The Abyssinian Proof (29 page)

“The slain children,” Kamil exclaimed.

“The massacre of the innocents,” she said softly, her eyes riveted to the scene.

Kamil put his hands on her shoulders and turned her away. “We’re getting close.” He looked around. “Do you see a Samaritan or a container of some kind?”

They raised their lamps and scanned the wall panels and domes. In the northwest corner of the bay was a damaged mosaic of Christ speaking with a woman at a well.

Elif looked at the image for a few moments, then said, “I’ve always assumed the story of the Good Samaritan was about a man, but I remember another story about Christ meeting a Samaritan woman at a well. She told him she had many husbands. That’s why I remember it. I noticed that the images in here all seem balanced. Whenever there’s a man, there’s also a woman.”

“So if there’s a male Samaritan, there would be a female Samaritan?”

“I’m just guessing.”

“In the interest of balance, did the male Samaritan have many wives?”

“Don’t be daft.”

Kamil squinted at the mosaic. There was no image of a container, clay or otherwise.

Below the dome, the walls bowed inward and parts were whitewashed. He remembered Malik telling him that the walls here had to be very thick to bear the weight of the church tower and now the minaret.

“Find a chair or a ladder,” he called out suddenly.

They hurried through the rooms until Kamil came back dragging a ladder he had found in a storeroom. It was spattered with white paint. He leaned it against the wall under the Samaritan woman and climbed until he came to the corner of the wall where it began bow inward. “Hold up the lamp.”

He felt along the wall, then rapped with his knuckles until he found what he was looking for. He pulled his knife from his boot and began to chip away at the plaster. It was fresh, so it came off easily. There was a pounding at the door. Elif looked around nervously.

He ignored the noise and concentrated on his task. Beneath the plaster, he exposed a hollow clay ring. Weepholes, he remembered they were called. Clay jars embedded in the walls to wick off moisture. The pounding became louder and he could hear the voices of several men. He reached into the hole but felt only debris. Something scurried over his hand. He thrust it in deeper.

“Hurry,” Elif whispered, clutching the base of the ladder.

He was surprised by the depth of the jar. Finally, he felt something smooth and cold beneath his fingertips. Water had beaded on it and it was slippery and heavy. He pulled it out slowly. It was a slim lead box two hands’ breadth long. He thrust it inside his jacket, slipped the knife back into his boot, and with one leap was on the floor. He pushed the ladder through the neighboring bay into the storage room. Elif put out the lamps and slapped her hat on her head. She took up her painting box and they stood, panting, before the door. From the other side, they could hear raised voices.

“Well, there’s no one in there now. I did not lose the key. Of course I know where it’s kept. Do you think I’m senile?”

Kamil whispered, “Wait.”

After a few moments, the voices stopped. Kamil imagined the imam walking behind the mosque to the classroom and rummaging through the cabinet, looking for the key. The men in the square would accompany him to prolong the excitement of their imam being locked out of his own mosque.

Kamil turned the key, pushed open the door, and peered out. As he had suspected, the square was empty, the backgammon boards abandoned. He locked the door behind them and dropped the key in the weeds beside the entrance where someone could easily find it. Keeping to the edge of the square, they slipped behind the fountain and down a narrow side street.

A man fell in step behind them.

“The carriage is behind the hill,” Elif said, her voice shaking. Her paint box was clutched under her arm.

Kamil’s heart was beating hard. He felt exhilarated and lengthened his stride up the steep hill. He had the Proof of God in his jacket. He felt it move against his chest like a second heart.

He stopped and turned around. “Come, let me carry that box.” Elif was gone.

K
AMIL STOPPED SHORT.
“Elif? Elif?”

He retraced his steps to the fountain and looked around the corner into the square. The men had returned to their backgammon boards. The imam stood by the door looking puzzled. A boy tugged at the imam’s sleeve, pointing down at the ground.

Kamil turned and surveyed the lane. The houses barely held together. They listed into the street and there were large gaps in the walls where boards had rotted away. Rusty stovepipes twisted from their sides and roofs. Clean sheets flapped from a line between facing windows, looking as though their weight alone could pull the houses in on themselves. All the doors were shut tight. No women sat knitting on the stoops here. The only sign of life was a scarred tomcat lying in a patch of sun.

The ground was still damp from the night’s rain and Kamil made out what he thought were Elif’s footprints, those of a very small man’s shoes. He followed them. They disappeared suddenly, as if she had been plucked from the ground. Larger footprints overlaid hers, then led in the direction of the brick structure.

Kamil thought it might be an ayazma, a small chapel the Byzantines built around a sacred spring. There were many in this part of the city, and some were still in use. Kamil ducked inside. Areas of painted plaster were visible inside its partially collapsed brick dome. He could make out images of an angel and the bearded head of a man, his eyes scratched out, perhaps by Muslims who took the injunction against representing the human form seriously, or more likely by bored local youths eager to prove their manhood through vandalism. Down several stairs, he came to a stone well.

He touched a brown substance on one of the stones. Fresh mud. Kamil peered into the well. It looked deep. Something was caught on a protrusion part of the way down. He hung precariously over the edge, reached down and pulled out Elif’s hat.

The image of Elif falling into the black pit below gave his actions the urgency of desperation. He flung his feet over the edge and lowered himself slowly, propping himself up with his arms, feeling with his feet. The stones were uneven and some had fallen in, so he found ready platforms. When he felt stable ground beneath both feet, he tested it, then crouched down to see, bracing himself against the stones.

He stood on a small ledge. Beneath him, he could sense rather than see the well open up. If someone had snatched Elif, they would surely have had a reason and wouldn’t have simply flung her down the well. He remembered that ayazmas were often connected to underground cisterns.

It was dark in the well, so he squatted on the ledge and felt around with his hands. Before long, he discovered an opening just wide enough to crawl through.

He felt his way along with his hands. On the other side of the entrance, a thin object rolled under his palm. He picked it up. One end was soft. A paintbrush, still damp. He rejoiced. Elif was alive and she was leaving a trail for him to follow.

After a while, the tunnel became higher, so he could walk upright. Fresh air circulated from somewhere, but it was pitch black. Kamil could see nothing at all, not even his hand before his eyes. His pupils created sparks and tiny spots of light that he knew weren’t really there. He took deep breaths to still the panic rising in him. Keeping one hand on the damp stone wall, he slid his feet forward, testing for holes in the floor. The tunnel seemed to be intact. It led downward. He flinched as a rat fell onto his shoulder, then leapt off.

When he bumped into a sharp protrusion, scraping his nose, he stopped and reached both hands ahead of him. They met a wedge of stone directly in front of his face. He listened for a few moments, the blackness pressing in on his eyes like weights, but heard only a distant drip of water and the scurrying of rats. Small sounds seemed to carry from great distances.

Guiding himself with his hands, he knelt and began to systematically test the shape of the walls. The tunnel divided here, he decided. He crawled in one direction for a few moments to gain a sense of things, then backed up and tried the other tunnel.

A sharp object pressed into his knee. He picked it up and recognized from its shape the small wood-handled paint spatula he had seen in Elif’s kit. He was relieved that Elif had kept her head, although it didn’t surprise him. He felt around, but there was nothing else. He stood and, hands stretched before him, strode as rapidly as he could through the darkness into the tunnel she had marked. He guessed that whoever had taken Elif knew this tunnel and had used it before, so he doubted there were any collapsed areas.

There was a glow ahead, so faint that Kamil thought his eyes had invented it. As he approached, he heard voices. They were distorted, so he couldn’t understand what they were saying, but he recognized Elif’s voice. The other was a man’s. Kamil slipped the knife from his boot.

He crept closer, keeping his eyes on the light, knife balanced lightly in his hand. His boots made no sound.

Something caught at his jacket. He swung around, knife raised, alert to the slightest motion. He heard scurrying, then a faint whisper.

“It’s me. Avi.”

He reached down and found the boy’s close-cropped head. He leaned close to Avi’s ear and whispered, “Don’t speak. There’s an echo.”

If Avi was here, Kamil guessed the man ahead must be Amida. But what did he want with Elif? How could he even know her? He had misjudged the young man, Kamil thought with exasperation. First Malik’s pin and now this.

As he approached, the light gained brightness. He could see Avi beside him now and gestured that the boy should stay back. Avi pressed himself against a wall.

Kamil could hear Elif and Amida more clearly. They were arguing.

“What do you want with this box? It contains drawings and my pens,” Elif said in a hard voice. Kamil realized that she was still keeping up her guise of being a man.

“Of course. And you’re Rembrandt.”

“Ah, an art lover,” she responded lightly. “Here. See for yourself. You dragged me into this hole for nothing.”

Kamil heard a crash, the sound of a wooden box splintering. He peered around the corner. Elif and Amida faced each other in a room lit by an oil lamp on the ground by Amida’s feet.

“Where is it?” Amida asked. He looked enormous next to Elif.

Kamil pulled his head back. He didn’t want to be seen until he had decided on a course of action. Elif seemed to be in no immediate danger and she didn’t appear frightened. If he listened for a few moments, he might get more information.

“Where is what?” Elif asked.

“Don’t play dumb. I know you have it. I saw you duck out of the mosque and drop the key. You think I’m as dumb as that imam? I know you’ve found it. It was written on your faces.”

“What is it you think we found?”

Amida let out an expletive. “You have the Proof of God. Kamil told me he knew where it was.”

“Well, I don’t have it, as you can see.”

“If you don’t, then he has it.”

“Why don’t you ask him?”

“I plan to. I’m sure he’s wandering the streets right now looking for his friend. What are you, English?”

“French.”

He heard the sounds of a struggle.

“Look at that. You’re a woman.” Amida laughed. “What a scoundrel that Kamil is. And he makes himself out to be a holy man. I’m sure he’ll trade the Proof for you. You do make a good boy,” he added admiringly.

Kamil put his head around the corner again. He saw Elif kneeling before Amida, who had grasped the back of her neck with one hand. In the other, he held a knife. Kamil reckoned the distance and decided Amida would be able to use the knife before Kamil could reach him. He edged forward and saw Amida let go of Elif and fumble at his trousers. Then, Elif, still on her knees, jabbed something into Amida’s groin.

“You bitch,” he howled and raised his arm to strike her. The knife glinted in his hand.

Kamil leapt into the chamber and grabbed Amida’s arm. They struggled, but Kamil managed to pull back Amida’s thumb so hard he had to release his knife. Elif immediately picked it up. Kamil noticed she brandished it blade-down, like a street fighter. Her face was grim, somehow inhuman, and Kamil half expected her to thrust the knife into Amida’s chest while he held him. Instead, she stepped back into the shadows.

Amida bellowed and twisted in Kamil’s arms. Kamil looked down and saw that the front of Amida’s trousers was stained with blood. He let go of one of the young man’s arms. Amida reached down and plucked out of his crotch a small knife of the kind used for sharpening pencils. Before Kamil could grab his arm again, Amida had thrust the pencil knife into Kamil’s chest. Kamil shouted and let go.

Elif stood frozen against the wall, Amida’s large knife still poised in her hand.

Amida grabbed the lamp and ran into the tunnel, with Kamil following right behind.

There was a crash and the light went out. Kamil heard scuffling, then someone running. There was a loud rattle, which sounded like heavy chains, and a crash of metal against stone.

“Elif, Avi,” Kamil called out into the darkness.

“I’m sorry, bey.” Avi was crying. “I tried to stop him. I didn’t think about the lamp.”

“Come over here, Avi. Follow my voice.”

“I’m here.” It was Elif’s voice, her hand on his arm. “Avi? Come, hold my hand.”

Kamil bent and felt around for the lamp, but couldn’t get it to light. The fumes of spilled oil filled the air.

“We can find our way out,” Kamil said more calmly than he felt. He wondered what the noise had been. Perhaps a trap. His hand found the place over his heart where Amida had stabbed him. There was a hole in the fabric of his jacket, through which he could feel a deep nick in the lead case that had been in his jacket pocket. “Let’s hold on to each other.”

He stepped forward carefully, Avi’s hand tugging at his jacket, Elif to the rear. After a while, Kamil felt a difference in the direction of the air and thought they must be approaching the fork in the tunnel. Abruptly, he walked into a set of iron bars. He ran his hands along them. They felt as thick as a child’s wrist and seemed to reach from floor to ceiling.