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policemen, who led him to the area between the bank and the burning taverna. The bank, a three-story granite building, was still standing, the coat of arms on its façade blackened but undamaged, although the entrance had been smashed into rubble. Across the lane, the timber shell of the restaurant glowed red like a backlit stage set. Occasionally a man emerged from the wreckage or disappeared inside. Istanbul’s firemen were as famous for their physical prowess as for their almost foolhardy bravery.
    Kamil saw the charred bodies lying on the pavement and stopped in horror. Some were still alive. Cracked, bloody hands grasped feebly at the air. As he watched, two firemen brought out the naked body of a woman, her face burned beyond recognition. They laid her on the ground and ran back to the fire. A woman in a black charshaf checked her pulse and then draped a sheet gently over the body. The woman’s veil had fallen away from her face and Kamil saw that she was old, her chin covered in tribal tattoos, her teeth bared with tension. Men carried the wounded to carts lined up at the narrow crossroads. Kamil took hold of one of the victims and helped carry him to a cart already crowded with other victims. Viscous fluid seeping from the wounds stuck to Kamil’s hands. He fought down nausea.
    “Where are they taking them?” Kamil asked a bystander as the cart began its way uphill.
    “Probably the nuns,” the man responded, his eyes held by the flames. “That’s the closest place.”
    “They’re taking the wounded to a church?” Kamil wiped the palms of his hands on his trousers, but they remained sheathed with soot and blood.
    “Austrians.” The man’s eyes were red, and tears streaked his face, from smoke or weeping. Kamil couldn’t tell. “They set up an infirmary during the last cholera outbreak. Right up there”—he pointed—“below the tower. They might be taking them elsewhere too. It isn’t very big.”
    An empty cart pulled up. Kamil and the men worked quickly, since every touch seemed to cause the wounded great pain. Kamil forced himself to be calm. He thought of the orchids in his summer garden, his mind walking along the pebble-filled trays, listing one Latin name after another— Acineta hrubyana, Cephalanthera rubra, Orchis lactea , Orchis pinetorum —while his hands grasped slippery limbs, the victim’s lungs too burned to moan, but his eyes wild with pain.
    When all the wounded had been taken away and the remaining bodies checked, wrapped in sheets, and stacked in carts, Kamil washed his hands thoroughly in a bowl of warm water the old woman brought him. Then he slumped down against the side of a building.
    After a few minutes he became aware of a familiar voice and caught sight of Chief Omar arguing with a man in uniform, presumably the chief of the Karaköy police district. When he saw Kamil, Omar, black from head to foot with soot, but looking smug, came over.
    “The Karaköy police will survey the neighborhood,” he announced. “They’re good at that; they know everybody. We’ll do the hard thinking, of course. Good thing I happened to be in the area.” He grinned. “I’ll share the credit with them, naturally.” His teeth were glaringly white against his dirty skin. He was a big, barrel-chested man with a thick neck, an overly loud voice, and doleful brown eyes that expressed undisguised pleasure at being in the thick of things.
    Kamil stood and faced Chief Omar. “What the hell is going on?” he asked in a hoarse, cracked voice, angry at the police chief’s levity. He wondered if Omar’s experience as a soldier had hardened him to such carnage. Kamil hoped he would never think of any death as less than the highest tragedy.
    “The most damnable thing,” Omar exclaimed. “There was an explosion at the bank. The fire spread across the street. Eighteen dead so far. Four of them bank guards, the rest were in the restaurant. A fast fire.” He gestured at the smoldering ruin.