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

  “You don’t understand, Huseyin. Most of the people don’t want to fight,” Elif insisted. “They’re ordinary people with families. All they want is peace.” She appealed to Kamil. “Our neighbors were Christians. Our children played together. When there’s someone to keep order, people do get along. You can’t just say, ‘We’ve had enough trouble,’ and walk away.”

  “We wouldn’t abandon Macedonia without making sure there’s a government in place, Elif Hanoum,” Kamil said soothingly.

  “Don’t be an ass, Kamil,” Huseyin interjected. “We’ve already gone. Look what happened to her.” He indicated Elif with his fork. “They shot her husband. There’s no law and order there. It’s a sham. So it’s better that we call it a sham and save ourselves the effort.”

  Elif grimaced and pressed the palms of her hands against the table.

  “What about the Muslim population?” Kamil countered. “We just abandon them to be slaughtered?”

  “Well, let them join the Ottoman army or get out. They’re all coming here anyway.”

  Elif sprang to her feet, swaying as if she might fall. Feride put her arm around her, but Elif pushed her away. She glared at them.

  “You know the roads aren’t passable.” Tears ran down her cheeks. “There are bandits everywhere.”

  Kamil remembered that her son had been killed on the road.

  “Elif Hanoum,” Kamil began.

  Feride reached out, but Elif shook her off again. “The empire has a duty to protect its citizens,” she said in a harsh voice.

  Huseyin looked amused and waved his fork at her. “Sit down, Elif. Allah protect us. We have to be realistic.”

  Before Kamil could object, Elif fled the room. Kamil noted with surprise that she was wearing men’s trousers and a loose white shirt under her brocaded vest. Feride followed her out.

  Kamil stood, unsure what to do. Huseyin seemed not to notice.

  “So, are you working on any interesting cases?” he asked, peering at Kamil over the rim of his raki glass.

  “Why did you taunt that poor woman, Huseyin? Hasn’t she been through enough?”

  Huseyin shrugged. “She’s got to get over it. It doesn’t do her any good, treating her like a victim. She arrived here half dead. I’m just helping to pull her back into life. Of course, it’s not going to be easy. You know, sometimes I think people prefer to sink in their well of misery. Everyone else runs around and does things for them. Nobody challenges them. They live in a fantasy world in which the only thing that counts is what happened to them. You see how she’s dressed. That’s how she arrived, dressed as a man. I suppose it helped her to get here, but it’s time she put on a skirt. I won’t let her out of the house in that getup. She’ll be arrested. Hell, we’d all be arrested. I don’t think her attitude is healthy and I won’t stand for it in my house. If she wants to be coddled, she can go elsewhere.”

  Kamil sat back down and lit a cigarette, offering one to Huseyin. Much as he hated to admit it, what Huseyin said made a certain sense. “Give her time, Huseyin. Go too fast and your cure might kill her.”

  Huseyin clicked his tongue. “She’s as tough as camel hide, Kamil.” He drew on his cigarette. “She’s a member of my family, and as you well know, we’re all tough bastards.” He grinned mischievously.

  Feride came into the room and heard the last sentence. “That’s certainly true,” she agreed, prompting a guffaw from Huseyin.

  Elif returned to the table. “I apologize,” she said softly to no one in particular.

  The servants replaced the untouched food with plates of warm rice, lamb, and eggplant puree.

  “Eat,” Huseyin ordered Elif.

  For a while, the only sound was the clink of cutlery.

  When he had eaten all he could, Kamil pushed his chair back. “You asked about my cases, Huseyin. I have a challenging one.” He told them about the antiquities thefts in the Old City and, to amuse Elif, he added the story of the policeman Ali’s discovery of a cistern beneath his house. She smiled when he described Ali fishing through his floorboards.

  “So all these Byzantine structures are still there. What happened to the people?” she asked.

  “They survived,” Huseyin explained dryly. “Mehmet the Conqueror allowed his soldiers three days of looting, and then there was peace. The Byzantines became Ottomans. End of story.”

  “That’s horrible,” Feride exclaimed. “Why punish a population that has already surrendered?”

  Huseyin shrugged. “That’s war. The Byzantines lost and that’s how armies paid their soldiers in those days. Anyway, it was only three days. After that, he built the empire we still have four hundred years later.” He swept his hand expansively around the room. “Civilization. You don’t know a thing about gardening, Feride, but let me tell you, the best roses bloom in shit.”

  Feride ignored him and asked Kamil about Balat and Fatih, where she had never been. Kamil tried to describe the districts, leaving out the filthy streets and gangs of thieves.

  “I would love to see those places,” Elif said, surprising everyone.

  “Not in that outfit,” Huseyin growled.

  “You could draw them,” Feride said with excitement. “I could come with you.” She turned to Kamil. “She’s a wonderful artist. You should see her drawings.”

  “I’m not having my wife and cousin drag themselves like whores around the worst areas in the city,” Huseyin interrupted. “But Elif,” he pointed at her with his elbow, “no one can tell her anything.” He grinned. “Isn’t that right, Elif? The apple doesn’t fall far from the tree. The rest of you might have come from monkeys, but our family is descended from a goat.” He laughed so hard, he nearly choked.

  Feride hurried over and patted him on the back. “Definitely a goat, my dear,” she agreed, trying to smile.

  “Where did you learn to draw?” Kamil asked Elif, sensing that this was a safe topic and one that might engage her.

  “Paris. My family sent me there as a child when the troubles started. I lived with my aunt and uncle. Have you been to Paris, Kamil Pasha?”

  “No, regrettably. I’ve been to London and Cambridge, but no further. I’d like to see more of Europe someday. Perhaps when you have the time you would consent to tell me more about Paris.”

  “I’d be delighted. In exchange, you will tell me about the Old City?”

  “Agreed.” Kamil could see Huseyin’s point about a stubborn streak. It had probably helped her survive.

  Feride followed the exchange with a satisfied smile on her lips. Huseyin also observed them closely over his spoon of pudding, but said nothing.

  “Show him your drawings, Elif,” Feride urged.

  “They’re nothing special,” she demurred.

  “Don’t be so modest. That’s not a family trait.” Huseyin turned to Kamil and said jovially, “If I say her drawings are good, I know you’ll believe me because I never say anything good about anyone.” He looked at Feride. “Isn’t that right, dear? Why don’t you go get them, Elif, and let Kamil have a look?”

  “I’m sure he’s not interested,” Elif responded shyly.

  “On the contrary, I’d be honored if you would share them with me.”

  Elif rose from the table, but then just stood there. She had begun to tremble again almost imperceptibly.

  Feride put a hand on her arm and said, “Sit, Elif, dear. I’ll go and get them.”

  Elif nodded and sat back down, her face the color of chalk.

  Huseyin caught Kamil’s eye and raised an eyebrow.

  After Feride left, Huseyin pushed himself to his feet and led the way into a sitting area just off the dining room. A fire crackled in the fireplace.

  “Join us, cousin,” he called to Elif. “It’s warmer in here.”

  As Elif came around the table, Kamil saw she was barefoot. Her clothing was a striking combination of East and West, with no ornamentation at all beyond the carnelian-colored vest. Still, dressing as a man was unacceptable and dangerous for
a woman. He understood his brother-in-law’s concern.

  Huseyin cut the end from a cigar. “Whatever the evidence to the contrary, Elif, you’re still young and accommodating. Just wait till you bloom and then see how many thorns you have. Right, Kamil?” He took a couple of shallow puffs. “My brother-in-law is an expert on flowers.”

  “Only orchids,” Kamil replied, smiling at Elif. “I like to read about them. I used to go on botanical expeditions. There are so many varieties of orchids in the empire, but you rarely hear about them. I have some rare specimens in my winter garden. Occasionally,” he added shyly, “I try to capture one on paper.”

  “What medium?” She took a seat by Kamil’s side, crossing her legs, her bare foot arched like a Roman bridge.

  Kamil could see her leg pulsing with each heartbeat.

  Huseyin was in the chair opposite him, cigar clamped between his lips, engrossed in a newspaper.

  “Pardon?” Kamil asked Elif.

  “Watercolor? Paint? Charcoal?”

  “Watercolor mostly. I like watercolor because the delicacy of tone and transparency of the color allows me to capture those qualities in the flower.”

  They talked in this way for a few minutes before Feride returned and laid a battered binder on the side table.

  They gathered around the table, watching as Elif paged through the drawings and watercolors one by one. “This is all I managed to save,” she explained.

  Rather than the usual facsimiles of life through detail, the landscapes pulsed with shape and motion brought alive by color. They reminded Kamil of the French Impressionists. He had seen several of Monsieur Monet’s feverish and intensely colored paintings in the London drawing room of a wealthy Ottoman collector. These were easily as good. There were also studies of a young boy’s head, some quick sketches, others more detailed, showing his delicate lashes and the seashell of his ear.

  “Who’s this?” Kamil asked.

  “My son,” she responded in a barely audible voice.

  As she turned a page, Kamil saw on the back a charcoal sketch of the boy with his eyes closed, mouth slightly ajar, a brown smudge at the corner of his lips that looked more like dried blood than paint. Elif quickly hid it under another drawing. Huseyin caught Kamil’s eye and nodded slightly. Kamil understood. It was the boy’s death mask.

  “These are brilliant,” he said honestly. “Are they in the Impressionist style?”

  “Yes,” Elif seemed pleased that Kamil recognized it.

  “They should be in a museum,” he insisted, sweeping his hand toward the drawings.

  “They’re good, but not good enough,” she said, her mood darkening again. “I wasn’t able to finish my training.”

  “Why not?”

  She said nothing for so long that Kamil thought she wouldn’t answer. “I married a fellow artist,” she said finally. “A painter. When I had a child, he insisted I stop working and return with him to Macedonia. But it’s not work,” she said, her anguish breaking through. “He of all people should have understood that.”

  Elif gathered up her drawings and put them back in the binder, carefully tying it shut with string. “I knew an American painter in Paris, Mary Cassatt. I studied at the Académie Julian, but it was Mary who helped me develop my own style.”

  “I saw one of her paintings in London,” Kamil said. Painting was a subject Elif felt comfortable talking about and he wanted to draw her out. “It was of a woman holding a baby. Remarkable. The brush-strokes were loose, as if it were a sketch, but somehow it looked more real than if she had painted in every detail.”

  “During my last summer there, Mary took me and my son to her summer house at Marly. It had a beautiful garden. Mary’s mother was there, and her nieces. We did nothing but paint all summer.”

  “We don’t have much of a tradition of painting or drawing of this kind,” Kamil said. “Except for Hamdi Bey. He paints in the European style.”

  A servant brought coffee and a platter of fruit, which no one touched. Elif picked up her coffee and took a sip. Her eyes seemed focused on something beyond the room.

  “Hamdi is a remarkable fellow,” Huseyin agreed. “He’s painting a portrait of himself with turtles.”

  “Oh really,” Feride scoffed.

  “It’s true. I saw the painting in his studio. It’s of a man with a pointy beard feeding his turtles. Looks just like him. He denies it, of course. Claims it isn’t finished. Maybe if I irritate him enough, he’ll put my face on it.”

  “On the turtle, you mean,” Feride sniped.

  Kamil was glad to see his sister showing some spirit. She hadn’t always been this assertive. Their father’s death had changed her, made her less willing to bend. There was a brittleness about her now, but also a new strength.

  “I don’t know where he finds the time. He’s head of the Imperial Museum now and he’s also heading up our first archaeological expedition.”

  “Soon we’ll be able to kick those thieves masquerading as archaeologists right back to Europe, eh, Kamil? Dig the stuff up ourselves,” Huseyin said, showing his fist. “I wish we could throw the Franks out of our treasury too. People think the Franks shit gold. What they don’t realize is, it’s our gold.”

  “Huseyin,” Feride scolded. “You’re a beast.”

  “Don’t I know it.” He winked at her.

  Kamil saw Feride suppress a smile and wondered at the complex and, to him, utterly mysterious bond between husband and wife.

  Elif had gathered up her binder and was hesitating by the door.

  Kamil got to his feet. “It was a great pleasure to meet you, Elif Hanoum,” he said with feeling.

  “Also my pleasure, Kamil Pasha.”

  Feride kissed him on both cheeks. “I’ll leave you to Huseyin now, brother dear, but do come again soon. Elif and I would love to see you. And,” she whispered, “don’t worry about the boy.”

  Elif overheard. “What boy?”

  Huseyin echoed her.

  “A young apprentice named Avi.” Kamil explained what had happened. “I had hoped he might stay here for a few days until he’s better.”

  “Of course,” Huseyin boomed amiably. “What have we got all this space for if it isn’t to take in strays.”

  “Can we see him?” Elif asked Feride.

  “Yes, let’s see how he’s getting on with Alev and Yasemin.”

  Huseyin rolled his eyes. “More of those family roses, Kamil.” He raised an index finger and braced it with the fingers of his other hand. “They’ve already got thorns as long as your finger.”

  When the women had gone, Kamil remarked, “So you know Hamdi Bey quite well.”

  “Yes. Why?”

  “I thought as director of the museum, he might know some of the antiquities dealers in Europe. I want to see what I can find out about the buyers.”

  “I suppose you want me to set up a meeting.”

  Kamil swallowed his distaste at asking his brother-in-law for a favor. “If you could.” He suspected Huseyin took pleasure in his discomfiture.

  Huseyin reached for an enormous red peach, peeled it, cut it up, and divided the quarters between their plates. “I’ll let you know tomorrow.”

  AS KAMIL RODE through Nishantashou on his way back to his office, he thought about Elif. What happened to people who had lost everything and had no family to take them in? The scent of roses and jasmine defied the rusts and reds of autumn creeping over the gardens beside the road, but Kamil’s eyes were on an inner scene of savagery, of neighbor slitting the throat of neighbor or turning away when a friend was threatened. He wondered what Elif had lived through and found himself wanting to cradle her small golden head. He worried that she would break in Huseyin’s well-meaning but compassionless hands.

  He passed the city’s water-pumping station and the artillery barracks looming over Taksim Square. Prayer services in the mosques were over and groups of men were walking back to work or meandering to coffeehouses or home. Behind the French Hospital, the str
eets of Tarla Bashou were crowded with shabby two-and three-story houses, now deep in shadow. The Grande Rue de Pera, in contrast, was a broad boulevard lined with shops, cafés, and brasseries. A woman sat huddled at the corner of an alley next to a French café, an infant in her arms.

  Kamil dismounted and put a gold lira in her lap, enough to rent a room.

  “May it bring you blessings,” he muttered, embarrassed.

  Surprised, the woman looked up for a moment, and Kamil saw that she was no more than twenty, her face ravaged by sorrow. She attempted a smile. Then, as tears flooded her eyes, she hid her face and, clutching the child, began to rock back and forth.

  Kamil crossed the street and asked the gatekeeper at the French Hospital what he knew about the refugees on the street.

  He shook his head in dismay. “There are more every day. They sit there and beg. Some of them just sit. They look like they’ve left this world already.”

  “What happens to them?”

  “The hospitals pick up the sick ones. Mostly the mosque hospitals, but this one too,” he motioned toward the entrance behind him. “The merchants of Pera don’t like people in rags lying in front of their shops. Bad for business. So the shop owners’ organizations and the foreign churches pay to have them picked up. I hear they take them to centers where they can get food and maybe learn some skills to support themselves. Especially the women. You know, sewing, needlework, women’s stuff. Maybe even find them husbands.” He smiled shyly. “If I had the guts, I’d take a look there myself. These were decent people.” He shook his head sadly.

  “Would you make sure she’s taken care of?” Kamil pointed to the woman by the café, still huddled over her infant, rocking quietly. He handed the man another gold lira.

  The gatekeeper craned his neck and looked across the street. His face registered surprise, then softened. After a moment, he nodded. “Of course, but I can’t take money for doing a kindness.” He gave Kamil the lira back.