The Winter Thief: A Kamil Pasha Novel (Kamil Pasha Novels)

by Jenny White

  He met Alicia and Victor stumbling through the woods.

  “He’s been shot,” Alicia gasped.

  As soon as they were back in the monastery, Victor shrugged off his coat and pulled back a blood-soaked sleeve. “Just grazed,” he announced, his relief audible, but his face gray with pain.

  Alicia cleaned the wound with an iodine solution.

  “What happened?” Gabriel asked.

  “I shot a deer,” she said, her hands busy with bandages. “We were walking over to it when a man stepped from behind a tree with a pistol and shot Victor. He looked familiar. I think he works for one of the local landowners.” She stroked Victor’s forehead.

  “Did he say anything?”

  “I didn’t understand him.”

  Victor sat up, wincing. “He said, ‘Get out. You bring bad luck.’”

  “In what language?” Gabriel asked.

  “Armenian.”

  “I didn’t know you spoke Armenian.”

  “My grandfather on my mother’s side was Armenian. He moved to California, looking for paradise. He didn’t find it and returned to New York, but I thought I should keep looking.” He reached up with his good arm and pressed Alicia’s hand against his lips.

  “Wonderful,” Gabriel declared. “Now the locals are after us too. Did you have any trouble with them before?” He wondered whether news of the bank robbery had reached this valley.

  “A few months after we arrived,” Alicia explained, “we were running short of money, so we stopped buying food from the Karakaya farmers. We had our gardens and a promising crop, and we hunted. The farmers left us alone. But recently we heard that the governor had paid a visit to the three biggest landowners, and after that it seemed like they turned on us. We had five goats, but one morning they were gone. When we hunted, sometimes there’d be the sound of a drum that would scare the game away. But nothing like this. They never shot at us before.”

  “Maybe we should think about leaving,” Victor ventured. “There aren’t all that many of us left.”

  “That would mean our comrades died for nothing,” Gabriel answered crossly.

  “The living are our responsibility too.”

  “Well, I’m staying,” Gabriel insisted. There was nothing left for him in Europe, and he could never return to Russia or to Istanbul. There was only this valley. He saw Victor meet Alicia’s eyes before he turned to stir life into the fire.

  62

  FATHER ZADIAN REMAINED CLOSETED with Apollo in the sitting room with the door shut for the entire morning on the day after he arrived. Vera had long since figured out that Father Zadian must have been the leader of Gabriel’s cell. Gabriel had once complained to her that the men in his cell wouldn’t take orders directly from him. Now she understood why. Father Zadian’s rectory was visited, day and night, by all kinds of men, some who looked like wealthy merchants, some tradesmen, others dressed in rags. They spoke rapidly in Armenian, but sometimes in French. When their voices were raised, she could hear and sometimes understand.

  There had been a fight over tactics, with some of the visitors objecting to provoking the government.

  “Do you know how many lives will be lost if the sultan decides to strike back at our community?” Vera heard one man shout, but she didn’t hear Father Zadian’s response. It hadn’t satisfied his visitor, who slammed the door on his way out.

  Now Father Zadian was sequestered with Apollo and she could hear nothing, although she hovered by the door until Marta took her firmly by the shoulder and led her into the kitchen.

  When Apollo emerged, he looked tired and unsettled. He went outside without remembering to put on a coat and paced about the rectory garden. After a while, he came in and sat before the kitchen stove, shivering. Marta left, closing the door behind her, leaving him alone with Vera.

  “How much do you know, Vreni?” Apollo asked her. He pulled a small leather pouch from his jacket, took a pinch of tobacco from it, and tamped it into his pipe.

  She told him what Marta had said about Gabriel’s bank robbery and the explosion.

  “I don’t think Gabriel knows that there might be an attack on the commune,” Apollo said, “but he should be safe for the moment. Father Zadian heard that the vizier wanted to go ahead with an attack, but the sultan decided to wait. He’s sending an envoy east to see for himself whether the commune is a threat.”

  “That’s good news, isn’t it?”

  “Not if he decides it is one. Or if the vizier convinces the sultan to go ahead with the attack before the envoy returns.”

  “Why would he do that?”

  “Another provocation like that bank explosion might make them think attacking the commune is necessary to protect the empire. We have to warn Gabriel, but it’s not just about the commune anymore. Father Zadian thinks that if the sultan believes the Armenians are revolting, then the entire valley might be attacked. It wasn’t what he had planned.” Apollo gave a deep sigh. “I don’t know, Vreni. People do the most awful things.”

  When Vera heard “we,” her hopes soared. She was vaguely aware that the thought of seeing Gabriel gave her less pleasure than the prospect of traveling with Apollo. Gabriel might be furious if she followed him and became a liability again.

  “We have to bring him the guns.” Apollo opened the stove door and held a piece of kindling into the fire. It burst into flame, and he held it to his pipe bowl as he inhaled.

  “Marta mentioned a shipment of guns, but it was confiscated.” She breathed deeply of the fragrance of Apollo’s pipe. It conjured memories of evenings in Apollo’s apartment in Geneva with Gabriel and others in heated discussion that would go on deep into the night.

  “For heaven’s sake, didn’t Gabriel tell you anything? That’s why he was here—to get the guns and bring them to the commune.”

  “He didn’t tell me what he was doing here.” She bowed her head, feeling as though this statement had revealed her inadequacy, but also her resentment toward Gabriel.

  Apollo stared at her. “That idiot,” he said, shaking his head in disbelief. “That stupid, misguided idiot. How were you supposed to protect yourself if you didn’t know against what? And now you’re sitting here, doing what? Waiting for him?”

  Vera crossed her arms. “No. I don’t know.” She felt put on the defensive. “Maybe I should just go back to Moscow.”

  Apollo reached out and took her hand. “What do you want, Vreni?”

  No one had asked her that before. “I want to be part of something bigger than myself.” She plucked at her skirt and said with a bitterness that surprised her, “Bigger than having a new wool dress.” She examined Apollo’s face to see whether he understood.

  He looked at her solemnly and pulled on his pipe.

  Encouraged, she continued. “I want to be part of some simple, worthy thing, like you and Gabriel. That’s all I want.” She faltered. “But I don’t think I can do it. Everything I’ve touched has fallen apart.” She started to cry. “I tried so hard, but I couldn’t do it.”

  Apollo got up and embraced her. “Hush, Vreni. Sometimes bad things happen. We don’t have control over everything. But if we give up, that means we’ve lost and they’ve won. I’ve never seen you as a delicate flower.”

  She laughed a little and wiped at her tears. “No,” she agreed. “I’m not so delicate.”

  “Then let’s plan our trip. You’re coming along, aren’t you?”

  Vera nodded.

  “Good. Now we have to figure out how to steal those weapons back. Someone called Yorg Pasha bribed the officials. The guns have been off-loaded and are in one of his warehouses. Ready for an adventure?”

  63

  THE CART ARRIVED, PILED HIGH with supplies for the renovation of Huseyin Pasha’s mansion. The workmen hauled in ladders, several large crates of building materials, and containers of plaster and powders from which the paints would be mixed. One of these crates was carried directly into a windowless back room. It was furnished with a bed, comfortab
le chairs, a couch, and a large table. Still-life paintings adorned the walls. A pleasant fire crackled in the grate as the men gently deposited the box on the table.

  They cut through the ropes and pulled off the perforated lid. Feride looked down into her husband’s eyes, which winked at her before roaming the room. He was swathed in bandages, now none too clean. She reached down to clasp his hand, but realized that she had no idea where he had been burned. Instead she pressed her fingertip to her lips, then to his. She leaned over to say something, but the words stuck in her throat. Against her will, she visualized the man before her touching another woman. Unable to speak the terms of endearment that filled her mouth, she stepped away from the table and called, “Doctor?”

  Doctor Moreno limped over using a cane, his leg not yet completely healed.

  “He’s here.” Her voice was tipsy with joy. How odd, Feride noted, that her love for her husband could flow through a side channel but not fill its proper bed. Is this how marriages die? she wondered. Dams shunt the natural flow of feelings into ever-smaller conduits until one day the river dries up completely. She remembered how before his death her father had become more and more indifferent to his granddaughters, to all his loved ones, as if life already had evaporated, replaced by the opium that gave him the dream of being alive but excluded everyone else.

  One of the workmen set Doctor Moreno’s case on the table. Then he and the others, who, like all the supposed workmen, were Yorg Pasha’s guards, set to work dismantling the box in which Huseyin rested. Only a handful of servants would share the knowledge that their master had returned and was recuperating in this out-of-the-way room. The rest had been told that Huseyin Pasha was still missing.

  A steaming cauldron of water, bowls, and sponges were brought in. The workmen left, and Feride and Doctor Moreno began to peel off the bandages and clean Huseyin’s wounds.

  Feride sponged gently at her husband’s ruined body, careful not to disturb the scabs. The touch of his skin and the compassion she felt at his helplessness summoned a sadness so desolate that she put the sponge down and went to straighten the coverlet on the bed.

  Doctor Moreno watched her but said nothing.

  After a while, Feride returned to her task. She was dabbing Huseyin’s shoulder with a sponge and trying to avoid looking at his face when she noticed tears running down it. He was looking at her intently, the question clear in his eyes. Dropping the sponge, Feride ran from the room.

  64

  OMAR’S ADOPTED SON, AVI, followed him down the narrow streets, stepping carefully so as not to jostle the basket he carried on his back. Avi had insisted on carrying it, even though Omar and his wife, Mimoza, had been reluctant to burden the boy. They had given in when Avi knelt in front of the basket, slipped his arms backward through the straps, and swung it up onto his back like a seasoned professional. Omar and Mimoza had exchanged a glance. They had forgotten that before he joined their family the previous year, Avi had made a living on the street. He was a bit taller now and well fed, although still skinny. He carried the basket as if it were filled with air instead of tins of food, Mimoza’s spinach börek, and two sealed clay jugs of water.

  Omar stopped in front of Bekiraga Prison, careful not to step in the foul puddles on the pavement, lifted the iron knocker, and let it fall. A grill opened and a guard peered out. Omar identified himself and the gate swung open.

  The warden came running down the path toward them, arms outstretched. “Omar, my dear friend.”

  “Abdulkadir, you pimp, you get younger every year. Tell me your secret.”

  The warden chuckled. “Come to my office.”

  When they reached the whitewashed one-room house set inside a miniature garden, Omar told Avi to set the basket down near the door. “This is Avi,” he told the warden, “my son.”

  “Ah, ah,” the warden cooed, “Allah be praised.” He coughed violently and spit into the dusty geraniums at the side of the house.

  Omar rummaged inside the basket and pulled out a clay container sealed with wax. “My wife made up an ointment for your cough. She knows about herbal remedies. Let me see, what were her instructions?” He passed a beefy hand over his mustache. “I don’t remember.”

  “I remember,” Avi said in a shy voice.

  Omar and the warden grinned at each other, then at the boy. “Out with it then,” Omar said, not disguising his pride.

  “You rub it on your chest at night before you go to sleep and put a warm, wet towel on it. She also said to smear some below your nostrils.”

  Omar gave the clay pot to the warden, who peeled off the wax, sniffed it, and recoiled. “Allah protect us, if I smeared this on a prisoner, he’d confess immediately.” They laughed.

  “She also sent this.” Omar gave him a paper-wrapped packet of fragrant börek, still warm from the oven.

  “Bless her hands. You’re the luckiest man in the world, brother. It’s a wonder you’re not fatter than you are.”

  Omar patted his not insubstantial paunch. “Shall we try them?”

  The warden looked horrified. “You mean you want to eat some of my precious börek?” he cried out. “You’d tear the last scraps of food from the hands of a man dying of hunger?”

  Avi looked confused and stepped behind the basket.

  “I’ll make you a deal,” Omar said. They played this game every time he came. “If you let me see the prisoner, I’ll let you have all the börek.” He winked at Avi.

  “You drive a hard bargain, but since you’re an old friend, why not?” He called one of the guards over. “You’ll see, I’ve moved him to one of our best cells, as you requested. That was a terrible trick to play on a man of such quality, ordering him to be put next to the cesspool. I didn’t think that was right. I hope you give me credit me for that. If I had known he was a friend of yours, I would have put him in a different wing right off.”

  Omar said nothing. He was furious at the way Kamil had been treated. A small satchel of coins inside the packet of börek ensured that Kamil was comfortable. Omar knew that was the way the jail worked, but he found it hard to keep up the light banter when he wanted to stuff the avaricious warden’s mouth with coins until he choked or released Kamil from this hellhole. He knew that Yorg Pasha was working assiduously behind the scenes to get Kamil out.

  Omar followed the guard down the path, Avi trotting behind them with the basket.

  “Come back afterward and we’ll have tea,” the warden called out.

  Kamil’s manservant, Yakup, had paid a large bribe to move him to a well-ventilated cell in a different wing and over the past two days had brought him supplies and meals, but without Omar’s intervention with the warden, he wasn’t sure what kind of treatment Kamil would receive in the prison. The warden might have been emboldened by the vizier’s signature on the warrant to play cat to Kamil’s mouse, despite Yakup’s bribe, but Omar had a well-earned reputation for retribution if he was crossed. Omar was certain that the corrupt, luxury-loving warden would never wager his hide.

  The guard turned the key and the door creaked open. Kamil looked up from the book he was reading by the faint light from a high window. The air was damp and smelled of mold, but the cell was in the part of the prison farthest from the cesspool. Kamil sat in a cushioned chair, a thick-piled carpet beneath his feet. A mangal brazier heated the cell but did nothing against the cold draft from the window, which had no glass. Kamil was wrapped in a fur cape, a rug draped across his lap, and wore his kalpak. Yakup had shaved him that morning, so the only difference in Kamil’s appearance was the hard edge about his jaw and the black circles under his eyes.

  “What news, Omar?” Kamil gestured to a pile of quilts stacked on the floor that he unrolled at night to use as a bed, the only other place to sit in the small room, no more than five paces across.

  Avi set the basket down and squatted beside the door, shivering now that he was no longer exerting himself. Kamil took the soft rug from his lap and handed it to Omar, with a glance at Avi.
Omar wrapped the boy in it. Then he took the containers out of the basket and stacked them on a low shelf next to some other covered pots. “I know you have food,” Omar explained, “but the wife insisted.” Placing his bulk between Kamil and the shelf, he lifted one of the lids of the containers Yakup had brought. Just as he feared, the food had been barely touched.

  Omar sat down on the pile of quilts, sagging uncomfortably into the soft bundle. “I’d ask what you’re reading, but it would be way above my head, so don’t tell me.”

  Kamil’s smile was forced. “Any news?”

  “Your brother-in-law’s back home. The house is full of Yorg Pasha’s men, so I suppose it’ll be fine.” He looked unconvinced.

  Kamil flung the book to the floor. “In Allah’s name, what is this pestilence, and why has it infected my life, my work, and my family?”

  “What can you do? You spit downward, it lands in your beard; you spit upward, it hits your mustache.”

  “That’s very fatalistic of you, Omar,” Kamil commented, unamused. “Surely you have a better idea.”

  Omar showed a sharklike expanse of tobacco-stained teeth. “I swear to you Vahid will regret he was ever born.”

  WHEN OMAR had gone, Kamil picked up his book, volume two of H. G. Reichenbach’s Xenia Orchidacea: Beiträge zur Kenntniss der Orchideen. Kamil’s German was rudimentary, but each orchid also was introduced by a description in Latin, the common language by which science ordered the chaotic munificence of life. The effort to understand the text made the time pass and gave Kamil the feeling that although his body was imprisoned, his mind was not. “Sepala oblonga akuta,” he read, “intus pallide orchracea, extus flavida maculis quibusdam…” He shut the book and dropped it to the floor.

  There was no point to trying to forget that he was in prison. For the worst crimes, someone of his status would be executed or exiled, but never locked up in a stinking hole like this. It had certainly opened Kamil’s mind to what it meant when criminals were sentenced to prison. Perhaps the judge should allow them the choice of execution, he thought sardonically. The vizier was shaming him by punishing him with the lowest criminals. Kamil understood his motive, but he also sensed Vahid’s hand behind this penance.