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it away far enough to let the water escape
with a gurgle.
    The
workman who leaned in up to his chest and gripped the obstruction finally saw
what looked at first like a gigantic turkey, trussed for roasting.
    What
he saw next made him a very sick workman indeed.
    12
    **************
    YASHIM
rolled out of bed, slipped on a djellaba and slippers, took his purse from a
hook, and went down into the street. Three turns brought him to the Kara Davut
Sokagi, where he drank two cups of thick, sweet coffee and ate a
borek,
layers of honeyed pastry fried in oil. Often in the night, at the time when people
tend to lie awake and follow their plans out until they drift away into a happy
sleep, Yashim thought of moving from his rooms in the tenement to somewhere
bigger and fighter, with proper views. He'd designed a small library for
himself, with a comfortable, well-lit alcove for reading, and a splendid
kitchen, too, with a room off the side for a servant to sleep in--someone to
riddle up the fire in the morning and fetch him his coffee. Sometimes it was
the library that looked out over the blue Bosphorus, sometimes it was the
kitchen. The water threw soothing patterns of light onto the ceiling. An open
window caught a glimmer of the summer breeze.
    And
in the morning, coming down to the Kara Davut, he always decided to stay where
he was. He'd leave his books to glower in the half-light, and his kitchen would
fill the room with the scent of cardamom and mint and throw steam onto the
windows. He'd labor up and down flights of steep stairs and crack his head,
from time to time, on the lintel of the sunken doorway. Because the Kara Davut
was his kind of street. Ever since he'd found this cafe, where the proprietor
always remembered how he liked his coffee--straight, no spice, a hint of
sugar--he'd been happy in the Kara Davut. The people all knew him, but they weren't
prying or gossipy. Not that he gave them anything to gossip about: Yashim led a
quiet, blameless life. He went to mosque with them on Fridays. He paid his
bills. In return he asked for nothing more than to be left in peace over his
morning coffees, to watch the street show, to be waved over by the fishmonger
with news of an important haul or to visit the Libyan baker for his excellent
sprouted-grain bread.
    Was
that quite true? Did he really want to be left in peace? The seraskier's note,
the sultan's summons, the fishmonger winking, and the coffee done right for him
each day: weren't these exactly the links he craved? Yashim's air of
invisibility sometimes struck even him as a protective pose, his own version of
the stagy mannerisms of those little gelded boys who grew to become the eunuch
guardians of a family and slipslopped after their charges, frowning and moueing
and letting their hands flutter toward their hearts. Perhaps detachment was a
mannerism he had adopted because the agony was too biting and too strong to
bear without it. A very fragile kind of make-believe.
    Yashim
looked along the street. An imam in a tall white cap lifted his black robe a
few inches to avoid soiling it in a puddle and stepped quietly past the cafe,
not turning his head. A small boy with a letter trotted by, stopping at a
neighboring cafe to ask the way. From the opposite direction a shepherd kept
his little flock in order with a hazel wand, continually talking to them, as
oblivious to the street as if they were following an empty pathway among the
hills of Thrace. Two veiled women were heading for the baths; behind them a
black slave carried a bundle of clothes. A porter, bent double beneath his
basket, was followed by a train of mules with logs for firewood, and little
Greek children darted in and out between their clattering hooves. Here came a
cavass:
a thickly swaddled policeman with a red fez and pistols thrust into his belt,
and two Armenian merchants, one swinging his beads, the other counting them
with fingers while he spoke.
    Yashim
sipped his coffee and ground his teeth. There had