Chapter 20: A Promise to Zeynep

Chapter 20: Chapter 20: A Promise to Zeynep

I

Constantinople, Emin?nü — 14 June 1905

On the tenth anniversary of the day that he met her, Ayaan discovered that he had been keeping something from himself.

It began with a small matter. A customer asked what a bottle of Viennese ink had cost the year before, and he found the answer at once, as he found everything: the line in the ledger, the date, the color of the cover.

Then, idly, he tried a different page of memory.

It was an afternoon in the summer of 1895, in the lane behind the shop. A girl of five with a thick dark braid had walked across the cobbles, watched him spin a wooden top for a full minute, and informed him that he was doing it wrongly.

He remembered it whole. The sentence, the angle of her chin, the way she had taken the top from his hand and set it spinning so that it hummed.

He remembered, too, that he had thought at the time, this one will argue with me for the rest of my life.

It was an odd thought for a child. It was a stranger one for a man of twenty-one in a body of five, and he had put it away without examining it.

Now he examined it, and he found that the memory had a worn edge.

His mind kept everything without distinction. A ledger line, a face in a crowd, a page of Sa’di, each was held exactly and each was retrieved only when called. But some of the memories in his keeping were not merely retrieved. They were revisited, and he could feel that he had visited these often.

The first fig that she had stolen from her father’s warehouse. The morning that she had solved a ledger problem before he had finished stating it. The evening in the storeroom when she had told him that he was frightening himself with a list.

I have not only stored these. I have kept them.

The bell rang, and Zeynep came in from the lane with a basket on her arm and a smudge of ink on her wrist. She was fifteen, and her hair was pinned up now, and she had been taller than he was for the whole of the spring.

"You are staring at the shelf again," she said. "Are you counting nibs?"

"I am counting years."

"Which years?"

"Ten." He set down the bottle. "It is ten years today since you told me that I was spinning my top incorrectly."

She considered this, and the corner of her mouth moved.

"You were," she said. "You were gripping it far too hard."

"You took it from me."

"I improved it." She put down the basket. "I did not know that you remembered the day. It was only an afternoon."

"I remember all of them."

It was said lightly, and she took it as a jest, and laughed. But Ayaan stood behind the counter with his hands very still, and he understood that it had not been a jest at all.

II

Constantinople, Rüstem Pa?a — 22 June 1905

Zeynep told him on the steps of her father’s warehouse, in the voice that she used for reporting the price of paper.

"A family has made an offer for me."

Ayaan was holding a crate of lampwicks. He did not drop it, and he set it down on the step with great care.

"An offer."

"From Nazmi Bey, who keeps a customs brokerage in Galata. He has a son named Fuat, who is nineteen and has a good head for figures." She folded her arms. "My father received the letter yesterday, and he read it to my mother, and my mother cried a little. She says that it is a respectable house."

"Is it?"

"It is very respectable. I have asked about them."

The lane was loud around them, with the porters shouting and a dog barking at the gulls. Ayaan found that he could hear none of it.

He had expected that this would one day come. It was the way of the city, and it was the way of every family with a daughter of her age. He had even drafted, in the blue book, a short and sensible note on how such matters were usually arranged.

None of it helped him now.

She is to be asked. A man in Galata has asked, and Mustafa Efendi must answer.

I am a grocer’s son of fifteen, and I have no standing to say a word.

"What do you think?" said Zeynep.

"It is not for me to think."

"I did not ask what is proper. I asked what you think."

He opened his mouth, and for the first time in his life, in either life, no sentence came.

His memory offered him a hundred. It supplied the correct form of congratulation, and the correct form of regret, and the correct form of neutral inquiry. None of them was true, and he found that he could not say a thing that was not true to her.

"I think that Fuat is nineteen, and I am fifteen," he said finally. "I think that it is a respectable house. And I think that I would like very much for you to refuse."

She looked at him steadily. Something moved in her face, quickly, and was gone.

"That is not a reason," she said.

"No. It is only the truth."

"I see." She unfolded her arms. "My father has not yet answered. He has told me that he will not decide without me, and that he does not intend to give me away."

"He is a good man."

"He is the best man in this lane, after yours." She smiled slightly. "But he also says that a respectable house does not come twice, and that I must think."

"What will you think about?"

"Whether I wish to be a wife in Galata, with a kitchen and a household and a husband who counts customs duties." She tilted her head. "Or whether I wish to remain what I am."

"What are you?"

"I do not yet know." Her voice was steady, but her eyes were very bright. "That is why I am thinking. Go home, Ayaan. I will tell you what I decide."

He went, and he did not remember the walk back to the shop.

III

Constantinople, Rüstem Pa?a — 24 June 1905

His mother found him on the roof at dusk, where he had been sitting for an hour with his knees drawn up and his eyes on the water.

She did not speak at once. She sat beside him on the warm tiles, and she smoothed her skirt, and she looked at the Golden Horn.

"You have said nothing for two days," said Fatma at last. "Your father has noticed, and so has the cat."

"I am thinking, Anne."

"I know. I am the only person in this house who knows how loudly you think." She gave him a sidelong glance. "It is about Mustafa’s daughter."

He turned his head sharply.

"Do not look so startled. I have been watching you look at that girl since you were five." Fatma folded her hands in her lap. "I had hoped that you would find the word yourself, but I see that you have found it in the worst possible way."

"I do not know what you mean."

"Yes, you do." Her voice was gentle. "A boy discovers what he loves when he is about to lose it. It has always been so, and I do not suppose that you are the exception."

Ayaan said nothing. A ferry sounded its horn somewhere below, and the gulls rose from the roof of the mosque.

"Do you love her?" asked his mother.

"I do not know what the word should mean at fifteen."

"That is an honest answer, and a poor evasion." She almost smiled. "I will tell you what it means, in my experience. It is when you would rather have her argue with you than agree with another."

He laughed, shortly, and it surprised him.

"Then, yes."

"Good." She was quiet for a moment. "Now I will tell you something that you will not like. You must not say it to her yet."

"Why not?"

"Because words cost nothing, and a promise costs a great deal, and you are not yet able to pay." She said it without unkindness. "A grocer’s son who says I love you to a merchant’s daughter, with nothing in his hand, has said only that he wishes to be admired. If you wish to say it so that it means something, you must be able to say what you will do."

"What would I do?"

"That is for you to decide. But I think that you know." Fatma rose, and she brushed the dust from her skirt. "She is not a girl who will wait to be chosen, Ayaan. She will not thank you for being the one who chooses, either."

"I know that, Anne."

"I believe you do." She laid her hand briefly on his hair, as she had done when he was small. "Come down when it is dark. I will keep your supper."

He sat alone on the roof until the lamps came on in the lane below. When he went down, he had decided what he would say.

IV

Constantinople, Emin?nü — 30 June 1905

She came to the shop after the shutters were closed, as she had on a thousand evenings, and sat down on the crate in the storeroom.

"My father has asked me for my answer," said Zeynep. "I told him that I would give it to him tomorrow. I wished to speak to you first."

"Then I will speak first."

"That is not what I said."

"I know. Please let me say it, because if I do not say it tonight, I do not think that I will manage it at all." He stood in front of her with his hands at his sides. "I have found out something about myself, Zeynep. I have found it out very late, and very stupidly."

She waited.

"I love you." He said it plainly, and his voice shook only slightly. "I have loved you for a long time without knowing the name, and I know the name now, and I would not give it up for anything that I own."

For a moment, she did not move.

"I am fifteen, and I have a shop and a book of figures," he went on. "I cannot ask for you. I have no right to, and your father would be correct to refuse me, and you would be correct to refuse a boy who asked."

"Ayaan."

"Let me finish. I have made some promises to myself, and I wish you to hear them, because they concern you." He drew a breath. "I promise that I will never decide anything for you. If I ever ask you to do something, I will ask. If you refuse, I will accept it."

She said nothing, and her eyes did not leave his face.

"I promise that I will teach you everything that I know. All of it, the accounts and the banks and the trade and the law, so that when you sit across from anyone, you will know as much as they do and more." He gripped his own wrists. "And I promise that whatever I build, your name will be on it. Not beneath mine, and not as my wife. As my partner."

"That is a great deal to promise."

"It is the only thing worth promising."

"And what of the rest?" Her voice was low. "You have not promised to marry me."

"No. Because that is yours to give, and not mine." He met her eyes. "If you choose Fuat, or anyone, I will say that I am glad for you, and I will mean as much of it as I can. And I will still stand beside you in every other matter, for as long as you permit me."

Zeynep rose from the crate. She was a little taller than he was, and she looked down at him without any softening of her expression.

"You are a very foolish boy," she said.

"I know."

"You have spent a year learning how to say less, and you have said all of it in one speech."

"I did not wish to say less tonight."

"No. I do not suppose that you did." She was silent for a moment, and then she took a breath of her own. "Now I will say something, and you may not interrupt."

"I will not."

"I have known since I was twelve." The words came quickly, and she did not stop for him. "I knew on the day that you walked to the other side of the quay, because a porter had said something that I should not have heard, and you came back with a split lip and would not tell me what you had done. I was furious with you."

"I remember."

"I did not understand why I was furious. I understand it now." She almost laughed. "And I understand that you have just made a promise that most men could not keep, and that you have made it freely. That is the only reason that I do not strike you for waiting so long."

Ayaan was smiling, and he could not stop.

"I have conditions," said Zeynep.

"I expected that you would."

"I will not be told what to do. I will not be the one who waits at home. I will manage my own accounts, and I will make my own mistakes." She raised a finger. "And you will not keep things from me."

It was the one promise that he could not make whole. For a moment, the memory of the other life rose behind his eyes, vast and silent and impossible to speak of.

"I will tell you everything that I can," he said slowly. "And where I cannot, I will say that I cannot, and I will not lie to you about it. That is the best that I am able to give."

She searched his face for a long time.

"There is something," she said.

"There is."

"Will you tell me one day?"

"I will, if I can find the way." His voice was hoarse. "I cannot tonight."

Zeynep nodded once, slowly.

"Then it is enough for tonight," she said. "I will tell my father that I have an answer. I will tell him that it is no."

"For Fuat?"

"For Fuat. And for anyone who is not yet asking." She held out her hand, in the way that she had learned from the merchants. "Partners?"

He took it, and her fingers were warm, and they were inky.

"Partners," he said.

V

Constantinople, Emin?nü — 5 July 1905

Cevdet came in the afternoon, and he bought a ream of the Bohemian paper, as he did once a month, and he counted the coins with his usual exactness.

Ayaan wrapped it in brown paper and tied the string. He had been moving through the days since the storeroom with a lightness that he had not allowed himself in years, and he did not know whether it showed.

"You are in good spirits," said the scarred man.

"The ledgers are selling well, Efendi."

"I am sure that they are." Cevdet lifted the parcel and did not leave. "I have observed that you have been a little less careful, these last days, about the angle at which you hold your head when a certain person is in the room."

Ayaan went very still.

"I will be plain, young Hassan, as I have promised to be." The false amusement of the scar did not change, but the dark eyes were serious. "I know that a family in Galata made an offer for the daughter of your neighbor, and that she refused it. I know it because it was discussed in three coffee houses."

"It is a private matter, Efendi."

"It is. I have written it nowhere." He said it quietly. "I report what concerns the state, and I do not think that a girl’s refusal does."

"Then why do you tell me?"

"So that you need not wonder what I know." Cevdet shifted the parcel under his arm. "I find it a courtesy, in a contest of this kind, to say which of the pieces are not in play."

Ayaan studied the man for a long time. There was no threat in the voice, and no trick that he could find, and that in itself was a difficulty.

"You are an odd sort of adversary, Efendi."

"I have never said that I was your adversary." The scarred man smiled, and this time it was nearly gentle. "I have said only that I am attentive."

"What is the difference?"

"An adversary wishes to prevail. I wish to understand." He inclined his head. "Allah grant that the two never become the same thing."

The bell rang, and he was gone into the lane.

Zeynep came out of the storeroom a moment later with her brow drawn.

"He knows," she said.

"He knows that it was discussed in three coffee houses." Ayaan watched the door. "He does not know what was said in this room, and he has told me exactly where the line is."

"Do you trust it?"

"No," said Ayaan. "But I think that I have begun to believe him."

VI

Constantinople, Sirkeci — 12 July 1905

Hovsep Agopian had written to ask for Zeynep, and not for Ayaan.

It was a small matter, and an important one, and Ayaan sat on the bench outside the warehouse and tried to pretend that he was not listening at the door.

Inside, the merchant’s chair creaked, and the clock ticked, and Zeynep’s voice rose and fell in the measured, cool tone that she used for negotiations.

"Steel nibs from Birmingham," she was saying. "You have a correspondent in Trieste who ships to Smyrna. If you add a second consignment for us, at the same freight, the price for each box falls by a fifth."

"By a tenth," said Hovsep.

"By a fifth, Efendi. The freight is fixed by the ton, and a full hold costs you no more than a half one." She paused. "Your correspondent will be glad of the weight. He told you so in March."

A silence.

"How do you know what he told me in March?"

"It is in the letter that you showed my father. I read it upside down."

The merchant gave a bark of laughter, and the chair creaked again.

Ayaan leaned his head against the wall and closed his eyes. He had not been invited to the meeting, and no one had asked him to contribute, and he found that he did not mind it in the slightest.

I would have taken a tenth.

She will get her fifth, and it will be the correct price.

When the door opened, Hovsep was standing in it with a plate of figs, and his expression was one of rueful admiration.

"Your partner is a great deal sharper than you are," he said to Ayaan. "I wished you to know that I have said so to her face."

"I have known it for years, Efendi."

"Then why do you sit on a bench?"

"Because it is her meeting."

"Hm." The merchant shook his head and held out the plate. "That is the most sensible thing that I have heard from a boy in a long time. Eat. She has earned them for you."

Zeynep came out last, with her papers folded under her arm. She did not look at Ayaan, and she did not smile, and she walked to the end of the street at her usual brisk pace.

At the corner, she turned.

"A fifth," she said.

"I heard."

"You heard through the door."

"I did."

"Good." Her face broke into a grin that was entirely without restraint. "I wished you to."

They walked back toward Emin?nü together, side by side and not touching. At the tram stop, a thin man in a gray coat was reading a newspaper that he did not turn, and Ayaan saw him and felt no alarm at all.

The watching continues. It no longer matters.

Everything that he could report is something that I would be willing to have said before a magistrate.

VII

Constantinople, Rüstem Pa?a — 20 July 1905

Mustafa Efendi sent for him on a Thursday evening, and the message was brought by a servant, and it asked that Ayaan come alone.

The importer’s house stood at the end of the lane, a tall and narrow building with a carved balcony. In a small sitting room on the ground floor, a lamp had been lit, and Mustafa sat beside it with a glass of tea that he was not drinking.

He was a lean, grave man of forty-five with silver in his beard and a quiet, deliberate way of speaking. He had been Ayaan’s father’s friend for fifteen years.

"Sit, my boy."

Ayaan sat.

"My daughter has refused an excellent offer," said Mustafa. "She told me that she had given her word on another matter, and that she would not say what. I did not ask. I have raised one child, and I have raised her to think, and I would be a fool to be surprised that she does."

"Efendi, I—"

"I am not finished." The tone was mild. "I know what her word was, because I am not blind, and because my wife knows everything that occurs in this lane. I wished to tell you what I think."

Ayaan folded his hands, and he waited.

"You are fifteen." Mustafa set down the glass. "You have a counter, and a book, and a name that is becoming known for honesty. That is more than most men have at thirty, but it is not enough to marry on."

"I know, Efendi."

"I do not wish you to leave this room thinking that you have my blessing. You have not." His voice softened by a very little. "But you have not been refused, either. I would be glad to be told that you intend to make yourself fit to ask."

"I do, Efendi."

"Then I will say a thing that I have said to no one." Mustafa looked toward the window, where the lamp from the lane threw a pale square on the wall. "When you are eighteen, you may speak to me again. Not before. And if in that time my daughter chooses differently, you will accept it."

"I have already promised her that."

"Have you?" The merchant’s eyebrows rose. "Then you are wiser than I was at your age. I should have been very angry."

He rose, and Ayaan rose with him. For a moment, the older man regarded him with the grave attention of a creditor and the dry tenderness of a father.

"One more thing. Whatever you build, she will insist on a share of it. I would advise you to give it to her before she asks."

"I have, Efendi. I told her that her name would be on it."

"Allah keep you both," said Mustafa. "You will need Him."

He walked back to the shop in the warm dark, and he could not stop smiling.

Zeynep was sitting on the step with a ledger open on her knee. She did not look up.

"He told you three years," she said.

"He told me eighteen."

"It is the same." She turned a page. "I have been thinking about what I will manage by then."

"What do you wish to manage?"

"Everything that you let me." The pencil moved, and she smiled at her work. "Which I now believe to be everything."

Ayaan sat beside her on the step. Across the lane, in the window of the barber’s shop, the lamp was lit, and a face appeared at the glass and was withdrawn.

He did not mind. He had made a promise, and it was a true one, and for the first time in a long while he saw the next three years laid out ahead of him, clear and steady and entirely his own to build.