Augusta caught up with Erol in the alleyway, panting with the effort of matching his long, purposeful strides. “Wait up! Where are you going?”
He stopped abruptly and turned to her. “I’m going to find Efendi. Veysel was right, I do know where to look. It’s a long-lost hammam, once the sultan’s secret bath-house. Many people don’t know about it because it’s been bricked over and is no longer in use. Apparently that’s where Efendi and the pan-Mediterranean occultists have located their operations. A brilliant move, actually. No one even knows about it, so they won’t be disturbed. And there’s plenty of room for their weird rituals, or whatever they do.”
With these last words Erol snorted derisively and began walking again along the alley, back toward the brightly-lit main road.
“Erol.” Augusta gently gripped his elbow and brought him to another stop. “Please be careful. I still think we should call the police. Don’t you want back-up in case Efendi is dangerous?”
Standing now face to face with Augusta, Erol’s look softened as he gazed down at her. “No, there’s nothing to worry about. When you get back to the museum, just tell Eda and Mark I’m at the bath of Bedestan. They’ll know where it is.”
Augusta frowned. She had a bad feeling about this.
“Don’t look so worried! Efendi isn’t going to kill me. But if you don’t hear from me by the evening call to prayer, come and find me.” Erol gave her a reassuring smile, then with one last look over his shoulder at Augusta, turned and strode down the alley.
She watched him until he vanished around the corner. Suddenly feeling the coolness of the alleyway raise goosebumps on the back of her arms, Augusta realized she was quite alone in the darkening lane. She tore her eyes away from the spot where Erol had just disappeared and looked around, trying to get her bearings again. If she still had her phone, she could easily pull up a map and get back to the Ottoman History Museum. But without her phone, she would have to rely on her memory. Augusta wasn’t sure she remembered the way. No choice, though. She would have to try.
Heading back the way she had first come with Erol, she retraced her steps past the Hatira bookshop. Its curling gold letters, which had looked so inviting in the warm rays of afternoon sun, now took on a sinister cast, resembling nothing so much as snakes entwined around one another. Augusta averted her eyes and hurried past the bookshop, back up the alley, and out onto the main thoroughfare. Once on the main road she felt her confidence returning. She knew she could find her way back. Follow the facts.
Navigating by familiar landmarks, she passed the fairytale Galata Tower, descended one of Istanbul’s many sloping hills, and soon found herself crossing the Galata Bridge. The bridge was packed with tourists shopping, eating, or looking for the perfect photo op of the city. Blending into the crowds of normal people going about their lives, Augusta thought again how bizarre it was that not so far away, a group of pan-Mediterranean monarchists was plotting to change all this. Surely they wouldn’t succeed. With their ancient bibliomancy and outdated political maps, they were just crackpots without any chance of seeing their ambitions realized.
But, Augusta knew, they could still stir up a lot of trouble in the attempt. They had already killed Father Ephraim, and she did not share Erol’s confidence that they would allow him to walk into their lair and leave unharmed. She had to get back to the museum and tell Eda and Mark. They would know what to do.
She quickened her pace as she reached the opposite side of the bridge. An enormous gray mosque loomed up in front her, its many domes seeming to climb over and on top of one other in a beautiful architectural riot, recreating the sinuous hills of Istanbul. Yeni Cami—New Mosque—built four hundred years ago at the height of Ottoman power. Its magnificence still dazzled, still spoke of the grandeur of a once-mighty empire. Preoccupied as she was with her own thoughts, Augusta couldn’t help but be impressed. She could almost understand the desire to cling to such a glorious past, to recreate the world that had made such beauty possible.
As she turned off the waterfront promenade into a side road, leading up the hill to the museum, something behind her caught her eye. She turned quickly around but saw nothing unusual, just the regular mix of tourists carrying bulging bags and merchants hawking their wares. Stamping up the hill, Augusta tried to envision a map of the neighborhood in her mind’s eye. She had just turned right, so the next turn was a…left, she thought, up ahead at the tram stop. Or was the street before that? No, definitely at the tram stop.
Augusta wove her way around café chairs set out on the sidewalk, around the busboys clearing dishes and businessmen returning home from work. She glanced over her shoulder again, and her heart froze. She definitely recognized that man behind her. The aviator sunglasses had caught her attention earlier as she crossed Galata Bridge, and here he was again, still behind her. That couldn’t be a coincidence.
Her heart now racing, she sped toward the tram stop, which she could see up ahead of her. Praying that she’d gotten the directions right, Augusta mentally pictured the map in her head again. After this left, it was several streets over, and then…a right at the fountain? She thought so, but she wouldn’t know for sure until she got there. As she turned the corner near the tram, she dared a look back over her shoulder. The man was still behind her, the distance between them still the same. That meant he had deliberately quickened his pace to keep up with her. Augusta felt herself trembling as she almost broke into a run.
Two more streets to go until the fountain. She scanned the shopfronts around her, looking for a familiar sign to make sure she was in the right place. Yes, she recognized that one, selling apple tea, with the poster of two luscious-looking apples in the window. Good. She turned right at the fountain and breathed a sigh of relief as she saw the peeling paint of the Ottoman History Museum up ahead.
Zigzagging brusquely around the too-slow pedestrians enjoying the historical street, Augusta couldn’t bring herself to see how close the man now was behind her. She had only one thought in her head: get inside the museum. She reached the peeling portico and threw herself at the museum door, pushing hard against the heavy wood. It was locked.
This can’t be happening! Panting after her run up the hill, Augusta banged desperately on the door with her fist. “Help! Eda, Mark! Let me in, it’s Augusta!”
Trying to catch her breath, she leaned her back against the door and looked up and down the street. No sign of the man yet. Had she lost him? Or was he hanging back, waiting to see if anyone came to her rescue? And why wasn’t anyone letting her in the museum?
She turned and banged on the door again. “Please! Mark! Eda! Hasan! Can you hear me? I need to get in right now.” No response.
With her back to the door, Augusta sank down to the ground and put her head between her hands. Unbelievable. She couldn’t understand what was happening. She felt panic rising in her chest, and then a small voice in her head, whispering quietly at first, and then a bit louder: follow the facts. Yes, that’s what she’d been doing so far, and where had it gotten her? To the middle of strange city with no phone, no book, and apparently no friends. And yet the voice wouldn’t go away. Follow the facts. Augusta took a deep breath and stood back up. Ok. Follow the facts. In any case, she had no choice. There was nothing else she could do.
Just then, the museum door wrenched open, and Eda and Mark appeared in the doorway. “Augusta!” Eda squealed, pulling her inside with many exclamations. Mark shut the door as Eda dragged Augusta over to an antique armchair. “Sit down. Tell us what happened. You look like you’ve seen a ghost.” She bent her warm face over Augusta, her beautiful green eyes shining with concern. And, suddenly noticing that Augusta was alone—"Where’s Erol?”
Augusta took a deep breath, steadying herself after her close encounter with the strange man. Here, at least, she felt safe, back in the warming presence of her friend. Somehow it seemed that wherever Eda was, there could be no death or violence, no snatched books or deadly candelabras. The last glow of the evening sun filtered in through lace curtains, and Augusta felt suddenly at home among the wood-paneled walls of the history museum.
“He’s at the bath of Bedestan.”
She didn’t know if she had expected Eda and Mark to be happily surprised by this revelation, but Augusta was definitely not expecting the reaction she got: utter bewilderment. Eda’s face froze, and she and Mark turned slowly to look at each other.
Mark cleared his throat, and politely said, “Are you sure? The bath of Bedestan? I don’t think that’s right.”
Augusta nodded. “Very sure. That’s what Erol told me to tell you. He said you’d know where it is.”
At this Eda gave a high-pitched laugh that sounded almost like a snort. “Of course he did. Erol! When will he ever learn.” She shook her head and crossed her arms forcefully in front her, pacing around the empty entry hall of the museum.
Looking from a crestfallen Mark to a pacing Eda, Augusta asked, “What’s the problem? That’s the address our source, Veysel, gave us. Erol wanted to go there as soon as he found out. I tried to stop him, but he wanted to confront Efendi himself.”
“Efendi!” Mark groaned. “What is Erol thinking? We have to find him.”
“Why don’t we just call the police and ask them to meet us at the bath of Bedestan?” Augusta suggested helpfully. “I really think we need backup here.”
“Because,” Eda said testily, still pacing the room, “the bath of Bedestan doesn’t exist. At least, not in any official record of the city. It has no address, and it doesn’t appear on any map of Istanbul. No police force will ever meet us there.” Her heels clicked smartly on the herringbone floor as she paced. “Erol may as well have disappeared into a black hole.”
It all made sense, Augusta realized. That’s why Erol had said it was a brilliant location—“no one even knows about it,” he had told her. A bricked-over secret hammam where no one would ever think to look.
“But you know where it is.” Augusta pronounced it as a well-established fact, hoping against hope that it was true. Mark and Eda would definitely be able to find Erol.
“Sort of,” Mark said at last, after another long glance at Eda. “We have a general idea. It’s been covered up for centuries, and none of us have actually seen it, but we know where it should be.” He held out a hand to help Augusta up from her antique chair. “Come on, let’s go upstairs and look at some maps. We’ll find it. We have no choice.”