Kamil turned the key, pushed open the door, and peered out. As he had suspected, the square was empty, the backgammon boards abandoned. He locked the door behind them and dropped the key in the weeds beside the entrance where someone could easily find it. Keeping to the edge of the square, they slipped behind the fountain and down a narrow side street.
A man fell in step behind them.
“The carriage is behind the hill,” Elif said, her voice shaking. Her paint box was clutched under her arm.
Kamil’s heart was beating hard. He felt exhilarated and lengthened his stride up the steep hill. He had the Proof of God in his jacket. He felt it move against his chest like a second heart.
He stopped and turned around. “Come, let me carry that box.” Elif was gone.
Kamil stopped short. “Elif? Elif?”
He retraced his steps to the fountain and looked around the corner into the square. The men had returned to their backgammon boards. The imam stood by the door looking puzzled. A boy tugged at the imam’s sleeve, pointing down at the ground.
Kamil turned and surveyed the lane. The houses barely held together. They listed into the street and there were large gaps in the walls where boards had rotted away. Rusty stovepipes twisted from their sides and roofs. Clean sheets flapped from a line between facing windows, looking as though their weight alone could pull the houses in on themselves. All the doors were shut tight. No women sat knitting on the stoops here. The only sign of life was a scarred tomcat lying in a patch of sun.
The ground was still damp from the night’s rain and Kamil made out what he thought were Elif’s footprints, those of a very small man’s shoes. He followed them. They disappeared suddenly, as if she had been plucked from the ground. Larger footprints overlaid hers, then led in the direction of the brick structure.
Kamil thought it might be an ayazma, a small chapel the Byzantines built around a sacred spring. There were many in this part of the city, and some were still in use. Kamil ducked inside. Areas of painted plaster were visible inside its partially collapsed brick dome. He could make out images of an angel and the bearded head of a man, his eyes scratched out, perhaps by Muslims who took the injunction against representing the human form seriously, or more likely by bored local youths eager to prove their manhood through vandalism. Down several stairs, he came to a stone well.
He touched a brown substance on one of the stones. Fresh mud. Kamil peered into the well. It looked deep. Something was caught on a protrusion part of the way down. He hung precariously over the edge, reached down and pulled out Elif’s hat.
The image of Elif falling into the black pit below gave his actions the urgency of desperation. He flung his feet over the edge and lowered himself slowly, propping himself up with his arms, feeling with his feet. The stones were uneven and some had fallen in, so he found ready platforms. When he felt stable ground beneath both feet, he tested it, then crouched down to see, bracing himself against the stones.
He stood on a small ledge. Beneath him, he could sense rather than see the well open up. If someone had snatched Elif, they would surely have had a reason and wouldn’t have simply flung her down the well. He remembered that ayazmas were often connected to underground cisterns.
It was dark in the well, so he squatted on the ledge and felt around with his hands. Before long, he discovered an opening just wide enough to crawl through.
He felt his way along with his hands. On the other side of the entrance, a thin object rolled under his palm. He picked it up. One end was soft. A paintbrush, still damp. He rejoiced. Elif was alive and she was leaving a trail for him to follow.
After a while, the tunnel became higher, so he could walk upright. Fresh air circulated from somewhere, but it was pitch black. Kamil could see nothing at all, not even his hand before his eyes. His pupils created sparks and tiny spots of light that he knew weren’t really there. He took deep breaths to still the panic rising in him. Keeping one hand on the damp stone wall, he slid his feet forward, testing for holes in the floor. The tunnel seemed to be intact. It led downward. He flinched as a rat fell onto his shoulder, then leapt off.
When he bumped into a sharp protrusion, scraping his nose, he stopped and reached both hands ahead of him. They met a wedge of stone directly in front of his face. He listened for a few moments, the blackness pressing in on his eyes like weights, but heard only a distant drip of water and the scurrying of rats. Small sounds seemed to carry from great distances.
Guiding himself with his hands, he knelt and began to systematically test the shape of the walls. The tunnel divided here, he decided. He crawled in one direction for a few moments to gain a sense of things, then backed up and tried the other tunnel.
A sharp object pressed into his knee. He picked it up and recognized from its shape the small wood-handled paint spatula he had seen in Elif’s kit. He was relieved that Elif had kept her head, although it didn’t surprise him. He felt around, but there was nothing else. He stood and, hands stretched before him, strode as rapidly as he could through the darkness into the tunnel she had marked. He guessed that whoever had taken Elif knew this tunnel and had used it before, so he doubted there were any collapsed areas.
There was a glow ahead, so faint that Kamil thought his eyes had invented it. As he approached, he heard voices. They were distorted, so he couldn’t understand what they were saying, but he recognized Elif’s voice. The other was a man’s. Kamil slipped the knife from his boot.
He crept closer, keeping his eyes on the light, knife balanced lightly in his hand. His boots made no sound.
Something caught at his jacket. He swung around, knife raised, alert to the slightest motion. He heard scurrying, then a faint whisper.
“It’s me. Avi.”
He reached down and found the boy’s close-cropped head. He leaned close to Avi’s ear and whispered, “Don’t speak. There’s an echo.”
If Avi was here, Kamil guessed the man ahead must be Amida. But what did he want with Elif? How could he even know her? He had misjudged the young man, Kamil thought with exasperation. First Malik’s pin and now this.
As he approached, the light gained brightness. He could see Avi beside him now and gestured that the boy should stay back. Avi pressed himself against a wall.
Kamil could hear Elif and Amida more clearly. They were arguing.
“What do you want with this box? It contains drawings and my pens,” Elif said in a hard voice. Kamil realized that she was still keeping up her guise of being a man.
“Of course. And you’re Rembrandt.”
“Ah, an art lover,” she responded lightly. “Here. See for yourself. You dragged me into this hole for nothing.”
Kamil heard a crash, the sound of a wooden box splintering. He peered around the corner. Elif and Amida faced each other in a room lit by an oil lamp on the ground by Amida’s feet.
“Where is it?” Amida asked. He looked enormous next to Elif.
Kamil pulled his head back. He didn’t want to be seen until he had decided on a course of action. Elif seemed to be in no immediate danger and she didn’t appear frightened. If he listened for a few moments, he might get more information.
“Where is what?” Elif asked.
“Don’t play dumb. I know you have it. I saw you duck out of the mosque and drop the key. You think I’m as dumb as that imam? I know you’ve found it. It was written on your faces.”
“What is it you think we found?”
Amida let out an expletive. “You have the Proof of God. Kamil told me he knew where it was.”
“Well, I don’t have it, as you can see.”
“If you don’t, then he has it.”
“Why don’t you ask him?”
“I plan to. I’m sure he’s wandering the streets right now looking for his friend. What are you, English?”
“French.”