Free The Flea Palace by Elif Shafak

procedures, but unable to trust anyone not from the same origin as him, after some research, he finally reached an agreement with a reticent couple who had become Turkish citizens and made a living selling delicate lampshades at a dingy shop in Asmalιmescit. A company in which the couple had no shares provided a front to cover the ownership of the apartment building. Without a single false move Pavel Pavlovich Antipov calculated everything precisely and paid abundantly. His chequebook speeded up transactions that would have otherwise taken a long time and cause ample trouble. For an architect he hired an Armenian Istanbulite whose family he had conducted business with in France. He had also left a large chunk of money to his mistress there, to make the lies he told her more convincing. Hardly did he complain. For the first time in years, he was content spending money freely without any reservation. Whilst he did not withhold any expense, he did want control over all the expended materials. Even though he did at times consult his wife about the trimmings such as the gates, the garden walls, the iron grills of the balcony, the frontal decorations, the curl of the stairs or the marble used in the entrance, all in all he did what he wanted.
    Agripina did not seem interested in such details anyhow. Ever since her arrival in Istanbul, she spent her time either watching the sea from the window of the hotel room or listening to the squabbles of her Alsatian companion and her Algerian maid who did not even for a moment leave her side. The expression on her face while looking at the waters of the Bosphorus was no different from that which she had worn whilst gazing at the vineyards from the window of the clinic in France. Not only did she seem unmoved at being back at the place where they had buried their baby but sheoccasionally confused which city she currently was in. And yet, she did not look unhappy either. Like a timid, tremulous raincloud she floated above Istanbul, ready to shed tears but impossible to touch.
    For Pavel Pavlovich Antipov, his wife’s insulation from the world was an indication not of her illness but her innocence. Many a time at the front, he had witnessed how soldiers of different nationalities retained a common belief that if there was even one innocent person among them, this would spare them all from a portentous end. He too sought refuge in his wife with a similar conviction.
    When the outside walls were painted in ashen tones, the window frames and iron grills of the balcony in two shades of grey and the fine decorations on the double-panelled entrance door completed, the apartment building emerged in all its dazzling beauty. The most striking characteristic of the building was that no two storeys were alike, having been constructed upon Pavel Pavlovich Antipov’s insistence in Art Nouveau style, even though no longer in fashion. As if to compensate for their lack of balconies on the facade, the flats at the entrance had much larger windows than the rest. The balconies too changed from one floor to the next. Those of the second floor extended outward in a semi-circle, while the balconies on the third floor were buried so far inside the building one could easily sit in the apartments without worrying about being seen from the outside. Instead of an iron-railing, the sides of the balconies on the fourth floor had been surrounded by a stone wall adorned with floral reliefs and two large marble flowerpots on either end. So striking were the differences that one could not help but think the residents of the building shared the same space without living in the same place.
    In front, the relief between the windows of the first and second floors was particularly eye-catching. Here placed within a circle was a small-headed, large-bodied peacock. The five feathers of the peacock, one on top,two to the left and two to the right, pointed in five different directions. Suitably large eyes were drawn at the tips of