The Winter Thief

79

Kamil was relieved when he came within sight of the ancient monastery where the New Concord commune had settled. Meltwater streamed from the cliffs and had turned the road into a quagmire through which Kamil and his men rode with difficulty, their horses slipping and stumbling into holes hidden beneath the mud. The monastery was a large structure, half in ruins, but protected by an intact stone wall with a heavy iron gate. As they approached, Kamil could see that the building had a new tiled roof. He dismounted before the gate just as it opened and a ragged group of men and women emerged, pointing rifles.

Behind him, he could hear his own men drawing arms.

“I’m looking for Gabriel Arti,” Kamil announced.

A bearded man in a mud-napped fur coat stepped forward, unarmed. “I’m Gabriel Arti.” He had lanky hair the color of sand and a beard. His right hand was bandaged, and Kamil thought he looked unwell. His face was white and slick with sweat. A young foreign woman, dressed in a hand-knit sweater and a man’s shalvar, held on to his elbow as if helping him to stand.

“Kamil Pasha. Allow us to enter.”

“Well, if you’re knocking at the door and introducing yourself, I suppose you’re not here to kill us,” Gabriel responded, his sarcastic tone giving way to a deep, rattling cough. Looking confused and frightened, the commune members slowly lowered their guns.

“If you’re referring to the troops sent by Sultan Abdulhamid, I’ve heard that report too, but I know nothing more about it. We’re here because the sultan wishes to know what your community means to accomplish.” As he said it, Kamil realized how ludicrous that sounded. The sultan is sending someone to understand you and someone to kill you. The prospect of having to explain made him feel exhausted. He hoped these misguided people would just agree to leave the country. He wished to be back in Istanbul.

Two men stepped forward, one disheveled with a round head and wearing a stained jacket, the other tall and distinguished, looking a bit like a mad scholar. Kamil caught himself, aware that his mind had been drifting. The immediate danger may have passed, but he was responsible for what followed.

“This is my wife, Vera,” Gabriel was saying, “our surgeon, Victor Byman, Apollo Grigorian, our other comrades.” He pointed to each in turn, finally sweeping his arm at the thirty or so people behind him. Then he seemed to tire and let Vera lead him back inside.

“Come in,” she called out to Kamil in English, which seemed to be the language of the commune. He took a long look at Vera Arti, the woman he had sought in Istanbul and a torn corner of whose passport now rested on Nizam Pasha’s desk. She had amber eyes in a childlike face, and her hair fell in a shower of auburn curls around her shoulders. He imagined her in the room in Akrep’s basement and shuddered. He marveled at this young woman’s courage and fortitude in escaping such a place. She might be a witness to the fate of the Armenian girl, Sosi, but that conversation would have to wait.

As he led his men into the courtyard, he noticed that the monastery walls had been patched with clay and bricks, and some of the windows plugged with bales of straw. The yard was neatly swept, and there was a well and a big stack of firewood. The inside of the monastery, though, was in a shocking state. It had almost no furnishings, no cushions or carpets, just straw pallets scattered around the room, as if a flock of storks had nested there. A group of women and children sat clustered in a far corner of the hall. A fire roared in the hearth, lending the hall some warmth. Yorg Pasha was right-the commune was in no shape to start a revolution.

Apollo led him to a stool by the fire. “The soldiers can bed down in the storage rooms off the main hall,” he offered, but admitted that they didn’t have enough to feed them.

Overhearing him, Omar picked up his weapon and left with several soldiers.

Gabriel sat near the fire, wrapped in his fur, coughing. His teeth chattered.

“What’s wrong with him?” Kamil asked Victor, the surgeon, who had joined them.

“I think it’s pneumonia. A week ago, some refugees from a village came to us.” He indicated the group of women sitting together. “One of their children was ill and died. Gabriel held him and must have become infected.”

“Refugees from what?”

Victor told him what had happened. “We thought your men were the soldiers that had attacked the village.”

Kamil was appalled. “I had no idea the soldiers would attack women and children.” Of course you did, Kamil scolded himself. You’re not naïve. Huseyin, his colleagues, and presumably the sultan himself believed that what they called punitive expeditions acted as a deterrent to rebellion. Actually meeting the victims was a different matter.

“The women say they were Kurds. We thought they’d come here next, but it’s been a week now and we haven’t heard of any further attacks, although people have seen strangers in the area watching the roads. It’s almost as if they’re waiting for something.”

A couple of hours later, Omar and the soldiers returned, each with a dressed deer slung over his shoulder. The women made stew in cauldrons over fires in the yard. A young woman with yellow hair oversaw the serving of the food and, after the meal, sang ballads that entranced the soldiers and all the others in the great hall, their faces shining in the firelight. Some of the village women began to cry. Kamil watched Gabriel, who lay with his head in Vera’s lap, eyes closed, his breathing labored. This was the famous terrorist and bank robber, he thought with sardonic bemusement. Captured at last.

His eyes sought out Elif across the room. She seemed spellbound by the music. A smile played around her lips. If this was happiness, it was all the more precious for being fractured and fleeting.

Kamil could see flashes of the dream community that had entranced Yorg Pasha. Apollo had explained their plan to him, the need for more land, animals, and equipment so that the commune could become self-sustaining, the need for guns to defend themselves against a Russian attack. Gabriel admitted that when their weapons were confiscated, they needed to quickly acquire the money to replace them. But the explosion and the deaths at the bank had been the work of traitors, he insisted, nothing to do with the commune. Apollo had been the most eloquent defender of their vision. They wished only to prove, he said, that it was possible to create a society in which all members were equal.

It was a worthy experiment, Kamil thought, but carried out by unscrupulous means. He spoke to them about leaving. Gabriel seemed unwilling to consider it, but Kamil had the sense that the others knew the commune had no future now. It was urgent that the commune disband immediately. If he drew the stinger, perhaps the sultan’s venom would dissipate. Tomorrow he would make arrangements to escort the commune members back to Trabzon, where ships would take them out of Ottoman territory. The village women could accompany them, if they wished, to the safety of Trabzon.