The Orphan Sky (25 page)

I moved slightly, just enough to let a lock of hair fall across my face.
Will
he
notice?

He did. He leaped across the room and gently pushed the hair behind my ear. I wrapped my arms around him, stroking his porcupine head, bringing him close to me. To break the wall between us. To give us a chance. Now or never.

Tahir hesitated. He might have changed, but the taut energy of rejection coming from him felt the same as two years ago. I released my embrace. Tears clogged my throat. The pain concealed inside me had no remedy. His heart, after all,
was
made of stone.

He didn't move. Stayed next to me, uncertain. Torn.
Feeling
sorry
for
me?
Then he kissed me on the back of my neck. Soft legato. Reached for my hands and pressed them against his burning face, his dry lips, his moist tongue.

Stop. Stop right now
. I heard the voice of reason.
This
is
not
the
right
time
nor
the
right
place. Look around. Look where you
are.

I did. I looked around Room Number 12 of the Kabul International Hotel. A dingy room with fatigued saffron flowers on the stained wallpaper, with washed-out gazelles dragging their feet across a bedspread spotted with cigarette burns.

And with a magical painting on the table. A half girl and half bird with chiffon wings at the crown of Maiden Tower, ready to soar into the sky. Against the misty moon—my face. The face of love.

“‘Every passing breeze carries the rose fragrance of your breath to me,'” Tahir whispered an ancient ghazel. “
Every
splendid
sunrise
re
f
lects
the
golden
glow
in
your
eyes
for
me. Every
rustling
leaf
and
every
f
leeting
rain
whisper
your
name
to
me. My
heaven
is
yours; your sorrow is mine,
I
am
forever
drunk
with
your
love's
wine
…”

It didn't happen the way I was told “the first time” would be. With pain and embarrassment. Giving in to a man's unleashed desire, submitting to his male dominance. Exercising the only power given to a girl by nature—the ability to keep her man just hungry enough so he would return for more. That was the axiom we Azerbaijani girls were raised to believe.

No, what happened between Tahir and me was the Dance of Love created by two partners equal in every way—tenderness, longing, vulnerability. Two souls who met in the dark to spark the glow. Two halves of a pomegranate that joined, kernel to kernel, to form one beautiful whole. Two dreamers—Princess Zümrüd and her Knight in Lion's Skin—who discovered a magical world of love hidden underneath a stinking Afghani bedspread.

“Will you remember me tomorrow?” Tahir whispered in my ear as we lay afterward, sweaty, naked, and shameless, his scrubby head rubbing against my neck.

“Of course not.” I giggled. “What about you?”

“What about me?”

“Don't be silly.”

“I'm not.”

“Then tell me.”

“Tell you what?”

“Will you remember me tomorrow?”

“Well, it's hard to remember every adolescent girl who falls for me,” he said, failing to suppress a smile, a mischievous smile sweeping all the way beyond the margins of his thin face.

I made a half-playful gesture to tear myself from Tahir, but he tightened his arms around me and stroked my hair, hypnotizing me with the infinite luster of his lavender eyes.

“You are the only one, Leila,” he whispered. “You are the love of my life. You are mine as I am yours. Forever.”

And he kissed me feverishly, bringing the taste of arousal to my lips, making my every cell explode with new desire. A much stronger desire. Because now I had known the blossoming garden of lovers' oblivion—our private paradise. And I craved more.

With our eyes locked, caressing each other with words and sighs of love, we slowly danced our way back, following the accelerando rhythm of our hearts until there was no more
him
and
me
. Only
us
, the eternal
us
. Free like water rushing down an overflowing mountain stream. Weightless like a bird soaring in the air on her fire wings of love—higher and higher—over the barren deserts, snow peaks, and into the clear sapphire sky.

And, sadly, toward the new sun seeping from behind the Kabul Mountains. Night had slipped away so fast.

“I've come here to find you, Tahir,” I whispered hurriedly before we were lost to sleep. “I've been planning this for a long time, since your grandmother gave me her Firebird, Zümrüd
Qusu
. I've never parted with her, and finally she led me to you. I have a plan. We'll defect. Together. It's not that difficult. We're less than three hundred kilometers from the Pakistan border. You speak Farsi, and with this”—I showed the platinum ring with a sapphire—“we can bribe some nice Pashtun—”

“Shhh.” Tahir didn't let me finish, touching my lips with his finger. “Not now. We'll talk about it tomorrow.”

• • •

I woke up alone to a biting grayness. The sun, after all, didn't make it through the clouds. The painting was gone—gone with the palette and paper sheets and every possible trace of Tahir's presence.

Except for his smell. Intoxicating. Evocative. Torturous.

I didn't see him throughout the day, and I didn't hear from him the next night or the morning after. Ashamed, I sat in my hotel room guarding the crime scene. Me and Miriam's washed-out vermilion bird.

Zümrüd
Qusu
? A Firebird?

Nonsense. More like an evil
lenet
. A curse. The sole reason Miriam ended up in the gulag. I threw the bird in the trash can. Then, struck by guilt, took it out and put it back inside my suitcase. At dawn, we were loaded into the buses and driven to the airport in a heavily shielded cortege. But not until the plane lifted into the sky and the city disappeared beneath a blanket of smoke did I accept the reality—Tahir had painted me, made love to me, and then walked away. Free and unattached as always. I'd been used and discarded.

And my heart shattered into a thousand tiny pieces scattered all over the Afghani wasteland.

“Why did you abandon me? Why?”

“I'm sorry, Princess Leila. But to be fair, I warned you once before—feelings are a trap that su
f
focates
creativity.”

“What about love? You said you loved
me.”

“And I still do. But I sacrifice love for my art. You did the same when you had to choose between me and your
music.”

“It wasn't like
this.”

“However it was, I'm here now in this bloody millstone because of a report signed by this musical hand of
yours.”

“I thought you forgave
me.”

“There are things that are impossible to
forget.”

“So you punished me… But what about
us?”

“Us? Well, let me teach you a lesson, Leila, so the next time you won't be fooled so easily. Don't let a naughty boy's words into your head and his sneaky fingers under your
skirt.”

A
sharp
pain
skewers
me, tearing my insides apart centimeter by centimeter, creeping up my chest, puncturing my lungs, leaving me to lie
f
lat and helpless, choking on the thick, gooey black
air.

If
I
can
only
reach—even just one more time—that closeness where I can hide from Tahir's callousness and from my own
shame.

I
move
nearer, pressing my body against
his.

“That's better,” he says, his hand trailing up inside my thigh. “You're going to love
it.”

“Of course she's loving it. She's a whore, just like her best
friend.”

Raccoon? How did she get in
here?

“Whore…whore…whore…” Raccoon hisses, climbing on the bed, hitting me with her dead squirrel tails. “Whore…whore…whore…”

I forced my eyes open. Light seeped through the door left ajar, illuminating a figure bent over me. The end of her soft angora shawl brushed against my cheek.

“Mama,” I breathed out in relief, “it's you.”

“You're shivering.” Mama touched my forehead. “No fever, fortunately. You must break this vicious pattern of going to sleep at dawn and destroying your nervous system. I should probably give you something to calm you down.”

“No. Just sit with me, please.” I grasped her hand.

“I will, but let me cover you first. You're soaking wet.”

Mama picked up my camel-hair blanket from the floor and, holding one side, threw it high up in the air, a shielding tent settling over me. Just the way she used to do when I was little, while reciting a verse of which only one line had stayed in my memory—“Let the lace of your dreams carry you up to the stars.” The line now echoed with sheer ridicule. If Mama only knew where my pathetic dreams had taken me.

“Tell me what's going on with you,” she said, settling on the edge of my bed, folding her legs up and under her shawl. “You haven't been yourself since that trip to Afghanistan. I wish I had put my foot down.”

“It has nothing to do with Afghanistan,” I said into my pillow.

“What does it have to do with, then?”

“Nothing. I'm fine.”

“No, you're not, Leila. You think I'm blind? You think I don't see you wasting away like a ghost? You haven't touched your piano in days. Professor Sultan-zade called. You never showed up for your lessons. Why?”

“I had a headache.”

“A headache over the last two weeks?”

Oh yes—a grave one, along with a heartache dragging me into the same continuous dialogue with Tahir. Attempting to explain how much his abandonment hurt me. Asking him for the thousandth time—
Why?

My days spun like a broken record. Up and down the stairway to the mailbox, hanging next to the Snow Princess's fresco, on the lookout for Fatima the mailwoman.

Our exchanges didn't last long.

“
Sabahin xeyir
, Fatima.”

“Good morning to you too, with Allah's help.”

“Is there anything for me, Fatima?”

“What are you expecting, a diamond ring?”

And she was gone.

Afterward, I usually lingered a while by the Snow Princess, staring at her faded visage, seeking some magical sign, blaming her for my misfortunes. Then I rushed back home and—riding on a new wave of hope—began my countdown to the next day's mail delivery.

“I wanted to talk to you about something,” Mama said in a strange—forced—manner. “I received a nice apology note from Farhad, full of remorse for his inappropriate behavior. He claimed his temper got the worst of him and he felt miserable afterward.”

“It's not his temper but his ego. He's not a good person, Mama.”

“People change, Leila. Especially men. With tolerance and your intelligent guidance, you'll be able to mold him into someone you can respect and rely on. That's what we women do.”

“What are you talking about?” I examined Mama's face for any clues.

“What I'm saying is that maybe we should give it some time. After all, Farhad has great prospects, and with him on your side, every door will open up to you. You'll easily receive a visa that enables you to tour all over the world, to have an international career, freedom, financial means. And then—later—who knows? You'll still be young and in a position to make your own, independent decisions.”

First Tahir and now Mama. Betraying me.

“How did he get to you to change your decision overnight? After you were so strong,” I said.

“It's not overnight. I've been thinking, weighing pros and cons.”

I felt the same anger and despair that I did in Afghanistan when I lay in a cold sweat, waiting to be sold as a sex slave for a bag of poppy. I hid my head under the blanket.

“Trust me, I understand you more than you think,” Mama said. “You are the only one I care about. I'm not saying that you should marry him. Yet. A simple, private engagement ceremony would calm everything down.”

Mama pulled herself up, tightened a shawl around her slim shoulders, and left the room, quietly closing the door. Leaving me in a womb of darkness.

• • •

The next morning, I called Professor Sultan-zade and asked if I could visit her at home.

She lived on the second floor of a four-story Democratic Republic-era building with large vaulted windows and soaring domed ceilings. Her living room served as a recital studio where we occasionally had our lessons. A few settees upholstered in red-wine damask sat along the perimeter of the walls.

In a position of honor in the center of the room—her cherished baby, a full-sized concert grand piano Blüthner from 1854 signed by Annette Essipoff-Leschetizky, a brilliant pianist from the second half of the nineteenth century for whom Tchaikovsky composed his
Concert
Fantasia
. Lyre-shaped carvings ran along the piano's rosewood body, and its lid, when propped open, resembled the wing of a giant swallow.

The rest of her place—a closet-sized bedroom and kitchen—maintained the same stark quality, with sparse furnishings and a lack of any knickknackery. “Less dust to collect,” Professor Sultan-zade liked to say.

“How are you feeling?” she asked, taking my coat. “Your mama told me that you came down with something after your return from Kabul.”

“I'm fine, Professor.”

I headed to the piano but stopped. “Would it be all right if we skipped today's lesson?”

Professor looked at me doubtfully, slightly squinting her eyes. “Maybe it's a good idea to take a break.” She pointed at one of the settees. “Get comfortable. I'll make some tea for us.”

I sat down, waiting, listening to the noises coming out of the kitchen, falling under the spell of the unique—formal, old-fashioned, and oh, so classical—music atmosphere of the room.

“You've done well. I received a glorious report from Moscow.” Professor entered carrying a tray with teapot,
armuds
, and sugar cubes heaped on a saucer. “They said you were absolutely marvelous and inspiring in Kabul. And I'm glad that you went ahead and played Rachmaninoff. Bravo!”

“Professor, I have to ask you something.”

“About what?”

“When can I start performing again? I miss the stage, deeply miss it. The Kabul performance reminded me of what I've been missing.”

“You might be right.” She placed the tray on a small rosewood table carved in the shape of an elephant. “As a matter of fact, Professor Najafov and I have been thinking of booking you on a tour.”

“When?”

“Next fall. I'd love to see you with the Leningrad Philharmonic Orchestra, conducted by the great Yevgeny Mravinsky.”

“But that's almost a year from now.”

“I know. But it takes time to schedule performances with a major orchestra.”

I took a long pause before letting it out. “Please…understand me. I need to go somewhere. Anywhere. I need to be away for a while. To be busy, to play a concert every day, to play and play and not think because…because my heart is broken.” Tears began to spill out of my eyes. “I don't need a major orchestra or a fancy stage. I just want to be away. To disappear. Far, far away.”

Professor Sultan-zade came over. Sitting affectionately next to me, patting my hair, wiping my tears, she kept repeating, “My poor girl, my poor Leila. How did it happen?”

We stayed like that for a while, watching the peach sunset disperse a thousand butterflies throughout the room. They embraced us with the gentle air of their soft staccatos, flying around, luring us into the oblivion of Schumann's carefree
Papillons.

“Well, tears will not solve the broken-heart problem,” Professor Sultan-zade finally said, “but a bit of activity might. You're right. You need to play. And maybe this is partially my fault. Maybe I've been keeping your wings clipped for too long, waiting for the one perfect spotlight that would lift you to the very top. So I'll call the Ministry of Culture as soon as their office is open tomorrow and ask them to book you for an extended national tour. An opportunity to experience different places, faces, nature. Get newly inspired. As for your heartache, remember what Franz Liszt once said: ‘Mournful and yet grand is the destiny of the artist.'”

• • •

On November 10, 1982, Leonid Brezhnev died. After five days of national mourning, he was buried in the Kremlin Wall Necropolis.

The king is dead! Long live the king!

The Politburo of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union laid upon Yuri Andropov the duty of general secretary, along with the
crown
of the State.

A Gray Cardinal, as Andropov was called among people, had brought to the Kremlin's high office a long list of his glorious deeds: the key role in crashing the Hungarian Revolution in 1954, invading Czechoslovakia and halting the Prague Spring in 1968, the creation of an elaborate system of psychiatric hospitals for dissidents, the principal voice in the decision to send Soviet troops to Afghanistan in 1979, and at the top, the longest serving head of the KGB.

Yuri Andropov moved to Brezhnev's office on November 12, 1982. Coincidentally, on the same day, I flew to Vladivostok via Moscow to join a national Siberian Far East tour.

• • •

A rugged ellipse of light swept across the audience before settling a few centimeters away from my icy toes. Another sixty-four bars of orchestral anarchy before I would step into the spotlight and escape from my gloomy, chaotic, lonely life into a realm of illusion.

My thirteen-minute-long Chopin act was jammed between a potpourri of Soviet songs performed by the Tatarstan State Orchestra and a patriotic poem titled “Communism, You Are the Flame Burning in My Heart,” recited by the author, Igor Yakut. A thin man with a pencil mustache and sunken cheeks, clad in a black dusted-off suit, he looked as if he had just stepped out of a coffin. His poem—lengthy at the start of the tour—grew a new verse with each performance. If not for Chopin, I would have lost my mind.

We had been on the road for two months, starting in the Far East—a vast area of more than six million square kilometers stretching from Lake Baikal in Eastern Siberia, the world's oldest and deepest body of fresh water, all the way to the Pacific Ocean. Strikingly scenic and inviting during its short, two-week autumn, the Far East turned into a deadly, vacant ice kingdom with the arrival of the first days of winter.

A recent directive from the Ministry of Culture extended the tour indefinitely, adding concerts located in geographically conflicting locations, making us fly and fly and fly, far enough and long enough to land on the moon. But no such luck. No matter how far we traveled, we always ended up on the wrong side of the Iron Curtain. The Soviet Union indeed was a great country—distance-wise.

Crimson banners pompously waved their hammers and sickles. Long “bread” lines in front of empty stores wound like ravenous pythons throughout the cities' streets. Comrade Lenin, dressed in stone, wood, or marble, stared from every corner at the fruit of his experiment—a hungry, impoverished, and destitute Communist nation.

We played one, two, sometimes three shows per day,
bringing
culture
to
the
masses
—that was the official slogan of national concert music tours. A prince-and-a-pauper experience. In the mornings, it could be an all-granite-and-gold concert hall with an audience of five thousand. In the evenings, we entertained dozens of highlanders in an obscure mountain
kishlak
, where, equipped with a flashlight during intermissions, I raced on my high heels across the village, tripping over donkeys, on my way to a wooden toilet stall.