The Winter Thief

31

The fog was not as thick in Üsküdar. An icy rain seemed to have swept the air clean as the little group made its way across the square opposite the boat landing and into the alleys leading uphill to the Valide Mosque hospital, the largest in the district. The cold had frozen the mud into troughs, so they walked slowly, Nissim in front and Vali bringing up the rear, each carrying a lamp. A strange calm possessed Feride as she followed Elif and Doctor Moreno. She stumbled once and caught at Elif’s coat. After that, Elif came to walk beside her whenever the lane was wide enough. No one spoke.

Before long, the way opened up into a lane that passed between orchards and vineyards. A pack of bony dogs followed them, remaining just outside the light. Whenever one of them approached, Vali hurled a rock at it. The rain had stopped. There was an odor of pine and soil, and the stars had reappeared. In the dimness, Feride made out the dome and two minarets of a mosque flanked on either side by buildings, which must be the complex of monasteries, schools, soup kitchens, hospitals, baths, and shops that accompanied all great mosques.

Nissim led them to an adjacent building. They entered a grand vestibule that led to a caravanserai where travelers spent the night. Several men sat by a fireplace, and Nissim asked them the way to the hospital.

Their stares caused Feride to look at her companions with new eyes-a blond foreigner, an old Hasidic man with sidelocks, a veiled woman, and two burly workingmen, assembled here at a suspicious hour.

Nissim led them around the back of the building. He pounded on a locked door until it was opened by a bearded man in a turban.

“What do you want, you ruffian? This is a hospital and you’re frightening the patients.”

Doctor Moreno stepped forward and introduced himself as a physician at Yildiz Palace. The man’s expression changed immediately, and he stepped aside and welcomed them in.

Doctor Moreno explained whom they were looking for.

“A patient with burn wounds transferred from Eyüp Hospital yesterday or today?” The man rubbed his beard. “I don’t recall anyone like that. In fact, as far as I know we have no burn patients here. I’ll have to wake the director.”

He led them through a door at the opposite end of the vestibule, then across a colonnaded courtyard, where he knocked tentatively, then more loudly at a door. A tall, lanky man in a hastily donned robe emerged, settling a fez on his balding head. “What is it?” he asked.

Doctor Moreno stated his case again.

“Come, let’s look through the wards,” the director said, glancing curiously at the doctor’s associates, “but I can assure you that we have no burn patients. Are you sure he was sent here?”

Feride took a lamp and stepped into the first ward. It was cleaner than the Eyüp hospital and had fewer patients. She walked among the patients, then halted beside a man whose head was wrapped in bandages. She knew without a doubt it was Huseyin. This was the husband who had always supported her, even when her father committed suicide and, blaming herself, she lapsed into melancholia for months. This was the husband who adored his twin girls. The thought of them growing up without their father made her begin to weep.

The director rushed over. “Now, now, this is just a bad rash,” he explained gently. “Nothing life-threatening. A local man. Not your husband. Certainly not.”

Elif drew her arm through Feride’s and they continued to the next ward. After they had looked through all the rooms, she asked the director, “Where else could he have been brought in Üsküdar?”

“Patients with wounds that severe generally would be brought here. But there are several smaller infirmaries attached to the mosques.” In her exhaustion, Feride had let her veil fall open, and he politely avoided looking at her face.

“If such a patient appears, would you immediately send word?”

The director bowed. “Of course, hanoum.” He turned to Doctor Moreno. “I can make chambers available for you and your guests if you’d like to spend the night. It’s a dangerous crossing.”

“That it is,” muttered Nissim.

A cock crowed nearby and Feride opened her eyes, then sat up, startled by the unfamiliar room. A stone cupola arched above her, and a narrow window gave out onto a courtyard. It wasn’t the cock’s crow, she realized, that had awakened her. It was still night. Light flared across the window as men with lamps ran past through the courtyard. Feride put on her charshaf and stepped outside. The director was buttoning his jacket. He had forgotten his fez and his head looked pale and vulnerable. He saw her and said in a breathless half shout, “Please, hanoum, go back into your room and lock the door.”

As soon as he was out of sight, a figure detached itself from the shadows and pulled Feride aside.

“Elif!” Feride exclaimed, relieved. “What’s happening?”

Elif looked as though she hadn’t slept at all. “The doorman was murdered. They think we had something to do with it.”

“Why would they think that?”

“Because one of the patients also died.” She grasped Feride’s hand. “The man with the bandaged head.”