Chapter 26: A Marriage Chosen

Chapter 26: Chapter 26: A Marriage Chosen

I

Constantinople, Emin?nü — 20 December 1908

Zeynep did not move from the crate, and she did not help him.

She waited with her hands folded in her lap, as she had waited at the counter when she was twelve and he was still learning how to price a ream of paper.

"I have kept an account of my life since I was a child," said Ayaan. "There is a column for what I have and a column for what I owe, and I have never known where to enter you."

"Then the account is at fault."

"It is. You are not a possession, and you are not a debt."

He lowered his voice, although there was no one in the shop to hear.

"I do not wish to ask you to be a wife as the street understands the word. I wish to ask whether you will be my partner in every undertaking of my life, openly, with your name beside mine."

Zeynep considered this in silence.

"That is a very businesslike proposal," she said.

"It is the only kind that I know how to make well."

"You have left out the other half."

"I have loved you since I was fifteen," said Ayaan. "I understood it that winter, and I said nothing for three years, because I had nothing of my own to offer you."

"And now?"

"Now I have a shop, a reserve, a debt to no one, and a name that was printed in a newspaper against my wishes. It is not much, and it is yours if you will take it."

Her eyes were bright, but her voice remained even.

"I told you that I have conditions."

"I accept them before I hear them."

"That is exactly why I shall state them." She lifted one finger. "First, my name will be written beside yours in the books of the shop, and not beneath it."

"It will be."

"Second, you will sign no contract that I have not read, and I will sign none that you have not read."

"That is only prudent."

"Third, I will keep the accounts and the reserve, and I will say aloud when I believe that you are wrong. I will say it before whoever is present, if the matter is urgent."

"I would expect nothing less."

"Fourth, if I wish to continue my work after we are married, no one in either family will call it unbecoming, and you will not permit it to be said in your hearing."

"I will not."

"Fifth." Zeynep paused, and for the first time her voice lost a little of its firmness. "You will tell me when you are afraid. You have not told me once in thirteen years, and you are afraid more often than you admit."

He had been prepared for conditions of law and of money.

He had not been prepared for this one.

"I am afraid now," he said.

"Of what?"

"That I will fail to be what you expect of me."

"Good. I shall enter it in the book." She lowered her hand. "And last, there will be no locked drawers between us."

Ayaan did not answer at once.

There is one drawer that I cannot open. Not tonight, and perhaps not for years.

"Zeynep, there are matters in me that I do not yet know how to say. Some of them I may not be able to say for a long time."

"I have known that since you were six years old and corrected the water seller’s change before he had finished counting it." Her mouth moved. "I do not ask you to open every drawer. I ask only that you never tell me that a drawer is empty when it is not."

"I will never tell you that."

"Then Allah is my witness, and I accept."

She rose from the crate and took both of his hands in hers.

"It is unfortunate that it was the storeroom," she said. "I shall tell our children that it was the garden."

"You will tell them the truth."

"I shall tell them the truth, and I shall improve the setting."

II

Constantinople, Rüstem Pa?a — 22 December 1908

Mustafa Efendi received them in the front room of his house, with the best carpet laid and the brazier lit, and Emine Han?m poured the first tea herself.

Mehmet wore the dark coat that he kept for funerals and for the weddings of cousins. He had said nothing since they left the lane, and Ayaan understood that his father had rehearsed a speech and was afraid of losing it.

"Mustafa Efendi," Mehmet said at last, in a voice that was formal and not quite steady. "We have come, by the command of Allah and the word of His Prophet, to ask for your daughter Zeynep Han?m on behalf of my son Ayaan."

"You are welcome in this house, Mehmet Efendi, and so is your request." Mustafa inclined his head. "I will not pretend that I am surprised."

Zeynep came in with the coffee on a small brass tray, and she served her father first and the guests after.

The last cup she set before Ayaan, and she did not look at him.

He drank it. It was thick and very salty, and he drank all of it, steadily, while Fatma pressed her lips together and his father studied the carpet.

"It is the most honest coffee that I have ever been served," said Ayaan, setting down the cup.

Mustafa began to laugh, and Emine Han?m put a hand over her mouth.

"A merchant ought to know the quality of what he is offered," said Zeynep gravely, from the door.

"It is a custom," said Mustafa, wiping his eyes, "that my wife applied to me thirty years ago, with a little more salt."

"With a great deal more," said Emine Han?m.

When the laughter ended, the older man folded his hands, and his face grew serious.

"I will speak plainly, because you have always been plain with me, Ayaan. Zeynep is my only child. I did not raise her to be given away, I raised her to choose, and she has chosen."

"I know it, Efendi."

"My whole duty is to see that you are worthy of the choice. I have watched you for ten years, and in the last autumn I watched you draw a contract for eight merchants and ask that your name be left off it." Mustafa paused. "I did not ask for wealth. I asked for a man who does not lie in his ledgers."

"Then I hope that I am that man."

"I think that you are. Now there is the mehir, and we must speak of it."

Mehmet shifted on the cushion.

"One hundred liras in gold, Efendi," said Ayaan. "Fifty at the contract, and fifty deferred, payable to her on demand."

His father turned to look at him, with pride and alarm in the same glance.

"It is a large sum for a stationer," said Mustafa.

"It is the sum that I can pay without borrowing, Efendi. I would not begin a marriage with a loan."

"Baba, may I speak?" asked Zeynep.

"You may," said Emine Han?m, before her husband could answer.

Zeynep stepped forward and folded her hands.

"I ask that the fifty liras paid at the contract be entered in the books of the shop as my capital, in my own name."

"A bride’s mehir returned to the groom’s shop?" said Mehmet, in some bewilderment.

"Not returned, Mehmet Efendi. Invested." Her voice was courteous and perfectly clear. "The mehir belongs to the wife alone, and she may place it where she chooses. I choose the house of Hassan, and I wish to enter it as a partner and not as a guest."

Mustafa looked at his daughter for a long time.

"The law is with her," he said. "No man may touch what is paid to his wife as mehir, and she may dispose of it as she sees fit."

"It is the first time that I have heard a bride speak of capital at her own betrothal," said Fatma, and she was smiling openly.

"It will not be the last," said Emine Han?m.

"Then let it be written so," said Mustafa Efendi.

III

Constantinople, Rüstem Pa?a — 26 December 1908

The grocery smelled of olives and dust and of the cold cheese kept in the back room. Mehmet sat on an upturned crate among the sacks, with the cash box open upon his knee.

"Twenty-two liras," he said. "It is for the feast, and you will not argue."

"Baba, I can pay for the—"

"You will pay the mehir and your own debts, and I will pay for the feast. A father feeds the guests at his son’s wedding."

He closed the box, which ended the discussion.

"I was married on lentil soup and borrowed chairs," said Mehmet. "Your grandfather wept because he could do no more, and I never once thought that it was too little."

Ayaan sat down on the sack beside him, and for a time neither of them spoke.

"She will not be a quiet wife," said Mehmet.

"I would not marry a quiet one."

"Your mother says that you would be bored within a week."

"Your wife is right, Baba."

"She generally is." Mehmet turned the cash box over in his hands. "I am a small merchant, Ayaan. I have never understood where you got your head, and I have stopped asking, because I have seen what you do with it."

Ayaan kept his face still.

He has never asked, and he has never needed to. He has only loved me without the answer.

"There is one thing I ask of you as a husband," said Mehmet. "Do not allow the business to become a reason to be absent. I was in this grocery from dawn until dark for twelve years, and your mother ate many suppers alone."

"I will remember it."

"Remember it in the third year, when the work is greatest, and not only now."

He went to the back of the shop and returned with a small cloth bundle, which he unwrapped on the counter.

Inside lay a set of brass weights, worn smooth by many years of handling. Each was stamped with the mark of the inspector of weights, and the stamp was nearly gone.

"I bought these in my first year," said Mehmet. "They have never once been false."

"Baba, they are yours."

"They were mine. A merchant who weighs honestly in the market is respected, and a husband who weighs honestly at home is loved." He pushed the bundle across the counter. "I wish you to have them, and I wish you to use them."

Ayaan took the weights, and found that for a moment he could not thank his father in words.

Mehmet nodded, accepting the thanks that had not been spoken, and began to turn down the lamps.

IV

Constantinople, Emin?nü — 29 December 1908

Two porters brought the first parcel at ten in the morning, carrying it between them with some care, and they would not set it down until Ayaan had signed.

It was a tea service of silver, with a tray, a pot, and twelve small glasses in a case lined with blue velvet. A card lay on top, written in a smooth hand.

With the good wishes of the well-wishers of Unkapan?, who honor the young house of Hassan.

"Rafet Bey," said Zeynep, reading over his arm.

"It is worth sixty liras at the least."

"Then it is not a gift." She turned the pot over and examined the maker’s mark. "A gift of that size is a loan, Ayaan, with the interest left unnamed."

"He wishes me to owe him something, so that he may ask for it later."

"He will try a third method after this one," said Zeynep.

"Then we shall record that also."

"Yes, and he has chosen the week in which a refusal looks most ungracious." She said it without anger, in the tone that she used for a column that would not balance. "He has learned that you cannot be frightened, so he has decided that you may be obliged."

"What would you do?"

"I would return it, with a letter, today, before the whole lane has seen it." She took a sheet of the good paper. "And I would write it myself, because he will read every word looking for a flaw."

She wrote for some minutes, with her lip between her teeth. When she had finished, she gave him the page, and he read it twice.

The house of Hassan thanks the well-wishers of Unkapan? for their kindness, and returns their gift with respect. It accepts from its friends only their good wishes, which it values above silver.

"There is nothing to change," he said.

"You read it before I sent it. That was the second condition."

"You did not need to remind me. It is the best letter that the shop has ever sent."

"Then you will sign beside me."

He signed beside her, and the porters carried the tea service away in the same cart that had brought it. Zeynep entered the return in the ledger, with the date and the names of the two witnesses.

The second parcel arrived at noon, by the hand of a boy who gave no name and would not wait.

It was flat and wrapped in plain brown paper. Inside lay a ledger bound in green leather, with a hundred pages of excellent paper, and on the first of them a single line had been written in a careful, upright hand.

For accounts that anyone may examine. — C.

Zeynep ran her thumb along the spine.

"The gentleman with the scar," she said.

"He has bought ink from this shop for three years."

"He has done a good deal more than buy ink." She did not make it a question. "And now he sends us a ledger."

"He has changed a word in a report that he writes about me."

"Then it is a kind gift from a man who has not yet decided to be kind." She closed the cover. "I shall use it. We will begin with it on the first day of the year."

V

Constantinople, Rüstem Pa?a — 31 December 1908

The contract was made on a Thursday afternoon, in the front room of Mustafa Efendi’s house, with the shutters open to a thin winter light.

Some thirty men sat along the walls. Ayaan’s uncle from Fatih and an old partner of Mustafa Efendi had been chosen as witnesses, and Haf?z Salih Efendi, the imam of the neighborhood mosque, sat before them with the marriage register open on his knee.

Ayaan sat opposite him in a dark coat that Fatma had pressed three times. His hands were quite steady, and he wondered why they should be.

"The mehir is one hundred liras in gold," said the imam, reading. "Fifty paid today into the hand of the bride, and fifty deferred."

"It is so," said Mustafa.

"There is also a paper." Salih Efendi lifted it, and his eyebrows rose. "I have not seen its like in the register before."

"I have read it, Haf?z Efendi, and I have had it examined by a man of learning," said Mustafa. "It is lawful in every part."

The imam read it aloud, slowly, and the room listened in silence.

It declared that the bride held her own property, and would continue to hold and manage it. It declared that her name should stand beside the groom’s in the books of any house of trade that he kept, and that she might continue her work and her studies after marriage.

"The property of a wife is her own, in the law of the Imam Abu Hanifa, and her husband has no claim upon it," said Salih Efendi, when he had finished. "The rest is a promise between two persons, and Allah holds men to their promises."

"I accept every word of it," said Ayaan.

The imam sent the two witnesses to the door of the inner room, to ask the bride whether she consented.

They returned within a minute, and one of them was smiling.

"She said it so that the whole room might hear," said Ayaan’s uncle.

"Let the room hear it again," said the imam.

The witnesses went back, and this time her voice came clearly through the open door.

"I consent, and I do so with a whole heart."

A sound passed through the men, half laughter and half assent. Mehmet, sitting at the end of the row, had put his hand over his eyes.

"And you, Ayaan, son of Mehmet?" asked the imam.

"I consent."

"Then by the leave of Allah and in the presence of these witnesses, you are husband and wife." Salih Efendi raised his hands. "May Allah bless this union, and make it a refuge for both, and keep them faithful to one another in every hardship."

"?min," said the room.

When the prayer was done, Mustafa Efendi crossed the carpet and embraced Ayaan with both arms, which he had never done before.

"You will keep your promise," he said into his shoulder.

"With the help of Allah, Efendi."

"And with her help." Mustafa stepped back, and his eyes were wet. "You will need hers more than His, I think, in the matter of accounts."

VI

Constantinople, Rüstem Pa?a — 31 December 1908

The feast was held that evening in the long upper room of Mehmet’s house, where braziers had been lit and benches borrowed from three neighbors.

Mehmet’s twenty-two liras had bought lamb and rice and a mountain of sweets. The bakers of Emin?nü, without a word of warning, had sent three hundred loaves, and no one in the lane would accept payment for them.

Fatma stood by the door of the women’s room for most of the evening, receiving each guest and weeping a little at each.

Emine Han?m stood beside her, and the two mothers, who had been neighbors for many years, were seen to embrace more than once.

"They say it is the bread of the contract," said Mehmet, in wonder. "They say that it is owed."

"It is not owed, Baba."

"Do not tell them that. They have been waiting two months to pay it."

Hovsep Agopian arrived with a parcel under his arm and tears already upon his face.

"I wept at the Parliament and I wept at the Court of Accounts," he said, and embraced Ayaan firmly. "I shall weep here also, and I ask that no one take notice."

"No one will, Hovsep Efendi."

"Everyone will," said Hovsep, and went to find a place beside Mustafa.

Naz?m Efendi came late, in his mended coat, and presented a thin package with an air of considerable embarrassment.

Inside lay a single sheet of the Court’s new form. Its columns had been filled in by hand, in a neat clerk’s script.

Assigned: one bride; collected: one groom; spent: nothing that could have been saved; owed: to be carried forward, in the same place, every month.

"I did not design it for such a purpose," said Naz?m dryly. "But I observed that it was adequate."

A telegram had come that afternoon from Salonica, and Zeynep read it aloud to the women’s side of the room. She read it again to Ayaan when the lamps had been trimmed.

Congratulations to the house of Hassan; the undecided are fewer by one. — Sermet.

"He has moved you to the friends," said Zeynep.

"The list is not yet closed."

"No, but it has a better heading."

They were taken home late, by a small procession of neighbors with lanterns, through lanes where the doors stood open and the snow had begun to fall. The upper floor of Mehmet’s house had been scrubbed by Fatma for a week, and the stove had been lit since noon.

At the top of the stairs, Zeynep stopped.

"You have not told me that you are afraid," she said.

"I told you in the storeroom."

"That was in the storeroom, and this is in our house. The condition continues."

"Then I am afraid," said Ayaan, "that I shall not deserve what I have been given."

"Good. Enter it in the column."

She smiled, and she took off her veil, and the face beneath it was as he had known it for thirteen years and was also entirely new.

Later, when the house had grown quiet, she found him standing at the window with his hands behind his back.

"You are doing arithmetic," she said.

"I am."

"Is it urgent?"

In the history that I remember, April of 1909 brings a mutiny in this city. I do not know whether it will come now, or in what form, or whether anything that I remember still holds.

"It concerns the spring," he said. "I do not yet know how to state it."

"Then it will keep until the morning." Zeynep came to stand beside him, and she looked out at the snow in the lane. "Tomorrow we shall do the arithmetic together."

VII

Constantinople, Emin?nü — 1 January 1909

The shop opened at eleven on the first morning of the year, because Zeynep had said that a house of trade should not begin its history with a closed door.

She sat at the counter with the green ledger open before her, and she wrote the heading in her own hand.

The House of Hassan. Partners: Ayaan Hassan and Zeynep Hassan.

Beneath it she entered the fifty liras of her mehir, as capital, in her own name.

"It is smaller than I would wish," she said, and blew on the ink.

"It will not remain so."

"No, it will not." She looked up. "I have been thinking about the figures for the spring, and I have a number of questions."

Ayaan set the brass weights on the shelf behind the counter, in their cloth, where he would see them each day.

"I will answer all of them."

"Truthfully?"

"Within the terms that you set."

"That is a lawyer’s answer."

"I have married a woman who drafts conditions."

The bell above the door rang, and a young man in a dark coat stepped inside, with a long envelope held in both hands.

He wore no uniform, but his boots were too good for the lane, and he stood with the particular stillness of someone who has been trained to wait in corridors.

"Ayaan Hassan, stationer of Emin?nü?" he asked.

"I am he."

"From the secretariat of the Palace, at Y?ld?z." He placed the envelope on the counter. "I was told to wait for no reply."

He bowed, and went out, and the bell rang once behind him.

The seal was unbroken. Ayaan looked at it for some time, and then he looked at his wife.

"Open it," said Zeynep.

"Our second condition."

"I have not forgotten it. Open it, and I shall read it when you have."

He broke the seal. The letter was short, and written in the fluent, courteous hand of a man who wrote on behalf of a master.

To Ayaan Hassan, stationer: you are requested to attend at the secretariat of the Palace at Y?ld?z on the morning of the seventh of January, at ten o’clock, to answer certain questions touching the forms of the Court of Accounts and the revenues of the state, and you may bring such persons as you judge necessary to assist you.

A door has opened, and I did not knock upon it. I must be careful to claim no more than the room that is offered.

He passed it across the counter.

Zeynep read it once, slowly, and then she read it again.

"It does not say what he wishes," she said.

"It says only that he wishes to ask."

"That is the more dangerous kind of letter." She laid it flat upon the green ledger. "A man who gives orders may be refused. A man who asks questions must be answered."

"I said to Captain Sermet that I would answer any question of figures, in this shop, with the door unlocked."

"You did not say that you would answer it at the Palace."

"No."

"But you will go."

"I will go," said Ayaan. "It was addressed to the stationer, and it says that I may bring whomever I judge necessary."

Zeynep took up the pen again, and wrote the date and the name of the secretariat in the ledger, beneath the heading that she had chosen the word for.

Reputation.

"Then you have judged correctly," she said. "I am necessary, and I shall read your answers before you give them."