They call me Hatice.
That’s not my real name. I’m not from around here either, but no one cares about that.
It doesn’t matter anyway. Not anymore.
So, just call me Hatice.
Officially, I’m twenty-four. Three years ago, I became a widow.
My son Mehmet was six when they placed the sword in his child’s hands and called him Sultan. Which made me the Valide Sultan.
And that’s why my mother-in-law has to die.
It’s happening tonight.
She kissed him on the forehead this morning. Mehmet. My boy.
She called him canım, my soul. She even brought him a prayer bead bracelet—blue glass, strung for protection.
And then the Grand Vizier came to me.
And now I know: grandmothers can smile with murder on their minds.
I don’t remember where I’m from.
Nor do I remember my parents. Not really. Not when I’m awake.
But I know I didn’t grow up here. I know I had another name once.
Many nights, when I was younger, as I closed my eyes, just as I drifted off to sleep, I heard a voice.
She said: Movchý, moya lyúba. Ne rúkhaysa, moya… Khalínka!
I haven’t heard the voice in a long time. I don’t know what her words meant.
But every night, though I can still sense the fear, the intensity in her voice, the panic in that last word, “Khalínka!” – I pray to hear it one more time.
Khalínka – my name.
They took me when I was eleven. Twelve? No more than thirteen.
I don’t remember any of it, not in memories. But in sensations.
The way an overheard command is barked by one of the guards.
Sharply whispered reprimands.
The secret weeping of newly brought-in girls in the harem.
The voices of strangers across the hall that sound almost like hers.
The scent of hay and wood in my nostrils. The braying of horses. The clanking of swords.
There were others, but they didn’t speak my language. We learned not to speak at all.
They changed our names, our clothes, our posture.
They taught us how to walk without sound, how to pour coffee, how to disappear.
They bathed us in milk and crushed rose petals. Painted our eyes with kohl.
Some girls cried, some grew sharp. I did neither. I listened. I watched.
They said I was beautiful. I’d never thought of myself that way.
They prepared me for the Sultan.
They told me, Our Padishah liked his women plump, soft as sherbet and twice as sweet.
They fed us honey-drenched pastries until our fingers stuck together.
Some girls starved themselves in protest, others swelled with hope.
I did as I was told. I smiled when they touched my cheeks and said, “Almost.”
They painted my lips the colour of quince jam.
The harem had its own gravity, and I let it pull me in.
He was not unkind to me. He was distracted, mostly.
He gave me bracelets I never asked for, perfumes I never wore.
And then, one morning, the tide turned.
They found the girls drowned in the Bosphorus.
They were fifteen years old. They hadn’t even been touched yet.
I heard the servants whisper about 280.
There were only 21.
And we all got the message.
After that, I was no longer just one of many.
I was one who had survived.
The court is a theatre.
A play performed every day with new costumes, new actors, but always the same plot.
Everyone bows. Everyone smiles. Everyone lies.
The harem is the same, only quieter, silkier, more dangerous.
A kingdom of women with painted eyes and sharpened tongues.
Some girls learn how to rise. Others only learn how to wait.
The Sultan liked his women soft.
Soft-voiced, soft-bodied, soft in spirit.
Like the sweet things brought in from the kitchens—sherbets, puddings, pastries with names I never bothered to learn.
He liked to feed them with his fingers.
And when he grew tired of them, he liked to send them away just as easily.
Sometimes to another wing.
Sometimes into the sea.
They say madness ran in his blood like wine left out in the sun.
I think it fermented there.
He once spent three days naming pigeons.
Another time, he ordered his viziers to bow to a goat dressed in royal robes.
He trusted no one. Not even me.
But he gave me a child. And that changed everything.