The Winter Thief (25 page)

V
ERA STUMBLED ON DECK
when Apollo told her they were approaching Trabzon. Her legs were weak from inactivity, but she felt elated. She had spent much of the four-day voyage in her cabin, out of the rain and wind, reading books in French, which Apollo had miraculously procured for her. He and the other men slept in hammocks in a common room. These comrades, Armenians from all walks of life in Istanbul, now crowded the deck. The ship had been “borrowed” by its captain and crew and would return to Istanbul immediately. That would leave only ten men and Vera. They would have to rely on local sympathizers to move the guns.

The men claimed to be socialists, but Vera by now understood that they did not understand socialism as she did, as a universal ideal of justice. This, she had come to realize, was an Armenian movement, and it was her Armenian heritage, not her ideas, that caused them to accept her. The men had obsessively planned the trek into the mountains, going over every possible scenario and danger. They had quarreled over each kurush of expenditure, since their means were limited by the money Father Zadian had collected.

“There’s Trabzon,” Yedo announced, pointing toward a cluster of red-roofed houses at the base of a steeply ascending forested slope patched with snow. Yedo, who had played the role of Apollo’s lieutenant, was from Trabzon, and his face seemed chiseled in replica of some ancient Roman hero.

Vera gazed over the approaching rooftops at the ever-expanding cliffs and thought about Gabriel alone in this wilderness. She wondered how he was doing, a kindly concern, without the commotion she had expected in her heart now that she was so close. Apollo planned to send a messenger to tell Gabriel that they were coming. She felt a shiver of apprehension. How would Gabriel receive her?

A crowd of curious townspeople waited onshore, watching the small steamboat dock. Apollo had taken down the Ottoman navy flag, and their fake uniforms were hidden inside one of the barrels. Yedo peered into the distance, looking for his cousins, who had been sent a telegram asking them to meet the ship. It was a busy port, so before long the attraction of a new, unidentified ship wore off, and the crowd dispersed.

Vera watched from deck as Yedo approached a group of youths squatting against a warehouse wall. They jumped up and surrounded him, gesturing eagerly. As Yedo spoke, the men cast occasional sharp glances at the ship. Several of them left and returned with mule-drawn carts. Finally, the hold was opened and the barrels rolled down the gangplank and loaded onto the carts. “Cod,” she read in English on the side of one barrel. The lids, she noticed, had been daubed with a crude symbol that might be a Henchak ax. That should be painted over, she thought, but probably no one here in the eastern mountains knew what it signified.

T
HE WEEKS BETWEEN
K
AMIL’S
release from prison and his upcoming voyage to the east passed over him like the eye of a storm. It was early February, and the snow in Istanbul had begun to melt, coursing down the hillsides in brooks and waterfalls, overwhelming drains, and flooding low-lying basements. The crimson smears of geraniums in window pots burned through the morning mist.

Elif had set up her easel in Kamil’s winter garden amid his orchids and was painting a fragrant, early-flowering
Pleione praecox
. The frilly pink-skirted flowers, she told Kamil, reminded her of ballet dancers. Since Huseyin’s return, Elif came nearly every morning to Kamil’s villa. Over breakfast, she shared news of Huseyin’s improvement, then took out her box of watercolors as Kamil left for the courthouse in Beyoglu.

To his surprise, Kamil found that he didn’t mind the loss of privacy in his winter garden, which he had thought of as his refuge. He had also overcome his anxiety that his orchids might be damaged. Elif always remembered to shut the door so that the temperature and humidity stayed constant. She drifted through his life light as a feather, and he found himself disappointed and out of sorts on the mornings when she did not appear.

He and Omar planned to embark on February 18, arriving in Trabzon just as the snow began to clear, but before the mountain roads were mired in mud caused by meltwater. Yakup was preparing their clothing and supplies, and Omar was seeing to the Ottoman navy steamer and the military guard the sultan had sent along with them. The police chief had insisted on accompanying them. He seemed convinced that Vahid’s plotting extended to the east and that he might discover something there to undermine the Akrep commander. Kamil tried not to think about the murder trial he would face upon his return.

It was a Friday morning, a day of rest when the devout went to worship. Kamil stayed home to catch up on his work, read, and tend his orchids.

Elif lounged on the sofa in the sitting room, chatting idly about the week’s events. She wore a cerise brocade vest over a white linen shirt and trousers. She had discarded her shoes at the door and, as usual, refused slippers, her toes burrowing into the thick pile of a tribal carpet. Kamil flung the French doors open to the garden, where as yet nothing grew, but the evergreen vines climbing the wall and the sparkling light of the strait beyond flooded the room with promise of spring. He came to sit beside her. Yakup had left a tray of coffee and savories on the table.

“Feride has changed,” Elif was saying. “She even stood up to Huseyin’s sisters the other day. When Feride told them that he was still missing, they descended on her like demons, demanding to know what was being done and blaming her for driving him away.” Elif grimaced. “One of them told me, ‘Your clothing is an abomination.’” Elif mimicked the woman’s high-pitched voice.

They laughed, Elif’s crystal voice joining Kamil’s baritone. A breeze wafted in from the garden, carrying the scent of loam. A white kitten leaned against the door, too cautious to enter.

Elif took a deep breath and laid her head against Kamil’s shoulder. “It’s almost spring.”

I
T HAPPENED
gradually late that morning, like a flower opening, not a momentous, drumroll moment but a gradual fruition of desires. They had run hand in hand up the stairs to his bedroom and behind the closed door had faced each other, grinning like embarrassed children. Kamil swept Elif into his arms and deposited her on the bed. He quickly stripped off his shirt and trousers, then sat beside her in his undershirt. She threw her arms around his neck and pulled him to her with surprising strength. He kissed her throat and cheeks and ran his tongue across the expanse of delicate skin where the top buttons of her shirt had come undone. He lapped at the hollow of her throat and traced her shoulders with his fingertips. She lay still as a doll as he unbuttoned the rest and peeled off her vest and then the shirt. She had bound her chest in a linen cloth and she sat up obediently while he unwound it. When at last her small, firm breasts filled his hands, he felt a beat take hold of his body, a metronome of blood that drove him forward. He pulled off her trousers and felt a jolt of tenderness at the sight of her slight body. It seemed to him as delicate as an ivory carving, fragile as the finest porcelain. He laid his hand on her belly and saw her flinch.

He noticed then that she lay on her back with her eyes closed, arms stiff by her side and legs pressed together. He sat back, allowing his hand to rest on her hip, and said, “You are magnificent, Elif.” He traced her forehead with the tip of his finger, then leaned over and kissed it. “I love you.”

She opened her eyes and tried to smile, but said nothing.

Kamil considered for a moment, then lay down beside her and drew the quilt over their naked bodies. In the darkness, Elif’s resistance melted and their hands flew feverishly over each other’s bodies. Kamil disappeared beneath the covers, kissing and licking until he found the soft fur of her sex. His tongue reached into the cleft and slowly her thighs parted and her breathing became ragged. Kamil repositioned himself and thrust into Elif, gently at first, then, submerged in the beat of his blood, hard against her raw cries that could have been pleasure or rage.

Kamil came, the stream of hot liquid cooling against his thighs. The quilt had fallen from the bed. He shifted his weight so he wouldn’t crush Elif, and that was when he saw the pink scar like a sunburst on the inside of her upper thigh. His eyes met hers. She had noticed his surprise. To his relief, she gave him a shy smile. Encouraged, he kissed her cheek, then moved his head to kiss the inside of her thigh. There was a matching scar on the other thigh. He kissed them both.

“A firebrand,” she said, her voice thick with emotion. “I wasn’t cooperative.”

An uncomfortable image came to Kamil’s mind of another man doing to Elif what he had just done, torches pressed to her thighs to open them. Overcome with rage, he kept his face averted from Elif because he was uncertain what was displayed there.

Elif turned away from him. He noticed that her shoulders were shaking.

“Elif?” He touched her shoulder, but she didn’t turn. “What’s the matter?”

She didn’t answer. Kamil didn’t understand what he had done to distress her. Not knowing what else to do, he stretched out behind her and folded his body to hers, his arm around her shoulder. They lay like that until Kamil fell asleep.

Dust motes sparkled in the fractured sunlight streaming through the lattice that covered the lower half of his bedroom windows. In the days of Kamil’s grandparents, the delicate wooden lattices had allowed the family’s women to look out without being seen. Now they filtered the light for a row of potted orchids on a table.

Kamil lay on his back, arms behind his head and watched, mesmerized. It was as if he had fallen through the sky and these dancing points of light constituted an entirely different universe. Even his skin felt different, straining with sensation as if its surface were inadequate to hold it all in. He could feel the delicate puffs of Elif’s breath against his side. Glancing down at the top of her head nestled beside him, he settled his arm in a slow embrace, trying not to wake her. Their act of love had not, after all, been what he had imagined. He had lain with women, a French actress, a concubine, but never before with a woman who he imagined might become his wife. He hadn’t proposed marriage again, not since she had rejected the idea the previous year. She had said then that she wasn’t ready. Now he could understand her reluctance and wondered what else she had endured. The barbarity of her scars had shocked him. He realized his imagination for evil was entirely insufficient.

He leaned over, cupping her head in his hand, and kissed her cheek. Still, the highly disturbing image of Elif killing those men in Üsküdar gave him pause. It didn’t fit at all with his image of the vulnerable woman he desired more than anything to protect. There was much he didn’t understand about Elif, who remained as opaque as obsidian, despite her reflected radiance. But it didn’t matter. She was part of his life.

G
ABRIEL LAID THEIR GIFTS
of three dressed fox pelts, a rifle, and a box of ammunition that he had brought from Trabzon on the carpet before the landowner’s feet. Levon, the richest and most powerful man in the area, sat cross-legged on a fine Persian carpet draped over a raised platform in the center of the room. His deeply seamed face was framed by a russet beard. He stared down at Gabriel and Victor.

They were in the receiving room of the landowner’s house, where men met to discuss the valley’s affairs. A dozen men from the area, wrapped in furs and leaning on cushions, arrayed themselves beside and behind Levon. Other men sat on a divan against the wall. Their expressions were not welcoming.

“We’re here to farm,” Gabriel was saying. “You’ll find us good neighbors if you’ll give us a chance to prove it.” He and Victor had come to ask for Levon’s patronage, which would protect the commune from the other villagers in the valley.

The men began to argue. Gabriel had spoken in Armenian, but the dialect of the mountains was so thick he had trouble understanding the discussion. He thought he heard one man insist that since many of the newcomers were Armenians, the local community was required by the rules of hospitality to help them through the winter.

When an elder began to speak, the others fell silent. “It doesn’t matter,” he said in a quavering voice. “We are in a vise with the Russians to our left and the Ottoman army to our right. By spring we could all be dead, trampled in the mud between giants. No tree will bear fruit once its roots are cut. It would make better sense to welcome the strangers than to drive them out or let them starve. Why waste our bullets on each other?” There was a murmur of agreement.

Women in brightly colored flowing dresses and white kerchiefs carried in platters of rice and grilled lamb. The men sat cross-legged in a circle around the food. The landlord asked Gabriel to sit to his right. Victor was given a place alongside the older man, who introduced himself as Levon’s father.

Pointing out a choice morsel of meat to Gabriel, Levon asked, “How many guns do you have?”

“Not enough,” Gabriel answered bitterly. He thought angrily about the thousand rifles in the custody of the Istanbul authorities, thanks to the perfidy of one of his supposed allies. He chewed the meat, tasting nothing.

They rode back to the monastery through deep snow, trailed by two struggling donkeys laden with Levon’s gifts—sacks of cracked wheat, dried chickpeas, apples, and an entire roasted lamb.

N
O NEW CASES
of illness had appeared among the comrades of New Concord commune. That night their bellies were full of Levon’s lamb and their spirits high. Someone had unearthed a fiddle and accompanied Alicia as she sang an Irish love song. She had an expressive voice that reminded Gabriel of his sister singing hymns beside him in church. After their parents died in a fire that destroyed their house, Gabriel had brought his thirteen-year-old sister to a hut in the forest that he had built as a secret refuge and furnished with scavenged objects. There he had tried to keep her from harm. It was the memory he most cherished. In the chill autumn nights they had huddled together. Every morning his sister had swept out the hut with a pine branch, sending out billows of fragrance. He had been a boy still, only fifteen, with a belief in miracles and magic circles that kept children safe. But then, while he was hauling barrels on the docks to earn a few kopeks, his sister had slipped into town to visit a friend. Some men had followed her back into the woods. Alicia’s love song burnished Gabriel’s memories so that, for a while, they outshone his shame at failing to protect first his sister and now his wife.

The comrades sat around the fire, huddled in their quilts and furs, eyes shining. There was the yeast of fellowship in the room tonight. If he could keep it alive, it would grow and nourish the commune. A young woman had baked a hazelnut cake with flour from the new supplies. She brought it out, a misshapen thing on a platter, but laced with honey and as sweet as the spirit in the room.

He allowed himself to think about Vera. She had longed to take part in his work, but he had kept her away—for her safety, he had told himself. He wondered at his motives now. Had he wanted to keep her innocent? Or had he simply not respected her because she came from a wealthy family?

As the fire died down and the hall was released to shadows, Gabriel saw Victor and Alicia disappear hand in hand into the darkness. A soft rustling like the brush of angels’ wings rose in the room as its occupants settled into their straw nests. Gabriel continued to sit by the fire until late into the night, looking for Vera’s eyes in the flames.

A loud pounding roused him, and he hastened out into a courtyard illuminated by starlight. Two comrades had also heard the noise and gathered by the gate. “Identify yourself,” Gabriel called out.

“I come from Trabzon,” the voice replied, “with a message from Apollo Grigorian.”