The Abyssinian Proof

23

Kamil slept deeply with, thankfully, no disturbing dreams and awoke refreshed for the first time in days. It took him a moment to realize that it was past daybreak. It was raining and a muddy yellow light clogged the windows.

After breakfast, he took Karanfil aside and asked her discreetly what she knew of an Abyssinian woman named Balkis. Karanfil bore little resemblance to her son Yakup. Where he was tall and angular, his profile sharp as a hawk, Karanfil was round, with delicate features.

“That was a friend of your father’s, bey.” She seemed reluctant to say more.

“Come, Karanfil. My parents, may they rest in paradise, are no longer with us and can’t be hurt by such revelations. I’ve heard the story from others, but I’d like to hear what you know of it.”

“Why would anyone tell you such a thing, bey? It was all over with such a long time ago.”

When Kamil wouldn’t let the matter rest, she said finally, “Your mother found out. Everyone talks, so the news that her husband kept a mistress was bound to come to her ears. But she was such a good person, at first she didn’t want to interfere. Me, I would have kicked my husband out and thrown his water cans after him, may Allah give him rest.” Karanfil’s husband, a water carrier, had died in a fire. “When the affair continued, she thought that if she left your father, he might end it, so she moved the family to Beshiktash. But your mother never denied your father anything, and whenever he came to visit, she treated him like a sultan. It didn’t stop anything. So one day, your mother decided she wanted to see this woman herself. We went to her apartment. I waited outside. When she came out, your mother said the woman had agreed to give your father up. I don’t know what she said to her, but sure enough, we heard that the woman had moved out of the apartment, and after that, your father spent all of his free time at Beshiktash. It’s sad that your dear mother was too ill to move back to the city, but your father took care of her here until the end.”

“Was there a child?”

There was a long pause while Karanfil deliberated. “Your mother sent this woman gifts every year and I saw what she put in the bundle. She never said anything to me, but you don’t send gold liras to your husband’s ex-mistress. There had to have been a child.”

“Why didn’t anyone from the family help the child after my mother and father passed away?”

“Your mother had left instructions for the gifts to continue, but somehow the name and the location were lost. It was in Allah’s hands. There was nothing to be done.”

“Lost? You must have known where they were delivered. That’s not something you can easily forget.” Kamil’s voice rose. He was overcome with an emotion he couldn’t identify, anger at his father’s betrayal, mourning for the lost purity of his childhood, and a sense of loss that came with the realization that he hadn’t known his parents at all.

He couldn’t bear Karanfil’s sympathetic look. “Tell me what happened,” he demanded.

“After your mother passed away, your father found her account book where she had recorded the gifts. He tore it up.”

“Did he tell you to stop sending the money?”

Karanfil fidgeted. “He never spoke of it directly and the very next day he moved to Feride Hanoum’s house. We assumed that’s what he wanted.”

“You assumed that my father, when he found out he had a child, would want to stop supporting her?” he asked incredulously. “What kind of a man did you think he was?”

“He was a good man, your father. Everyone knows that. But this was in Allah’s hands.”

Kamil stood and quickly left the room, shouting for Yakup to bring the carriage. He threw a waterproof cape around his shoulders and waited by the door, slapping his gloves impatiently from one hand to the other. Everything he thought he had known about his parents had been erased and rewritten in one day.

Just then, a carriage drove up that was not his own. He recognized his brother-in-law’s scarlet and blue livery. The driver dismounted, ran up the stairs, and handed Kamil a note.

It was from Elif.

“Kamil,” he read, “today’s rain reminds me of Paris, wet cobblestones, enormous black umbrellas, the steam from my coat when I took it off. It’s a day to draw the new, the stalwart, the invisible. I think I should start here, if I am to go back to my art. I can’t yet bear to paint in the sunlight where all is exposed. May I sketch your orchids this morning?”

Kamil dropped the letter on a table. Elif, of all people, now when he felt least composed. He took out his watch. It was eight in the morning.

The driver waited with downcast eyes.

“Is she in there?” Kamil indicated the carriage.

“Yes, bey.”

Taking a deep breath, Kamil went out to get her.