Anatolia.

Evening was falling with its usual rapidity on the coastal Mediterranean town of Alanya, wiping out the smoky mirages of the summer day. Giant galleons with red and green sails, overloaded with goods, made a strict beeline for the port.

Lately, it seemed to Kadi Ahmed Efendi, the reaya had become insatiable about goods, the more inconsequential the better. All of Anatolia's precious mohair and silk and cotton were being shipped to Europe, and in return more expensive wool and silk and cotton were being imported. Where was the sense in that? In the twenty-five years of Padishah Ahmed III's rule, the houses in provincial Alanya had grown far sturdier than their occupants' needs, the content of wood and glass incomparably higher than from when he was a child. If you could spend, why save? On every street, no matter how removed from the leading jamis, carshis, bedestans, and hans, some hustler jostled your arms: "Pasha, Pasha! I have the most precious silks from Venice. Your eyes have never fallen on such beauty, I assure you. Would you stop and look?" How could you refuse, if you didn't want to acquire a worse reputation for being against ordinary human traffic than you already did?

Kadi Efendi sat on the rocky abutment of a lonely portion of the coast, where he liked to come in the evenings to be with his opinions. His wife and sons thought his desire to be by himself was an illness of a kind. Why couldn't he join a tekke? Even membership of the dreaded Bektashis--heaven knew what illicit practices they really approved--would be preferable to isolation. Not that isolation was possible anywhere in the empire these days. Soon, some subashi, with nothing better to do than bother innocent citizens, would come his way, rhythmically tapping his night stick, occasionally raising it as if ready to use it if an argument got out of hand. Recognizing the kadi, the subashi would fail to issue orders to leave before darkness; but Kadi Efendi would be able to read yet another mental notch go up against his weirdness.

With the luck of the draw, he could have been a kadi in Izmir, or Bursa, or even Edirne. As it was, he had to seize the first suitable opening. He had married early: fatherless and motherless since late childhood, he'd had no choice. And his wife was relentless about wanting children; they'd had five sons so far, without break. She was a beautiful woman, who never had any illusions about kadis to begin with. But her beauty was all on the surface; when you tried to talk to her, she didn't want to get serious.

In the tenth year of his marriage, on his first visit back to Istanbul, he'd exchanged a few words with the Sheyhulislam, in a public audience. Kadi Efendi had plucked the nerve to refute an answer by a leading provincial mufti, deciding to speak in favor of a softer punishment, which wouldn't have been acceptable at face value to shari'a. In the capital, such softness was admired; it was what made Istanbul the powerful administrative machine it was, omnipotent because of its flexibility. But the citizens of Alanya expected him to betray a touch of arrogance, nay, demanded it of him. To display weakness was lethal.

In court tomorrow, for instance, Kadi Efendi would have no choice but to rule against Noah ibn Nehmias in the case of tax evasion brought against him by Alanya's muhtar, Iskander Halilbey. To rule against Halilbey would be to invite chaos in the administration of justice in this town. Kadi Efendi had no choice but to go through the motions; the rules of justice required no less. It was common talk among the reaya that kadis could be bought for a few miserable akce. What lies! What calumny! Never in seventeen years of administering his court had Kadi Efendi failed to grasp the relevant portions of shari'a, kanun, and 'orf before passing judgment. Yet the brevity of his hukms often gave rise to rumors: he had his mind made up before he ever heard the witnesses, he had it in for the defendant or the plaintiff, he was in league with the askeri class or the landlord class, he had little respect for custom or precedent. The problem with the Osmanli mind was that even when it understood the logic of a decision, it had to put up a valiant defense to preserve the honor of all parties concerned, and that came by way of universal absolution. No one was ever at actual fault!

Take Noah ibn Nehmias's patrons, for example. How deluded they surely were about their client's impending fate, how impossibly sanguine!

Twice a year, when Noah sailed back from Venice on ships loaded with luxury goods, he stayed at the house of his friend Mustafa Celebi, who had his hands full with both farming and trading. When Kadi Efendi first settled in Alanya, Mustafa owned but a small plot of land. One of the kadi's first cases was about an encroachment Mustafa was supposed to have made on neighboring land. In the end, Mustafa bought out all the farming plots next to his. He was too enterprising to be held back. Now with a stable of sons as strong as the mightiest gazis must have been in Osman and Orhan's time, no one quite knew the extent of Mustafa's holdings of land. Mustafa hadn't abandoned his original family compound in the center of Alanya; he'd simply incorporated more and more houses surrounding it, so that its outer walls now touched the central jami. A widower, Mustafa was said to be about to endow a major veqif in his daughter's name.

Mustafa's daughter, of course, was what really set him apart from other provincial upstarts. Neslihan Hanim was perhaps a little over twenty-one; yet no prospect of marriage was on the horizon, since she was said to look down on anyone without a foreign education, or at least extensive exposure to the newest ideas. She was rumored to be as beautiful as the Padishah's most alluring Georgian concubines, her skin and hair as fair and golden as the beauties one saw illustrated in rare books possessed by Istanbul's powerful. Kadi Efendi had heard that it was not impossible to talk to Neslihan for a young man with pretenses to possession of new knowledge--herself behind a screen, and both safely under the watch of Mustafa, of course-and that she always came away the winner in these disputations. All in all, Neslihan was a terrible, terrible example to the young women of Alanya, and beyond. It wasn't a surprise that in Padishah Ahmed's soft reign--when everything outside Anatolia was considered superior and worthy of emulation--Neslihan would be the standard against which other girls would be measured.

The point was, Noah ibn Nehmias had this going against him: his patrons were too different from the leading local lights, too prone to march to their own drummer. They were already at the limits of tolerable eccentricity. No case could ever be decided strictly on its own merits; the practicality of human affairs dictated otherwise. Everything must fit in its whole context.

"Kadi Efendi! Kadi Efendi!" Here came the interfering subashi! "Fancy seeing you here. May the Padishah be praised. I thought it was a skeleton of you, a mere shadow. You have lost weight."

"What is it, Murat subashi?"

"Just that at home you have unexpected guests. You'd better head back right away. The muhtar is there, with the muhtesib." Murat subashi had a victorious gleam in his eyes, belying his calm words. "There is such a commotion at your home. I had to calm your wife down."

Ignoring this insult at the expense of his wife, Kadi Efendi said, "You have lost your head, Murat subashi. Go away!" The town's ehli 'orf were not known to pay him social visits.

But as it turned out, there was even more than met the eye in the subashi's accurate first-hand report. When the muhtar showed up with the muhtesib at the lowly kadi's home, the poor soul had to take notice.

Neslihan Hanim despised her brothers, each of whom she felt in turn was a bigger idiot than the others. They only had to open their mouths to depress you with their dullness.

The several ones younger than her were content with teasing her for her lonely ways; the last of them was now permanently out of the women's haremlik, thank God, and asserting his dubious credentials in the men's selamlik. The oldest brother, Selim, had married a cow, and was actually content with her. The woman kept growing out of all her clothes every six months. The family compound had thankfully swollen big enough that Neslihan didn't have to see her smug sisters-in-law too often. Selim, when he was a boy, loved to hide Neslihan's books, echoing one of the stupid local mufti's fetvas that printed books were a heretical innovation, bid'at against the practice of the Prophet. "But did they have printing presses in the time of the Prophet?" she would ask, only for Selim, at a hefty twelve, to retort: "No man will keep you his wife if you have that attitude."

The second oldest brother, Suleiman, had allowed as to how the Osmanlis had something to learn from Europe about science and industry, particularly the acquisition of new weapons and arms, ships and cannon, only to fight the infidel better. And perhaps there was something to be said for the ruthless efficiency with which the Frenks seemed to control their fighting men, whereas the Osmanli Janissaries were out of control, putting a damper on the free movements and actions of farmers and manufacturers and traders. But beyond that? Europe was a cesspool. Hadn't Neslihan read the accounts of the Padishah's newest emissaries to London and Paris and Vienna? Women there acted like whores--yes, there was no other word for it--openly seducing their men in public, acting for all the world as if they were no different in body and mind from men. This, in the end, would be the downfall of Europe, even if Europe's star shone bright for the moment. And there Suleiman wanted to stop all discussion.

The newspapers--another recent innovation about which the local mufti was up in arms--published for the first time in Istanbul, and brought over two weeks after publication to Alanya, were full of opinions the likes of which Selim and Suleiman could gladly endorse. Even resilient Neslihan would have grown dejected had it not been for the cheerfulness of some of the people in her life--like Noah ibn Nehmias, the stellar character whom her father was more blessed than he deserved to have as his friend. Noah was to appear before the kadi the next morning, with the village elders ganged up against him, but all one would hear from him today would be cheerful songs in French and quotations from the great European essayists. For Noah the eve of the millennium, when the secrets of the world would be broken open, and the messiah would reside in each of us, was now, today and every day.

As Neslihan put away the last of her notebooks in their safe compartment in the wall, and shuttered the windows against the afternoon sun, she thought she could actually hear Noah's booming voice singing in some part of the house. But that was impossible, even if he had arrived; the house was too big. She'd let her maid go at noon (rarely did she keep her even that long) to look after her sons.

Neslihan had been told she was one of those women who looked beautiful despite--or perhaps because of--making no effort to do so; it was her one vanity, to smile at this flattering compliment. Soon, her father would be asking again if she was ready to give herself in marriage to some suitable prospect. He would list, without obvious passion, some new young men that had come into his field of vision. So and so, the handsome son of a spice merchant, aspired to live and prosper in Istanbul. So and so, the educated son of a defterdar, was praised heartily by the kethuda of the scribes' guild. Mercifully, her father never brought up soldiers as potential husbands. Some merchants weren't so scrupulous; even the corrupt Janissaries were grist for the mill, when it came to lending reality to their ambitions by means of their daughters. She would deflect easily: "Father, I've told you, it would interrupt my studies." Her father never protested. Neslihan liked to think that Noah's biannual visits were encouraged by her father at least in part to please her. For she had grown terribly fond of him, even if thinking of him as a possible husband had occurred only once or twice to her, early in their friendship, when she was still but a girl.

"Neslihan Hanim," she heard the greeting, "it's your old friend Noah ibn Nehmias. I'm settled in my quarters, and would like, if you have time, to continue our discussion of Spinoza's ethics." He was speaking outside the door of the girl's room, from the mabeyn, the common area where the haremlik ended. No doubt he was settled in already on the divan, bowls of cashews and almonds by his side, ready to continue the debate they'd last had six months ago as if it had happened yesterday.

"I'm always ready, Lala," she said, getting up and pacing. "I've been reading up. The question is, are you ready?"

"The moving sights and sounds I've seen and heard on my latest journey have made me more than eager for prolonged discourse with a serious mind. You see, Neslihan Hanim, the great universities at Padua and Seville can do no good for a dull mind. It's God's gift."

As far as she knew, Noah had never seen Neslihan. Neslihan had had glimpses of him from windows. He was chubby and pink-faced, and lacked any facial hair, but carried his weight and childlike looks well. He seemed to be the happiest man alive, laughing uproariously at stupid jokes by servants--to honor them, she felt--and always talking about the good aspects of even the worst situation. How could anyone not like him? But her brothers, especially Selim, loathed Noah. They thought he was introducing too many heretical ideas to the settled ways of trade in peaceful Alanya.

Last year, for instance, Noah had said in a gathering of guild heads, among them those responsible for approving the substance and quality of his latest woolen imports from Venice, that one of the reasons for Europe's maritime success was comprehensive "insurance" for loss of goods and men at sea. Such a scheme would be managed not by the Padishah and his able administrators, but by voluntary organizations of private men, who pooled large amounts of money to eliminate risk for individual merchants. He'd spoken about it in great detail and left a huge impression. Wasn't it enough that Noah's people lent money at interest? Why did they act as if they more than any others were the truest Osmanli subjects, with the selfless interest of the reaya always at heart? Noah, Selim complained, was never seen at one of Alanya's synagogues, not even at one of their many festivals and feasts: wasn't that where he belonged? Why did he set such a poor example for Muslims? If nobody believed in God, the entire social order would collapse overnight. Blood would run in the streets, no woman's dignity would be safe, and property would be looted by desperate men.

They had covered Spinoza well the last time. Not much remained to be said. Neslihan heard a touch of sadness in Noah's voice. Had he grown fatter than last time? He always joked about not being able to grow a proper beard; this hadn't at last made him look less of a man, had it? Was his face completely devoid of hair? She wished she could see.

"Noah ibn Nehmias, let's not talk about Spinoza. Tell me about Venice. Tell me about Europe, Lala."

"Ah yes, Neslihan Hanim, for this you don't need my services anymore. The Padishah has more spies and infiltrators than ever before--they call themselves travelers, seyyahs, sightseers"--and here Noah indulged in a fit of laughter that wouldn't stop--"creeping around in every saloon and church in the West."

"They're stupid."

"Indeed they are. The only thing they've brought back with them is tulips."

They both had to laugh now.

But really, tulips had for so long been such a mania they were no longer cause for mirth. The thing about the successful West, Ahmed III--twenty-five years ago when he came to the throne--had decided to imitate was the sense of luxury and ease and beautiful surroundings, something on the scale of the boulevards in Paris and the palazzos in Venice. All across the length and breadth of Anatolia--the coastal outpost of Alanya being no exception--large plots of land had been given up to the growth of tulips. Entirely unforeseen Anatolian varieties of the flower had come into being, so that now Europe had replaced its stock of dainty white tulip with the hardy, upright, frighteningly pink Anatolian version. According to Noah, you couldn't walk anywhere in Istanbul now without bursting into sneezing among the fields of flowers--that is, if you were near the palace, not the workers' communities, for there the stench of overcrowding and illness still overcame any competing odor.

"Tell me about the time you stepped on the turtle, Lala," said Neslihan.

Another fit of laughter. Some years ago, in an Istanbul gathering of leading merchants and guild kethudas, Noah had trampled on one of the little turtles with fragrant candles on their backs that were let loose in the tulip gardens, and had been thrown out for laughing uncontrollably at his blunder. "I laughed till I had tears in my eyes, till I bent over. Oh, the poor turtle. I hope I didn't kill it." But there was a harsh side to this. People said you could tell the taxes were about to go up when new fields of tulips appeared. It was general consensus in Alanya that the frivolity introduced by the Padishah was a bad sign that once and for all Europe was going to slaughter the Osmanlis on the battlefield, and that the sensuous decay, while it kept the Janissaries and government officials entertained in Istanbul, was causing a fatal weakening of the martial spirit all over Anatolia. Noah didn't take such a dark view of it; a little fun never hurt--as long as you didn't step on turtles and murder them, ha ha!

"You're not worried about tomorrow, Noah ibn Nehmias?"

"What? Worry? Of course not. The kadi is an honest man."

"A kadi is never an honest man. You don't even know this one."

"Well, true, but--look, you have to have faith, otherwise ill-will is returned in kind. I can't help what's going to happen tomorrow. I do have--real faith."

"Is the case against you entirely false?"

"Of course, Neslihan Hanim." He didn't sound offended. "Why would I cheat? I make enough as it is. There's no reason to deprive the state's coffers of a few akce here and there. The charge is absurd. I take pride in meticulous recordkeeping. My documents will settle the matter in minutes."

"I hope for your sake you're right, Noah ibn Nehmias."

"Don't worry. I won't be the turtle they step on."

It wasn't an auspicious sign that for the first time ever, Selim's fat wife interrupted their discourse on some trivial excuse: "Sister, I just wanted to see what you preferred for dinner tonight. Will it be the usual zerde-pilaf?" Then she giggled helplessly, as if Noah, on the other side of the screen, couldn't hear. No doubt Selim's wife had a thing for Noah herself. How couldn't anyone?

"PASHA, YOUR HORSE is ready for tomorrow." Mustafa Celebi's youngest stable attendant bowed deeply at the waist, then kept moving his head up and down.

Such a low opinion of oneself, such a pathetic need to be loved! The vast compound, with stables and pens for animals, servants' quarters at the edges and the three-storied whitewashed house in the middle, seemed deserted except for this slave at heart. Mustafa was reminded of the wandering group of Bektashi dervishes he'd run into in the street just now; they'd shown exaggerated politeness to him, and Mustafa couldn't get rid of the impression that they were mocking him. Their sheyh, a man whose thick eyebrows were white, had picked up a stray chicken in the street, and held it up high, close to Mustafa's face: "You see this? This is how helpless we appear to Allah. Like this chicken. And how many eggs it lays month after month, thinking it's life everlasting. This chicken! Hmm. So let's cluck like chickens. Let's laugh and dance. It's the only way to be."

"Get up, man!" Mustafa barked at the groom, distracted. "Tomorrow, what's tomorrow?"

"Agha, the hunt. With the kethuda of the tanner's guild and the kethuda of the--"

"We're not going tomorrow. Tomorrow is court day. Has no one told the kethudas yet?"

The stable boy, a local from Alanya, all but spread himself prostrate on the ground. Was he going to recite the kalima now? He seemed to be suggesting readiness for a whipping. It was said that slaves from Habesh had inherent dignity; never would they bend so low before a lord. But look at the pride of Anatolia! A boy educated through the haric medrese. Mustafa could understand why so many of them took to men instead of women. He slipped a few akce in the boy's hand.

The hunt. It would be fat local tradesmen pursuing poor bustards as if butchering the infidel within the gates of Vienna. They slobbered at the mouth and let out heathenish whoops at every kill. The real world was unimpressed by these antics. In Rumelia, the ayans had put the self-satisfied traders and government officers on notice; these warlords, claiming direct descent from the great Turkish nomad tribes, were to take over Osmanli Europe, introducing a reign of terror. The budding derebeys in Anatolia would follow the path the ayans had laid out; warlords demolishing law and order were inevitable. All Mustafa's friends wanted to do was hunt and play, and laugh like girls at the latest intrigue in the Padishah's harem, by yet another cunning Circassian or Georgian woman. There was little one could do though; it was the price of prosperity. How did one prepare for insecurity?

He'd come home early, for dinner with his guest Noah ibn Nehmias. As usual, Noah would wax poetic about the exemplary commercial practices of the Venetians and other Europeans. Noah would want to know why the Anatolians weren't building more roads and bridges and ports throughout the land, why the palace continued to rely so heavily on berats granting special favors to European merchants instead of educating Anatolians themselves to do the necessary tasks, why the local notables weren't more upset about the steep rise in taxes to support the lavish lifestyles of the Janissaries, the timar-holders, and other useless vassals of the Padishah? These things don't matter, Mustafa wanted to tell him; nothing changes. One could only care for one's own soul, and even then, did it ever pay off?

Mustafa wouldn't even let his dear children know, but lately he'd been feeling a weariness that wouldn't dissipate. Earlier and earlier in the day, he found himself wanting to make for the Mevlevi tekke, to be overwhelmed by the purity of the fair young men working hard for their respective guilds. Compared to them, Mustafa's every thought was transparently sinful. The muezzin's call left him cold. He couldn't summon the requisite anger at the Janissaries' corruption--the sight of one of them, overgrown and awkward, loafing around the gates of a bedestan or han, looking for an opportunity to make a few unearned akce by throwing his weight around, no longer inspired real revulsion in him. The more land and property Mustafa acquired, and the more his children told him what a great man he was, the more he wanted to turn away from the world.

The necessary corollary to loving anything or anyone was the capacity to hate; if hate lagged, so did love. Last Sheker Bayrami, he distributed bakshish to all the keepers of order hanging around him, without so much as a feinted good wish for their families. Mustafa was only fifty-three, but convinced his heart was dead already. If there were a firman from the Padishah ordering all able-bodied men to fight a new gaza on his behalf, venturing into the deepest heart of Europe, where the Osmanlis hadn't gone before, he would gladly sign up. But the days of gazas were over; those born Muslim hadn't themselves fought a war since the days of Mehmet Fatih. The Janissaries--converted Christians, slaves personally beholden to the Padishah--didn't want to fight; they did everything possible to avoid war, and when war happened, they hired others, less capable, to go on their behalf.

It might be--as Neslihan said--that there came a time when every person felt like turning away from the life meant for him. Neslihan said that reading great works of the imagination was the only rescue for the soul at such moments. She talked all the time about this great English book that had just been translated, Robinson Crusoe, about a sailor who gets shipwrecked on a forlorn island and builds a secure life for himself, and another one, Gulliver's Travels, that was the talk of Europe and was soon to be translated, about another sailor who gets shipwrecked on many islands. For her, these characters of fantasy were more real than her brothers and their wives and children and Mustafa himself. He wished he had the mind to read such stuff, but he didn't. It had been tough enough to get through the first five years of reading the Kur'an at the haric medrese. All he remembered of that was having to stand on one leg for hours, or squat with his head squeezed between his knees like a rooster, or being smacked on the wrist with a stick by the grumpy ustad. In this respect--his ignorance of the intricacies of his faith--he was like his old friend Noah.

Neslihan had come to believe that Mustafa encouraged Noah's friendship in part for her sake. That might be true, but the real reason was Noah's innocence, his faith in the dignity and benevolence of the world, his sheer joy at the smallest of delights, which others took for granted. Noah helped restore Mustafa's soul twice a year. The business Mustafa did with Noah was so minute a fraction of Mustafa's total sales that it wasn't worth mentioning; but it was Noah's apostate spirit--apostate against the stable view of the world, where one played one's assigned role, and the authorities either laughed or frowned at you--that got Mustafa at his rawest nerve.

With any luck, despite Mustafa's being bound to be called as a witness for or against Noah tomorrow in court--did Noah even realize Mustafa was to be one of the crucial witnesses?--his old friend wouldn't think unkindly of Mustafa. The memory of Noah's father--as religious a man, besotted by the scent of the synagogue and the dress of the martyr, as Noah was irreligious--was too painful to warrant any thought of replication in his son. Noah's father, despite being greatly respected by Alanya's notables, had chosen to exile himself to Venice, where he'd died only a few years later, alone in a ghetto, without the good medical care he'd have gotten in Alanya. It would be a shame if Noah turned away from the world; no, he couldn't be allowed to.

Mustafa felt confident he could finesse the issue: on the one hand, he had to satisfy muhtar Iskander Halilbey--who'd visited Mustafa at his offices yesterday--that Mustafa was firmly on the side of the local traders. On the other hand, Mustafa must not bend so low in Noah's chastisement that one day soon Mustafa himself might become a target of the rapacious tax-farmers and their even more corrupt contractors.

The charge being brought against Noah was flimsy--ridiculous, even. It was the symbolic importance that counted. A respected Jew would be brought in front of a kadi of Alanya. He would be put on notice. He would be asked to account for the exact quantity and value of goods he'd loaded on his ships on his last few visits to the port, because the kethudas in Alanya were supposed to have submitted records to the tax collectors that suggested more had been loaded on the ships than the Jew had paid taxes for. This against an almost unworldly subject who railed against the Osmanli rulers for not finding ways to charge everyone more taxes, to improve the physical layout of the empire! Mustafa would play it down the middle, not make enemies of either side. The real danger, Noah would have said, was from European citizens pressing undue advantage from the capitulations granted by the Padishah. The real action was in Istanbul. Yet the worthies of Alanya wanted to make an example of Noah, one of their own, most faithful, citizens!

If only Neslihan had shown some interest in marrying Noah! Noah could have nominally converted to Islam. Nobody would have dared bring trumped-up charges against him then. But the girl had a mind of her own. Oh well, it was how Mustafa had brought her up. Besides, it was difficult to think of the self-sufficient Noah as a son-in-law, having to consult with him day after day. Perhaps the Jew was good only in small biannual doses.

All morning, Kadi Ahmed Efendi had had to go easy on shameless thieves and pickpockets, lying letter-writers and vanishing storytellers, and above all, prostitutes. Minimal fines, a few akce, nothing to put the prostitutes out of pocket, and a stern admonition: "For decency's sake, can't you find an honest living?" But who would marry a prostitute? Even the detested Yoruks, the original Turks, nomads to the bone and pagan in custom, had acquired too much civilization to feel pity for those forced into unsavory occupations.

The last case was of a man guarding a han who'd been found stealing the guests' clothes for a number of years; he hadn't sold any, his little house being chockful of other men's worn jubbes and salvars. Now this was sickness of a new kind. The kadi didn't even stoop low enough to fine him; he couldn't muster the imagination to come up with an appropriate humiliation for this man before his fellow guards at the han. "Return the clothes!" Kadi Efendi ordered. The guard replied, "Should I travel to Rumelia and Russia and Persia and India in search of each of the men, Agha?"

Actually, the kadi was being evasive, squeezing in as many smalltime cases as possible in the morning, having hoped against hope that the muhtar and the muhtesib, with whom he'd pleaded the night before at his home not to proceed against Noah ibn Nehmias, would have come to a settlement outside court.

But here they were, sitting in a corner of the one-room building. Nothing distinguished the kadi's seat from a commercial building. In the summer it was too hot, in the winter too cold--in the north, in a place like Kars, when it snowed almost all official business came to a stop because no one had figured out how to secure the buildings against the severe cold. The muhtar and muhtesib, the pair of kethudas who'd been brought in gratuitously, all sat without expression, keeping their eyes away from each other's faces. Mustafa Celebi, as decent a man as could be found in Alanya, was not a direct party to the case, but present as a witness--both sides had probably asked this man of reputation to testify on their behalf.

Only the defendant, Noah ibn Nehmias, had eyes full of curiosity, his expression rising and falling with the fate of the other defendants in court today. Every time the kadi let go a prostitute without punishment, Noah seemed to breathe easier, searching the kadi's eyes to bestow a stamp of approval. Noah was wearing too much silk for an adult man, and it looked like he'd just finished eating a hefty meal at a roadside cookshop, his face and lips shone so. The kadi's scribe, whose immaculate sicills were beautiful enough to be works of calligraphy in demand in Istanbul, adjusted his ankles more comfortably under his spreading rump; his face, drained of all blood, pale as a cow's offal, always frightened the kadi.

"The case of the muhtar of Alanya, Iskander Halilbey, against Noah ibn Nehmias," Kadi Efendi said at last, noting that Mustafa's face darkened and strained visibly. "Have the parties come to sulh, any resolution between themselves?" the kadi asked hopelessly. Meeting with shakes of the head all around, and a wry smile from Noah, the kadi asked, "Does the defendant accept or deny the charges?"

"I deny everything," Noah said. "Everything."

"Then the case must go forward. The accusing party will choose a representative to lay out the beyyine."

The riffraff loitering in the room vanished as if recognizing that heftier matters than stolen pockets and undeliverable letters were at stake. The subashi, on alert all morning at the wide door to the building, plunked his plump self on the bare divan by the doorway, searching through his pockets.

Kadi Efendi's wife had lectured him until well after dark the previous night, admonishing him, for the sake of the children, to do the right thing, judge as the muhtar and muhtesib wished him to. For the sake of the children?--whom his wife protected and kept away from the kadi as if he were the most ill-meaning of the djinn the storytellers were always going on about. Like all women, she could be immensely practical at the slightest external push. For their short but disconcerting visit, the muhtar and muhtesib seemed to have conspired to say as little as possible, nothing to incriminate them in a plot; they kept asking so keenly about the kadi's welfare--what was the future of the older child after he finished the dahil medrese? Was enrollment at Istanbul's Suleymaniyye medrese in the offing?--that the kadi had to stop reading them as signals of bribes. It couldn't be done openly, anyway; it could only come in the form of gifts from unknown parties. Suddenly, one morning, a white Arabian horse would show up at one's door. Or a trunk of rare silks. And a note: "From the unworthy giver to the most worthy receiver: Know that your unstinting service to the best standards of the sultanate is much appreciated." Without staying long, his two official visitors had left him feeling more dejected about his chosen line of business than ever before.

"Agha, I'll present the evidence." Muhtar Iskander Halilbey spread his sheaves of documents on the floor before the kadi's feet. "You see, here's a clear trail of the accused, the Jew Noah ibn Nehmias, always cheating by underdeclaring the quality of the wools he buys in the local markets. Our merchants here record nothing but the actual value of the goods and pay taxes accordingly. But the buyer who spends most of his time in foreign lands--this ibn Nehmias--well, he's had no shame about cheating the Padishah. I demand the severest punishment in light of the evidence. Lifetime banishment from conducting trade in any part of the sultanate. Immediate restitution of the amount lost to the state coffers, barring which appropriate jail time to be decided by your lordship."

Muhtar Halilbey, a nondescript man except for his exaggerated moustache, had made a name for himself in two decades of service in Alanya on only a couple of occasions: once when he prosecuted an illiterate Christian for blaspheming the Prophet on the streets--yet another case when the kadi simply wouldn't bend to popular passion to punish the offender, because clearly the man was insane--and another time when the muhtar had it in for one of the Bektashi tekkes for consuming large quantities of alcohol. Didn't everyone know that's what the Bektashis did? Nothing said you had to violate someone's space behind four walls to find out what they were up to. That wasn't the police's job; the kadi had refused to hear the case. And now the muhtar hoped to nail a popular Jew. Many a time the kadi had been cornered by the muhtar on the street, with bad news of yet another series of Osmanli losses on the battlefield, to the vile Europeans or Russians or Persians: "The best way to push them back is to organize a new gaza, something so huge it catches all our enemies by surprise," the muhtar would assert. "We're taking things too easy."

"What do the others supporting the accusation have to say?" asked Kadi Efendi. The muhtesib, who stammered, made an inappropriate joke about the rarity of precious wool in Andalus, clearly an underhanded reference to the exile of the Jews from one of their chosen lands, where so much good came to them before they were kicked out by the fanatic Christian rulers. This undertone of violence couldn't be allowed to persist. "Would you stick to the facts in the case?" the kadi pleaded, his throat dry. "Kethuda Ibrahimoglu?" The head of the wool spinners guild testified to the accuracy of the muhtar's records, but there was a desultoriness about his testimony. The same lack of passion went for the kethuda of the wool weavers. Muhtar Halilbey kept stealing glances at Mustafa Celebi; the muhtar probably expected Mustafa to testify on his behalf. But Mustafa only looked on wearily.

"If there's no further testimony from the plaintiff's side, I'll call the defendant."

Noah got up to speak. There was no need for that. Perhaps they did that in European courts, all the unnecessary pomp and ceremony, to go with cases that dragged on for years and years, often to no resolution. The Osmanli way was swift and sure justice, based on local custom, immediate witness, irrefutable evidence; no excessive glorification, speculation, abstraction, stretching of analogies and reasoning. The Padishah's kanunnames covered every contingency in specifics. Further, Noah had a hectoring, schoolmasterish tone about him today that the kadi didn't like one bit. But the kadi resolved to do justice anyway.

"What you have here is a pure case of--envy! I'll explain." The merits of the case Noah expertly demolished in a few minutes. Noah bought goods in very large volume; so a minute discrepancy in valuation could explain large deficits in taxes paid. The judging of the precise grade of wool was an art, not a science. It was difficult to get wool merchants with decades of experience to speak with one voice on the subject. Noah had accepted the assessment of the wool in good faith; he'd been patronizing the same kethudas year after year, so if anyone was to be blamed for miscalculation, wasn't it the guild heads, not him? Noah hadn't been on notice that such a case would be brought against him on this trip immediately on arrival, but if the kadi were to give him six months, until his next visit, Noah would bring documents from Venice to prove his side of the case. The browbeating tone went away by the end of Noah's plea. Muhtar Halilbey was agitated, his face red and splotchy, his fists clenching and unclenching; the man needed a good holiday, to some distant spot on the Black Sea.

"Good, very good. Any witnesses for or against?"

Kadi Efendi hoped Mustafa Celebi would say something definitively in favor of the Jew and take the decision out of his hands. Indeed, Mustafa got up too, copying the declamatory style of his old friend. "Kadi Efendi, I vouch for Noah ibn Nehmias's honor. I undertake personal guarantee that he'll return six months from now to present the documents he says he has in his possession to prove his case. Further, I believe that under no circumstances would this man cheat the Padishah of revenues. He's incapable of doing that. I'm willing to take any other guarantees." Mustafa might have been expected to finesse the issue so he wouldn't come out so openly against the muhtar and his allies, but apparently he'd thrown caution to the winds.

Still, Kadi Efendi knew he couldn't create for himself a hostile enemy in Muhtar Halilbey. The muhtar could make life unbearable for the kadi, tying up the court with frivolous cases, speaking against him at every opportunity he got with his superiors, the illiterate representatives of the beylerbeyi and sancakbeyi. Some slight slap on the wrist was called for. "With the arguments and testimony concluded, I rule that henceforth Noah ibn Nehmias will personally present his shipping documents to the muhtesib's inspection right after arrival and before departure each time in the port of Alanya." For regular traders, the inspection of documents was a formality that could be conducted in due course of time, so as not to hold up arrival or departure. Furthermore, nothing had been said about his arrival with goods; the kadi thought it sounded right, for the sake of symmetry and balance.

"Kadi Efendi, this is an outrage!" Noah was up again.

Kadi Efendi was stunned. He'd thought the Jew wouldn't resent the imposition too much. After all, the news was that in Europe the inspection of documents and goods and persons had reached a far more advanced stage than anything seen so far in Anatolia. Why should his reasonable demand become an issue? The muhtesib wouldn't personally inspect and deal with Noah ibn Nehmias. It would be some lowly naip of his.

But Noah was unpacifiable. "I won't put up with this. This is a mark on my honor. There's no need to subject me to extra inspection compared to other shippers. My record is without blemish. I dare the muhtar to explain the causes of his envy. The man is a wreck, can't you see? He's sick, he hates me, and he doesn't even know why." Noah was shouting.

"I will not have this outburst in my court. My ruling is final."

In the end, Noah had to be controlled by the subashi, the first physical workout the officer had gotten in many years. It had been a sad day; contrary to what Kadi Efendi had hoped for, everyone had gone away unhappy. The muhtar was livid at the kadi, because Kadi Efendi didn't order any punishment for Noah's violation of court etiquette. Mustafa Celebi had put a hand on the kadi's shoulder, as though to commiserate: "We did our best, my friend. But it's hopeless, once things get this far."

Noah walked out of the courthouse alone, spurning Mustafa Celebi's offer to accompany him, but not in a rude way.

Noah was chastened by his first direct experience with Osmanli justice. He understood that the kadi had been as lenient with him as possible given the need to stay on good terms with the ehl-i 'orf. A similar case in Venice, if brought by a powerful enough personage, might have resulted in immediate disbarment. Here the tone was friendly. Still, it was confusing. Why, for instance, had the kethudas--whom he'd always thought of as a shade otherworldly, for all their ability to drive a hard bargain--distorted the reality? If the test of a man's courage was a time of tribulation, then every single person in that courthouse had failed. Himself too, for had he not whined and groaned, instead of facing up to the strength of his enemies? Envy? Who was envying whom?

The kadi was a decent man; according to the philosophical treatises Noah talked about with Neslihan, Noah should quickly forget and forgive. To hold a grudge against the pettiness of the local merchants--why, that would be falling right into their trap! One of the great men of Noah's race had been Sabbatai Sevi who, pushed to the wall, converted to Islam as a guest of Mehmet IV, abandoning his messianic claims. That was a worthy act of sacrifice in the name of sanity. Half the Jews in Venice hated Sabbatai, the other half were in love with him. But Sabbatai was only a man, even if he hadn't succeeded in surviving to old age.

Without knowing it, Noah had walked to the coffeehouse where he'd first met Mustafa years ago. Noah ordered tea and helva, no heavy food, thank you, even though it was early afternoon, and long past time for a real meal. His appetite hadn't returned. Most locals assumed Noah was from Alanya itself, a Jew who spoke their language in every sense of the word. In fact, most places he visited in the Osmanli empire assumed this: whether he was in Erzurum or Kayseri or Aydin, the residents assumed he was one of them, extensive travel having diluted the familiarity of his accent. He was good with languages; in only a few days he'd start adopting the tones and rhythms of wherever he happened to be staying.

It was warm, a good day to appreciate the stark blueness of the Mediterranean. Unlike Europeans, Turks didn't seem obsessed with the loveliness of the ocean; only the residents of Istanbul had a love affair with the water, and wasn't that because of their proximity to European notions of beauty? For the average resident of Alanya, the ocean was the ocean; it wasn't as though you needed to make special excursions to witness it of an evening, alone or with family.

Here was a swarm of Bektashis now, heading his way; their wandering troupes had vastly increased in number over the last few years--they, and the companies following the ayans and derebeys, the warlords beginning to take advantage of Osmanli generosity by seizing control of timars held by weak sipahis who no longer had the courage and strength to protect their lands. Well, what was to be done about it? One could say all the right things about the durability of the empire, but Europe was progressing by lightning speed. A rudimentary steam engine had been invented. The Osmanlis didn't seem to know anything about it.

To Noah's surprise, the sheyh of the Bektashis approached him. "Pasha, are you from around here?" The sheyh was an emaciated man, of indeterminate age, with a paleness of face meant to suggest spiritual advancement.

"What of it, haci?" Noah spoke harshly, spitting to the side a piece of helva that had got stuck in his teeth. "What if I am or am not from around here? Does it matter? To you Bektashis, of all people?"

"No offence. I'm just asking, Pasha, because I haven't seen you in any of the bedestans, and you look like a merchant, a rich one, at that. We like to do special favors for our visitors from outside Alanya."

"Favors?" Noah smirked. "Like what?" Did the sheyh mean rare stimulants, drugs?

"Why not come to the tekke tonight and find out?"

"Sorry. I'm a Jew." Noah laughed scornfully. "Am I expected to do these things?"

"My apologies. A thousand apologies, Pasha. It's just that I didn't see any visible signs. You're not wearing the kipot."

Well, who did anyway? How many Jews avoided wearing green, the Muslim color, or took care to wear black shoes? A dark look began to cross Noah's face. Meanwhile, a lift of the sheyh's eyebrow dispersed the congregation. The sheyh himself bowed and left.

The lunch eaters around him murmured in low voices. Why didn't they complain vocally about rising taxes, shoddy goods, corrupt officials? Europeans were under the illusion that Turks treated eating purely functionally--potential armies of fearless soldiers feeding only for necessary fuel to spur the fighting machine, the human cannon. How false an impression! Mealtimes were precious here, as anywhere else. But it did look like the artisans at the kehfene were aiming to finish eating at the same time. Ah, there was the ubiquitous fat storyteller--you could tell by his comical turban, emblem of his trade--in the far corner. Soon, those who had knocked off work for the day would assemble outside the coffeehouse for a couple of hours before the practiced raconteur. If only the storytellers understood the art of satire: then we would hear thinly disguised tales about the valide sultan's latest conspiracies in the harem, the chief Black Eunuch's double-crossing of the Greek Orthodox Patriarch, the Grand Vezir's ignorance of his own hanging until the last moment. In all likelihood, a shadow puppet theater would also be spontaneously set up to entertain the crowd, the illiterate Karagoz predictably getting the better of the genteel Hacivat in the play.

Noah was forced to return to reality. A judgment had been passed against him today. How real had his anger been?

He probed in his pockets to retrieve a crumpled letter written to him by his aunt in Selanik. "Dear Noah, I'm not getting any younger. Gray mists, swarms of mosquitoes, get thicker in my eyes. My legs hurt and sometimes I can't sleep the entire night. Every Jew in blessed Selanik feels charmed and content. They write love poetry and sing happy songs. They seek miracles proving their own happiness. But my dear nephew, I'm unhappy and wish nothing better before I die than to see you married to Rebekah. She will make you a good wife. She cooks, she cleans, she sews, she has a good knowledge of Torah ..." It went on for a couple of pages--for a dying woman his aunt certainly had a steady hand--singing the praises of the daughter.

Rebekah was a fair enough girl, eager to please, and undoubtedly capable of producing many children. Her knowledge of Torah would have pleased Noah's father, a needless martyr to his forefathers' only understanding of the meaning of life. But there was nothing exceptional about Rebekah. For weeks now, Noah had put off writing a delicate refusal. In the past, the aunt, his father's favorite sister, had only hinted; her coming out in the open meant that Noah probably wouldn't visit Selanik now, even for business. Rebekah was the kind of girl, who if she was married to him, would remind him that the judgment rendered against him today was because he'd lost touch with his faith. "Head right to the synagogue! Worship the way our forefathers have, for five thousand years, and your troubles will melt away! Talk to the rabbi! Let nothing weigh on your heart!"

Noah's other pocket held, in an exquisite ivory box, the ring he'd bought for Neslihan in Venice's cutthroat jewelry row.

The ring was a European custom Neslihan would surely appreciate, he'd thought when he bought it. He and Neslihan had of late been running out of things to say about the muddles in Maimonides's and Spinoza's thought. Their pattern of conversation had become too fixed. It was time to secure their alliance, make it permanent. No girl more able, more aspiring of the higher feelings, could be found in the realm. True, years ago Neslihan had hinted that she wasn't interested in marriage. But why couldn't inklings of love be revived? Was he mistaken in detecting more openness on Neslihan's part on his last two visits? She probably felt the pressure of age. And her father? Mustafa wouldn't make more of a fuss than Noah's nominal conversion to Islam.

Still, wasn't Noah supposed to feel engrossing passion toward the woman of his choice? Wasn't he to think all the time of ravishing her? He felt no such emotion. He'd seen too much, traveled too widely, to let his emotions run wild like a nomad's. Noah tried to visualize Neslihan--he'd never caught a glimpse of her, although everyone did say her beauty was miraculous--but only the dour faces of the muhtar and muhtesib, and the two kethudas, all joined together in conspiracy, visited him.

He gave up trying to feel better about himself. He pushed the undercooked helva away. Perhaps Europe did make things easier for the battered self. If the stringent rules and customs were more rigidly enforced, there were enough beautiful things with only a decorative purpose around to make you lose sight of reality. A coffeehouse in such a good neighborhood in Europe would have proper chairs and tables, flower vases and wall decorations, an air of pride and possession and prestige. Here he sat on a stone "bench" and ate at a stone "table," while the sights and sounds of the cooks at work with their grills and pans were out in the open. Instructions to cook and serve and discard were issued in earshot of customers; none of the processes of making and disposing was kept hidden. Just because it was a provincial kehfene frequented mostly by artisans didn't mean that the most prosperous merchant, or the Agha of the Janissaries, or the sancakbeyi himself, couldn't drop in at any moment. Perhaps there was beauty after all in keeping things separate, not letting odd combinations mix and match at will. There must be some transcendent definition of order eluding even the orderly Osmanlis.

Noah got up to leave--but where would he go? To head back to Mustafa's home would be torture!--when he was stopped by a commotion in the street. A chase was on, headed his way. A motley gang of starving thieves, perhaps six or seven, was on the run, the healthy subashis close on their heels. They chose the coffeehouse for the place of capture. The trinkets stolen by the thieves--probably from some sleepy merchant at the nearby bedestan--were unceremoniously extracted from their pockets. The muhtar and muhtesib, last seen trying to nail Noah, were right behind the pursued and the pursuers, maintaining a dignified pace.

"In the name of the Padishah," Muhtar Halilbey proclaimed, "I arrest you for theft. Let this be an example to your fellow criminals ..." It was embarrassing to listen to the muhtar's self-righteous speech. Noah had never seen a low-level Osmanli official grandstand so indecently. It made a shiver run through his entire body. The muhtar concluded: "Padishahim chok yasher!" Long live our Padishah.

"Show them mercy, Agha," Noah said, meeting the muhtar's cold eyes. Noah quoted an apt example from the last Sheyulislam's famous fetva about the injustices of the social order compelling most petty crimes. "So be merciful, Agha." Muhtar Halilbey's lips were pinched blue, his eyes narrowed to small points. Before the muhtar could come up with a response, Noah put his arm on the official's shoulder. "I won't be bothering you again."

Had the subashis not been hard on their case, Noah would have slipped the ring to one of the thieves. But no, that would be throwing coals on fire. The recipient would be charged with a further crime.

A calming sense of practicality began to overcome him. He had to see to his cargo. His ships. The sailors would be getting restless. The goods to take back to Venice were already on the docks. Let them be loaded and let him be on his way. Noah ibn Nehmias was a merchant above all. He must carry on. The unpredictable acts of a couple of paltry officials didn't necessarily describe a pattern. What had happened to him was an individual incidence with no necessary universal meaning.

One of Noah's assistants--an amiable young Jew for whom you couldn't help feeling helpless sympathy--was getting married on their return to Venice. The man's wife, whoever she was, would love the ring.