The Winter Thief (12 page)

“I
CAN’T GO
.” Gabriel sat shivering by the fire. He thought he would never feel warm again. The beginning of a thick russet beard covered the lower half of his face. He looked a decade older than three days ago, when he had berated Vera for visiting the publisher with the manifesto.

“You’ll do more harm by staying,” Simon told him. “Akrep knows you’re here, and it won’t help your wife if you’re sitting in jail too. There’s nowhere you can hide in this city that Akrep can’t find you. Trust me. We’ll try to get your wife out. What can you do? Nothing. He’s using her to lure you into a trap. Don’t give him the satisfaction.”

Gabriel fixed his eyes on the floor, trying to beat down feelings of shame and impotence. He wanted to hit Simon, to beat him with his fists. Gabriel no longer resembled the peaceful man who had spent the last ten years forging his idyllic vision on the anvil of labor and self-denial. Instead he was back in the woods of Sevastopol again, driven by rage and bloodlust. He hated himself.

“A grain boat is on its way from Thrace to the Black Sea. It leaves Karaköy pier tomorrow morning. I’ve booked you a berth. In your cabin you’ll find a trunk with warm clothing. You’ll need it in the mountains, so you don’t lose your fingers altogether.” He nodded at Gabriel’s bandaged right hand. “There’s also a rifle and some ammunition, although it doesn’t look to me like you’ll be doing any shooting for a while. The trunk has a false bottom with gold liras and jewels from the bank worth thirty thousand British pounds.” Simon held out a key.

Gabriel looked up, the question clear on his face. He took the key clumsily. The cuts on his hands had begun to heal, but the tips of two fingers on his right hand remained lifeless.

“It’s enough to last your group through the winter and to buy food, guns, loyalty—whatever it is you need. We deducted what you owe for our assistance in facilitating the shipment.”

“But I never received that shipment.”

“That wasn’t our fault. You said yourself one of your own men probably tipped off the police. The amount we retained also includes our commission and the cost of your trip to Trabzon. The shipping company will help you purchase supplies. You’ll need a fleet of animals and carts. The mountain roads can be impassable in winter. Wait a couple of months before you try to bring in supplies. If you want to buy new guns, I’d be happy to help you do that.”

Gabriel put the key in his vest pocket. Simon’s businesslike tone made it seem almost sensible that Yorg Pasha was keeping more than half the gold, were Gabriel not aware of what was at stake in the eastern mountains. Dozens of comrades should have arrived at the commune by now from all over Europe and America, each bringing weapons and supplies. Surely, they would survive the winter without him. The valley had seemed so fertile and protected. They had even seen lemon trees on their previous visit. But he was unconvinced. He pictured them freezing in the unheated monastery, starving, unable to defend themselves against marauders. He had little faith that the local landowners would come to their assistance.

Simon waited by the door, arms folded, his forehead creased in a frown. “The pasha has been accused of treason for harboring you. He could have gotten out of it by handing you over, but he didn’t, for reasons that escape me.” He lifted a heavy fur cape from a chair by the door and threw it at Gabriel. “Get ready. Every moment that you’re here is another length of the pasha’s shroud.”

Gabriel dropped the cape on a chair and went to stand beside the fire, massaging his forehead. “I can’t leave without Vera,” he announced. He felt disgust at his inability to protect anyone who had ever been in his trust.

He heard Simon take a deep breath, the only sign betraying the secretary’s impatience. “Do you know anyone named Lena Balian?”

Gabriel’s head jerked up. “That sounds familiar.” His fingers burrowed into the fur of the cape, his eyes far away. He saw Vera giggling by the waterfall, a crown of daisies slipping from her hair. They had strayed from the group on a spring hike in the mountains around Geneva and found a secluded meadow where they could be alone. He had splashed her with water and, shivering with cold, she had slipped so naturally into the circle of his arms. He recalled the silken curls of her hair, strewn with white petals, and her voice as fresh and voluble as the waterfall as she talked wistfully about her family in Moscow, her sister, their dogs. That was it. Lena Balian was the daughter of the forester who trained Vera’s father’s dogs.

“She’s a friend of Vera’s in Moscow. Why do you ask?”

“I think we may have found your wife.”

Gabriel’s mood soared. “Where is she?” he cried out.

“Where you thought. She’s being held by the secret police.”

“Can you get her out?” Gabriel realized as he spoke these words that he had now abdicated responsibility for helping Vera to Yorg Pasha. Simon was right. There was nothing he could do on his own. Redemption, he thought with a pang, was short-lived.

V
ERA HEARD THE KEY TURN
in the lock. As the door opened, she forced herself to stand, back straight, eyes alert. Even if she wasn’t a proper comrade, she was the daughter and granddaughter of generals. She didn’t know what she would do if the men came for her again, but stoked her anger because that helped.

A plump face wrapped in a shawl peered cautiously into the room. Seeing Vera, the girl nodded and touched her hand to her mouth. She put the basket and her lamp on the floor and, after another glance into the corridor, closed the door softly. She wore the same marigold robe. Vera noticed it was grimy and torn. The girl’s eyes were bruised and vacant, and she looked more frail than she had the day before.

Vera held out her hand, but the girl pulled hers back. They were latticed with fresh cuts, some still bleeding. The girl reached into the basket and brought out two long, black charshaf veils. She shoved one toward Vera. “Hurry.”

Vera dropped the garment over her head and was enveloped in scratchy wool smelling of unwashed bodies. A tickle ran across her neck—lice. She forced down her revulsion.

Sosi was tying up her charshaf, which was too long for her. Then she pinned the veil over Vera’s mouth. The girl picked up the lamp, opened the door and looked out, then slipped through, Vera following. Sosi closed the door, grasped Vera’s hand, and pulled her down the corridor.

They had gone only a short distance when Sosi opened another door and pushed Vera through. Inside, Vera froze. She recognized the room as the place where the men had taken her. The table with leather restraints and metal clasps loomed in the light of Sosi’s lamp. Sosi tugged at her arm, but Vera doubled over, gasping with pain, and ripped the veil from her face. Her stomach heaved but brought forth only a thin drizzle of bile.

“Be quiet,” Sosi whispered, taking a length of her skirt and wiping Vera’s mouth. Vera took a deep breath and nodded. Sosi turned to the back wall, pulled a wooden panel aside, and shoved Vera through.

On the other side, Vera saw several chairs facing the paneling, each chair situated in front of a peephole that gave a view of what was going on inside the room. She realized that Vahid had been behind this panel during her humiliation.

Sosi pulled at Vera’s sleeve. The girl’s face was white and greasy with sweat. She put out the lamp, fumbled a key from her sash, and unlocked a door. The smell of loam carried on the chill night air.

Vera pulled the charshaf tight around her face and stepped into a small courtyard cleared of snow. Keeping their backs against the wall, she and Sosi moved through the yard like shadows, then set out across open ground, ducking behind bushes, until they came to the edge of a grove of trees. There Vera began to run, the rocks and brush lacerating her bare feet. She heard Sosi’s footsteps behind her until her own breath and heartbeat drowned out all other sound.

“H
ANOUM
E
FENDI
,” F
ERIDE’S
driver Vali pleaded with his mistress, “it’s too dangerous. It’s dark on the water and there’s a fog. There are too many ships out there. Even if we were to reach the other side without mishap, we’d never find the right hospital. And we have no guards. We should send a message home for the house guards to go with us. They can meet us at the pier. But really we should go tomorrow when it’s light. It’s just not safe.”

Feride was convinced that the stolen patient was her husband, and she was determined to find him. Every moment she wasn’t by his side was a moment in which poor care might bring him closer to death. If he wasn’t already dead. It appeared he had already been moved twice, from the Austrian infirmary to Eyüp and now clear across the strait. She gritted her teeth. There was no time to assemble a larger party from her home.

“We’ll lose at least two hours waiting for them. Let’s drive to Beshiktash. That’s the closest point to Üsküdar. Surely someone there will rent us a boat. For enough money, they’ll carry us over on their backs.” She stopped before Elif, who sat on a broken column, seemingly lost in thought. “Come on, let’s go,” Feride said, her black cloak and veil blurring in the dusk.

Elif didn’t budge. “What’s the matter with you?” Feride asked, her voice tense.

She was becoming increasingly impatient with Elif’s unfathomable moods. Her friend had become a stranger. She wondered if she had been wise to bring her along. Given what she had been through, perhaps the sight of damaged people was more than Elif could bear.

Doctor Moreno looked for a moment as if he would intervene but then thought better of it.

“Well, I’ll go by myself then.” Feride climbed into the carriage. “We can’t wait until morning. Doctor Moreno said there’s a danger of sepsis if the poisons in a burn victim’s body aren’t drained. Isn’t that right, Doctor?”

Doctor Moreno agreed, setting his gray curls in motion. He laced and unlaced his slender hands. “It’s unsafe to go,” he told Elif in a gentle voice, “but probably worse if we don’t.”

Elif stood and said, “Let’s go. I know a way.” She gave Vali directions and climbed into the carriage after Feride. The doctor followed.

The driver frowned and took up the reins.

They drove slowly through the city, delayed by drays hauling wood and coal, carriages, street vendors, pedestrians, and dogs, then more quickly up through the wooded hills above Beshiktash. There they turned onto a lane that wound steeply downward. The road was slick with snow, and the carriage shifted and slid, tumbling its passengers into one another. They could hear Vali cursing as he maneuvered the horses.

Finally the carriage stopped. They climbed out into a mist that completely obscured the Bosphorus and everything on the shore beyond a meter away.

“Where are we?” Feride asked uncertainly. Elif had refused to tell them anything more in the carriage.

“Come with me,” she commanded brusquely, and set off into the fog. Feride and Doctor Moreno hurried so they wouldn’t lose sight of her.

They came up against the side of a wooden boathouse. Feride could hear the water reverberate inside it. She couldn’t see any of her companions and felt completely alone, but not frightened. In fact, for the first time in her life, she felt that she inhabited herself fully. She pressed her face against the heartbeat of the building until Doctor Moreno found her.

Elif reappeared, accompanied by a barrel-chested man with enormous arms, carrying a lamp so bright that it turned the mist around them into a white, almost solid mass.

“This is Nissim,” Elif said, “chief of the Camondo boatyard. He can get us across.” The Camondos were Elif’s wealthy patrons. Nissim clearly recognized Elif in her man’s clothing.

The boatman gestured with his lantern and they followed him into the building. Only tendrils of the fog penetrated inside, and Feride had the sudden sensation of seeing again. The boatman led them to a sturdy rowboat tethered just inside the water gate. He attached his lamp to the front and gestured that they should get in.

The danger of crossing the strait in this weather became clear to Feride for the first time.” Maybe I should go alone,” she suggested. “Why should you risk your lives because of me?” We should all go tomorrow in the daylight, she thought, but Huseyin might be dead by then.

“Nonsense, my dear,” Doctor Moreno said in his calm voice. “Do not meet troubles halfway.”

Vali took a position by one set of oars. Nissim returned with an enormous contraption like a leather bird with wooden wings that he made fast to the back of the boat. Doctor Moreno sat nearest to it, and Nissim showed him how to work the bellows. As he did so, an extraordinary moaning issued from the device.

“Clever,” the doctor commented. “A bagpipe operated by a bellows.”

“Keep it going all the time,” Nissim admonished the doctor. “Other boats will hear us, even if they can’t see us.”

“Who else would be out on the water in a fog like this?”

“There are always fools abroad.” The boat swayed as Nissim got in and took up the second set of oars. A boy slid open the water gate. The craft edged out into the current. Feride clutched her charshaf around her, glad of the heavy veil protecting her against the wind. Around them all was brilliant white as if they were trapped inside a cloud. The bagpipe moaned into the blind night.

T
HE STABLEBOY AT THE HOME
of bank comptroller Swyndon remembered seeing a carriage parked in the road the day the mysterious “policeman” had visited the household. One of the horses, he noted with professional interest, had a thick pink scar on its flank. The same carriage with a scarred horse, Kamil learned, earlier that same day had brought the “policeman” to the Montaignes’, where he asked to speak to their governess. The girl was away and so presumably was spared Bridget’s treatment.

Someone was following the same trail of clues and frightening their witnesses. Kamil wondered whether the “black man” seen by little Albie might belong to the Akrep organization Huseyin had told him about. How else would the man be aware of what Kamil and Omar had only just learned themselves. Omar had put it more colorfully. Presumably the “black man” thought, as they did, that Sosi was the means to finding the other thieves and the gold. He hoped, for Sosi’s sake, that they found her before the “black man” did.

While Omar returned to the Fatih police station to see what his network of spies had managed to discover about Sosi, Kamil turned his horse toward Nishantashou, where he hoped for a late dinner with Feride to learn whether she had discovered anything about Huseyin’s whereabouts. Surely Elif would still be with her, he thought, aware that it was the delicate golden woman who sent the blood spinning in his head. He realized that his primary motivation was to see her, not his sister, and he was disgusted at himself for his disloyalty.

When he arrived, he was disturbed to find Feride and Elif still out. Doctor Moreno had promised he would bring them home safely. Their driver, Vali, was with them, but given what he had learned that day about his mysterious adversary, he worried that they hadn’t taken any guards with them.

Having left instructions to send a message when Feride returned, he rode slowly home through the banks of fog that made the night seem impenetrable. He was relieved when Karanfil’s lamps, magnified by the mist, bloomed in the darkness before him, and he crossed over the threshold of light.

Yakup came out with a lamp and took the reins. When Kamil had discarded his wet coat and hat in the entry hall and wiped his face with the towel Karanfil held out to him, he saw on the salver the letter with Yorg Pasha’s seal.

“I
APOLOGIZE FOR
bringing you out so late, my boy, and on a vicious night like this. Would you like a whiskey?”

Kamil sat on a divan in a part of Yorg Pasha’s mansion he had not seen before. It was in the old Ottoman style with cushioned benches around three sides of a raised, carpeted platform. Below the platform extended a marble-paved floor, where a small fountain burbled. The ceiling was painted with fantastic birds. Yorg Pasha half reclined on the facing divan, propped on cushions, in his hand a narghile pipe, his eyes half lidded. A brass mangal brazier warmed the air.

Kamil accepted the glass of whiskey Simon brought him. Yorg Pasha famously kept a cellar of the finest wines and other heady liquids for his guests, though he himself never drank alcohol. The amber potion opened a welcome path in Kamil’s chest. Yorg Pasha sipped from a glass of boza, sweet, fermented millet. He passed Kamil a dish of roasted chickpeas.

“To tell you the truth, amja,” Kamil said, presuming on their closeness, “I’m glad to be here. This hasn’t been a good day and I’m bone tired.”

Kamil saw Yorg Pasha’s eyes glow with pleasure when he called him uncle. The old pasha had three sons, but respect required them to be distant and formal with their father, as Kamil had been with his own. Why was that a virtue, Kamil wondered, when sons hungered for their fathers? Surely it was natural for fathers to desire their sons’ affection. Because they were not related, Kamil realized sadly, he and the old pasha were free to like each other. Suddenly the whole world tasted sour, and he felt so tired he had to fight not to lie down on the divan.

“I’ve had two interesting visitors lately,” Yorg Pasha began. “One of them has robbed a bank but claims he did not blow it up.”

Kamil sat up, fully awake, and put down his glass.

“The other,” the pasha continued, “would like to trade a Russian lady for the bank robber.”

Kamil had a hundred questions but chose to wait.

“It’s already a dilemma worthy of a saint,” Yorg Pasha said. “But there’s more. The gold my first visitor stole is meant to support a commune in the Choruh Valley populated by a group of naïve socialists who are courting death either through starvation, irritating the local landowners, sheer idiocy, or official eradication by order of our padishah. My question to my guest was, Who then blew up the bank that caused the latter to become the most likely outcome? Can you guess?” Yorg Pasha smiled, clearly pleased with the effect of his riddle.

“Socialists in the Choruh Valley?” Kamil repeated stupidly.

“They’re setting up these utopias everywhere these days. From Ukraine to Palestine. Foolish young people come to a place with no knowledge of farming, local conditions, or even the local languages—just a head full of dreams.”

“I’ve heard of the Palestine settlement,” Kamil replied. “I suppose I thought it was an admirable thing to attempt, naïve perhaps, but, well, someone needs to dream. An egalitarian society may not work, but where’s the harm in trying?”

“My thoughts exactly.” Yorg Pasha surveyed Kamil over the mouthpiece of his water pipe. “Perhaps I’ve delegated some of my own dreams to you, more so than my own lazy children. I cannot afford to have dreams myself. I’m too old and fond of power.”

“Pardon the question, amja, but are you sure this settlement is harmless?”

Yorg Pasha nodded. “Simon has looked into it. The locals doubt it’ll last the winter, and it seems many hope it won’t. They’re right to be suspicious of outsiders. It can only bring them trouble.”

“And this socialist claims he didn’t blow up the bank? I find that hard to believe.”

“His name is Gabriel Arti. He thinks his driver, Abel, did it.”

“Why? It would have been smarter to leave quietly and not draw attention to the robbery.”

“They’re Armenians.”

“The socialists?”

“The socialists hark from many nations. Their only commonality appears to be their naïveté. Gabriel is Armenian, from Russia. His driver also is Armenian, a local man from Kurtulush.”

“I didn’t know there were Armenian socialists in Istanbul.”

“As far as I know, there aren’t. An Armenian socialist is a mythological beast that doesn’t exist in nature. The Armenians want their own state, but an Armenian one, not a socialist one. I suspect Gabriel Arti doesn’t understand the difference. An Ottoman Armenian can no more be a socialist than a fish can fly.”

“One hand working against the other. I suppose that’s possible. But why the explosion?”

“Think about it.” Yorg Pasha waved the mouthpiece of his narghile in Kamil’s direction. “What did the explosion accomplish that a robbery might not have?”

“Well, it certainly captured the interest of the palace. A robbery would cause concern, but a violent act sends a shiver up the spine of the government.”

“Exactly.” Yorg Pasha agreed, drawing deeply on the mouthpiece of his pipe. “Explosions draw the secret police like honey draws a bear.”

Kamil watched the smoke curl from the pasha’s mouth toward the ornate ceiling. He would have liked a cigarette himself, but it would be rude to light up before an elder. His father had never seen Kamil smoke. Society’s rules were there to create order and civility out of the rabble of our emotions, he reflected. You may hate your father, but by not smoking in front of him, you show your respect. He hadn’t hated his father, but he hadn’t known him either, and this seemed to him as great a tragedy, the inadmissibility of love.

“I don’t understand the motivation of the local Armenians, though. All they’ve accomplished with their explosion is to endanger their own people. What’s the point of their playing along with the socialists only to undermine them? If they object to the socialists setting up a commune in an Armenian valley, the local residents can just drive them out. You said they were barely surviving anyway.”

“This is a radical group within the Armenian community. They wouldn’t be the first to orchestrate an attack on their own people in order to get attention for their cause. It’s brutal, but it works. They grafted their own interests onto Gabriel’s socialist experiment. They set him up. Now it will all look like his doing. And if there’s a massacre of socialists and Armenians, the blame will fall on the socialists and their commune for inciting it. The British press, no friends of ours, would pick up the news of a massacre and push for their government to get involved. The Armenians would expect the British to help them carve out a homeland where they’d be safe. That’s what they’re hoping anyway. A remarkable plan.”

“Let me understand this. A group of Armenians in Istanbul are hoping that blowing up the bank will prod the sultan into cracking down on the Armenians in Choruh?” Kamil shook his head in disbelief. He leaned back and let his eyes play over the colorful plumage of the birds pictured on the ceiling. He smacked his hand hard on the divan. “I bet it was the local Armenians who reported the weapons shipment to the police. And told them about the commune. How else would the secret police know about the settlement in the Choruh Valley? Someone inside Gabriel Arti’s circle must have told them.” He emptied his glass, feeling energized as ideas clicked into place.

Yorg Pasha exhaled a plume of sweet-scented smoke. “The male of a certain species of spider allows himself to be devoured by the female after they’ve mated,” he said. “It’s his final, magisterial investment in the success of his offspring.”

Kamil grimaced. “That’s grotesque.”

“It’s heroic. The Cause is always greater than individual lives.”

“The second guest you mentioned,” Kamil asked, “was he tall, with a pointed beard?”

“Ah, well done. Always a step ahead. His name is Vahid, commander of Akrep, the sultan’s very own poisonous creature.” The pasha set down his pipe and reached for the glass of boza. Simon stepped up from the lower room, picked it up, and handed it to him. “Unlike our selfless spider, the scorpion paralyzes its prey with venom.” He drank some of the boza and wiped his mouth on an embroidered cloth. “Perhaps it toys with its prey for a time before eating it,” he speculated. “The prey is only immobilized after all.” His eyes sought Kamil’s. “Imagine the terror of seeing those small claws attached to the scorpion’s jaw come closer, take small, delicate bites. Watching yourself being slowly dismembered.”

Kamil listened carefully. He had a feeling that the pasha, who never wasted words, was telling him something important.

“Yet surprisingly,” Yorg Pasha went on, “for such cruel beings, scorpions are actually quite timid. They’ll run from danger or they remain very still. It’s when they’re still that you must be particularly careful. And you must never, never,” he repeated, “allow a scorpion to mistake you for prey.”

“What does he want?”

“He wants people to be in his power. His is the voice whispering in the sultan’s ear.”

“Where’s this Gabriel Arti now? And the gold?”

“On their way to Trabzon.”

Was it a slip of the pasha’s tongue, or had he meant to reveal to Kamil that he knew where the gold was? The realization disturbed Kamil, but he found he wasn’t surprised. He tried to remember that he needed to be wary of the pasha. “How?” he asked.

“Steamer. You won’t catch up with him now.” Yorg Pasha waved his hand dismissively. “Forget these socialists. They aren’t a problem, except to themselves. Vahid is where you should focus your attention.”

“I can’t leave the city right now anyway.” Kamil told him about the fire and Huseyin’s disappearance. “Feride and Doctor Moreno are looking for him in the hospitals.”

“Ah, vay, ah, the poor man. And my dear girl, Feride, what a tragedy. I hope it will not come to that and you will find him well. Perhaps a different accident has befallen him, a broken leg in the snow?”

“We would have heard. Huseyin isn’t the quiet type.”

Yorg Pasha chuckled, breaking the tension that had been growing between the two men. “Yes, that’s so.”

Kamil passed his hand across his face. “Sometimes I feel the task is beyond me.”

Yorg Pasha came to sit beside Kamil and laid his hand on his shoulder. They sat in silence for some moments before Yorg Pasha said softly, “Your father loved you as he loved life itself. I know this.”

Kamil nodded his head in acknowledgment. He smiled to cover his confusion and, after a few moments, got to his feet, swaying with tiredness.

“Stay here tonight,” Yorg Pasha suggested. “It’s a cold night.” He stood up with difficulty. Kamil offered his hand, but Yorg Pasha waved him away, muttering, “Even in winter, the lion can roar.”

“Thank you. That’s most generous, but I have work to do tonight.” He stepped down from the divan platform into the marbled hall. “You mentioned a woman,” he added, almost as an afterthought.

Yorg Pasha shook his head in bewilderment. “The fool Gabriel brought his wife along. I’ve looked into this Gabriel Arti. He has a reputation as an experienced activist, but he was groveling on his knees because he’s allowed his woman to fall into the grasp of Akrep.” The pasha leaned on Simon’s arm to step down from the platform. The secretary then retreated, following the pasha like a shadow.

Yorg Pasha and Kamil walked side by side through the glittering lamplit rooms. Beyond the window sashes, the black mass of the strait heaved in the night.

“There was something about a sister,” Yorg Pasha continued. “She lived with Gabriel in Sevastopol. One night while he was out, she was murdered, and I gather that he went on a rampage. Some men were killed, but it was never established that it was Gabriel who killed them, or that these were truly the men who had murdered his sister. But none of those distinctions mattered to the Russian police, who needed to arrest someone for the crime. Gabriel fled to Geneva to avoid arrest and joined the socialists.”