It was the usual case of foreign things being valued above the local. The Sultans had used this exquisite ceramic work for their everyday meals. The porcelain from China was for state occasions.
There was, of course, one problem with eating off the Iznik ceramics: lead was used in the glaze. Oktay Fener often wondered what role the lead had had in the streaks of insanity that flashed through the history of the Sultans and their families. Lead, added to inbreeding.
His next article would address that issue. Controversy again, he supposed. But someone had to expose the past.
CHAPTER 25
“Oh, yes—I understand you perfectly!”
“I wish I might take this for a compliment; but to be so easily seen through I am afraid is pitiful.”
Jane Austen, Pride and Prejudice
The ferry slowed and came to a stop, grinding its string of worn rubber tires along the wooden wharf at Ҫengelköy.
Ҫengelköy. Now I remembered where I’d seen that name. It had been in Peter’s notes. I’d keep my eyes open. Or at least try to think why Peter had jotted it into his files.
As I jumped across the space between the boat and the shore, a few sharp raindrops hit my uncovered head. Andover hailed a taxi whose driver seemed to know him well, and we bumped over narrow cobblestone streets for ten minutes until the car stopped. Lights welcomed from windows as we stepped from the street to a little set of stairs. High walls loomed on each side of the lighted portion of the traditional wooden yali. But tree branches visible against the city-hued night sky promised garden delights in warmer weather.
“Welcome to my house,” said Andover, with a smile and a grand gesture of his well-manicured hands.
CHAPTER 26
The call to prayer seemed to him, as it would later to me, addressed to the “mute, blind, and deaf houses falling here in silence and solitude.”
Orhan Pamuk, Istanbul, Memories and the City
In Üsküdar along the Asian side and down a few villages from Ҫengelköy, Erol Metin was back in his cell-like room, thinking. The meeting had consisted of an inspirational talk from Hamdi about the past glories of the Ottoman Empire and the need for a Pan-Turkic Empire today. This time, Hamdi emphasized, the Turks would not turn themselves into a multicultural hodgepodge in which they played a relatively minor role. You could hardly tell Ottoman Istanbul from the capitals of Europe! Or even China.
Thus, the invidious influence of modern-day intellectuals drawing from global philosophies had to be stopped. Foreigners became suspect.
Islam could be one tool in the Wolves’ playbook. People liked to think of themselves as religious. You could play on their sympathies that way.
Another tool, regrettably, would have to be the violence they had been experimenting with. Hamdi had gestured sadly as he announced this.
And the tools for violence required money. Lots of money. The Silver Wolves had some irons in that fire, too. Drugs, arms. Trade in anything was acceptable in order to carry out their objectives.
Erol hated some of the tasks they were asking him to do. He sighed. What would this do to his sister, Leila?
CHAPTER 27
I had a sudden chill of recognition that I was in Asia Minor, on the shore at last of a holy land where three great religions had helped to form me and everything I knew.
Mary Lee Settle, Turkish Reflections
Lawrence Andover’s house was, in a word, perfect. Its uneven floors were polished so that the wood gleamed in lamplight. Scattered around the living room lay exquisite rugs, some Turkish, some Persian, in muted tones of red, blue, green. Bookcases lined the walls, a collector’s library on the shelves. The scent of roses infused the room from two slim vases that boasted Ottoman designs.
On every piece of antique furniture sat some startling work of art: richly-decorated Iznik-style plates and bowls; statues Greek or Roman in inspiration; old manuscripts in the flowing, pictorial Arabic script, adorned by intricate miniatures. I couldn’t take my eyes off the ceramics, swirls of blue and orange, red and green, with tulips or carnations.
Andover caught my amazed, admiring gaze at the room: “Yes,” he said wryly. “I am a collector.”
“It’s beautiful,” I breathed.
Out the six vertical windows at the back of the yalı, the Bosphorus glided by, wide and dark and silent between this continent and Europe. A passing ferry switched on its lights, becoming in an instant a jeweled princess’ slipper.
Drinks were served by a well-trained, white-uniformed servant.
“Have some rakı,” urged Andover, pointing to a bottle of the deceptively-innocent-looking, colorless liquid.
The memory of the burning, anise-flavored national drink made my mouth water. Turkish meze in all its glorious variety is meant to be nibbled as one sips, just sips, rakı. And one, of course, gossips while sipping. I might get Andover to talk more freely over rakı.
The meze was laid out on a large glass-covered coffee table: charred eggplant and green pepper and two or three kinds of beans, each fried in olive oil and garlic and served with yogurt with still more garlic; tiny Black Sea anchovies, fried to a crisp; buttery-leaved börek filled with goat cheese or bits of lamb and spinach; Persian melon called kavun in Turkey; and flat, hot pide bread.
Only the food could have taken my mind off the ceramics and art works on the walls. I dug in with gusto.
Andover clearly enjoyed entertaining amazed guests. “It’s good, isn’t it?” he said. “I have the best chef in Istanbul!”
“You do indeed!”
Even the distant sound of a doorbell didn’t slow me down. A shame that my mouth was full as I turned to meet the newcomer.
CHAPTER 28
“…I am in no humour at present to give consequence to young ladies who are slighted by other men.”
Jane Austen, Pride and Prejudice
Before me stood the handsomest man I had ever seen. Pure Mediterranean—curly dark hair sprinkled with distinguished gray. Strong, craggy features lined with an indeterminate number of years.
“Ahmet Aslan,” said the head-turner, holding out his hand.
I caught the flash of something in his expressive dark eyes. The glimmer’s meaning was clear to any woman who has cut her eye-teeth. It surprised me and put me on guard.
“Aslan here was due to have a meeting with me, and I said he should meet you. By the way, Elizabeth, Mr. Aslan is one of Turkey’s biggest businessmen.” Lawrence—no, I couldn’t call him that yet—Andover--turned to discuss something with his butler.
“What sort of business?” I asked.
“We make dishes and tiles, for the domestic market and for export,” said Aslan. “And we do some cement projects.”
“Saying Aslan makes dishes is like saying Wedgwood makes plates,” remarked Andover, turning from his butler and offering me another glass of rakı and water. “His name is the signature brand of Turkey.”
I said no to more rakı. After all, I had a significant trip returning to the Pera. Ahmet Aslan took a glass and added water from the bottle the servant had brought.
At this point, Andover excused himself to take a telephone call,