BEFORE HE WAS RED

A sharp jolt froze him. And then, a new convulsion, rattling metal, breaking glass and pitch darkness. Was the earth trying to spew them out? Or had the world crumbled on top of them? All was still, all except his thumping heart.

‘Jurad?’

Out of the darkness, Jurad’s deep voice: ‘I’m right here. The lamp broke’.

‘What was that?’

‘The earth trembled. More could come.’ Jurad added something in his native tongue. He spoke Turkish, French, and Greek, but found it more satisfying to curse in the language of his childhood.

On they crawled. It was hard to breathe. Hamid’s mouth had gone dry, and he shook; an attack of panic, he knew the signs. One, two, three, four. He counted to keep his mind off things he would rather not think of, or when there was nothing better to do. 63 steps took him across the salon to his brother’s apartment, 627 steps from one garden wall to the other. A falcon’s feathers (countless, though he kept trying), the number of fresh dates served with his morning meal, always five. (A coincidence? Or did a kindred soul in the kitchen count the dates he put on Hamid’s plate? It felt like a secret bond between them, making Hamid feel less alone.) The number of days since his mother had died, 8,591, to be exact.

He heard Jurad shuffle. Ahead or behind? In the total darkness, he had lost all sense of direction and time. Disoriented, he stopped, turned his head, and fell, as if the ground had opened beneath him, and bumped against the conduit wall.

‘Your Highness, are you all right?’

‘Call me Hamid, I told you,’ he said angrily, though Jurad was not to blame. Normally, Jurad would be whipped for calling him anything but ‘Your Highness’ or ‘my lord’.

‘It’s nothing,’ he added more softly. ‘Let’s continue.’

Whatever argument he might have evoked for embarking on this madness, he had now forgotten it. There was no rational justification for the risk they were taking for only one night.

‘Look, light! We’ve arrived!’ Jurad called.

In the soft glow which now came from above, Hamid could again make out the contours of Jurad’s body.

Pushing aside a grill, Jurad heaved himself up, and disappeared. Hamid followed, humid from sweat, and emerged from the womb of the earth onto a cold floor. The moonlight fell through the barred windows into a shimmering pool next to him. He blinked and choked back laughter when he saw Jurad, ashy with grey dust.

Against the wall of the plain, vaulted space stood a fountain with four taps and beneath them, shallow basins for the ritual cleansing before prayers. On the wall above, tiles quoted scripture: O you have believed, when you rise to perform prayer, wash your faces and your forearms to the elbows and wipe over your heads and wash your feet to the ankles - they had emerged into the modest ablution room of a mosque.

Nothing like the richly decorated palace mosque he was used to where the floor of the prayer area was covered with wall-to-wall carpets beneath the intricately woven prayer rugs, and the pulpit from which the imam delivered the Friday sermon, was a masterful piece of art with inlays of mother-of-pearl.

‘Sure no one’s here? ‘Hamid whispered.

‘For a handful of gold, the watchman stays away tonight. In any case, this mosque is hardly used.’

‘You’re nervous.’

‘The moon is too bright.’

They washed in the cold water of the fountain, but dirt still stuck to their hair and clothes. Hamid struck a pose. ‘See. Even in plain daylight, no one would know me like this.’

‘Inshallah,’ Jurad mumbled.

Hamid pushed open the door, stepped outside and filled his lungs with night air, crisp, dangerous and enticing, like a sparkling promise replete with strange, uncharted scents.

They stood shoulder-to-shoulder in the tall grass.

Jurad pointed, ‘Up on the hill, that’s Pera. Over there, the Galata tower and below it, Galata. That’s the harbour.’

Beyond rooftops, countless church spires, and one or two slender minarets, Hamid saw steam ships at anchor outside the harbour.

‘And Galata bridge,’ Jurad continued. ‘You cross over and you’re in the old city.’

He looked sideways at Jurad, whose black skin melted into the night. Escaping the Imperial palace was treason, punishable by death. Yet when he had proposed this bargain, Jurad had agreed to risk everything to make it happen.

He picked at a straw of grass, threw it away, picked up his soiled kaftan and retrieved a document from the pocket, along with a dagger. He handed it to Jurad who brought it out of its sheath, encrusted with three large, emerald stones and dispersed with diamonds. Jurad examined it expertly, and felt the sharp edge with his thumb.

‘The most beautiful I’ve ever seen.’ His eyes glistened in the darkness.

‘It’s yours.’

Jurad kneeled and kissed the hem of Hamid’s kaftan.

Looking away, Hamid then handed Jurad the document. ‘There’s this as well. You’re a free man now, as you desired.’

Without a word, without even looking at the document, Jurad quietly held it.

‘You’re like a brother to me,’ Hamid said. ‘I wish you didn’t have to go. I’ll be lonely without you.’ Awkward words, blurted out with waves of pain radiating from his heart.

He wished Jurad would say he would be lonely without him, but Jurad played with the knife in his hand as if he hadn’t heard. Hamid’s heart sank.

‘I shouldn’t have made you do this, it wasn’t fair to bargain.’

Jurad’s wide smile revealed large, white teeth. ‘Life isn’t fair. It used to make me bitter. I’m at peace with it now. I’m just glad to go home, to find my parents, my brothers and sisters. This night sort of makes it right for me to leave you.’

His words were candid and hurtful.

There was a new, long silence while Jurad rolled up the document and tucked it away in his sleeve, then slid the dagger under his belt. Even though the two of them were the same size, it now seemed to Hamid that Jurad towered over him.

‘Do you think you’ll know your village when you arrive in el-Habesh?’ he asked.

Jurad put a hand to his heart. ‘The path will take me there. I’ll know home when I see it.’

‘Maybe we’ll never meet again.’

‘Maybe we will.’

Hamid looked towards the colossal marble palace, eerie in the dusky glow. In the obscurity, he could not make out the familiar European-style details on the facade, only the gilded main gate and, beyond it, the narrow south side of the ghostly looking palace. It was strange to see it from this angle, from the outside, compressed between the tall hills and the sea.

‘I’ll be waiting for you. Same place you left me,’ he said with a nod to the palace. He didn’t mean to sound bitter, but it was how he felt.

Jurad looked to the moon. ‘When we meet again, I’ll teach you how to fish.’

How to fish? He tried to imagine it, but only felt inadequate. ‘You promise?’ he asked.

‘Promises bring bad luck.’

‘Silly superstitious eunuch.’ He swatted Jurad’s head, and Jurad ducked. They laughed like they used to, and his heart swelled with all he wanted to tell Jurad, but didn’t know how. Words he should have said years ago now felt insincere and melodramatic. When you cut off a leg or an arm, you bleed to death, that’s how he felt, as if the blood was seeping out of him.

He turned away. Tonight, he was not an heir to the Ottoman throne locked up in a gilded cage, he was a man like any other, free to roam the world, free from guilt and fear and regret, and he would let nothing spoil this moment.

‘We’re going to the old city.’

‘Your Highness, no! Forgive me, we agreed to stay here. It’s too far. You must be back before morning prayers. If something happens to you––’

‘We agreed on one night. This opportunity may never come again, you’ll be gone and I’ll be stuck here forever.’ He turned his back on the palace and started down the hill. ‘And don’t call me “Your Highness” again.’