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By Root 471 0

need, dancing, abandon. Maybe she was too young to appreciate her situation; she looked to him to be about sixteen, although something in her eyes told him she was older. Or maybe she was just a fool. It didn’t matter. His heart bent like one of his molten metals when he pictured her. He would have turned her to gold to save her, if he’d known how, but in spite of his years of study and experimentation, he did not. All he could hope to give her at this point was a set of cymbals that would do justice to her art, an instrument whose purity might equal hers, and, if he was lucky, whose vibrations might also contain a hint of the longing he felt for her—his, and this was how he had already begun to think of her, as his—his lovely and unobtainable, his mysterious and imprisoned Parvin.

CHAPTER TWELVE

1936

When will you tell her?

She already knows, Joe said.

How can you tell?

She suggested we go to see Basie, at Roseland. It wasn’t like her. She doesn’t like the music that much, and it’s too expensive. She never thinks of that kind of thing.

She loves you very much.

She used to. Not anymore.

People don’t really stop loving other people, Vivian said.

She had her head on his shoulder. Her hair in twisted ribbons down his back.

She’s frightened, she said.

I’m frightened, he said.

He touched her face with his hand.

But you’ll never stop loving me? he said.

I don’t see how that’s possible.

1623

In the mornings when she awoke, the Sultan was already gone. He left the bed sequined with silver coins, a sign that he was pleased, and every morning she collected the coins and threw them in the base of the ceramic pot where a leafy flowering plant grew in the corner. One day, as she was covering the coins with dirt, Kaya walked in wearing a tense expression on her face, and behind her was the eunuch. He nodded his head for Kaya to leave, which she did, but not before going over to the flowerpot and pretending to clean it, while quickly hiding the last of the coins. When she left and Parvin was alone with the eunuch, they stood facing each other for several long seconds before he spoke.

It was unexpected that there would be so much tension; the black eunuchs were in charge of the harem women and Parvin had spent almost her entire life in the harem. She had been followed by, tended to, practically siblings with these men. They had seen her unveiled, unclothed, unwashed. But she had never seen this man before the day he had stopped her from jumping out of the carriage, and she felt a deep and inevitable bond to him. She did not blame him for taking her to the Sultan because he had saved her life and he had done so even though—and this was absolutely clear to her—he had done it even though he had no illusions that her life included any more joy or hope or liberty than his. It was simply hers. He recognized that, and she wanted to thank him for it.

But before she could speak he explained to her that he had come to escort her to the northern end of the pleasure grounds between the Topkapi Saray and the seawalls along the Golden Horn. It was here that the Sultan liked to take his recreation, and he had planned an elaborate festivity that would last for several days. Members of the harem never left the palace unaccompanied, and now that Parvin inhabited a position of importance to the Sultan, she required her own personal chaperone. For the first time, he introduced himself. His name was Hyacinth. Many of the eunuchs had flower names. She studied him now, his wide eyes, his black lashes, his intelligent mouth.

“Why did you come forward to recite poetry that day?” she asked.

“To make certain that you would perform for the Alchemist. You were endangering yourself by disobeying him, and you were in my care.”

“I don’t think that’s the only reason.”

She was a more important person now. Everyone in the palace knew that the Sultan was taken with her, and they attributed the upcoming festivities to his newfound happiness. Hyacinth was not as much her superior as he had been before. He felt that he had to answer her honestly.