“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, although 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.