The Winter Thief

91

Vera cradled the Henchak pin in her hand. She had found it wrapped in a piece of flannel in Gabriel’s chest, along with her passport, and, pressed between two pieces of cardboard, a dried daisy she had given him before their marriage as a memento of a lovely day they had spent picnicking in the Alps. He had brought this simple, fragile flower all the way from Geneva to Istanbul and from there to Trabzon. She had been married only a single night, and all the rest had been misunderstanding and needless pain. Why had she immediately assumed that her husband would abandon her?

He was like the Straw Thief, she thought, a hero who loved her and his people and took great risks to help them. He had embarked on a long road across the globe and had produced something new and wonderful for them but had made mistakes along the way. One by one, his successes had slipped through his fingers, numbed by this savage winter. She pressed the flannel parcel to her chest and gave way to her grief, whether for herself or for Gabriel, she didn’t know.

“Come with us, Vera.” Alicia pleaded, her eyes dull with the pain of losing Victor. Her freckles looked almost black in her pale face, and her hair blazed in the sunshine. She and Apollo and some other comrades were boarding a ship to Batumi the following morning, then traveling overland to Tiflis.

“This is just a harbinger of things to come,” Apollo told Vera. “They’ll go after the Armenians whenever the wind blows the wrong way. The villagers don’t have any coordinated defense, just bands of young men with outdated rifles. They would barely have been armed if Gabriel hadn’t brought in weapons.”

Vera didn’t point out that it was Apollo who had brought the weapons to the east.

“We have to organize.” Apollo took her hand. “Come and help us do that, Vreni. It’ll be in Gabriel’s name. He would have wanted us to do this.”

Vera thought about the women and children huddled in hastily assembled wooden shelters at the edge of town, coughing in the smoke from their braziers. Would forming an armed revolutionary group help them? Or could justice be had without violence? Gabriel had always wanted peace, yet his actions had led to the deaths of so many people.

“I need to think on it,” she told Apollo, her hand lingering in his. “Kamil Pasha has asked me to return to Istanbul to testify in a court case. I should do that first. Send me a message when you’re settled and tell me where you are.”

Kamil Pasha had told Vera about Sosi’s murder and the attempt to blame it on him. She had failed Sosi once, and she promised herself that she wouldn’t fail the courageous girl again. The idea of bringing Vahid to justice for what he had done to them was immensely satisfying.

Apollo drew Vera to him and kissed her on the lips. “Promise me you’ll come, Vreni.”

Vera nodded, mute with joy, now and forever adulterated with regret.