American Music - Jane Mendelsohn [39]
And where did cymbals start? she asked playfully, only somewhat curious. A pathetic attempt at flirting, she thought. She was unable to distract him.
That’s a good question, he said thoughtfully. Always the teacher, always the journalist. Always honest:
I have no idea.
The Cymbal Maker
Avedis had a workshop far from the Sultan’s chambers, on the other side of the palace grounds. Here he and his assistants made cups to be used in the baths, kitchens, and harems of the palace, and poured bronze for the enormous vessels in which the cooks prepared feasts for the Sultan. He was a metalsmith because his father, who had immigrated to Constantinople in 1598, had been a metalsmith. Avedis had done well in the family trade. Recently, he had been given authorization to make cymbals and bells for the Sultan’s court. But his passion, his intellectual lust, was for alchemy. The Sultan, Murad IV, was indulgent of Avedis’s interest not only because it promised riches, but because he had a taste for gold jewelry. A savage warrior who had had seventeen of his eighteen brothers murdered when he ascended to the throne, Murad evidently also saved a place in his heart for beauty. He was a drunk who loved the poets. He adored women and soulful music. And he dreamt of marrying his passions, as he had explained to Avedis while posing for a miniature portrait in jeweled chain mail armor, in a vision of Parvin, the Persian girl with the long limbs, dancing to the rhythm of heavenly cymbals. He wanted Avedis to create the perfect accompaniment to her movement, a sound that would capture her grace.
After seeing her dance himself, Avedis understood his Sovereign’s obsession. His insides bled a little when he thought of her. Sitting in his workshop, hunched over a stained and ancient copy of Paracelsus’ The Tincture of the Philosophers, he could not keep himself from picturing the curve of her elbow as it swept before her face, and the bend of her knee, seen behind folds of silk, as it dipped and allowed her ankles to soften and then push her delicate feet off the ground. He tried to concentrate on the words in front of him, which were explaining that all that was necessary to obtain the Philosopher’s Stone was to mix and coagulate the “rose-colored blood of the Lion” and the “gluten of the Eagle,” but it was hopeless. He heard over and over her pleas to him to help her escape, and he was ashamed at himself for having paid so little attention. But what could he have done? Risk execution for the sake of a girl he didn’t know? He had worked long and hard to acquire his status within the palace, and his dream was to start his own factory in Constantinople. Besides, when she’d asked him, he hadn’t yet seen her dance.
As soon as that thought bubbled in his brain, the rationalization disgusted him. He was a gentle man, but severe with himself. He seemed to seek out the same kind of magical perfection in his own behavior that he sought in his laboratory. But it was too late for nobility in action. Now he was left to wonder about her. What made her so headstrong and unhappy? Most of the girls in the harem would have been pleased to be picked by the Sultan. It was an opportunity to better their circumstances, perhaps even give birth to a princess and be taken care of for life, or to a prince and possibly become the Valide Sultan, the head of the harem and the true power behind the throne. Or, if the Sultan fell deeply for a consort, he might make her a Haseki, one of his favorites, and she could live in the New Palace, and receive a higher allowance than his own daughters. To be a Haseki was in many ways the most powerful position of all, and most girls in the harem would not even dream of such good fortune. But obviously the Sultan’s latest infatuation had no craving for power or security. She appeared to live through her feelings alone: fear,