Fireworks exploded in her brain. Augusta felt as if she were running away and standing still at the same time—moving, yet refusing to move. Her mind was slowly, quickly, trying to grasp something that was just beyond reach—palpable, almost there, then gone. She couldn’t speak. For a moment, she couldn’t breathe. Staring into this man’s strange, familiar face, she felt all the years of her life condensed into a single point in time.
The man reached out and gently took one of her hands in his own, raising it to his lips with a soft kiss. He cleared his throat, then spoke in a voice tight with emotion.
“I’ve waited for this moment for a long time. I love you so much, Augusta.” Still clasping her hand in his, he gazed into Augusta’s face with such tenderness that she had to look away.
Erol, who had been watching in stunned silence, now broke in. “What are you talking about?” he demanded, his voice laced with suspicion. “Who are you? How do you know Augusta?”
The man now turned to Erol and smiled. “I’m Augusta’s father,” he said simply. “Nicolas Carter. And you’re Erol Yilmaz, if I’m not mistaken?”
“Augusta’s father?” Erol repeated. He looked at his friend in confusion. “I thought your father was dead?”
“I thought my father was dead too,” she tried to say. Her vocal chords wouldn’t make a sound, but she formed the words with her lips. “That’s what my mom always said.”
“My beautiful girl,” the man said, the full intensity of his gaze boring once again into Augusta’s face. His dark blue eyes—just like her grandfather’s—were as deep and fathomless as the Bosporus Strait she had crossed an hour ago. “I owe you many things. An explanation. An apology. Many years of lost time together. I want to make all this up to you. Can you listen to me for a moment? There is much to be said.”
Augusta knew, in the pit of her stomach, that he was telling the truth. She had seen photos of her father before his death—well, before he went away—and this was certainly an older version of the man in her mother’s pictures. They were displayed all around the house: her mother and father on their wedding day. Her father posing with her grandparents, a happy smile on his face. Her father holding her as a baby, cradling her in his arms so they could both see the camera. He had been young then, with a handsome face and a confident, captivating smile. The man who stood in front of her now was two decades older, tanned, with a little less hair, but certainly the same person. There could be no doubt he was her father.
But her mind refused to understand the situation. How could her family have lied to her for so many years? Her mother, grandmother, grandfather—they all lied to her, every day. They had said her father was dead, had deprived her of ever knowing about him. And him—how could he have left her? The image of her father holding her as an infant imprinted itself in her mind’s eye. He looked so loving, so happy with her. How could he have given her up? He must not love her at all, not then, not now.
Sinking down to the ground, her back against the thick pine tree, Augusta buried her head between her knees. She was numb with shock, anger, sadness. She didn’t know what to feel or think. It was an impossible position. Finding out your father, who you believed to be dead for 20 years, was alive and standing right in front of you—that just couldn’t happen. And even if it was true, why should she speak to him? He had no right to fly in, jump out of his fancy helicopter, and expect her to talk to him. Even if he had just saved her and her book from the Rumelovs.
In the excitement of this latest revelation, she had forgotten about the lost discourses. That was what she had come to Camlica to do: get her book back. Now she had it. There was nothing else she needed to do here. Time to go.
Augusta stood up quickly. She knew what to do. Focus on the facts.
“Come on, Erol, let’s go. I don’t want to talk to him.” With the lost discourses tucked under her arm, she stomped away through the pine trees, back toward the path. Erol quickly followed. The man in the leather jacket made no attempt to come after them.
As they made their way back through beautiful Camlica park in the moonlight, neither one of them spoke. Augusta’s mind was too full for words, and Erol, for once, respected her silence. Inarticulate thoughts whirled through her head, too fast and disorienting for her to make sense of them. She hardly knew where she was or what she was doing. Following the sound of her own footsteps crunching on the gravel pathway side-by-side with Erol’s, she somehow made it back to the moped and climbed on behind him.
Augusta couldn’t have said how long it took them to retrace their earlier route over the bridge and return to Eda’s apartment. A minute? An hour? All the exhilaration of that previous ride was gone, replaced by a pounding ache in her head that wouldn’t go away. Her senses, which had delighted in the sights and sounds of Istanbul at night, were now dulled, her awareness withdrawn from everything except the throbbing inside her skull.
At last the little Vespa pulled up in front of Eda’s apartment. Erol turned off the sputtering engine and stood up carefully, supporting Augusta off the moped and up to the imposing outer door of the apartment building. He pressed the doorbell and immediately the door buzzed open for them. Yusuf, once again on duty, jumped up from his seat and came over to help. Augusta dimly heard them speaking together in Turkish as they supported her into the elevator. The next thing she remembered, she was being half-carried through Eda’s living room, down the hallway, into the bedroom where she had slept the previous night.
Finally, she thought, as the lights were turned off and she felt herself relaxing into the pillows. No more facts. No more feelings. No more strange events or revelations. Just her, alone and at rest, melting away into delicious sleep.
Light streamed in the window. Augusta opened her eyes and stared up at the ceiling, disoriented at first, then slowly remembering how she had come to be here. The bizarre adventures of yesterday: the book theft, the island jaunt, the discovery of Efendi and the rescue of Erol from the Bath of Bedestan. Professor Meral. The moped ride to Camlica. The unexpected encounter with the man claiming to be her father.
Father. An image swam into her mind—not of the photographs displayed around her house, showing a laughing young man in North Carolina, but of the older man in the leather jacket, kissing her hand in the pine grove of Camlica hill. She knew it was the same man, but did he have any right to call himself her father? He had abandoned her before she could even remember him. She didn’t know him at all, didn’t have any of the feelings you were supposed to have toward a father. The stories her mother and grandparents had told her about him seemed distant, like stories about someone you don’t know. They left her cold. How could he expect her to forgive him, to even listen to him, when he had chosen to leave her all those years ago? He had made his choice then. Nothing was going to change now.
A light breeze fluttered the curtains through the open window. There was a touch of chill in the air this morning, as if autumn was considering a return. Augusta watched the curtains dancing in the sunlight and listened to the ever-present sounds of the city below. Buses honked, motorbikes whirred, people shouted, and she knew that for millions of people around her, life went on as usual. But not for her. Nothing would ever be the same for Augusta Carter.
The smell of frying potatoes drifted into her room, and she realized with a pang that she was incredibly hungry. Was Eda making breakfast? She sniffed again and decided the smell must be coming through her bedroom door, from Eda’s kitchen. Augusta smiled as she thought of her energetic friend waking up early to cook. But was it early? She had no idea what time it was.
Augusta sat up and leaned back against the bedframe. At least the throbbing pain in her head was gone. She really needed to thank Erol for getting her back to the apartment safely. She had almost no recollection of what happened after she learned the man in the aviator sunglasses was her father. But any pain she felt in thinking about her father was softened when she remembered Erol’s warm hand grasping hers as they watched the mysterious events unfold at the top of Camlica. Augusta hoped she never had to relive such a thing again. But if she did, she hoped Erol would be beside her.
She got dressed slowly, thanking herself for laying out her last clean pair of clothes yesterday morning. What would she do now? Go home with the book, or continue the sale to the museum? Those seemed to be the only options. She now knew much about the history of her grandfather’s book and why the Ottoman History Museum—or the Rumelovs—would want it. But she couldn’t understand how and why her father had been involved in rescuing the book from the Rumelovs.
Now that she came to think of it, it was very strange that he was there in the first place. Why was he jumping out of a special ops helicopter in Turkey? Why had he been following her through the streets of Istanbul? A flurry of questions suddenly swirled through her mind. She had been so caught up in being angry and resentful, she hadn’t properly considered the strangeness of the situation. It was one thing for your father to walk out on you, but for him to mysteriously show up again twenty years later, in a foreign country, saving your life and a valuable family heirloom? That was downright weird.
Your father will be watching over you. Her mother’s words came back to her now, making sense in a new way. She remembered her mom sitting beside Grandmother’s hospital bed, kissing the locket she always wore around her neck. It had always bothered Augusta that her mother spoke of him as if he were still alive. She assumed her mother thought her father was some sort of guardian angel, in some kind of afterlife, looking down beatifically as his daughter grew up. Now it all made sense. Her mother must have known her father was still alive out there, doing…whatever it was he was doing. How could she have known all along and lied to Augusta? Anger flamed again into her heart. Everyone had lied to her. Now she needed to know the truth. She needed to talk to her mother.
Augusta opened the bedroom door and followed the aroma of sizzling potatoes to the kitchen, where she saw Eda, masterminding a full Turkish breakfast of boiled eggs, soft cheeses, and an array of vegetables and breads. She was dressed for the office, with only an old apron protecting her stylish skirt and blouse from the potatoes.
“My friend!” Eda put down her spatula and rushed over to Augusta, grasping her warmly around the shoulders into a tight hug. “How are you? Are you feeling okay after last night? I’m sorry if I woke you up. I wanted to let you sleep.” She jerked her head sideways to indicate the sofa on the other side of the small apartment, where Augusta could see Erol’s feet dangling over the end. “Erol is still asleep. He told me what happened up on Camlica. How incredible! But I want to hear it from you. Here, sit down and have some breakfast. You can tell me all about it.”
Grateful for Eda’s comforting breakfast and hot tea, Augusta didn’t mind providing her version of last night’s events. Spooning the fried potatoes into a bowl and settling herself at the table, Eda listened raptly as Augusta described their encounter with Professor Meral, the information they had learned about Efendi and the lost discourses, and the unexpected termination of the Rumelov gathering by the special ops helicopters.
“And then…” Augusta paused. She didn’t know how to explain what happened next. A lump rose to her throat as she fiddled with the tiny tea spoon in front of her, trying to think of the right words.
“And then your father brought you the book?” Eda prompted gently, with an encouraging smile. “Erol told me what happened. That must have been a terrible shock for you.”
Augusta nodded. No other words formed themselves in her mind. There wasn’t really anything else she could say.
Eda smiled sympathetically and stood up, beginning to clear dishes away from the table. “I understand. Maybe you can tell me more later. I must go to work today, but please stay here as long as you want. I’m sure you have a lot of things to think about.”
“Thank you, Eda” Augusta said, jumping up to help with the dishes. “You’ve been a wonderful friend. I couldn’t have gotten my book back without you.”
“Please, sit down and relax,” Eda insisted, shooing Augusta back to the table. “You need to rest. Drink some more tea. Erol will do the washing when he wakes up. He will help with whatever you need.”
“There is one thing. Can I use your phone to call my mother?” Augusta knew Eda needed to get to work, and she didn’t want to hold her up. “I’ll be quick. I just need to ask her something.”
“Yes, of course.” Eda pulled out her phone and handed it to her friend. Augusta quickly tapped in her mother’s phone number. She didn’t care that it was the middle of the night in North Carolina. Some things couldn’t wait.
The call rang, then rang again. “Why aren’t you picking up, Mom?” Augusta muttered to herself as the phone rolled over to voicemail. She tried her grandmother’s number. No answer again. Did they really not care enough about her to answer the phone at two in the morning? Ugh.
She handed the phone back to Eda. “Thanks.” She would have to wait until later to get some answers.
Hanging up her dirty apron on a hook by the kitchen door, Eda slid her phone into her purse and gave Augusta a kiss on each cheek. “See you later! Get some rest today.” And then she was out the door, like a ray of sunshine slipping behind a cloud.
Déjà vu. Augusta had the eerie feeling of being exactly where she had started the day before: in Eda’s apartment after breakfast, alone with her thoughts. Except things weren’t exactly the same. Today Erol was snoring on the couch, and today she possessed vital knowledge that she hadn’t known this time yesterday. She now knew that Father Ephraim—may he rest in peace—had nothing to do with the lost discourses, and that the Rumelovs were so desperate for the book that they had assaulted two people on two different continents to get it. And she knew that her father was alive and well, and somehow involved in saving her grandfather’s book and ensnaring a notorious occultist group. What she didn’t know was how he could possibly have done all that, and why he had chosen to reveal himself on her 21st birthday.
The secret must somehow be linked to her grandfather’s old book. Everything went back to that. She needed to look again at the book.
Augusta retrieved the handsome leather-bound volume from her bedroom and sat cross-legged in one of the armchairs across from Erol. The rise and fall of his breath comforted her as she ran her fingers down the spine, caressing the inlaid gold design on the front cover. She had now seen several examples of Ottoman script, and she could tell that this book was similar to others that lined Professor Meral’s shelves or the stacks in the Hatira bookshop. How beautiful they all were! She flipped carefully through the crinkled yellow pages, running her finger under each line on the chance that she might notice something interesting—a unique detail that stood out, or some kind of clue. But there was nothing she could understand. The book didn’t speak to her.
She was still poring meticulously over the lost discourses when Erol awoke. “Good morning,” he said, yawning and stretching, sitting up slowly on the sofa. He squinted at the clock hanging across the room. “It’s already ten o’clock. Have you eaten breakfast?”
At least some things never change, Augusta thought to herself, smiling. “Yes, we’ve eaten it all and left nothing for you,” she teased.
“Huh?” Erol rubbed his eyes in confusion. His dark hair was a mess, sticking up in every direction. He was still wearing his clothes from the day before, which were now rumpled and creased.
“Yes, Eda made you breakfast,” she laughed. “You’re lucky to have such an amazing sister. I hope you know that.”
“Oh, yeah, definitely,” Erol agreed, seating himself at the kitchen table and shoveling fried potatoes onto his plate. Humming happily, he dropped two sugar cubes into his still-steaming tea and stirred with gusto, then tore off a large chunk of bread and smeared it with dark amber honey. Between bites, he called out, “I told you she’s a great cook.”
Augusta sat down at the table beside Erol and poured herself another cup of tea. “So what’s our plan for today? What are we going to do with the book?”
Erol shrugged. “That’s up to you. I would understand if you don’t want to sell it to the museum anymore. After everything that’s happened, maybe you want to keep it.”
“No.” Her tone was firm. “I want to sell it even more now. My family has been lying to me all these years. Every single one of them. Not just my grandfather, but my grandmother, my mother, my father. I don’t care about this book anymore. It’s just a reminder that none of them trust me with the truth. And I don’t know if I can trust any of them.”
She looked sadly at Erol, who was now spearing black olives with his fork.
“Are you sure?” he said. “Maybe they were trying to protect you. You still don’t know why they did any of that, right?”
Augusta scowled. “It doesn’t matter why they did it. I have a right to know the truth. I have a right to make my own decisions. And today I’m making the decision to sell this book. At least something good will come out of it—I’ll have enough money to open my art gallery.”
Erol stopped chewing for a moment and looked at her pointedly. “Maybe you should think about this a little. We could at least wait until tomorrow to decide.”
“No! Let’s get it over with. Can you call the museum directors and arrange the sale for today? Surely they’ll want to complete it as fast as possible, to prevent anything else from happening to the book.”
He held up his hands. “Okay, okay. Fine. I can call them from the security desk downstairs.” He stabbed two slices of cheese and ate them in one bite, standing up as he gulped down the remainder of his tea. “Let’s go.”
“Hang on, aren’t you forgetting something?” Augusta gathered a few dishes in her hands and made the short trek to the kitchen sink, wiping her hands on a tea towel.
“What do you mean?”
“The dishes.” She handed the towel to Erol. “Eda’s orders. She cooks, you clean.”
Erol groaned.
“Hey! Eda helped rescue you from the Rumelovs yesterday, remember? I don’t think you can ever be mad at her again.”
For a man who could face a beating without complaint, Augusta thought, he certainly was a lightweight when it came to the dishes.