The Orphan Sky (14 page)

Shah Samir dressed in his finest white robes and rode his horse for twenty-seven moons to the heart of the desert, the Desert of the Blind Dervish. There he lay on the cold sand, turned his face to the sky, and waited. At the onset of the seventh moon, the Blind Dervish emerged out of the dim horizon.

“Oh, worthy son of Moon—”

“Say no more,” interrupted the Blind Dervish, penetrating into the Shah's mind with his hollow sockets. “I see your Land of Fire submerged in darkness. There is more hardship and suffering ahead, but light will prevail over the darkness. The roots of joy grow out of the seeds of despair.”

The sage moved apart the clouds blocking the moonlight. “The Fire and the Sea will carve a castle out of a rock. With a tower—a Maiden Tower—high enough to scrape the dome of the sky. So high that one day in the future your beloved daughter, Princess Zümrüd, will leap from its crown, reach the sun, and lead it back to its blue cradle.”

“Then Princess Zümrüd is destined to save my kingdom?” the Shah cried out in euphoria.

“She may…or may not… It all depends on the choices she makes…”

With these words, the Blind Dervish disappeared behind Shah Samir's stone-heavy eyelids. The Shah exhaled his last breath, lay down once again upon the sand, and locked his eyes with eternity.

As the Blind Dervish foretold, a splendid castle grew out of the Caspian Sea with a tower ascending into the sky. Princess Zümrüd, unaware of the reign of darkness outside, lived merrily in the castle surrounded by the riches of the world. Lavish carpets of dazzling colors covered the austere stone walls. Exotic birds from faraway forests sang cheerfully, evoking the sounds of never-ending spring. Musicians and poets fashioned glorious verses in different tongues, praising their princess's youth and beauty. And fire torches, placed in every niche, illuminated the castle like a thousand suns, preventing the gloom from sneaking into Princess Zümrüd's life.

All this continued until her fifteenth birthday. On that day, the princess was playing hide-and-seek with her friends when she ran upstairs to conceal herself behind a rug, the most beautiful rug in the castle. It was there, while standing quietly and admiring the picture of two lovers floating on a magic carpet across the turquoise sea and into the blue sky, that she discovered a secret door.

“Where does this door lead?” she asked her nanny.

“Oh, light of my eyes,” wailed the nanny. “Promise me you'll never come near that door again. There is a cursed world outside that door, and the evil Shah of Darkness is waiting there to take you away from us.”

The joy left Princess Zümrüd's heart. From that time on, she sat alone in her stone chamber, clad in a shimmering white and silver gown adorned with the finest emerald jewels, but she felt neither love nor lament, buried in the monotony of lasting darkness.

Until, finally, she made up her mind. That evening, after everyone in the castle had fallen asleep, she tiptoed up the stairs, pulled aside the beautiful rug, opened the secret door, and stepped into the pitch black outside. The night blinded her eyes. The mysterious smells of the sea and the unfamiliar touch of the air against her skin clouded her senses. Overwhelmed, she stood at the crown of Maiden Tower, taking in the majesty of the night with tears of joy rushing down her cheeks. So beautiful was the sight of the maiden—her black silken hair blowing in the wind, the flawless curves of her body draped in a fluid satin gown, fine emeralds sparkling around her long neck, her slender wrists and ankles—that the stars began to break through the clouds, one after the other, greeting Princess Zümrüd with their silver smiles.

And then she saw him. A Knight in Lion's Skin. Riding the waves of the Caspian Sea, looking up at the princess of his dreams showered in brilliant starlight. The moment they laid eyes on each other, love struck the hearts of the Knight in Lion's Skin and Princess Zümrüd with a double-edged arrow of fire, lighting the knight's path to Maiden Tower.

But it also awakened the evil Shah of Darkness in his cave of sleep. A fierce fight broke out. The clashing sound of steel against steel and steel against stone. A deadly battle for every step leading to the beautiful princess.

Princess Zümrüd stood at the top of the tower, helpless and frightened, begging the Sun and the Moon and the Sea to spare the life of her beloved. Offering her own life instead.

Then silence came. Deafening silence. Followed by the sound of heavy footsteps echoing like thunder throughout the stone tower. Shah of Darkness, thought Princess Zümrüd in anguish. The monster has defeated my beloved and is coming for me.

“Death is more dear to me than life without my beloved,” she whispered to the stars, waved her arms like wings, and threw herself into the roaring waves of the Caspian Sea. But the sky and the sea traded places, and the beautiful Firebird—Zümrüd
Qusu
—was born.

By the time the Knight in Lion's Skin reached the top of the tower—for it was he, not the Shah of Darkness, who had won the battle—his beloved Zümrüd had soared over Maiden Tower, burying the Shah and his Kingdom of Darkness under pillars of smoke, carrying the infant sun in her powerful wings to the dawning dome of the sky.

Tahir finished his story and lit a cigarette.

We sat silent for a long time at the very edge of the tower with our feet dangling over the faraway city. Just Tahir and me, alone in the infinite space where nothing else mattered, where everything was possible.

“If you could make one wish now, what would it be?” I said, both fearful and hopeful that Tahir would ask for permission to kiss me. I had dreamed of it for a long time. To be so close that I'd recognize my love in the mirror of his face, feel his black currant breath closing around my lips, possessing them. Like in my book
Legends
from
the
Land
of
Fire
—Knight and his Princess sharing their first kiss on the magic carpet floating between the stars and the crescent moon.

I closed my eyes and waited, the breeze stroking my face, caressing my hair. Then I felt Tahir's fingers touching my skin, tracing invisible lines from my eyes all the way to my lips. Slowly, tenderly. Tossing a trillion tiny fireflies in my direction. I could feel the first one landing somewhere around my neck and then the next one on my shoulder, then more and more and more. Until I was completely wrapped in the invisible veil of seduction.

“I desire to know you,” Tahir whispered. “Every breath of your heart, every fleeting look on your face, the rhythm of your joys, and the melancholy of your sorrows.”

Suddenly, the touch was no more. My eyes blinked open.

“But you're still very young and vulnerable.” Tahir shook his head, his intensely violet-blue eyes reaching deep inside my soul, making me shiver. “And I don't want to complicate your life any more than I've done already. Maybe in a different place and different time it would be a different story. But we are here and we are now. I have no future. While you're at the launching point, with your life ahead of you—a career, the whole world at your feet.

“I can't give you what you need. All I've got is my art…and my inner freedom. That's what keeps me afloat. Feelings…love…those are luxuries I can't allow myself. They will enslave me, suffocate my creativity, make me miserable, and, ultimately, will hurt you.”

“I don't understand… Why? Why are you saying this to me now?” I sought his eyes like a beggar, hoping to stir him into changing his mind.

He looked away.

“It's not just now. I've been thinking about it for quite a while. And tonight we have come to the point of no return. We should probably stop seeing each other.”

“But why?” I almost shouted.

“I explained why. Let's go.”

Tahir got up and helped me to my feet. We descended the long staircase in silence, a sob stuck in my throat. A dark abyss opened inside me. What had I done to make Tahir turn into this stranger? Why had he smashed my heart against the stones of Maiden Tower? Of all places.

I knew he cared about me. Of course he did. I could see it in his face even as he spoke those painful words. Then why? Why? How could I wake up tomorrow knowing that he was no longer a part of my life? The center of my life? That his green door had closed, shutting me out forever. How could he do this to me? And how could he say my love would suffocate him?

We stopped at the foot of Maiden Tower. Tahir took my hand, my skin against his—warm and slightly moist—brought it to his chest, and pressed it firmly against his heart.

“You will always be here,” he said. “No matter what. You are my Princess Zümrüd. You asked me if I had only one wish to make what it would be. I will tell you. It would be to ask for a pair of wings to carry you away from darkness, all the way up to your dreams.”

Silence. A long, hopeful silence before he let go of my hand.

“But we still can be friends. Just good friends, the way we've been,” I pleaded, swallowing my pride, tears gushing down my face.

“It won't work like that, Leila. It's better to cut down the tree with one quick stroke than to keep chopping away at its branches.”

Why
do
we
have
to
cut
the
tree
at
all?

Tahir walked me to my bus stop. Not a word exchanged. The soft rustle of an olive tree. The lights of the approaching bus. Too soon. Before the bus door even closed, Tahir turned away and headed back toward Maiden Tower. I watched him through a blurry window. The slender figure, the gait with a bounce, rushing back to his solitude, shouldering the heavy burden of our flawed world. I waited for him to change his mind, turn around, catch up with the bus, pull me out of here, and tell me he was wrong. Or at least to look back and wave good-bye.

He did neither, just kept to his strenuous pace before fleeing into the first alley.

Autumn came. First inside me, then everywhere. Trees rushed to shake off their leaves like last year's fashions and stood half naked, bowing to the advances of the northern wind. The Caspian Sea abandoned its good disposition and released its demons, spewing out bursts of white foam.

“No jasmine growing this year,” complained Aunty Zeinab. “A bad sign. The last time we had an autumn like this I got married. With Allah's help, make the skies sunny for Sonia
Khanum
's birthday.”

Aunty Zeinab's wish came true. On the morning of Mama's birthday, the sun burst out of the clouds, filled with late-summer ambitions, and the winds, exhausted from last night's race through Baku's streets and beaten down by blind alleys, finally died out.

As always, we celebrated Mama's birthday in our courtyard: four long tables set for eighty persons around the perimeter; baskets with irises, lilacs, wild gladiolus brightening every surface; the lemon tree raised in the center bearing its golden fruit, the symbol of happiness and health; seven bulging leather sacks with wine from Tabriz and a dozen bottles of sweet Kurdamir waiting in the corner.

Uncle Kerim raised his goblet with wine and began one of his famous long-winded toasts: “Once upon a time a Caliph invited an Artist to entertain him by playing his
tar
…” Mama's oldest friend and second to her in command at the pediatric department, Uncle Kerim acted as
tamada,
the master of ceremonies. I had known him since his hair was still ink-black and he could squeeze underneath my bed when we played hide-and-seek.

By now, his hair had turned aluminum-silver and his figure had grown amorphous, but his elegant ways and tailored suit did magic, concealing his advancing age. The joke around the hospital had it that Uncle Kerim, with his golden tongue of Scheherazade, could talk his patients to sleep during surgery without any anesthesia.

“…and the Caliph promised the silver of the stars…” Uncle Kerim continued.

Everybody at the table remained so quiet that I could hear the crackling of the coal in the corner where the lamb, skewered on ramrods, was slowly turning into a mouth-watering
shashlik
.

Finally, Uncle Kerim waved his goblet in circles above his head and bellowed the conclusion: “Let you, our beloved Sonia
Khanum
, continue to light up our lives like the silver stars, the golden sun, and the platinum moon, shining through all our days and nights.”

A storm of cheering swept throughout the tables, followed by the long and hearty clinking of glasses.

“Clean up your plates for hot
kutabs
, just off the fire.” Aunty Zeinab lumbered down the stairs with a gigantic tray, a cloud of steam hovering over it. Uncle Zohrab followed right behind, running his fingers over the strings of a long-necked
tar
.

“
Kutab
is not
kutab
without singing a
mugam
,” cried a voice from the opposite corner of the courtyard. Bülbül, a celebrated Azeri singer and Papa's childhood friend, made a dramatic appearance wearing a traditional tall hat,
papaq
, and carrying a lacquered frame drum,
ghaval
. He danced his way through the crowd to the fountain in the center, sat down cross-legged under the lemon tree, and stroked the
ghaval
with all ten fingers. The rhythm meshing with the plangent sounds from Uncle Zohrab's
tar
, he closed his eyes and sang:

“
A
woman's beauty is the crown of this
world
…”

The rhythm changed into a six-beat pulse of the
lazgi
, and Mama's surgical nurse, Margo, slid to the center. Nimble, her black hair waving around her face like ravens' wings, she slithered around Bülbül, Uncle Zohrab, and the lemon tree, seeming to float on a current of air beneath her feet. Her arms undulating, she followed the
ghava
l
's rhythm in a manner that was coy and teasing at the same time—faster and faster—until she was dancing hypnotically around the courtyard like a whirling dervish.

Almaz and I ran back and forth collecting the dirty dishes from the table and transporting them to Aunty Zeinab's kitchen where a few women worked together like a well-functioning mechanism, washing and drying and stacking the plates for us to carry them back to the table. Together with dozens of the most imaginative desserts.

Uncle Zohrab carried out a giant bronze samovar and placed it at the head of the table, opening the tea ceremony, accompanied by the sounds of Mama's favorite song “White Acacia,” composed by the legendary Soviet composer Mark Slavkin—a song she had chosen for her wedding dance sixteen years ago.

Papa led Mama through the crowd, twirling her into the steps of the waltz, his hand wrapped around her slender waist. Her hair flying, she turned and spun, throwing her head back in enchanting laughter.

The
generation
of
blind
innocence. The generation of blind innocence
. Miriam's words rang in my mind.

And with those words came a sudden sense of estrangement from the crowd of people I had known and loved since my childhood, from the celebration around me I had grown up with and always looked forward to. This celebration had no right to be here, with the empty wine bottles piling up in front of the Snow Princess's fresco. Not when the true owners of our Gargoyle Castle…no!—Villa Anneliese—dwelled in a dark, damp basement.

And suddenly more than anything else I wanted to be there. To play my Rachmaninoff on the Mukhtarovs' old clavichord in the rings of twilight. To hear their stories of people and places long gone. To be part of their world with its complex, demanding beauty. Because their world had become mine too, and being back in my old life—my real life—felt claustrophobic.

As for Tahir's rejection, I would convince him that I could love him without suffocating his creativity, that I could be a friend who inspired and stimulated his work. And I would tell him to stop treating me like a child and protecting me from the inevitable. Too late. Like Princess Zümrüd, I had made my choice. No way back for me.

I couldn't wait. I had to do it right now. Make a quick trip to Maiden Tower and talk to him. It would take an hour at most, and I'd be back before Mama's party slowed down.

Unnoticed, I slipped out of the festive courtyard and into the back alley. By now, it had plunged into darkness and looked rather hostile, most of the lights broken and the remaining few only highlighting the eeriness of the street.

A long silhouette came into view. Probably one of the local boys, hiding in a niche and smoking hashish in the sanctuary of the all-forgiving night.

Except that something in that silhouette seemed familiar. I stopped, holding my breath, listening to the muted sound of panting and something else. The cadenced rasp of brand-new leather shoes. I glanced at the ground and let my eyes gather in the color first—lime-yellow. Large shoes with pointed toes and a signature silver strap.

“Papa?”

The figure turned around. At first, I didn't recognize him—a mad, sweaty face with eyes glistening in the darkness, flashing chilling fires.

“What are you doing here?” he muttered in an angry, croaky, unfamiliar voice.

“I…just…”

There was someone else in the niche, hiding behind Papa. I strained my eyes to see. But I didn't really need to. Not with the presence of the one smell I would recognize in a million. The smell of my childhood. Oud oil mixed with jasmine, amber, and saffron.
Sevgi
iksir
—the potion of love Almaz and I had created a long time ago.

“Go back right now,” Papa commanded in a muted harsh tone.

Now I could clearly see Almaz, her bright red lipstick smeared around her mouth. Her fingers fidgeting around the pearl buttons of her undone blue blouse. I had an identical one, only in pink. Aunty Zeinab made them for our fifteenth birthdays.

“Leila, please…” Papa tried to put his arm around my shoulder, but I pushed him away. I didn't want him near me. I couldn't let him touch me.

I ran. I ran as far as possible. Down the dark alleys with their rank odors and their menacing silence…away…away…from lies and betrayal and Papa and that witch Almaz…

Until I saw the lights. Dots of light at first, appearing out of nowhere, getting bigger and brighter, coming closer. Blinding me. The headlights of a car. I stopped in the middle of the empty street, paralyzed by fear, my eyes transfixed on a taxicab speeding toward me.

“Leila… Daughter… No!”

Some powerful force threw me to the side, my head hitting the sidewalk with a painful crunch. For a brief moment I thought I saw Papa's face—affectionate, remorseful. Then I heard the deafening screech of tires. A cry. A curse.

Then nothing. Only darkness.