An Evil Eye

54

“You think your conscience feeds you? You think the sultan commands you to avoid blood?”

The walls of the prison run with damp, like the sweat on a man’s back. Black mold mottles the stones, and the straw underfoot is wet. The air is clammy, and it stinks.

Yashim and the turnkey hurry after Fevzi Ahmet, who strides down the tunnel breathing heavily through his nostrils. At each gate the turnkey stoops almost apologetically, fumbling with the lock, and they wait for the lock to be turned behind them.

Under a torch, two guards are playing dice.

They straighten up immediately, flinging the dice against the wall.

When the man is brought in, chained by his neck and his wrists, he turns his head from the light.

The guards shackle him to the wall, hands above his head, his back to Fevzi Ahmet.

His hands have no fingernails.

Yashim keeps his mouth shut, but he can hardly breathe.

Fevzi Ahmet produces a knife. He gathers the man’s long matted hair in his fist and saws at it with the knife.

He drops the hank of hair to the floor. He takes hold of the man’s ear.

The muscles along the man’s back begin to move.

“Your brother, the bishop.”

“I don’t understand,” the man whimpers in Greek. “My brother? I have not seen him.”

“I can’t understand,” Fevzi Ahmet says.

Yashim says: “He says he hasn’t seen his brother.”

Fevzi Ahmet frowns and jerks his head.

“I don’t understand Greek.”

Yashim sees Fevzi Ahmet’s arm rise. Hears the man scream.

“Your brother, the bishop,” Fevzi Ahmet repeats, through gritted teeth.

Later, when the man is dragged away, Fevzi Ahmet wipes the knife on the warden’s sleeve.