Chapter 27: The First Door to Power

Chapter 27: Chapter 27: The First Door to Power

I

Constantinople, Emin?nü — 2 January 1909

The letter from the Palace lay on the counter for a full day, and Zeynep read it each time that she passed.

On the second evening, she closed the shutters herself, drew two stools to the back table, and set a clean sheet of paper before her husband.

"We shall begin with what the Palace knows," she said. "Then we shall decide what it should not be told."

"It knows that I wrote the memorandum."

"It suspects. There is a difference, and you must learn to stand upon it." She wrote the word Suspects on the left of the page and Knows on the right, and drew a line between them. "If they ask whether you wrote it and you deny it, you will have lied to men who hold the letters of the Court. If you admit it unasked, you will have given away what they would otherwise have to prove."

"Then I wait to be asked."

"And you answer truthfully when you are." She tapped the page. "Do not deny what they know, and do not offer what they do not."

Ayaan had taught her the method of the divided page when she was fourteen, at a counter, over a dispute about a debt. She had since put it to a wider use than he had intended.

"There are three rules besides," said Zeynep. "I shall say them once, and you will say them back to me."

"I am attentive."

"First, claim nothing that you cannot prove. Second, accept nothing that you cannot repay. Third, answer what you are asked, and then stop."

"The third is the most difficult."

"It is, for a man who enjoys the sound of his own arithmetic." Her mouth moved. "You will see their faces, and you will wish to explain how the whole Treasury ought to be reformed, and you will forget that you are a stationer."

"I am a stationer."

"You are, and it is the whole of your protection. Do not discard it on the first morning."

He said the three rules back to her in order, and she made him say them a second time.

"The letter allows you to bring whomever you judge necessary," she said then. "I am not that person."

"You are necessary."

"In this room, I am. In that one, a woman at your side would occupy the attention of every man present, and they would look at me and not at the figures." She said it evenly, without bitterness. "I shall keep the shop open, and when you return you will tell me every question in its order."

"Whom shall I bring?"

"The man who owns the form," said Zeynep. "Naz?m Efendi."

Before he left the table, she chose six sheets from the pile of his notes and tied them in a folder with her own hands.

The rest she carried to the stove and burned, one page at a time, until the paper was gone.

II

Constantinople, the Sublime Porte — 5 January 1909

Naz?m Efendi read the letter twice, and then he took off his spectacles and wiped them, which Ayaan had learned was the habit of a man who needed time.

"The secretariat of the Palace," he said. "It is a long road from a corridor of the Court of Accounts."

"It is a road that you have already walked, Efendi. They will ask about the form, and the form is yours."

"It is yours. You drew it."

"I drew four columns. Your clerks have filled them every month since October, and the Court has made them the law of its own offices." Ayaan laid his hands flat upon the desk. "If I am asked what the form was designed to do, I can answer. If the Palace asks what it has done, you are the only man who can say."

The deputy director said nothing for a long time. Beyond the door, a clerk dropped a ledger, and a voice rebuked him in a whisper.

"I have served the state for thirty-one years," said Naz?m at last. "I have never once been summoned to the Palace, and I have been afraid of the day that I would be, in the manner of all clerks."

"I am afraid also, Efendi."

"?ükrü Bey told me yesterday that he was asked about you as well, and that he answered well."

"Then I have been discussed in three offices this week."

"In four, I think. It is the only way that the state conducts its business."

"Then we shall go afraid together." He put on his spectacles again. "I should be a poor deputy director if I allowed a stationer to carry the Court’s work to the Palace without the Court’s own officer beside him."

III

Constantinople, Y?ld?z — 7 January 1909

The road to Y?ld?z climbed from the shore at Be?ikta? through a fog that held all the cold of the Bosphorus, and the hired carriage went up it slowly.

Naz?m sat with his satchel upon his knees, and he had not spoken since the bridge.

"I have rehearsed three speeches," he said at last, "and I have forgotten all of them."

"Zeynep told me to answer what I am asked, and then to stop."

"It is excellent advice, and I wish that I had been given it thirty years ago." The deputy director looked out at the fog. "A clerk who answers only what he is asked is thought dull, and he is the one who remains at his desk when the ministers change."

Ayaan wore the dark coat that Fatma had pressed three times. In his folder were six sheets of paper: the form, a page from the Court’s first statement, and nothing else.

At the outer gate, a captain of the guard examined the letter, and a sergeant searched the folder and then the coats. They were courteous and thorough, and Naz?m submitted with the stiffness of a man who had never in his life been searched.

Beyond the gate, the grounds were quieter than Ayaan had imagined. Gravel paths ran between bare trees and small kiosks, and the only sound was the scrape of a sweeper’s broom upon the stones.

Once, from the far end of a path, a closed carriage passed with an escort of four horsemen. Every man in the grounds, sentry and sweeper and secretary alike, stood with his face turned toward the ground.

Abdul Hamid has lived behind these walls for more than thirty years. Everything that he fears is here, and everything that he knows.

An usher led them to the secretariat, a long building of pale stone, and left them in an anteroom with a brazier and six hard chairs.

Two other petitioners waited there, and in the far corner sat a man in a dark coat with a bound petition open on his knee. He had a scar along his cheek.

Cevdet did not look up, and Ayaan did not look toward him.

After some minutes, the usher returned and called their names.

IV

Constantinople, Y?ld?z, the Second Secretary’s Office — 7 January 1909

Rag?p Bey, Second Secretary of the Palace, was a lean man of fifty-five with a trimmed gray beard and a desk bare of everything but a single sheet and a lacquered tray of pens.

"Hassan Efendi," he said. "You are younger than I was told."

"I am eighteen, Efendi."

"And recently married. May Allah bless the union."

"?min, Efendi."

The Palace had been thorough, then, in everything. Ayaan took the chair that was offered, and Naz?m took the one beside it.

"You wrote the paper," said Rag?p, without any change of tone. "The one concerning the revenues of the state and the three remedies."

Now he has asked.

"I did, Efendi."

Something eased about the secretary’s eyes, and Ayaan saw that he had been prepared for a denial.

"His Majesty has read it twice," said Rag?p. "He put one question concerning the author, and I shall repeat it exactly. He asked whether the stationer’s own accounts balanced."

"They do, Efendi, and they are open to any examiner whom the Palace may send."

"I was told that you would say so." Rag?p laid his fingertips together. "I must now put a second question, and I ask you to believe that it is not an insult. A report has reached this office that you are the accountant of the Committee of Union and Progress in Salonica."

Naz?m stiffened in his chair.

"It is untrue, Efendi," said Ayaan, and he kept his voice level. "I have never been to Salonica, I have paid no subscription, and I have taken instruction from no one. I have exchanged letters with an officer of the Third Army who is my friend, and I sent him figures when he asked for them. I believe that this office has read some of the letters."

"It has read some. It is not usual for a man to volunteer his own correspondence."

"It would be foolish to conceal what you already possess, Efendi."

"It would," said Rag?p. "Yet a great many men are foolish at precisely that point."

He turned over the sheet on his desk, and it was blank on the other side as well.

"The deputies of the Chamber have begun to ask what the household of His Majesty costs the state. Several ask it in the newspapers, and not all of them ask it kindly." He looked at Ayaan steadily. "You are a man who understands the weight of a figure. What would you advise?"

Third rule. Answer what you are asked, and stop.

"I would say first, Efendi, that I am not the person to advise the Palace upon its own affairs. I know a stationer’s figures and the forms of the Court, and I know nothing of the Palace’s obligations."

"That is understood."

"If I am asked only what I have observed in the shops, then I can say this. A sum that is not stated is always replaced by a sum that is imagined, and the imagined sum is always the larger."

Rag?p’s pen, which he had lifted from the tray, stopped in the air.

"Continue."

"A figure fixed by law and stated in a single line each year can be defended. A silence cannot be defended, because every writer of pamphlets in Beyo?lu may supply a number of his own. If the figure is stated, the question ends, and if it is hidden, the question begins again each week."

"A single line," said Rag?p slowly.

"It is only an observation, Efendi. The remedy belongs to men who hold the authority to apply it."

"There is another matter," said Rag?p, and he drew a folder toward him. "This office has been told that in the spring of 1906 you held a reserve before your lane was frightened, and that last July you had contracts drawn for the bakers before the trouble began. A man who is fortunate twice is a subject of interest."

"I was not fortunate, Efendi. I was attentive." Ayaan chose each word with care. "In 1906, the price of bread rose against the price of wheat at Odessa, and the gap widened for six weeks. A shopkeeper who reads the two prices side by side may see what is coming a little before his neighbors, and no more than that."

"And in July?"

"In July, the army in Macedonia was unpaid, and bread is the first thing that unpaid men and their families cannot buy. I judged that the bakers would need credit before long, and I drew the contracts so that they would be ready."

"It is a simple account."

"Most accounts are simple, Efendi. It is the habit of reading them that is rare."

Rag?p wrote a single line, and Ayaan could not see what it was.

The secretary was silent. Then he turned his head toward the deputy director.

"And this form that the Court uses. I am told that it is the stationer’s work."

"The form belongs to the Court, Efendi," said Ayaan, before Naz?m could speak. "I drew four columns, and the deputy director’s clerks have filled them every month since October. If the Palace wishes to know what the form has accomplished, the Court is the proper witness."

Naz?m turned sharply, and he looked at Ayaan for some time before he found his voice.

"The Court has found it of use, Efendi," he said. "In October, three ministries could not agree upon a single figure. In December, they agreed upon all but one."

"All but one," said Rag?p, with the first trace of humor that he had shown. "That is more than I would have expected of them."

He rose, and the two visitors rose also.

"Halid Efendi, who keeps the accounts of the Privy Treasury, wishes to speak with you. I would ask that you give him an hour."

V

Constantinople, Y?ld?z, the Privy Treasury — 7 January 1909

Halid Efendi was a man of seventy, with thick spectacles and ink on both cuffs, and he did not rise when they entered. He pointed to a long table where two ledgers lay open side by side.

"Both of these books record what the Privy Treasury owed to the tradesmen of the city at the close of the year," he said. "They differ by three hundred and forty liras. Three of my clerks have sought the reason since the spring."

"May I see them, Efendi?"

"That is why you are here."

Ayaan read the first book down the page, and then the second, and he did not speak for a quarter of an hour. Naz?m, beside him, had the courtesy to look at the window.

"The first book enters a debt upon the day that the goods are delivered," said Ayaan at last. "The second enters it upon the day that the invoice is approved, and I see that the approval waits some three weeks."

"Three weeks is the custom."

"Then goods delivered in December stand in the first book’s year, and in the second book’s following year. The three hundred and forty liras are December’s deliveries, Efendi. Nothing is missing, and no one has stolen anything."

Halid Efendi took off his spectacles, and for a long time he looked at the page without them.

"I thought that someone was stealing," he said. "I have thought so since April."

"It is a matter of two dates written in one column. That is the reason that the Court’s form divides what was assigned from what was collected, and what was spent from what is owed."

"Owed," said the old man, and he almost smiled. "My clerks have disliked that column from the first day that I showed it to them."

"A debt that is entered openly can be paid in order, Efendi. A debt that is lost between two books is paid never, and the tradesman tells the whole quarter."

"They tell it already," said Halid Efendi, and he replaced his spectacles.

He turned a page and pointed with a thick finger.

"The candle maker of Be?ikta? has not been paid for fourteen months. He sent his son to the gate last week, and the boy stood there for a day."

"Then I would pay the candle maker first, Efendi, and the smallest creditors before the greatest. The greatest can wait, and the smallest cannot eat."

"It is an unusual order."

"It is also the cheapest, Efendi. A debt paid to a poor man buys more good will than the same sum paid to a rich one."

Rag?p Bey was waiting for them in the corridor when they came out, with his hands behind his back.

"The secretariat is prepared to engage you as consultant in accounts," he said. "The salary is twelve liras a month, and a room will be found for you in this building."

Naz?m drew in his breath audibly.

"I thank the secretariat, Efendi, and I must decline."

The secretary’s eyebrows rose by the smallest degree.

"A man whom the Palace pays cannot be believed when he tells the Palace that its accounts are wrong," said Ayaan. "I wish to be believed."

"And what do you propose instead?"

"That the secretariat send its questions in writing, and that I answer them in writing. I would be paid for the paper and the hours at the printed price of my shop, as every customer of it is charged."

"No one has refused a salary of this office in my time."

"Then I am a novelty, Efendi, and I hope not an unwelcome one."

Rag?p considered him for some time.

"You will understand that this is not an appointment."

"I understand it perfectly, and I ask for nothing further."

"Then you will have your first questions within the fortnight." The secretary inclined his head. "Do not suppose that anyone will thank you for them."

VI

Constantinople, Emin?nü — 7 January 1909

Zeynep had kept the shop open past the hour of closing, and she listened to the whole account without once interrupting him.

She had the green ledger open on the counter, and she wrote each question in its order, and beside it the answer that he had given.

"The Sultan asked whether the stationer’s accounts balanced," she said, when he had reached that part. "He did not ask whether the memorandum was correct."

"No."

"Then he understands that a clever paper is cheap and a clean ledger is not. I begin to wish that I might see his own books."

"You refused to be seen at the Palace, and you wish to see its books?"

"I have never claimed to be consistent. I have claimed to be correct."

She returned to the page.

"You refused twelve liras a month," she said, when he had finished.

"Yes."

"I should have refused it also." She set down the pen. "I should have enjoyed it less, I think, because I should have wished to ask for twenty first."

"You are not offended that I did not ask you?"

"You had no time to ask me, and you did what I would have done." She turned the ledger toward him. "Show me the sentence that I should be careful of."

He read down the page. "The imagined sum is always the larger."

"Yes. It is a good sentence, and it will be quoted, and then somebody will ask you to prove that it is always so."

"It is true of every market that I have seen."

"Then you will need to have seen more of them." She said it without unkindness. "You have given the Palace one idea, Ayaan, and you will be asked for more. Each time you give one, the room will expect that you can give another."

He was silent.

The first door is open. The danger is that I shall wish to walk faster than the door allows.

"And you gave the credit for the form to Naz?m Efendi," said Zeynep.

"The form is the Court’s."

"It is partly yours, and you were right to say otherwise." Her eyes were bright. "Naz?m Efendi will remember it for the rest of his life, and he is a man who will be useful for a great deal longer than any Palace secretary."

"You made me bring him."

"I did. I confess that I am pleased with myself."

She wrote beneath the heading Reputation.

7 January: the Palace; refused a salary; credit given.

Then she paused, and added a final line.

Not yet tested.

VII

Constantinople, Emin?nü — 12 January 1909

Cevdet came in at the end of the afternoon, when the lane was dark and the shop was empty, and he sat down on the stool without being asked.

"I was in the anteroom on Thursday," he said. "You did not look at me, and I commend it."

"I was told to answer what I was asked and to stop. It seemed wise to extend the rule."

"Your wife told you." The scar creased. "She is not mentioned in any report that I have written, and I begin to think that this is an omission."

Ayaan did not smile.

"Efendi, I wish to ask a direct question, and I ask you to forgive its directness. Did you recommend me to the Palace?"

"I report what I observe. The Palace reads several reports, and mine is one among them." Cevdet folded his hands. "I do not recommend. A recommendation is an obligation, and I do not give them."

"Then how did my name come to the secretary?"

"Through three roads. The Court of Accounts, which was pleased with its form. The Ministry of Finance, whose secretary mentioned a stationer to a friend. And Rafet Bey of Unkapan?."

"Rafet Bey?"

"He has tried his third method." The dark eyes were grave. "He wrote to the secretariat, without his name, to say that the young man of Emin?nü was the accountant of the Committee in Salonica. It was meant to destroy you, and in a different season it might have."

"The secretary asked me directly. I told him what was true."

"I know. Rag?p Bey told me that you added that he must already possess the letters, and that he found it unusual." Cevdet leaned back. "The accusation was intended to close the door, and your answer has opened it a little further. I did not expect it."

"I did not intend it. I answered as I was taught."

"I will not ask by whom." He stood, and he rested one hand on the counter. "I told you in November that I had stopped writing to be watched. I will tell you now what I have begun to write instead."

"I would be grateful, Efendi."

"That I do not understand your purpose, and that I find it, so far as I can see, to be the state’s purpose also." He paused. "It is a conclusion with a limit, young Hassan. I wish for the present that the two should continue to coincide."

"They will, Efendi."

"There are men in that building who have lived for twenty years by being the only door to the Sultan. They will not love a stationer who is asked questions directly."

"I have no wish to be loved by them."

"That is as well." He stood a little straighter. "Then be careful of the first door. It is the most dangerous, because the men within it will measure how eagerly you walk through."

VIII

Constantinople, Emin?nü — 20 January 1909

The second letter from the secretariat was thinner than the first, and it bore no seal, only the signature of the Second Secretary.

Zeynep read it before Ayaan, as they had agreed, and then she laid it on the green ledger and did not speak.

It contained three questions, in a clerk’s clear hand.

First. By what means may the Treasury publish its accounts each month without exposing the weakness of the Empire to its foreign creditors?

Second. What does the Empire owe to its own tradesmen and soldiers, and in what order should the debts be paid?

Third. What would the Empire require in order to borrow without placing further revenues in the hands of the Public Debt Administration?

Ayaan read them twice.

It is the beginning of everything that I have waited for, and it is only three questions.

"The first two are within your reach," said Zeynep. "You have already thought of both."

"I could answer them in a week."

"And the third?"

"The third has no honest short answer." He set the paper down. "It touches the customs, and the foreign creditors, and the credit of the state, and the whole matter of whether the Empire may borrow as an equal."

"They know that," said Zeynep. "They have asked it because they know it. They wish to learn whether you can tell the difference between a question that may be answered quickly and one that may not."

"Then I shall answer the first two in a week, and the third in a month."

"And if the third reply is longer than they like?"

"Then it will be as long as the truth requires, and I shall say plainly what I do not know."

She smiled for the first time that morning.

"That is the best sentence that you have spoken since the storeroom," she said.

They worked at the back table until the lamps burned low. Zeynep brought down the ledgers of the shop’s own debts, because she said that a man who wrote of the Empire’s arrears ought first to show that he could state his own.

At midnight they had the outline of the first reply: one page, four columns, and a short note upon what might be published without alarming a creditor. On the second page she struck out a sentence of his that began It is evident that.

"Nothing is evident to a man who has not been asked," she said.

She dipped the pen, and drew three lines in the green ledger, beneath the heading that she had chosen on the first day of the year.

Questions: three. Answers: owed.