Chapter 60: Political Introductions

Chapter 60: Chapter 60: Political Introductions

I

Constantinople, Galata — 8 November 1915

Server Bey sent a note to the Financial Office by the hand of a Ministry messenger.

It invited Ayaan to a supper on the twentieth of November at which three deputies and a director of the Ministry of Commerce would be present.

Zeynep read the note and passed it to Cevdet, who had come up the stair that morning with the gazettes.

"The Ministry wishes to hear the House speak of the Market Code before the Chamber rises for the winter," she said. "I think it is an honest invitation, but I should like to know whom the guests are."

Cevdet read the four names and laid the note on the table.

"Nuri Bey of Ayd?n is a deputy of the Committee, and he is a man who speaks plainly and keeps his word," he said. "Hakk? Bey of the Ministry is clever and ambitious, and the other two are merely present."

"Is there a danger in any of them?" asked Ayaan.

"Who sits beside whom at the table matters as much as who is invited," said Zeynep. "I should like to know that, too."

"There is a danger in every introduction, Efendi, but it comes from the man who gives the name and not from the man who receives it." Cevdet folded the gazette. "Go to the supper, and let Zeynep Han?m write the rules before you leave."

II

Constantinople, Emin?nü — 12 November 1915

Zeynep sat at the study table with a clean sheet, and Ayaan sat across from her with the note from the Ministry.

"I have written four rules for meetings with officials," she said. "I would like you to read them, and to tell me where they are too strict."

He read the first, which forbade the House to accept any gift from a public servant or to offer one.

The second forbade the House to promise a price, a lot, or a share of the Compact’s credit to any person outside the Compact.

The third required that every meeting with a minister, a deputy, or a director be written in a visitors’ book on the same day, with the persons present and the matter spoken of.

The fourth was in a firmer hand, and it said that Ayaan should bring a figure to every meeting and no request.

"There is nothing too strict," he said. "I would add only that no meeting be held in a private house without a witness of the House."

"Cevdet Efendi has already asked for that, and I have written it in the margin." Zeynep smiled. "You will find that the rules protect you from your own good nature."

Ayaan signed the sheet, and she placed it in the front of a new book bound in grey cloth.

III

Constantinople, Sirkeci — 20 November 1915

The supper was held in the upper room of a restaurant near the railway station, where the lamps were few and the table was long.

Nuri Bey of Ayd?n sat at the head, a heavy man with a quick eye, and he spoke to Ayaan before the soup had been served.

"I am told that your Market Code has been adopted by six hundred shops without a single decree," he said. "My constituents in the Ayd?n valley would like to know how it was done."

"It was done with a weight, a board, and a receipt, Nuri Bey, and with the guilds’ own witness to enforce it," said Ayaan. "The House asked for no seat and no payment, and it paid for the first stamps from its own account."

"A merchant who builds without asking for a profit is a creature that my constituents do not believe in."

"Then they may read the guild notice, where each fine is posted and each shop is named." Ayaan took a sheet from his case. "I have brought the figures of the first quarter, and any deputy may check them."

Nuri Bey read the figures slowly and passed them down the table.

"My constituents will ask whether the House is not simply a rich man buying a good name," he said. "What shall I tell them?"

"Tell them to count the weights that were found false in the first week, and to ask who paid for the stamps," said Ayaan. "The answer will be written in the guild notice."

Hakk? Bey of the Ministry of Commerce took them next, and he read them with the quick eyes of a man who has already begun to plan.

"The Ministry would like to know whether such a code might be extended beyond the city," he said.

"The code is the work of the guilds, and the guilds should be asked," said Ayaan. "I will bring you the figures from the provinces when I have them."

IV

Constantinople, Be?ikta? — 2 December 1915

Fahri Pa?a received Ayaan in the library of his house on the Bosphorus shore, where a charcoal brazier warmed the room.

The old Minister had left office the previous year, and he looked thinner but no less alert.

"I have heard that you dined with Nuri Bey and Hakk? Bey," he said. "Both are able men, and Hakk? is the abler, and he will rise."

"I owe the introduction to Server Bey, Pa?a."

"You owe it to the figures that you carried, Ayaan Efendi, and to the clean books of the House for five years." Fahri Pa?a poured coffee for them both. "I wish to tell you what an introduction is."

Ayaan set down his cup and waited.

"It is a loan of the lender’s name, and the borrower pays it back with his conduct," said the old man. "I lent mine to you when you sat upon my commission, and you did not spend it on any price or any lot."

"I tried to keep it as I found it."

"Then keep it so with Hakk?, and do not ask him for anything that you would not ask before the Sultan." Fahri Pa?a smiled. "A man who can say that of himself may be introduced to anyone."

"Will you write to Hakk? Bey, Pa?a?"

"I shall write nothing, for the supper has already done it, and a second letter would only seem to ask a favour." He raised his cup. "Allah keep the House from the habit of favours, and the Ministry from the habit of asking them."

Ayaan drank, and he noted that the old Minister had asked him for nothing at all.

V

Constantinople, Galata — 15 December 1915

Cevdet climbed the stair at dusk and laid a thin portfolio of grey paper upon the long table.

"This is the file that I made upon you in the spring of 1909, Efendi, in my own hand," he said. "I wish you to read it, so that you may know what I once believed."

Ayaan opened the portfolio and read the first page, which described a young stationer of nineteen who kept his own accounts in a fine, precise script.

The second page recorded the shop’s first ledger and the bread-contract figures, with a note that the young man had checked every sum twice.

The last page was dated the twelfth of April 1909, and it carried one line.

He is afraid of April.

"I have not altered a word of it in six years," said Cevdet. "I give it to you because the House now meets ministers, and I wish you to see that I have never reported anything to any person that I would not show to you."

Ayaan closed the portfolio and held it for a moment with both hands.

"You have kept this for six years, and you give it to me when I am least able to deserve it," he said.

"A man gives such a thing when he is certain that the receiver will not misuse it, and I am certain, Efendi." Cevdet bowed slightly. "Keep it in the strong room with the notebook, and let Zeynep Han?m read it if she wishes."

VI

Constantinople, Sirkeci — 4 January 1916

Hakk? Bey received Ayaan in the Ministry of Commerce on a cold morning, in a room with a large map of the empire upon the wall.

A clerk brought tea, and Hakk? Bey dismissed him with a movement of his hand.

"The figures of the Market Code are the best that the Ministry has seen from any guild," he said. "I would like to ask whether the House would write a memorandum upon extending it to the provincial towns."

"The House would write it gladly, Hakk? Bey, if the Ministry understands that the guilds must own the code and not the House," said Ayaan.

"The Minister has the same view, and he would sign a circular to the governors if the memorandum is sound." Hakk? Bey leaned forward. "Would the House expect a contract?"

"The House expects nothing, and the visitors’ book will show that it asked for nothing."

Hakk? Bey laughed shortly and wrote a line in the margin of his paper.

"I have heard that said of you, and I did not believe it until this moment," he said. "I shall expect the memorandum by the first of March."

"It will be sent to the Ministry by the hand of a clerk of the House, with a copy to the guild elders," said Ayaan. "No one shall say that it was written in a closed room."

Ayaan thanked him and walked out through the long corridor, and he stopped at the map by the door and found the small dot that marked the Rüstem Pa?a warehouse on the Golden Horn.

VII

Constantinople, Emin?nü — 14 January 1916

Zeynep opened the grey book at the long table, and she counted the entries with her finger.

"Eleven meetings with officials since the twelfth of November, and not one gift offered or received," she said. "Three requests were made of the House, and all three were declined."

"Which were they?" asked Ayaan.

"A deputy asked for the price of the Palace order to be reduced, a clerk asked for a place in the foundry for his nephew, and a broker asked for the House’s endorsement upon a bill." She turned a page. "The clerk’s nephew shall come to the engineers’ school like any boy, and sit the same test."

"And the deputy?"

"He was told that the price is on the board, and he may read it there." She closed the book. "I think the rules have worked, and I think they have cost us nothing."

Ayaan took the grey portfolio from the shelf and set it beside the book.

"Cevdet gave me this, and I wish you to read it before the Compact dines on Friday," he said. "I have no secret in it that I would keep from you."

Zeynep opened the portfolio and read the first line aloud, and then she read the last one in silence.

"He has watched you for six years, and he has never once been your enemy," she said at last. "I am glad that he told you."

VIII

Constantinople, Galata — 31 January 1916

The letter from the Ministry of Commerce arrived in the afternoon post and was brought up by Mihran.

It confirmed the request for the memorandum, and it named the first of March as the date and Hakk? Bey as the officer to whom it should be sent.

Zeynep read it twice at the long table and carried it to Ayaan in the study of the house at Emin?nü.

"You have a state’s request in your hand, and you have no contract and no promise," she said. "I think it is the first time that the House has been asked for its counsel and not for its goods."

"It is the first state proposal, and I am not certain that I know how to write it," said Ayaan. "I know how to count a ream of paper, but I do not yet know how to count a province."

"Then we shall count it together, with Agop Efendi and Server Bey and the guild elders, and every figure shall be one that a clerk may check." She laid her hand upon the page. "You said that a rule is only as good as the man who can follow it."

Ayaan smiled, and he drew the lamp closer to the table.

He wrote one line in the small ordinary notebook that he had begun in June of 1914.

Names are borrowed and must be returned clean.