Alexander Mavrogordato glanced automatically down the street and then rapped on the door with the knob of his cane. After a while he heard the shuffle of feet inside. He knocked again.
The door opened.
“Yashim efendi,” he said.
The old woman nodded. “He just came in, I think, efendi. Please, mind your head.”
Alexander Mavrogordato ducked, though not quite deeply enough, and stepped down into the little hall, rubbing his head. “Where do I find him?”
The old woman pointed up the stairs. Mavrogordato climbed heavily. On the landing he paused, then pushed open the door.
Yashim looked up in surprise.
“You mind if I come in?” The young man’s tone was aggrieved, as if he expected a rebuff.
“Not at all,” Yashim replied pleasantly. “You are almost in already.”
“My mother told me where to find you,” Alexander Mavrogordato said, advancing into the room. He looked around and went over without stopping to the stove, putting his hands on the table, fingering the pots. Then he wheeled around and came over to the books, absently running his hands across their spines.
“Mother says your job’s done.” He reached into his pocket and drew out a purse. “Here.”
He threw it across to Yashim, who was sitting on the divan, watching the performance with interest. Yashim put up an arm and closed his fingers on the purse. A Phanariot purse: heavy and musical.
“Your mother is too kind,” he said. “What exactly is she paying me for?”
The young man whipped round. “It doesn’t matter. She thinks she overreacted.”
Yashim lobbed the purse back. Mavrogordato was taken by surprise, but he caught it. Then he fumbled the catch and the money fell onto the floor.
“In which case, there’s no fee.”
Mavrogordato stirred the purse with his foot. “I don’t think you get it, do you? My mother doesn’t want to know about-about anything.”
“I see. We never talked. She never scolded me for being late, or asked why I didn’t wear a fez, or told me not to smoke.”
“That’s right,” the young man replied guardedly.
“Oddly enough, do you know the only thing she really never did? She never discussed a fee with me. Now take your money, Monsieur Mavrogordato, before I start remembering that you were ever here.”
Yashim didn’t move from the divan. The young man kicked viciously at the purse, so that it thudded against the wall.
Then he flung out of the door, slamming it behind him.
The trouble with children who were told exactly what and what not to do, Yashim reflected, is that they grow up unable to think for themselves.