Chapter 45: Cash Reserves

Chapter 45: Chapter 45: Cash Reserves

I

Constantinople, Sirkeci — 2 January 1912

Zeynep had finished the rules on the last night of the old year, and by the second of January Hac? Arif Efendi had been reading them for an hour in the corner of the coffee-house without once lifting his eyes.

The paper ran to twenty articles, in her upright hand, with a margin wide enough for objections.

Ayaan sat opposite with a cup he did not drink, and Agop Kalfayan sat beside him with his spectacles in his fingers.

"The fourth article," said the old guildsman at last. "No member may borrow more than one part in twenty of the fund."

"It is so that no single failure can injure the rest," said Zeynep, who had come in with Ayaan and sat a little apart with her hands in her lap. "If the fund is two thousand liras, no loan will exceed a hundred."

"It is sensible. It is also a rule that every printer in Sirkeci will curse." Hac? Arif turned the page. "The ninth. A fifth of the whole fund shall be kept in coin and shall never be lent."

"That is the reserve of the Society, Efendi. It is the reason that the Society will still be open in a bad year."

"I have been a guildsman for forty-one years, and I have never seen a fund that kept a fifth in coin." The old man’s tone was dry. "I have seen a great many that kept nothing, and I attended the funerals of most of them."

He took a pencil from behind his ear.

"I shall add one article of my own, and you may refuse it. No member shall be lent a kuru? whose books have not been shown to the guild’s witness, in the presence of the committee, once in each year."

"We should be glad of it," said Zeynep at once.

"You say so quickly."

"Because it is the same check that you asked of the House, Efendi, and it did the House no harm." She smiled slightly. "A rule that a rich house accepts cannot be refused by a poor one."

Hac? Arif wrote the article in a firm, cramped hand, and he read it over twice.

"There is a small entrance fee, I see. A single lira."

"It is so that every member has paid something and has a reason to attend."

"Good." He laid down the pencil. "I have seen a hundred societies founded in this city, Hassan Efendi, and nearly all of them were written by men who wished to be thanked. This one was written by someone who expected to be audited."

"It was written by my wife, Efendi."

"I know who wrote it," said the old man. "I had the good sense to say what I thought of it to her husband."

II

Constantinople, Emin?nü — 12 January 1912

The Charter of the Reserve was read aloud in the upper room on a cold Friday evening, and it was the first document of the House that both of them had signed in the same hour.

Zeynep read it, and Ayaan followed upon his own copy, with a pencil in his hand that he did not use.

"The first article. The reserve of the House shall be held in three tiers, and no tier shall be spent to relieve another without the written consent of both partners."

"Agreed."

"The first tier is coin in the strong room, being six months of wages and rent, and the next two payments to the mill. It shall not be lent, invested, or pledged." She turned the page. "The second tier is the deposits in the Ottoman Bank, the house of Kalfayan, and the house of Dufour at Geneva, which shall be kept in equal thirds by the end of the year."

"I should not wish the Geneva third to reach its full size in less than a year."

"It will not. The third is the goal, and the year is the means." She read on without pause. "The third tier is the venture account, which may be used for the foundry, the mill, the school, and any new enterprise. It shall never borrow from the first or the second."

"And the signatures?"

"No sum above two hundred liras shall leave the first or second tier without the signature of both partners." She laid down the sheet. "I put in two hundred because it is the sum that either of us could plausibly spend in a single mistake."

Ayaan took up the pen, and then he held it for a moment above the page.

In the first life, I should have thought that a rule like this was timid.

In this one I have learned that the only fortune which survives a panic is the one that was arranged before it.

"I wish to add a final article," he said.

"Say it."

"That either partner may call the other to account for any breach of the Charter, in the presence of the elder of the household, and that the other shall answer plainly." He looked up. "A rule that cannot be enforced against its authors is only a wish."

Zeynep considered it, and then she took the pen from his hand.

"I shall write it," she said. "And since you have proposed it, I shall call you first to account in the event of a breach."

"I should expect nothing else."

She wrote the article, and they signed beneath it, and Mustafa, who had been sitting by the stove with the child asleep upon his arm, nodded once and said nothing at all.

III

Constantinople, Emin?nü — 23 January 1912

The telegram arrived at ten in the morning, in the hand of the Galata agent of the marine underwriters, and Elias carried it up the stair and did not speak.

Ayaan read it aloud.

"The steamer Carniola of the Austrian Lloyd struck a reef off Cape Malea in the gale of the twenty-first and was lost. The crew are saved. The cargo is lost entire."

"The fine paper," said Zeynep.

"Two thousand reams, bought at Vienna, and due to the Palace upon the fifteenth of February." He laid down the telegram. "The mill cannot make the whole of it before April."

She was silent for some time, and Elias stood by the door with his hands clasped before him.

"How much was insured?" she asked.

"Seventy in the hundred. The claim will be paid, Mr. Hastings says, in perhaps four months."

"Then the House has lost the use of seven hundred liras for four months, and has lost the other three hundred outright." Her voice was level. "And the Palace will have no paper on the fifteenth."

"I could write to Rag?p Bey." Ayaan turned the telegram over. "I could say that the ship is lost, and ask for an extension of the date."

"He would grant it."

"I think that he would."

"And what would the Palace think of the House that asked for it?"

He did not answer at once, and she did not press him.

"It would think that the House is one that keeps its word until the day that it becomes expensive," he said slowly. "It would not say so, but it would remember it when the next tender was opened."

"Then there is another course."

"There is. Vlastos of Pera holds fifteen hundred reams of Viennese fine paper in his warehouse, which he bought for his own contract. I have seen the stock."

"He will charge us for it."

"He will charge whatever he likes, and I shall pay it." Ayaan looked at her. "It is the first tier of the reserve that allows me to say so, Zeynep. A House that had nothing in coin would be asking the Palace for time at this moment."

She took a pen and drew a line upon the slate.

"The first tier is six months of wages. This is not a wage, and it is not a rent, and the Charter does not permit it." She looked up. "It may be drawn from the venture account, which is for exactly this kind of expense, and which has four hundred and ten liras."

"Then the Charter is respected."

"The Charter is respected, and the reserve is not touched." The corner of her mouth moved. "I confess that it is a pleasure to see a rule do what it was written to do."

IV

Constantinople, Pera — 24 January 1912

The warehouse of Vlastos and Sons stood behind a tall front of cut stone, and the clerk at the door looked at Ayaan with open astonishment before he led him inside.

Vlastos was seated at a high desk in the back office, in his grey overcoat, with a ledger open before him and the look of a man who had not slept well.

He rose slowly, and he did not offer his hand.

"Hassan Efendi. I did not expect that you would come to me."

"I have come to buy, Efendi." Ayaan did not sit. "I understand that you hold fifteen hundred reams of Viennese fine paper, of the quality that the Palace uses."

"I do."

"The steamer that carried the House’s paper was lost off Cape Malea on the twenty-first. I should like to buy yours, at your own price, for cash, today."

Vlastos stared at him.

The silence in the small room was long, and it was the merchant who broke it, with a short, unsteady laugh.

"You are the man who has taken the Palace from me, and you come to me for paper." He sat down heavily. "It is not the position that I should have imagined for myself."

"It is the position of two stationers, one of whom has paper and one of whom has need."

"My price is eleven kuru? the ream."

"The House pays nine and a half upon its own schedule."

"I know it. I read your schedule each month." The merchant’s eyes were bitter. "I tell you plainly, I could ask fourteen, and you would be obliged to pay it."

"You could."

"Why do you not argue?"

"Because eleven is a fair price for paper that is in hand in January, Efendi, and I should not respect myself if I bargained over the misfortune of a ship." Ayaan took a purse from his coat. "I shall pay it now."

Vlastos did not touch the purse.

He sat for a long moment with his hands upon the ledger, and Ayaan saw that his fingers were not steady.

"You do not know what it is that you are doing," he said at last. "My creditors have been at my door for six weeks. I owe two thousand liras to a house in Vienna, and I owe the stationers of Pera the thanks that they never received, and I have not been paid by the Palace since the tender."

"The Palace pays in sixty days, Efendi."

"It pays in sixty days upon the receipt, and I have not yet delivered the two thousand reams of the common grade, because I have no cash to buy the stock." He looked up, and his face was drawn. "Your purse will pay my Vienna house for a month, Hassan Efendi. It is the first coin that I have been offered since Christmas."

Ayaan laid the purse upon the desk.

"Then we shall each have what we needed," he said. "I shall have my paper, and you will have your month."

"I signed the petition against you." Vlastos spoke very low. "Twenty-six men put their names to it because they owed me, and I told them that it was patriotism. It was not. It was fear."

"I know it, Efendi."

"And you came here with cash." The merchant shook his head slowly. "I do not understand you, and I find that I do not wish to be your enemy."

"I have never wished to be yours." Ayaan inclined his head. "Send the paper to Emin?nü this afternoon, and I shall send the receipt by the same cart."

V

Constantinople, Y?ld?z Palace, the Chief Secretariat — 14 February 1912

Rag?p Bey had the two thousand reams counted before the door of the stores on a bright, cold morning, and he stood by with the ledger himself.

"The count is correct," he said at last. "The weights are correct, and the quality is that of the sample, and the date is the date in the contract."

"I am obliged to you, Efendi."

"I am obliged to you, for a thing that I did not know I should be." The secretary closed the ledger and led him into the small office, where a stove was burning. "I was told on the twenty-fourth of January that the steamer had been lost."

"By whom?"

"By the underwriters, who write to the Palace when the Palace’s goods are concerned." Rag?p Bey sat down. "I expected that you would write to ask for time, and I had resolved to grant it. I wished to tell you that, so that you would know what I should have done."

"I did consider it, Efendi."

"And you did not write."

"I did not wish the House to be a house that must be forgiven." Ayaan took the chair that was offered. "It is a very small thing to buy replacement paper at a fair price, and a very large thing to be known as the supplier that comes on the day."

The secretary nodded slowly, and the tiredness in his face seemed lighter.

"I have a piece of news," he said. "The Ministry of Finance has adopted, as a trial, the calendar of payments that your commission proposed. For the schools’ suppliers, from April, payment will be made in March and in September, upon fixed days."

"That is excellent news."

"It is the first time in my service that a Ministry has given a date to a merchant and kept to it." Rag?p Bey allowed himself a thin smile. "There will be a great many who dislike it, because they lived upon the delay."

"They will dislike it most when it works."

"I think that they will dislike it a good deal longer than that." The secretary rose. "The Palace payment will be sent on the fifty-eighth day. I mention it only because it is two days earlier than you required, and I should like it noted."

VI

Constantinople, Emin?nü — 20 February 1912

The first quarterly count of the strong room was held on a Tuesday afternoon, with the door of the vault open and the lamp lit upon the table.

Agop Kalfayan sat upon one side, with his spectacles on his nose, and Mustafa sat upon the other, with his hands folded upon his stick.

"The Charter requires that two persons who are not of the House shall witness the count," said Zeynep. "I thank you both for coming."

"I have never been asked to count another man’s gold before," said Mustafa gravely. "I find that I am looking forward to it."

Elias counted the coin into tens upon the green cloth, with his lips moving, and Zeynep read each total from the ledger as he finished it.

They had reached the last bag when the clerk stopped, and his face lost its colour.

"Han?m, the count is one lira short."

No one spoke.

Elias set down the coin in his hand with great care, and he drew a small worn pocket-book from his coat.

"I took it, Han?m. On the fourth of the month. My sister’s child had a fever, and the physician would not come without his fee, and I did not wish to trouble anyone." He held the book out with both hands. "I wrote a note for it here, and I meant to bring the lira back on the first of March, from my wages, and to tell you then."

Zeynep took the pocket-book and read the note, which was dated, signed, and exact.

"Elias Efendi, why did you not ask?"

"The reserve is not to be touched, Han?m. It is written in the Charter."

"It is written that it may not be lent, invested, or pledged, and you did none of those things in your own mind." She laid the book upon the table. "You took a lira without leave, and you wrote it down, and you confessed it before the count was finished. I shall record it as an advance upon your wages."

"I shall repay it today."

"You will repay it on the first of March, as you intended." Her tone softened. "And you will remember that the House has a relief fund for the families of its workers, which exists for the fever of a sister’s child. You had only to ask."

The clerk’s eyes filled, and he looked at the floor.

"I have watched a great many strong rooms counted," said Agop Kalfayan quietly. "Never until today have I seen a man confess a shortage before the figure was announced."

"I have not either," said Mustafa. He rose and laid his hand upon the clerk’s shoulder. "This is the House that my daughter has been building, Elias. Do not ever mistake it for the shop."

VII

Constantinople, Emin?nü — 1 March 1912

The library of the school was opened on the first of March, in the room next to the lecture room, with a long table, six shelves, and four hundred volumes that Cevdet had carried across the Bosphorus in his own two hands.

He wore a plain grey coat, and no one who saw him among the boys would have supposed him to be anything but a quiet and rather severe clerk.

Eleven boys sat on the benches with their hands upon their knees, and Selim, the youngest, had been placed in the front row because he could not be placed anywhere else.

"I shall tell you the rule of this room," said Cevdet. "The first rule is that no book shall leave it without being written in the register. The second is that no book shall be struck, folded, or damaged. The third is that if you do not understand a book, you shall ask me, and I shall not laugh."

"Efendi," said Selim, "have you read all of them?"

"I have read three hundred and eleven, and the rest are in languages that you will learn." The scarred man regarded him gravely. "Do you wish to begin?"

The boy nodded.

Cevdet took a small book from the shelf, bound in blue cloth, and laid it in front of him.

"It is a book about a clock," he said. "A man in Geneva made a very small one, and wrote down how, and it is very clear. When you have finished the first Chapter, you will come to me, and tell me what you have understood."

Selim opened the book with both hands, and he bent over it, and the rest of the room went quiet.

Ayaan stood at the door with Zeynep, who had carried Mehmed up the stair to see the new shelves.

"I did not believe that he would stay," she said under her breath.

"He has not yet been asked to give up his other work." Ayaan kept his voice low. "I think that he is waiting to see whether he is permitted to keep it."

"He has not asked?"

"He told me in November. I said that I should not wish him to stop, and he has not spoken of it since."

Cevdet glanced up from the long table, and for a moment his eyes met Ayaan’s across the room.

He nodded, very slightly, and returned to the register.

When the boys had gone to their lesson, Cevdet came to the door with the register under his arm.

"I wish to tell you something that is of no use to anyone," he said. "I slept the whole of last night, for the first time in eleven years."

"I am glad of it, Efendi."

"I did not know that it was possible." He looked back at the empty benches. "I shall not say that it is the doing of the House. I shall say that I have not had a reason to listen for footsteps."

VIII

Constantinople, Sirkeci — 29 February 1912

The Mutual Credit Society of the Stationers and Printers held its first meeting upon the twenty-ninth of February, which would not come again for four years, in the upper room of the guild house, with forty-three members and a long table covered in green baize.

Hac? Arif Efendi presided from the head of the table, in his best coat, with the rules before him and Agop Kalfayan upon his right.

"The Society has a fund of nineteen hundred liras," he said. "Five hundred from Agop Efendi, five hundred from the House of Hassan, seven hundred from the guild, and the remainder in entrance fees and the first yearly gifts of the members."

A murmur of satisfaction went round the room.

"It has a reserve of a fifth in coin, which is three hundred and eighty liras, and which nobody may lend." The old man peered over his spectacles. "I tell you this twice so that you may remember it when you are tempted."

Laughter followed.

"It has a committee of five, of whom three belong to the guild, one to the House, and one to Agop Efendi, who has begged me to say that he does not wish to be thanked."

"I do not," said Agop mildly.

"And it has a first application." Hac? Arif lifted a sheet. "A binder of Kumkap?, named Yervant, who wishes to purchase a press and has been refused credit in three banks of the city."

A thin, dark man at the end of the table rose, twisting his cap in his hands.

"I have worked for twenty-two years, Efendi, and my master died, and the press is for sale, and I have eighty liras and I need a hundred and forty." His voice was hoarse. "My neighbour the printer has put his name upon the back of my note."

"Do you show your books to the guild’s witness?"

"I show them to anyone, Efendi. I have nothing to hide."

The committee examined the books at the long table, in the sight of the room, and it took three-quarters of an hour.

Zeynep, who sat at Ayaan’s side at the foot of the table, did not speak once, and Ayaan saw that she was watching the binder’s face and not the ledger.

"The committee approves a loan of sixty liras at eight in the hundred, for one year," said Hac? Arif at last. "It is a hundred and forty less eighty. It is not a gift."

"It is not a gift," said the binder, and he wept.

A second applicant followed, a widow of Beyaz?t named Hatice Han?m, who kept her late husband’s small bookshop and wished to buy a stock of schoolbooks before the autumn term.

She asked for forty liras, and she showed her ledger without being asked, and the committee approved it in a quarter of an hour.

"She will repay it by October," murmured Agop Kalfayan. "I have lent to her husband, and he was careless, but she reads the foot of the page."

"It is a good phrase, Agop Efendi," said Zeynep. "I shall tell my husband that you stole it."

When the room had emptied, Agop Kalfayan came and stood by them, and Hac? Arif came behind him with the signed note in his hand.

"Take it, Han?m," said the old guildsman, and he held it out. "It is the first of the Society, and it ought to be kept by the person who wrote the rule."

Zeynep took the paper, and she read it, and she folded it with great care.

"I shall put it in the cedar box," she said, "beside the others."

"And what are the others?"

"The first contract of the mill, and the first letter from Geneva, and the first bill that was paid on the fifty-eighth day." She looked from one old man to the other. "They are all the same kind of thing, Efendi. They are the places where the House kept its word when it was expensive."

That night Ayaan wrote the date in the notebook, and he added only a single line.

A reserve is the courage of the past, laid up for the fear of the future.