Chapter 54: Private Secrecy

Chapter 54: Chapter 54: Private Secrecy

I

Constantinople, Emin?nü — 18 April 1914

The lamp was low, and Ayaan sat at the window with the notebook open upon his knee.

Zeynep came in from the nursery and stood behind his chair without reading the page.

"You have written the year and stopped," she said.

"I have been trying to decide how much of it to write." He closed the book. "There are things in it that I have not said aloud to anyone."

"I know that there are." She sat on the arm of the chair and folded her hands. "Nearly four years ago you told me that you would one day explain how you knew the war was coming, and I have not asked since."

"I remember."

"I am not asking tonight, Ayaan, but I wish you to know that I am still waiting."

She did not press him, and he did not offer.

Instead she took the notebook from his knee, held it a moment, and gave it back unopened.

He nodded slowly, and he did not answer, for he had no answer ready that was both true and safe.

II

Constantinople, Rüstem Pa?a — 2 May 1914

Cevdet and Elias came to the warehouse office with a single sheet between them, and they laid it on the desk side by side.

"I have written two lists, Efendi, and I would ask you to read them before the House sends another sealed letter," said Elias. "The first is headed Open, and the second is headed Closed."

Ayaan read the first column.

It held the price boards, the Friday counts, the fund statement, the rules of the sheds, and the names of the clerks.

"And the Closed list?" he asked.

"The place and amount of the reserve, the names of the banks, the terms of the Geneva account, and the drawings of the foundry." Elias paused. "Also the names of any person who brings the House a warning."

Cevdet inclined his head at the last line.

"I added that one myself," he said. "A merchant who publishes everything is honest, but a merchant who publishes the names of his informers is merely careless."

"What is the rule?" asked Zeynep, who had come in behind them.

"That nothing on the Closed list is written in an open letter, and that no clerk may speak of it, even to another clerk of the House," said Elias. "The partners alone decide what moves from one list to the other."

Ayaan signed the sheet, and Zeynep signed beneath him.

III

Constantinople, Galata — 14 May 1914

Agop Kalfayan waited until the other members had left the hall before he spoke.

"Zeynep Han?m has asked me to prepare a larger forward purchase for the autumn, and she has also asked for stock in the Smyrna and Trabzon sheds to be raised by a third," he said. "I did not ask her why, because I thought I should ask you."

"The Balkan quarrel is not ended, and the Austrian and Serbian papers are sharper each month," said Ayaan. "A merchant who watches them should hold more stock than he needs, and more money than he wishes to spend."

Agop studied him through narrowed eyes.

"That is a good reason, and it is not the only one," he said.

"It is the only one that I can give you today, Agop Efendi."

The old man was silent for a while, and then he laid his hand upon the table.

"I have kept books for fifty years, and I have learned that a man’s reasons are his own," he said. "I ask only that the figures you show me are true, and that you never give me a reason that you know to be false."

"I never shall," said Ayaan.

"Then I shall prepare the purchase, and I shall not trouble you again."

Agop rose, gathered his papers, and paused at the door of the hall.

"Do not mistake my silence for indifference, Efendi," he said. "I shall sign the purchase with a clear conscience, and I shall pray that your reasons prove unnecessary."

Ayaan thanked him, and he found that he could not answer more.

IV

Constantinople, Kas?mpa?a — 20 May 1914

Herr Imhof unlocked the drawing cabinet in the foundry office and showed Ayaan the new lock that Yakup had fitted that week.

"Two keys, as the Closed list requires, and the second is held by Selim," he said. "No drawing leaves the cabinet unless its number is written in the book."

A visitor had arrived that morning with a letter of introduction from a Berlin machine house, and he now waited in the yard with his hat in his hand.

"What does he ask?" said Ayaan.

"He wishes to see the pattern of the dryer roller, and he offers to pay for the privilege." Imhof allowed himself a thin smile. "I told him that the House shows its price boards to every man and its drawings to none."

Yakup came in from the furnace with soot on his forearms and a serious face.

"I have taught the apprentices that a drawing is not a secret because it is clever, but because it is ours," he said. "They understood it better than I expected."

"Then they shall each be paid a quarter-lira extra at the month’s end," said Ayaan, "and the stranger may wait in the yard until he is tired."

V

Constantinople, Süleymaniye — 24 May 1914

Mustafa sat on the low wall of the terrace with his prayer beads in his hand.

"I have seen since you were a boy that you carried a weight that you would not put down," he said. "I did not ask what it was, and I do not ask now."

"I have not wished to burden anyone with it, Father."

"A man may keep a thing private without lying, my son." Mustafa turned the beads slowly. "Silence is not deceit, so long as the silence harms no one and the words that are spoken are true."

Ayaan watched the ships crossing the Golden Horn.

"And if the silence begins to harm those I love?" he asked.

"Then you must ask Allah what share of it belongs to them." Mustafa looked at him kindly. "Your wife is a woman who counts, and she has counted for four years without complaining. Do not make her wait longer than she must."

Ayaan bowed his head and remained beside his father until the evening call to prayer.

He understood that he had been given permission, and that the choice of the hour was his.

VI

Constantinople, Emin?nü — 7 June 1914

The house was quiet, and Mehmed had been asleep for an hour.

Ayaan laid the notebook upon the table and did not open it.

"You asked me once how I knew that the war would come, and I have never told you," he said. "I shall tell you what I can, and it will not be everything."

Zeynep put down her pen and gave him her full attention.

"Since I was a child, I have known the shape of certain events before they happened, and I cannot explain how," he said. "I know that a great war is near, that it will last years, and that it will break more than one empire."

"Do you know the date?" she asked.

"I know that it begins this summer or the next, and I do not know the day." He kept his eyes upon her. "I have not told you more, because every detail that I add makes me a prophet, and a prophet cannot be trusted with a ledger."

Zeynep was silent for a long while.

"I shall not ask you to prove it, for I have watched your reasons for four years, and they have always held," she said at last. "But I have a condition."

"Name it."

"That when you act upon this knowledge, you will give me a reason that anyone could check, a figure or a letter or a rumour." She leaned forward. "I will not have the House rest upon a thing that only you can see."

"It is a just condition, and I accept it," said Ayaan.

She took his hand and held it, and neither of them spoke again that evening.

VII

üsküdar — 15 June 1914

Cevdet received Ayaan in the library of the school, among shelves that had been catalogued twice.

"I have a question that I have not asked in four years," he said. "I shall not ask it now, but I wish to tell you why."

"Tell me, Cevdet Efendi."

"I watched you for a year as the Palace’s servant, and I have watched you since as your friend." Cevdet set down his spectacles. "You know things that you ought not to know, and you use them as a careful man would use a borrowed instrument."

Ayaan did not look away.

"I have told my wife a part of it, and I shall not tell you the same part," he said. "It would be a burden to you and a danger to us both."

"Then I shall not ask for it." Cevdet’s voice was even. "I made a bargain with you in the autumn of 1910, that neither of us would ask the other for anything that he would be ashamed to ask before the Sultan."

"I remember it."

"Then I keep it, and I add one thing." Cevdet leaned on his stick. "If the day comes when your knowledge is sought by people who would use it for harm, tell me before you tell anyone else."

Ayaan took his hand.

"I shall tell you first," he said.

VIII

Constantinople, Galata — 17 June 1914

Monsieur Barrault asked to see the reserve statement of the House in the same form that the Compact had received.

Zeynep brought it to the bank herself and laid the totals before him, but she left the names of the three banks blank.

"The sum is complete, and the division into tiers is complete, monsieur," she said. "The names belong to a list that the partners do not open."

Barrault looked at the blank spaces for a moment and then at her.

"A banker is accustomed to ask for everything and to receive a little," he said. "It is rare to be told plainly what will not be given."

"I would rather say it plainly than conceal it by a vague answer."

"Then I shall record that the House has declined to name its banks, and that it has done so for stated reasons," said Barrault. "It is the most reliable kind of refusal."

He signed the statement and handed it back to her with a short bow.

IX

Constantinople, Emin?nü — 20 June 1914

Zeynep carried the notebook to the strong room of the warehouse that morning, and the two keys were turned by two different men.

"I would not have it lie in a drawer," she said. "Whatever it contains, it is the most private paper in the House, and it belongs upon the Closed list."

Elias wrote its entry in the register without asking what it was.

"Whoever opens it after us will find only a few pages of dates and sums," said Ayaan quietly. "The rest is in my memory, and there it must stay."

"Then I shall ask you to read it to me once a year, in whatever words you choose," said Zeynep. "A secret that is never spoken is hard to carry, and I would carry a share of it."

"One notebook, in the partners’ keeping, not to be opened by any clerk," he read aloud, and then he added with dignity, "I have not seen it, and I shall not."

In the evening Ayaan took a fresh sheet from the desk and began a smaller notebook for ordinary things.

Mehmed climbed upon his knee and pressed a pebble into his hand.

"This is a secret," he whispered. "You must not tell Mother."

"I shall keep it," said Ayaan solemnly, and he put the pebble into his pocket.

Zeynep, who had heard every word from the doorway, smiled and said nothing.

Later, when the lamp was low, Ayaan wrote a single line in the new book and thanked Allah that his silence had not cost him his friends.

A secret is not a wall but a trust, and it is kept only by those who are trusted to keep it.