The Abyssinian Proof (10 page)

“Who’s this?” Kamil asked.

“My son,” she responded in a barely audible voice.

As she turned a page, Kamil saw on the back a charcoal sketch of the boy with his eyes closed, mouth slightly ajar, a brown smudge at the corner of his lips that looked more like dried blood than paint. Elif quickly hid it under another drawing. Huseyin caught Kamil’s eye and nodded slightly. Kamil understood. It was the boy’s death mask.

“These are brilliant,” he said honestly. “Are they in the Impressionist style?”

“Yes,” Elif seemed pleased that Kamil recognized it.

“They should be in a museum,” he insisted, sweeping his hand toward the drawings.

“They’re good, but not good enough,” she said, her mood darkening again. “I wasn’t able to finish my training.”

“Why not?”

She said nothing for so long that Kamil thought she wouldn’t answer. “I married a fellow artist,” she said finally. “A painter. When I had a child, he insisted I stop working and return with him to Macedonia. But it’s not work,” she said, her anguish breaking through. “He of all people should have understood that.”

Elif gathered up her drawings and put them back in the binder, carefully tying it shut with string. “I knew an American painter in Paris, Mary Cassatt. I studied at the Académie Julian, but it was Mary who helped me develop my own style.”

“I saw one of her paintings in London,” Kamil said. Painting was a subject Elif felt comfortable talking about and he wanted to draw her out. “It was of a woman holding a baby. Remarkable. The brush-strokes were loose, as if it were a sketch, but somehow it looked more real than if she had painted in every detail.”

“During my last summer there, Mary took me and my son to her summer house at Marly. It had a beautiful garden. Mary’s mother was there, and her nieces. We did nothing but paint all summer.”

“We don’t have much of a tradition of painting or drawing of this kind,” Kamil said. “Except for Hamdi Bey. He paints in the European style.”

A servant brought coffee and a platter of fruit, which no one touched. Elif picked up her coffee and took a sip. Her eyes seemed focused on something beyond the room.

“Hamdi is a remarkable fellow,” Huseyin agreed. “He’s painting a portrait of himself with turtles.”

“Oh really,” Feride scoffed.

“It’s true. I saw the painting in his studio. It’s of a man with a pointy beard feeding his turtles. Looks just like him. He denies it, of course. Claims it isn’t finished. Maybe if I irritate him enough, he’ll put my face on it.”

“On the turtle, you mean,” Feride sniped.

Kamil was glad to see his sister showing some spirit. She hadn’t always been this assertive. Their father’s death had changed her, made her less willing to bend. There was a brittleness about her now, but also a new strength.

“I don’t know where he finds the time. He’s head of the Imperial Museum now and he’s also heading up our first archaeological expedition.”

“Soon we’ll be able to kick those thieves masquerading as archaeologists right back to Europe, eh, Kamil? Dig the stuff up ourselves,” Huseyin said, showing his fist. “I wish we could throw the Franks out of our treasury too. People think the Franks shit gold. What they don’t realize is, it’s our gold.”

“Huseyin,” Feride scolded. “You’re a beast.”

“Don’t I know it.” He winked at her.

Kamil saw Feride suppress a smile and wondered at the complex and, to him, utterly mysterious bond between husband and wife.

Elif had gathered up her binder and was hesitating by the door.

Kamil got to his feet. “It was a great pleasure to meet you, Elif Hanoum,” he said with feeling.

“Also my pleasure, Kamil Pasha.”

Feride kissed him on both cheeks. “I’ll leave you to Huseyin now, brother dear, but do come again soon. Elif and I would love to see you. And,” she whispered, “don’t worry about the boy.”

Elif overheard. “What boy?”

Huseyin echoed her.

“A young apprentice named Avi.” Kamil explained what had happened. “I had hoped he might stay here for a few days until he’s better.”

“Of course,” Huseyin boomed amiably. “What have we got all this space for if it isn’t to take in strays.”

“Can we see him?” Elif asked Feride.

“Yes, let’s see how he’s getting on with Alev and Yasemin.”

Huseyin rolled his eyes. “More of those family roses, Kamil.” He raised an index finger and braced it with the fingers of his other hand. “They’ve already got thorns as long as your finger.”

When the women had gone, Kamil remarked, “So you know Hamdi Bey quite well.”

“Yes. Why?”

“I thought as director of the museum, he might know some of the antiquities dealers in Europe. I want to see what I can find out about the buyers.”

“I suppose you want me to set up a meeting.”

Kamil swallowed his distaste at asking his brother-in-law for a favor. “If you could.” He suspected Huseyin took pleasure in his discomfiture.

Huseyin reached for an enormous red peach, peeled it, cut it up, and divided the quarters between their plates. “I’ll let you know tomorrow.”

A
S
K
AMIL RODE
through Nishantashou on his way back to his office, he thought about Elif. What happened to people who had lost everything and had no family to take them in? The scent of roses and jasmine defied the rusts and reds of autumn creeping over the gardens beside the road, but Kamil’s eyes were on an inner scene of savagery, of neighbor slitting the throat of neighbor or turning away when a friend was threatened. He wondered what Elif had lived through and found himself wanting to cradle her small golden head. He worried that she would break in Huseyin’s well-meaning but compassionless hands.

He passed the city’s water-pumping station and the artillery barracks looming over Taksim Square. Prayer services in the mosques were over and groups of men were walking back to work or meandering to coffeehouses or home. Behind the French Hospital, the streets of Tarla Bashou were crowded with shabby two-and three-story houses, now deep in shadow. The Grande Rue de Pera, in contrast, was a broad boulevard lined with shops, cafés, and brasseries. A woman sat huddled at the corner of an alley next to a French café, an infant in her arms.

Kamil dismounted and put a gold lira in her lap, enough to rent a room.

“May it bring you blessings,” he muttered, embarrassed.

Surprised, the woman looked up for a moment, and Kamil saw that she was no more than twenty, her face ravaged by sorrow. She attempted a smile. Then, as tears flooded her eyes, she hid her face and, clutching the child, began to rock back and forth.

Kamil crossed the street and asked the gatekeeper at the French Hospital what he knew about the refugees on the street.

He shook his head in dismay. “There are more every day. They sit there and beg. Some of them just sit. They look like they’ve left this world already.”

“What happens to them?”

“The hospitals pick up the sick ones. Mostly the mosque hospitals, but this one too,” he motioned toward the entrance behind him. “The merchants of Pera don’t like people in rags lying in front of their shops. Bad for business. So the shop owners’ organizations and the foreign churches pay to have them picked up. I hear they take them to centers where they can get food and maybe learn some skills to support themselves. Especially the women. You know, sewing, needlework, women’s stuff. Maybe even find them husbands.” He smiled shyly. “If I had the guts, I’d take a look there myself. These were decent people.” He shook his head sadly.

“Would you make sure she’s taken care of?” Kamil pointed to the woman by the café, still huddled over her infant, rocking quietly. He handed the man another gold lira.

The gatekeeper craned his neck and looked across the street. His face registered surprise, then softened. After a moment, he nodded. “Of course, but I can’t take money for doing a kindness.” He gave Kamil the lira back.

Kamil thanked him and rode down the Rue de Pera to his office.

As soon as he entered the antechamber, Abdullah handed him a letter embossed with the British Embassy seal.

T
HE THREATENED RAIN
didn’t materialize, and Sunken Village basked in the unexpected warmth of a late autumn afternoon. The shadows of the cistern wall crept into the orchards and gardens, but hadn’t yet reached the village square. After the ritual in the prayer house, the Habesh men had gone to the Kariye Mosque for afternoon prayer. Two prayers are better than one, Balkis always said when explaining this tradition. Abundance reaped abundance. It was a law of nature. In the morning, the men had set to roast over a charcoal pit the sheep Balkis always provided. She knew that many of the villagers filled their bellies with cabbage the rest of the week and looked forward to the Friday feast.

Having returned from the mosque, the men joined their families lounging on carpets spread before their homes and in the square, spooning rice and mutton from their bowls. Children ran through the chatting groups. Gudit brought a tray of more generously apportioned plates to the big house, where Balkis rested on the divan. She had removed her ritual clothing and put on a gold-embroidered robe. Malik had remained at the Kariye Mosque.

Saba sat on a cushion on the floor. She leaned back against the wall, eyes closed as if asleep, fingers curled quietly in her lap. Such a lovely child, Balkis thought wistfully, but they praise a horse’s swiftness, not its looks. Saba needed to wake up.

Amida sat opposite Balkis on the divan, still in his jacket, his back straight, as if rebuking the cushions that invited him to recline. He had her build, short and portly, but his father’s dark complexion and eyes—small, deep set, and unreadable. Wavy brown hair fell to his shoulders and Balkis found herself wondering what it felt like. She sensed he wouldn’t like her reaching out to touch it. Was it soft or coarse? When he was a boy, before he went away to the monastery in Abyssinia, it had been light as angel feathers. Balkis remembered suddenly that she had never touched her husband’s hair, not once. Why was it that those closest to us often seemed like perfect strangers?

Saba offered Amida some grapes. When he refused, she joked, “When you were little, you were angry at me once when I wouldn’t give you my fruit ice. Do you remember?” She laughed. “Mama made me give it to you, though. She really spoiled you.”

“He was older than you, Saba,” Balkis interjected. “And he was going away for a long time.” Children remembered the oddest things. An ice, from so long ago, yet it stuck in her daughter’s memory like a fishbone.

“That’s right. She got to stay while I was shipped off for eight years to that rat-infested pit in the mountains. You thought a fruit ice would make up for that?”

“Was it really so bad?” Balkis asked, taken aback by the bitterness in his voice.

Amida looked at his hands. “It was a school run by old men who’ve spent their entire lives on that mountain,” he muttered. “What do you expect?”

If Amida had had a bad experience at the monastery, Balkis thought, it might explain some of his anger. Malik had never spoken about his years at the monastery either. She had mourned her son’s childhood passing without her, but had never given much thought to what monastery life was actually like. Young men of the priestly Melisite line were always sent there to be educated. There had been reports that Amida had run away, sometimes disappearing for months before the monks tracked him down and brought him back, but she had put it down to the rebelliousness of youth. After leaving the monastery for good, Amida had taken his time returning to Istanbul, lingering for almost a year in Cairo. What had he been doing there?

“Well, you’re with your family now,” she consoled him. “And when you become caretaker, I’m sure the things you learned at the monastery will make sense.”

“You can’t draw milk from a dead sheep.” Amida adjusted a cushion on the divan, then pushed it away. “Anyway, I told you I don’t want to be caretaker of a mosque where nothing ever happens. It’s a waste of time.”

Balkis looked squarely at her son. “Being caretaker isn’t about the mosque. It’s about four hundred years of tradition and our family’s duty, your duty, to guard the Proof of God. You’re going to be caretaker and Saba will be priestess. You’ll be leaders of the Melisites, just as it’s always been.”

“Leaders of what?” Amida scoffed. “Nobody believes that Melisite crap anymore. The young men in the village are Muslims. They don’t plan on raising their kids in the old way.” He raised his hand to his chest and pleaded, “But if you let me, I could modernize things. We could make decent money and build proper houses, instead of these shacks. Make Habesh a term people respect, instead of assuming we’re all slaves.”

Balkis was dismayed. She knew he was unenthusiastic about becoming caretaker, but this was the first time she sensed the depth of his skepticism about the sect itself. His rejection was seamed with anger. That meant he couldn’t be lured back by argument or appeals to his faith. He had to be cajoled, brought into the stable like a skittish horse. She would tread carefully so as not to drive him away. She couldn’t bear to lose him again.

“You’re right, my son. Our business is failing and I’m glad you have some ideas about how to set that right. What do you propose to do?”

Amida flashed her a smile, leaned back against the cushions, and crossed his legs. “The way we do things now is a waste of time. We’re just middlemen between Charshamba and the bazaar. The bazaaris sell the stuff to someone else and pocket most of the money. I say we bypass the bazaar and go straight to the buyer.” He clapped his hands. “We take orders, meet customer demand.”

“But we’ve been working with the bazaaris for generations,” Balkis cautioned. “We have obligations.”

“This is the modern era. You make contracts for services, not vague promises that last for generations. A business has to be able to change with the times. You say the merchants are our friends. Well, you know what friends pay friends: nothing. When you’re in bed together, the services are free.”

“Amida,” Balkis chastised him. “We deserve your respect.” He was smart and he had courage and determination, she thought, qualities the Habesh needed in their leader. But the bird doesn’t fly with one wing. She had yet to see much evidence of character and maturity. The pain in her stomach increased. Her eyes rested longingly on the glass-fronted cabinet across the room where, in a crystal bowl, lay the envelopes of powders Courtidis supplied her with.

Amida looked uncomfortable but didn’t apologize. “The Charshamba families are working for one man now. That’s why they don’t need us. He has his own shop, so he can buy with one hand and sell from the other. We could start working with him.”

Balkis had suspected the families had found new channels that bypassed the Habesh, but she had thought they were selling to the shops in Beyoglu. She hadn’t realized her competition was a single person. “You know this man?”

Amida shrugged lightly.

“What’s his name?”

“He keeps that to himself.”

“How can you trust him if you don’t know who he is?” Balkis asked, incredulous.

“He’s legitimate, not small trash like the Charshamba people,” Amida answered defensively. “This is business. We don’t always have to do things the old way. The modern world lets us reinvent ourselves. In fact, we don’t have a choice.”

“There’s always a choice. Even the blind man can smell. Business has to be honorable.”

“A choice between starving and going hungry. Where’s the honor in that?”

Balkis decided she had nothing to lose with a meeting. At the very least, she’d learn something about her competitor.

“Alright. If he wishes to speak with us, bring him.” She saw the light in Amida’s eyes and was glad.

“Mama,” Saba asked in a soft voice. “Have you heard about the killings in Charshamba? Maybe we should get out of the business altogether and do something else? I don’t see that there’s anything honorable about associating with men like that.”

“Like what? Let our young men become porters carrying burdens on their backs like snails? We’ve invested many years in our trading connections. Why throw that away? Our men have to work.” Balkis thought Saba was sounding more and more like Malik with his useless idealism. “If you were priestess, we’d all starve,” she added irritably. “You don’t know a kurush from a stone.”

Undeterred, Saba told Amida, “You overlook our true wealth, brother. After all, we’re custodians of the Proof of God.” She spoke the name reverently.

Amida rolled his eyes.

“But it’s our greatest strength,” Saba insisted. “The community needs an income, that’s true, but its spiritual center is what holds it together.”

“Just look at this place. You think we’re special? We live in a hole in the ground! At least half the people have no teeth because there’s no hygiene. People get sick and die because no doctor will come down here.”

“Constantine Courtidis comes here,” Saba corrected him.

“That quack! We all know what he wants.”

Saba’s face flushed. “You’re wrong about that.”

Balkis knew why the young Greek surgeon bothered with a small village like theirs, but she didn’t know whether Saba reciprocated his interest. Saba had always kept her feelings to herself, even as a child.

“I’m worried about the young people too,” Balkis said, hoping to draw Amida back in. “Are they really as disengaged as you say? I know there isn’t much for them to do. There used to be all kinds of jobs related to the rituals, but now only Gudit knows how to do them.”

“She’s so unpleasant, Mama,” Saba complained. “Why have you put up with her for so long? When I was little, she used to pinch me when you weren’t looking, but now it’s worse. A few weeks ago, I saw her in the laundry room, sniffing my dirty clothes. That’s disgusting. And she spies on me, even in the hamam.”

This worried Balkis. Was Gudit preparing to initiate Saba? Surely she wouldn’t do so without her permission. Saba hadn’t yet borne an heir. “There are a lot of important things only Gudit knows how to do, my dear. But you must come and tell me your concerns, not keep them to yourself.”

“I’d feel better if you retired her. Let some of the girls apprentice to her so they can learn her skills.”

“The girls only last a few weeks, then leave. It’s a hard job. There’s a lot more to being a Melisite midwife than delivering babies. The tattoos, for instance.”

“Why does it have to be the midwife who does the tattoos? I’m sure you could get apprentices from Charshamba,” Amida suggested. “They’d jump at the chance to learn a trade.”

“The tattoos aren’t just for decoration. They’re part of our ritual. Some things have to remain within the sect. You forget who we are.”

“Please, mother. I’m whoever I make myself.”

“You’re the caretaker, Amida. You will always be the caretaker, and your son will be the caretaker.”

“You talk about becoming caretaker as if it’s like becoming the grand vizier.” Amida got up and began to wander around the room. “Malik doesn’t seem to have a say about anything.”

“Malik has never cared about leading the community,” Balkis said. “He thinks being caretaker means sitting in his library reading or daydreaming under his linden tree. That’s why we’re in such a sorry state.”

“That’s not fair, Mama,” Saba broke in. “He’s very well known. People all across the city read his
dawah
, his calls for ecumenical discussion.”

“While he’s holding theological debates, no one’s leading our young people,” Balkis said, her eyes intent on Amida. “That’s why we need you, my son. You’ve got the energy and the ideas to revive the community. But you have to respect the traditions.”

“How much power does the caretaker have, then, in the tradition?” Amida asked, pointedly emphasizing the last word. “And none of this happens until Uncle Malik dies, right?”

Balkis was taken aback by his unsentimental inquiry. “Once people in the community learn to trust you, they’ll follow your lead.”

“I understand that, but what I want to know is how much power the caretaker has. If the caretaker is someone who can really do his job, unlike Uncle Malik, then he’s in charge, right? The priestess is just a figurehead.”

Saba’s head jerked up in surprise.

“The priestess is the equal leader of this community,” Balkis told him, aghast. “She’s joined to it forever, so you should never underestimate her.” The last thing the community needed was a power struggle between her children. “Think of the priestess as a cornered animal,” she added in a low voice. “Reach out your hand and she’ll reward you. But never, ever cross her.”

Amida looked at her open-mouthed. “So a woman is the leader and the caretaker’s some kind of servant? I’m supposed to feed the animal?” He laughed. “I’m in a zoo!”

Balkis got to her feet. “Watch your tongue,” she barked.

Saba rose from the floor and faced her brother. “There have been women leaders before,” she scolded him. “It’s nothing new. The Queen of Sheba. Mary, the Mother of Jesus. There was our founder, Saint Melisane.”

“Melisane is just a legend, like her ridiculous reliquary. I’ve never seen this Proof of God, have you? Who knows if either of them ever existed. And even if they did, so what? We live in the modern world. Where do you see a woman in charge of anything?”

Balkis was speechless. If this was what Amida thought, then her plans for the community were as likely to succeed as a fish in a poplar tree. She wished there were more young men in her line who could be trained as caretaker. But Amida was the last. It was him or no one.

“There must be some truth to the stories if they’ve held the community together for so many years,” Saba insisted. “If we could show people the Proof of God, it would revive their faith, but it’s forbidden.”

“I bet if I went through that gate into the Holy of Holies, there’d be nothing there. What about that box Malik found? He says it’s the Proof of God, but how can that be if it’s in our prayer house like you claim,” he taunted his mother. “It’s all just a bunch of lies.”

“It’s true that the Proof of God is a mystery,” Saba admitted, “but there’s a miracle behind it.”

Amida looked at his sister with exasperation. “There is no Proof of God, Saba. It’s all just a story. And the reliquary is just an empty box.”