Between the treetops at his feet, he could make out a large house in the village and, behind it, a yard where peacocks strolled. A woman in green looked up at him.
Kamil asked a villager for the headman and was led to the large house, where a servant brought him into a high-ceilinged reception room. The furniture was ornate and gilded, the rugs of expensive silk. Servants waited attentively at the other end of the long room. A woman in a green caftan received him, her long, hennaed hair and powdered face uncovered, although beneath the powder, he thought she looked ill.
When Kamil bent to take off his boots before stepping into the carpeted room, she said in a surprisingly commanding voice, “That’s not necessary.”
“I am Kamil, magistrate of Lower Beyoglu.”
She surprised him again by saying, “I thought so. I am Balkis.” She led him to a long U-shaped divan and bade him take a seat opposite her. “Will you drink some tea?”
“No, thank you.”
Kamil noticed a large gold starburst on a stand above the woman’s head.
“It’s a monstrance,” she explained. “The Christians put a wafer in the center that represents the body of their God.”
Kamil nodded. Endless superstitions.
She picked up a long chubuk pipe and pulled on it, releasing the smoke through her mouth and nose. On her right forefinger was a gold ring carved with a crescent and disk that appeared identical to Malik’s.
“You are welcome here.”
“Thank you. I am pleased to be here. I’m honored to consider myself a friend of your brother, Malik.”
She bowed her head in acknowledgment. “Then consider this your home. Malik has spoken often of you, Kamil Pasha. What is it you seek?”
“Do you know Remzi of Fatih?” he asked her.
“No one by that name lives here. Who is he?” Her voice was seductive and threatening at the same time, like a cat growling low in its throat. He couldn’t read her, but she did look sincerely puzzled.
“We’re looking for a policeman who was lost inside a tunnel under the Tobacco Works. We’re told the tunnel leads here. Do you know of it?”
Balkis stared at him, her expression inscrutable. “Maybe my son knows something about this.” Kamil read a faint note of disapproval in her voice. She signaled to one of the servants. “Get Amida.”
A door opened and Saba came into the room, lithe and elegant as a cypress tree. She looked directly at Kamil and greeted him.
Kamil was momentarily speechless. Her face was uncovered and she didn’t wear the usual outer tunic that would have camouflaged her shape. Kamil felt as if he had come upon her undressed for sleep. She wore a red robe, stitched with tiny white carnations, over a soft cotton chemise. A silk girdle emphasized the tiny circumference of her waist and a vest gathered her breasts, swelling them beneath the flimsy material of the chemise. Her chiseled features were framed by black curls escaping from her gauze veil.
Kamil knew he should look away, but he couldn’t. “Saba Hanoum? I’m honored.” She was spirited and aloof, he thought. Someone who would never be tamed-or satisfied with the life of a humble village woman.
Balkis noticed his appraisal of her daughter and frowned.
Embarrassed, Kamil turned his eyes away. “I had the honor of meeting your daughter with Malik at the Kariye Mosque,” he explained quickly.
Saba had pulled her veil across the bottom of her face.
“Saba,” Balkis began in a stern voice, but was interrupted by the arrival of a short, powerfully built man of about twenty. Kamil noticed that he didn’t remove his boots either, as if he were an honored guest, and had tracked dirt onto the carpet.
He looked Kamil over before extending his hand, European style. “Amida,” he announced. He held his left arm stiffly, as if it were injured.
Kamil shook his hand.
“My son,” Balkis added.
The woman and her son looked too much alike to be anything else. Saba was different. She must have taken after their father.
“My mother tells me you’re looking for someone,” Amida said in a voice inflected by the enthusiasm of youth.
“A man called Remzi of Fatih.” Kamil described him.
Amida shook his head, “I don’t know of anyone by that name.” His eyes gleamed with what Kamil thought might be amusement. He was sure Amida was lying.
Balkis looked away, her lips tightly pursed.
A son going his own way, perhaps a son beyond her control. Kamil remembered what Omar had told him about the generations of smugglers who had developed their own rules and traditions, like any other trade. Had Amida been apprenticed to the smuggling trade? He sensed an iron will in Balkis. He could see how a power struggle might develop between the two.
“That’s too bad,” Kamil said to Amida. “He told me some things about Sunken Village that I’d like to know more about.”
“Like what?”
“That there’s a tunnel leading between the Tobacco Works and Sunken Village. I need to know where it is.” Kamil kept his eyes on Amida’s face. He noticed Balkis watching her son carefully too, as if she didn’t trust him.
“Who is this Remzi anyway?” Amida clearly asked dismissively. “Why would he know anything about the village?”
“He’s under arrest.”
Amida blinked. His mouth opened, then closed, the words unsaid.
Kamil got to his feet. “Would you see me out, Amida? I have a few more things to ask you.” Amida clearly knew Remzi, and whoever knew Remzi would probably know where to find Ali.
Balkis gave her son a hard, thoughtful look.
Saba came to Kamil and offered him her hand. He hesitated, wondering if it was proper, but then took it in his. Her hand was cool and firm, like polished marble, but her eyes seemed troubled. He noticed the green was flecked with gold. Something passed between them that Kamil tried, unsuccessfully he feared, to keep from communicating to her. The imprint of her hand in his was a moment too long, the pressure of his hand on hers a degree too hard. For a brief moment, he was unable to move his eyes from hers. She’s concerned for her brother, that’s all, he told himself.
“Kamil Pasha,” she said. “I hope you’ll keep my brother’s youth and inexperience in mind.”
Her words surprised Kamil, since she appeared to be younger than her brother. He saw Amida’s face twist with anger.
“I hope we can meet again.”
Before he had a chance to compose himself enough to reply, Saba disappeared through a door at the side of the room.
Balkis’s frown, meanwhile, had deepened. A woman who has seen much unpleasantness, Kamil guessed, and has learned to brace herself for more. She seemed relieved when Saba left, and turned her attention back to Kamil.
Kamil thanked her and started to leave, but Balkis detained him. She asked him questions about his family, who they were, where they lived. Kamil tried to answer politely, but without revealing too much detail. Amida looked embarrassed.
Finally, her son said with mock sternness, as if he were the parent and she the child, “That’s enough, mother. We mustn’t be rude to our guests.”
Balkis flushed bright red and leapt to her feet. “How dare you speak to me like that. Get out.” She turned her back, and didn’t respond to Kamil’s polite farewell as Amida led him out the door.
As they walked across the courtyard, Kamil turned Saba’s unexpected words over in his mind-that he should keep her brother’s youth and inexperience in mind. He thought it might have been a warning.
“Do you live in the house?” Kamil asked Amida.
“No. I live over there.” Amida pointed to a cottage built against the cistern wall. Kamil walked up the dirt path, Amida anxiously trailing behind him.
As soon as Kamil entered the cottage, he recognized the rug on the floor from the sketch in the police report. It was unmistakably the carpet in which the thief had wrapped the reliquary. Had Amida stolen the reliquary from his own uncle? If so, was he connected to the mysterious dealer, Kubalou?