“And you. You’re looking well.” What he really wanted to say was that he missed her company. Instead he asked, “How are your classes?”
“The students are wonderful. I’m honored to be teaching them.” She snapped shut her paint box. “I have to go.” She gave no explanation but raised her hand for him to shake. He took her hand and kissed it, holding it against his lips a moment too long.
She averted her eyes and, when he released her, fled the room.
Feride swept up Kamil’s arm and led him into the dining room. Like the sitting room, it was dominated by enormous mirrors in gilded frames and still life oil paintings. Kamil wondered what Elif thought of the orchestrated scenes of fruits and flowers. They were masterly in execution, but very different from her own lively, impressionistic use of color. He found the pictures in his sister’s home fascinating in an awful way, so true to life, yet simultaneously barren. He was sure they expressed Huseyin’s taste, not Feride’s.
Huseyin was already seated at the head of the table. He wasted no time. “So, brother-in-law, I’m surprised you kept your trousers on in there. I thought you were going to explode with desire.”
“Huseyin, you’re impossible,” Feride scolded. “It’s hard to believe sometimes that I married you.”
“I know, my delicate flower. I’m a disappointment to you.”
Kamil tensed at what he feared might be an evening of bickering. He had always wondered why Feride had chosen Huseyin from among her suitors. He was a distant relation of the royal family’s, and very wealthy, but seemed to revel in his overbearing boorishness. Still, the previous year Huseyin had helped Kamil with one of his cases and shown himself to be a shrewd judge of character. When Kamil overlooked his brother-in-law’s ostentation and bad taste and his tendency to needle Feride, he managed to like him.
A servant placed a slice of spinach pie on his plate and a bowl of yoghurt beside it. The scent of the fresh-baked pastry reminded Kamil how hungry he was. Huseyin drank wine, as he did with almost every meal, but Kamil asked for water, which calmed him and cleared his mind.
He noticed a pin in Feride’s hair, a shower of teardrop-shaped rubies that winked in the light when she moved her head. The hairpin was more exuberant than his sister’s usual modest attire, and Kamil complimented her on it. Feride was a beautiful but reserved woman. He knew that she deeply desired the kind of close friendships she imagined other people had but held herself back. She had few real friends, though she kept up a hectic schedule of visits and activities with the women in her social circle. She had once complained to Kamil that they bored her to tears. Since their father’s death, she had become even sadder and more reserved. Only with Elif and on occasion with her husband had Kamil seen his sister open up. He remarked on and treasured any sign of joy in his sister’s life.
“It’s a gift from Huseyin,” she responded shyly.
“Only the very best for the very best,” Huseyin explained between bites. “What are you working on these days?” he asked Kamil.
“Is there something brewing in the city?” Kamil asked. “We’ve intercepted a cargo of weapons.” He refused a servant’s offer of wine but pushed his fork with relish into the next dish, charred eggplant cream topped with morsels of stewed lamb.
“On a British ship,” Huseyin added pointedly. “I know the British are arming terrorists in the provinces, but what are they thinking sending weapons like that to Istanbul? This is a city, not a desert sheikhdom. If you start shooting here, before you know it, you’ll have a pile of bodies so big it would fill the harbor. Don’t tell me Nizam Pasha has assigned this case to you.”
“He has. He wants me to find out who the shipment was for and its purpose.” The imperious and inscrutable minister of justice, Nizam Pasha, had made Kamil special prosecutor in charge of the investigation. Kamil was never sure whether these difficult assignments were a recognition of Kamil’s skill or an invitation to fail.
“More of these British games. They distribute fuel drop by drop, year after year, thinking no one notices, and then they hand out matches.” Huseyin drank from his glass, gave a satisfied grunt, and then turned his attention to his plate.
“Who would the British be arming here in Istanbul?”
“Sultan Abdulhamid suspects the Armenians of colluding with Russia. There are rumors of something going on in the Kachkar Mountains. Foreigners have been seen there, agitating the locals. They’ll be arming the villagers next. The Kurdish irregulars will put an end to it, one way or another.”
“What do you mean?” Feride asked, staring at her husband. “Are you saying they’ll just kill everyone and that will be the end of the problem?”
“Of course not, my delicate rose.” He reached out and laid his hand over hers. “We shouldn’t be discussing business over dinner.”
Feride pulled her hand away. “I find politics interesting, and I don’t like being treated as a child.”
Huseyin looked to Kamil for support. “Do I deserve this?”
“A rose with thorns, as you often put it,” Feride retorted, placing her napkin beside the plate and pushing her chair back as if preparing to leave the table. “Would you like me better if I were all soft petals?” Kamil could hear the hurt in her voice.
Huseyin reached out a restraining hand and said in a cajoling voice, “I like you the way you are, my wife, with both thorns and petals.”
“I agree with Feride,” Kamil interjected, hoping to ease the tension. “We have a well-trained army. Why send irregulars known for their brutality? They’re no better than bandits in the service of the state. If our Armenian subjects do revolt,” he warned, “it’ll be against the sultan’s heavy-handedness.”
“We don’t want the Kurdish tribes civilized,” Huseyin said, glancing at Feride, who sat stiffly but was following his words. “At least one of our knives has to remain sharp. Don’t be naïve, Kamil. The Russians have been trying for centuries to grab a piece of the empire. They took Artvin ten years ago, and now we have the border right up to our ass. These disturbances are taking place on our side of the border, in the Choruh Valley, where Armenians live. Of course the Russians are trying to extend their reach. They think we’re weak now. They think they can get another arm of the empire, and the Armenians will get a finger in return.” Huseyin speared a piece of meat and held it up. “And the British lie in wait under the table for the scraps.”
“That may be so,” Feride broke in, “but killing Armenian villagers isn’t going to make them loyal.”
“So what would make them loyal?” Huseyin growled. “Do you think there’s enough gold left in our treasury to buy them?”
“Most of them are loyal now,” Kamil pointed out.
“And if they feel respected and safe and that their children have a future,” Feride added, “then they’ll stay loyal.”
Huseyin stared at them incredulously, wineglass paused in midair. “I’m married into a family of fools.”
“Look more closely and you’ll find not foolishness, but wisdom,” Kamil, offended, told him.
Huseyin laid his hand across his heart. “I apologize.” He nodded at his glass. “Blame it on the grape or on a bad upbringing, but I have no control over my tongue. I would rather cut it out than say a bad word about my honored wife, whom I respect more than myself.” He looked into Feride’s eyes. “Am I forgiven?”
Feride lowered her eyes, then nodded briefly.
Huseyin turned again to Kamil. “Do you think the British are behind the weapons shipment?”
“It makes no sense,” Kamil observed. “If the British wanted to arm the Armenians on the Russian border, it would be much easier to send the weapons through Syria. Anyway, the British would never help the Armenians if that meant helping the Russians.”
“True enough. The British are devious, but not suicidal. The socialists, on the other hand, they’re an unpredictable lot.” Huseyin took another sip of wine.