The Winter Thief (9 page)

T
HE PITCHER WAS EMPTY
and the fire had gone out. Vera pounded on the door and called out, “I need water. I’m freezing.” The door was of heavy wood. She could feel loops and shapes beneath her fingers. There were ornamented doors like this in her family’s home in Moscow. Was this someone’s home? She tried to remember the room as it had been when it was light, but could recall only disjointed flashes. She didn’t remember seeing any windows, but she searched for one anyway, gliding her hands over the walls around the entire periphery of the room. Surely someone would come. She squatted in a corner and waited. She stroked the cloth of her dress and coat over and over, memorizing the different textures, the feel of stitching beneath her fingertips, trying to keep panic at bay.

After what seemed an eternity, she heard a faint sound like slippers scuffing and then the key turn in the lock. The door swung open. Vera closed her eyes against the sudden light.

When she opened them, she saw a plump, frightened-looking teenage girl in a marigold-colored robe, holding a lamp in one hand, a basket by her feet. She lugged the heavy basket into the room. Seeing Vera, she came over and knelt beside her, then reached out a small white hand and stroked Vera’s hair. Vera noticed that the backs of her hands were marked with cuts, one above the other like a ladder. A strong smell of perspiration hung about her, and an unpleasant musk rose from her clothing. The girl poured a glass of water and handed it to Vera, then watched as she put it to her lips and let the cool water course down her throat.

“Who are you?” Vera asked in broken Turkish. “Where am I?”

The girl looked around, as if afraid to be seen talking with Vera, with the prisoner, Vera thought. She wondered if this girl was also a prisoner. “What’s your name? My name is Vera Arti.” She couldn’t bring herself to lie to this brutalized girl.

The girl looked surprised. “Gabriel Arti?” she asked.

“My husband,” Vera said triumphantly. “Do you know him?”

The girl nodded. “I’m Sosi,” she said in Armenian. She looked at the door and frowned.

“Do you know where my husband is?”

“Not now,” Sosi whispered, glancing at Vera to see if she understood.

Vera nodded, disappointed. The girl drew a cotton shawl around her lower face and slipped out of the room. Vera heard the key turn. Sosi had taken the lamp with her, leaving Vera in darkness again.

Vera reached out and pulled the basket closer. She felt the contents and was delighted to recognize the textures of kindling, coal, and matches. She dragged it toward where she thought the stove would be. In the process, she stumbled and twisted her wrist. Ignoring the pain, she made up a fire and by the light of the flames examined the rest of the contents. There was a loaf of bread, slices of dried meat encased in red paste, soft goat’s cheese, a ceramic pot of olives, and another of yoghurt. She drank more water, then, afraid she would drink it all, put it carefully aside and tasted the food. It was all very salty but tasted better than anything she could remember eating in a long time, except Christmas dinner with Gabriel.

The thought of Gabriel made her want to weep. She didn’t know how, but she was certain she had endangered his mission. He would worry about her when he should be concentrating on his work. She was just a fool, she berated herself, the soft daughter of bourgeois parents, brought up in a cocoon with no skills to survive by herself. She should have married the man her parents had chosen for her, a kind young doctor, instead of insisting on going abroad. Why had she gone to Geneva? She admitted it to herself. Because she had been bored. The socialist cause had given her life an exhilarating edge, a meaning greater than the books she read for class and the fashionable shoes she bought with her parents’ money. The socialist community in Geneva was her family, but she didn’t deserve them now. Kneeling by the open stove door to warm herself, she crammed cheese and bitter olives into her mouth.

O
N HIS
way
TO
F
ERIDE’S
house, Kamil made a detour to his office in the courthouse on the Grande Rue de Pera.

The avenue crested a hill in the Beyoglu district, or Pera, as it was commonly known, and was bustling with shoppers and tradesmen making deliveries. The air rang with a hundred different tongues. The merchants were mostly Armenian and Greek-speaking Ottoman subjects, but many French and other foreigners lived in Pera as well. It had been the foreigners’ section even in Byzantine times, a thousand years ago, when the Genoese and Venetians set up trading posts here. The peaked tower of the Genoese fortifications still dominated the skyline of Galata, now a Jewish district that unfurled down the hill toward the confluence of the Bosphorus and the Sea of Marmara and the inlet of the Golden Horn that served as Istanbul’s harbor.

Elif lived in Pera, in a building owned by the wealthy Jewish Camondo family that had taken her under its protection. Kamil had visited her there only once, in the apartment overlooking the water that the Camondos had given her and that she had turned into a studio, the room flooded by light, the sea beyond, the paintings and the room merging. Even though the building was only steps from the courthouse, at her request he had never again visited her. Thoughts of her and an uneasy feeling of regret were never far from Kamil whenever he walked down the Grande Rue de Pera.

Kamil handed his horse to a stableboy and strode up the courthouse stairs. He hadn’t been to his office in two days and dreaded the pile of files and paperwork that would have accumulated on his desk. He had asked Nizam Pasha several times for more staff, but the minister had refused, arguing that Kamil had access to the police and the gendarmes for his investigations. They didn’t do paperwork, Kamil thought, his head throbbing.

The doorkeeper greeted him. “You have visitors, pasha.”

Kamil nodded absently. Most likely plaintiffs who should have been sent to the scribes to draw up an official petition, then to his assistant Abdullah for processing. Why did he have assistants if they didn’t assist him? It was as if the sourness of the Eyüp cemetery had stayed with him, settling in his head and bones.

He entered the gilded door to his outer office and stopped dead. Feride, Elif, and Doctor Moreno sat on the divan meant for clients of the court. Their heads turned to him in unison. Abdullah had brought them tea, which they held in their hands like tiny bouquets. Feride, putting her glass down so suddenly that it jumped on its saucer, rushed toward him.

“Why didn’t you tell me about the fire?” she cried.

Kamil ushered them into his private office, then closed the door. He bowed to Doctor Moreno and asked them to sit. Feride refused. “What are you not telling me?” she demanded, loosening the veil that covered her lower face.

“I told you I didn’t know anything, Ferosh.” Kamil tried to keep the frustration and worry from his voice, but Feride knew him too well. She looked him in the eyes, arms crossed, waiting.

“I’ve been to that taverna with Huseyin,” Doctor Moreno explained to Kamil, “so when I heard about the fire, it occurred to me that he might have been caught up in it, especially since he didn’t come home that night.”

“He should have told me he was going there, even if it was to meet his mistress,” Feride insisted.

“You don’t know that,” Elif scolded. “I’m sorry I said anything.” She had been wandering about the office, examining the books on Kamil’s shelves, all leather-bound law books, and the paintings on the wall, naturalistic oils and watercolors of flowers. She was dressed in a man’s suit, with a broad hat that she removed, letting her chin-length hair swing free. Kamil had never completely adjusted to Elif’s impersonation of a man in public, at once high-strung and aggressive. He wished that Elif as a man would be kinder to his sister.

Kamil reached into his pocket and handed the medal to Feride. She ran her fingers over the diamonds and enamel decoration. “It looks like his,” she announced dispassionately, although Kamil could see her hands shaking. “Where did you find it?”

Kamil explained where the medal had been found and the fact that many of the wounded were unrecognizable. “There are two patients at Eyüp Mosque hospital who could be Huseyin. I went to check after we spoke this morning, and I was on my way to tell you.”

She slipped the medal into her purse and took him aside. “I know you mean well, my brother,” she insisted in a low voice, “but I don’t need to be protected from news about my husband. I’ll be fine.” She attempted a shaky smile. “Huseyin always calls me his thorn.”

“And his rose,” Kamil reminded her, passing his finger across her cheek to wipe away a tear. “We still don’t know anything for certain,” he said, as much to remind himself as to comfort Feride.

“I’ll go to Eyüp,” Feride announced. “I know you’re busy, but maybe Doctor Moreno would accompany us?”

“I’d be honored.” Moreno met Kamil’s eye, and he nodded lightly.

“Thank you, Doctor, but I’d better take you there so I can tell you which patients I mean. They’re very short-staffed and I doubt anyone would be able to show you.”

Kamil crammed the stack of files on his desk into a leather satchel, put on his kalpak, and led the way out of the courthouse.

“Where are your servants?” he asked Feride, seeing only a single coach and their driver, Vali. Usually his sister traveled with an entourage of ladies-in-waiting and guards. Seeing her so unprotected made him suddenly anxious.

“I didn’t tell the staff. I wanted to get here as fast as possible to find you, to find out whether he’s alive. Oh, why didn’t you tell me?”

“I will always tell you everything,” Kamil assured her. He helped her into the coach. “Take some guards with you from now on, Ferosh. Promise me.”

“Yes, my dear brother.” Feride reached out and touched his cheek.

Kamil mounted his horse and led the way over the crest of the Pera hill, followed closely by Feride’s carriage. The streets had been cleared of the worst of the snow, but it took almost an hour to reach Eyüp through the afternoon traffic, snarled by an overturned coal wagon.

“The hospital is over there.” Kamil pointed.

In the entry hall, they stepped aside to let an orderly carrying a bundle of bedding pass. Kamil led them down the corridor to the director’s office.

The director jumped to his feet when the four visitors crowded into the room. Seeing Kamil, he snapped, “Back again? This isn’t a social event.” When he remarked the quality of his visitors’ clothing, his tone suddenly became ingratiating. “If you’re here to contribute to the hospital, of course, that’s different.”

“We’re here to see…“Kamil started to say, when Feride interrupted him.

“Are you the head doctor?”

“Yes, madame.” The director stood and made a formal bow. “Amadio Levy, surgeon and director of Eyüp hospital.”

“I am Feride Hanoum, and this is Doctor Moreno and my cousin Elias.” With the latter she indicated Elif, wrapped in her greatcoat, hat still on her head. She stood with arms crossed just outside the office door. “You’ve met my brother, Kamil Pasha.”

“Yes, madame.” A note of impatience crept into the director’s voice.

“What is it that you need?” Feride asked.

“Madame?”

“For the hospital.”

The director became animated. “Salaries, mainly salaries so we can hire more orderlies and nurses. We have no nurses. You have no idea, madame, how hard it is to handle so many patients with no staff. I myself am on bedpan patrol first thing in the morning. If we don’t get to them in time, they soil the linens and the bandages, which are also in short supply, especially after all the recent burn victims. Their bandages have to be changed constantly.”

“Please make me a list. I’ll take it with me on my way out,” Feride told him. “Now I’d like to see my husband, Huseyin Pasha.”

“Your husband, madame?” the director stuttered, looking at Kamil.

“The two men in Ward Three,” Kamil reminded him. “We saw them this morning.”

“Yes, of course.” The director brushed by Kamil and strode rapidly down the hall. They had to run to keep up with him.

Sunlight streamed through the deep, arched windows of Ward Three. Kamil’s handkerchiefs were still in place, but one of the two beds was empty.

Feride examined closely what was visible of the remaining patient’s hair and face and shook her head no. Kamil went from bed to bed looking at the other patients, but the one he had thought might be Huseyin was gone.

He turned on the director, fairly shouting, “Where is he?”

Feride looked stricken. “Is he dead?” she asked in a whisper.

Elif stood beside another bed, looking down at a woman whose face was so puffed and bruised that her eyes were no longer visible. Her nose had been broken and was in a splint, so she breathed loudly through her mouth. Kamil could see Elif’s shoulders trembling and went to stand by her side. The patient had been badly beaten, most likely by someone in her family. Kamil wondered what memories this raised in Elif. He wanted to put his arms around her, but it would have been scandalous, whether she was a man or a woman. He drew Elif away.

“She’s going to be all right,” he assured her.

“She’ll never be all right,” Elif responded. “Someone she loves did that to her.”

Kamil found himself reluctant to agree that something so heinous was a daily occurrence, even though he knew better.

“It’s ugly,” she said, half to herself. “Violence is always ugly. I don’t know why some people love it so much.”

The director, nonplussed, stared at the empty bed festooned with Kamil’s handkerchief. “There were no deaths recorded in Ward Three today,” he said in a dry, matter-of-fact voice. “And no transfers authorized. I’m responsible for this hospital, and I’ll find out what happened here. There’s only a limited set of possibilities.”

“Which are?” Kamil asked.

“One, the patient died and the orderlies called the imam to fetch the body for burial without notifying me. Two, the orderlies transferred the patient without permission. Neither of these things has ever occurred under my watch.”

“To your knowledge,” Kamil added.

The director looked at him. “To my knowledge.” Then he turned and walked out of the ward.

Kamil and Feride followed. When they reached his office, he was sitting behind his desk, squinting at a ledger. “I was correct,” he announced triumphantly. “No deaths, no transfers.”

“So where is he?” Kamil couldn’t keep the anger from his voice. He was losing patience.

For a moment, the hospital director fell silent. Then he said, “I’ll find out. Come back tomorrow.” He returned to his ledger.

Kamil walked up to the desk and slammed the ledger shut. “Start now.”

The director made a sour face.” My dear sir, I was looking to see which orderlies were on duty. If you permit.” He opened the ledger again, found the right page, and pulled his finger down a column of neat writing. Then he closed the ledger. “That orderly has already gone home.”

Feride sat in a chair by the door. “I’ll wait here until you bring him.” She looked up at Kamil, who stood in the middle of the room with his arms crossed. “Brother dear, you have other important matters to deal with. I’m in good hands.”

Doctor Moreno nodded at Kamil, his sidelocks bouncing beneath his hat. “I’ll make sure they get home safely.”

Kamil took Feride’s hand and held it briefly to his lips. “May Allah guide you.”

Feride smiled at the unaccustomed religious sentiment. “Go, you,” she told him, and turned back to the hospital director, who was now deep in conversation with Doctor Moreno.

Kamil placed his hand on Elif’s arm as he left and indicated that she should follow him. Kamil was worried about her. She looked as if she were in a trance, her eyes glazed with unshed tears, and despite her heavy coat, she was shivering. She seemed tensile as glass, as if she might shatter at any moment.

They walked wordlessly down the corridor until they came to an alcove where they wouldn’t be seen.

“What is it?” he asked her. “What can I do?”

Elif’s blue eyes sought his but then slipped away again, focusing on the wool of his cape. Without another word, Kamil put his arms around her shoulders, so frail beneath the bulky coat. He took off her hat and cupped his hand around the base of her head and held it tight against his chest until she stopped shaking.