“The murderer used a candlestick from the mosque.”
“Bastard. Who would do this to a harmless old man? Why?”
“We’ll do our best to find out. He was my friend too.” As Kamil said it, the truth of it came to rest painfully in his chest.
Courtidis walked to the corner, retrieved the sheet, and flung it in the air so it came to rest slowly over Malik’s broken body like a wing. “When you find the devil, “he said viciously, “saw off his tail with a blunt sword. And, beg your pardon, I don’t mean the hind one.”
Kamil emerged from the hamam and was surprised to find it was still day, that the sun was shining and that people were going about their business as normal. It seemed incomprehensible. His head throbbed. Propping himself against a ruined wall, he reached into his pocket for his beads, but instead his hand encountered the pocket watch. It was twelve o’clock.
Time. Things in their place. He sighed and fished out a clean handkerchief to wipe his face and hands. He had washed them in the hamam, but in the daylight he saw there were still flecks of Malik’s blood beneath his nails. Courtidis joined him, rummaged in his bag, and took out two cigarettes. He offered one to Kamil, then lit them both with the same match.
Kamil inhaled deeply. The acrid smoke scorched the back of his throat. Perhaps patients in this part of town didn’t pay well.
“You look pale, Magistrate, if you want my professional opinion.”
“It’s nothing.”
“Headache?”
“How did you know?”
Courtidis flashed his equine smile. “Two things cannot be hidden-love and a headache. The area around your eyes is tense and you look like you’re balancing a water jug on your head.”
Kamil managed a weak smile, then took refuge in his cigarette. The tobacco was much stronger than the Egyptian cigarettes he usually smoked.
Courtidis rummaged in his bag again. He clicked open a tin case and plucked out a small brown ball. He extended it to Kamil. “Chew that.”
“What is it?” Kamil sniffed it. It was sticky and had a sharp, unpleasant smell.
“Trust me. It’ll cure your headache.”
“No, thanks.”
“Works every time. Myrrh, cedar agaric, aloe, a pinch of charred tobacco, marjoram, and a few other things. Can’t tell you everything. Proprietary information, like Gudit’s ink. I call it Balat Balm. It’s very popular, if you’ll excuse me beating my own drum.”
Kamil thought about it, remembering Omar’s suspicion that Courtidis was a drug dealer, then popped the ball in his mouth and chewed. What was the difference between medicine and drugs when one was ill?
“It tastes like vinegar.”
“The ingredients are dissolved in vinegar, then mixed with honey so they stick together. Go home and get some sleep. I guarantee you’ll feel better tomorrow. If you still have problems, I live by the Crooked Gate. Ask anyone. You’re welcome to visit. Even if you’re not ill.”
As though embarrassed, he added, “You know, Malik made it possible for me to study and become a surgeon. It pains me not to be able to help him.” He examined his cigarette. “I promised myself a long time ago that I would always be there for his family. He has a niece, Saba.” He crushed the cigarette in his fingers and flung it to the ground. “This will break her.”
He shook Kamil’s hand awkwardly, showed his teeth in a halfhearted smile, and disappeared around the corner.
Kamil leaned against the wall, thinking about Courtidis and Malik. It fit with what he knew of the old scholar that he would see the most potential in those who had fallen the farthest. Courtidis, Omar had said, was infatuated with Saba. Kamil could understand that; she was beautiful. But the young man’s bond to Saba and her family was much deeper than that. Kamil found he was relieved that Saba had such a devoted protector.
He walked through the ruins toward the Kariye Mosque, where he found the square now oddly deserted. The mosque door was open and he went inside. Someone had cleaned up the blood and the hall smelled of vinegar. He followed the light into the main room, lit by three high windows and carpeted for prayer. Kamil squatted in a corner and looked up at the marble revetments. At the back of the room, the marble was the gray and white of mist and bones. The patterns looked like women, he thought, one bowing, the other lifting her dress. One woman emerging from another, white, the red of clotted blood, white. A woman giving birth, the pubic bone rising sharply to either side of the head of a child emerging from the womb. What was it Malik had said? Mother of God, Container of the Uncontainable. Muslims did not believe that Jesus was God, of course, simply a prophet like others before him. Disturbed by the images in the veins of marble, Kamil fled through the corridor and out into the square. His headache was gone, but he was seeing visions.
16
He looks like his father, Balkis thought. The same eyes that seemed to see into everything, the chiseled features. Her daughter sat huddled beside her. They were both dressed in white, the color of mourning. Word of Malik’s death had arrived within minutes of the imam finding his body.
“I see that you already know, but I wanted to tell you in person. Your brother Malik has passed away.” Kamil handed Balkis Malik’s ring. “I’m very sorry. Bashiniz sagholsun.”
Balkis took the ring and held it against her breast. My heart, she thought, my heart has ceased to beat. She had railed so long against her brother’s irresponsibility that she had forgotten his gentle humor, his boyish enthusiasms. All this came rushing into her mind as she clutched his ring: the fat-cheeked boy who had brought her fistfuls of poppies from the ruins; the young man who had found her pregnant, distraught, and almost destitute in Beyoglu and brought her back to Sunken Village; the man who had stood up to Gudit after her circumcision. The only man who had always stood by her.
Balkis cried out and doubled over in pain. Saba threw her arms around her, weeping. Balkis reached out and stroked her daughter’s head, then pushed her gently away. She turned Malik’s ring in her hands, trying to focus her mind through the pain.
“Who killed him?” she asked Kamil, who stood by the door, eyes on the floor as if ashamed to have brought such news.
“We don’t know. He was found in the mosque, stabbed. It must have happened late last night. When did you last see him?”
“At the ceremony on Friday.” Kubalou’s man had come that night, but that had nothing to do with Malik.
“Why would anyone kill Uncle Malik?” Saba wailed. “All he did was help people.” She rocked back and forth on the divan, keening softly, her veil pulled across her face.
Balkis put an arm around her.
“I’m very sorry,” Kamil said. “We’ll do our best to find whoever did this. If I may, I’d like to ask you some questions.”
Saba looked up and dried her eyes on her veil. “I’m sorry, Kamil Pasha,” she said in a shaky voice. “Look at us. We should be helping you instead of falling apart.”
Balkis looked at her daughter gratefully, surprised at how quickly the girl had pulled herself together. Her own tongue had grown numb. It was as if nothing she said could ever again be of any importance, so her mouth refused to form any words. She couldn’t even find the energy to despise her brother’s killer.
“What do you want to know?” Saba asked. “I didn’t see Uncle Malik after Friday either.”
“Do you know where the Proof of God is?” Kamil asked.
Balkis and Saba both stared at him.
“Malik told me about it,” Kamil explained. “He asked for my help in locating a reliquary that had been stolen from the mosque. He said it was important to your sect.”
Balkis looked at him, shocked. “He told you about the Melisites?”
“He told me in confidence and I have no intention of telling anyone else unless it becomes necessary,” he assured them. “But it’s important that you talk to me now. I think whoever has the reliquary might be the same person who killed Malik. Who else knew that this reliquary contained the Proof of God?”