Chapter 47: Regional Trade

Chapter 47: Chapter 47: Regional Trade

I

Constantinople, Rüstem Pa?a — 8 July 1912

Haddad of Beirut arrived at the warehouse with two trunks of ledgers and a sunburnt face, and he asked for Zeynep before he asked for tea.

"I have placed paper in forty-one shops of Beirut, Damascus, and Aleppo since March," he said. "Every account is current, and I have brought the figures so that you may see it for yourself."

Zeynep read his pages at the credit table while he waited, and she asked only three questions. Each answer was exact.

"You have done what you promised, Haddad Efendi," she said. "Now tell me what you could not do."

The agent hesitated, and then he spoke plainly.

"The roads inland are slow, and a shop in Aleppo waits eleven weeks for a parcel. If the House kept a small stock at Beirut, I could fill an order within a week."

Ayaan, who had been listening from the doorway, came forward and took a chair.

"A stock at Beirut means a warehouse, a clerk, and a guard," he said. "It also means that money is tied up where we cannot see it every morning."

"Then let us see it every morning, by a weekly letter," said Zeynep. "Haddad Efendi will send his count of reams every Friday, and Elias will compare it with our own."

"And the rent?" asked Haddad.

"The rent shall be paid by the House and recovered from the margin," she answered. "If the stock does not sell within four months, we shall close it without complaint."

The agent bowed his head. "That is a fair way to begin."

II

Constantinople, Galata — 18 July 1912

Agop Kalfayan spread a map of the provinces across his table and weighted its corners with four brass inkwells.

"Your reach is now longer than your credit," he said. "A bill drawn upon Aleppo takes seven weeks to collect, and a bill drawn upon Salonica takes three."

"Then the Ottoman Bank must collect them," said Zeynep. "Monsieur Barrault named us his provincial correspondent, and his branches stand in Beirut and Salonica."

"They do, and they will take a small fee for it." Agop touched the map with his pen. "But the better course is a second name upon every bill above thirty liras, and a local banker who knows the buyer by sight."

Ayaan studied the coast of the Aegean for some time before he spoke.

"Agop Efendi, which accounts on this map seem to you the weakest?"

The old sarraf looked at him over his spectacles.

"The accounts in Thrace and Macedonia have grown quickest this year, and they are held by the smallest men. If anything disturbed those provinces, they would be the first to fail."

"Then we shall make them our first lesson," said Ayaan quietly. "Let us ask for a second name on every Rumelian bill beginning next month."

Agop did not ask what disturbance Ayaan had in mind, and Ayaan did not offer it.

"I shall write to the Salonica banker this week," said Agop instead. "He is an honest man, and he will understand the request without needing a reason."

III

Constantinople, Sirkeci — 29 July 1912

Hac? Arif Efendi received them in the upper room of the guild house, where the green baize still covered the long table.

"The guild has decided to form its purchasing association," he said. "Forty members have signed, and they wish to buy their paper together and not each alone."

"Then they will buy cheaper, and they will also buy better," said Ayaan. "A single large order gives a mill the courage to hold its price."

The old guildsman raised one finger. "They ask that the House should not make the price. They ask only that it should publish it, as it does at the Rüstem Pa?a warehouse."

"The board shall be hung in this room, and the guild witness shall read it aloud at each quarterly weighing," said Zeynep. "No member shall be told a price that another member is not told."

Hac? Arif nodded, and his spectacles flashed in the light from the window.

"My grandfather said that a guild is a promise kept by many men at once. I had begun to fear that nobody would remember it."

"Forty signatures prove that they remember it, Efendi," said Ayaan.

IV

Constantinople, Kas?mpa?a — 12 August 1912

The masonry foundation had been laid ten days before the date Ayaan had promised, and ?smail Usta stood upon it with his hands on his hips.

Herr Imhof knelt at its edge with a level, and he took a very long time to read the bubble.

"It is true," he said at last. "I have set machines upon foundations in Zürich that were not so exact."

Halil R?fat came across the yard with a paper in his hand and could hardly keep his voice level.

"The first two rollers for the ?zmit mill have passed the test, Ayaan Efendi. They bore a load of four tons and showed no flaw, and I have written every figure."

"Then Nikolaos Efendi shall have them by Saturday," said Ayaan. "And he shall have the figures with them, so that he may see what the House means by a guarantee."

A letter from Winterthur lay beside the rollers, and Zeynep had marked its last paragraph in pencil. Keller and Son had agreed that the clause forbidding the sale of the drawings should bind both houses equally.

"He did not refuse," said Zeynep. "I think he respects a customer who reads the contract."

"Or he feared to lose the order," said Ayaan, smiling. "In either case, the clause is now correct."

Imhof wiped his hands and looked at the two students, who had been scraping a steel plate by hand since dawn.

"They are slow," he said. "But they are slow in the right direction."

V

Constantinople, Rüstem Pa?a — 26 August 1912

Haddad’s first Friday letters had grown into a small bundle upon Zeynep’s desk, and she read the latest aloud to Ayaan.

"Six hundred reams stand in the Beirut store, and a hundred and forty have gone in two weeks," she said. "A shop in Aleppo was filled in six days, where it waited eleven weeks before."

"And the accounts?" asked Ayaan.

"Every one is current, and every one carries a second name." She turned the page. "He adds that a teacher in Damascus has asked for exercise books at the price of the board, and that she cried when she saw that it was the same for her as for the merchant."

Ayaan took the letter and read the line himself.

"Tell Haddad Efendi that the stock may stay open beyond the four months," he said. "And tell him that the House is glad of the teacher."

Zeynep made a note in the margin, and she underlined it twice.

Outside the window the carters were loading the Friday wagons, and their voices carried across the courtyard in the morning light.

"It is strange," she said. "The largest accounts give us the profit, and a single small account gives us the reason."

VI

Constantinople, Kas?mpa?a — 4 September 1912

Cevdet waited in the school library with a single sheet of paper, and he did not rise when Ayaan entered.

"Three things have changed in Rumelia since the summer," he said. "The price of mules has doubled in Sofia and Belgrade, flour is being bought in quantities that no town requires, and railway wagons have been taken from the private lines of Bulgaria."

"What do the Ministries say?" asked Ayaan.

"They say that it is the season for manoeuvres." Cevdet folded the sheet. "I say only that a state which buys mules in September is thinking of the roads of October."

Ayaan was silent for a time.

He knew from his old life what the autumn of 1912 had held, and he knew also that he had altered much since coming into this one. He could no longer be certain of the day, only of the direction.

"Cevdet Efendi, you have kept our agreement without once asking me a question," he said. "I wish to answer one that you have not asked."

"I would not ask it."

"I know, and so I say it freely. I believe war will come to the Balkans before the winter, and I intend that the House shall be ready for it."

Cevdet’s face did not move, but his hand rested for a moment upon the table.

"Then I shall watch the northern roads more closely," he said. "And I shall tell you when the watch is no longer enough."

VII

Constantinople, Rüstem Pa?a — 20 September 1912

Ayaan met Zeynep in the counting room after the warehouse had closed, and he laid the Rumelian accounts upon the table.

"Eighty-three accounts in Thrace and Macedonia," he said. "Together they owe the House nine hundred liras, and most of it will fall due after the first of November."

"You wish to collect early," said Zeynep, who had already begun to turn the pages.

"I wish to offer a discount of four in the hundred to every account that pays before the middle of October." He rested his hands upon the table. "And I wish to move our stock at Salonica and Edirne back to the warehouse here."

"You have not told me the reason, Ayaan."

"I have told you part of it. The rest I will tell you when I am certain of it myself."

She looked at him for a long moment, and then she nodded and drew a clean sheet toward her.

"Then I shall write the letters in my own hand, and I shall say that the House is closing the season early." She dipped her pen. "It is a reason that any merchant understands."

By the end of the week fifty-one accounts had accepted the discount, and four hundred and ten liras had returned to the strong room.

VIII

Constantinople, Emin?nü — 8 October 1912

News came at dusk, brought by a boy from the telegraph office to the door of the shop.

Montenegro had declared war upon the Empire, and the first shots had been fired along the border.

Mustafa, Zeynep’s father, had come to the house for supper, and he read the paper twice before he laid it on the table.

"Allah protect the Empire," he said. "Is it true that you drew in your stock from Salonica a fortnight ago?"

"It is true, Father," said Zeynep. "We thought it prudent."

The old merchant studied his daughter, and then his son-in-law, and he did not ask which of them had thought it first.

"I have been in trade for forty years," he said. "I have seen merchants ruined by the war and merchants ruined by the peace, and the ones who survived were the ones who moved before the news."

Mehmed, who was two years old, climbed upon his grandfather’s knee and demanded the paper. Mustafa gave it to him gravely.

That night Ayaan stood at the window and looked across the dark water toward Galata. Fires were burning on the quay, and the voices of the city were louder than usual.

He thought of the ledgers and the strong room, and of the roads to Edirne where mules were already moving. He had prepared the House for a trade that would be broken, and he knew that preparation was only the beginning.

When Zeynep came to stand beside him, he did not turn.

"It has begun," he said.

"Then let us be ready for the next day," she answered, "and for the one after that."

Below them, in the street, a company of reservists marched toward the Sirkeci station with their bundles upon their shoulders.

Some of them were the sons of men who had bought paper at the House, and Ayaan recognised the face of a young clerk from the stationers’ lane.

"They will need letters from home, and they will need ink and paper to write them," said Zeynep softly. "We shall keep the price of both exactly where it is."

"Yes," said Ayaan. "No man shall be charged more for a letter to his mother because the Empire is at war."

He wrote in the notebook before he slept, and the line was short.

The merchant who trades in many provinces must first learn to withdraw from them.