“Yashim efendi. Excuse me, please.”
Yashim looked around. Marta was standing in the shadows below the stairs, knotting her apron between her fingers.
“Marta!” He took a step closer.
“Enver Xani, efendi. He is disappeared!”
“I heard, Marta. But you mustn’t worry. There are any number of reasons why he might have had to stay out.”
He tried to think of one. A catastrophic leak, perhaps? A crumbling reservoir? He wondered how far the watermen’s guild communicated with the families involved: if Xani was being kept on overnight, someone should have sent a message. So perhaps it was really a night out with the lads instead, in the taverns of the port.
Marta put a knuckle to her lips.
“I do not want to trouble the lord ambassador,” she said. “But perhaps you will help? You are his friend, and a good man.”
Yashim inclined his head. Marta had done him kindness in the past, he would not refuse her.
“Mrs. Xani says they must pay the moneylender tomorrow. Forty piastres. She has very little money.” She lifted a small red leather purse, which hung from the belt slung around her hips. “I have twenty-seven piastres. It is my money. If they do not pay, the debt will grow worse.”
Yashim frowned. He tried to remember Mrs. Xani, but his impression was indistinct: a woman in red skirts, a broom in her hand. Was Marta right to give her savings to this woman? Twenty-seven piastres: it was quite a lot of money.
“Can’t Mrs. Xani ask for time, until her husband gets back? Maybe he can pay off the debt.”
Marta shook her head. “You don’t understand, efendi. Forty piastres is the interest. Every month they pay.”
Yashim pursed his lips together and blew out. “Forty a month! I don’t believe it. How much does Xani owe?”
“Six hundred,” said Marta, lowering her voice. “Mrs. Xani, she is afraid for the children, if they cannot pay the money.”
Yashim knew nothing of the Xanis, but any fool could recognize Marta’s gullible good nature. Marta was fond of the children, Palewski had said. He wondered if it had all been planned: an estimate of Marta’s resources, Xani staying away to provide a pretext for this approach. My children, Marta! Oh, I am so afraid! Just forty piastres…
“Marta,” Yashim said firmly. “Xani is a poor man. Where would he borrow six hundred piastres? Why would he ever need so much money?”
Marta almost jumped in surprise. “Oh no, efendi! Xani is a good man. And a waterman, too. But he needed this money to pay the guild. An entrance fee, you understand, to buy the position.”
Yashim scratched his head. That, he admitted, made more sense. The guild would expect a payment-Xani was a kind of apprentice.
“But now he’s not here to pay? It’s convenient, Marta.”
“His wife is afraid, when he does not return. Maybe-”
She made a frightened little gesture, sketching a possibility she didn’t want to shape aloud.
Yashim tapped his foot angrily on the ground. He folded his arms and looked away.
“And Mrs. Xani has no money?”
“No, efendi. She does not. And the lord ambassador is very kind, but-Mrs. Xani does not want him to know. You understand, Yashim efendi?”
“Tchah!” Yashim exclaimed. “Very well. Who is this moneylender?”
“A Jew. He is called Baradossa. He lives in Balat, but Mrs. Xani does not know where.”
“Then how does she plan to get the money to him?”
Marta looked down and stirred the ground with her foot. “Yashim efendi, I thought-maybe, as a favor-maybe you could take him the money. You could find out where he lives. Please?”
Yashim stamped his foot, and said angrily: “Baradossa. Balat, forty piastres. Very well, Marta-no, you can keep your money. I’ll show you I can be a bigger fool than you or your master. And when Xani gets back, he can deal with me.”
Marta began to protest, holding out her little purse, but he waved her away.
Going out, he almost slammed the door, but not quite. Just in time, he had remembered that he should have left ten minutes before.
“Bloody Albanians!” he said under his breath. “Balat!”