probably totally stupid, but you know how the safest time to fly is right after a plane crash? That’s the logic I’m going with right now. We need to get out of here, but I also need to know if there’s anything else.
This drawer opens easier than its mate. There’s another silk scarf. I place it on the top. I shine my light into the drawer and see something wedged in the back. It’s paper.
“Hold this light for me,” I say. Alexandre walks over and takes my phone, angling its beam of light into the drawer.
“It’s an envelope.” I tug at it, but lightly; I don’t want to rip it. I jiggle the drawer with one hand, hoping to loosen it. It works; I pull out the envelope with trembling fingers. It’s a letter. It’s in faded, curly script, but the name on the envelope is clear. It’s addressed to Monsieur Alexandre Dumas.
Leila
I shed no tears as I step back through the doorway. There is no time for sorrow or goodbyes or regrets.
There is barely time to move forward.
“Haseki. I have brought you a eunuch’s uniform as you have asked.” A young man shuffles forward with a small satchel.
“Kemal. Thank you for your kindness,” I say. “And your discretion.”
“I am at your service, haseki.”
“I know you are, Kemal. And I am in gratitude.” I sweep my hand to my heart and bow my head. Kemal’s eyes grow wide. “I have trusted you with this secret and with my life. And now I offer you passage with me away from here. I cannot say it is without risk, perhaps even death. But if you choose to take the risk, I will gladly have you join me.”
Kemal bows before me. “This is my home, haseki. For all that it is. Perhaps one day I can rise to Chief Eunuch. This is the fate I have been given. There is nothing else in the world for me now, as you know.”
His smile breaks my heart. “Go with God, Kemal.”
“And you, haseki.”
I watch as he slips away into the darkness.
I hurry to my chamber. In the satchel, along with the eunuch’s clothes, I hide the jewels Pasha has given me—gold and diamonds and emeralds that may buy me a new life. I tuck my Giaour’s rose in with the embroidered scarf he brought me from the Indian merchant. I wrap a sash tightly around my waist and fasten the yataghan into it, concealing it under my midnight-blue entari with golden stars at its hem.
Khayyam
March 10, 1845
Cher Ami,
I hope this letter finds you well.
Because you are a man of letters, I will not insult your intelligence or my own with a verbosity of feigned feelings. I have enjoyed our time together these past months. But the devotion you seek from me I cannot give. Though your attentions are flattering and your compliments pleasing, I must beg you to turn your thoughts elsewhere, even more for your sake than for mine.
For a woman in my position, at my age, a decade your senior, alone though I may be, and necessarily so, for my fate commands it, some may counsel me to accept the warmth of your feelings. To pass my days and nights in the embrace of one whose ardor for me is true. But I dare not allow us to continue as we have, knowing your true heart, for such a game would endanger both of us. I think too highly of you to do such a thing.
And, to say it plainly, my heart belongs to another. Forever. Until I meet him again in jannah, where at last our star-crossed love may find peace, liberated from the shackles this earth cast upon us. To him I am betrothed until my dying day. I can love no other. And to that oath I have been true these three decades. Indeed, when I saw him bleed upon the sands of my old home—so distant from me now in miles, but still so close—I knew that a part of me would remain there. That is the part of my soul that you seek. The part I cannot give.
Consider