Jenny White: The Abyssinian Proof

“The problem is,” Omar continued, “there are just too many places to hide. This whole area is full of cisterns and tunnels from so long ago, nobody knows where they all are. Sometimes I wonder why the whole district doesn’t just slide in. The other day, Ali over there,” he indicated with his chin the policeman who was again sitting behind his desk, “was replacing a floorboard in his house and what do you think he found when he took it up?”

“What?”

“A whole goddamned cistern. His house, which, by the way, is as old as ten grandmothers, was propped on top of an enormous lake. One strong fart and the whole thing would have tipped in and sunk.” Omar laughed uncontrollably, knocking against the tray and spilling his tea. Kamil laughed too, picturing the serious Ali hunched over his ledger and breaking wind. He found Omar both disturbing and refreshing.

Omar called over to Ali, “What happened to your hole?”

Ali looked up, confused. He was tall and gangly, with a jutting nose and hair cropped so close that his ears appeared overly large. His Adam’s apple slid up and down like a small animal trapped just beneath the surface of his neck.

“The hole in your floor.”

“Oh,” Ali responded, smiling broadly now. “I’ve been fishing. There are fish down there. Big ones.”

“Well, they’ve been down there for a hundred years, fattening themselves up just for you.”

Omar turned back to Kamil. “Now I’ve heard everything. Can you imagine fishing through a hole in your floor?” He shook his head in wonder. “But enough of this. I’m sure you didn’t come down here to have a laugh.”

Kamil smiled. “It has done me good.” He refused an offer of more tea. “Please tell me about the theft at Kariye Mosque.”

“The caretaker insisted I deliver the report directly to you. He’s an old friend of mine and doesn’t usually make unreasonable demands, so I figured he had a reason. Maybe the box is worth more than he’s telling me. You read his note? What did it say?”

“Just that he wanted to see me today.”

“Do you know him?”

“I consider him a friend, although I haven’t seen him in half a year or so.”

“His nephew came to town around that time. I’ve seen less of Malik lately too. He’s been spending a lot of time at home, probably in his library. I swear that man doesn’t need to eat. He survives on books.”

“Tell me about him.” Kamil was curious about Malik’s life beyond his own narrow experience of it.

“He’s one of the Habesh, you know, the Abyssinians who live over in Sunken Village, next to Sultan Selim Mosque.”

Kamil remembered that Malik had dark olive skin. “That’s the village inside the cistern, isn’t it?” He had heard of this eccentric settlement. “In the Charshamba district. I thought Malik lived in Balat, near the Kariye Mosque.”

“He does, but his family’s in Sunken Village. Ever been there?”

Kamil shook his head no.

“It’s a huge open cistern,” Omar explained, “a hundred and fifty meters on each side and almost eight meters deep. A strange place to put a village. You’re walking along the street by the Charshamba market, and then suddenly there’s a roof at your feet. Stairs so steep, they make your nose bleed.”

“Is the village all Habesh?”

“As far as I know. Some of them have been there for generations, but new ones join all the time-retired and escaped slaves. Allah knows where they all come from. The village reminds them of home, I guess. Although you’d think the eunuchs wouldn’t be so eager to remember their homeland.”

Kamil remembered the Habesh slave in his father’s household when he was growing up. Her skin had the burnished glow of early chestnuts. He had been in love with her, his young heart racing whenever she entered the room to serve coffee to his mother and her guests. It was for good reason, he thought, that Abyssinians were the most sought-after and expensive slaves; they were a beautiful people.

“On Fridays, the village fills up. Habesh come from all over for the ceremony.”

“What ceremony?”

“There’s a hall where they sacrifice an animal and pray. Some kind of old Habesh custom. Then the men walk over to the Kariye Mosque and pray some more. You’d think that with praying twice on Fridays, they’d be more devout, but when they get back, there’s a feast. They play drums and the men sit around drinking raki.”

“You seem to know a lot about it.”

Omar grinned. “I like to drink raki and the Habesh are very hospitable. It gives me pleasure to lie inebriated eight meters below the ground in the shadow of a great mosque, letting the prayers of the faithful roll over me. It’s like practicing being drunk and holy for your coffin. Plus, they pray enough for all of us, so I don’t have to bother.”

Kamil imagined Omar pretending to be drunk, all the while keeping a close watch on the community.

“Why do they go all the way to the Kariye when the Sultan Selim Mosque is right there?” he asked, puzzled. The Kariye Mosque was near the city walls and, he guessed, at least a twenty-minute walk from Sunken Village.

“They have some kind of special relationship with the Kariye. Malik is the caretaker there, but it goes back before him. The caretaker position is inherited, always a Habesh.”

“Does Malik have a son?”

Omar clicked his tongue. “As far as I know, he never married. A sign of great intelligence. The position’ll go to his nephew, Amida. Malik’s sister, Balkis, is the priestess.”

“A priestess? I thought they were Muslims.”

“So they say,” Omar replied cryptically.

“Tell me more about the robbery at the Kariye.”

“Well, I can tell you there are some interesting angles to this robbery. For instance, what the thief didn’t take.”

“What do you mean?”

“Well, he took that old, tarnished reliquary, but he didn’t take a gold chalice studded with rubies that was in the same room. There was even a box of coins, and he didn’t touch it. And the mosque has some valuable silver candleholders, although those are heavy. He must have taken the rug to wrap the reliquary in.”

“Some thieves specialize,” Kamil reflected, “while others take anything they see. Either this was a particularly picky thief, or he was disturbed and had to leave before he could take anything else.”

“I don’t think he was chased off. About four in the morning, an apprentice was walking by the mosque on his way to stoke the fire at a bakery, and he saw a man coming out of the mosque carrying something.”

“A witness!” Kamil exclaimed, excited at the prospect of a real lead. “Why didn’t you write that in your report?”

Omar looked sheepish. “To tell you the truth, Magistrate, I thought you people never read them.”

Kamil sighed with frustration. “Well, we do. At least, I do.” That explained the skimpy police reports. It meant he would have to follow up each case individually, something that could take weeks when he had just seven days. He wished he had trained investigators on his staff, but he had to rely on the police, the gendarmes, and a roomful of lazy clerks. When this was over, he would approach the minister about training investigators for the new courts.

“I’m glad to hear it, Magistrate, although in this case you’re probably wasting your time.”

“Without decent reports, the whole enterprise is a waste of time,” he couldn’t help remarking. “But the fact that you have a witness is excellent news. Did you get a description of the thief?”

“Short and stout, with curly hair that fell below his ears, wearing a wide jacket and a turban. Oh, and the boy said the man was bent over as if he was locking the door. Then he ran off with something bulky under his arm.”