The Winter Thief

53

“Have some more, my dear.” Feride reached across the table and dabbed a spoonful of cream on Elif’s plate.

“Stop fussing over me as if I were an invalid.”

Feride raised herself to her full, not very considerable height and feigned offense. “Well, you were an invalid.” Elif had been in bed since their return from Üsküdar, sleeping or staring silently at the ceiling.

Elif tried to smile but winced instead, and Feride felt sorry for having brought it up. Elif had been away from her body, for lack of any other description, for two days, and then this morning, when Feride came down to breakfast, she had found Elif sitting at the table.

Feride sent a message to Kamil to tell him. The day before she and Kamil had attended Nissim’s funeral at the Ahrida Synagogue. Surprised at the large crowd of mourners, they learned that Nissim had been a famous wrestler and respected for his wisdom. Feride sat with the women in the balcony and watched Nissim’s wife shudder with grief. Her friends held her, while others cared for her children. Nissim’s three girls sat frozen in place, unsure how to cry for something so big.

When Kamil arrived at Feride’s, he found Elif in her suite, staring at a blank sheet of drawing paper. When she saw him, the pencil dropped from her hand. They moved together and stood entwined, Elif almost disappearing within Kamil’s embrace.

“Stay with me,” she said, and slipped her delicate fingers between the buttons of his jacket. She pulled at the woolen cloth, forcing Kamil to bend over, then pressed her lips against his.

Her abrupt embrace startled him. Kamil stepped back so he could look at her face. The strange light burning in her eyes made him uneasy. He caught hold of her hands, which had renewed their onslaught on the buttons of his jacket. “Elif,” he said softly, “come and sit with me.”

“No,” she wailed, pulling her hands free. “No.” She pounded his chest with her fists, her knees buckling.

Kamil caught her up in his arms and carried her to the bed in the adjoining room. She weighed little more than a child, sobbing in his arms. He threw back the covers, laid her gently down, and covered her. He sat holding her hand until she quieted, then walked to the door of her suite and flung it open. As he suspected, a group of servants had gathered there, alerted by Elif’s cries. They stepped back, on their faces curiosity and disapproval mingled with shame at being caught eavesdropping. Kamil didn’t care. “Where’s Feride?” he demanded. “Fetch the doctor.”