Inspired by true events, 'The Blue Hour' is a story of political intrigue and doomed love set in the dying days of the Ottoman Empire during the summer of 1876. All Prince Hamid and the Belgian glove-maker, Flora Cordier, want is to pursue their for...
"Monsieur, a group of softa escaped across the water from Stamboul," the soldier said in broken French, offering no apologies for having woken the family.
"Protesters? Hardly here in Pera."
Reza stirred. Quickly, Hamid blocked his movements with his arm and put a hand across his mouth to keep him quiet.
"We caught one off the main street." The soldier was right there, on the other side of the water barrels.
"Well, there aren't any softa here. This is a private house. Move on or my master will complain to the French Ambassador who will pass on the complaint to the Sultan."
The soldier mumbled something inaudible, brought his mount on one last lap around the yard, and exited. The man-servant descended the stairs, swept the candle through the air to check the yard, and returned inside.
They waited. His legs tingled, and he worried about Reza. Had he stopped breathing? Hamid squeezed Flora's hand and whispered: "Now?"
She squeezed his hand back.
"Now."
Reza, who drifted in and out of consciousness, could no longer walk. They made a human chair for him by locking hands with crossed arms, and shuffled forwards, stopping every few metres to make sure he did not fall. They pushed on without stopping until they reached the villa of Doctor Droit in a residential street, less wide than the Grande Rue de Pera, but lit with just as many burning gaslights.
The gate groaned, a few steps to the porch where they carefully placed Reza. The Doctor, a principled Frenchman, would care for him, she assured him, but there was also the risk that he would denounce both Reza and Hamid to the Turkish authorities. As for Flora, there was no honourable explanation for her presence there. The safest course of action, they agreed in breathless whispers, was to abandon Reza right there on the porch. Knock and vanish before someone answered the door.
Hamid removed his kaftan and placed it under Reza's head. He lingered. The night had forged a bond between them and he felt that by leaving Reza, that bond would be broken. Images flashed through his mind, of fleeing men, of blood, and of Jurad's rolling head in the dirt.
Flora tugged at his sleeve. "Come. There's nothing more you can do."
They squeezed together in a dark doorway across the street. A door opened, a woman screamed. Moments later, the doctor appeared with a lantern in hand, the light cast the porch in a mild golden shade. Hamid saw them clearly now, the doctor on his knees by Reza, and his wife, stroking the air with her candle, searching the street for clues.
A window opened above their heads and a man asked what was happening.
"There's a wounded man here," the doctor called back.
"Who is he?" a voice from another window called out into the night.
"I don't know. Some Turk."
One window slammed shut, then the other.
Oops! This image does not follow our content guidelines. To continue publishing, please remove it or upload a different image.
The image dates from the mid 18th century, so a bit earlier than Hamid's time, but these instruments would still have been played in the harem. The musicians' instruments are (left to right): the daire, saz, ney, kemânçe, and nakara.
The flute, the ney, was a central instrument in Ottoman classical music, which had developed over centuries and was influenced by Persian, Arabic, and Turkish musical traditions.
I imagine Reza played the ney because it had spiritual significance in Sufi Islamic traditions, particularly within the Mevlevi order, also known as the Whirling Dervishes (you'll hear more about the Sufi later on in the story). The haunting sound of the ney was believed to have the power to induce states of spiritual ecstasy and mystical contemplation during Sufi ceremonies and rituals.
