The Winter Thief (3 page)

“Take Vali, Huseyin,” Feride urged, referring to their driver. “I don’t like it when you go out drinking and use a hired carriage.”

“Wine is king and raki is queen, and a good marriage they make. Like ours.” He leaned over and kissed her cheek. “Don’t worry, my rose.”

“When will you be home?”

“I’m not sure.” He kissed her again. “See you, brother-in-law.” Huseyin winked at Kamil and strode out of the room.

Kamil and Feride said nothing for a while, busying themselves with their coffee cups. Then Feride gave a self-conscious laugh and said, “You’ve resisted all my attempts to marry you off, dear brother. But maybe it’s better that way, to marry only when you’re tired of chasing about.”

“I don’t ‘chase about,’ Ferosh,” Kamil responded with mock indignation.

Feride wagged her head and intoned, “Everything reaches my ears.”

Kamil was glad to see a spark in her eyes. She laughed, revealing a row of pearllike teeth.

Then she surprised him by saying, “Elif needs time, brother. She looks happy enough with her art and she loves teaching. But she’s still mourning.” Feride twisted her napkin. “Her example makes me impatient with my own foolish fears.”

Kamil went to her side. He pulled his thumb across her forehead as he had done as a child to soothe her and was rewarded by a sad smile. “I’m always here, Ferosh.”

W
HEN THE BLAST
hit, the first thing Vahid looked at was the porcelain ball hanging from a chain in the middle of the ceiling. His mother continued tatting in her chair by the stove, undisturbed by the noise. He wondered if she was going deaf, although she seemed to hear what she wanted to hear. Her eyes were clouding over with cataracts, slowly blinding her. She didn’t need to see in order to wrest tiny shapes from the thread that slipped through her still-nimble fingers. Almost every surface in the small house was decorated with doilies, laces, and the embroidered cloths she had brought as part of her dowry when she married Vahid’s father. His death, like his life, had left no imprint on the house at all.

The decorative ball was useful as a quick earthquake indicator. Tonight it hung unmoving from the painted ceiling, a still fulcrum in a field of peeling stars and flowers. Not an earthquake then, but a powerful explosion somewhere in the city. He checked the time. Eight o’clock. He opened the window, letting in the smell of damp charcoal and wood fire. A foul-smelling yellow mist insinuated itself into the room. Flakes of snow settled on his sleeve.

To the northeast, above the dark hulks of houses, the sky was abnormally bright. He heard shouts in the distance. Beneath his window, a group of men stood talking excitedly. “The bank is on fire,” he heard one of them say. Vahid marveled at the speed of gossip. The Ottoman Imperial Bank was on the other side of the Golden Horn, the inlet that divided the old city from the new. Certain that this was no ordinary fire, Vahid drew on his coat and boots.

“Are you going?” his mother asked in a reedy voice.

“Yes,” he responded curtly, thinking, as always, that it was obvious that he was going, but feeling guilty about his annoyance. He descended into the dark street.

He followed the commotion down the hill toward the Eminönü pier. A pall of white smoke rose from the opposite shore. He pushed his way through the crowd across the Galata Bridge. In Karaköy Square, men with flares ran about, shouting. As he approached the bank, torches were no longer necessary. The fire was at a wooden taverna across from the bank. The blaze was enormous. Both floors must have been crowded with diners, he thought. Vahid never frequented this taverna, popular with bankers and bureaucrats from the Sublime Porte, the center of government just across the Golden Horn.

The fire brigade pumped water from a tank into the flames. When the fire died down sufficiently, men dashed inside and began to pull out bodies. Those still alive were laid on a covered cart. The air stank of charred flesh. Vahid pulled a handkerchief from his pocket and held it over his mouth. He surmised the victims were rich men making deals or entertaining their mistresses. Many of the corpses were naked—their clothes had burned off—mouths cooked open, blackened hands curled in supplication. Snowflakes settled on them, melting immediately. The cart carrying the wounded began to groan up the steep hill.

The street echoed with shouts and coughs, the moans of the wounded, the murmur of the crowd. A woman screamed, “My daughter, my daughter,” bucking against the bystanders who held her back from the burning building.

A burly, broad-shouldered man whom Vahid assumed to be the police chief was shouting at his men, “Keep the hell out of there, you idiots. It’s going to collapse and crush your stupid skulls. Where the hell is Rejep?”

Sure enough, there was a loud creaking and the taverna lurched as the second floor crashed down upon the first. The chief ran into the rubble, hauling and kicking planks out of his way, and pulled out one of his men. There was a cheer from the bystanders.

As he approached, Vahid noted with surprise that part of the stone facade of the bank also had collapsed. The explosion must have been there, with the fire spreading across the lane to the wooden taverna.

An explosion at the bank was sure to unsettle Sultan Abdul hamid. It was an attack on the financial center of the empire. As he surveyed the scene, Vahid began to see the destruction before him as a rare opportunity. As head of Akrep he commanded hundreds of agents and spies who would track down these criminals. Before long, they’d be hanging on a meat hook in Bekiraga Prison. Perhaps they were revolutionaries with bigger designs on the empire than a simple robbery. He could make sure they confessed to such a plot before they died. When Sultan Abdulhamid saw that Vahid had saved the empire, he was certain the padishah would appoint him chief of the Teshkilati Mahsusa, the enormous secret service that was now only in the planning stages.

As head of the Teshkilati Mahsusa, Vahid would command thousands, not hundreds, of men. They would infiltrate towns and cities all over Europe, not only the Ottoman Empire. He would have direct access to the sultan, instead of having to work through the vizier. The vast networks and resources would make him feared by even the highest-ranking men in the empire. There were those who didn’t believe him worthy of such an exalted position, men who would rejoice if he failed. But Vahid knew in his heart there was no one more capable than he, and he would prove it, possibly now with the help of this remarkable twist of fate.

The snow had let up, and he could see the corpses at the side of the road. At a distance they all looked alike, oozing black and red, mouths open in interrupted screams, claws instead of hands. The police were wrapping each body in a sheet. One man stopped to retch into the gutter.

Vahid walked over to examine the bodies more closely. The patrons of this taverna had been powerful men, but in death they were indistinguishable from those they had commanded.

He recognized her hair. Waist-length golden curls that turned in on themselves like a nautilus. He had never seen another woman with such hair. It had miraculously escaped the flames and unfurled across the pavement. He knelt and reached out to stroke it, avoiding looking at her body. When his hand touched the curls, his fingers stiffened, and for a moment he was unable to breathe, as if his own hands and lungs had been immolated in the fire. With great effort, he turned and inspected her face. It was Rhea. What an hour before had been a delicate face with an engaging smile and alabaster skin had become the bloated black and red mask before him. He remained motionless for a long while, then retrieved a silver hairpin set with rubies from her hair. When two policemen came to move the body, he stood and stepped away.

What was the woman he loved, the woman he was going to marry, doing at a taverna? Overcome by rage at the thought that she had been with another man, he squeezed his hand around the hairpin in his pocket, lacerating his palm. He would find this person and do to him what the man had done to Rhea.

As Vahid walked away from the scene, lost in thought, a man approached him. “Sir,” the Akrep agent said discreetly, “there’s been a new development.”

V
ERA TOOK OFF
her sodden coat and hung it over a chair, then dried her hair with a dirty underskirt. She opened the iron stove. Chunks of coal lay on top of kindling, ready for her to light. Silently thanking Gabriel, she wondered if he would come home tonight. She heard a commotion in the street. She peered out the grimy window, noting a strange brightness to the air, but could see nothing through the storm. After a few minutes, the sounds receded. Who knew what strange things happened at night in a city like this? Better to stay close to the fire and wait for Gabriel. She sat down next to the stove and examined her wool gown for signs of wear, fingering the embroidered sleeve that betrayed her family’s wealth.

She smoked a cigarette and threw the stub on the floor. Bored and hungry, she went to the cupboard and took out the remains of last night’s meal. If only Apollo had come to Istanbul with them as planned, she would have had company now. Her dear friend Apollo Grigorian, whose words poured like brilliant water over his listeners, soothing and inspiring them. He gave the revolution a charmed life, as if it had already happened in their minds and there was no longer any need to fret. Most of all, Vera remembered that he had held her hand when she felt homesick, and had healed her without saying a word. She knew that Apollo’s absence weighed on Gabriel, who had counted on his help for the project he was carrying out in Istanbul. With a stab of anxiety, she wondered whether something had befallen her friend, but then scolded herself. Messages were lost and carts overturned. She knew that Apollo would pick up the spilled apples and move on.

Vera wrapped herself in a quilt and sat back down beside the stove. She would go home to Moscow, she decided. Gabriel didn’t want her here, and she was a failure at being a socialist, a revolutionary, a wife, and, she added for good measure, a daughter. She smoked another cigarette and threw the butt into the stove, then lay down on the quilt. She kept the lamp turned low in case Gabriel should return. She thought about the beaded velvet gown her parents had given her last Christmas. She could almost feel the softness of it on her fingertips. Her baby sister, Tatiana, would be wearing it now. She remembered the weight of Tatiana’s heavy black hair in her hands as she plaited it and the smell of geraniums wintering on the windowsill.

She was asleep when Gabriel slipped through the door and shut it quickly behind him. Gabriel Arti was a tall man with slightly rounded shoulders and a pleasant, undistinguished face with a mustache and clipped beard. He pulled off his wool cap, releasing a shock of sandy hair, and tickled her cheek with it until she woke.

“Where were you this afternoon?” he asked, dropping his coat in the corner.

“I went to see that publisher.”

“God damn it.” Gabriel squatted down beside her, extending his hands to the fire. They were scraped and bleeding. “I told you not to go.”

She got up and went to a ceramic jar in the corner of the room. “Let me heat some water to wash your hands.” She dipped a copper bowl in the water and set it to heat on top of the stove.

“Well, did he agree? Was the fact that you put us in danger balanced by the publication of some tract that only five people will ever read?”

“I wasn’t followed,” she insisted. “It was snowing. Why are you being like this?”

“What difference would snow make, except to make it impossible for you to see whoever was following you?”

“That’s unfair. I have a mission too, and you have no right to keep me locked up here.” She lit another cigarette. “Where were you? You never tell me where you go. Why do I have to report to you?” She threw the cigarette to the floor.

Someone spoke in the street, a snatch of sound, then stopped suddenly. Gabriel rose to his feet so quickly he knocked the water from the stove. He put out the lamp and peered cautiously out the window. “Get your coat on.”

“Why? I told you no one followed me.”

Gabriel grabbed her by the shoulders and shook her. “We have to leave right now,” he said through gritted teeth. “Now. Now.”

She threw on her coat and grabbed the small leather satchel that contained their money, travel papers, and the manuscript.

“Are we coming back? What about the suitcase?”

“No.” He took the satchel from her hand and pushed her toward the door.

She pulled away from him and in the dim light of the stove began to throw her few things into the suitcase. He pulled it out of her hands and flung it across the room.

“I’m taking my things,” she shouted, sobbing, retrieving it. “You don’t care about me at all. Why did you marry me? Just as a convenient cover?”

“Shut up, Vera. You’re being stupid.” He glanced nervously at the door.

Vera placed the suitcase next to the chair and sat, arms folded tightly across her chest. “I won’t be spoken to like that. Go ahead. I’m staying.”

“You’ll get us both killed.” After a moment, Gabriel pulled himself together. “All right,” he said. “I’ll go to the hostler on the corner and rent a carriage to carry my lady away. Is that acceptable?” He made a formal bow, but his smile was forced.

Vera wiped her eyes with the edge of her scarf. “Thank you. I’m sorry I made such a fuss.”

“It won’t take more than five minutes. Take your suitcase and whatever else you want to pack and wait for me at the back door to the alley. Five minutes,” he warned. “Be very quiet. If you see anyone, run into the alley and hide.” He reached into the satchel and handed her a small booklet, her Russian passport. “Put this in your pocket, in case we get separated.”

“I’ll be ready.” She jumped up and retrieved her suitcase from across the room. Hearing his shoes clatter down the back stairs, she worried that he was not wearing boots.

I
T TOOK
more than half an hour to find a hostler so late at night, agree to terms, and harness the horse. Gabriel would have to find a way to return the carriage tomorrow so as not to arouse further suspicion. Tonight of all nights, with the gold safely hidden, he had wanted to celebrate by making love to Vera. He wished he still had his driver, Abel, and the carriage, but after the robbery they had driven to the pasha’s stables in Bebek to stash the gold, and then Abel had dropped Gabriel off and gone home.

Gabriel wiped the snow from his eyes and slapped the horse’s rump with the reins. It was senseless to rail at Vera for her naïve enthusiasm, which had made her forget the basic rule of any mission—make sure you’re not detected. But he could no longer risk staying here. It was crucial that he not be arrested. The entire project, years of preparation, would be destroyed. New Concord commune needed the weapons and the gold to survive. Vera didn’t know about the robbery and the guns or their link to New Concord, so how could he expect her to understand what was at stake?

Over the past eight months, fifty pioneers of the socialist International from Europe, Russia, and the United States had made their way to the Choruh Valley in the Kachkar Mountains to begin a grand experiment Gabriel had conceived and spent the last ten years bringing to life—the first truly socialist community in the world. This was his dream and the dream of dozens of comrades who were risking their lives to realize it.

Last year, he and three associates had traveled by ship down the Danube past Budapest and Belgrade to Trabzon on the Black Sea. From there they rode through the mountains and followed the rapids of the Choruh River to the village of Karakaya, where in the name of the New Concord Foundation, the commune had bought a parcel of land, an orchard, and a ruined monastery that it planned to restore. The valley was a paradise of alternating rain and brilliant sunshine, with stands of poplar and neat orchards of olive, pomegranate, and fig trees. The streams were alive with trout. Villages clung to the slopes below dizzying ascents through forests and alpine meadows. It reminded him of Geneva and made him think of the Garden of Eden. It was the perfect place to begin the human experiment anew, without the sin of greed.

Gabriel left the rented carriage at the end of the dark alley and waded through the snow to the back door of the tenement. Vera wasn’t there. Perhaps she had gotten cold and gone back upstairs to wait by the stove.

He pushed open the door and climbed the stairs. His feet were wet and cold, and he thought he’d change into his boots, which were drying by the fire.

Inside, the suitcase was open, its contents strewn across the floor, but Vera was gone. He looked down and saw a bloody mass beneath his shoes. He stumbled backward, then realized, to his relief, that it was a crushed pomegranate. He wondered where it had come from. Maybe Vera had kept the fruit until they could make their luck together. The pomegranate told him that she had struggled. He walked around the room, his fists balled, but there was nothing else to tell him what had happened.

He ran down the stairs to the front of the house, noticing muddy smears on the treads. He peered out into the empty street. The snow gave off a nacreous glow. A glint of candlelight appeared in a window across the way. He could see carriage tracks, but snow had already filled them in, leaving only shallow depressions.

He went back upstairs and examined the room again. An object on the floor, embedded in the crushed flesh of the pomegranate, caught his eye. He picked it up and wiped it clean. It was Vera’s passport. A corner of the first page had torn away.

Gabriel pulled from his pocket the wool cap, a kind local workers wore, tucked his scarf around his face, and stepped into the street. He walked slowly and deliberately in the opposite direction from where he had left the carriage.

He felt rather than saw the men behind him. Gabriel was skilled at evasion, learned as a boy in the brutal dockyards of Sevastopol and honed in two decades of political organizing. He leaped sideways into an alley, leaving no tracks, then moved from one doorway to another, trying to land on dry surfaces. Before long he had lost his pursuers.

He walked much of the night, not daring to hail a carriage. Keeping the Bosphorus in sight to his right, he headed north. The road wound through a forest at the crest of the hill, then dipped steeply and rose again. He stumbled in the darkness under the trees and more than once became mired in drifts. In desperation, he left the road and struggled down the slope, pushing his way through undergrowth and brambles, toward the waters of the strait pulsing far below.

He came to a village, dark and shuttered against the storm. A thin stream of smoke drifted from a stovepipe chimney protruding from the side of a house, and Gabriel was momentarily entranced by the scent of burning wood. He imagined his sister sitting beside him on a quilt. It was satin. He could almost taste the bright pink color. He had stolen it from a porch where it was being aired and brought it to their shack in the forest. Whenever his sister stroked the slippery surface, her face took on a soft, faraway look. Gabriel was gripped by a powerful impulse to sit down beneath the chimney and lose himself in his memories.

The thought of his naïve childlike wife in the hands of the police pushed him forward. He stumbled past the houses and found a path that he thought might connect this fishing village to the next. It was barely discernible in the storm, but at least it was level.

After several more hours, his hair and beard were frozen and he could no longer feel his limbs. Like a leper, he moved forward insensibly, not caring whether he was freezing to death. It didn’t matter. Why had he left Vera alone?

He thought he felt the warm winter breeze of Sevastopol on his face, the wetness on his cheeks was salty sea spray. His sister kissed his cheek softly. He caught her scent of hyacinths and thought he should stop and embrace her. He had believed his sister was dead, but he was mistaken. The realization filled him with happiness. He resisted the desire to sit down and let the snow cover him. He had to stay alive to get Vera back.