26

Salt, Not Sweet

“Yes, this might belong…have belonged to Mary. I think I saw her wear one like it.” Sybil holds up the soiled blouse. They are sitting at the broad kitchen table, its rough wood worn concave by decades of scrubbing. Sybil led him here without thinking when he said he had something to show her, then asked the servants to leave and close the door. It seemed somehow appropriate that the kitchen be the scene of revelations.

Her voice cracks just enough for Kamil to see that, beneath her calm manner, she is aware that it is death she is touching, the last moments of Mary Dixon. He fights his desire to hold her in his arms as he has done Feride. She has much in common with her, he thinks. A kind, dutiful daughter dealing alone with a difficult father absent in mind and feeling. Spirited and intelligent. A modern woman with Ottoman virtues. A good wife for the right man. It is permissible for a Muslim man to marry a giavour woman, but he does not care about such rules anyway. He will marry or not as he pleases, and marry whom he pleases. He takes a deep breath, pushing his hands into his jacket pockets, and leans back in his chair. The fingers of his right hand tangle in the chain of amber beads, while his other hand closes around the cool metal of his pocket watch. In any case, he thinks with guilty relief, her family would never approve. He is aware that Europeans distrust a Muslim man, no matter whether he wears a fez or a top hat.

Sybil lets the blouse drop to the table. It is not ripped or soiled, but badly crumpled, as if it had been wadded up wet and dried inside the rocky niche. Its pearl buttons are intact. Life, Kamil thinks, clings desperately to everything, against all odds. He lets go of the watch and reaches for Sybil’s hand. Sybil’s eyes meet his. They sit unmoving, each unwilling to risk losing the other’s touch by changing anything. Every word, every movement constitutes a risk.

A knock on the door startles them and their hands fly apart.

“Miss Sybil, should I make the tea now?”

“Not now, Maisie.” She struggles to put a cheery tone in her voice, but it comes out hoarse with nervousness. “Later. I’ll ring for you.”

“Yes, Miss Sybil.” The maid’s footsteps recede down the hall.

Sybil smiles shyly, no longer willing to meet Kamil’s eyes. Kamil too is smiling, his cup sunk deep in the jar of well-being. One sip, he thinks. Is that enough?

Suddenly aware of what might now be expected of him, Kamil rises abruptly to his feet.

“I apologize, Sybil Hanoum. I should go.” He begins gathering up the objects on the table and wraps them in the oiled cloth.

“No, please don’t go yet.” His abruptness has soured her pleasure. Exasperated that suddenly it is she who is pleading, Sybil points to the table. “We haven’t finished looking at these things.” There is an edge to her voice that halts Kamil’s hands in their frenzied activity.

He leans forward, props both hands on the table, and takes a deep breath. He doesn’t know what to say.

“Please sit, Kamil Bey.” Sybil regally indicates the chair at his side. “I know you’re very busy, but since you came all this way”-she smiles brightly at him-“I would like to be of help.”

Kamil sits and, for a brief moment, regards the objects on the table without seeing them, then looks at her. “Thank you, Sybil Hanoum.” He relies on her to know what he means.

Sybil pulls the cloth bundle nearer, unwraps it again, playing her fingers lightly across the objects assembled there.

“I don’t know about the shoes, but it seems the type she would wear. She wasn’t terribly fashionable, and this is a common enough shoe in Europe. Turkish ladies, you know, prefer leather slippers, like this one here.” She points to a torn and badly soiled slipper. “Wherever did you find these things?”

“We found the shoes and the blouse in the forest behind Ismail Hodja’s house in Chamyeri.”

“These,” she adds, pointing to the hair comb and mirror, “are quite common. They could belong to anyone.” She touches her thumb to the blade of the knife. “Sharp. Was this found with the other things?”

“These things are from a place north of there.”

“Do you suspect Ismail Hodja, then?”

Kamil pauses, then draws a deep breath. “No.”

Sybil brushes her hand across his sleeve. “Does this help you at all?”

“It confuses matters. She drowned in salt, not sweet water. But what was she doing at the pond?”

“Maybe she fell into the Bosphorus and someone hid her clothes at the pond later,” Sybil suggests.

“We thought we had found the place where she drowned, a sea hamam. It’s closed for the season, but someone used it recently. There was no evidence, though, that anyone was killed there, just a dead dog we found nearby.” He shrugs. “Dogs are everywhere. Who is to say that this particular dog has anything to do with the murder?”

“Why a dog?”

“The fishermen heard a dog bark that night.” He smiles wryly. “I know. Not much to go on.”

“So she could have been pushed into the strait anywhere.”

“What we really need to know is where she drank the tea that paralyzed her before she was pushed. A young woman like that might have been able to save herself otherwise.”

“Does datura paralyze you?”

“It makes it difficult to move your limbs and to breathe. It depends on the dose. People don’t die right away. It can take hours. First their throat becomes dry and they have difficulty swallowing. Their pupils dilate and don’t respond to light. They can become blind. There’s a slow paralysis of the limbs, vertigo, hallucinations. But she didn’t die from that. She drowned.”

Sybil feels her throat constricting. She does not move, but Kamil notices her pale face and the beads of sweat on her upper lip. He lays his hand on her shoulder.

“Sybil Hanoum, are you all right? I’m so sorry. That was needlessly graphic. I do apologize.”

“No, no need to apologize. I want to know.” Sybil’s eyes meet his. “I need to know.”

The space between them seems to shrink by some formula of physics as yet undiscovered. Their lips meet. Suspended in a universe that begins and ends at the intersection of their skin-until Maisie’s footfalls outside the door repeal the wonder.

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