Yorg Pasha exhaled a plume of sweet-scented smoke. “The male of a certain species of spider allows himself to be devoured by the female after they’ve mated,” he said. “It’s his final, magisterial investment in the success of his offspring.”
Kamil grimaced. “That’s grotesque.”
“It’s heroic. The Cause is always greater than individual lives.”
“The second guest you mentioned,” Kamil asked, “was he tall, with a pointed beard?”
“Ah, well done. Always a step ahead. His name is Vahid, commander of Akrep, the sultan’s very own poisonous creature.” The pasha set down his pipe and reached for the glass of boza. Simon stepped up from the lower room, picked it up, and handed it to him. “Unlike our selfless spider, the scorpion paralyzes its prey with venom.” He drank some of the boza and wiped his mouth on an embroidered cloth. “Perhaps it toys with its prey for a time before eating it,” he speculated. “The prey is only immobilized after all.” His eyes sought Kamil’s. “Imagine the terror of seeing those small claws attached to the scorpion’s jaw come closer, take small, delicate bites. Watching yourself being slowly dismembered.”
Kamil listened carefully. He had a feeling that the pasha, who never wasted words, was telling him something important.
“Yet surprisingly,” Yorg Pasha went on, “for such cruel beings, scorpions are actually quite timid. They’ll run from danger or they remain very still. It’s when they’re still that you must be particularly careful. And you must never, never,” he repeated, “allow a scorpion to mistake you for prey.”
“What does he want?”
“He wants people to be in his power. His is the voice whispering in the sultan’s ear.”
“Where’s this Gabriel Arti now? And the gold?”
“On their way to Trabzon.”
Was it a slip of the pasha’s tongue, or had he meant to reveal to Kamil that he knew where the gold was? The realization disturbed Kamil, but he found he wasn’t surprised. He tried to remember that he needed to be wary of the pasha. “How?” he asked.
“Steamer. You won’t catch up with him now.” Yorg Pasha waved his hand dismissively. “Forget these socialists. They aren’t a problem, except to themselves. Vahid is where you should focus your attention.”
“I can’t leave the city right now anyway.” Kamil told him about the fire and Huseyin’s disappearance. “Feride and Doctor Moreno are looking for him in the hospitals.”
“Ah, vay, ah, the poor man. And my dear girl, Feride, what a tragedy. I hope it will not come to that and you will find him well. Perhaps a different accident has befallen him, a broken leg in the snow?”
“We would have heard. Huseyin isn’t the quiet type.”
Yorg Pasha chuckled, breaking the tension that had been growing between the two men. “Yes, that’s so.”
Kamil passed his hand across his face. “Sometimes I feel the task is beyond me.”
Yorg Pasha came to sit beside Kamil and laid his hand on his shoulder. They sat in silence for some moments before Yorg Pasha said softly, “Your father loved you as he loved life itself. I know this.”
Kamil nodded his head in acknowledgment. He smiled to cover his confusion and, after a few moments, got to his feet, swaying with tiredness.
“Stay here tonight,” Yorg Pasha suggested. “It’s a cold night.” He stood up with difficulty. Kamil offered his hand, but Yorg Pasha waved him away, muttering, “Even in winter, the lion can roar.”
“Thank you. That’s most generous, but I have work to do tonight.” He stepped down from the divan platform into the marbled hall. “You mentioned a woman,” he added, almost as an afterthought.
Yorg Pasha shook his head in bewilderment. “The fool Gabriel brought his wife along. I’ve looked into this Gabriel Arti. He has a reputation as an experienced activist, but he was groveling on his knees because he’s allowed his woman to fall into the grasp of Akrep.” The pasha leaned on Simon’s arm to step down from the platform. The secretary then retreated, following the pasha like a shadow.
Yorg Pasha and Kamil walked side by side through the glittering lamplit rooms. Beyond the window sashes, the black mass of the strait heaved in the night.
“There was something about a sister,” Yorg Pasha continued. “She lived with Gabriel in Sevastopol. One night while he was out, she was murdered, and I gather that he went on a rampage. Some men were killed, but it was never established that it was Gabriel who killed them, or that these were truly the men who had murdered his sister. But none of those distinctions mattered to the Russian police, who needed to arrest someone for the crime. Gabriel fled to Geneva to avoid arrest and joined the socialists.”
“A man with nothing left to lose is dangerous.”
“And a man with a wife is vulnerable.”
“What’s her name?”
“Vera Arti, but Vahid thinks the name of the woman he holds is Lena Balian. I hope I convinced him that Lena Balian is the wrong person and useless to him as a lure for Gabriel. But I dread to think of what she’s already endured. If there’s any way to bring her out…”
Kamil felt tired and overwhelmed. He wanted to focus on finding Huseyin. Now Feride and Elif were missing, and here was another person lost, pieces of a puzzle that seemed to shift in three dimensions. But he could say he had found the bank robber and the gold, he thought with a glint of hangman’s humor. He could put a pin on the map and say they were on a ship between Istanbul and Trabzon. And Vera Arti was probably being held in the Akrep headquarters. That would be easy enough to locate. Another pin. Yet the entire roster of lost persons was insignificant compared to the match he now saw being held up to a corner of the map, the conflagration that would devour an innocent population.
“I’ll do my best, amja.”
“Yes,” the pasha said with a worried look. “You always have.” He gripped Kamil’s arm with surprising strength.
31
The fog was not as thick in Üsküdar. An icy rain seemed to have swept the air clean as the little group made its way across the square opposite the boat landing and into the alleys leading uphill to the Valide Mosque hospital, the largest in the district. The cold had frozen the mud into troughs, so they walked slowly, Nissim in front and Vali bringing up the rear, each carrying a lamp. A strange calm possessed Feride as she followed Elif and Doctor Moreno. She stumbled once and caught at Elif’s coat. After that, Elif came to walk beside her whenever the lane was wide enough. No one spoke.
Before long, the way opened up into a lane that passed between orchards and vineyards. A pack of bony dogs followed them, remaining just outside the light. Whenever one of them approached, Vali hurled a rock at it. The rain had stopped. There was an odor of pine and soil, and the stars had reappeared. In the dimness, Feride made out the dome and two minarets of a mosque flanked on either side by buildings, which must be the complex of monasteries, schools, soup kitchens, hospitals, baths, and shops that accompanied all great mosques.
Nissim led them to an adjacent building. They entered a grand vestibule that led to a caravanserai where travelers spent the night. Several men sat by a fireplace, and Nissim asked them the way to the hospital.
Their stares caused Feride to look at her companions with new eyes-a blond foreigner, an old Hasidic man with sidelocks, a veiled woman, and two burly workingmen, assembled here at a suspicious hour.
Nissim led them around the back of the building. He pounded on a locked door until it was opened by a bearded man in a turban.
“What do you want, you ruffian? This is a hospital and you’re frightening the patients.”
Doctor Moreno stepped forward and introduced himself as a physician at Yildiz Palace. The man’s expression changed immediately, and he stepped aside and welcomed them in.
Doctor Moreno explained whom they were looking for.