They laughed, Elif’s crystal voice joining Kamil’s baritone. A breeze wafted in from the garden, carrying the scent of loam. A white kitten leaned against the door, too cautious to enter.
Elif took a deep breath and laid her head against Kamil’s shoulder. “It’s almost spring.”
It happened gradually late that morning, like a flower opening, not a momentous, drumroll moment but a gradual fruition of desires. They had run hand in hand up the stairs to his bedroom and behind the closed door had faced each other, grinning like embarrassed children. Kamil swept Elif into his arms and deposited her on the bed. He quickly stripped off his shirt and trousers, then sat beside her in his undershirt. She threw her arms around his neck and pulled him to her with surprising strength. He kissed her throat and cheeks and ran his tongue across the expanse of delicate skin where the top buttons of her shirt had come undone. He lapped at the hollow of her throat and traced her shoulders with his fingertips. She lay still as a doll as he unbuttoned the rest and peeled off her vest and then the shirt. She had bound her chest in a linen cloth and she sat up obediently while he unwound it. When at last her small, firm breasts filled his hands, he felt a beat take hold of his body, a metronome of blood that drove him forward. He pulled off her trousers and felt a jolt of tenderness at the sight of her slight body. It seemed to him as delicate as an ivory carving, fragile as the finest porcelain. He laid his hand on her belly and saw her flinch.
He noticed then that she lay on her back with her eyes closed, arms stiff by her side and legs pressed together. He sat back, allowing his hand to rest on her hip, and said, “You are magnificent, Elif.” He traced her forehead with the tip of his finger, then leaned over and kissed it. “I love you.”
She opened her eyes and tried to smile, but said nothing.
Kamil considered for a moment, then lay down beside her and drew the quilt over their naked bodies. In the darkness, Elif’s resistance melted and their hands flew feverishly over each other’s bodies. Kamil disappeared beneath the covers, kissing and licking until he found the soft fur of her sex. His tongue reached into the cleft and slowly her thighs parted and her breathing became ragged. Kamil repositioned himself and thrust into Elif, gently at first, then, submerged in the beat of his blood, hard against her raw cries that could have been pleasure or rage.
Kamil came, the stream of hot liquid cooling against his thighs. The quilt had fallen from the bed. He shifted his weight so he wouldn’t crush Elif, and that was when he saw the pink scar like a sunburst on the inside of her upper thigh. His eyes met hers. She had noticed his surprise. To his relief, she gave him a shy smile. Encouraged, he kissed her cheek, then moved his head to kiss the inside of her thigh. There was a matching scar on the other thigh. He kissed them both.
“A firebrand,” she said, her voice thick with emotion. “I wasn’t cooperative.”
An uncomfortable image came to Kamil’s mind of another man doing to Elif what he had just done, torches pressed to her thighs to open them. Overcome with rage, he kept his face averted from Elif because he was uncertain what was displayed there.
Elif turned away from him. He noticed that her shoulders were shaking.
“Elif?” He touched her shoulder, but she didn’t turn. “What’s the matter?”
She didn’t answer. Kamil didn’t understand what he had done to distress her. Not knowing what else to do, he stretched out behind her and folded his body to hers, his arm around her shoulder. They lay like that until Kamil fell asleep.
Dust motes sparkled in the fractured sunlight streaming through the lattice that covered the lower half of his bedroom windows. In the days of Kamil’s grandparents, the delicate wooden lattices had allowed the family’s women to look out without being seen. Now they filtered the light for a row of potted orchids on a table.
Kamil lay on his back, arms behind his head and watched, mesmerized. It was as if he had fallen through the sky and these dancing points of light constituted an entirely different universe. Even his skin felt different, straining with sensation as if its surface were inadequate to hold it all in. He could feel the delicate puffs of Elif’s breath against his side. Glancing down at the top of her head nestled beside him, he settled his arm in a slow embrace, trying not to wake her. Their act of love had not, after all, been what he had imagined. He had lain with women, a French actress, a concubine, but never before with a woman who he imagined might become his wife. He hadn’t proposed marriage again, not since she had rejected the idea the previous year. She had said then that she wasn’t ready. Now he could understand her reluctance and wondered what else she had endured. The barbarity of her scars had shocked him. He realized his imagination for evil was entirely insufficient.
He leaned over, cupping her head in his hand, and kissed her cheek. Still, the highly disturbing image of Elif killing those men in Üsküdar gave him pause. It didn’t fit at all with his image of the vulnerable woman he desired more than anything to protect. There was much he didn’t understand about Elif, who remained as opaque as obsidian, despite her reflected radiance. But it didn’t matter. She was part of his life.
72
Gabriel laid their gifts of three dressed fox pelts, a rifle, and a box of ammunition that he had brought from Trabzon on the carpet before the landowner’s feet. Levon, the richest and most powerful man in the area, sat cross-legged on a fine Persian carpet draped over a raised platform in the center of the room. His deeply seamed face was framed by a russet beard. He stared down at Gabriel and Victor.
They were in the receiving room of the landowner’s house, where men met to discuss the valley’s affairs. A dozen men from the area, wrapped in furs and leaning on cushions, arrayed themselves beside and behind Levon. Other men sat on a divan against the wall. Their expressions were not welcoming.
“We’re here to farm,” Gabriel was saying. “You’ll find us good neighbors if you’ll give us a chance to prove it.” He and Victor had come to ask for Levon’s patronage, which would protect the commune from the other villagers in the valley.
The men began to argue. Gabriel had spoken in Armenian, but the dialect of the mountains was so thick he had trouble understanding the discussion. He thought he heard one man insist that since many of the newcomers were Armenians, the local community was required by the rules of hospitality to help them through the winter.
When an elder began to speak, the others fell silent. “It doesn’t matter,” he said in a quavering voice. “We are in a vise with the Russians to our left and the Ottoman army to our right. By spring we could all be dead, trampled in the mud between giants. No tree will bear fruit once its roots are cut. It would make better sense to welcome the strangers than to drive them out or let them starve. Why waste our bullets on each other?” There was a murmur of agreement.
Women in brightly colored flowing dresses and white kerchiefs carried in platters of rice and grilled lamb. The men sat cross-legged in a circle around the food. The landlord asked Gabriel to sit to his right. Victor was given a place alongside the older man, who introduced himself as Levon’s father.
Pointing out a choice morsel of meat to Gabriel, Levon asked, “How many guns do you have?”
“Not enough,” Gabriel answered bitterly. He thought angrily about the thousand rifles in the custody of the Istanbul authorities, thanks to the perfidy of one of his supposed allies. He chewed the meat, tasting nothing.