The Abyssinian Proof (23 page)

B
ALKIS STILL SAT
on the divan, smoking a chubuk pipe.

“I’m sorry to disturb you again, but I wonder if I might speak with Saba.”

Balkis looked at him blankly. “Saba? What do you want with Saba?”

“I have something to give her.”

Balkis held out her hand. “I’ll give it to her.”

Kamil hesitated. Malik had told him to give it directly to Saba. “I’d rather give it to her myself.”

“What do you have to give her that her mother can’t see?”

Offended and embarrassed, Kamil responded, “I’d prefer to conduct my business directly with her.”

“Spoken like a pasha,” Balkis muttered. She told the servant to fetch Saba. While they waited, she gave Kamil a long look that made him uncomfortable.

A few moments later, Saba swept in wearing a brown-striped robe belted with a yellow sash. A veil hid the lower part of her face. He remembered her oddly seductive behavior in the garden the day before. As she came closer, he saw smudges of grief beneath her eyes and what looked like scratches and bruises only partially hidden by the veil.

“Come over here,” Balkis commanded. “What’s happened to you?”

Saba waited obediently while her mother pulled aside her veil. “Nothing, Mama. I tripped and fell in the brambles behind the house.”

Kamil saw that Balkis wasn’t satisfied but had decided to postpone further discussion until after he had left. He took the envelope from his pocket. He had wished to give it to Saba privately in the hope that she would share its contents with him.

“Here’s the letter I told you about.” He handed it to her.

Balkis leaned over to take a closer look, but Saba slipped the letter into her sash.

“Who’s that from?” Balkis asked, the tension in her voice apparent. “Are you having a tryst?”

“It’s a letter from Uncle Malik, Mama. I’m going to read it now.” She touched Kamil’s sleeve, sending a jolt through his arm. “Thank you for bringing the letter, Kamil Pasha.” Her green eyes looked directly into his. Kamil resented the hold she seemed to have on him and forced himself to look away.

Saba disappeared into an adjoining room and Kamil got up to leave.

“Please keep an old woman company for a few minutes, Kamil Pasha,” Balkis pleaded.

He sat down reluctantly, dreading another interrogation about his family, but her question surprised him. “Did you notice Saba’s eyes?”

“Should I have?”

“They’re green. Like yours.”

Kamil mastered a powerful desire to leave.

“I have something important that I must tell you. When I was sixteen,” she began, “I was given in marriage to my uncle, the old caretaker of the Kariye Mosque. Did Malik tell you it’s a hereditary position?”

Kamil nodded, wondering where this was going. “Amida will be caretaker now.”

“That’s right. Amida. My son by my husband. I was young then, Kamil Pasha, and beautiful, although that may be hard for you to believe now. I had an elderly husband who paid little attention to me, and I was lonely.”

Kamil felt uncomfortable at being privy to such personal information. He should have left right away, but now it was too late.

“One day, I was selling fruit near the mosque up there,” she pointed with her chin. “After prayers, the men often buy fruit to take home to their families and I had many customers.”

She laughed lightly at the memory. “I caught the eye of a pasha leaving the mosque. Yes, it’s true. He left his retinue and came over to me. He bought some fruit and asked me if I would meet him later that afternoon behind the turbe. He assured me that he was an honorable man, filled my hand with gold liras, took his parcel of fruit, and rejoined his companions.”

Kamil got to his feet. This was entirely inappropriate. “Why are you telling me this, Balkis Hanoum? You shouldn’t be telling me this.”

“Sit down, Kamil Pasha!”

Kamil was startled at her tone.

“It’s important that you hear this,” she said in a commanding voice. “Malik was going to tell you, but I foolishly asked him to wait.”

Kamil was both mesmerized and repelled.

“The pasha was very kind. I ran away with him. He brought me to live in an apartment in Pera, on the Rue Tom-Tom.” She looked at Kamil. “He was a very kind man. You have the same eyes.”

Kamil was no longer concerned whether he was being rude. “I have to go. This is none of my business.”

Balkis rose from the divan and with surprising speed blocked the door. “It’s very much your business. Hear me out.”

Kamil was uncertain what to do. He couldn’t push Balkis aside without taking hold of her. “I don’t mean to be disrespectful, Balkis Hanoum. But I don’t want to hear this. It’s too personal.”

“That’s right. It is very private. But I forbid you to leave, and when I finish, you will understand why. Ten months later,” Balkis continued, still standing before the door, “I learned I would have a child. And soon after that, there was a knock on the door. It was the pasha’s wife. A sweet woman, in her way, but nobody’s fool. She saw I was pregnant. She told me her husband wouldn’t be coming again and left a sack of five hundred gold liras on the table. A gift, she called it. The remarkable thing is that she assured me the child would be looked after and would have an inheritance. I didn’t believe it, of course, and, as things turned out, the pasha and his wife both passed away and no one came to offer Saba an inheritance. But that isn’t important. We do well enough in our village. No one starves.

“Malik brought me back here. My poor husband had died while I was gone. I knew he was ill when I left him, to my great shame. In a last kindness, he had hidden my betrayal by telling everyone I was visiting relatives, so when Saba was born, no one guessed the baby wasn’t his—no one except my brother and my mother, who was priestess at the time. After that, every bayram I received a bundle of fine cloth and a kerchief, into the corner of which was knotted a gold lira. Three years ago that too ceased. I never saw him again.” She shrugged, but her eyes told him that she had loved this pasha. “They’re both gone from this world now,” she finished.

“Why are you telling me this?” Did she expect him to comfort her, or to exact retribution from the pasha’s family? What was this about eye color, Saba’s, his own? It was nonsense and he rejected the insinuation he knew she was making.

“I was going to tell her today.” Balkis slumped against the door. “Please, Kamil Pasha, sit. I’ll take only a few more moments of your time. You must hear the rest. I’ve waited a lifetime to tell you this. I’m an ill woman, and there might not be another opportunity.”

They heard a wail from the other room, and suddenly Saba stood in the hall, a piece of paper dangling from her hand.

“Tell me what, mother?” she cried out. “Tell me what?” The bruises showed livid against her chalky skin and deep lines scored the side of her mouth. The transformation from a few minutes earlier was so extreme that Kamil was afraid she had been attacked in her room. He held a hand out to her as if she were a frightened animal.

“Saba Hanoum, what’s happened?” He stepped toward her. “Is someone in there?”

“Stay away from me,” she screamed with such anguish that Kamil feared she had lost her mind.

Balkis stood by the door like a statue.

“You told him?” Saba asked her.

“Sit, my daughter,” Balkis said calmly. “I haven’t finished the story yet.”

“Leave,” Saba screamed at Kamil. “Leave now.”

Balkis walked over and slapped Saba with such force that she fell against the wall.

Kamil grabbed Saba’s arm to help her up. “I’ve had enough of this,” he exclaimed angrily. “Would you like to leave, Saba Hanoum? I can escort you wherever you wish to go.”

Balkis stood before her daughter. “It’s important,” she said, dwelling on every word, “for you both to know.”

Saba refused to meet her eyes. Instead, she concentrated on smoothing her robe and adjusting her headscarf. Her breathing sounded labored.

“Your brother is here,” Balkis announced, “in this room. I was Alp Pasha’s lover and Saba is your sister, Kamil.”

Saba bent over and pressed her fingers to her forehead.

“Right after she visited me, your mother left your father and moved to Beshiktash with her children,” Balkis told Kamil.

“How do you know that?”

“I made inquiries.” She lowered her eyes. “I loved your father. He was the only man I ever loved. I still wait for him to come out of that mosque, even though I know he’s gone.”

Moving as if in a trance, Saba passed Kamil and went to her mother’s side. Balkis clutched her hand. “I never told him about you.” Balkis rocked back and forth, crying without tears. “I wish I had.”

“I don’t believe this.” Kamil headed for the door.

Saba ran after him and pressed Malik’s letter into his hand. “Return it when you’ve read it.”

K
AMIL HAD ALMOST
forgotten Avi, who waited until Kamil had climbed up to Charshamba before coming to walk wordlessly beside him. Kamil was too stunned to speak.

“I saw them, bey,” Avi said. “Do you want me to follow Amida?”

Kamil looked down at Avi’s eager face and at the small bandage that still adorned his head. He squatted beside him. “Yes, follow Amida. But don’t take any chances. These are dangerous men. I just want to know where Amida goes and, if you can manage to overhear any of his conversations, who he talks to and about what. But this isn’t a game. If anyone notices that you’re hanging around or following Amida, I want you to leave immediately and take a carriage to the Fatih police station or the courthouse. Find me or Chief Omar.”

Avi smiled broadly. “Yes, bey. Don’t worry.”

“It’ll be for no more than a few days. For the time being, I think you should spend the nights at my house. It’s more convenient than Feride Hanoum’s. I can bring you here in the morning. So once Amida is in his house for the evening or if you’re feeling at all tired, come back to Beshiktash, and Karanfil will make you a good meal.”

They walked to the stable at the corner of the main boulevard. While the stable hand retrieved his phaeton, Kamil had a whispered conversation with the owner, a fat man in a stained leather apron. Kamil indicated Avi over his shoulder. The owner leered, but nodded in agreement. Money changed hands.

Kamil took Avi aside. “I’ve arranged for you to have a carriage and a horse whenever you want.” He gave him a small sack of coins. “And this is to buy food and whatever else you need.”

Avi tried to give it back. “I don’t need that, bey. I’ll be fine.”

Kamil pressed it into his hand. “Think of this as a job, Avi. You’re a working man now.”

“Thank you, bey.” Avi proudly secreted the coins under his sweater. “I won’t use many, I promise.”

Bemused and grateful for the distraction of the boy’s company, Kamil shook his head. “Use as many as you need.”

K
AMIL CLIMBED INTO
the phaeton and steered it through a jostling hive of pedestrians, overloaded porters, carriages, and carts. He tried to push all thoughts of Balkis’s revelations firmly from his mind. He told himself that there was no proof that any of it was true. His father would never have betrayed his mother. But what did he really know about his father’s life?

A memory ambushed him. He was a young boy and he was telling his father something important—he couldn’t remember what. In midsentence, his father had turned away to attend to an aide and then, without another word to his son, had left the room. Kamil felt again the piercing disappointment that had overwhelmed him at the time, mixed with anger at his father’s suicide the year before. Had his father walked away from his mother too?

He reached into his pocket for his watch and checked the time. His hand brushed the letter, but he didn’t take it out. For some reason, the thought of reading it caused him great anxiety. He remembered the shocked look on Saba’s face; he felt unprepared for any further revelations.

As he approached the suburb of Nishantashou, the streets opened up and allowed the horse to move more quickly. Finally, holding the reins in one hand and allowing the horse its head on the mostly empty street, he took Malik’s letter from his jacket pocket. He held it for a long time before unfolding it, then pulled the phaeton over and read it. After his stomach settled, he read it a second time with greater attention. The letter verified what Balkis had said. It also appeared to contain advice for Saba on her duties as priestess, including an odd prayer. He scanned it for clues to the whereabouts of the Proof of God. Surely, Malik would have left instructions for Saba to find it? But if they were in the letter, they were too obscure for Kamil to understand. A second piece of paper enclosed with the letter had dropped onto the seat. On it, Saba had drawn a map of the basement of the Ottoman Tobacco Works.

F
ERIDE RAN TO
meet him in the corridor, more animated than he had seen her in a long time. She kissed him on both cheeks and drew him in by the hand.

“Oh, I love having Elif here, Kamil. It’s like having a sister.”

Kamil found himself scanning the hall for Elif and was disappointed when she didn’t appear.

“Let me go get her,” Feride suggested eagerly.

Kamil pulled his mind back to the reason he was there. “Feride, can we talk privately for a few minutes?” He hoped his distressing news wouldn’t throw her back into a black mood.

Feride stopped, alarmed by his tone. “Has something happened?”

“Not exactly.”

She led him into the parlor and sat apprehensively on the sofa. Kamil closed the door and moved a chair so he could sit opposite her.

Before he could say a word, Feride began to cry. “I’m sorry, Kamil. Since Baba’s death, I just keep waiting for the next blow. Last week, I wouldn’t let the governess take Alev and Yasemin to the park. I had a vision of one of them falling out of the carriage and being crushed by the wheels. Now there’s Elif and Avi and I’m afraid something will happen to them too.”

Kamil moved to the sofa and put his arm around her. He was now very worried about how she would take the news about Saba. He wasn’t sure what to make of it himself and had hoped to discuss it with Feride, but that might be impossible considering the state she was in.