The Winter Thief (16 page)

V
AHID THRUST THE WINDOW
open to let out the smoke that hovered like a noxious cloud in the room. Then he opened the stove door, blew on the embers, and added a ragged chunk of coal. He emerged coughing and wiped his fingers on a rag.

Socialists. Vizier Köraslan had summoned him to ask about socialists, implying that he was wrong about an Armenian revolt brewing in the Choruh Valley. Despite the cold, Vahid was sweating beneath the collar of his wool jacket. He didn’t think Vizier Köraslan would dare demote him, but he needed the vizier’s goodwill and trust if he wanted to become head of the secret service. Sultan Abdulhamid was sending Kamil Pasha to the valley. Vahid would have to make sure that what the pasha discovered when he arrived were armed Armenian revolutionaries. That meant Vahid would have to go east himself to make sure that no one remained alive who could contradict the vision of the valley he had spun for the vizier and, through him, the sultan.

He took off his jacket, folded it neatly, and laid it over the back of a chair. A lace doily, yellow and stiff with age, fluttered to the floor. He picked it up and threw it into the stove.

His mother was asleep in her chair, gnarled fingers tangled in her tatting, snoring softly through lips that hung slightly open. His mother’s lips reminded Vahid of worms after a rainstorm, and he turned away. No wonder his father had preferred the Greek woman. He chided himself for the thought.

Rhea’s lips came to his mind, plump cushions that she had a habit of pursing as if she were sucking on hard candy. He wondered what Lena Balian’s lips tasted like. When his men picked her up again, he would find out. There was no place in Istanbul where she could hide. She had the same pink translucent fingernails as Rhea, and her hair curled around his finger like a baby’s fist. He had smelled her fear and it aroused him. The smoke from the stove brought to his mind the smell of charred flesh. He strode into the kitchen, picked up a knife, and pressed the point against the palm of his hand just hard enough to hurt without breaking the skin.

That bitch Sosi had waited until his men were on a tea break and had let Lena Balian out. Where had Sosi gotten the keys? It had been a mistake to keep her alive. She was too clever. He didn’t like clever girls. He should never have sent her into Lena’s room with food. Women couldn’t be trusted.

“Are you back?” he heard his mother call.

“Yes, Mama, I’m back,” he answered, trying to keep his voice even. He poured water from a clay jar into the belly of the samovar and lit the flame beneath it. “Would you like some tea?”

V
ERA SAT ON A VELVET
-covered sofa in the publisher’s parlor, dressed in his daughter’s clothes. His wife fussed over her, refilling her tea and extending a plate of savory pastries. She was a comfortable-looking matron with snow-white hair swept up in a cloud above her face. Her daughter, with the same heart-shaped face, sat across the room, smiling at Vera, unable to hide the curiosity in her eyes.

Vera fought the urge to cry. She was reminded so strongly of her home in Moscow and of the kindness and decency of people, from the humble fisherman to this bourgeois family. She and her comrades believed that people were arrayed into opposing camps, the capitalist and the working classes, and that it was acceptable and even necessary to destroy one for the other. Yet here on the Agopian family’s sofa, their daughter’s satin slippers on her salved and bandaged feet, she sensed the contradiction of it and wondered idly what Gabriel would think of her finding refuge in the familiar surroundings of middle-class family life. She noted without emotion that it didn’t seem to matter to her whether he approved or not.

She concentrated on what she had to do next. She knew that her jailers had most likely been the secret police. But why were they holding Sosi? Did that mean they had arrested Gabriel too? Had Sosi managed to escape? Vera was unsure how much she could ask Monsieur Agopian to help her.

The publisher had made no inquiry when she had stumbled into his office, simply expressed his dismay at her condition and brought her home. Reluctant to tell him where she had been and what had happened, she was grateful that he didn’t press her. She hadn’t even told him her real name, which made her feel a bit ashamed. But she was reluctant to admit to lying to him at their first meeting. And somehow she had become used to being Lena Balian.

The publisher cradled a meerschaum pipe in his hands and nodded, his eyes on Vera’s face. She had the impression that he knew who she was and where she had been, although that was impossible. He leaned toward Vera and said in a warm voice, “Lena, if there is anything you wish to tell me in confidence, I can assure you it will go no further. Please let me help you.”

Vera wanted to tell him everything, but she seemed to have acquired a habit of suspicion that wouldn’t allow her lips to shape the words she wished to speak. “My name is Vera Arti,” she wanted to say. But then she would have to relate what had happened to her, and that she couldn’t do. Instead she nodded and said, “Thank you,” in a strangled voice.

Vera closed her eyes. Why didn’t she just ask Monsieur Agopian to help her find Sosi and Gabriel? He would send out word to the Armenian community, and the answer would flow back like driftwood on the tide of relations. Could things really be that simple? If she just sat here long enough, warm and comfortable and pampered, Sosi would come and sit by her side, and Gabriel would take her in his arms. She felt herself fall down a deep well toward oblivion.

K
AMIL SENT
Y
AKUP
to Doctor Moreno’s home to see if he had returned, while he rode to the hospital where he had left them two days before. He galloped over the Pera hill, across the New Bridge and along the Golden Horn to Eyüp, and burst into the hospital director’s office.

The director looked up from his ledger, and his furrowed face broke into a smile. “Ah, you’re back. I hope you’ve found your brother-in-law.” He squinted at Kamil’s face and sighed. “Bad news then. I was afraid of that. Burn wounds are so—”

Kamil interrupted. “Where are they? Where did you send them?”

The director frowned. “To Üsküdar. A family took him away, thinking he was their relative. The orderly didn’t record the move, so we didn’t have more specific information. Why? Has something happened?”

But Kamil was already out the door, cursing.

D
AWN LAID A LIGHT
shroud of mist over the fields. Feride gasped at the scene before her. Elif’s cry had faded, and now she stood between the gnarled wine stocks, her hands slick with blood and her shirt spattered with it. At her feet lay the bodies of three men, their heads and limbs carved open, weapons scattered about them on the rocky ground. Feride looked behind her, but the men chasing her were gone, perhaps as terrified as she was by Elif’s scream.

Trembling, Feride approached the bodies. They were strangers.

“Where’s the doctor?” she asked Elif, shaking her arm.

When Elif didn’t respond, Feride stumbled through the vines and searched along the rows. She tripped over what she thought was a root, but realized it was an arm. She fell to her knees beside the massive body of Nissim. His throat had been cut.

“Doctor Moreno?” she whispered, her voice hoarse with fear. “Vali?”

She heard a faint sound, thin as a breath of wind, and called out again. The sound was repeated. She made out, “Here.” She crawled through the dirt until she came to Doctor Moreno’s prone form. Beside him sat Vali, propped against a rock, holding in his fist a tourniquet tightly bound around the doctor’s leg. But Feride could see that Vali was weak and could barely speak. She couldn’t tell where he was wounded, although his eye was swelling. If Vali let go of the tourniquet, she thought, Doctor Moreno might die. She didn’t know what to do. She had to get help, but she didn’t want to leave them alone.

“Elif,” she screamed, and when she didn’t respond, ran to where she had left her. She was gone. Then Feride heard a gasping sound. She found Elif on her knees vomiting. When Elif raised her face, it was barely recognizable, all planes and angles and dark hollows.

“You have to help me, Elif,” Feride sobbed. “I don’t know what to do. Please help me.”

Elif stared at her red hands and began to scrape them across the ground. “My hands are dirty,” she said in a hollow voice.

Dirty hands, Feride thought, remembering with a sharp pain her two daughters. Dirty hands were something she could deal with. She picked up a knife and, hitching up her skirts, cut away the lower half of her chemise. She handed a piece of the white linen to Elif, then cut the rest into strips.

Elif stared at the cloth, then began to wipe the blood off her hands.

“Over here.” Feride led her to the two men. Vali had fallen unconscious, and blood streamed from Doctor Moreno’s leg where the tourniquet had loosened.

Feride quickly tightened the tourniquet, which she recognized as part of Vali’s turban, and, after cutting away the cloth of Dr. Moreno’s trouser leg, bound several linen strips tightly across the wound.

“Is this right?” she asked Elif. When her friend didn’t respond, she shook her, then slapped her across the face.

Elif pushed Feride so hard that she fell. Feride grabbed Elif’s leg and pulled her down, and soon the two women were tussling in the dirt between the vines. Finally Elif yelled, “Stop. Stop. Stop. Stop.” Sobbing, the women held each other.

Feride scrambled up and returned to the men. “Is he alive?” she asked Elif, who was squatting over Vali, examining him. Doctor Moreno lay slumped beside him, his wound seeping slowly into the makeshift bandage.

Elif cradled Vali’s head. “He’s breathing,” she said. Her hand came away bloody. “Let me have one of those strips.” They bound Vali’s head as best they could, then Elif examined Doctor Moreno. “He’s lost a lot of blood.”

“What should we do?” Feride cried.

“The bandages should keep him from bleeding anymore,” Elif said. “But we have to get help. And we must get away from here.”

“There were two more men.” Feride looked nervously up the hill. A couple of wild dogs had appeared over the crest, sniffing the air. “Maybe the farmer can help us.” She remembered with longing last night’s companionable room and shared tea.

“One of us should stay here.” Elif’s voice sounded far away.

Feride gave her friend a worried look, wondering whether it was better for her to stay amid the carnage or to step into the unknown up the hill.

“They’re more likely to help if you ask them,” Elif pointed out.

Feride squeezed Elif’s hand and got to her feet. She collected a pile of stones for Elif to throw at the dogs, then started to walk, carrying more stones in a fold of her skirt.

At the top of the hill, she retrieved her charshaf and put it on so she would look somewhat respectable, wiping her blood-smeared hands on its ample folds. The dogs had disappeared, so she emptied her skirt of the stones, keeping one in her fist, more a talisman against harm than a weapon. She hurried through the vineyard, then along the path to the farmer’s cottage, now clearly visible in the morning light. She knocked. There were voices behind the door, but no one answered.

She knocked again and called out, “Selam. It’s your guests from last night.”

“Go away,” the man yelled. “You’re evil djinns. We know you now and won’t open our doors again.”

Feride pounded on the door using the stone. “We need help. Two of our friends are wounded. They’ve had an accident. Please help us. I will pay you.” But there was no response. The stone slipped from her hand.

As she stepped back, the hem of her charshaf swept over the cat. It was lying in front of the farmer’s door, a blood-encrusted gap at its throat. The sight of the lifeless body threatened to tip Feride into hysteria. No wonder the farmer refused to open the door.

She peered into the dark interior of the stable adjoining the house and rejoiced when she saw a donkey. There was no cart, but she found a stack of large wool grain bags and some rope. She loaded a dozen bags onto the animal and led it through the vineyard to where Elif waited beside Doctor Moreno and Vali.

T
HE TWO
women layered the long, heavy grain sacks to make a padded stretcher, then tied Vali and Doctor Moreno on and hitched it to the donkey. In this way, they made their way laboriously downhill, the sacks catching on the grape stocks and threatening to overturn, until they reached the road leading to the port area. Despite the thick wool pads on which the men lay, the road was full of bumps and loose stones that Feride was sure caused the wounded men pain.

They attracted curious and sometimes disapproving stares from the few passersby out this early. They must make a strange sight, Feride thought, a blond foreign man and a Muslim woman in a soiled cloak and veil, pulling two wounded men behind a donkey. If anyone was hunting for them, they wouldn’t have to look far. By breakfast, the whole town would be talking about them.

One of the locals must have alerted the imam of a nearby mosque, who huffed his way up the hill toward them. Two small boys ran behind him, their thin legs churning up dust.

“Selam aleykum.”

“Aleykum selam,” Feride responded.

“You are in need of assistance,” the imam said, exposing brown teeth. “May I help?”

“We were fallen upon by bandits, and these two men were injured defending us. One is a doctor, the other, my driver. Another of our party lies dead in the vineyard above, having valiantly resisted these criminals. Two of the bandits escaped. Several others lie vanquished in the dirt. We need immediate medical care for these men, the best that can be had, and I would like to send a message to our people in the city.”

Feride’s upper-class intonation and vocabulary hadn’t escaped the imam, who sent the boys scurrying off with messages.

“Honored hanoum, I’ve sent a boy to fetch the doctor from the Valide hospital and a cart. If you will come to the mosque, my wife will be pleased to make you comfortable and your travel companion can rest and change into a clean robe.” He looked curiously at the blond foreigner.

Feride declined his invitation, saying they preferred to remain with their wounded companions. Elif had again become unresponsive.

While the imam sent off for stools and refreshments to be brought to them, Feride hovered over the two wounded men, neither of whom had regained consciousness. She swallowed a sob that had begun to rise in her throat. She wished Kamil were here. Her brother would know what to do. She tried not to think of Huseyin. The sight of so much death today had made her husband’s likely death seem real for the first time. Perhaps she was chasing a ghost and risking the lives and sanity of her dearest friends for nothing. Had she really wished Huseyin to be dead rather than to leave her for another woman? The thought filled her with shame and an inchoate fear that by thinking it, she had brought it about.