“Blessed Christmas,” she answered softly, tucking it into her pocket.
IT WAS dusk and the buildings at the end of the block were invisible amid a swirl of snowflakes. Vera turned down a side street that she thought led in the direction of their rented room in Fatih. The grand buildings of the boulevard gave way to meaner houses, three-story tenements with crumbling balconies arrayed like broken teeth along narrow, rutted lanes. Vera scanned the sky above the buildings for a minaret. Mosques were set in public squares where she might be able to orient herself. Gabriel would laugh at her for being such a novice, she thought.
She fumbled to close the top button of her coat and realized she had lost her gloves. Expensive kid leather gloves that her mother had bought for her to take to Geneva. The thought of her parents brought on more tears. They would be devastated to learn that their daughter was a revolutionary working to overthrow the very system that allowed them to send her abroad to study. They didn’t seem like the class enemies she had read about. They were kind to everyone. She missed them. Vera reached down and washed her face with snow. If Gabriel was in their room when she returned, he mustn’t know of her weakness.
She vowed to herself that she wouldn’t go back to Geneva with her very first mission unaccomplished. They had been in Istanbul for two weeks and Gabriel had been gone most of that time, engaged in activities of his own, about which he told her nothing. He had tried to send her home after just one week, and she knew that he regretted allowing her to come along. She twisted the silver ring on her finger that he had given her as a Christmas gift last night, one of the few nights he had slept in their room. There had been no feast, no family, no anushabour, the sweet barley Christmas pudding that she loved. There had been grilled fish, onions, wine, and Gabriel. Her face heated at the memory of their lovemaking. They had been married shortly before leaving for Istanbul, and there hadn’t been time for a ring or even a ceremony. There had been no privacy on the train and ship. Last night had been their wedding night.
Two feral dogs with scarred flanks and matted fur began to follow her. She picked up a stone and hurled it at them, but they only shied to the side, then resumed their pursuit. Hearing the call to prayer, she followed the sound and, to her great relief, emerged into a large square. The dogs paused at the mouth of the street, sniffed the air, then trotted away. Near the mosque, a group of ragged men and veiled women crowded around its soup kitchen. Smoke rose from its chimneys and Vera caught the scent of freshly baked bread. Her stomach clenched with hunger.
Recognizing the square, Vera hurried down the lane behind the mosque complex toward home, hoping Gabriel would be there. The snow deadened the footfalls of the man following her.
2
Kamil Pasha, magistrate of Beyoglu, strode into Yorg Pasha’s reception hall carrying a rifle. He was trailed by the liveried doorkeeper and two secretaries, who seemed unsure about their right to halt the unannounced intrusion of the tall young pasha, equal in status to their lord, and appeared unnerved by his weapon. As a compromise, they expressed their disapproval by sticking close to Kamil’s coattails and uttering obsequious inquiries, none of which Kamil deigned to answer. His face was lean and determined, his moss green eyes aimed straight ahead. He was dressed in a fashionable dinner jacket, now rumpled and grimy.
Yorg Pasha sat on a raised dais at the front of the hall in an armchair decorated with gold lion heads. He himself looked like an aging lion, his broad chest accentuated by a robe embroidered in gold thread that made him appear even more massive. His face beneath his turban sagged with age and fatigue, but his eyes missed nothing. Three secretaries sat at writing desks by his side, and a phalanx of other staff stood at attention along the wall beneath a painted frieze of wild animals gamboling in a forest.
Kamil knew that Thursday was Yorg Pasha’s receiving day, when his employees, clients, and anyone else wishing to make a complaint, beg a favor, or pledge their fealty could approach him. A portly man dressed as a prosperous merchant fell to one knee on the dais, his face bowed over Yorg Pasha’s hand, and kissed his heavy gold ring.
Kamil pushed his way through the crowd of waiting men and stepped onto the platform. The merchant rose and, at the sight of Kamil’s gun, stumbled backward. Yorg Pasha gestured at a grim, narrow-shouldered man in a fez whom Kamil recognized as the pasha’s secretary, Simon. A few moments later, the pasha’s guards pushed the crowd out the door, some objecting loudly that they needed to speak with the pasha. “Come back next week,” the guards answered.
Yorg Pasha patted his stomach and said amiably, “Kamil. It’s been months. Last time I saw you was at the Swedish ambassador’s house. Lovely wife, but the food.” He shook his head and grimaced. “What brings you here?”
Kamil indicated the servants in the hall. “In private.”
Simon helped Yorg Pasha to his feet, then stepped back and bowed. Yorg Pasha lumbered down from the dais and led Kamil to a silk-paneled room at the back of the receiving hall.
They sat facing each other over a small table, surrounded by a forest of silk-screened palms and clambering monkeys, stalked by other beasts. “You’re looking well,” Yorg Pasha offered. Kamil had been up all night at the docks and had just come from a frustrating interview with the British ambassador. He was in no mood for small talk but reached gratefully for the tiny porcelain cup of coffee the pasha’s servant offered him. He sipped the thick brew scented with cardamom and waited for the room to clear.
“What’s happened, Kamil?” Yorg Pasha asked, leaving his coffee untouched. “I lied. You don’t look well at all.”
Kamil was caught off guard by Yorg Pasha’s tone of concern. The old man had been a close friend of his father, Alp Pasha, when he was governor of Istanbul. Yorg Pasha had taken an interest in the lonely boy in the governor’s mansion, and Kamil had spent many hours in his company learning the inner workings of clocks, one of the pasha’s hobbies. When Alp Pasha committed suicide two years ago, Yorg Pasha had sent for Kamil and sat with him, recounting stories of Alp Pasha in his youth. It was a gift of family history Kamil had been grateful to receive, for his father had spent little time with him.
A chime struck four times and reminded Kamil of the waning afternoon. A British-owned ship full of armaments had been discovered in the harbor last night, and he was no closer to finding out who had sent them or for whom they were meant. Yorg Pasha was an arms dealer.
“Pasha,” he said formally, placing the rifle on the table between them, “I’m sure you know about the shipment of rifles last night. Forgive me for asking, but do you know who they belong to?” Kamil meant, Were they his?
Yorg Pasha ignored the gun. “I hear they’re all Peabody-Martinis, the best. You’ve confiscated them?”
“The gendarmes have. Yes.” The local police didn’t have the manpower to guard a thousand rifles and pistols, so Kamil had called in the military police. A contingent of soldiers now surrounded the ship. The British ambassador had insisted the ship was British property and that it be released immediately. Kamil had refused, arguing that if the British claimed the ship, then they would also be accepting responsibility for the illegal arms, creating a diplomatic incident between the British and Ottoman empires. The ambassador had backed off, but Kamil suspected it was merely a tactical retreat. He had a premonition of unseen forces assembling to impede his investigation.
“If you need to dispose of them when the case is over…”
“Do you have any idea where they’re from and who they’re meant for?” Kamil asked again, knowing that despite their relationship, the pasha wouldn’t answer such a question, even if he knew, without receiving something in return.