Sparkers (9 page)

T
he weekend arrives, the first since the halan firings at the District Halls. On Seventhday, when I pick my way through the Ikhad, my only reward is Tsipporah speaking darkly of plague. Under the thatched roof, a number of stalls stand empty, not only because people have fallen ill, Tsipporah says, but because vendors and craftsmen from the outlying hamlets are avoiding the city and its contagion. I don't stay at the market very long.

On my way out of the square, I notice a peculiar current in the streets. It seems to be carrying both kasiri and halani in the direction of the Assembly Hall, where the seven councilors meet and the city government offices are located. I follow the herd, catching snippets of my fellow citizens' conversations.

“—don't know why we bother, nothing the First Councilor can say is—”

“—proper medical report, or some concrete numbers about—”

“—pray there's good news.”

My heart beats faster. The First Councilor hardly ever makes public appearances. This is a rare opportunity to hear words directly from Yiftach David's mouth, and I might learn something I could bring back to Leah.

The crowd bears me into a plaza teeming with people. The Assembly Hall looms on our left. Unlike most of Ashara's venerable edifices, it's made of brick, not stone. After the original Assembly Hall burned down seventy years ago, it was rebuilt in a newer style.

Today, a wooden platform has been set up in front of the hall. Around it is a cordoned-off section, complete with folding chairs, which the arriving kasiri are filling. Police officers are stationed along the rope barriers to keep the mob of halani from pressing in too closely.

A diminutive man with gray hair approaches the lectern at the front of the platform. Having seen him once on a school trip, I know this is Yiftach David, First Councilor of the Assembly.

David begins to speak, but we can't hear his voice. On the platform, another kasir joins him. He removes his gloves and curls his hands at chest level. A spray of tiny white-hot lights, bright as a welder's sparks, bursts from his fingers, and abruptly David's amplified voice booms through the square.

“—confirm to you that one hundred and thirty-four Ashari have died of a new and as yet unidentified illness within the past month.”

The First Councilor pauses to let the death toll sink in.

“By now,” he continues, “you are all familiar with the disease, whose symptoms include chills, fever, aches, and respiratory difficulties. In many ways, it resembles influenza or pneumonia, but the illness can be diagnosed with certainty due to the darkening of the patient's irises.

“I understand the anxiety this epidemic is causing the people of Ashara. I regret to say that we do not yet know what the origin of the disease is, but on behalf of the entire Assembly, I pledge to determine the nature of the illness and develop a treatment for it as speedily as possible. The untimely death of Second Councilor Yitzchak has deeply saddened us all, and we are reminded that, kasir or halan, councilor or ordinary citizen, we are all at risk until a cure is found. We seek to honor his memory in working to treat the illness.”

The halani around me shift restlessly while David lowers his head in a moment of reflection. So far this speech isn't proving very helpful.

When David next speaks, his tone is brisker. “My colleagues and I have appointed a committee of physicians to study the new disease. Its members are accountable to me, and I will personally oversee their work.” This statement garners a smattering of applause from the kasir section, but the woman digging her elbow into my ribs snorts.

“I urge the public to resist panic,” the First Councilor says, his magnified voice steady and reassuring. “I am confident the people of Ashara will weather these difficult days as we weathered the beginning of the cold times so long ago. I ask only for your patience.”

But how long can we wait for a cure?

• • •

I
VISIT
L
EAH
every day after school. I wash my hands when I arrive at the Avrams' apartment and again before I leave. Gadi Yakov constantly warns me not to sit too close to Leah. I think she'd prefer I stay away entirely, like the rest of her children, but I'm already careful not to touch my friend. Besides, if I haven't caught the dark eyes from her by now, I'm probably not going to.

Leah's fever has subsided for now, but she complains of achiness, and a nasty cough has set in. She can't shake her exhaustion; a walk to the kitchen leaves her spent. The only task for which she can summon much energy is caring for Raspberry the house finch. Gadi Yakov brings her supplies so she can clean out his hatbox and replenish his food and water. I watch her rebind his wing, marveling at how gentle and nimble her fingers are and how he seems to trust her. I look forward to these moments because they make it easier not to think about how sick she is.

Once, though, I suggest taking care of the bird is tiring her out. Leah rolls her eyes.

“If it weren't for Raspberry, I'd have died of boredom by now.”

Often she's not awake when I arrive, so I do my homework on the bedroom floor. When she does wake up, she's too weak to talk much, so I tell her about Sarah the kasir girl, describing in detail the dinner at the Rashids' house. I also try to amuse her with stories from school.

“Aradi Mattan called me Leah this afternoon,” I say one day. “He's so absentminded. It reminded me of when we were younger. Remember how people would always ask us if we were sisters?”

Leah nods. We loved being mistaken for siblings.

“There was that old woman who sold mugs of pea soup at the Horiel market,” I recall. “We never corrected her. Then one day your mother overheard her telling us how she'd never seen two sisters get along so well . . .”

“Yes, and Mother scolded us for lying!” Leah says, lifting her head.

We both giggle. Then Leah lets her head fall back onto the pillow and shuts her eyes.

When I'm not at school or at the Avrams', I'm busy preparing for my audition. I send my application off to Qirakh as Aradi Imael instructed me and throw myself into learning the Shevem solo.

On Fourthday morning, seven days after the First Councilor's speech, I arrive at school to find dozens of students clustered around the front steps, talking noisily in the snow. Miriam elbows her way through the crowd to me.

“What's going on?” I ask.

“Nobody knows. The doors are locked.”

Miriam and I hold our instruments close and search the throng for our friends. Then the school doors open. The headmaster appears at the top of the steps, flanked by several teachers. He begins to speak, but we can't hear him.

A hand falls on my shoulder, and I jump. It's Aradi Imael, and her face is grave.

“Girls, the school is closed.”

“What?” says Miriam.

“The Assembly has closed all the schools in the city to prevent the spread of the dark eyes,” our teacher says.

Miriam and I exchange stunned looks.

“Marah, I know we were going to practice after school today,” Aradi Imael says, “but now I'm going to be busy with staff meetings. Maybe you could come to my house this weekend instead. Would Seventhday afternoon work?”

I nod.

“My thanks,” she says before rushing away.

• • •

A
SIDE
FROM
MEDSHA
,
I never thought I'd miss school, but without it the hours are interminable. Visiting Leah helps, but it's hard to watch her suffer: from the cough that makes her ribs sore, from the aches in her limbs, from the fever that keeps returning. I find myself feeling glad that Raspberry's wing was broken because the little finch is the only thing that seems to cheer her.

To distract her from her misery, I bring my violin every day and play. While she listens, I practice my three-octave scales, sight-read passages from
Medsha Excerpts: Volume I
, and work on the Shevem solo. I receive a letter from Qirakh setting my audition for a date a little less than four weeks away.

On Seventhday morning, while Mother is out shopping, Channah Hadar calls again.

“I'm only staying a minute,” she says when I greet her. “You're invited to the Rashids' again tomorrow evening. For supper. Also, Azariah asked me to tell you he'd like your help again. I didn't realize you two had gotten on so well.”

“I'll come,” I say, excited at the prospect of discovering what Azariah's Hagramet book contains.

“I'll pick you up at the same time, then,” Channah says.

After lunch, I leave for Aradi Imael's house with my violin, cutting through the kasir neighborhood and its grandiose apartment buildings again. I've almost reached Mir District when I turn a corner and slam into someone coming the other way.

“Excuse me,” I gasp. I look up into the face of Melchior Rashid.

He steps back on the sidewalk, his eyes wide. “What are you doing here?” he says in an undertone.

Before I can reply, two kasir boys his age, both wearing Firem Secondary pins, come up behind him. Melchior turns to go back the way they came, but one of his companions catches him by the shoulder. “Wait. It's a sparker.”

My heart starts thudding. It's the middle of the day, and there's no one on this block but me and the three boys.

“Let's go, Shimon,” Melchior says.

Ignoring him, Shimon seizes my arm. “Your kind doesn't belong around here.”

I glance at Melchior, but Sarah's brother looks at me as though he's never met me.

“Let go of me,” I croak, trying to wrench away from Shimon.

He shoves me so violently I stumble, and the third boy takes this opportunity to grab my violin.

“Give it back!” I lunge for my instrument, but Shimon holds me fast as his friend opens my case on the sidewalk.

“Leave it, Ayal,” Melchior says.

Ayal lifts my fiddle from its case and wrenches out the wooden tuning pegs. I watch in a stupor as they bounce on the cobblestones. Then, while the strings swing pathetically from the tailpiece, Ayal presses his thumbs into the belly of my violin.

The sound of breaking wood shatters my daze.

“No!” I throw myself at him, but Shimon pushes me into the snow piled along the edge of the street. I scrape my knee on the pavement and taste grit. Snow trickles down my neck. Hiding my face, I lie there and wait for them to go away.

I hear more cracks, then laughter.

“Come on, we'll be late.”

“Shemuel's waiting for us.”

Their voices fade. I stand up and see my pegs lying amid the unwound strings on the ground. Numbly, I gather them and stuff them into the abandoned case. Then I spot my snapped bow hanging over the park gate down the street. My violin lies nearby atop a dense hedge.

I burst into the park and seize my instrument. Ayal smashed the bridge into the front, splintering the polished wood down the middle. No luthier could repair it, and I can't afford a new instrument. Holding my ruined fiddle, I feel as though something inside me has broken. I slump onto a park bench, my throat aching with the effort of not crying.

Then a terrible thought dawns on me. How will I audition for Qirakh now? My violin, my key to secondary school, is destroyed. It's too much to bear. Huddled on the bench, I weep into my folded arms.

Eventually I remember that Aradi Imael is expecting me. I get up, wincing, and attempt to wash my face with a handful of snow. A few minutes later, I arrive at my teacher's.

“Hello, Marah,” Aradi Imael says when she opens the door. “I was afraid you'd forgotten your lesson.”

“I'm sorry I'm late,” I murmur. I wobble a little crossing the threshold. My knee stings, and I can't help grimacing.

“Are you all right?” she asks. “Come into the living room and sit down.”

“My violin . . .” I sink into an armchair. The story comes out in fragments. When I unclasp my violin case to show Aradi Imael the damage, her expression confirms what I already knew.

“You're hurt,” she says. “Wait here a moment, I have gauze and tape.”

While I self-consciously clean my scraped knee and press a bandage over it, Aradi Imael strokes the threadbare arm of her chair, looking troubled.

Finally, she says, “We'll find a violin for you to borrow. For today, you can play mine.”

• • •

B
EARING
MY
BROKEN
violin, I take the long way home from Mir, avoiding the kasir district and sticking to halan neighborhoods. When I get back to the apartment, Caleb is occupied with my school books, and Mother is sitting in her study. I don't have the heart to tell them about my fiddle yet, so I drop off my case and go over to Leah's.

Yesterday, she felt well enough to sit by the window in a chair dragged in from the kitchen. She even spent half an hour fastening large squares of cheesecloth to the sides of a huge crate her sisters found in the street to make a bigger cage for Raspberry. I watched her ease the bird out of the hatbox, untie the strip of fabric securing his wing to his body, and set him in the crate.

When I arrive today, the finch is chirping in his new cage near the window, but Leah's back in bed, holding a mug of poplar bud tea for fever.

“Are you all right?” I ask.

“I'm fine,” she says impatiently. “Look at Raspberry!”

Through the cheesecloth, I can make out the bird's silhouette as he hops around. Suddenly he flaps his wings and flies in an arc from one end of the crate to the other.

“Oh,” I say.

“His wing is healed!” Leah seems disappointed by my lack of enthusiasm. Then she notices something. “You didn't bring your violin.”

Unable to speak, I shake my head.

“I was hoping to hear some music,” she says. “Would you play mine? It's there in the corner.”