“Stupid,” she wailed. “Stupid. The only way they can get the priestess to go through with this is not to tell her, to tell no one. That old bitch Gudit has all the power.” She began to cry.
Later that day, her mother had come to see her for the first time since the initiation, the bones of her neck so frail they seemed barely able to hold up her head.
“Mother, how could you let them do this to me?” Balkis had pleaded tearfully.
“Hush, child,” she replied. “I went through this. So did all the women who were priestesses before us. In exchange, we have power, honor. We alone are allowed to enter the Holy of Holies. To be in the presence of the Proof of God, you have to be pure.”
The ceremony of accession was held in the prayer hall one month later. Three animals were sacrificed on the stone, the blood draining from their throats into a bowl before they were butchered and set to grill for the feast.
The caretaker and the new priestess stood before the iron gate adorned with a weeping angel and led the congregation in prayer.
Balkis turned to face the angel gate.
“Behold Balkis,” Malik intoned. “Behold the Proof of God, Container of the Uncontainable. Behold the Key to all religions.” He lifted the cape from her shoulders, revealing the wings tattooed on her back.
She heard the congregation gasp and whisper.
He let his own cape fall.
Two winged creatures with their backs to the hushed congregation.
She unlocked the gate, beyond which lay the Holy of Holies, and went inside alone.
25
The back of Elif’s head barely moved as she became an instrument of her art, capturing the shapes and colors of Kamil’s orchids amid grand gray shadows and the trickle of moisture over the back of the windowpanes. She wouldn’t allow him to watch while she painted, but once, when she briefly left the room, Kamil had taken a quick look. He was stunned by the powerful thoughts and feelings these simple lines and fields of color evoked in him. Sadness, hope amid ruin. Before she returned, he sat back down in his wicker chair on the other side of the winter garden, facing away. He pretended he was reading and watched the reflection of her head in the rain-darkened glass.
After an hour and a half, Yakup signaled to Kamil that a small meal was ready. Elif put her brush down and busied herself with cleaning the trays of watercolor. When she looked up at him, it was as if from a great distance, but by the time they had sat at the table and sampled Karanfil’s lamb-stuffed pastries, Elif was chatting gaily. She looked, Kamil thought with pleasure, as if she had finally come home.
Afterward, they sat on a sofa in a room overlooking the back garden. The rain had turned to mist, fogging the windows. Yakup had lit the wood in the fireplace. Kamil brought several of his watercolor sketches of rare orchids to show Elif. Occasionally he sent a sketch and description of particularly interesting orchidaceae to H. G. Reichenbach, the world’s leading authority on orchids, who directed the botanic gardens at Hamburg University. Kamil had never received a response, but hoped through his persistence to interest Reichenbach in the many varieties found only in Ottoman lands.
He held out a sketch of an orchid with yellow-green sepals. “This is an Ophrys lutea. I drew it in a cemetery in Bursa.”
“It’s lovely. You have such a delicate touch that I can almost feel the weightlessness of the bloom. They’re remarkable flowers.”
Embarrassed by her praise, which he was convinced he didn’t deserve, Kamil put his drawings away.
Elif rotated the glass of tea in her hands, warming them. Kamil could sense her appraising him.
“Would you like something more, Elif Hanoum?” He was beginning to worry about the time.
“Please call me Elif. I stopped calling you pasha.”
Kamil was amused. “I’ve never much liked the title myself. It sounds pompous.”
“I’ve always disdained rank and titles and authority. I’ve never understood why they’re necessary.” Suddenly her voice became serious. “But I learned about that during the troubles at home.” She twisted around and faced him, tucking her feet under her on the sofa. “What I learned was that no matter what country you live in in your head, you can’t afford to ignore the one on your doorstep. If you do, it will punish you. People who have power are proud and they want tribute. You can pay it in respect or you can pay it in blood. That’s your choice.” She stared into the fire. “It’s the people who don’t have power and who suddenly get it that you have to watch out for. They never give you a choice.”
Kamil saw tears sliding down her cheeks and wondered again what she had lived through in Macedonia. He handed her a handkerchief. Elif wiped the tears from her face. He put his arm around her as if it were the most natural thing to do, and they sat silently, engrossed by their thoughts. Her shoulders under the jacket felt thin and fragile.
After a while, Elif said, “That was the first time I was able to cry since…”
Kamil reached over and pulled his finger across her forehead as he did to Feride when she was sad. “Even to grieve, you need to feel safe. You’re safe now.”
“I didn’t tell Feride and Huseyin the whole truth about what happened,” she admitted.
“You don’t need to tell anyone anything.”
“I would like to tell you.”
“I would be honored.”
“My husband wasn’t killed by the Christians. He was killed by the Ottoman army as a deserter.”
Kamil wasn’t surprised. He had heard that the armies in the provinces were so desperate for men that they were conscripting even boys and old men. It was a fatal symptom of what Huseyin had pointed to the other night, the inevitable decline of Ottoman power. How much longer could a government hold on when it had to force its citizens to abandon their own families in order to fight their neighbors?
“That’s nothing to be ashamed of. The conscription is unjust.”
“He was an artist who didn’t know the butt end of a gun from the barrel.” She shook her head. “That’s not an excuse. I had to learn. Sometimes you have to do things that kill you inside. But whatever else I thought about him, he cared about his son.”
She shifted her feet and sat coiled into herself with her arms around her knees.
“He would have done it, but he didn’t want to leave us unprotected. Guerillas had put flags up all over the district like dogs leaving their mark. There was a little flag stuck into our front gate. I’m sure if I had plucked it out, they would have shot me. But it wasn’t just the flags. We heard rumors of terrible things that had happened to Muslim families in the next town. The guerillas shot the men and then…” She grasped her knees tightly. “Anyway, Dimitri told the Ottoman patrol that came to our door that he wouldn’t go, that he had to stay and protect his family. They asked him his name and he told them the truth, that his father was a Slav and his mother a Muslim. The soldier leading the patrol was very young. He didn’t even have a mustache. And here was this man telling him no and all the men in his patrol hearing it. So he had to put his foot down. He had to show them he was a man. So he said to Dimitri, ‘Well, you’re not one of us anyway,’ and just shot him point blank in the chest.” She looked up at Kamil with fathomless eyes. “And do you know what he did then?” she asked incredulously. “He pushed Dimitri aside and walked up to me and made this formal bow. I was wearing a charshaf and standing in front of the door. He bowed and said, ‘My apologies, hanoum. You’re safe now.’ Can you believe it? A polite murderer.”
“Allah protect us from people who mistake cruelty for duty and politeness for compassion. Unfortunately, our administration is full of people like that.”
She didn’t seem to hear him. “I had a gun in my hand under my charshaf. If my son hadn’t been inside, I would have shot that man. My finger was on the trigger. I’ve never felt such a powerful desire to kill someone. It’s remarkable, as if you’re standing on top of a mountain and one more breath will bring on Armageddon. You can choose. Destroy or not destroy. It does something to you.”