The Winter Thief

71

The weeks between Kamil’s release from prison and his upcoming voyage to the east passed over him like the eye of a storm. It was early February, and the snow in Istanbul had begun to melt, coursing down the hillsides in brooks and waterfalls, overwhelming drains, and flooding low-lying basements. The crimson smears of geraniums in window pots burned through the morning mist.

Elif had set up her easel in Kamil’s winter garden amid his orchids and was painting a fragrant, early-flowering Pleione praecox. The frilly pink-skirted flowers, she told Kamil, reminded her of ballet dancers. Since Huseyin’s return, Elif came nearly every morning to Kamil’s villa. Over breakfast, she shared news of Huseyin’s improvement, then took out her box of watercolors as Kamil left for the courthouse in Beyoglu.

To his surprise, Kamil found that he didn’t mind the loss of privacy in his winter garden, which he had thought of as his refuge. He had also overcome his anxiety that his orchids might be damaged. Elif always remembered to shut the door so that the temperature and humidity stayed constant. She drifted through his life light as a feather, and he found himself disappointed and out of sorts on the mornings when she did not appear.

He and Omar planned to embark on February 18, arriving in Trabzon just as the snow began to clear, but before the mountain roads were mired in mud caused by meltwater. Yakup was preparing their clothing and supplies, and Omar was seeing to the Ottoman navy steamer and the military guard the sultan had sent along with them. The police chief had insisted on accompanying them. He seemed convinced that Vahid’s plotting extended to the east and that he might discover something there to undermine the Akrep commander. Kamil tried not to think about the murder trial he would face upon his return.

It was a Friday morning, a day of rest when the devout went to worship. Kamil stayed home to catch up on his work, read, and tend his orchids.

Elif lounged on the sofa in the sitting room, chatting idly about the week’s events. She wore a cerise brocade vest over a white linen shirt and trousers. She had discarded her shoes at the door and, as usual, refused slippers, her toes burrowing into the thick pile of a tribal carpet. Kamil flung the French doors open to the garden, where as yet nothing grew, but the evergreen vines climbing the wall and the sparkling light of the strait beyond flooded the room with promise of spring. He came to sit beside her. Yakup had left a tray of coffee and savories on the table.

“Feride has changed,” Elif was saying. “She even stood up to Huseyin’s sisters the other day. When Feride told them that he was still missing, they descended on her like demons, demanding to know what was being done and blaming her for driving him away.” Elif grimaced. “One of them told me, ‘Your clothing is an abomination.’” Elif mimicked the woman’s high-pitched voice.

They laughed, Elif’s crystal voice joining Kamil’s baritone. A breeze wafted in from the garden, carrying the scent of loam. A white kitten leaned against the door, too cautious to enter.

Elif took a deep breath and laid her head against Kamil’s shoulder. “It’s almost spring.”

It happened gradually late that morning, like a flower opening, not a momentous, drumroll moment but a gradual fruition of desires. They had run hand in hand up the stairs to his bedroom and behind the closed door had faced each other, grinning like embarrassed children. Kamil swept Elif into his arms and deposited her on the bed. He quickly stripped off his shirt and trousers, then sat beside her in his undershirt. She threw her arms around his neck and pulled him to her with surprising strength. He kissed her throat and cheeks and ran his tongue across the expanse of delicate skin where the top buttons of her shirt had come undone. He lapped at the hollow of her throat and traced her shoulders with his fingertips. She lay still as a doll as he unbuttoned the rest and peeled off her vest and then the shirt. She had bound her chest in a linen cloth and she sat up obediently while he unwound it. When at last her small, firm breasts filled his hands, he felt a beat take hold of his body, a metronome of blood that drove him forward. He pulled off her trousers and felt a jolt of tenderness at the sight of her slight body. It seemed to him as delicate as an ivory carving, fragile as the finest porcelain. He laid his hand on her belly and saw her flinch.

He noticed then that she lay on her back with her eyes closed, arms stiff by her side and legs pressed together. He sat back, allowing his hand to rest on her hip, and said, “You are magnificent, Elif.” He traced her forehead with the tip of his finger, then leaned over and kissed it. “I love you.”

She opened her eyes and tried to smile, but said nothing.

Kamil considered for a moment, then lay down beside her and drew the quilt over their naked bodies. In the darkness, Elif’s resistance melted and their hands flew feverishly over each other’s bodies. Kamil disappeared beneath the covers, kissing and licking until he found the soft fur of her sex. His tongue reached into the cleft and slowly her thighs parted and her breathing became ragged. Kamil repositioned himself and thrust into Elif, gently at first, then, submerged in the beat of his blood, hard against her raw cries that could have been pleasure or rage.

Kamil came, the stream of hot liquid cooling against his thighs. The quilt had fallen from the bed. He shifted his weight so he wouldn’t crush Elif, and that was when he saw the pink scar like a sunburst on the inside of her upper thigh. His eyes met hers. She had noticed his surprise. To his relief, she gave him a shy smile. Encouraged, he kissed her cheek, then moved his head to kiss the inside of her thigh. There was a matching scar on the other thigh. He kissed them both.

“A firebrand,” she said, her voice thick with emotion. “I wasn’t cooperative.”

An uncomfortable image came to Kamil’s mind of another man doing to Elif what he had just done, torches pressed to her thighs to open them. Overcome with rage, he kept his face averted from Elif because he was uncertain what was displayed there.

Elif turned away from him. He noticed that her shoulders were shaking.

“Elif?” He touched her shoulder, but she didn’t turn. “What’s the matter?”

She didn’t answer. Kamil didn’t understand what he had done to distress her. Not knowing what else to do, he stretched out behind her and folded his body to hers, his arm around her shoulder. They lay like that until Kamil fell asleep.

Dust motes sparkled in the fractured sunlight streaming through the lattice that covered the lower half of his bedroom windows. In the days of Kamil’s grandparents, the delicate wooden lattices had allowed the family’s women to look out without being seen. Now they filtered the light for a row of potted orchids on a table.

Kamil lay on his back, arms behind his head and watched, mesmerized. It was as if he had fallen through the sky and these dancing points of light constituted an entirely different universe. Even his skin felt different, straining with sensation as if its surface were inadequate to hold it all in. He could feel the delicate puffs of Elif’s breath against his side. Glancing down at the top of her head nestled beside him, he settled his arm in a slow embrace, trying not to wake her. Their act of love had not, after all, been what he had imagined. He had lain with women, a French actress, a concubine, but never before with a woman who he imagined might become his wife. He hadn’t proposed marriage again, not since she had rejected the idea the previous year. She had said then that she wasn’t ready. Now he could understand her reluctance and wondered what else she had endured. The barbarity of her scars had shocked him. He realized his imagination for evil was entirely insufficient.

He leaned over, cupping her head in his hand, and kissed her cheek. Still, the highly disturbing image of Elif killing those men in Üsküdar gave him pause. It didn’t fit at all with his image of the vulnerable woman he desired more than anything to protect. There was much he didn’t understand about Elif, who remained as opaque as obsidian, despite her reflected radiance. But it didn’t matter. She was part of his life.