The Stone Woman by Tariq Ali Read Free Book Online Page B

anger, when they tell him that his slave-girl has freed herself. He will know why I did this and that will hurt him even more. He will know I left this world because I could no longer bear his touch or that of his child. He will never be able to admit this truth to anyone, but I hope the secret devours his insides. I want his death to be pure agony. My only regret is that I will not live to see that day.’

FIVE
Petrossian tells of the glory days of the Ottoman Empire; Salman insists that the borders between fiction and history have become blurred; Nilofer writes a farewell letter to her Greek husband; Orhan’s belated circumcision at the hands of young Selim
    I FIRST SAW THE strange gestures he was making from a distance. They made me smile. I knew precisely what the old Armenian was doing. Like everything else in this house, it revived memories of my own childhood. Scenes from my past were being repeated, but this time for the benefit of my son. I was pleased. Petrossian was engaged in a weekly household ritual, which he would never entrust to anyone else. He was polishing my father’s old silver shaving bowl. It was an item that had been brought back from Paris many years ago. He treasured it greatly and, for that reason, Petrossian had taken it upon himself to ensure that the bowl never lost its lustre. Normally such tasks were assigned to less important servants, but Petrossian, who always accompanied Iskander Pasha to Paris, must have known the value attached by his master to this particular object.
    Orhan and the children from the servants’ quarters were watching him, trance-like, just as we used to when we were young. I walked slowly in their direction, but I knew which story was being retold even before I heard the words being spoken. I was pleased and irritated at the same time. I wanted Orhan to be part of this world, to be accepted by my father, but I wanted things to change. Here it seemed that, like the Stone Woman, everything stood still.
    “And do you think, my young master Orhan, that Memed the Conqueror listened to the whimpers and the moans of his frightened old woman of a Vizier? No. He raised his hand to say ‘Enough’. The Sultan had heard enough of such talk. Now he wanted to take the city they called Constantinople. He wanted to stand erect on the old walls of Byzantium and look at Europe. Memed knew that if we were going to be a power in Europe we had to take that city. Without it our Empire would always be one-eyed. We needed Constantinople to look at what lay beyond the Bosporus.
    “They say that it was a beautiful spring day when the Sultan Memed gave the orders to prepare for battle and lay siege to the city. We will build a fortress on the other side of the water to control all access to their city. It will fall. Memed the Great was sure of this and his strong will and determination infected every soldier. Mothers told their sons to go and fight for the honour of their faith. Imagine the excitement that must have swept through the army. The Sultan has ordered that we will take the city. His Exalted Majesty has ordered the soldiers be properly fed. That night hundreds of lambs were covered with fresh herbs and roasted on spits for the soldiers. The exquisite scent of grilled meat pervaded the entire encampment. I’m sure it must have reached the defenders of Constantinople...”
    Why does nothing in this house ever change? When I was told this same story by this same story-teller, I’m sure it was goats and not lambs that were being prepared, and perhaps ten years from now it will be peacocks. I have stopped caring. It makes no difference and yet I could not help being touched as I watched Orhan’s face alight with excitement. His eyes were fixed on Petrossian. My little boy had entered the world of Sultans and holy wars. How different all this was from the bedtime stories Dmitri and I told him at home. I had brought him up on stories of our family, of my uncles and aunts and all our