The Abyssinian Proof

3

Back in his office, Kamil took up a sketch of a chalice stolen from a mosque two days earlier. Someone had colored in the precious stones, pink for rubies, yellow for diamonds. Like many in the Old City, the mosque had been converted from a church, and some of its Christian valuables were still kept in a storeroom. Probably not locked or guarded, Kamil thought, shaking his head at the foolhardiness of his countrymen. Constantinople had fallen to the Turkish armies more than four centuries ago, but Istanbul was still strewn with its bones. Byzantine walls, arches, cisterns, and artifacts came to light every time someone stuck a spade in the ground. The old city was encrusted with the new, but no matter how many palaces and mosques the sultans and their families built, the Christian city always found a way to remind the newcomers that it had been there first.

Abdullah brought in a new file. A note attached to the front asked that it be delivered to Kamil directly. Thinking the file might be important, Kamil opened it. A silver reliquary, he read, had been taken the previous day from a storeroom in the Kariye Mosque in Balat. Also a small prayer rug. An accompanying sketch of the rug showed elaborate borders of saz leaves and lotus palmettes, and an open field, in the center of which was a six-lobed medallion. There was a description but no sketch of the reliquary.

He read through the file again, running his hand through his wiry black hair. The streak of white over his left temple had become more pronounced since his father’s death and Kamil’s lean face appeared older than his thirty-one years.

A small rug and a tarnished silver box hardly seemed worth his while. Why had this file been addressed to him personally? He detached the envelope from the front and broke the seal. Before reading even the first line, his eyes were drawn to the sketch in the bottom right corner, a charcoal rendering of a fox. Above the drawing was the signature “Malik.”

Kamil remembered Malik with a rush of pleasure. The swarthy, white-bearded man with a pronounced limp had appeared one day at his office soon after he became a magistrate to ask about the medicinal uses of orchid powder. Having spent years finding, sketching, and cataloguing specimens native to the empire, Kamil had been delighted to find someone else interested in orchid lore and invited Malik to his house to see his collection. On that first day, he remembered, they had discussed Kamil’s favorite winter drink-hot, creamy saleb, made from the tubers of Orchis mascula. People believed it healed the spleen, helped in childbirth, and prevented cholera, something they had both agreed was unlikely. Saleb in Arabic meant fox, Malik had explained, because the orchid’s tubers looked like the testicles of a fox.

Their conversation had quickly moved from plants to philosophy. Malik, Kamil discovered, was a remarkably learned man. They began to meet once a month at a café near Karaköy Square, halfway between Kamil’s office and the Kariye Mosque, of which Malik was the caretaker. One day in late spring of this year, the café owner had handed Kamil a note in which Malik explained apologetically that a relative had come to town, so he wouldn’t be able to visit Kamil for a while. He had signed it with a sketch of a fox. Kamil berated himself for letting six months go by without calling on his friend. What if he had fallen ill? It would have been a simple enough matter to find his house, but Kamil, absorbed in his work, had let it go.

Happy to see that Malik was well, Kamil read his brief note. In it, Malik asked Kamil to come to see him that day on an urgent matter. The note was polite and apologetic, but gave no further information about what was so important. Surely not a simple reliquary and a rug?

Kamil debated whether he should go. He had only a week to solve the thefts. How could he justify wasting time on an errand for a friend?

He reread the report and noted, at the bottom of the page, the name of the police chief responsible for Balat and Fatih, Omar Loutfi. He had met Chief Omar several times and was impressed by his intelligence and tenacity, but remembered him also as a man with a temper, an intemperate tongue, and little patience. Still, discussing the thefts with the police chief of Fatih would give him a legitimate reason to follow up on Malik’s request and might even open up new leads. He had to start somewhere.

He left his office cheered at the prospect of meeting up with his old friend. In the antechamber, Abdullah was laughing with another scribe in the corner. When they saw Kamil, they fell silent and lowered their heads respectfully.

Kamil stepped out into the avenue and rounded the corner to the stables at the back of the court building. He waited in the dimness, breathing in the salty scent of hay and equine sweat while the stable boy brought out a strong bay. He swung himself into the saddle, glad of the activity. His horse wound its way through the narrow streets behind the Grande Rue de Pera, past the British Embassy, and down a steep hill to the Old Bridge across the Golden Horn, which shone like beaten copper in the morning light.

Chief Omar was a big, rangy man with a greasy mustache and the brusque talk and manner of a soldier. He had soft brown eyes, the kind that would be irresistible to a woman, but which lent the rough policeman a rather doleful air.

“I read your report on the theft at Kariye Mosque,” Kamil told him.

“You came all this way because of a silver box? Not that you’re not welcome,” he added graciously.

They were facing each other on low stools in a corner of the Fatih police station. Between them was a round copper tray on a stand that held a battered bowl and two glasses of tea. Despite the early hour, the Fatih station was busy. Several men squatted on their haunches against the wall. A heavily veiled woman sat on a low bench, telling her story to a policeman who stood by a desk. Her son had been missing for three days, she began. Whenever she finished a sentence, the policeman would repeat it to another man, sitting at the desk, who wrote it down in a ledger. Kamil could hear raised voices down the corridor, where they kept the prisoners.

Omar offered him a cigarette. The tea was too sweet for Kamil’s liking, but he sipped it out of politeness.

“So, tell me about the reliquary and the rug. If they’re so unimportant, why send us a report at all?” Kamil waved a hand at the room. “You deal with such things all the time.”

Omar shrugged. “I told the caretaker it would be wasting your time, but he insisted. I hear you’ve got your hands full with thieves and assassins.” He looked at Kamil with approval.

Kamil brushed off the reference the previous night’s raid. The less said about it, the better. He leaned forward, alert. “How much do you know about the thefts?”

“What there is to know. A lot of it’s happening right here. Fatih has always been a paradise for smugglers. They do quite well with all of Byzantium lying beneath their grubby hands. You should see some of their houses. Not much to look at, but inside they’d rival a pasha’s konak.”

Surprised, Kamil asked, “You’ve been in their homes?”

“I’ve been a policeman in this neighborhood longer than you’ve been wearing a fez. I know everybody.”

“Why don’t you just arrest them?”

“The jail isn’t big enough. We watch them and we make sure they know that we’re watching them. We’ve been busy chasing down a string of murders over the past few months. Had another one this morning. They’ve just brought the body in. Want to see it?”

Kamil didn’t, but knew he had to. He followed Omar down the corridor to a small, tiled room. The body of a skinny young man lay on the table, a deep cut in his chest just above the heart.

Kamil walked around the corpse. “Is there a pattern to the killings?”

“There’ve been a lot of them.”

Kamil wasn’t amused by his flippant tone and regarded the police chief with irritation. “Who is this?”

“Don’t know yet, but bound to be a local, the usual rabble, stabbed, like the others.” Omar bent over and looked at the hands. “Chafed knuckles, went down with a fight. One unusual thing is the number of deaths, every other week another body, sometimes two, since midsummer. This was a pretty quiet district before. Nobody knows anything, so people start believing it’s all a conspiracy.”

He signaled to an assistant to turn the body over.

“This is the other unusual thing.”

Kamil saw four intersecting cuts on the dead man’s back. “Torture?”

“I don’t think so. There was no bleeding. Looks like this was done after he was killed. It’s always the same pattern, although not all the bodies have it on them.”

“What do you think it means?”

“Beats me. Looks a bit like mountains,” he tilted his head, “or wings. Clearly the murderer’s mark.”

“A message of some kind?”

“It’s not writing, but then most of these thugs can’t read anyway, much less write.” Omar turned and led the way back down the corridor. He stopped and spoke to the policeman behind the desk. “See if that woman recognizes…you know.” He nodded in the direction of the back room. The policeman got up and went over to the woman who had reported her son missing.

Kamil and Omar sat back down on their stools. Kamil lit a cigarette to take away the chill of death.

“A fight over territory between rival gangs of smugglers?” Kamil suggested as he held out his cigarette case.

An agonized wail rose from the corridor.

Omar pursed his lips and exhaled loudly. “Now we know whose body it is. That’s the butcher’s widow. Must have been her son.” He took a cigarette and rolled it thoughtfully between his fingers. “If it is a fight over territory, that’d be something new. These smugglers have been doing it for generations. They’re organized in families, not gangs. It would explain how that boy,” he nodded toward the corridor, “got involved. He’s not a member of the smuggling families, and they don’t take kindly to outsiders. They have their own traditions and they don’t get in each other’s way. As long as they keep on our good side, we don’t bother them either. It keeps the peace.”

“Your policemen take bribes to look the other way?” Kamil asked, watching as the policeman and a woman helped the bereft mother out of the station. “Don’t you think that encourages people to commit crimes?”

Omar looked at Kamil incredulously. “Ah,” he said finally, as if he had solved a puzzle. “Of course. They say you have to be ignorant to be a saint. Do you have any idea what a policeman’s salary is?”

Kamil ignored Omar’s implied insult and admitted that he didn’t.

“Four hundred kurush a month.”

Kamil was taken aback. Even the lowest official’s salary was fifteen hundred. Ministers earned more than fifty thousand, but they had to support an enormous staff.

“Do you know how much it costs to support a family?” Omar continued relentlessly. “At least a thousand. Do you think the Ministry of Justice takes bribes into account in calculating a policeman’s pay?”

Kamil didn’t answer. Was it really corruption if policemen were paid so little that they were forced to take bribes to feed their families? The answer wasn’t clear to Kamil, and this disturbed him. Taking bribes was stealing both from the citizens and from the state. It ought to be wrong, always. He thought he might ask Ismail Hodja about it next time they met. The wise old sheikh would surely have some insight.

Meanwhile, Omar continued, “Just think of bribes as a kind of service tax that goes straight into the pockets of the civil servant, instead of through the government first. If you feed meat to the government, it comes out as shit the other end. Makes sense to give it to a man up front so he can feed his kids. You know the saying, ‘If one eats while the other can only look on, that’s when doomsday starts.’”

“It would make more sense for the government to pay the police a decent wage,” Kamil responded dryly. “There’s no justice if it can be bought.”

“Like I said, you’re a saint, Kamil Pasha.” The police chief flicked his ashes into the bowl. “I agree, but we’re not living in the Garden of Eden.”

“The Garden of Eden is overrated. Think of the snakes and the temptation.”

Omar laughed. “Yeah, not too different from Fatih.”

“Tell me about the smuggling.”

“Until now, it’s been mostly petty stuff that doesn’t harm anyone. We don’t let anyone get too big because that’s dangerous. And we don’t like it when someone starts trampling on our district. We’re the only ones allowed to wear iron shirts around here.”

Kamil understood this to mean that whoever was responsible for the recent spate of thefts hadn’t paid the traditional bribe to the police and was therefore unknown and unpredictable. A co-opted criminal was a predictable criminal.

“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.”

“The reliquary wrapped in the carpet.”

“Right. But it’s not much to go on. Short, fat, and curly haired. Could be anyone. Could be me.” He showed a row of tobacco-stained teeth beneath his mustache.

“You’re not short.”

“True.” Omar rubbed his balding head.

“So the thief wasn’t disturbed. But why take just a worthless box?”

“Exactly. You’d think he’d be tempted by the chalice. It was sitting there in full view in the storeroom.”

Kamil clicked his tongue in disapproval.

“There was also a spilled medicine bottle.”

“What do you make of that?”

“That the room wasn’t only used for storage.”

“Let’s go there,” Kamil suggested.

On their way out of the station, Omar stopped by the policeman Ali’s desk, leaned over, and told him in a low voice, “Go find our ear in Charshamba. I want to know if there’s any new activity. The magistrate here wants to get his hands dirty.” He turned to Kamil. “I should wear one of those necklaces the old warriors had where they strung up their enemies’ ears. I swear, having informants in the right place at the right time makes the difference between being a policeman and a donkey.”

They stepped into Small Market Street, where a young officer was waiting with their horses. The sky had become overcast and thunder rumbled over the sunflower fields in distant Thrace. They turned down one, then another narrow lane. Kamil tried to remember their route but soon lost track. Wooden houses in various stages of decay listed into the lane on both sides, their protruding second stories almost touching overhead. Some of the houses were missing wooden slats, revealing naked laths beneath gaping holes. The houses were set within a gap-toothed landscape of ruined brick walls, many with the characteristic striped pattern, alternating brick and stone, laid by Byzantine masons. The district looked wounded, Kamil thought, still festering after four hundred years. Late-summer carnations brightened crumbling windowsills and sagging balconies.

Except where the streets narrowed, they walked their horses side by side. Pedestrians, peddlers and their carts, and the ubiquitous cats scattered before them. As they rode, Kamil filled Omar in on the rash of thefts and the way antiquities were appearing in Europe within weeks of being stolen. “This has to be an organized ring. For such a fast delivery system, they must have very good connections.”

Omar nodded thoughtfully. “Not the usual family business then, although you’d be surprised how clever and connected some of these people are. I’ve heard rumors, though, about a new dealer who pays so much that he’s driving the old-timers out of business. Unless they sell to him, of course. They call him Kubalou. That’s all I know.”

Kamil’s mind began to sort new possibilities. “He’s Cuban?”

“That’s what they say. I’ve never seen him. For that matter, I couldn’t tell a Cuban from a cantaloupe. He speaks English, does everything through middlemen so nothing leads back to him. Maybe that’s what the killings are about. As you said, a turf war, but between the dealers, not the thieves. Kubalou’s gang against the old families.”

“It’s the extent of the operation that puzzles me. It’s on an entirely different scale from anything we’ve seen before, things disappearing all over the empire and ending up in London. We tracked some items stolen in Bursa and Edirne to Istanbul, so it looks like the smuggling routes converge here. If we could find the Kariye thief, he might lead us to the next level up in the hierarchy. It seems unlikely that one man could be behind something as elaborate as this.” He guided his horse around a cart piled with apples that was blocking the lane. “All of these antiquities should be put in the Imperial Museum for safekeeping,” he grumbled.

“I agree. But that would have been like throwing chickens to the foxes when all the museum directors were European.”

“Well, Hamdi Bey is head of the museum now,” Kamil responded. “And we have an antiquities law.”

“So we have teeth but nothing to bite.”

The road climbed upward. After a while, they passed a shade-dappled fountain and emerged into a small square that was dominated by a perfectly proportioned Byzantine church, its domes rising softly above the portico. It was now a mosque, of course, but after seeing the decay of the streets leading up to it, Kamil was touched by its survival. A teardrop-shaped ornament capped its minaret and a patchwork of tile-roofed houses unfurled behind it like a cloak.

The classic imperial mosques built by master Ottoman architects like Sinan were more majestic by far, but to Kamil’s eye, the former churches had a sturdy charm. Some people might find his admiration for Christian architecture suspect, but he didn’t care. He had tried to believe in something beyond this world, especially after his father committed suicide the previous year. Blaming himself, Kamil had been plagued by nightmares and headaches. Ismail Hodja had encouraged him to meditate on Allah’s presence in the world and he had done so, sitting in the Nakshibendi order’s lodge high on a hill in Beshiktash, allowing the soothing poetry and prayer to penetrate him. At least the nightmares had faded. But the pretense of faith was too hard to keep up and he had sought his natural direction, as always, in science and rational thought, in the straight line of understanding rather than the straight path of Allah. Reason and routine didn’t bring solace, but they brought some measure of peace, the kind of peace that came when one ceased to struggle. That was almost the solace of faith, he thought, though it did nothing to ease his headaches.

“That’s Kariye Mosque,” Omar explained. “The imam lives over there. We’d better let him know we’re here.”

They dismounted before a small, whitewashed cottage. Omar raised the knocker and let it fall. After a few moments, the imam, a skinny man with a stained yellow beard and hastily wound turban, opened the door, squinting against the light.

“This is the magistrate,” Omar announced without preamble. “He’s here about the theft.”

The imam blinked nervously at Kamil. “It wasn’t my fault,” he stammered. “That’s the caretaker’s responsibility. Ask Malik.” He started to close the door, but Omar leaned his shoulder against it.

Kamil noted that the imam’s teeth had rotted to brown stubs and wondered whether the old man was in pain. That would explain the medicine bottle found in the storeroom. “Hodjam,” he said, addressing him as teacher, “I’d like to take a look at the room where the theft occurred.”

“Oh, of course.” The imam appeared relieved and smiled ingratiatingly. “Omar, you know where Malik is. Get him to unlock the door for you. I haven’t finished my prayers.”

Nothing sweetened a man like respect, Kamil thought.

As Kamil and Omar approached the mosque, a tall, dark-complexioned man with a white beard rounded the corner. He was wearing a white turban and a brown wool robe fastened by a silver pin of intricate design. As he approached, his broad shoulders dipped with each step and his right foot dragged slightly. Beside him walked a slight figure in an apple-green charshaf.

Malik smiled broadly. “Kamil, my friend, it’s good to see you again. How are you?” He took hold of Kamil’s shoulders.

“I’m well, Malik. I’m well.” Kamil was enormously pleased to see his friend.

The woman beside Malik held her veil pinched shut beneath her nose so that it framed her eyes, which were green and held the light like liquid. They were trained curiously on Kamil.

“This is my niece, Saba,” Malik explained. “She’s one of my best pupils. Saba, this is Kamil Pasha, magistrate of Lower Beyoglu,” Malik told her in a meaningful tone, then leaned over and said something to her that Kamil didn’t catch. There were undertones in their exchange that he found vaguely disquieting, and he had the feeling that this meeting had been prearranged.

Saba looked up at him and stepped closer. “My uncle has told me about you, Kamil Pasha.” Her voice had the melodious resonance of a clarinet, sweet and tenacious.

Kamil placed his hand over his heart and bowed his head in greeting. “Selam aleikum, peace be upon you.”

“Aleikum selam, upon you be peace, pasha. I’m glad to finally have the honor of meeting you.” Her eyes tilted slightly upward. Kamil fancied that they flashed with interest before she lowered them modestly.

“We’d be honored if you would visit our humble home, Kamil Pasha,” she told him, then took her leave.

They watched the tiny green figure move off down the street and disappear around the fountain.

“A remarkable young woman,” Malik said to no one in particular.

Kamil was tempted to take this as an invitation to ask about her, but decided it would be indiscreet.

“My family lives over in Sunken Village,” Malik said.

“Omar was telling me the village is mostly Habesh.”

“There are about forty families. We make a living selling produce from our gardens.”

“And smuggling,” Omar interjected.

Malik looked at him reprovingly. “That’s just gossip.”

“Come on, Malik. Everyone knows that. I hear your sister, Balkis, is quite well-off. There’s no way she got rich selling vegetables.”

Malik frowned. “Her husband passed away and left her well cared for. Why do you always kick over rocks looking for scorpions? Sometimes a rock is just a rock and covers nothing but plain soil.”

“The soil in this part of town is rich with manure,” Omar retorted.

Kamil wondered at the relationship between the mild old man and the gruff police chief. They quarreled like an old married couple.

“I’m impressed by how much you know about what goes on in this area,” he told Omar.

“The coffeehouse,” Omar said with a grin. “Everybody knows everybody. All you need is an ear and a strong stomach. But enough socializing. If we don’t get this case solved by lunchtime, I’ll starve.”

Kamil turned to Malik. “You asked to see me. Is it about the theft?”

“I’m sorry to trouble you with it,” Malik answered, pressing Kamil’s hand between his own. It was an unremarkable statement, but Kamil saw the urgency in his friend’s eyes.

“On the contrary,” Kamil responded, “an opportunity to meet up with an old friend is precious. And I hear there was a witness. There’ve been thefts from the Patriarchate, the Fatih Mosque, and other places in the area. One thief could lead us to others, especially the dealers they sell to.”

Malik looked relieved. “I’ll do whatever I can to assist. What else can I tell you?”

“You’ve heard the description of the thief?”

“Omar told me,” Malik replied. “Long hair. Could it have been a woman?”

Kamil nodded thoughtfully. “I hadn’t considered that possibility. Do you have the key to the storeroom?”

“It’s not locked. The keys to those old doors are long gone. The mosque was restored about ten years ago and we asked the Ministry of Pious Foundations to replace the doors, but they didn’t see fit to do so. Only the outer door can be locked.”

“How many keys are there?” Kamil remembered that the baker’s apprentice had seen the thief bend over the door as if locking it.

“Just one. Both the imam and I use it, so we keep it in a room behind the mosque to which we both have a key.”

Two men were arguing in the square. A group of men surrounded them and began to take sides. There was shouting and a scuffle.

Malik frowned in their direction. “It’s probably about the icon, the one that was stolen from the Patriarchate. You heard about it?”

“Of course,” Omar replied, his eyes on the quarreling men.

“The Christians are blaming the Muslims for stealing it. It’s ridiculous, of course. Everyone knows a theft is just a theft.”

As the tension in the square rose, Kamil waited for Omar’s cue to act. It was his district. Just then, the imam appeared and spoke to a few of the men. They turned their backs angrily and left, and the argument seemed to subside.

“Let’s see the key,” Omar suggested.

Malik led Kamil and Omar around to the back of the mosque, where a small, whitewashed structure had been built into the corner of a collapsed but still massive brick wall.

“This used to be a church in Byzantine times,” Malik explained. “The name, Saint Savior in Chora, referred to the fact that in those days it was in the country, outside the original city walls.” He laid his hand on the crumbling bricks. “This is all that’s left of the monastery. The monks spent their time copying old texts. They copied Greek manuscripts that have been lost in the original, and they translated Arab writings from earlier centuries. If it weren’t for the monks, we wouldn’t have Ibn al-Thahabi’s medical treatise The Book of Water or al-Ma’mun’s Face of the Earth. When you come again, I will show you some pages. I have a modest collection in my home.” He pointed beyond the rubble to a nearby two-story house that stood alone in a small yard. “You’re welcome any time.” He looked directly at Kamil. “Why don’t you join me for breakfast one day soon? Perhaps tomorrow? As long as the weather allows, I put a table under the plane tree behind my house. It’s very pleasant and the housekeeper supplies me with excellent cheese from her village.”

Beneath the pleasantries, Kamil heard the entreaty in Malik’s voice. For some reason, he thought, Malik wished to speak with him alone. “Thank you, Malik. I look forward to it.”

After a moment, Malik added, “You’re welcome to come too, Omar, but you know that.”

“Thanks, but I see enough of you already.” Omar was prowling the perimeter of the building, testing the windows. “A child could open these windows,” he pointed out, teasing one open with a small knife.

Malik unlocked the door and led the way into a bright, pleasant room with blue-washed walls. “Quran classes are held here now, so it’s still a place of learning.”

The room was furnished with a threadbare carpet. A cushioned divan stretched along two sides, and more cushions, their colorful geometric designs stitched in wool, were stacked on the floor. Kamil saw several low writing desks, a shelf of books and papers, and a cabinet that presumably held writing supplies.

Malik opened the cabinet and took a heavy iron key from the top shelf. “It’s possible that someone saw where we keep the key,” he told Kamil. “As you can see, it’s quite large.” He slipped it into the pocket of his robe.

He let them into the mosque and lit a lamp. Kamil was surprised by the brilliant mosaics lining the domes and arches above him. He saw peacocks, trees, fruited branches. Jesus taking a woman’s wrist. A woman kissing his hem. A diminutive Mary, her head caressed by an angel, approaching a woman on a throne, her hands outstretched. The dazzling images and colors were overwhelming. Kamil had never seen anything better, even in the Aya Sofya Mosque, where fragments of gilded mosaics were still visible in the upper galleries.

Malik followed his startled gaze.

“Thirty years ago, this was all painted over. The plaster was cracked and filthy. Then there was a fire and Sultan Abdulaziz, may he be rewarded in heaven, allowed the architect Kuppas to restore the interior. During the restorations, these mosaics were revealed. Aren’t they magnificent? These are scenes from the life of Mary. The Byzantines believed her to be the mother of God, the Container of the Uncontainable, the vehicle by which Jesus came to the earth. Chora also means the dwelling place of the Uncontainable.”

Kamil was puzzled. “I admit they’re beautiful, but surely depictions of the human form are prohibited, especially in a mosque. Why didn’t they plaster over them again?”

“You’re right, but this wouldn’t be the first time that rule was broken. Persian and Ottoman artists have always painted scenes from the lives of important persons, pictures of hunts, battles, processions, picnics, circumcision parties, all kinds of everyday activities. Like most civilizations, the Byzantines used art to honor their leaders, especially those who had a lot of money.” He pointed to a faint figure painted on plaster against the outer wall. “That’s Theodore Metochites, the patron who paid for these mosaics.”

Kamil could barely make out the image of a man wearing a striped turban, who was presenting a miniature of the church to Christ.

“Still, it’s forbidden by the Quran,” Omar pointed out.

Malik looked at Omar with an expression Kamil put somewhere between respect and disbelief.

“There are two kinds of religion in the world, my friend,” Malik explained patiently. “One is blind faith that requires only obedience and discourages thought. It’s to the leader’s advantage that you see only his heels, so he demonizes all other views. That kind of faith is comforting, but it can lead you down treacherous paths. Another kind of faith encourages the faithful to think about what they’re doing and why. These are people who praise Allah in the highest way they can imagine, through scholarship or art, or simply by living consciously as good Muslims. The rules don’t matter as much as the principle.” Malik put his arm around Omar’s shoulders. “I’m worried about you suddenly becoming devout, my friend.”

“Well, it’s true I don’t know much about it,” Omar admitted reluctantly, “but it seems to me that Islam is Islam and there are certain rules. I’m a policeman because I like to know what’s what.”

“In the Quran it says that all the prophets back to Abraham were given the same message. Jews and Christians share the same prophecy as Muslims.”

“Of course, but Islam is different. Our Prophet is the last one.” Omar shrugged, then admitted to Kamil, “I don’t believe any of it, really, without proof.”

“Faith means believing anyway,” Malik explained.

“That’s the problem,” Omar replied. “But I still like to get the story straight.”

Kamil thought it was as perceptive a description of his own feelings as he had heard, but said nothing.

Malik craned his neck at the mosaics. “Regardless of the theology, these mosaics deserve to be displayed for their beauty alone. Look how the colors are striking even after all this time. The craftsmen used gold and ground lapis. But they used simple materials too. Look over here. They used tiny pieces of pottery to make these amphorae. The theme of Mary as Container is everywhere, even in the structure of the building. Let me show you.”

He led Kamil and Omar to the end of the hall and a small door that stood open. Inside, Kamil could make out the base of a steeply winding stair that led to the top of the minaret, where the imam called the faithful to prayer five times a day.

“The walls are very thick here in order to hold the weight of the bell tower.” Malik pointed upward. “There are also ceramic jars built into the corners with their openings exposed so that moisture doesn’t build up inside the walls. They’re called weepholes. The workers keep plastering them over, so they’re hard to spot.”

“Clever engineering,” Kamil responded, thinking that faith required a great deal of creativity to find signs in even the most mundane objects.

As if reading his mind, Malik said, “You’re a skeptic, Kamil, I know. And maybe the architects of this church had nothing more in their heads than keeping the walls dry. But the actors don’t write the play.”

“I like to think we write our own scripts.”

“It’s in our nature to try,” Malik responded good-naturedly.

“It’s my observation,” Omar interjected, “that someone else is always trying to write it for you. Your wife, your mother-in-law, the government.”

Malik laughed. “A man whose nature is untamed by his heart. You should be grateful you have a wife who puts up with you.”

“Never marry a woman who was spoiled by her father,” Omar said to Kamil. “A peddler’s daughter loves beads.”

“Do you have children?” Kamil asked.

“By the will of Allah, it hasn’t happened.” Omar looked uncomfortable.

Kamil felt sorry for the burly police chief. Having no children, especially sons, was considered a tragedy by many. It was said that a man without a son was a man whose hearth had gone out, and it occasioned pity and sometimes scorn, especially for the man’s wife, who was usually held responsible. Omar didn’t seem the sort to appreciate people’s pity.

To change the subject, Kamil asked Malik, “Where do you teach your pupils?”

“In the room behind the mosque. When I have female pupils, my housekeeper comes and knits. I’m hoping she’s learning something just by being in the same room. I took Saba on as a pupil because she has a passion for the old languages and learns them as readily as birds take to the air. Allah has placed in her a yeast that I’m privileged to help rise.”

“Old languages?” Kamil asked. He had assumed Malik taught only the Quran.

“Greek, Aramaic, the sacred languages.”

Omar scoffed. “Half the neighborhood speaks Greek.”

“Modern Greek is infected with the street. It sheds history like a dog flinging rain off its pelt.”

“Those Greek dogs,” Omar joked. Malik laughed.

Kamil watched them, envying their easy camaraderie. He had few close friends. His American friend Bernie had returned home the previous year, leaving a gap that Kamil found he was no longer able to fill as easily with work and books and orchids. He wandered into the central prayer room, its walls decorated with marble panels instead of mosaics. He let his eyes try to puzzle out the patterns in the marble. They looked like the desert, a sea, snowy mountains. Art with no human intercession, remote and beautiful.

Malik followed him, seeming to sense his mood. Kamil was glad of his company. “Those revetments were once Greek columns. To get these continuous patterns, the Byzantines cut the columns into thin slices that unfolded like fans.” Malik illustrated with the palms of his hands.

Kamil noticed Malik wore a gold signet ring on his right forefinger. It had a curious design engraved on it, a disk and crescent. The silver pin that clasped his cloak was also unusual, a geometric weave of lines. He wondered about the history of Malik’s family. Had there been Abyssinians in Istanbul during Byzantine times? Perhaps they had been desired as slaves even then.

Malik stopped in the middle of the room and swept his hand toward the walls. “The Greeks built their empire on top of what came before them, Constantinople was built on Greek ruins, and Istanbul is built on top of Byzantium. Nothing is wasted. There’s a lesson there,” he smiled mildly at Kamil, “but I’m not wise enough to know what it is.”

As they walked back to the corridor, Malik leaned closer and said in a low, urgent voice, “Tomorrow morning. Please do come to my house. I must speak with you.”

Puzzled, Kamil assured him that he would.

“Thank you, my friend.” Malik squeezed Kamil’s arm, then turned and walked away quickly.

Omar was in conversation with a tall, thin man by the mosque entrance. As Kamil drew closer, he recognized the policeman Ali. The two spoke in low voices and then Ali left.

“Our snitch in Charshamba has reported that there’s going to be a big smuggling operation late tonight,” Omar told Kamil. “Do you want to join us in the raid?”

“Of course.” So far, he had learned nothing about the thefts here, only about Byzantine architecture. He wondered what it was that Malik had to tell him.

“Good,” Omar said amiably. “Let’s go fishing and see what lands in our net.”

They went looking for Malik and found him sitting on a sarcophagus in a long, narrow room with a domed ceiling. More sarcophagi rested in niches along the wall. One side of the room was piled with sacks and chests. In the corner, someone had arranged a circle of cushions around a low tray.

“The reliquary that was stolen was silver and somewhat damaged. It’s very old,” Malik explained, getting to his feet. “The rug once belonged to Sultan Ahmet I, so I think it must have been valuable.” His face looked drawn and Kamil had the impression that his friend had aged in the few moments since their whispered conversation.

“What was in the reliquary?”

Kamil noted a slight hesitation before Malik answered.

“It was empty.”

“Where was it?”

“In here.” Malik went to the back corner and opened a dusty chest.

“How often was this chest opened?”

“Never, that I know of.”

Kamil pointed to numerous finger marks in the dust around the latch and lid. “So these must be the thief’s. Was the lid open or closed when you arrived?”

“Open. That’s how I knew the reliquary was missing.”

“How did you know what was in here if the chest was never opened?”

Malik looked startled. After a moment, he said, “I saw it open once and I remember seeing the reliquary.”

This seemed unlikely to Kamil. The chest was filled with a jumble of objects. Why would Malik notice an unremarkable reliquary with enough accuracy to be able to tell it was missing? It was also clear to Kamil that Malik was not accustomed to lying and it made him enormously uncomfortable. Malik wanted the reliquary found, yet he also wished it to appear unimportant. Perhaps, thought Kamil, that was why he had asked Omar to send for him, knowing he would investigate the matter out of friendship, despite the trivial value of the stolen object. Perhaps the reliquary had personal meaning for Malik and he could think of no other way to convince the authorities to look for it. Kamil planned to have his officers make the rounds to the other police stations that had reported thefts, but for the moment the reliquary was his only lead. He systematically checked the other chests and bundles in the room. The dust on all of them had recently been disturbed.

Omar pointed to one of the open chests. “If I wanted to steal something, I would have taken some of these.”

Kamil looked over and saw dented gold plates, a chalice, and other objects he didn’t recognize, some elaborately decorated with niello work and a few with jewels.

Omar lifted up a heavy gold chalice studded with rubies. Kamil was flabbergasted. A chalice like this could buy a small villa. “Why are these objects not under lock and key?” He thought of Hamdi Bey’s museum with frustration.

Malik looked embarrassed. “The imam occasionally likes to do an inventory.”

It could have been the imam, then, who had drawn his fingers through the dust. Omar flipped open a small carved box, revealing a cache of coins, not a few of them gold liras.

“Tithes. The thief didn’t take them either.”

“Was the box open?” Kamil asked.

“For inventory,” Malik repeated, then paused before pointing to a small, upended medicine bottle on the tray. “The imam has terrible toothaches. Sometimes he’s a bit forgetful after taking his medicine.”

“Forgetful enough to leave the door unlocked?”

“I always check the door before I retire,” Malik insisted. “Whoever came in here had the key.” Malik sounded so despondent that Kamil found himself wondering whether Malik had an idea who had taken the reliquary.

Kamil sniffed the mouth of the bottle. “Laudanum.” The imam had turned his pain into his own version of paradise.

“In the future, I’ll add such details to my reports,” Omar promised, then turned to Malik. “My brother, I’ve learned that up on their unholy hill of Pera, the magistrates actually read the crappy reports we send them. That alone will help me sleep well tonight.”

Omar was right, Kamil thought. The mystery lay in what the thief hadn’t taken. He began to see that this reliquary might be more valuable than he thought.

He placed his hand on Malik’s arm. “Each loss is a counsel,” he reassured him. “There’s much here to help us.”