Jenny White: The Abyssinian Proof

Kamil calculated the distance between himself and his gun on the table beside the piano. Owen could easily reach it from where he sat.

Owen turned around and gave a mock bow. “What can I do to convince you, Kamil?”

“You can let Amida go and answer some questions about those chests full of antiquities and jewelry.”

“I thought that had to be you. No one else could have worked it out. Congratulations. And what about that flaxen-haired damsel, Miss Elif? Amida said you went out on a limb to rescue her.” Owen chuckled. “My dear fellow, is that the mark of a casual acquaintance? But you can’t be beside her every moment, old chap. I’d be honored to ensure that no harm comes to her.”

He began to recite, “‘And thou art dead, as young and fair / As aught of mortal birth; / And form so soft, and charms so rare, / Too soon return’d to Earth!’”

“‘Look around and choose thy ground, and take thy rest,’” Kamil responded in a hard voice, furious at Owen’s implied threat.

Owen looked enormously pleased. “My dear friend. You know Byron too! How wonderful! That’s from ‘My Thirty-Sixth Year,’ isn’t it? What a delightful change from the rather uninspired company I’m forced to keep these days.” He gave Ben a toothy smile. “Sorry, old man, but you’re not exactly a poet, though you have many endearing qualities. Kamil, you know we’d be smashing good friends if you gave me half a chance. Tell me where the Proof of God is and let’s split the proceeds. Right down the middle. No one will know.”

Kamil looked down at Amida.

“Oh, he won’t say a word. I can guarantee you that,” Owen assured him.

The confidence of his prediction sent a chill through Kamil.

Suddenly a shot rang out. At Kamil’s feet, Amida’s body writhed, then lay still. The carpet pattern began to blur. Kamil turned to see his gun in Owen’s hand.

“Not to worry. Nothing serious, although the next one will be. I’m in a bit of a rush. I’ll trade you Amida’s life, and Elif’s, for the Proof of God. Now that’s surely a bargain you can’t refuse? It’s a pile of paper, for heaven’s sake. Surely it’s not worth two lives.” Owen smiled. “You see, Kamil, I do know you. I know your type.”

There was no more time to stall, Kamil decided. Omar or no Omar, he had to act now. He picked up one of the Venetian lamps and hurled it onto the sofa so that its delicate glass belly shattered and oil spilled over the cotton cover, already soaked with whisky. The second lamp followed. Kamil grabbed the ormolu device and ducked behind the sofa just as Owen released another shot. Out of the corner of his eye he could see Ben heading toward him. Kamil pressed the lever and a flame shot out. He held it to the oil-soaked handkerchief draped over the back of the sofa, and when the cloth caught fire, he flung it onto the seat.

Ben was almost on top of him. Kamil scuttled around the other side of the sofa just as a bullet screamed by his head. He lit another part of the sofa with the flame from the device, praying that, in spite of everything he believed, this time there was a God, and he was looking his way.

Crimson and yellow flames shot up as the lamp oil caught fire and spread to the straw stuffing. Black smoke began to fill the room.

Owen slammed the piano lid down. “You can’t win this,” he shouted and ran toward the corridor, Ben behind him. They stopped briefly to confer with Remzi, then they were gone.

Kamil threw himself across the floor and tore open the front door.

Yakup burst into the room, gun drawn. The draft caused the fire to bloom.

Outside the cottage, excited voices shouted, “Fire! Call the fire brigade!”

Kamil instructed Yakup to bring Amida outside, then turned to pursue Owen and his men.

In the corridor, he paused and listened. He heard a noise coming from the bedroom and peered around the door. Ben was trying to squeeze his girth into the opening in the wall that led to the tunnel.

Just then, smoke boiled into the room and the rafters cracked.

Ben disappeared, but the smoke had become so thick Kamil couldn’t follow. Coughing, he turned and ran out of the house, his jacket singed, ashes glowing in his hair.

“Damn,” Kamil said, resting on a large stone beneath the cistern wall. “Damn.” Spurred by the implied threat to Elif, he had sent Yakup to alert the guard at Huseyin’s house while he helped put out the fire, part of a human chain that passed buckets of water from the well. Exhausted, his head aching, Kamil surveyed the damage both to the cottage and to his case. He was also worried about Omar.

It was sheer luck that Balkis’s house and the other cottages hadn’t caught fire. There had been enough men around to put out the blaze quickly. During the day, most of them would have been at work, but in the middle of the night, all were at home. The fire brigade arrived-a team of muscular young men running in unison, carrying a water pump on their shoulders-but by that time, the fire had been tamed. The piano remained upright like a large smoldering creature rooting in the rubble. Amida was being looked after by Courtidis and Saba. He had been shot in the lower back. Courtidis was not sure whether he would recover. There was no sign of Owen or his men. Kamil boiled with frustration that he had let them slip away. He had expected them to run out the front door, where Yakup was waiting. He should have remembered that Remzi knew about the tunnels.

It was almost dawn. A pall of white smoke filled the cistern like a bowl, making it difficult to see. A tall, thick-necked man in a ripped shirt approached him. His face was scratched and dirty, as were all their faces. Kamil assumed it was a villager coming to thank him. If only they knew he was the one who had started the fire, Kamil thought glumly.

“Well, where the hell were you?” Omar asked him with mock anger.

“Where was I?” Kamil jumped up and cried out. “Where was I while you were getting your beauty sleep?” He took a closer look at Omar and noticed for the first time the cuts and bruises. His eye was beginning to swell. “What happened to you?”

“You don’t count punches in a fight.” Omar tried to smile, but ended in a grimace of pain. “What happened to you?” He leaned closer and examined Kamil’s blood-caked hair.

Kamil smiled bleakly. “We can compare war stories later.”

“Well, come along, then. I have a present for you.”

He led Kamil through the smoke to a tumbledown cottage at the edge of the compound.

“It’s used for storage,” Omar explained and flung open the door.

On the floor, bound like two neat packages, were Ben and Remzi, bloodied and black with soot. Ben’s face was swollen like a cantaloupe. Remzi lay quietly with his eyes closed, blood trickling from his ear.

Kamil pounded Omar on the back. “How did you do it?”

“There are those who can ride a horse, and there are those who can’t,” Omar replied, making no attempt at modesty. He pointed to the back of the cottage, where steps led down into blackness. He shrugged. “Two against one, in the dark? It was better than kissing a pretty woman.”

After making sure their prisoners were under lock and key, Kamil and Omar sat at the back of the Fatih station, drinking tea. Dawn threw strange halfhearted shadows on the floor, as if the day were only practicing and still unwilling to commit its full strength.

“I can’t believe Owen escaped.” Kamil’s voice was hoarse from inhaling smoke. He worried about Elif and wondered if Owen would make good on his threat to harm her or whether he’d just try to leave the empire the fastest way possible. Kamil had ordered every customs station, port, and train station to be watched, and sent gendarmes to notify every stable in the city where Owen might rent or purchase a horse and carriage. Huseyin’s liveried guards were armed and on full alert.