The Orphan Sky (21 page)

Miriam seemed to be slipping into a doze, her eyes disappearing beneath the hoods of their lids, a tiny stream of mucus seeping down the side of her open mouth. The face of the burned, scorched, beaten, humiliated Truth. I carefully took her limp, cold hands in mine and brought them to my face. Small and delicate, the skin as rough as sandpaper.

“I'll find him. I'll find Tahir,” I whispered, kissing the tips of her fingers, placing her hands back in her lap. “I promise.” Quietly, I turned to leave.

“It's always about choice.” Miriam's husky, now sedate voice reached me at the door. “It's one choice we make that determines the rest of our lives. I always go back to that moment when I made my choice—to return to Baku to save the love of my life. I didn't save Caspar. And I ruined myself. So I had many—too many—days and nights behind barbed wire to examine my decision. Was it worthy?”

I held my breath, waiting to hear the verdict on my own choices.

“Yes, Leila. It was all worthy. Choosing light over darkness is in our human nature. And at the end, there is always a reward. Mine was my grandson,” she said with such tenderness that I had to clasp my mouth with my hand to mute my sobbing.

“Come here and take
her
. And keep
her
always by your side.”

The figurine of the vermilion bird from the fresco. Miriam held it out between her shaking hands, tears streaming down her hollow cheeks. “Take good care of
her
. She kept me alive throughout my life. A life that often envied death. She is Zümrüd
Qusu
, the magical Firebird. She was born on the night Princess Zümrüd leaped into the sky from the top of Maiden Tower and burned away the darkness with the fire of her wings. She is yours now.”

Miriam gently placed Zümrüd
Qusu
onto the palm of my hand. “Now go and do whatever you can to save my grandson.”

A short pause. A dizzying polyphony of thoughts.

“And save your own soul,” she added resolutely. “Good-bye, Leila.”

1982

The world of classical music was a dark, lonesome place, ruled by rampant egos and Party connections, ruthlessly purging artists who failed to consistently deliver first prizes.

Professor Sultan-zade tirelessly navigated those treacherous waters on my behalf. My win in the Liszt International Piano Competition in Budapest had elevated me to the ranks of the Azerbaijani music elite, but there were fifteen republics in the Soviet Union, and each had its own stable of young and talented champions eager to race, while Moscow had the final word.

As a result, in the two years since my Budapest win, I hadn't been invited to a single competition. My applications to play at both the International Chopin Piano Competition in Poland in 1980 and the Van Cliburn International Piano Competition in Texas in 1981 never left my file at the Ministry of Culture in Moscow.

Not much more luck with concerts. The first year after Budapest, I went on a national concert tour playing my Mozart's
Piano
Concerto
no. 20
with major symphony orchestras in the philharmonic halls of Moscow, Leningrad, Kiev, and Minsk, being stamped by the music critics with the label of a “Mozart girl”—something that quite limited my musical versatility. Gradually the stages, as well as the orchestras, became less prestigious, and Professor Sultan-zade pulled me out of the concert tour and back into the practice room, while she continued chasing engagements for me with key orchestras and international competitions.

At the end of 1981, my mentor's assiduous work and her wide-reaching connections finally paid off. I received an invitation from the Tchaikovsky International Piano Competition where I was supposed to play Rachmaninoff's
Piano
Concerto
no. 3
, the same piece and on the same stage that catapulted Van Cliburn in 1958 into stardom and one of the most unsurpassed piano careers of our time.

I practiced endlessly. Almost eight hours every day, until I could execute the technical demands of the
Concerto
flawlessly, sweeping through the passages with my eyes closed. And the subtlety of the sweet Russian lyricism in the midst of the composer's torn, chaotic, lonely soul—something I'd struggled with for a long time—had finally been mastered. But still the piece wasn't happening. How could it? My heart was out of tune.

If I could only tune up my heart. If I could hear Vladimir Horowitz's recording of my
Concerto
. If I could sneak into the Coronation Hall of Maiden Tower and play it—just once—on the Mukhtarovs' clavichord. That would make the difference. But how could I? I didn't dare to step my foot inside the walls of Icheri Sheher out of fear of meeting Miriam.

It had been over two years since she gave me her Zümrüd
Qusu
along with a chance to save Tahir and my own soul. And what had I done? Nothing. Just kept her Zümrüd
Qusu
on top of my piano. At first, she offered me a soothing sense of hope, a connection with Tahir and Miriam. After a while, staring at me angrily from under her faded vermilion feathers, she had become a painful keepsake of my guilt.

A month before the Tchaikovsky piano competition, Professor Sultan-zade withdrew my participation.

“You still need to define your relationship with Rachmaninoff better,” she said. “If you lose this competition, you will lose your entire career. Trust me. Meanwhile, I'll start working on the Queen Elisabeth Music Competition in Belgium in 1983. A year from now, so it will give us more time.”

I felt crushed, but I knew Professor Sultan-zade was right. After almost three years of practice, my performance of Rachmaninoff's
Piano
Concerto
no. 3
didn't stand a chance to win. Virtuosic and skillful, yes. But the original romantic palette—Tahir's palette of Impressionistic pastels—I had used while learning the
Concerto
on Mukhtarovs' keyboard in the twilight of the Coronation Hall had been replaced. Replaced by aggressive primary colors, edgy pauses, and jarring chords—the reflections of my miserable, guilt-torn soul.

If I could only fly to Afghanistan, find Tahir, and through him, seek my way back to the beauty of music. The simple and coherent beauty that would stitch my soul back together.

• • •

The first casualties of the Soviet war in Afghanistan began arriving home. People called them zinc boys. They came quietly, inside zinc-lined coffins covered with red silk. Their families held funerals in secret at the instruction of the KGB so the growing numbers of fatalities wouldn't lower the morale of the Soviet people.

Brezhnev's Golden Era—the “Period of Developed Socialism”—reigned over Soviet Azerbaijan, the last phase leading to the long-promised Communist paradise where one and all would share the superabundant riches of a class-, religion-, and corruption-free society.

So it said in our history books. In reality, the USSR continued as a feudal state ruled by a hierarchy of mafia with Brezhnev's Kremlin on top.

Leonid Brezhnev had been General Secretary of the Communist Party for the last eighteen years, longer than any other Soviet leader, except for Stalin's three decades of bloody terror. Through all those years, our country produced absolutely nothing. We lived off our natural resources, supporting a black market. The Kremlin Communist oligarchy, in full control of Azerbaijani national staples—black gold petroleum and black caviar—traded and sold them on the international markets, amassing a fortune that would have given a jealous heart attack to the richest of the Shirvan shahs—the mighty Muslim rulers of ancient Azerbaijan. But recently, three republics in the Caucasus—Azerbaijan, Georgia, and Armenia—had been displaying some alarming tendencies toward autonomy.

To reinforce Moscow's supremacy and to wave his fists toward the Kremlin's naughty vassals, Leonid Brezhnev officially announced that he would visit Azerbaijan in September 1982.

And Baku burst into madness. What used to be a laid-back, too-far-from-Moscow-to-care town made plans for a major makeover.

Azerbaijanis were known for their remarkable hospitality. Even the smaller gods from Moscow usually received the most ostentatious gifts. But this time Baku outdid itself, erecting a concert hall—Gülistan—on the city's highest hill. It looked like a Fabergé egg floating in the sky, washed in sun dust, draped in the tulle of waterfalls. A marble stairway framed with cypress trees and tea roses led to its golden atrium and to the more extravagant interior: a colosseum-shaped nightclub with floors made of handwoven Turkish rugs, chandeliers with garlands of crystal lights, and the fragrance of exotic Arabic oils mixed with the hypnotic sounds of
mugam
.

A show of never-before-seen magnitude would take place on its stage. As the appetizer, belly dancers straight out of Scheherazade's
Arabian
Nights
—seven voluptuous women, their hair, fingers, and toes stained with henna. Like snakes, they would glide and twist between the guests to the beat of
ghavals
, enticing, provoking. A whole army of Chinese acrobats would follow, juggling, rolling on fireballs, twisting their elastic bodies in fantastic, seemingly impossible ways. Then, the Oilmen Choir would sing traditional Shamakha songs. And for dessert—me, the national treasure, playing Tikhon Khrennikov's
Five
Pieces
for
Piano
, a composition as tedious as the slogans pouring nonstop out of the loudspeakers set along Baku's major streets.

The moment I finish with my performance, before the curtain goes down, I will rush to the edge of the stage, take a bow toward Brezhnev's box, place my hand on my heart, and say fervently: “Comrade Brezhnev, on behalf of the Komsomol of my beloved Azerbaijan, I humbly ask for the honor to be named a music ambassador of my republic and sent to Kabul so I can share the joy of music with our heroic army.”

So I can find and rescue Tahir.

I had been studying the map of Afghanistan, with its gorges, mountains, and deserts, day and night. I listened to every scrap of news I could tune my ear to, and I had worked out an itinerary through the Khyber Pass and the Afghan mountains. These were the relatively quiet areas spared of guerilla warfare. There we would find a nice, old Pashtun who, for the price of my sapphire ring, would lead Tahir and me across the Pakistani border. After then, we are free. Free to climb the Eiffel Tower. Ride in a Venetian gondola. Dance to the rhythms of jazz in a New York nightclub.

Foolish? Immoral? Devious?

What about Mama? Would I be able to live the rest of my life far away, knowing that I had betrayed her and left her behind?

My mind had turned into a battlefield. Missiles of doubts, fears, and guilt fired from one side intercepted by the justifying anger from the other.

My heart? It was suspended in dreamy rubato, longing for Tahir. For his presence. His touch.

His forgiveness.

• • •

On September 29, before dawn, thousands and thousands of us gathered in Lenin Square. Columns and columns of factory workers, collective farmers, students, athletes, cultural intelligentsia. The girls from the State Ensemble of Dance, wearing traditional Azeri dresses, encircled the newly constructed podium, holding large silver bowls filled with rose petals. Ready to be laid at the feet of Comrade Leonid Brezhnev.

At midafternoon, a seemingly endless cavalcade of black government cars and police motorcycles arrived at the Square. The door of a tank-size ZIL flew open. And Brezhnev, aided by a dozen gray suits, stepped out onto the rose petals, looking like an effigy of the impressive leader who watched us from thousands of billboards. An effigy on strings, his movements jerky and unnatural, wearing a death mask. Only his bushy eyebrows seemed alive, moving up and down over his half-closed eyes.

He slowly approached the podium and waited at the bottom, staring helplessly at the stairs, as if deciding whether he should take the challenge of mounting the stairs himself or wait for his cluster of assistants to aid him. A wave of suppressed giggles swept across a crowd appearing less restrained and more impatient than any I had ever seen at an official Communist gathering. Like me, they were all anticipating how the spectacle would end. Little did they know.

At last Comrade Brezhnev made the decision. Shaking his pasty face from side to side, he canceled his speech and signaled his entourage to lead him back to his ZIL. As they did so, the “Hymn of the Soviet Union” broke out of the loudspeakers at a deafening volume, accompanied by the patriotic words of the anthem and the barely concealed chuckles in the audience.

The next day, he gave an incoherent speech in the Marble Hall, pinned the Order of Lenin to the flag of Soviet Azerbaijan, and was gone, skipping all prepared festivities, including my concert. Back to Moscow for recuperation.

Back to the drawing board.

• • •

Or maybe not.

“The show goes on.” Professor Najafov entered the practice room, rubbing his hands in delight. He was a small, round man with an even rounder face and a belly so perfectly round that it looked as if he'd swallowed a soccer ball. An outsider, from a provincial music college with no connections, he was recently appointed the rector of the Baku Conservatory of Music.

“I just heard from the Ministry of Culture,” he said, giving Professor Sultan-zade an ambiguously intimate smile. “The government airplane departed in a hurry, but Comrade Brezhnev's entourage has been left behind. I had to push a few buttons so we—and not the State Institute of Arts—could host a concert. Guess for whom?”

Professor Sultan-zade smoothed her brand-new beehive. “I have no idea,” she said with a coy smile illuminating the striking green eyes in her thin Nefertiti face. Today she wore a new black suit and soft ballet flats instead of her usual loud stilettos. Could Professor Najafov be the reason?

“Mark Slavkin. Our Conservatory will host a concert for Mark Slavkin.” Professor Najafov knocked his knuckles on the wood of my piano. Winked. “Not to spoil it.”

Mark Slavkin—Mama's favorite, the composer of her wedding song “White Acacia.” He was the patriarch of Soviet popular music, the composer whose songs had created the soundtrack for the Soviet Union's last forty years: war songs, wedding songs, songs for every possible occasion. Their lyrics, crafted by the most distinguished Soviet poets, extolled Communist values. But Mark Slavkin's melodies had something that bypassed the phony words and hit you straight in the heart. So hard, you could never chase them away. Just like Mozart or Verdi. Or Billie Holiday. The sign of a true genius.

On top of that, Mark Slavkin had long been the Kremlin's favorite. Someone who probably had more real power and influence than most of its current inhabitants. Maybe, after all, if I played it right, I still had a chance to carry out my Afghanistan plan.

• • •

The concert took place later that day, in a small, intimate auditorium of the Baku Conservatory of Music. Without Chinese acrobats or belly dancers. And with no extravaganza at all. Just a few local classical musicians performing patriotic pieces by Soviet composers.

Scheduled last on the program, I waited my turn, watching Mark Slavkin from behind the side curtain. He sat in the VIP box surrounded by sycophants—local Party members, other Moscow guests, reporters—hovering over him like obtrusive mosquitoes. Well into his sixties, in a white sweater with a colorful scarf, he carried both his celebrity and his age with disarming candor. After saluting artists with an amiable smile, he promptly fell asleep a few minutes into their performances.

When my turn came, I bowed and proceeded to the piano. I knew in my heart that Tikhon Khrennikov's
Five
Pieces
for
Piano
with its revolutionary passages and avalanche of chords would not be Mark Slavkin's chosen way to wrap up his boring evening. How could I spare him the musical mayhem of Khrennikov's over-the-top patriotism?