't know what else. As many marvellous automata as our ingenious organ maker could devise. It's to be the most wonderful device the Sultan has ever seen, or so it will be as soon as our organ maker has repaired it. Six months in the bowels of the
Hector
took their toll, alas, but mark my words, it will be worth the wait. So you see,' Paul smiled, ‘for once, the rumours are true.'

‘Rumour and truth? I would be careful before I put those two together. All the same, I congratulate you.' The astronomer made a small bow. ‘And now your ambassador, the esteemed Sir Henry, can present his credentials at last,' he said. ‘You see, I am a palace spy! I know everything.' He caught sight of Carew, still standing outside the antechamber. ‘But who is your friend? You have brought someone to meet me, I see. Bring him in, by all means.'

‘I've brought John Carew with me.'

‘The famous Carew? The one who is always in trouble – whom has he broiled now?'

‘My esteemed ambassador's cook, I'm afraid, but that's a long story. You mustn't mind him, Jamal. His manners are – how shall I put it? – a little rough sometimes. He was with my father's household for many years, and now I have brought him into mine, but if the truth is to be told he is more like a brother to me than a servant.'

‘Then he shall be as a brother to me also.'

Paul beckoned to Carew to come forwards. ‘Jamal says are you the one who is always in trouble? What shall I tell him, John?'

‘Tell him I am the one who's gone halfway round the world in a leaky tub to do my master's bidding,' Carew returned the astronomer's
steady gaze. ‘Tell him how I've helped get you out of trouble as many times as I've been in it. Tell him to mind his own …'

‘Greetings, John Carew.
Al-Salam alaykum
.' The astronomer bowed, putting his right hand to his heart.

‘Greetings, Jamal al-Andalus,
Wa alaykum al-Salam
.' Carew returned the customary greeting. He turned to Paul. ‘From what you told me, I thought he'd be older.'

‘Well, I am sorry to disappoint,' Jamal gave a slow but brilliant smile. ‘You, on the other hand, John Carew,' he said gracefully, ‘are exactly as your master describes.'

‘My apologies, Jamal, for my servant's bad manners,' Paul said ‘Jamal al-Andalus is a famed scholar, and a very wise man; wise beyond his years, it is true. Wise enough, happily, not to pay any attention to a numbskull like you.'

‘D'you know,' Carew flashed a quick smile at the astronomer, ‘there are times when my master sounds just like his father.'

Jamal al-Andalus gazed from one to the other of them. His eyes, which were startlingly black and bright, gleamed with amusement.

‘Come, gentlemen! Come, please, let me offer you some refreshment.'

Jamal led them up some stairs to the first floor of the house through to a second small antechamber. Cushions had been placed along a raised platform, and latticed windows gave out over the street below. Over the rooftops the distant grey shimmer of the Bosphorous was just visible. The same servant boy who had opened the door to them brought a pot and some tiny cups on a tray.

‘This is our
kahveh
, an arab drink from the Yemen. Would you like to try it, John Carew? Paul has quite a taste for it already.'

Carew sipped at the aromatic liquid, which tasted thick and bittersweet on his tongue.

‘It has many interesting properties,' Jamal said, draining his cup. ‘One of them is that it helps to keep me awake at night, so I can work for longer,' he turned to Paul, ‘but you are a little early in the day for stargazing, my friend.'

‘I didn't come for that. I came to bring you a gift, a small token of my esteem. I had Carew bring it out with him on the
Hector
.' Paul took out a small leather-bound volume and gave it to the astronomer.
‘
De revolutionibus orbium coelestium libri sex
, Six Books on the Revolution of the Heavenly Spheres.'

‘Ah, your Nicolaus Copernicus.' The astronomer smiled. ‘My master, Takiuddin – may he be granted grace – often spoke to me of him. How can I thank you? They destroyed all my books you know. Almost all of them anyway.'