Chapter 42: New Contracts

Chapter 42: Chapter 42: New Contracts

I

Constantinople, Emin?nü — 22 March 1911

Herr Brandt came to the shop at three in the afternoon, exactly as Cevdet had predicted, and he was shown to the front table beneath the window.

He was a broad, pleasant man of about fifty, with a fair moustache, a sound command of Ottoman Turkish, and a leather case that he did not open.

"Hassan Efendi, I am honoured." He bowed slightly. "I have heard of your ruling machine from a friend in the Ministry, and I could not leave the city without paying my respects."

"You are very kind, Herr Brandt." Ayaan placed a bound catalogue upon the table. "Everything that the House makes for sale is described here, with the price of each article."

Brandt turned the pages with polite interest.

"It is a handsome catalogue. I notice that it contains presses, ruling engines, and binding tools, and that it contains nothing of a more exacting kind."

"The House sells what it has found a demand for, Herr Brandt."

"Of course. But a foundry that can finish a ruling engine to this tolerance," the German tapped the page lightly, "might also finish a gauge, or a breech-block, or the barrel of a small instrument. My friends in Berlin would be interested in the capacity of such a foundry."

Elias, who stood behind the counter with a ledger, stopped writing.

"I cannot speak of what the foundry might do, Herr Brandt," said Ayaan evenly. "I can speak only of what it does, and that is in the catalogue."

"You are cautious."

"I am a stationer. It is the whole of my profession."

Brandt laughed, and for a moment his blue eyes were friendly and quite shrewd.

"Then let me ask something that a stationer can answer. Would the House sell twenty ruling engines to a buyer in Berlin, at a fair price, for delivery within a year?"

"The House sells its machines to any buyer who pays the catalogue price," said Ayaan, "and it makes no promise of exclusive supply to any buyer. Twenty machines would require eight months, and the order would be placed in the order of its arrival."

"That is very exact."

"It is the rule of the House."

The German closed the catalogue and rose, and he put out his hand.

"I have the pleasure of dining with several gentlemen of the Palace during my visits, Hassan Efendi. They speak of you with great respect."

"I am grateful to them."

"You should be. In my experience a man who is spoken of with respect is also watched with care." He smiled pleasantly. "I wish you every success in your commerce."

When the door had closed behind him, Elias let out a long breath.

"Efendi, he said the names of the Palace as one lays down a coin."

"He did," said Ayaan, "and I think that he wished me to see that he had it to lay."

II

Constantinople, Y?ld?z Palace, the Chief Secretariat — 3 April 1911

The three sealed bids for the Palace supply were opened in a small panelled room, before a committee of four, on a cold morning with rain upon the windows.

Rag?p Bey presided, with his ink-stained cuff and his tired face, and Tahsin Bey sat at the end of the table in his fine frock coat and did not look at Ayaan.

Vlastos of Pera had come in person, in the grey overcoat, and he sat very upright with his hands folded upon his stick.

"The first bid is that of Vlastos and Sons," read Rag?p Bey. "For twelve thousand reams, in five grades, at a mean price of eleven kuru? and two paras the ream."

There was a pause.

"The statement of origin is attached. Of the five grades, four are stated to be of Austrian manufacture, and one is stated to be of the mill at Hamidiye."

Someone at the table coughed.

Vlastos’s face did not change, but his hands tightened a little upon the stick.

"The second bid is that of the House of Hassan, at a mean price of nine kuru? and eight paras." Rag?p Bey turned the sheet. "It is for ten thousand reams only, since common paper is not the trade of the House. It states that the middle grades, being eight thousand reams, are of the mill at Hamidiye, and that the fine grade, being two thousand reams, is of Viennese manufacture until the said mill is able to supply it."

The third bid, from a Beyo?lu house, was higher than either, and was read in a single breath and set aside.

Tahsin Bey leaned forward, and he spoke in the smooth voice that Ayaan remembered.

"The Palace is bound by the principle of preferring Ottoman manufacture, Efendi. The House of Hassan states that a third of its supply is foreign."

"The House of Vlastos states that four fifths of its supply is foreign," said Rag?p Bey, without raising his eyes. "I find that the principle is better served by the lower figure."

"The principle is not a matter of arithmetic."

"Then I shall ask the committee to decide it, Tahsin Bey, and I shall record that I asked."

The committee voted, and it voted three to one, and Ayaan did not need to be told who had cast the one.

"The middle grades are awarded to the House of Hassan, eight thousand reams, at its stated price," said Rag?p Bey. "The fine grade, two thousand reams, is awarded to the same house, provisionally, with a clause that the Palace may buy it from an Ottoman mill when the mill is ready."

He looked up.

"The remaining two thousand reams, being common paper, I propose to award to the House of Vlastos, so that the Palace shall not depend upon a single supplier."

It was a fair proposal, and Ayaan understood at once that the secretary was making it for his protection and not for the sake of Vlastos.

"The House accepts the award with thanks, Efendi," he said, "and it agrees that the Palace should not depend upon one supplier."

Vlastos rose stiffly, bowed to the committee, and left the room without a word to anyone.

Tahsin Bey remained a moment longer.

"I congratulate you, Efendi," he said. "A man who has won so much so quickly must expect that others will study how it was done."

"I expect it, Efendi," said Ayaan. "I have made no secret of how it was done."

III

Constantinople, Emin?nü — 10 April 1911

The contract arrived from the Secretariat in a clean copy, and Zeynep read it at the back table in the evening with a pencil behind her ear.

She read it once for the sense, and a second time for the figures, and a third time for what it did not say.

"Here," she said at last. "The twelfth article."

Ayaan came and looked over her shoulder.

"’Payment shall be made upon the approval of the Treasury,’" she read. "There is no date, and there is no interest, and there is no limit to the delay."

"It is the form that the Treasury uses for every contract."

"It is also the form by which a supplier of the Palace may wait two years for his money, and be told that he is fortunate." She wrote a line in the margin. "Eight thousand reams at the stated price is above seven hundred liras, Ayaan. We cannot lend that to the Treasury without interest."

"What do you propose?"

"Payment within sixty days of the signed receipt for each delivery, and interest at six in the hundred upon any sum that is late." She tapped the page. "Rag?p Bey will not refuse it, because the Palace cannot be seen to refuse an honest term, and Tahsin Bey will find it difficult to argue against a date."

"And if the Secretariat has not the money at sixty days?"

"Then it will know that it must find it, which is a better position for both of us than not knowing." She drew the sheet toward her and began a fair copy. "I shall write the clause tonight, and you will carry it in the morning."

"You are very sure."

"I am sure of the clause, and not of the Secretariat." She looked up, and her expression was dry. "That is why I propose to put the clause in writing and not trust to the goodwill of the Palace."

He sat down beside her and watched her work.

In the first life, I should have had no notion that a clause of three lines could be worth more than a year’s profit.

She has seen it in an hour, from the pages of a contract that she had never read.

"What is it?" she said without lifting her pen.

"I am thinking that Agop Efendi was right. I should have been a guest at my own table."

"You would have been a very honest guest." She smiled slightly. "And very poor."

IV

Constantinople, ?zmit — 18 April 1911

The mill of Hamidiye stood upon the shore of the gulf, with a tall brick chimney, a wide wooden roof, and a smell of boiled rag that reached the road a quarter of an hour before the building.

Nikolaos Efendi came out to meet them in a stained apron, a broad Greek of sixty with enormous hands and a voice that carried over the noise of the engines.

"Hassan Efendi, Han?m, I have waited three months for this day."

He led them into the long hall where the new press was working, and Zeynep, who had left Mehmed at her father’s house for two nights, walked beside the machine with her hands behind her.

A single sheet came off the felt, was lifted by a boy, and was laid in front of her.

She held it to the window, and she turned it over, and she ran her thumbnail slowly across the edge.

"It is a fine sheet," she said. "It is not yet the sheet that the Palace will want."

Nikolaos Efendi’s face fell, and then, to Ayaan’s surprise, it brightened.

"You see it too. I have said this for a week, and my foreman tells me that I am a fool."

"The sizing is uneven," said Zeynep. "The ink spreads at the left edge and does not spread at the right."

"It is the rosin and the alum, Han?m. I add them by the hand of the man, and the man is tired in the afternoon."

Ayaan took a second sheet from the pile and examined it.

"Nikolaos Efendi, would it be possible to measure the rosin and the alum by weight for each vat, and to write the weight upon a board that the foreman signs?"

"It would be possible." The mill-master frowned. "It is slower."

"It is slower in the first week, and quicker in the second, because you will no longer need to throw away the sheets that fail." Ayaan set the page down. "A man who writes a number upon a board cannot be tired in the afternoon, because the number is the same."

The old man looked at him for a long moment, and then he laughed aloud.

"My grandfather made paper by hand in Salonica, and he would have spat at the idea of a board." He rubbed his forehead with a huge hand. "I shall do it. I shall begin with the next vat."

They sat afterward in the mill office, with tea and a plate of dry biscuits, and Zeynep laid a written agreement upon the desk.

It provided that the House would buy the first two thousand reams of fine paper at a fixed price, upon condition that every ream passed a test of ink and weight that both parties had written.

"If the paper fails the test, the House does not buy it," she said. "If it passes, the House buys it all, and does not ask for a lower price because the mill is young."

"That is an honest contract, Han?m," said Nikolaos Efendi.

"I wrote it so that neither side could be tempted," said Zeynep, "which is the only sort of contract that survives a bad year."

He signed it with a large, careful hand, and he held out the pen to her as well.

She looked at Ayaan, and Ayaan nodded, and she signed beneath the mill-master’s name in the name of the House.

V

Constantinople, üsküdar — 9 May 1911

Cevdet had a new lamp upon the long desk, and the first thing that Ayaan saw when he entered was the copied pages of the catalogue, stacked in a neat white pile.

"Ten reams," said the scarred man, "and I have used four. The paper is excellent, and I have told no one where it came from."

"Efendi, I did not ask that you should."

"No, but it is the kind of silence that costs nothing, and I find that I enjoy it." He sat down. "Tahsin Bey."

"What of him?"

"He has been taking money from Vlastos of Pera for six years." Cevdet laid a single sheet upon the desk. "The sum is not large, and it was paid in small amounts through a Greek clerk in Galata, which is why no one has noticed it. I have the dates."

Ayaan did not touch the paper.

"What is it that you wish me to do with this, Efendi?"

"That is for you to say. I should say that it would end Tahsin Bey’s usefulness to Vlastos, and to the Berlin house, and to the Mabeyn man whom I mentioned in February." Cevdet spoke without emphasis. "I should say also that it would cost you nothing."

"It would cost me a great deal."

"Explain."

"If I carry this to Rag?p Bey, or to the Minister, I become the man who ruined an official by a paper that came to him in the dark." Ayaan’s voice was quiet. "The next official who wishes to be rid of me will wish to know what papers I have, and who gave them to me, and I shall have taught the whole Palace that this House deals in disgrace."

"And if Tahsin Bey is permitted to go on?"

"Then he is a danger that I can see, and I can arrange my affairs so as to be safe from it. A hidden enemy is worse than an open one, and an enemy who has been exposed by me is the most dangerous of all."

The scarred man was silent, and he took the sheet up again and folded it small.

"I told you in September that I had met three men who asked for power for the sake of something else," he said. "I begin to believe that I may be mistaken in my count, and that there are not three but two, and that you are the second."

"Efendi, that is a great deal to say."

"It is a great deal, and I have not said who the first was." Cevdet rose and held the paper to the new lamp. "I shall keep this where it can do no harm, and I shall bring it out only if you or your son are in danger."

"I should ask you to burn it."

"I know that you would." The scarred man watched the flame rise. "I am not yet so far gone in trust as that, Hassan Efendi, and you would not respect me if I were."

Ayaan found, to his surprise, that he was smiling.

"No, Efendi," he said. "I do not think that I should."

VI

Constantinople, Bab-? ?li — 24 May 1911

Fahri Pa?a received him in the large room in his shirt-sleeves, with a mass of papers scattered over the desk and an expression of grim satisfaction.

"Sit down, Hassan Efendi. I have won a small victory, and I wish to tell it to someone who will understand how small it is."

"I shall do my best, Pa?a."

"The Council of Ministers has accepted a duty upon common writing paper, to last four years and no longer." The old man tapped a folded gazette. "It is written in the law that the duty ends upon the first day of March 1915, and that the Ministry shall publish the price of the mill’s paper every spring."

Ayaan took the gazette and read the article.

"Pa?a, I am astonished. I had thought that the Chamber would refuse the date."

"The Chamber refused it twice." Fahri Pa?a sat down heavily. "I told them that if the mill were truly worth protecting, it could bear to be measured, and that a mill which feared the measure should not be protected at all."

"That is an excellent argument."

"It is your argument, and I shall be obliged if you will not tell anyone that I borrowed it." The Minister took off his spectacles and rubbed his eyes. "The duty does not touch the fine grade, so your Vienna paper is not made dearer, and the mill at Hamidiye has four years in which to learn."

"Four years is a short time, Pa?a."

"It is a very short time, and Nikolaos Efendi has already written to say that he will need no more." The old man smiled. "He has begun to write his rosin upon a board."

They sat for a moment in companionable silence.

Then Fahri Pa?a put on his spectacles, and the lines of his face became more serious.

"There is a smaller matter first. Server Bey has been named inspector of the school registers for the vilayets, and he asked me to tell you that he has examined the last delivery of paper to the Palace and found it as described."

"From Server Bey that is a very warm letter, Pa?a."

"It is the warmest that he has written in his life." The old man smiled. "He will not say it again, and you will not need him to."

"There is another matter. The report of the commission has been read in the Mabeyn."

"I had heard that a secretary there had asked for it, Pa?a."

"You have heard it from a good source, and I do not ask which." The Minister did not smile. "It was read by ?ükrü Bey, who is one of the secretaries of the Palace, and he has asked that the schedule of prices be placed before the Sultan himself."

"The Sultan?"

"His Majesty reads a great many things that others suppose that he does not." Fahri Pa?a lowered his voice. "I have served him for thirty years, and I have never known him to ask for a schedule of prices out of idle curiosity."

Ayaan sat very still.

The Sultan is reading my name, and not through a secretary’s list.

"What would you advise, Pa?a?"

"That you do nothing, and say nothing, and sell your paper honestly." The old man took up the gazette again. "If the Sultan wishes to see you, you will be sent for, and you will not need to prepare."

VII

Constantinople, Kas?mpa?a — 3 June 1911

The first balance for the University was finished on a Saturday, and ?smail Usta carried it himself from the bench to the school, wrapped in a clean cloth and held against his chest.

Mazhar Bey was waiting in the upper room with Halil R?fat, and eleven boys sat in a row with their hands upon their knees.

"I shall not remove the cloth until you are all attending," said the foundry master gruffly.

The boys sat up a little straighter.

He drew away the cloth, and the brass beams and the two small pans caught the light of the window, and no one in the room spoke.

It was a delicate instrument, perhaps a hand’s breadth across, with a graduated arm that ?smail had cut himself, and every line upon it was true.

"Place a weight in the left pan, Yakup," said Mazhar Bey, "a small one, and tell me what you observe."

The boy obeyed, with a hand that was not quite steady, and the beam tilted slowly and came to rest.

"It leans, Efendi," he said. "It leans for a long time, and then it stops."

"Why does it stop?"

"Because the other side is lighter, and the arm is not yet balanced." Yakup frowned. "If I add a little to the right pan, it will return."

"And how will you know the exact amount?"

The boy hesitated, and the youngest, Selim, said very quietly, "By the line upon the arm, Efendi, where the beam points when it is level."

Mazhar Bey turned and looked at the child with open astonishment.

"That is exactly the principle of the instrument," he said. "I have taught it to students for twenty years, and most of them have needed a month to see it."

Selim blushed to his ears and looked at his shoes.

Ayaan stood with Zeynep at the back of the room, and she had her hand upon his sleeve.

"Eleven boys, a balance, and one old professor," she said under her breath. "It does not look like a great deal."

"It is the beginning of the thing that I came to build." He kept his voice low. "I do not mean the House, and I do not mean the money. I mean that a boy of eleven whose father died upon the quay can read the line upon a brass arm."

"You are not to weep in front of ?smail Usta."

"I shall not weep."

"He would never forgive you." She almost smiled. "He has been wiping his own eyes upon the cloth for the last minute."

VIII

Constantinople, Emin?nü — 20 June 1911

The note came to the shop at noon, on a heavy cream paper with a gold border, carried by a messenger in a plain dark coat who did not give his name.

Elias brought it up the stair at a pace that was almost a run.

Ayaan read it standing at the window, and then he read it again, and then he passed it to Zeynep without a word.

It was in the same formal hand as the earlier letter from the Chief Secretariat, but the seal was different. The Mabeyn presented its compliments to Hassan Efendi, stationer, and desired that he attend ?ükrü Bey at the Y?ld?z Palace on the twenty-eighth of the month, at ten in the morning, upon a matter connected with the schedule of prices.

"Eight days," said Zeynep.

"Eight days."

"Cevdet Efendi said that the man had your name and had not yet decided what to do with it." She laid the note upon the table. "It would appear that he has decided."

"Or that someone above him has."

"Which is worse?"

"I do not know yet." He sat down. "Fahri Pa?a said that I should say nothing and prepare nothing, and I think that he is right."

"You will prepare something," said Zeynep. "You will prepare yourself."

She went to the cradle in the corner, where Mehmed was awake and watching the ceiling, and she lifted him and held him against her shoulder.

"I shall tell you what I think, and you will tell me if I am wrong." Her voice was steady. "In September you wrote that we would never ask for what we should be ashamed to ask before the Sultan."

"I wrote it."

"Then it is very simple. Tomorrow, in the Palace, someone will ask you something, and you will answer as you would answer him." She turned to face him. "If we have kept our rule, you will have nothing to fear."

"And if the rule has not been kept?"

"Then we shall learn it on the twenty-eighth," said Zeynep, "and we shall mend it, and we shall continue."

He rose, and he crossed the room, and he took her free hand in both of his.

"Allah willing," he said.

"Allah willing," she answered.

Outside, the noon gun was fired from the Tophane shore, and the sound rolled slowly over the water of the Golden Horn.

That night he opened the notebook, and he wrote the date, and beneath it he wrote one sentence.

The Palace has decided to look at the House, and the House has nothing to hide.

He looked at the line for a long time, and then, in smaller letters beneath it, he added a second.

Let it be so in fact, and not only in the writing.