The Abyssinian Proof: A Kamil Pasha Novel (Kamil Pasha Novels) Read online

  When Mimoza went to the kitchen, Kamil offered Omar a cigarette and they smoked in companionable silence. Avi sat beside them, still intrigued by the feather, which Mimoza had told him he could keep.

  When she returned, Kamil stood up. “Thank you for your hospitality. Sadly I have to go.” He leaned over and looked steadily into Avi’s face. “Are you sure you want to do this? It’s perfectly alright if you don’t.”

  Avi scrambled to his feet. “Yes, bey. You can rely on me.”

  Kamil turned to Omar. “I’ll set it up.”

  “Agreed. You know where to find me.”

  Kamil nodded.

  “I’m glad to have met you, Kamil Pasha. And thank you for bringing us this young man.” Mimoza reached down and put her hand on Avi’s shoulder. “You’re welcome here any time, my son.”

  Avi beamed. “Thank you, teyze.” He buttoned his jacket carefully over the feather, then took it out again and handed it back to Mimoza. “Would you keep this for me, please?” he asked politely. “I don’t want it to get crushed.”

  Kamil and Avi filed through the gate into the dusty square. Mimoza looked after them, twirling the peacock feather in her fingers.

  KAMIL RAPPED ON the door. After a few moments, Amida opened it, unshaven and in a hastily donned robe.

  “What do you want?”

  “Peace be upon you.”

  “Upon you be peace,” Amida responded lazily.

  Avi stood in the shadow of the oleander, where he could see Amida but not be seen. He was wearing patched brown trousers too short for him and a ragged sweater and his feet were bare. He looked like any one of the hundreds of poor village boys sent to earn a kurush for their families on the city streets.

  “Forgive me for disturbing your sleep,” Kamil said. “I’ve come to speak to your mother and I thought you’d like to be present.”

  Amida stared at him for a moment, suddenly alert. “Give me a moment. I’ll be right over.”

  Kamil went next door to Balkis’s house. Avi again took up position, this time under a thick ilex by a window that looked into the receiving hall. From there, he could hear and see whoever was sitting on the divan.

  A servant led Kamil into the receiving hall. Balkis, dressed in a formal robe and caftan, came to meet him. He smelled almond oil on her hair, mingled with a faint sourness. She looked exhausted. They exchanged the standard words of greeting.

  “I wanted to speak with you and your son.”

  “Amida isn’t here. What is it about?”

  “Good day, mother.” Amida came in, sat on the divan, and looked at Kamil expectantly.

  “I wanted to let you know that we’re very close to finding the Proof of God.”

  “You mean that worthless reliquary?” Amida scoffed.

  “No. I mean the Proof of God.”

  “And what is that?” Amida asked, a sly grin on his face.

  “Stop this,” Balkis snapped. “You know what it is, and I wouldn’t be surprised if you know where it is.”

  Amida looked at her with alarm. “Mother, what are you saying? How would I know where it is? Malik had it.” He rose to his feet. “And if you’re implying I killed him…”

  She waved her hand at him. “Sit down. I don’t think you have it in you to kill anyone, let alone your uncle. But you said you wanted to sell it.”

  “Well, where is it?” Amida asked Kamil impatiently.

  “Malik left instructions about where he had hidden it.”

  “Is this true?” Balkis asked, surprised. “Why would he give that to you and not to me?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “I’d be happy to help you look,” Amida offered.

  “Thank you, but we don’t need your help. We might even have it by tomorrow.”

  “What do you plan to do with it?” Balkis asked. “Malik must have told you it’s central to our community.”

  “I’ll have to consult with my colleagues,” Kamil responded. “The final disposition will be a matter for the court. But Malik did tell me how important it is to you, so I wanted you to know.”

  These words, addressed to Balkis, found their mark. Out of the corner of his eye, Kamil saw Amida shift his position on the divan.

  “You can’t tell the court about it,” Balkis cried out in alarm. “No one must know about the Proof. It’s the core of our faith.”

  “I’ll do my best, but you must admit it would be safer in a museum.”

  “It belongs in the prayer house, in the Holy of Holies.”

  “We can discuss that later.” Kamil bowed formally and took his leave.

  Amida caught up with him at the door. “It’s in Malik’s house, I assume.”

  “I’m not at liberty to say.”

  Amida accompanied Kamil as far as the village square, looking frustrated. Kamil feigned interest in the architecture of the prayer house until he saw Amida climb the stairway to Charshamba and disappear from sight, then Kamil walked back down the lane to Balkis’s house.

  BALKIS 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, al
though 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.”

  KAMIL 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.”

  KAMIL 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.