Jenny White - The Winter Thief

When Elif didn’t answer, Kamil began to despair. She had refused him the previous year. What made him think that just because she had given her body, she would now be willing to tie herself to him? He drew away. His hands were slick with sweat.

Elif turned so that their faces were almost touching. He couldn’t see her expression. “Will you take me as I am? Half a woman?” Her voice was gravelly with emotion.

“What do you mean?” Kamil exclaimed. “You’re not half of anything. In fact, you’re more of everything than most women are.” He wasn’t sure what that meant exactly, but he believed it, and it seemed to satisfy Elif.

“Then we should try it.”

Kamil was grateful for the dark that hid his tears of relief. They remained silent for a long time, entwined like the kittens. The enormity of what he had just done expanded in the room about him. Soon he would have to tell Feride. Arrangements would have to be made. Elif would need her own studio, apart from his precious winter garden. The sitting room by the garden had good light and could be adapted. He should tell Yakup to hire workmen. He lay on his back, eyes wide open, increasingly anxious, assailed by the consequences of his proposal.

The following day, Yorg Pasha arrived at the yali in a gaily decorated caïque rowed by eight men. They showed the pasha around the house and garden, and then, over a festive luncheon on the shaded terrace, Kamil took Elif’s hand and announced their engagement, aware that the words were irrevocable and glad of it.

The twins squealed with delight and then ran into the garden. As he listened to the assembled group-Feride and Huseyin, Yorg Pasha, Sister Hildegard, and Doctor Moreno-cheer and call out congratulations, Kamil felt relieved. He no longer had to worry about whether it was the right decision or not. He had found over these past few months that the calculus that decided whether or not decisions were right was unreliable and predicted nothing. What was precious and right was life and the joy one was able to give to others as well as partake in oneself. He leaned over and kissed Elif on the cheek. Just then Alev and Yasemin returned with fistfuls of flower petals that they strewed over the couple. Kamil laughed and hugged the girls. Then he walked to where Feride was sitting and, leaning over, cupped her head in his hand and kissed her forehead, letting his thumb linger like a benediction.

He saw Huseyin’s smile, the happiness and pride in his eyes when he looked at Feride, and he was glad that his sister and brother-in-law had reconciled and recovered whatever had been lost between them after the accident. Feride was radiant. She had spent the afternoon closeted with Doctor Moreno, Sister Hildegard, the family accountant, and an architect, drawing up plans for the renovation of the Eyüp Mosque hospital and discussing the seed money needed to draw donations to build a children’s hospital in Galata on the site of Sister Hildegard’s infirmary. The property for the hospital, Sister Hildegard explained over lunch, had been donated by the Austrian Embassy. Feride planned to ask the wealthy women in her circle for donations to construct the building. Once the hospital was built, the embassy would maintain it.

Elif spoke little, but Kamil could tell that it soothed her to sit at the center of her new and unexpected family.

After luncheon was finished, Yorg Pasha motioned Kamil over to a carpet spread under a blooming Stewartia tree. Kamil helped Yorg Pasha sit and arranged the cushions behind him. Yakup handed them tiny china cups of coffee, then withdrew.

Yorg Pasha took a sip. “We haven’t found him,” he announced. “His mother has been no help.”

Kamil wished he had stopped Vahid in Huseyin’s office. What had tipped him off? Kamil had gone through the conversation in his mind a hundred times but could find nothing. “You said Vahid’s mother is blind. Who’s looking after her?”

“He paid the daughter of a neighbor to look in on her. Their agreement was that if his mother became unwell, the girl would move in and take care of her. He gave her some money and promised her a lot more.”

“And you’ll be watching when it’s delivered.”

“The house is under surveillance. When the payment comes, they’ll trace it, hopefully back to Vahid.”

“Do you think he left the country?”

Yorg Pasha thought for a moment. “This is his habitat. I doubt he’d stray far from it.”

“So Akrep is going after its own chief?”

“The sultan has disbanded Akrep, although he still has his own secret police. He’s moving ahead with an even bigger secret organization, the Teshkilati Mahsusa.”

“An intelligence service,” Kamil observed. “I understand they plan to send spies abroad.” He set down his cup and stretched his legs out. “If it’s run well, it might benefit us. We need better information about what the British and the Russians are planning.”

“And the French, Germans, Armenians, and Greeks. Just spit in Istanbul and you hit a foreign spy. We need our own sources.” Yorg Pasha focused on Kamil’s face. “Your father would be proud of you.”

“What do you mean?” A breeze ghosted through the branches of the Stewartia tree, dislodging a torrent of white petals.

“The hero of Trabzon, celebrated in European capitals. Wouldn’t that be the perfect front for an intelligence chief? Sultan Abdulhamid has mentioned your name in connection with the position.”

Kamil was taken aback. “I’ve heard nothing about that. I’m not sure I’m interested.” His eyes strayed to the terrace, where Elif sat beside Feride, stroking a white cat in her lap.

“You may not have a choice.”

Kamil closed his eyes and let his head fall back against the trunk of the tree, his lips pressed tightly together. Petals drifted down and cooled his cheeks like the false promise of paradise.