She sat hunched up, leaning against Kamil’s chest.
“Later, when they killed my boy, I was beyond that. To kill someone else or to kill yourself, sometimes there’s really no difference.”
“What did you do after your husband died?”
“Oh, he didn’t die. Not then. He lost a lot of blood, but not enough to kill him. I went next door to our neighbor, who was a surgeon. He had delivered my son. Dimitri’s paintings hung in his house. In the summers, we drank wine together under our grape arbor. His wife was my best friend.”
She stopped speaking, unfolded herself from the sofa and walked over to the fire. She took off her jacket, then took a poker and stabbed angrily at the glowing coals. The faint shadow of her body showed through the cotton shirt and Kamil was shocked to realize how thin she was under all that material.
“Shall I send for fresh tea?” he asked. The day’s imperatives had receded. He was caught in the anguish of her reminiscences.
She shook her head and sat down beside him, keeping her eyes on the fire.
“He refused to come. They wouldn’t even open their door to me. They were Christians, you see. Even though they saw what had happened, that Dimitri had been shot by Muslims, they wouldn’t come out. I pulled Dimitri inside the house and took care of him as best I could, but the wound festered and he died, but much later. He was in great pain.” She held her hands over her ears. “I’m sure they must have heard him next door. I didn’t have the strength to bury him, so I covered him with his paintings, oils mostly, and set them on fire. I didn’t want the neighbors to get his paintings, to get anything. But I stole their carriage and two of their best horses.” She grinned, tears running down her face.
Kamil’s mind raced with images of Elif, hair cut short and dressed as a man, loaded revolver in hand, bundling her son into her neighbor’s carriage and driving away as her house went up in flames. He took her hands in his and said, “I can’t tell you how much I admire you, Elif.”
“I don’t deserve any praise. I lost everything. We got as far as Edirne before we were attacked by bandits. I don’t even know who they were.” She shrugged. “Bandits have no religion. I shot two of them, but there were too many. When I woke up, we were lying in the bushes by the side of the road.”
Kamil waited, but when she didn’t continue, he offered, “Bashiniz sagholsun. What was your son’s name?”
Her voice shuddered. “I can’t say it.”
“I understand.”
She let her head rest on his shoulder for a long while, their hands entwined.
“I’m grateful to you, Kamil. I feel you are truly my friend.”
“I’m honored by your trust.” Kamil felt his response was stilted, but in the emotionally charged atmosphere he didn’t know what else to say. “I’m your servant in all things.”
She sat up suddenly and said, “How selfish of me to take up your morning like this. Please forgive a woman who’s been living outside of time for so long, she’s forgotten that other people have duties. I can be such a bully when there’s something I want to do. I’m sure Huseyin would claim it’s a family trait.” She realized what she had said. “Oh, I didn’t mean that Huseyin is a bully.”
Their eyes met and they laughed. Her face was flushed, her eyes brilliant. Kamil thought she looked like an archangel, both beautiful and frightening. He reached for her hand and pressed it to his mouth.
He wished he had something to offer that would pull her back into the world. He had a sudden thought. “Did Feride tell you about the woman from Sunken Village?”
“Your half sister Saba? Yes. She was very excited. Other women might have been jealous or afraid, but not Feride.”
He told Elif he would be right back and left the room. In the hall, he took out his watch and was horrified to discover that it was eleven o’clock.
He returned a few moments later with Malik’s letter. He explained who had written it and what had happened. “We’re looking for two things, a reliquary and a lead sleeve that fits inside the reliquary and contains a valuable old document. Malik took the document out and hid it for safety. He wanted me to find the reliquary so he could reunite it with the document and give it back to the sect. But now that he’s gone, both are missing.”
“What is this document?”
“People refer to it as the Proof of God, but I’m not sure anyone really knows what it is. The important thing is that a lot of people seem to be after it.” He was about to warn Elif that this might be dangerous, then bit his tongue. “We looked through Malik’s house and didn’t find anything, so he must have hidden it somewhere else after the reliquary was stolen. I thought there might be some clues in his letter, but I couldn’t find them. Maybe you’ll see something I’ve missed.”
In addition to the story of Saba’s birth, Malik had reminded Saba of her duties as priestess.
“They have a priestess?” Elif asked. “Are they Christians?”
Kamil shook his head no. He didn’t want to go into the complications of that now; some things were not his to share.
At the end, Malik had included a prayer:
Hail Mary, Mother of the Word,
Hear those who bear your message,
Container of the Uncontainable,
Grant us your intercession.
Raise your eyes to the slain children,
O Samaritan,
In the dwelling place of the living and the dead.
and a notation: “Matthew 2:16.”
Kamil hoped that Elif, with her knowledge of art, might see something in the imagery of the prayer.
When Elif had finished reading, she said, “Malik could have given this directly to his niece. I think he meant it for you too. To help you find the Proof of God in case something happened to him.”
“But why make it so cryptic?”
“He didn’t know who’d see it, did he?”
“What do you make of the prayer?”
Elif asked him for a piece of paper and, referring back to the letter, made some notes. She handed it to him.
“Do these words mean anything to you?”
He read:
Mary
Mother of the Word
Message
Container of the Uncontainable
Slain children
Samaritan
Dwelling place
Matthew 2:16
“I think Matthew 2:16 might refer to something in the Bible. Do you have a copy?” she asked.
“I’m afraid I don’t. But what about ‘dwelling place’?” He pointed at the term. “The Kariye Mosque was once the Church of Chora, which Malik said meant Dwelling Place of the Uncontainable. So maybe we can assume it’s in the mosque. That’s a start.” He took the poker and stirred the embers in the fireplace. “That’s where he was killed. I never understood why he left his house in the middle of the night to go to the mosque. Someone must have called him there.”
“I’m sorry.”
He read through the list again. “Maybe the rest refer to the mosaics.” Kamil told her about the Byzantine images.
“Fascinating. Would it be a burden, I mean, would you consider…Might I accompany you sometime or would I be a hindrance in your work?”
Kamil was taken aback. In his mind, he had already moved on to business and assumed she would go home.
Kamil and Elif sat side by side in a closed carriage. Kamil was glad of her company, but also anxious, not only because she was dressed as a man, but also because he worried she would draw time away from his investigation. He had already lost too much of it to waste more on chivalry, explanations, and playing tour guide.
The Old City also was much more conservative than Beyoglu and the modern suburb of Nishantashou, where Feride lived. Kamil wasn’t entirely sure Elif meant her costume to be an impersonation, it just seemed to be the way she had decided to dress. Turkish women wore trousers, but they were very wide and draped with shape-concealing sweaters, vests, robes, and tunics. In the street, even these were covered by a cloak and veil.