Chapter 30: The Merchant and the Operative

Chapter 30: Chapter 30: The Merchant and the Operative

I

Constantinople, Emin?nü — 13 April 1909

The lane was awake before dawn, and it was awake in a way that Ayaan had never heard before.

There were no porters calling and no handcarts upon the stones. There were only doors opening a hand’s breadth, and voices speaking low across the narrow street.

He dressed in the dark and went down to the shop, where Zeynep was already lighting the lamp.

"A boy came from my father’s warehouse," she said. "There is shouting at the barracks in Ta?k??la, and the soldiers have not come out for the morning drill."

"How many?"

"He did not know. He said that the officers have been shut in their quarters."

In the history that I remember, this is the morning on which it begins.

He did not say it aloud. He took down the shutter, and set the sign upon the counter, and opened the door at the usual hour.

By seven, half the shops in Emin?nü had stayed shuttered, and the other half had raised their prices.

Mehmet came at eight, with his apron on and flour upon his sleeve.

"Baba, you should be at the grocery."

"The grocery is open. Your mother is in it with the boy." Mehmet wiped his hands. "Rice at the price on the list, bread at the price on the list, and the cellar door unlocked. You said that I must not change a coin of it."

"Not a coin."

"The neighbor who sells beans has doubled his price, and he was laughed at in his own doorway." He looked at his son with some wonder. "They are saying in the lane that the house of Hassan knew what was coming."

"We knew nothing, Baba."

"I told them so. They did not believe me."

At eleven, the baker at the corner sent his apprentice to ask whether he should raise the price of bread, since the miller had raised the price of flour.

Ayaan wrote three lines upon a slip and sent it back with the boy.

Hold the printed price. The house of Hassan will carry the difference in flour until the week is out.

Mustafa Efendi arrived at noon, on foot, with his coat buttoned to the throat and the news of the Chamber.

"The deputies are sitting, and the ministers have gone to the barracks," he said. "The men are shouting for the dismissal of two officers, and for the pay that was promised to them in March."

"Only that?" asked Zeynep.

"Only that. The commander has promised both, and the companies have begun to return to their quarters."

"And the lane?" asked Zeynep.

"The lane is frightened, and it is watching the grocery on the corner, because it is the one place where the rice has not changed its price." He lowered himself upon a stool. "The Third Army was paid in February, and it is whispered that the garrison saw the sums and wished for its own."

Ayaan stood very still behind the counter.

The arrears. I wrote that they must be paid, and Tahir carried the figure to Salonica, and in February the money was found.

By the middle of the afternoon the shouting had ceased. By the evening the lane was open again, and the bread was sold at the printed price, and no window had been broken in Emin?nü.

Zeynep lowered the shutter herself and turned the key.

"It is over?" she said.

"For today."

"You do not sound relieved."

"I am relieved." He rested his hands upon the counter. "I am also afraid, because the day that I feared has passed, and it was not the day that I remembered."

"What do you mean?"

"I mean that I have changed something," said Ayaan slowly. "I do not know what else I have changed."

"Then we shall find out together," said Zeynep, "one figure at a time."

II

Constantinople, üsküdar — 14 April 1909

Fehmi brought the whole of it on the morning of the fourteenth, standing at the library door with his hat in his hands.

"Two companies of the battalion at Ta?k??la refused the order to parade, Efendi. They shouted for two officers to be removed, and for their pay, and they were joined by a few hundred students from the lodges."

"Casualties?"

"Seven men struck with fists or rifle butts, and none dead." The clerk consulted his page. "By dusk the commanding officer had given his word upon both demands, and the companies had returned."

"And the quarter of Emin?nü?"

"The stationer opened at his usual hour, Efendi, and the grocery of his father also. The prices were not changed."

Cevdet sat for some time after the clerk had gone.

April had come, and it had been small. A hundred men had shouted for a day, and their anger had been smaller than anyone had predicted, because the soldiers of the Third Army had been paid in February and the garrison had heard of it.

Pay. It was only pay.

He had feared a catastrophe, and he had written the fear into his own folder in pencil. He found that he was grateful to Allah, and that he was also, in some part of himself, annoyed.

"Did the stationer speak with any officer or deputy during the day?" he asked.

"None, Efendi. He stood at his counter, and at eleven he sent a boy to the bakers with a message."

"What message?"

"That the bread was to be sold at the printed price. The bakers had asked him whether they should raise it."

Cevdet nodded slowly. He had come to believe that the surest sign of a man’s character was what he did with a frightened market.

The young man had been afraid of the same month, and had prepared for it, and the month had passed without testing the preparations.

Why did he fear the thirteenth?

It was a question that no report could answer. He had been told that the stationer was not to be informed of the reports, and he would obey that instruction to the letter.

I was told not to tell him. I was not told not to ask.

He rose, and put on his coat, and went to find the pasha’s steward to say that he would be absent upon Friday evening.

III

Constantinople, Emin?nü — 16 April 1909

The bell rang at the hour of closing, when Zeynep was counting the day’s coin into its bag and Ayaan was at the back table with the new ledger.

The man who entered wore a plain coat and carried no parcel. There was a scar along his cheek.

"Cevdet Efendi," said Zeynep, and she did not rise. "You are welcome, and you have come late."

"I have come late, Han?m, because I wish to speak with your husband, and I would rather that the shop were empty."

"It is empty of customers. It is not empty of partners." She laid down the coin. "Whatever is to be said, I shall hear it."

"I had expected that."

"I have been expecting you since November," said Ayaan, from the back table.

"And I have been expecting to come since November. It is a long time to expect a thing."

"Then you will sit, and we shall agree the terms before we begin."

Cevdet looked at her for a long moment, and then he took the stool by the counter.

She has given him no time to choose his ground.

"What terms?" he asked.

"My husband has told me that you ask questions, Efendi, and that you do not care to answer them." Zeynep folded her hands. "I propose that tonight each of you may ask three, and that each of you may answer or decline."

"A fair arrangement."

"I have not finished. A declined question must be declined aloud, and not evaded. An answer that is given must not be false."

"That is reasonable."

"Third, nothing said in this room shall be repeated with attribution, in any place, in any manner that could harm this house."

Cevdet inclined his head.

"I cannot agree to that as it is worded. I am not a free man, Han?m, and a promise of silence that I could not keep would be worse than none."

"Then I shall alter it." She did not hesitate. "Nothing shall be repeated that could harm this house, unless you tell my husband first that you must."

"It is a promise with a door in it."

"All honest promises have one. I would rather know where it is."

"I accept it."

"Fourth." Zeynep looked at Ayaan, and then at their guest. "Neither of you is the servant of the other. If either of you asks for a thing, the other may refuse it, and the refusal shall cost nothing."

"That I accept more gladly than any of the rest," said Cevdet. "I have had enough servants."

"You have drawn a contract of four clauses with a man whom you have known for a quarter of an hour," said Cevdet.

"I have known of you for three years, Efendi, and my husband has been very patient in describing your habits." She did not smile. "It is long enough to know what to put in the clauses."

"Then it is agreed." She poured the tea. "My husband is the host, and he shall ask first."

IV

Constantinople, Emin?nü — 16 April 1909

Ayaan held his glass for some time before he drank from it.

"Do you serve anyone?"

"I do, and I decline to name whom." Cevdet’s dark eyes did not move. "I may tell you that it is not a foreign power, and that it is not the Committee."

"That is enough for a first answer."

"Then I shall ask mine." The scarred man set down his glass. "Why April?"

"The soldiers of the Third Army were unpaid last summer, and in February only some of them were paid. The garrisons here have grievances older than the Constitution." Ayaan spoke carefully. "I judged that when the winter’s savings were gone and the heat returned, the anger would reach its head."

"That is the answer that you would give a magistrate."

"It is what I believe to be true."

"I do not doubt it. I asked for the reason that you gave yourself." Cevdet’s voice remained mild. "A man who fears a season does not complete his preparations ten days before a particular morning, when no price in the market has moved."

Ayaan was silent for the space of several seconds.

"I decline to answer that."

"Declined aloud, as agreed." Cevdet inclined his head. "I note that it was done plainly."

"Why did you take the man from the lane," asked Ayaan, "and what had you learned from him?"

"Because you had seen him, and a watcher who is seen has ceased to be a watcher. And because I had learned what I wished to know."

"Which was?"

"That you do right when you believe that no one is looking, and that you do right when you believe that someone is." The scarred man folded his hands. "It is a rare discovery, and I am not certain that I trust it."

"That is a second question, Efendi," said Zeynep, without raising her eyes from the ledger. "My husband asked it as one, and you have answered it as two."

"I withdraw the second, Han?m, and I offer it as a courtesy."

"Then it is accepted as one."

Cevdet turned his glass a quarter turn upon the counter.

"What do you intend to build?"

It was not the question that Ayaan had expected, and he found that the answer came more easily than he wished.

"A state that does not need a man like me, or a man like you, to keep it from falling," he said. "I mean institutions that outlast their makers: a treasury that counts, schools that fill the offices, and an army that is paid."

"That is not a shop, Efendi."

"It is what the shop is for." He met the other’s eyes. "When the Austrian offered me thirty liras, I asked what they would cost, and the price was the thing that I intend to build."

"It is a large ambition for a stationer."

"I have been told so, and I do not apologize for it."

"I did not ask you to."

Ayaan took up his third question, and he chose it with some care.

"Do you believe that any man can know what is to come?"

"No," said Cevdet, at once. "I have met men who claimed it, and every one was a fraud or a madman."

"Then what do you believe of me?"

"I believe that I have watched a young man prepare for a month and a season, and that he was not wrong." The scarred man spoke without heat. "I do not know what to believe of him. I observe it, and I make no more of it than that."

"That was not a question, Efendi."

"It was an observation. I make a great many, and I do not require that they be answered."

"I shall answer it nonetheless," said Ayaan. "I have used no means that I would be ashamed to show you."

"I know it. I have looked." The scar creased. "I find that I believe you, and I find that it does not help."

Zeynep moved her glass an inch upon the counter.

"I have one question of my own, Efendi," she said. "I did not agree that it should be forbidden."

"Ask it, Han?m."

"Do you wish my husband well?"

Cevdet considered it with great seriousness.

"I wish him useful," he said. "It is not the same thing, but I do not find that it is opposed to it."

"I accept that."

"I did not suppose that you would accept less."

"Your third question, Efendi," said Ayaan.

"My third, and last." The scarred man’s voice had lost some of its edge. "Is there anything that you are hiding which, if it were known, would harm the Empire or the House of Osman?"

The drawer.

Ayaan met his eyes without hurry.

"No," he said. "I would sooner lose my right hand."

Cevdet did not speak. He studied the young man for a long moment, weighing the answer upon a scale that only he could read.

"That is the first answer tonight that was entirely without a door," he said. "I shall remember it."

He rose and took his hat from the counter.

"No one in my service will ask you to act against your conscience, for I have no authority to ask. I shall say that before this company, and I shall abide by it."

"I am glad to hear it."

"I have nothing to offer you, and I shall not pretend that I have. But there is a library in üsküdar, in the house of a retired pasha, and a note addressed to its keeper will be read."

"And mine is a shop in Emin?nü, Efendi," said Ayaan. "A figure sent here will be examined and answered, at the printed price."

Cevdet laughed, shortly, and he looked a little younger when he did so.

"Then we are neither of us the other’s servant."

"No."

At the door, he paused with his hand upon the latch.

"Rafet Bey has found other interests, and he will not trouble this house again. I would advise you not to ask why."

"I shall not, Efendi."

"I am glad of it," said the scarred man, and he went out into the dark lane.

V

Constantinople, Emin?nü — 17 April 1909

A telegram came from Salonica in the morning, and it was brief.

Third Army quiet; the February arrears held the men. Tell no one that I said so. — S.

Ayaan read it twice, and then he gave it to Zeynep, who read it once and laid it in the stove.

In the evening she spread the day’s ledger upon the counter, and she did not open it.

"He told you three things that he did not intend," she said.

"Which?"

"That he serves someone to whom the stationer’s conduct has been reported, because he spoke of what he learned from the watcher." She lifted a finger. "That he has been afraid of April himself, because he asked about the week and not the month. And that he has never before been asked whether he wishes anyone well."

"You have a gift for hearing what is not said."

"I have a gift for reading a man’s ledger when he has taken pains to close it." Her voice was gentle. "And you told him one thing that you did not intend."

"That I am afraid."

"He saw it before you answered. He has been watching your hands for three years." She touched his sleeve. "You said I decline when you ought to have lied, and it was the best answer that you could have given."

"A lie would have ended it."

"It would have ended it, and he would have known. This way, he knows that there is something, and that you will not offer it, and that you will not deny it. It is a stronger position than silence."

He looked at the shuttered window.

I have made a friend, or something that may become one, out of a man whose duty is to doubt me. And I have told him the truth on the one matter in which I could.

"There is something else," he said. "Today was not the day that I remembered."

"You said so last night."

"I have been thinking about it all day. It means that what I know of what comes is less certain than it was." He turned to face her. "I have been proud of that knowledge, and I find that I must hold it more lightly."

"He did not say the Sultan," said Zeynep. "He said the House of Osman."

"It is the same thing."

"It is not. A man who serves a person does not name the person to a stranger, and so he names the house." She paused. "He serves someone very near the throne, Ayaan, and he is afraid for him."

"For the throne, or for the man?"

"I do not know. I think that he does not know either."

She returned to the earlier thread.

"It was never more than arithmetic with some of the figures supplied," said Zeynep. "You have always known that the rest must be read."

"I do not know whether it is a comfort."

"It is a discipline." She closed the ledger. "Those are better."

"Shall we write to the library?"

"Not yet. He has told us that a note will be read, and he has not told us what he will do with it." Her voice was practical. "We shall wait until we have something worth the postage."

"And if he writes first?"

"Then we shall send him the list of our prices."

VI

Constantinople, üsküdar — 20 April 1909

The pasha’s library was warm, for once, because the spring sun had come through the high windows by ten in the morning, and Cevdet had not troubled to light the stove.

He sat with a sheet of paper before him and no folder.

Addendum to the report of 6 April. I have spoken with the subject, at his own shop, in the presence of his wife, under terms of exchange of questions to which both parties agreed.

He wrote the line, and read it, and found that he did not wish to write the next.

The stationer had said, I would sooner lose my right hand, and the arithmetic of it had been without a flaw. It was the kind of answer that a man gave when the thing was not only true, but had been true for so long that it had never required defending.

I asked whether he served anyone, and he asked whether I did. It was the first time that I have said the word aloud to a person who was not an officer of my own office.

He had said I do, and he had found it strange, and he had found it, for a moment, a relief.

He had been told that the stationer was not to learn of the reports, and he had said nothing of them. He wondered, for the first time in his service, whether silence kept at another’s command was a form of untruth.

He had lived six years in the pasha’s house, and in that time he had trusted two persons, of whom one was dead. He did not yet know whether it was folly to consider a third.

He took up the pen again.

The subject is not a foreign instrument, and he is not, in any sense known to me, a subordinate of mine or of anyone’s.

I recommend that no one attempt to make him one.

A man who is not owned may be trusted further than a man who is.

He drew out the fifth sheet from the folder, the one that bore a single name, and he wrote beneath it in pencil.

Partner, and not in name alone. She drafted four terms, and I accepted all four.

Then he returned to the report, and looked at the sentence for a long time. Then he signed the sheet, with the single letter that he used, and put it in the folder, and closed it.

VII

Constantinople, Emin?nü — 27 April 1909

The parcel arrived by the hand of a boy who had been told to wait for no reply, and it contained a sealed note, three pages of figures, and a small purse of coin.

Zeynep opened it first, as they had agreed, and she read it twice before she passed it to Ayaan.

A battalion of two hundred men, a month of bread, at the price of flour as it stood upon the twelfth and as it stands today.

I ask for the sum, and for the margin that a baker would require; the coin is the printed price of the work, and I trust that it is sufficient. — C.

"A customer," said Zeynep.

"A very particular customer."

"Herr Weiss will come again, you know," she added. "He is not a man who accepts a first refusal as final."

"Then he will find the list of prices upon the door, and the Court’s four columns beside it."

"He has sent the exact price, with a small sum added for the trouble, and he has not asked for a discount." She counted the coin. "It is the first time that a man has understood our list at the first attempt."

"It is for the garrison," said Ayaan, reading it again. "Or for the loyal guard. Someone intends to feed two hundred men this month, so that they will remain quiet."

"A bread contract is cheaper than a cartridge."

"Then I shall be glad to have priced it."

"He did not tell us what it was for," said Zeynep. "That is either trust, or a trial."

"Both, I think."

They worked at the back table until the lamps were low. The calculation was not difficult, and it was the baker’s margin that took the time, since it had to be reckoned in the open and justified at each line.

At midnight, Zeynep copied the sum in her upright hand, and Ayaan read it over once.

"It is correct," he said.

"It is correct, and it is plain." She laid the pen beside it. "I shall write the invoice."

She wrote it upon a clean sheet, and she held it up to the light for him to see.

To C., one calculation, at the printed price; paid in full. The house of Hassan thanks its customer.

"Shall we add a line to the ledger?" asked Ayaan.

"Under Reputation." Zeynep reached for the green book. "I shall write only that a customer came, and that he was served, and that no one in the house is the servant of anyone."

She wrote it, and blew upon the ink.

"It is a good beginning," she said.

"It is a single calculation."

"In ten years it may be the largest account that we hold."

"Or the smallest."

"It will be the same ledger," said Zeynep, and she closed the cover.