The Orphan Sky (5 page)

On the evening before my recital, I rehearsed Beethoven's
Sonata
Pathétique
, carefully following Professor Sultan-zade's “list of final touches.” Outside, from the top of the minaret of a nearby mosque, Muezzin Rashid called the faithful to
Maghrib
, the evening prayer. I stopped in the middle of my octave arpeggios and listened. His voice, smooth and ornamental, drifted in and out of my room, weaving melodies as intricate as the
Boteh
Jegheh
paisley motif on a Persian rug.

Muezzin Rashid was a man of religion, so old that he looked less like a man and more like a sea turtle. Papa told me that he had resided in our castle since the Revolution. As a kid, Papa used to bring shoes for repair to his tiny shop two blocks away from our building—before Muezzin Rashid was appointed to sing the
Adhan
, the call to prayer at the mosque. Five times a day, stooping his shoulders and dragging his feet, Muezzin Rashid inched his way down the street toward the mosque and then up the spiral stairs of the minaret. From there, he recited his
Adhans
.

I thought of Comrade Popov's words about the dangers of the religion hydra that still remained on our soil and how we had to root it out, one head at a time. But why would we want to root out these beautiful, melodious
Adhans
? Could they be as poisonous as Aladdin's music?

I returned to Beethoven, practicing to sustain and resolve my chords in the first movement, “Grave: Allegro di molto e con brio.” Then I skipped straight to the “Rondo,” indulging myself in its perpetual motion until the ringing phone sliced through my arpeggio.

Almaz. “Are you coming or not?”

Six o'clock. I'd lost track of time. I was supposed to go downstairs to try on a dress Aunty Zeinab had made for my recital.

Almaz waited for me at the door, her pin-thin eyebrows raised to her hairline. “Why do you always have to make us wait for you?”

“Leave her alone, you featherheaded fool.” Aunty Zeinab shoved her away and led me inside. “Come in, sweet Leila, and have supper with us first.”

Their apartment was tiny. “Our dollhouse,” Aunty Zeinab called it. A room with a kitchen and a bird-sized chamber where Almaz had built her cozy nest. There was a terrible shortage of apartments in Baku, and four years ago, Papa had used his connections to acquire a large two-bedroom apartment for them in one of the newer neighborhoods, half an hour away by bus. But Aunty Zeinab chose to stay in their dollhouse so Almaz and I could grow up together.

We sat on the rug-covered couch that was converted nightly into a bed. And we ate at the table that served during the day as their worktable, where Uncle Zohrab crafted his bisque dolls and Aunty Zeinab spun the wheel of her prehistoric Singer, sewing miniature dresses for the dolls.

As always, we shared lots of laughter, devouring Aunty Zeinab's signature dish,
plov
, made out of saffron-covered rice and layered, according to her own unique recipe, with thirty different kinds of herbs and greens. And we listened—for the hundredth time—to Uncle Zohrab's funny story about their betrothal.

“It was in the Sharg Bazaar where I met my Zeinab
Khanum
for the first time.” He always referred to his wife in the most reverent way, adding
Khanum
—queen—to her name.

“When I saw her, I thought the sun had come down from the sky. She pierced my heart with a single glance of her gazelle eyes, with her sweet pomegranate smile. When I learned she was a relation, I sent a matchmaker to go see her parents and arrange our marriage. When she heard that ‘pitiable, insipid Cousin Zohrab' had asked for her hand, she just threw the matchmaker out of the house. She has always had a tigress's temper, my
Khanum
.”

Uncle Zohrab shook his head. “I lost appetite. I lost sleep. I walked like a madman calling her name. Then my mama, her soul be blessed, offered to send her most valuable possession, her own wedding mirror, as a dowry. My
Khanum
, let Allah keep her heart young and her face fair, loved the mirror so much she agreed to marry me.”

“Allah knows how I wish I didn't.” Aunty Zeinab threw her arms up in the air. “Every morning when I wake up and every evening when I go to sleep, I want to smash that mirror to pieces.”

She mopped up the fat spilled on the tablecloth with a slice of bread, stuffed it in her mouth, and carried the dirty dishes to the kitchen.

“Oi-yoi-yoi.” Uncle Zohrab laughed in a high quivering voice after her, pieces of rice falling off his mustache.

Aunty Zeinab returned with my new dress. A silver satin dress with long see-through sleeves and an emerald brooch on the collar. She carried it carefully by the shoulders with two fingers on each hand. Her crumpled, sweaty face shone with pride.

“Tomorrow, daughter, when you play, your arms will fly like wings,” she said. “But first, I have to check the hemline. Put it on.”

We did the fitting in front of their infamous mirror. Large, framed with flowers and silver calligraphy from the Koran written over blue enamel, it was permanently fogged, slightly distorting my reflection. To add to the effect, I squinted and imagined a pretty maiden strolling through the clouds, pressed my hands against my heart, and curtsied to the imaginary audience, the way Professor Sultan-zade had taught me.

“It's beautiful. Thank you, Aunty.”

“For you and your mama—anything, a thousand times over.”

Aunty Zeinab helped me to take the dress off, then carefully folded and placed it inside a muslin pillowcase. “Let it bring you good luck tomorrow, daughter.”

I felt guilty. I knew how much she wanted to be at my recital, but when I asked if I could invite her, Papa had said, “No. They are like family but not of our class.”

What class? Our Soviet Union was a class-free society. I should have stood up to Papa and invited her.

But I didn't. Was I uncomfortable with Aunty Zeinab, worrying that she wouldn't fit in with the refined music audience in the Baku philharmonic hall? Was I infected with Papa's innate sense of superiority, seeing Aunty Zeinab's family as commoners and my own as elite? Whatever it was, I felt ashamed of my feelings.

Aunty Zeinab brought out her traditional dessert—a large copper tray with rose sherbet, persimmons, dried fruit, and nuts. “Finish up, daughters, then you can have your girl time.”

Almaz downed sherbet and grabbed a handful of nuts. “Let's go. I'll style you. You don't want to go onstage tomorrow with that hair sprouting like spring crabgrass.”

I followed her to the kitchen, where she washed my hair in the basin.

“You'll look like a star after I'm done with you,” she said, massaging saffron oil into my wet hair. “It will be shiny and soft with a tinge of red. Your Comrade
Aži Dahaka
will swallow his tongue when he sees you like this. Trust me.”

“Why do you hate him so much?”

“Why do you like him so much?”

“I don't just
like
him. I admire his character. He's a self-made strong leader capable of inspiring and commanding the crowds. And he is sincere in his beliefs and actions.”

“He's a brute—”

“He's not. It's his leadership style. Remember—‘a true revolutionary is supposed to show no emotions, no attachments. He must be fully absorbed by his single passion—his fervent belief in the cause of the revolution,'” I quoted from our history book. “But I'm sure there is a softer side behind Comrade Farhad's tough exterior.”

“Softer side?” Almaz shrugged. “Good luck finding it.”

She finished washing my hair, dried it with a soft waffle towel, and mounted rollers all over my head in a valiant effort to smooth my feral curls into silky waves. “That's it. Sleep on it, and tomorrow morning I'll style you before the recital. Want to stay here tonight?”

It had been a while since Almaz invited me to stay overnight.

I loved sleeping in her bed. It was always warm. Unlike my bed, which felt like late autumn, even though Aunty Zeinab had made both our blankets from the wool of the same camel.

“I'd love to,” I said.

I went home to get my pajamas and leave a note for my parents. When I returned downstairs, Almaz was already in bed. I turned off the lights and crawled under the covers.

“I miss you, Almaz,” I whispered, kissing her forearm. “I truly do.” My best friend, the closest I had to a sister.

“I miss you too. A thousand times over.” She threw her arms around me, squeezing me tightly against her body, saying into the back of my neck, “You are my sister, for life and beyond. And it will never change. Promise me?”

“Of course I promise. But it's you who hasn't been sisterly lately. Why have you been avoiding me?”

“Because all you care about is either your Komsomol or your music competitions.”

“But this is my calling. To represent our Azerbaijan all over the world. You can't imagine the challenge of playing the piano in front of an audience and holding them on the tips of my fingers.”

“How could I?” Almaz asked wryly. “I wasn't born with sweet
halva
in my mouth, like you. Allah hasn't given me well-connected parents and the gift of music. All I've received is the curse of beauty.”

“Why a curse?”

Almaz was strikingly beautiful. Papa said once that she fully epitomized the meaning of her name—a priceless, flawless diamond.

“Because beauty is like a blossom,” she said in a sad voice. “Tonight it's here; tomorrow it's gone. Withered. Sapped. Like Princess Shirin.”

One
night, fair Princess Shirin fell asleep in the garden of blooming blue roses. The next morning as she opened her eyes, the red petals fell like droplets of blood from the roses' barren stems. And with them, gone was her
beauty.

“It's just a fairy tale,” I said. “And you're not Princess Shirin. She sacrificed her best friend, Nightingale, for the Blue Rose Garden of Beauty. You'd never do that, would you?”

Almaz didn't respond. We lay close in darkness-filled silence, our heartbeats resonating in unison.

“Leila.”

“What?”

Almaz gazed at me, her eyes intense, the irises shimmering out of their ivory whites.

“What if you and I were really not who we are?” she whispered in the shadows. “What if you were me and I were you? After all, it was only a beauty mark that defined our destinies. But what if your mama was wrong? What if she made a mistake? It's possible, isn't it? Then it would be me living upstairs in your fancy quarters, and you'd be right here—in my place—under the stairs.”

I felt the taste of tears inside my throat and an overwhelming rush of loneliness in my heart. Nothing I could say would bring Almaz back to me.

Jealousy had deaf ears.

The audience at the Azerbaijan State Philharmonic Concert Hall seemed to hold its breath as a dimmed chandelier sprinkled the silence with golden dust. At center stage, a black Fazioli piano awaited me in the spotlight. Overhead, two muses soared protectively, their bodies draped in stucco tulle, lyres in their hands, surrounded by a panoply of rococo decorations—leaves, shells, waterfalls. All in white.

My family occupied the second-tier box reserved for the parents of the contestants: Mama, dressed in my favorite fawn suit, and Papa, his hair sticking out wildly. He whispered something in Mama's ear, and she smiled radiantly.

The auditorium was full except for the first three rows, always kept empty so as not to disturb the performers. In the middle of the fourth row sat the two-person jury: Comrade Sharipov, the First Minister of Culture, an imposing man with short gray hair and a thick black mustache resembling two Turkish swords crossed above his upper lip, and Professor Mira Levina from the Moscow Conservatory of Music, a petite, elderly woman wearing a wide-brimmed yellow hat that made her look like a chanterelle mushroom.

Professor Sultan-zade waited with me at the side of the stage, gently rubbing my fingers and blowing at them to keep them warm and agile. Tough during schooling, she showered her students with maternal affection at recitals and competitions. “Stay confident throughout the performance,” she whispered to me, “and don't forget that delicate right hand in the ‘Adagio cantabile.'”

“Leila Badalbeili. Beethoven.
Sonata
Pathétique
.” The announcer introduced me.

Professor Sultan-zade slightly pushed me forward. “Let the world fall at your feet”—the words of her blessing followed me as I almost sprinted across the stage to the Fazioli, gulping the exhilarating air of anticipation. The notes of the sonata bounced around me, spinning like paper planes, calling me on a ride. I raised my eyes to the muses, asking for permission to join them in their sacred space, and swept my hands up high.

Before I could bring them down—what was that noise? Loud and blatant. Who's playing timpani?

Comrade Popov trudged across the hall to the front, the plush carpet powerless against the heavy, percussive stamping of his feet. Comrade Farhad followed him. They settled in the center of the first row barely a breath away from me. So close that I could see Comrade Popov's bright red socks as he took off his shoes, crossed his legs, and squeezed his toes.

I took a deep breath, trying to shake off the distraction and mentally return to the serenity of my beginning. To the silence before the opening chords.

Another noise. Comrade Popov was whispering in Comrade Farhad's ear. His seat crackled, reverberating through my body, jabbing a thousand needles into my arms and legs.

I raised my hands and brought them down with all my might onto the keyboard. What followed wasn't an explosion, but more like a whimper. My wooden fingers struggled to feel the touch of the keys. I paused, lifted my hands away from the keyboard, and hid them in my lap.

“Can I please start over?” I said without looking into the auditorium, rubbing my hands nervously against my skirt, warming them up, trying to bring them back to life.

A long pause.

“You may.” I heard the thin and clearly annoyed voice of Professor Levina.

I closed my eyes, desperately trying to disassociate myself from everything but the music. I visualized the notes of the introductory “Grave” theme on the opening page and the syncopated chords building up to a vigorous passage in the right hand. I was almost there, when another bout of whispering pierced my ear like the sting of an angry bee. The notes I had finally positioned in the right places on the staff were now jumping off the page, swirling around me, pushing me off the bench into the dark, hostile audience. Frantic, I raised my eyes to the muses, begging for help. They soared away, high and unreachable, leaving me alone in the blinding spotlight. Exposed and humiliated.

I stopped playing and rose, ready to retreat from the spotlight into the merciful darkness. And then I saw him. No. First, I perceived the flow of his energy coming at me from the upper-left tier.
Then
I took him in. Aladdin, leaning forward against the railing. His smile, intended only for me, guided me away from the stage. Back to the magical world hidden behind his green door, spinning in slow reverie, drawing me into its wistful harmony.

My hands reached for the keyboard. The daunting silence of the black-and-white ocean exploded into the opening chords of the “Grave”—haunting and somber—slowly dissolving into the air like the summits of mountains adrift in the clouds. The sun was rising, spilling its peach hue across the drowsy skies. I passed through a tunnel of century-old poplar trees swaying in the morning breeze, whispering their century-old secrets. The tunnel opened into a vast valley of sunflowers swelling all the way to the mountains. I ran across the valley, caressed by the warm breath of the “Adagio cantabile,” until I reached the edge of a cliff. A step forward—and I soared into the sun-streaked skies of Beethoven's “Rondo: Allegro.”

I sprang to my feet as the last note still hovered in the air. The audience was silent. Eerily silent. Did they hate it?

Oh, I'd forgotten. The rules of the recital restricted the audience from applauding. I heard a single person clapping and strained to see where it was coming from. Through the blur and to my utter astonishment, I spotted a wide-brimmed yellow hat. Professor Levina had broken her own rule and rose to her feet, applauding me.

Thank
you, Aladdin
. I bowed.