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The Phanariot Manuscript
41
departure. He offered to get
Ioanis a recommendation
directly from the merchant
who was the brother of
the governor of those
dancing Wallachians. And
he kept his word. One day
later, Ioanis brought him
a silver coin which he had
from his grandmother and
Mustafa gave him the letter
written in Greek: “Dear
brother, take care of this
young man. He is a friend of
Mustafa, the merchant from
Thessaloniki.”
A wave of gratitude shook
in his cheek, then another
concern made him wonder
if he knew the name of that
simpleton brother who had
become king of the dancing
Wallachians.
“Of
course”,
answered
Mustafa, “his name is Nikos
Mavros and another name.”
As soon as he stepped out
of Mustafa’s shop, the earth
shook under his feet and,
as he later learned, the
entire Empire was shaken
by an earthquake. Houses
and even imperial baths
crumbled in Instabul and the
shops in the Easter Market
of Thessaloniki collapsed.
In the general confusion
after the earthquake, Ioanis
packed a few clothes and
other useful thing and took,
not without remorse, the 10
drachmas from his mother’s
chest. The teacher gave him
a ream of Venetian paper
and the address of someone
in Istanbul.
“You can’t get lost”, he said,
“for he is the very head of
the Eiub mahala!”
Andindeed,hedidn’tgetlost.
After almost two months he