The Blue Hour

Chapter 39: Hamid

As they descended the hill, passing by solemn mosques and quiet farms, the sea glimmered invitingly beyond the decaying eastern city walls. Sprawling ivy covered the ruins, but the walls remained monumental, with double and triple rows, niches, and battlements that were overlooked by gigantic square towers. Silent and melancholy witnesses to the passage of time and the fall of empires.

Every so often, Hamid glanced over his shoulder. Even here, on the outskirts of the city, he could not shake the feeling that they were being followed. Had the Valide's spies spotted him in the Bazaar? He told himself it was unlikely. After years of confinement, his features were unknown, and he had disguised himself unimaginably, making it perfect. He wore the simple kaftan of a student and wandered across the city unaccompanied.

Still, he worried. Might Reshid have betrayed him to Peresto? He had confessed his plans to Reshid. He had no choice. If he disappeared for a whole day without explanation, his teacher would be frantic. He would sound the alarm and all hell would break loose.

Reshid had begged him not to leave. What if, God forbid, he did not return? What if Peresto found out? No, of course he would not tell her - Reshid swore - but what if she found out, anyway? When he understood there was no way of talking Hamid out of going, he declared that he would come with him. Hamid refused, he did not want to implicate Reshid. If something happened to him, Reshid could save himself by denying all knowledge of his activities. Also, how would he explain Reshid's presence to Flora?

When dawn broke, he left a note for Reshid promising to be back by nightfall, and with a purse of coins supplied by Hifsi, slipped out of the house. Although instructed not to, Hifsi had followed him, he was certain of it. Hifsi would rather die than abandon his post as princely guardian. It did not bother him, as long as Hifsi remained invisible.

Once again, he glanced over his shoulder and shrugged off the fear, relegating caution to the wind. So what if someone followed them? It didn't matter. Nothing mattered anymore. Nothing, other than this moment.

They stepped into the cool darkness between the thick walls of one of the seawall gates and lingered, marvelling at the rhythmic sound of the waves rolling onto the beach and at the laughter of seagulls and of the playing boys.

"It's like a dream," he said.

Something stirred inside of him. He looked around, let his hand slide across the massive old stones, an awe-inspiring symbol of impregnability, yet as soft and warm to the touch as human flesh.

"Imagine the things these stones have seen. For a thousand years, they protected the Byzantines, until Sultan Mehmet came along. I must have heard the story told a thousand times."

As a child, he had often heard the palace storyteller, the 'meddah', recount the most glorious of all Ottoman conquests, the conquest of Constantinople. The women and children of the harem would gather in a circle, he cuddled up in his mother's arms, breathing her flowery perfume, and the hazy scent of incense and candles.

"Oh please, tell me the story," Flora said.

Hamid wavered. The storyteller wove his tales like invisible threads which connected the present and the past. The stories made the royal children feel proud and select, as if the divine light which Allah shone on the sublime Muslim empire, also shone on them. And Hamid had felt proud, but he had also felt dazed and ensnared by the 'meddah's' invisible threads, like a fly caught in a spiderweb.

Even here between the thick walls, he could hear Trimujgan murmur in his ear: Mehmet lives on in you. He remembered wondering what he should understand by those words? That he carried Mehmet inside of him? Or that the Sultan had attached himself to his body, like a growth? He would anxiously check his reflection in the mirror, unable to discern any trace of the brilliant, courageous Sultan who had conquered Constantinople; all he saw was an unassuming and fearful little boy. And he would be torn between relief and disappointment. It thrilled him to think such a great man might live inside his body. And yet, if Mehmet was not there, inside him, did his absence mean he was unworthy? That he was letting everyone down?