Chapter 63: Negotiation

Chapter 63: Chapter 63: Negotiation

I

Constantinople, Sirkeci — 17 July 1916

Hakk? Bey sent for Ayaan and Zeynep together, and he received them in the room with the large map.

A grey folder lay upon his desk, and he laid his hand upon it before he spoke.

"The Intendance of the Ministry of War requires four thousand reams of letter paper and forms each year for the army’s offices," he said. "It has asked the Ministry of Commerce to name a supplier who can be trusted to deliver."

"And the Ministry has named the House," said Zeynep.

"It has named three houses, and I have advised the Intendance that yours is the only one whose cost sheets it may read." He opened the folder. "The Intendance proposes the price of the year 1914, payment in Treasury bonds at six months, and a contract of two years."

Zeynep read the proposal through to the last clause and set it down.

"The price of 1914 is nine kuru? and twenty para a ream of letter paper, and our cost today is eleven kuru?, before the carriage," she said. "It is a request that the House sell below its cost and wait six months for the money."

"I know it, Han?m, and I do not defend it," said Hakk? Bey. "But it is the opening of a negotiation, and I would not wish you to refuse before it has begun."

"The House does not refuse, Hakk? Bey, but it will not sign a price that it cannot keep."

II

Constantinople, Emin?nü — 20 July 1916

Zeynep laid three slips of paper upon the study table and wrote a figure upon each.

"The first is the price that I hope for, the second is the price that I will accept, and the third is the price at which I will walk away," she said. "Mustafa Efendi taught them to us when we were children, and I have not found a better method."

"Read them to me," said Ayaan.

"Fifteen kuru? for the hope, thirteen kuru? for the acceptance, and eleven kuru? and a half for the walking away, which is our cost with the carriage and a very small margin." She turned the slips face down. "A price below the third is a loan that we make to the Intendance, and I do not think that the House should be a lender to the army."

Ayaan weighed the slips in his hand, though they weighed nothing.

"There is a fourth figure that you have not written," he said. "What is the price that the Intendance can pay, if it is honest about its own books?"

"I do not know it, and I shall not learn it unless I ask," said Zeynep. "I shall ask in the meeting, and I shall show them our figures first."

"Is that wise, to show a cost sheet to a buyer?"

"It is the only way to show that the cost is not a pretext, Ayaan, and it is the same rule that we apply to the Market Code."

III

Constantinople, Bayezid — 28 July 1916

Colonel Re?ad Bey of the Intendance was a broad, grey-moustached man who sat very straight and gave every sentence the force of an order.

He received them in a bare room of the Ministry of War, with Hakk? Bey at one side and a young lieutenant with a notebook at the other.

"The army has fixed its prices by the year 1914, and the Treasury has fixed its bonds by the law of the war," he said. "I do not see that there is anything left to discuss."

"There is a cost sheet, Colonel," said Zeynep, and she laid six pages before him.

Re?ad Bey did not touch them for a moment.

"The Intendance does not usually read the books of its suppliers," he said.

"It does not usually buy from suppliers who show them, and I would ask that you read it before you decide whether I am cheating you." Zeynep folded her hands. "Every figure is the price paid by the House, and every one may be checked at the customs or the mill."

The colonel took the first page and read it, and he read the second with his eyebrows drawn together.

"The cost of the paper has risen by a quarter since the war began," he said slowly.

"By twenty-three parts in a hundred at the mill and fourteen at the frontier, Colonel, as the sheet shows."

Re?ad Bey set the pages down and turned to the lieutenant.

"Write that the meeting is adjourned until the twenty-second of August," he said. "I wish to show the Intendance’s own accountant what a cost sheet looks like."

IV

Constantinople, Galata — 4 August 1916

Cevdet brought word on a hot afternoon, and he stood at the window of the Financial Office with his hat in his hand.

"The Berlin house has offered the Intendance the same paper at the price of 1914, payment in bonds at six months, and a guarantee of delivery," he said. "It is supported by a German officer of the military mission, who has called twice upon the colonel."

Zeynep read the note that he handed her, and her face showed nothing.

"They cannot supply it at that price without a loss," she said. "Their cost is higher than ours."

"They will take the loss, Han?m, and the Berlin government will pay it, and it will be written in the next account between the two empires." Cevdet turned from the window. "The price is not a price, it is a purchase of the army’s trust."

Agop Kalfayan, who had come up the stair to hear the news, spoke from the doorway.

"A price below cost is a loan from the maker to the buyer, and the loan is repaid in exclusive custom," he said. "I have seen it done to better houses than yours."

"Then we cannot match it, and we should not try," said Zeynep. "We shall offer a different kind of bargain."

"What kind?" asked Agop.

"One that the Intendance may check, and the Berlin house cannot."

V

Constantinople, Emin?nü — 11 August 1916

Mehmet was six years old that week, and the garden was filled with the noise of a small drum that Mustafa had brought him from üsküdar.

When the boy had been carried to bed, Ayaan and Zeynep sat at the study table with the three slips of paper before them.

"There is a way to take the contract at a loss," said Ayaan. "We should be the army’s paper house, and our name would be read in every office of the empire."

"I have thought of it, and I find that I cannot recommend it." Zeynep turned the slip of eleven and a half. "A loss that is accepted for gratitude becomes a debt, Ayaan, and the Intendance will remember who owes whom."

"Is it not also a way to protect the House from the Berlin offer?"

"It is a way to delay the Berlin offer, and the delay would cost the House more than the loss." She laid her hand flat upon the table. "I propose a price that follows the cost, with a margin of eight parts in a hundred, reviewed each quarter against the sheet that I have shown."

"And the payment?"

"In coin at sixty days, with one quarter of it in Treasury bonds at face, so that the Intendance does not feel that it is being refused." She looked at the three slips and gathered them. "If they will not accept a price that follows the cost, then the House will walk away, and I shall be sorry, but I shall not be ashamed."

Ayaan nodded, and he found that he agreed with every clause.

VI

Constantinople, Bayezid — 22 August 1916

Colonel Re?ad Bey received them again, and this time an elderly accountant in a worn frock coat sat at his right hand.

"My accountant has read your sheet, madame, and he has found no figure that does not agree with the customs registers," said the colonel. "It was a surprise to him, and an annoyance to me."

"I am sorry for the annoyance, Colonel, and glad of the surprise," said Zeynep.

She proposed the formula, and she proposed the quarterly review, and she proposed the payment in coin at sixty days with one quarter in bonds.

Re?ad Bey listened without a word, and when she had finished he leaned back in his chair.

"The Treasury will not agree to a price that rises with the market," he said. "It will agree to a ceiling of ten parts in a hundred above the price of 1914."

"Ten parts in a hundred above 1914 is ten kuru? and eighteen para, and our cost is eleven kuru?," said Zeynep. "I am sorry, Colonel, but I cannot accept a ceiling that lies beneath the cost."

"You would walk away from the army?"

"I would walk from a price, Colonel, not from the army, and I would be ready to return the moment the price allowed it."

Hakk? Bey, who had said nothing, spoke quietly.

"The Intendance might begin with a trial order, at the formula price, for five hundred reams," he said. "If the paper is as the House says, the ceiling can be discussed in October."

The colonel looked at Zeynep, and then he looked at his accountant.

"Five hundred reams," he said. "Delivered by the ninth of September."

VII

Constantinople, Galata — 9 September 1916

The five hundred reams were stacked in the yard of the Financial Office’s warehouse at dawn, and the lieutenant of the Intendance counted them with a pencil.

Colonel Re?ad Bey came himself at nine, and he opened a ream at random and held it to the light.

"The sheets are of an even weight and the edges are clean," he said. "I have bought paper for the army for nineteen years, and I have never had a delivery that was counted before I arrived."

"Every ream was counted by two clerks and signed by both, Colonel, and the slip is attached to the bale," said Zeynep.

The colonel read a slip, and he read a second, and he turned to the lieutenant.

"How many reams?" he asked.

"Five hundred exactly, Colonel, and the weights agree with the sheet."

Re?ad Bey was silent for a time, and then he took a pen from his pocket and signed the receipt.

"The Intendance will agree to the formula without a ceiling, with the quarterly review, and with a clause that the Berlin offer shall not be considered," he said. "It is the first contract that I have signed with a cost sheet attached to it."

"It will not be the last, Colonel, I hope," said Ayaan. "The House will deliver the next five hundred on the first of October, and the slip will be attached as before."

The colonel nodded to the lieutenant, who wrote the date in his notebook.

"I would not wager upon that, Efendi, but Allah knows I shall not be sorry."

VIII

Constantinople, Emin?nü — 30 September 1916

The contract of the Intendance was copied twice and laid in the strong room beside the Charter of Wartime Credit.

Ayaan read it once more at the study table, and he found that it was shorter than any other agreement that the House had signed with the state.

Zeynep sat opposite him with the ledger of the Financial Office open at the page of the seventh quarter.

"The House has gained a contract and an accountant who now believes in cost sheets," she said. "The Berlin house has lost an officer’s patience and a good deal of money."

"And we have gained a colonel who dislikes being surprised." Ayaan smiled. "I think that he will tell the other officers of the Intendance."

"I hope that he will tell them that a cost sheet is not an insult, and that a price which follows the cost is easier to defend before the Treasury than a price that does not." She dipped her pen. "Mustafa Efendi used to say that a bargain is only finished when both men would make it again."

"Would the colonel make it again?"

"He signed with a pen from his own pocket, Ayaan, and I think that is an answer."

She wrote the line beneath the entry of July.

The seventh quarter of the office: Intendance contract signed. Price follows cost. Berlin refused. Four thousand reams a year.

She closed the book, and Ayaan took the small notebook from his pocket and added a line of his own.

A price that can be checked is a price that can be kept.