Apollo stared at her. “That idiot,” he said, shaking his head in disbelief. “That stupid, misguided idiot. How were you supposed to protect yourself if you didn’t know against what? And now you’re sitting here, doing what? Waiting for him?”
Vera crossed her arms. “No. I don’t know.” She felt put on the defensive. “Maybe I should just go back to Moscow.”
Apollo reached out and took her hand. “What do you want, Vreni?”
No one had asked her that before. “I want to be part of something bigger than myself.” She plucked at her skirt and said with a bitterness that surprised her, “Bigger than having a new wool dress.” She examined Apollo’s face to see whether he understood.
He looked at her solemnly and pulled on his pipe.
Encouraged, she continued. “I want to be part of some simple, worthy thing, like you and Gabriel. That’s all I want.” She faltered. “But I don’t think I can do it. Everything I’ve touched has fallen apart.” She started to cry. “I tried so hard, but I couldn’t do it.”
Apollo got up and embraced her. “Hush, Vreni. Sometimes bad things happen. We don’t have control over everything. But if we give up, that means we’ve lost and they’ve won. I’ve never seen you as a delicate flower.”
She laughed a little and wiped at her tears. “No,” she agreed. “I’m not so delicate.”
“Then let’s plan our trip. You’re coming along, aren’t you?”
Vera nodded.
“Good. Now we have to figure out how to steal those weapons back. Someone called Yorg Pasha bribed the officials. The guns have been off-loaded and are in one of his warehouses. Ready for an adventure?”
63
The cart arrived, piled high with supplies for the renovation of Huseyin Pasha’s mansion. The workmen hauled in ladders, several large crates of building materials, and containers of plaster and powders from which the paints would be mixed. One of these crates was carried directly into a windowless back room. It was furnished with a bed, comfortable chairs, a couch, and a large table. Still-life paintings adorned the walls. A pleasant fire crackled in the grate as the men gently deposited the box on the table.
They cut through the ropes and pulled off the perforated lid. Feride looked down into her husband’s eyes, which winked at her before roaming the room. He was swathed in bandages, now none too clean. She reached down to clasp his hand, but realized that she had no idea where he had been burned. Instead she pressed her fingertip to her lips, then to his. She leaned over to say something, but the words stuck in her throat. Against her will, she visualized the man before her touching another woman. Unable to speak the terms of endearment that filled her mouth, she stepped away from the table and called, “Doctor?”
Doctor Moreno limped over using a cane, his leg not yet completely healed.
“He’s here.” Her voice was tipsy with joy. How odd, Feride noted, that her love for her husband could flow through a side channel but not fill its proper bed. Is this how marriages die? she wondered. Dams shunt the natural flow of feelings into ever-smaller conduits until one day the river dries up completely. She remembered how before his death her father had become more and more indifferent to his granddaughters, to all his loved ones, as if life already had evaporated, replaced by the opium that gave him the dream of being alive but excluded everyone else.
One of the workmen set Doctor Moreno’s case on the table. Then he and the others, who, like all the supposed workmen, were Yorg Pasha’s guards, set to work dismantling the box in which Huseyin rested. Only a handful of servants would share the knowledge that their master had returned and was recuperating in this out-of-the-way room. The rest had been told that Huseyin Pasha was still missing.
A steaming cauldron of water, bowls, and sponges were brought in. The workmen left, and Feride and Doctor Moreno began to peel off the bandages and clean Huseyin’s wounds.
Feride sponged gently at her husband’s ruined body, careful not to disturb the scabs. The touch of his skin and the compassion she felt at his helplessness summoned a sadness so desolate that she put the sponge down and went to straighten the coverlet on the bed.
Doctor Moreno watched her but said nothing.
After a while, Feride returned to her task. She was dabbing Huseyin’s shoulder with a sponge and trying to avoid looking at his face when she noticed tears running down it. He was looking at her intently, the question clear in his eyes. Dropping the sponge, Feride ran from the room.
64
Omar’s adopted son, Avi, followed him down the narrow streets, stepping carefully so as not to jostle the basket he carried on his back. Avi had insisted on carrying it, even though Omar and his wife, Mimoza, had been reluctant to burden the boy. They had given in when Avi knelt in front of the basket, slipped his arms backward through the straps, and swung it up onto his back like a seasoned professional. Omar and Mimoza had exchanged a glance. They had forgotten that before he joined their family the previous year, Avi had made a living on the street. He was a bit taller now and well fed, although still skinny. He carried the basket as if it were filled with air instead of tins of food, Mimoza’s spinach börek, and two sealed clay jugs of water.
Omar stopped in front of Bekiraga Prison, careful not to step in the foul puddles on the pavement, lifted the iron knocker, and let it fall. A grill opened and a guard peered out. Omar identified himself and the gate swung open.
The warden came running down the path toward them, arms outstretched. “Omar, my dear friend.”
“Abdulkadir, you pimp, you get younger every year. Tell me your secret.”
The warden chuckled. “Come to my office.”
When they reached the whitewashed one-room house set inside a miniature garden, Omar told Avi to set the basket down near the door. “This is Avi,” he told the warden, “my son.”
“Ah, ah,” the warden cooed, “Allah be praised.” He coughed violently and spit into the dusty geraniums at the side of the house.
Omar rummaged inside the basket and pulled out a clay container sealed with wax. “My wife made up an ointment for your cough. She knows about herbal remedies. Let me see, what were her instructions?” He passed a beefy hand over his mustache. “I don’t remember.”
“I remember,” Avi said in a shy voice.
Omar and the warden grinned at each other, then at the boy. “Out with it then,” Omar said, not disguising his pride.
“You rub it on your chest at night before you go to sleep and put a warm, wet towel on it. She also said to smear some below your nostrils.”
Omar gave the clay pot to the warden, who peeled off the wax, sniffed it, and recoiled. “Allah protect us, if I smeared this on a prisoner, he’d confess immediately.” They laughed.
“She also sent this.” Omar gave him a paper-wrapped packet of fragrant börek, still warm from the oven.
“Bless her hands. You’re the luckiest man in the world, brother. It’s a wonder you’re not fatter than you are.”
Omar patted his not insubstantial paunch. “Shall we try them?”
The warden looked horrified. “You mean you want to eat some of my precious börek?” he cried out. “You’d tear the last scraps of food from the hands of a man dying of hunger?”
Avi looked confused and stepped behind the basket.
“I’ll make you a deal,” Omar said. They played this game every time he came. “If you let me see the prisoner, I’ll let you have all the börek.” He winked at Avi.
“You drive a hard bargain, but since you’re an old friend, why not?” He called one of the guards over. “You’ll see, I’ve moved him to one of our best cells, as you requested. That was a terrible trick to play on a man of such quality, ordering him to be put next to the cesspool. I didn’t think that was right. I hope you give me credit me for that. If I had known he was a friend of yours, I would have put him in a different wing right off.”