The Black Tulip

The Poet’s Gift

After several more days of training, Madam Siranush gathers the girls in her courtyard, dressed even more extravagantly than usual, complete with veils. She tells them it is market day and customers will soon be arriving. She tells the girls they must treat the customers nicely and smile at them.

Customers come and go all day while the girls stand in small groups. Laleena overhears one man tell Madam Siranush to give him a dozen girls at once, since the pasha wants more for his harem, and Madam Siranush coolly counts off twelve of them. Just like that, they are gone. His words feel like a stab to Laleena’s heart. She and the others are being bartered like merchandise, no better than eggs or chickens.

Other buyers purchase several girls, too, and all kinds of exchanges are made, with payments ranging from sacks of bulgur to gold coins. Emine, a girl Laleena has grown friendly with, is traded for a suit of armor, and another girl is exchanged for a horse. By the end of the day, many of the girls have sold. Laleena has not.

More customers arrive the next day, and Laleena watches girl after girl chosen while no one seems interested in her. She feels both relieved and worried, sensing that the men can somehow feel how much she despises them.

Then she notices a man watching her quietly, dressed in a costume embroidered with flowers. Unlike the others, his gaze does not frighten her. He reaches into his pocket and presses a shining gold coin into her hand, explaining it carries the padishah’s turah. When Laleena asks who the padishah is, the man recites a line of his own verse, Bu şehri Stambul ki bimislü bahadır.

He explains that the padishah, Sultan Ahmed, is Sovereign of the Two Continents and the Two Seas, Unique Arbiter of the World’s Destinies. His empire stretches west through Italy and the Alps Mountains, east into Persia, and south across North Africa as far as Morocco. He could conquer all of Asia and Europe, the poet says, but he is a peace-loving monarch who wants to end both war and slavery.

Laleena cannot follow him. She has never heard of these places, and when he mentions a map, she does not know what a map is. He notices her confusion. He takes pity on her, saying she’ll never know what he’s talking about. She’s merely a slave. Still, may Allah bestow a happy fate upon her. He tells her to keep the coin, freshly minted, worth as much as a Venice gold coin, and to put it somewhere safe.

Laleena will not let him leave empty-handed. She reaches into her sack and pulls out one of her tulip bulbs, explaining that she used to grow tulips at home. The poet recognizes it immediately and calls it precious. He says he cannot buy her, since his work is to seek inspiration, not slaves. But he promises to plant the bulb and compose a poem in its honor, and tells her she has inspired him and deserves better than being forced to beg.

That night, the sleeping room feels emptier with so many girls gone. Laleena overhears Madam Siranush speaking with a man outside. She tells him if a girl doesn’t sell within the first couple of days, her chances of selling at all grow slim. But no matter, the household has ways of using every girl, turning the unsold into beggars or thieves so that none goes to waste.

Laleena remembers the beggars who used to pass through her village. She was told that some were crippled on purpose, their arms or legs broken, or one eye blinded deliberately, so they would draw more pity and more coins. She resolves that tomorrow she will act friendlier and smile more. She had been cold toward her buyers at the market, but anything, she decides, would be better than being maimed into a beggar or a thief.

Later, Laleena learns from one of the servants that all the youngest girls, including Lena, have been sold together to a single buyer somewhere in İstanbul. Her heart aches with worry over what will become of Lena. She had hoped against hope they might somehow stay together, and knowing Lena is gone reminds her all over again of everything else she has lost.