When he arrived, he was disturbed to find Feride and Elif still out. Doctor Moreno had promised he would bring them home safely. Their driver, Vali, was with them, but given what he had learned that day about his mysterious adversary, he worried that they hadn’t taken any guards with them.
Having left instructions to send a message when Feride returned, he rode slowly home through the banks of fog that made the night seem impenetrable. He was relieved when Karanfil’s lamps, magnified by the mist, bloomed in the darkness before him, and he crossed over the threshold of light.
Yakup came out with a lamp and took the reins. When Kamil had discarded his wet coat and hat in the entry hall and wiped his face with the towel Karanfil held out to him, he saw on the salver the letter with Yorg Pasha’s seal.
“I apologize for bringing you out so late, my boy, and on a vicious night like this. Would you like a whiskey?”
Kamil sat on a divan in a part of Yorg Pasha’s mansion he had not seen before. It was in the old Ottoman style with cushioned benches around three sides of a raised, carpeted platform. Below the platform extended a marble-paved floor, where a small fountain burbled. The ceiling was painted with fantastic birds. Yorg Pasha half reclined on the facing divan, propped on cushions, in his hand a narghile pipe, his eyes half lidded. A brass mangal brazier warmed the air.
Kamil accepted the glass of whiskey Simon brought him. Yorg Pasha famously kept a cellar of the finest wines and other heady liquids for his guests, though he himself never drank alcohol. The amber potion opened a welcome path in Kamil’s chest. Yorg Pasha sipped from a glass of boza, sweet, fermented millet. He passed Kamil a dish of roasted chickpeas.
“To tell you the truth, amja,” Kamil said, presuming on their closeness, “I’m glad to be here. This hasn’t been a good day and I’m bone tired.”
Kamil saw Yorg Pasha’s eyes glow with pleasure when he called him uncle. The old pasha had three sons, but respect required them to be distant and formal with their father, as Kamil had been with his own. Why was that a virtue, Kamil wondered, when sons hungered for their fathers? Surely it was natural for fathers to desire their sons’ affection. Because they were not related, Kamil realized sadly, he and the old pasha were free to like each other. Suddenly the whole world tasted sour, and he felt so tired he had to fight not to lie down on the divan.
“I’ve had two interesting visitors lately,” Yorg Pasha began. “One of them has robbed a bank but claims he did not blow it up.”
Kamil sat up, fully awake, and put down his glass.
“The other,” the pasha continued, “would like to trade a Russian lady for the bank robber.”
Kamil had a hundred questions but chose to wait.
“It’s already a dilemma worthy of a saint,” Yorg Pasha said. “But there’s more. The gold my first visitor stole is meant to support a commune in the Choruh Valley populated by a group of naïve socialists who are courting death either through starvation, irritating the local landowners, sheer idiocy, or official eradication by order of our padishah. My question to my guest was, Who then blew up the bank that caused the latter to become the most likely outcome? Can you guess?” Yorg Pasha smiled, clearly pleased with the effect of his riddle.
“Socialists in the Choruh Valley?” Kamil repeated stupidly.
“They’re setting up these utopias everywhere these days. From Ukraine to Palestine. Foolish young people come to a place with no knowledge of farming, local conditions, or even the local languages-just a head full of dreams.”
“I’ve heard of the Palestine settlement,” Kamil replied. “I suppose I thought it was an admirable thing to attempt, naïve perhaps, but, well, someone needs to dream. An egalitarian society may not work, but where’s the harm in trying?”
“My thoughts exactly.” Yorg Pasha surveyed Kamil over the mouthpiece of his water pipe. “Perhaps I’ve delegated some of my own dreams to you, more so than my own lazy children. I cannot afford to have dreams myself. I’m too old and fond of power.”
“Pardon the question, amja, but are you sure this settlement is harmless?”
Yorg Pasha nodded. “Simon has looked into it. The locals doubt it’ll last the winter, and it seems many hope it won’t. They’re right to be suspicious of outsiders. It can only bring them trouble.”
“And this socialist claims he didn’t blow up the bank? I find that hard to believe.”
“His name is Gabriel Arti. He thinks his driver, Abel, did it.”
“Why? It would have been smarter to leave quietly and not draw attention to the robbery.”
“They’re Armenians.”
“The socialists?”
“The socialists hark from many nations. Their only commonality appears to be their naïveté. Gabriel is Armenian, from Russia. His driver also is Armenian, a local man from Kurtulush.”
“I didn’t know there were Armenian socialists in Istanbul.”
“As far as I know, there aren’t. An Armenian socialist is a mythological beast that doesn’t exist in nature. The Armenians want their own state, but an Armenian one, not a socialist one. I suspect Gabriel Arti doesn’t understand the difference. An Ottoman Armenian can no more be a socialist than a fish can fly.”
“One hand working against the other. I suppose that’s possible. But why the explosion?”
“Think about it.” Yorg Pasha waved the mouthpiece of his narghile in Kamil’s direction. “What did the explosion accomplish that a robbery might not have?”
“Well, it certainly captured the interest of the palace. A robbery would cause concern, but a violent act sends a shiver up the spine of the government.”
“Exactly.” Yorg Pasha agreed, drawing deeply on the mouthpiece of his pipe. “Explosions draw the secret police like honey draws a bear.”
Kamil watched the smoke curl from the pasha’s mouth toward the ornate ceiling. He would have liked a cigarette himself, but it would be rude to light up before an elder. His father had never seen Kamil smoke. Society’s rules were there to create order and civility out of the rabble of our emotions, he reflected. You may hate your father, but by not smoking in front of him, you show your respect. He hadn’t hated his father, but he hadn’t known him either, and this seemed to him as great a tragedy, the inadmissibility of love.
“I don’t understand the motivation of the local Armenians, though. All they’ve accomplished with their explosion is to endanger their own people. What’s the point of their playing along with the socialists only to undermine them? If they object to the socialists setting up a commune in an Armenian valley, the local residents can just drive them out. You said they were barely surviving anyway.”
“This is a radical group within the Armenian community. They wouldn’t be the first to orchestrate an attack on their own people in order to get attention for their cause. It’s brutal, but it works. They grafted their own interests onto Gabriel’s socialist experiment. They set him up. Now it will all look like his doing. And if there’s a massacre of socialists and Armenians, the blame will fall on the socialists and their commune for inciting it. The British press, no friends of ours, would pick up the news of a massacre and push for their government to get involved. The Armenians would expect the British to help them carve out a homeland where they’d be safe. That’s what they’re hoping anyway. A remarkable plan.”
“Let me understand this. A group of Armenians in Istanbul are hoping that blowing up the bank will prod the sultan into cracking down on the Armenians in Choruh?” Kamil shook his head in disbelief. He leaned back and let his eyes play over the colorful plumage of the birds pictured on the ceiling. He smacked his hand hard on the divan. “I bet it was the local Armenians who reported the weapons shipment to the police. And told them about the commune. How else would the secret police know about the settlement in the Choruh Valley? Someone inside Gabriel Arti’s circle must have told them.” He emptied his glass, feeling energized as ideas clicked into place.