Back when Kamal was enrolled at the academy in Poitiers, those who were brave enough to risk criticizing the Divan or the ruling elite could expect a hefty fine, a set of lashings, or a short prison sentence. Those days were long gone. The prisons were filled with “enemies of the state” whose families were offered no information since all charges under statute 275 of the Ottoman Criminal Code, the one dealing with treason, were classified.
Kamal was right in the thick of it. As a patriotic, faithful subject of the sultan, his duty was to protect the state from all threats, and the state was certainly under threat. He knew that extreme measures were called for. But a growing number of people whose opinions he valued—Nisreen and his brother at their forefront—were claiming otherwise. For them, these extreme measures were nothing more than a cynical ploy; Abdülhamid and his corrupt viziers were using the specter of Islamic terrorism to blur the lines between extremism and dissent, allowing them to brand anything that threatened their rule as “ideological subversion” and treason.
Kamal took a deep drag off his narguileh, and, as its soothing effect wormed its way into the darkest recesses of his mind, he thought back to when he’d last discussed it all with his father, during a phone call a few weeks back. A veterinarian who’d decamped from Paris to the Périgord and become a poultry farmer after losing his wife to a galloping cancer seven years ago, Kamal and Ramazan’s father was an earnest man, part of an older, more conservative generation that tended to support its sultan’s policies more blindly. He’d reminded Kamal of his responsibilities to keep his fellow imperial subjects safe and of his duty to his sultan and to his God. Beyond the echoes of that conversation, Kamal also drew solace from the doctrine he’d been taught at the academy, the one his superiors had been trumpeting loudly since the unrest had begun: citizens had no right to revolt against their rulers because civilization was the result of social and political consensus, and continually challenging its traditions would inevitably lead to anarchy.
And nothing was worse than anarchy.
The knock at Kamal’s front door took a moment to register.
It wasn’t loud—more of a furtive, brief double tap. A familiar one. He checked his watch. It was well past ten. He thought briefly about whether to open, and then, when it came again, he raised himself off the large floor cushion, trudged over, and opened the door.
Leyla slipped in, shut the door behind her quietly, and stood there, her back against the wall, her eyes and mouth gleaming with excitement.
Kamal studied her uncertainly. “Leyla, tonight’s not—”
She quickly quieted him by pressing a firm, perfectly manicured finger to his mouth. “Don’t be silly. I’m here now. My hero.” She beamed at him.
“Don’t—” he started to say, but she leaned and kissed him before slipping through the doorway.
“They’re all asleep. Very, very soundly.” She lived with her parents and one younger brother in an apartment two floors below him.
In a society that was still bound by the restrictive limitations of shari’a law, her presence in his apartment was a highly dangerous one for them both—but also a highly tantalizing one.
It was hard to say which was more provocative: her face or her body. Kamal had explored both in many snatched opportunities, ones that were almost always instigated by her. She was young—barely twenty—and she had an untamed spirit along with a nerve and audacity that knew little bounds. Like many other young women of her world, Leyla knew how to get around the severe boundaries that dictated what she could do, where she could go, and who she could see, and she was determined to make the most of it while she could. She would soon be married off to an older man, a moneyed jeweler she’d met twice while chaperoned and veiled. It had been enough to give her an unshakable feeling that the man was more interested in men than in women, but she also knew he would provide her with everything her parents could never afford. Hers would be a lush, comfortable life, and, although she would have preferred to spend it with Kamal, he’d made clear from the beginning of their liaison that marriage wasn’t an option.
He gave her a slow shake of his head and let out a small chuckle, but she stilled it as she pressed her finger back against his lips, moving it tantalizingly left and right both as a scolding no gesture and as a tease, her head slightly tilted down, her dark eyes angled alluringly upward and hooked into his, her mouth slightly open, her plump lips moist and beckoning. And in a stampede of heartbeats, an unwelcome intrusion turned into an irresistible, ravenous hunger.
Kamal grabbed her hand and pushed it aside as he planted his mouth on hers and kissed her, hard. Her whole body arched forward to welcome him as her mouth feasted hungrily on his tongue while he pressed against her, pinning her against the wall, his hands now tight around her jaw, keeping her in place for him to feed off like a starved beast at a trough. Then he released her face from his grip and moved his hands down, exploring and cupping the curves of her body, kneading its sensitive spots, the sudden spikes in her breathing guiding his fingers like strings on a puppet, and in a fury of movement, he had pushed their robes aside, grabbed her from under her thighs, lifted her so she was straddling him, and pushed inside her.
They dropped to the floor, where Kamal lost himself in a frenzy of desire and anger, her gasps egging him on, one hand now braced against her mouth to muffle her moans, his eyes locked on her rapturous face but not registering it, each brutal thrust like the lash of a whip to tame the accusing eyes that were stalking him.
But they wouldn’t let go—neither Nisreen’s stare, which Kamal now saw on every woman in the stands, nor her friend Azmi’s unflinching glare as it burned into him in the moments leading up to his death.
They were still there, long after Leyla had gone. Another tall glass of raki hadn’t helped. Worse, his mind was luring him down a previously unthinkable abyss: it was making him question his career choice.
Gazing out across the skyline of sleepy domes and minarets, he found himself wondering if he wouldn’t have been better off following a more benign path like that of his brother, an uncomplicated family man who went about his work quietly and built model train sets on Fridays. Ramazan also saved lives, but he did it without anyone looking at him as if he were a monster.
And he did it with Nisreen by his side.
As far as Kamal was concerned, that, more than anything, would have justified any career choice.
But it was too late to do anything about that, and he knew it.
8
Seven blocks north of Kamal’s walk-up, Ramazan did his best to unlock the front door to his home quietly before stepping inside.
The family apartment was on the fifth floor of a nineteenth-century stone building in the Mahmud Pasha mahalle—one of the residential neighborhoods that formed the city—and conveniently located only a stone’s throw from Bekri Mustapha Avenue and its bustling markets.
It was late, and the only light came from a lone, dim lamp that shone from a small side table in the entrance foyer.
He set his satchel down, slipped off his shoes, and then took off his robe and unrolled his turban. As always when he came home late, his first port of call was the children’s room. They were both fast asleep, in their customary positions: Tarek, his eight-year-old son, sprawled across his bed with the sheets kicked off, one arm curled around Firas, the stuffed toy dinosaur that was his inseparable companion; and Noor, just short of her sixth birthday, rolled up and cocooned under her blanket, her tousled curls barely visible. A small night-light projected stars and a crescent moon on the ceiling. No matter what life was slinging at him, no matter what stresses were buffeting him, seeing them was like a honey and aniseed infusion on a cold wintery night.