Chapter 38: A Quiet Offer

Chapter 38: Chapter 38: A Quiet Offer

I

Constantinople, Emin?nü — 4 July 1910

Zeynep read the Under-Secretary’s note for the third time on Monday evening, and then she laid it face down upon the table.

"He wrote that the Minister wishes to see you," she said. "He did not write why."

"A man who writes three lines to a stationer has weighed each of them." Ayaan sat across from her with the notebook open. "The omission is deliberate."

"Then let us list what it could be, and decide in advance what we would answer."

She took a clean page and wrote four headings in her small, clear hand.

A reprimand, a request for a favour, a demand for a payment, or an offer.

"A reprimand is unlikely," said Ayaan. "The trial was measured by the Ministry’s own officers, and the Minister has read the report."

"A favour is possible, and so is a payment, and we should refuse both without anger." She tapped the last heading. "I think that it is an offer."

"Of what kind?"

"Of the kind that a man makes when he has seen a result he likes and wishes to own more of it." Zeynep looked up. "Ayaan, you must decide tonight what you will not accept, because a man who has been flattered will accept a great deal that he did not intend."

"I have never been flattered by a minister."

"Then you do not yet know how it feels, and I should prefer that you learn it with my pen in your hand."

He smiled, and he turned the notebook so that they could both write.

They wrote three lines under the heading Never.

Nothing that makes the House dependent upon a single customer.

Nothing that must be hidden from the people who work for us.

Nothing that asks Elias, or any honest man, to lie.

"Add a fourth," said Zeynep. "Nothing that cannot be refused later."

"Why?"

"Because an offer that cannot be refused later is not an offer, but a debt." She wrote it herself. "I have seen what such debts cost my father’s friends."

Ayaan watched the four lines take shape upon the page.

He thought of the ledger in the shop below, where every column had a limit, and he saw that a man’s wishes required the same discipline as his accounts.

"We shall read them again on the morning that we go," he said.

"We shall read them again every morning until the Minister has spoken," said Zeynep, "and perhaps afterward."

II

Constantinople, Bab-? ?li — 7 July 1910

The Minister of Public Instruction received him in a room much larger than the Under-Secretary’s, with a carpet from Hereke and a window that looked toward the Golden Horn.

He was Fahri Pa?a, a broad man of sixty with white hair and tired, humorous eyes, and he did not wait for the coffee to be served before he began.

"Hassan Efendi, I have read your report upon the registers twice, and my officers have read it four times." He gestured to a chair. "I wish you to understand that I do not usually remember the names of stationers."

"I am honoured that you remember mine, Pa?a Hazretleri."

"Do not be honoured yet. I have not said what I remember." The Minister’s mouth moved. "Re?id Bey tells me that you made a bargain with a man whom you might have destroyed."

"I made an arrangement with a printer, Pa?a. It served us both."

"It served the Treasury, which is more unusual." Fahri Pa?a leaned back. "I have been Minister for five months, and in that time I have been offered a great many arrangements. Nearly all of them served the person who offered."

Re?id Bey, who stood by the window with his hands behind him, said nothing, but his expression suggested that he had heard this speech before and approved of it.

"I will tell you plainly what I intend," the Minister continued. "The schools of the provinces are supplied badly. The registers are poor, the forms are late, the accounts do not agree, and the money that should buy slates and primers is spent upon the carriage of things that arrive spoiled."

"I have seen the figures for the trial, Pa?a. The loss is large."

"It is larger than you have seen." The old man folded his hands. "I propose to do three things, and I propose to do them quietly, by letter, without notice in the gazette, because there are persons in this building who would oppose any one of them if they heard of it in advance."

"I understand."

"The first is a contract. Your House will supply all registers and school forms for the provincial schools of the Empire for three years, at the price that you have shown, with depots in the capitals of the vilayets."

Ayaan kept his face still.

Three years, and the whole Empire, a hundred times the size of the trial.

"The second is a place upon a commission that I am forming, to examine the supply and accounting of the schools." Fahri Pa?a lifted a finger. "You would sit with Re?id Bey and two others, without salary, and you would advise upon what should be bought, and how it should be paid for."

"And the third?"

"The third is that your advice shall be given to me directly, and not through the Ministry’s offices, for a period of one year." The Minister looked at him steadily. "I have been told that your name is spoken in rooms above mine. I do not know who spoke it, and I think that I am not meant to ask."

"I do not know either, Pa?a."

"I believe you." Fahri Pa?a smiled for the first time. "You need not answer today. I should be uneasy if you did."

"May I have a week?"

"You may have ten days. After that, I shall have to offer it to someone less careful."

III

Constantinople, Emin?nü — 8 July 1910

They sat in the upper room on Friday afternoon, with the shutters half drawn against the heat and the cradle of walnut standing in the corner.

Zeynep had a cushion at her back and a glass of water at her elbow, and she was making a table with a ruler, in two columns.

"Say it again," she said, "from the beginning, in the Minister’s own words as nearly as you can."

Ayaan repeated the three proposals, and she wrote them down.

"Now the benefits."

"The contract would multiply our work a hundred times. It would give us depots in every vilayet, a standing relation with every provincial governor’s office, and a certainty of income for three years."

"And the commission?"

"It would give us a voice in how the Ministry spends, and an understanding of the schools that no stationer has ever possessed." He paused. "It would also place us within the sight of the Minister himself, which is what we have been trying to avoid."

"We have not been avoiding it, only controlling it." She drew a line. "Now the risks."

He drew a long breath.

"The first is that the House will be seen to be the Minister’s favourite, and every stationer in the Empire will resent it. Hac? Arif has said that a man who is neither thanked nor cursed has no power, but a man who is cursed by all of them has more enemies than he can count."

"The second."

"The second is that we should depend upon a single customer for most of our income. If the Minister falls, or the Ministry changes its mind, the House falls with it."

"And the third."

"The third is that a man who both supplies the Ministry and advises it upon what it buys is a judge in his own cause." He said it slowly. "Any honest official would be right to distrust him."

Zeynep put down the ruler.

"You have said the three that I had written," she said, "and I have a fourth, which is not about the House."

"Say it."

"The depots must be established in the capitals of the vilayets, and the first of them must be inspected by someone who understands the machine and the ledger." Her voice was level. "I think that it would be you. You would be away for weeks at a time, and the midwife says that my time is in August."

Ayaan did not answer at once.

He had thought about the contract, the commission, the rivals, and the Ministry. He had not thought, until she spoke, that the largest cost of the offer would be paid in the room where they were sitting.

"I shall not leave the city before the child is born," he said.

"I did not ask you to promise it."

"You did not need to." He took her hand. "I have decided it, and I should like it written beneath the other lines."

She wrote it, and her hand was not entirely steady.

"There is a fifth risk," she said, "that is not a risk to us, but to the people who work for us. Pike and the German agent have both been to Kas?mpa?a this year. A House that becomes more visible becomes a place that it is worth the trouble to bribe, or to rob, or to frighten."

"I have thought of it."

"Then think also of ?smail Usta’s family, and Halil Bey’s, and Elias’s." She looked at him. "They have taken the risk of working for us, and they did not choose to be seen by a Minister."

"I shall speak to each of them before I answer."

"You must. And you must tell them what you intend to do, and not what you intend to say."

IV

Constantinople, Süleymaniye — 9 July 1910

Mustafa Efendi heard it all in the courtyard of the mosque, on the stone bench beneath the plane tree where he had sat for thirty years to think.

When Ayaan had finished, the old merchant did not speak for a long time. Pigeons moved across the flagstones, and a boy sold water from a brass jar at the gate.

"It is a fine offer," he said at last, "and it is made by a man who wishes to be known as the Minister who mended the schools."

"Do you think that it is dishonest?"

"I think that it is sincere, and I have found that sincere men are often more dangerous than dishonest ones." Mustafa rested both hands upon his cane. "A dishonest man can be refused, and a sincere man can only be disappointed."

"Then I should refuse the whole?"

"I did not say so." The old man looked at him. "Tell me which of the three you would give up first."

Ayaan considered.

"The contract," he said. "It is the largest, and it carries the greatest danger."

"Why?"

"Because it would make the House the creature of the Ministry. A House that cannot lose a customer without ruin has no choice about what it will do for that customer."

"And the commission?"

"The commission is a seat and not a bond. If I leave it, I lose a place, and nothing else." He frowned. "It gives me what the contract cannot, which is the right to speak about what the Ministry buys."

"Then you have answered your own question."

"I have answered half of it. If I refuse the contract, I give the Minister’s rivals a reason to say that the stationer has been rewarded for nothing, and I give the Minister a reason to think that I have no gratitude."

"A man who accepts a gift that he does not want is paying a price for the sake of appearing grateful," said Mustafa. "A man who refuses it, and explains why, is paying a price for the sake of being honest. I know which I would rather be known as."

"And the Minister?"

"The Minister is sixty years old and has been wrong about a great many things, and he is wise enough to know it." The old merchant allowed himself a small smile. "Allah gives some men power and others judgment, my son, and the fortunate few receive a little of both." "A man of that kind will forgive an honest refusal more easily than a hasty acceptance."

They sat for a time in silence, with the sound of the water-boy’s brass cup ringing softly at the gate.

"Baba Mustafa, may I ask something?"

"You may ask anything, my son."

"Did you ever refuse such an offer, in your own time?"

"I refused two." Mustafa tapped his cane upon the stone. "One of them ruined the man who accepted it, and the other made the man who accepted it a pasha, and I have never been certain which of those fates I was sparing myself."

"Which did you refuse?"

"The one that made him a pasha." The old man laughed gently. "It is not always the fall that costs a man most, Ayaan, and you will find that out in due course."

V

Constantinople, üsküdar — 11 July 1910

Cevdet read the report in the pasha’s library, with the stove cold and the shutters open to the afternoon.

It was Fehmi’s longest summary of the month, and it ran to four pages, and Cevdet read it with his pen in his hand and made no mark upon it.

"The Minister has made him an offer," he said when he had finished. "Three, in fact."

"So we are told, Efendi, by a person in the Ministry who heard the Minister dictate the letter."

"And the stationer has not answered."

"He has ten days." Fehmi stood before the desk with his hands folded. "He has consulted his wife and his father-in-law, and he has called upon the foundry master and the engineer and the clerk, one after another, on the ninth and tenth."

Cevdet raised his eyebrows.

"He has gone to the men who work for him before he has answered the Minister?"

"He sat with each for an hour, Efendi. I do not know what was said."

A man who consults his workmen about an offer from a minister is either very foolish or very sure of them. I have never known him to be foolish.

"Did you have any part in this?" asked Fehmi, with the hesitation that he reserved for questions he did not wish to ask.

"In the offer?" Cevdet considered. "I wrote no letter to the Minister, if that is what you mean. I arranged that an honest inspector should examine the stationer’s books, and the inspector spoke well of him, as an honest man does."

"And the Minister read the inspector’s report."

"I suppose that he did. I did not ask."

He sat for some time, and he was aware, with a certain surprise, that he was not entirely indifferent to the answer.

"I have been reading about this young man for fifteen months," he said at last. "I have seen him do most of the things that a clever merchant does, and a few that only a wise man does."

"Which is this, Efendi?"

"This is the test of whether he can be offered more than he wants." Cevdet put down the pen. "A merchant will accept the whole and think himself fortunate. A coward will refuse the whole and think himself prudent."

"And the wise man?"

"The wise man will take what he can carry, and refuse what he cannot, and tell the giver exactly why." He folded the report. "I should like to see which of those he is."

VI

Constantinople, Bab-? ?li — 14 July 1910

Ayaan came to the Ministry on the fourth day before the end of the ten, and he came with a single sheet of paper folded in his coat.

Fahri Pa?a received him in the large room, with Re?id Bey standing at the window as before, and the Minister’s first words were a question.

"You have decided, I think."

"I have, Pa?a."

"And?"

"I should like to accept the commission, Pa?a, without salary, and the year of direct advice, upon conditions that I have written." Ayaan drew out the sheet. "I should like to decline the contract."

The Minister said nothing for a time, and Re?id Bey turned slowly from the window.

"You refuse the best part," said Fahri Pa?a.

"I refuse the part that would be used against us both, Pa?a." Ayaan spoke carefully. "If the House is the sole supplier of the schools, and a member of the commission that advises upon what the schools buy, then every price in the Ministry’s schedule will be suspected, and every suspicion will be reasonable."

"I have told you that the arrangement is to be quiet."

"Nothing in this building is quiet for long, Pa?a. A thing that is hidden is regarded as a theft, and a thing that is shown is regarded as a policy."

"And what do you propose instead?"

"That the supply of the provincial schools be divided into lots, by region, and offered by open tender to every stationer in the Empire who can meet the Ministry’s standard." Ayaan laid the sheet upon the desk. "That the House should bid for some of them, and not for all, and that no lot should go to the House at a price higher than the lowest honest offer."

"You would permit your competitors to underbid you."

"I would, Pa?a, and in some regions they will succeed, and the schools will be supplied more cheaply for it." He did not look away. "No more than one-third of the House’s income shall come from any one customer, and I have written that also."

"Why?"

"Because a House that cannot afford to lose the Ministry will not be able to tell the Ministry that it is wrong."

Fahri Pa?a lifted the sheet and read it slowly, with his lips moving slightly, as men of his generation did.

"You have also written that the commission shall publish its schedules of prices each year."

"So that the clerks of the Ministry may see them, Pa?a, and the provincial governors, and the stationers. A schedule that may be read is a schedule that may be corrected."

"It may also be attacked."

"It may, and I would rather it were attacked in public than whispered against in private."

The Minister set the sheet down. He looked, not at Ayaan, but at Re?id Bey, and some understanding passed between them that Ayaan could not read.

"Re?id Bey," said Fahri Pa?a, "you told me that this young man would refuse the contract."

"I told you that I thought it likely, Pa?a."

"And I told you that I did not believe it." The old man turned back. "I have offered a great many persons a great deal of money in my time, Hassan Efendi, and I do not think that any of them has ever given me a reason to refuse it."

"I hope that my reason is a good one, Pa?a."

"It is a better one than I should have found myself." Fahri Pa?a took up his pen. "I accept your conditions, and I shall have the letter drafted by Re?id Bey tonight. You will begin upon the commission on the first of August."

"I am grateful, Pa?a."

"You need not be. It is your own price that I am paying."

Re?id Bey walked with him to the head of the stair, and there he stopped.

"I told him that you would refuse it," he said quietly. "I did not tell him that I hoped it."

"I am glad that I did not disappoint you, Efendi."

"You have not, and I will give you a warning in return." The Under-Secretary lowered his voice. "Server Bey will sit upon the commission with us, because the Minister did not wish to leave him out, and he will have heard of this before the evening."

"I had expected it."

"Then expect also that he will not oppose you openly. He will wait until you make a small mistake, and he will call it a large one."

"Then I shall make no small mistakes," said Ayaan, "and I shall ask my wife to read the first draft of every report that I send."

Re?id Bey’s grave face softened for a moment.

"That," he said, "is the first sensible thing that I have heard from a member of any commission."

VII

Constantinople, Emin?nü — 20 July 1910

The letter of appointment reached the shop on a Wednesday morning, in an envelope that bore no seal and no mark of office.

Zeynep read it in her chair by the window, with the midwife’s cushion at her back, and when she had finished she handed it to Ayaan without comment.

"It says all that we asked," he said.

"It says all that we asked, and it says that the Minister reserves the right to alter the terms at will." She looked at him sideways. "I should have preferred that he did not."

"He is a Minister, Zeynep."

"He is a Minister, and I am your wife, and I shall be reading every letter from the Ministry until the day that you tell me to stop." Her mouth twitched. "Which I shall not do, so you need not trouble to say it."

Ayaan laughed.

He had spoken that week to ?smail Usta, to Halil R?fat, and to Elias, and each of them had asked him a different question.

?smail had asked whether the foundry would be required to cast anything that it should not. Halil had asked whether he might go on refusing the Arsenal, and Elias had asked only whether he would be required to keep two sets of books.

Ayaan had answered all three with a plain no.

He had noticed that the answers were received with more relief than any promise of wages could have brought, and he had understood that the men were asking for the shape of the House, and not for its profit.

?smail Usta had added one request, which was that the new commission should never send an inspector to the yard without telling him the reason. Ayaan had written it in the notebook that night, with the date, and had read it twice.

"Hac? Arif Efendi sent a message this morning," said Zeynep. "He says that the guild has heard of the commission, and that two of the Sirkeci shops have already asked whether they may bid in the autumn."

"They may."

"He says that he told them so, and that he told them that you had refused the contract." She smiled. "He said that it was the first time in his life that he had heard of a merchant declining a fortune, and that he did not at first believe it."

"He will believe it when the tenders are opened."

"He will believe it when he sees whether you win any of them." She folded the letter. "I think that you will win fewer than you expect, and that it will do you good."

"I think that Mustafa Efendi said much the same."

"Baba is a wise man, and I am his daughter."

There was a knock below, and Elias came up with a small, cream-coloured card that had been left at the counter by a boy.

Ayaan took it, and he read the single line upon it twice.

Cevdet Efendi requests the honour of Hassan Efendi’s company, upon a matter of mutual interest, at the library of the retired pasha in üsküdar, on the twenty-sixth.

"The librarian," said Zeynep slowly. "The man who keeps the shelves of the retired pasha."

"The man who has been reading me, I think." He put down the card. "I have met him on several occasions, and I have never been certain what he wanted."

"Then you had better go and find out." She laid her hand upon the curve of her side, where the child moved. "Though I think that you will not go until my time is past."

"I shall go when I am free, and not before."

"Then he will wait, and Allah willing, he will find that the House has grown wiser in the meantime." She said it with confidence. "A man who has waited so long to ask a question can wait another month."

Ayaan placed the card in the notebook, beside the four lines that they had written three weeks earlier.

Nothing that cannot be refused later.

He read the line again, and he found, to his own surprise, that he was grateful for it.