Omar said nothing. He was furious at the way Kamil had been treated. A small satchel of coins inside the packet of börek ensured that Kamil was comfortable. Omar knew that was the way the jail worked, but he found it hard to keep up the light banter when he wanted to stuff the avaricious warden’s mouth with coins until he choked or released Kamil from this hellhole. He knew that Yorg Pasha was working assiduously behind the scenes to get Kamil out.
Omar followed the guard down the path, Avi trotting behind them with the basket.
“Come back afterward and we’ll have tea,” the warden called out.
Kamil’s manservant, Yakup, had paid a large bribe to move him to a well-ventilated cell in a different wing and over the past two days had brought him supplies and meals, but without Omar’s intervention with the warden, he wasn’t sure what kind of treatment Kamil would receive in the prison. The warden might have been emboldened by the vizier’s signature on the warrant to play cat to Kamil’s mouse, despite Yakup’s bribe, but Omar had a well-earned reputation for retribution if he was crossed. Omar was certain that the corrupt, luxury-loving warden would never wager his hide.
The guard turned the key and the door creaked open. Kamil looked up from the book he was reading by the faint light from a high window. The air was damp and smelled of mold, but the cell was in the part of the prison farthest from the cesspool. Kamil sat in a cushioned chair, a thick-piled carpet beneath his feet. A mangal brazier heated the cell but did nothing against the cold draft from the window, which had no glass. Kamil was wrapped in a fur cape, a rug draped across his lap, and wore his kalpak. Yakup had shaved him that morning, so the only difference in Kamil’s appearance was the hard edge about his jaw and the black circles under his eyes.
“What news, Omar?” Kamil gestured to a pile of quilts stacked on the floor that he unrolled at night to use as a bed, the only other place to sit in the small room, no more than five paces across.
Avi set the basket down and squatted beside the door, shivering now that he was no longer exerting himself. Kamil took the soft rug from his lap and handed it to Omar, with a glance at Avi. Omar wrapped the boy in it. Then he took the containers out of the basket and stacked them on a low shelf next to some other covered pots. “I know you have food,” Omar explained, “but the wife insisted.” Placing his bulk between Kamil and the shelf, he lifted one of the lids of the containers Yakup had brought. Just as he feared, the food had been barely touched.
Omar sat down on the pile of quilts, sagging uncomfortably into the soft bundle. “I’d ask what you’re reading, but it would be way above my head, so don’t tell me.”
Kamil’s smile was forced. “Any news?”
“Your brother-in-law’s back home. The house is full of Yorg Pasha’s men, so I suppose it’ll be fine.” He looked unconvinced.
Kamil flung the book to the floor. “In Allah’s name, what is this pestilence, and why has it infected my life, my work, and my family?”
“What can you do? You spit downward, it lands in your beard; you spit upward, it hits your mustache.”
“That’s very fatalistic of you, Omar,” Kamil commented, unamused. “Surely you have a better idea.”
Omar showed a sharklike expanse of tobacco-stained teeth. “I swear to you Vahid will regret he was ever born.”
When Omar had gone, Kamil picked up his book, volume two of H. G. Reichenbach’s Xenia Orchidacea: Beiträge zur Kenntniss der Orchideen. Kamil’s German was rudimentary, but each orchid also was introduced by a description in Latin, the common language by which science ordered the chaotic munificence of life. The effort to understand the text made the time pass and gave Kamil the feeling that although his body was imprisoned, his mind was not. “Sepala oblonga akuta,” he read, “intus pallide orchracea, extus flavida maculis quibusdam…” He shut the book and dropped it to the floor.
There was no point to trying to forget that he was in prison. For the worst crimes, someone of his status would be executed or exiled, but never locked up in a stinking hole like this. It had certainly opened Kamil’s mind to what it meant when criminals were sentenced to prison. Perhaps the judge should allow them the choice of execution, he thought sardonically. The vizier was shaming him by punishing him with the lowest criminals. Kamil understood his motive, but he also sensed Vahid’s hand behind this penance.
Kamil began to cough, a harsh, wet rasp that worried him. He had asked the warden to put glass in the window, but this request had been refused despite another large bribe. Yakup had fashioned a thick curtain that Kamil could draw at night, but the guard had torn it down and made off with it, claiming it was against regulations. More likely, he wanted to steal the woolen cloth. Bribes, Kamil had learned, did not automatically lead to services.
65
Two days after Apollo’s arrival, twenty men gathered in the rectory after midnight. They conversed in hushed voices for several hours, then slipped out into the dark. Apollo tiptoed into Vera’s room and sat beside her on the bed. He held her hand and leaned in. “I’m leaving, Vreni. Don’t worry. I’ll be back. Can you be ready to go in three days?”
Apollo’s mellifluous voice seemed to her an oboe, his words a symphony. She hung suspended from the sounds until Apollo shook her shoulder.
“Wake up, Vreni, and listen to me. This is serious. In three days I’ll come and get you. By then you’ll need to have packed warm clothes for the east. Get some boots. Marta will help you.” He leaned closer.
He smelled like cloves.
“Are you listening?”
Vera sat up, clutching the cover about her, and brushed her hair from her eyes. “Of course I am.”
“Don’t mention this to anyone else. Father Zadian doesn’t approve of your coming along with us.”
“I’ll be ready.” Impulsively, lured by the scent of cloves and the sound of oboes, Vera leaned forward and kissed Apollo on the mouth. He didn’t pull back but let their faces linger so that first their lips, then their cheeks touched.
“Farewell, Vreni.”
She couldn’t fall asleep for a long while. When she did, she dreamed of the east. She was running through a barren landscape, falling to her knees, rising again, trying to outpace the creature chasing her. She could feel its foul breath on her heels, then the back of her legs. Her lungs were bursting. She tripped and fell headlong, her pursuer lunged, and then her breath was burned away as she was taken. She woke up screaming.
When Marta and Vera returned home from shopping two days later, they could see from the lane that something was wrong. The rectory gate hung askew and four unknown horses were tied to the fence. The streets were abnormally quiet. The boy they had hired to carry the basket of groceries bent over and dumped its contents on the ground and then ran away.
“They’re looking for you,” Marta whispered. “Hide in there.” She pushed Vera into the neighbor’s stable.
Shaken, Vera cowered among the bales of hay. Banging and loud voices came from next door. She heard Father Zadian say, “I will complain to the kadi about your desecration.” Vera was so relieved that he was unharmed that she almost didn’t hear the response.
“This isn’t a church. You’re not sacred, and neither is your house.”
Vera shrank back against the wall of the stable and scrabbled frantically to pull a bale of hay over herself. She recognized Vahid’s voice. Panicking, she slipped through the stable door and ran.
66
Omar and Yakup stood by while the guard unlocked Kamil’s cell. It was early morning on the fourth day of his imprisonment. They found Kamil curled on a quilt, coughing. His face was sallow and unshaven.