Sparkers (10 page)

I don't hesitate. I unpack my friend's fiddle, tighten her bow, and tune. Once I begin to play, it's a long time before I stop. For a moment, I think Leah's fallen asleep, but then, at the thwack of Raspberry's wings, she stirs.

“You play so politely,” she says with a sleepy smile. “You should be bold at your audition.”

I cradle her violin in my arms. “Leah,” I say, “can I borrow your fiddle?”

The memory of my encounter with the kasir boys is searing as I explain.

“How could they be so cruel?” she breathes. “Who were they?”

“Sarah's brother was with them,” I say. “The older one, Melchior.”

“I'm so sorry, Marah. I wish I'd been there with you.” She draws herself upright and looks intently at me with her black eyes. “Keep my violin for as long as you need it.”

“It won't be for long,” I promise. “I only need it to practice and to audition. If I get into Qirakh, I'll get a new violin.”

I just have no idea how.

T
he following morning, I secure Mother's permission to visit the Rashids before she goes out. She's been looking for work, but even her mathematical prowess and bureaucratic experience don't seem to be enough. I'm afraid of what will happen if she can't find a new job.

I shut myself in my room for most of the day and practice the Shevem on Leah's violin, trying to learn her instrument. I imagine our elderly neighbors downstairs listening to me through their ceiling and strive to impress them.

At dusk, I wait for Channah, torn between my eagerness to decipher Hagramet and my fear of confronting Melchior. I try to forget him by paging through the Hagramet grammar I'm bringing to show Azariah. The glow of headlamps alerts me to Channah's arrival.

As we drive through the falling snow, I can't help watching Sarah's tutor. She's acted less standoffish since Sarah first invited me to dinner. Her haughty glances have all but stopped, and she speaks to me with more familiarity. Even so, I'm never quite sure what to expect.

When I next glance through the windshield, I stiffen. We're crawling behind a gigantic funeral procession headed for the City Cemetery. It's a secular funeral, not a Maitafi one; the mourners are clad in white instead of blue and are following an ornate hearse instead of a litter. Points of colored light float above the crowd like huge fireflies.

“Is that the Second Councilor?” I ask.

Channah nods.

“Isn't it late for the burial?” The Second Councilor died fourteen days ago.

She shrugs. “Yiftach David invited a horde of dignitaries from all over the north lands to attend. The Assembly had to wait for them to arrive from Atsan and Tekova and Kiriz . . .”

“Oh.” I wonder how she knows. I think if I were an official from Tekova or Kiriz, I'd be leery of traveling to a plague-ridden city.

“In any case,
we
don't have much reason to mourn his loss,” Channah adds under her breath. She glances expectantly my way, and I shake my head nervously.

At the Rashid mansion, Channah sends me to the front entrance. Sarah opens the door and throws her arms around my waist, almost hitting her head against the huge book in my hands.

“Good evening, Marah.” Azariah, coming up behind his sister, notices the grammar right away. “Is that the . . . Is that it?”

“Yes.”

“We can leave it in my study till after dinner,” he says.

“Is Melchior here?” I ask, a little too nonchalantly, as the three of us walk down the corridor.

“No, he's at his friend's house,” Sarah says. I breathe a silent sigh of relief.

In the dining room, the Rashids and I exchange polite remarks over chicken and saffron rice until talk turns to the illness. I can't stop picturing Leah's gaunt face and dark eyes. At last I must inadvertently make some sound because Sarah's father invites me to speak.

I flush, momentarily tongue-tied. “I just wondered . . . Has anyone figured out what's causing it?”

Banar Rashid wipes his mouth with his napkin. “I'm afraid not, Marah. You know of the Assembly's special committee of physicians, of course. From what my colleagues in the Health and Sanitation Department tell me, their efforts have not yet met with much success.”

Abruptly, Banar Rashid turns his head toward the doorway, as if he's heard something. I think I see a shadow in the corridor, but it's gone too quickly to be sure.

“Just this morning, however,” Banar Rashid continues, “the physicians announced that they are now confident the illness is not transmitted from person to person.”

Across from me, Azariah murmurs in surprise. This news is a comfort, however small. Now there's no reason for anyone to worry about me visiting Leah.

“So will they reopen the schools?” I ask.

Gadi Faysal shakes her head. “Too many students and teachers are ill right now. Classes won't recommence until the disease is brought under control.”

“Has anyone actually recovered from the dark eyes?” Azariah asks.

“Not that I've heard,” says his father. “The reason the physicians are having such trouble identifying the cause of the illness is that it exhibits few patterns in choosing its victims. At first, it was believed that the young, though just as likely to get sick as adults, did not succumb to the dark eyes. There are apparently dozens of children who fell ill ten or even twenty days ago still fighting the disease. However—” He breaks off and glances at Sarah, the corners of his mouth tightening. She is absorbed in tracing her fork through the pool of currant sauce on her slice of almond cake.

“Sadly, the first children have died this weekend,” Banar Rashid finishes in a low voice.

I sit up straight in my chair. If the dark eyes has begun to claim children, there's no safety in youth anymore. Leah is as vulnerable as anyone.

After dinner, Azariah and I return to his study. Sarah tags along with a drawing pad and pencil. Her brother has already laid out the Hagramet text, a new blank book, and several steel-nibbed pens on his desk. As we sit down, I notice a Maitaf next to his desk lamp. The gilding is wearing off the edges of its well-thumbed pages. I throw Azariah a curious glance. I didn't know he was Maitafi.

“So this is your grammar,” he says, looking at the heavy book on the desk, his face bright with eagerness.

“Yes.” I place one hand protectively on its dark, clothbound cover.

“My thanks for bringing it.” He reaches for his own Hagramet text. “This week I drew up an inventory of all the signs in this book. It's an alphabet, isn't it?”

I nod, opening my grammar. While Sarah draws in the corner, I guide Azariah through the alphabet chart, pointing out the Ashari transliterations of each Hagramet letter. His eyes drink in the page as I sketch out the bare bones of Hagramet grammar.

“This took me years to learn,” I say eventually. “Should we start on your text?”

“Yes, let's,” he says.

I glimpse some of Sarah's childlike enthusiasm in him as he opens his Hagramet book to the title page and sets the new notebook in front of me. With a shiver of anticipation, I dip one of his pens in the inkwell and begin.

As it turns out, I can't even get through the title without consulting the dictionary in the back of my book. Not the most impressive beginning, but Azariah watches attentively as I look up a word.

“There,” I say. “‘Histories.' And the rest of this . . .” I trace the remainder of the title with my finger as I sound it out for him. “‘Of the Agrav Dynasty.' Underneath there are some dates, probably a span of time, but I'm never going to work them out. Hagramet dates are absurdly complicated.”

“Well, the original text had to have been written at least a thousand years ago,” Azariah says. “What do we need to know beyond that?”

I shrug.

“Speaking of which,” he says, “I went to the library and looked up the ban on Hagramet texts.”

“And?”

“It was passed a hundred and sixty years ago, and as far as I can tell, it hasn't been repealed. Probably because everyone's forgotten it's there.”

I move on to the inscription at the bottom of the page, recharging my pen and writing my translation in the notebook. What with Azariah wanting to look up words in the dictionary himself, deciphering the brief line of text takes us almost ten minutes.

Compiled by the court magicians, servants of the kingdom

“Court magicians,” Azariah muses.

“Maybe they're like the seven councilors of the Assembly,” I say.

“Six, now. Councilor Yitzchak's dead, which isn't entirely unfortunate,” Azariah says quietly.

I stare at him, thunderstruck. The Second Councilor's death isn't entirely unfortunate? I think of Shaul and his pack of subversives. But Azariah's a kasir, not some resentful sparker student in a pharmacy back room.

“Shall we go on?” Azariah says hastily, trying to cover up his imprudent remark. “We've got an idea what we're dealing with now.”

I persuade him to let me work independently, pointing out that the translation will go much faster if I don't have to deconstruct every sentence for him. While Azariah leafs through my grammar, I dive into the first page, borrowing the dictionary whenever I encounter an unknown word I can't just skip over.

In the first year of the Agrav Dynasty, the Year of the Persimmon Tree, the new capital of the kingdom of Hagram was built ? between two rivers and ?? two regions ? a third. The Suhodri River, on the western border ?? cliffs ? mines of ? rock. The towns along the Dobigri River, ??? peasants grew corn and ?. On the eastern border, the mightiest of the three, the Chotrae, which flows down from ? mountains.

I pause to take stock. “Azariah, read this. It's about the location of Hagram's capital.”

He leans over the notebook for a long time. All I can hear is the scratching of Sarah's pencil. Azariah begins to mutter the names of the rivers. “Suhodri, Dobigri, Chotrae . . .” Then he jumps to his feet. “Don't you see?”

“See what?”

“The rivers!” Azariah says. “Suhodri, Dobigri, Chotrae. And, let me see, the western border is the Suhodri—”

“There are no such rivers in the north lands,” I say. Sarah is watching us now, enthralled.

“What river flows through Ashara?”

“The Davgir.”

“Dobigri.”

I shrug, unimpressed.

“What about the one to the west?”

“Sohadir.”

“Suhodri. And to the east?”

“Shatarai,” I breathe. “Chotrae. The capital of Hagram must've been where Ashara is today!” None of our history books could tell us exactly where Hagram was located. Discovering its capital once stood where we live today makes the almost mythical kingdom feel like it actually existed.

“Yes!” Azariah breaks into a huge grin. Then he grows thoughtful. “Maybe I shouldn't ask, but . . . You wouldn't be willing to leave your book with me for a few days, would you?”

Stony silence should be a sufficient answer, but he doesn't deserve that. “I'm the one who knows Hagramet,” I say instead. “Would you be willing to let me take your book home?”

He looks down at his text, considering, and then meets my gaze again. We both know neither of us is prepared to relinquish our rare book.

Azariah sighs. “I suppose it'd be best if we kept working together. Do you mind if I copy a few words out of the dictionary, though, so I have something to look for in the meantime?”

I consent, and we spend a few minutes writing Hagramet words with their Ashari transliterations and meanings in a different notebook. Azariah is interested in the magic of Hagram, so he asks for terms like “spell” (
dhak
) and “magician” (
naethul
).

When we finish, Sarah jumps up from her corner, waving her pad of paper. “Marah, come look at the pictures I drew!”

She has penciled a whole world of triangle-eared cats and girls with twig-like hair.

“This one's you,” she says.

I look at the figure she's pointing at, a taller girl set apart from the others. Somehow, with her wobbly lines, Sarah has given the girl a distinctly sorrowful air. I wonder how she captured it, and if that's really me.

O
n Tenthday, I rise to meet Tsipporah as soon as the Ikhad opens. There are questions I need to ask her. The sun has hardly risen, but men in shabby coats and women in shawls are already crowding the streets, making way for wagoners and the odd auto. The snow is dusted with coal ash the kasiri's spells haven't scattered.

The Ikhad is bursting with people, but no one seems to be buying. Tsipporah, her hands in fingerless gloves, is knitting on her roost.

“I'm glad to see you, Marah. Business has been glacial this week.”

“Tsipporah,” I ask, “do you remember the Hagramet grammar?”

The yarn darts around her knitting needles in a hypnotizing dance. “I remember.”

“Have you ever had another book in Hagramet?”

“No,” she says. “They're very rare.”

“Where did mine come from?”

She hesitates. “I'd rather not say, Marah.”

“Because Hagramet books are banned?”

Tsipporah stares at me, baffled. “Why on earth would they be banned? I hardly think the Assembly is worried about the subversive nature of grammars.”

Reassured that she's unaware of the law Azariah mentioned, I join her behind the book stand. Tsipporah fishes a ragged blanket out of the pile by her stool and throws it at me. Gratefully, I wrap myself in it and huddle on the ground. But I'm not done yet.

“If there's nothing wrong with Hagramet books, why can't you tell me where you got that grammar?”

“Marah, there are some things you don't need to know,” she says.

Hurt by her unwillingness to answer my question, I keep silent. I don't understand why she's being so secretive. After an hour passes without any customers, I decide to leave.

• • •

I
WALK
TO
the Avrams' apartment. In the bedroom, Leah's eyes are half closed, the blanket pulled up to her chin, her face partly buried in the pillow. This is the frailest she's looked yet. Raspberry's crate is by the window, but someone has taken him out of the bedroom, no doubt to keep his chirps from disturbing Leah.

“Marah.” Her eyes open as she croaks my name.

I rush to her side, my knees buckling. “Leah, you need a doctor.”

“We can't spare the money,” she says, struggling to sit up. She coughs so hard I'm afraid she'll break a rib. “Besides,” she adds when she catches her breath, “there's nothing a doctor could do that Mother isn't already doing.”

“Herbal infusions aren't enough.”

“Do you think the kasiri who've died didn't have the best medicine there is?”

I have no answer. Leah fixes her black eyes on the distant window, her cheeks hollow.

After a little while, she says, “You know those feelings, when you're sure of something and you can't explain why? I . . . I can't see any future for me, Marah.”

“What are you talking about?” I say, clutching her hand. “We're graduating Final at the end of the winter. We're going to secondary school.”

Her fingers press back. “I don't know anymore. I don't see a springtime for me. It's this feeling, like I'm not going to . . .”

I feel a stab of terror. “Leah, no!”

“Marah—”

“I hate the intuition,” I say savagely. “I hate it.”

“Just listen.”

“Shaul called it our power,” I add bitterly. “More like our curse.”

“I'm going to die,” Leah says, her voice quivering.

“We all are.”

“Stop it. You're making this harder. I'm going to die before spring.” She laughs, her laughter edged with hysteria. It turns into a coughing fit. “I don't really believe it, though, do I? How can I say I'm going to die?”

I slide onto the bed and put my arm around her shoulders. “Leah, you're not going to die. Hardly any children have died of the dark eyes. And anyway, they'll find a cure soon.”

Leah ignores me. “Did Shaul mention the intuition's never wrong? You of all people should know that, Marah.”

Her words hit me hard. She knows ever since Father died I've trusted absolutely in the intuition. Now I would give anything to believe it could be fallible. My mind scrambles for a way around it, and at last I hit upon it.

“It's not the intuition,” I say with all the certainty I can muster. “You've mixed up what you know and what you're afraid of.” I study her sunken dark eyes, her newly sharp cheekbones. “Have you told anyone else?”

She shakes her head.

“You have to try to get better, Leah,” I say fiercely. “Don't give up because you think it's no use. Promise me.”

“I promise,” she says, but I fear she's only saying it for me.

• • •

A
T
HOME
, I
take out Leah's violin and play until the music leads me into a trance. The piney scent of rosin from her bow resurrects an old memory.

We were nine years old, and I had brought one of Tsipporah's storybooks to school to show Leah. We were admiring its magnificent color plates at recess when an older boy snatched it and ran off laughing. Leah and I skulked about the edge of the schoolyard, watching the thief from afar until he stuffed the book into his bag and left it against the wall of the school. We raced over and rummaged through his things. While I retrieved the book, Leah chanced upon a spice roll wrapped in sticky paper.

“Take it,” I said.

We split the spice roll behind the spruce trees at the back of the schoolyard. No pastry had ever tasted so sweet. But at the end of the day, the boy was waiting for us outside with two of his friends.

“We'll have to run for it,” Leah said.

“I can't run as fast as you,” I said.

Leah grabbed my hand and pulled me down the school's front steps. We made it halfway down the block before we heard footfalls pounding behind us. Leah yanked me into a narrow alley, and we clambered over a barricade of trash and empty crates, rotten slats giving way beneath our feet. The alley spat us out by the park, where I stopped, gasping for breath. Up the street, the boy and his friends came running around the corner.

“This way!” Leah cried, dashing through the park gate. While I lagged behind, she ran up to a pine tree and started climbing. “Hurry, Marah!”

I got to the tree and wrapped my arms around the lowest limb as Leah had done, but I couldn't pull my legs over it.

“Come on!” she said.

“I can't!” I said, dropping down to the ground.

She jumped down a branch and stuck her hand out. I grabbed it and finally scrabbled up into the tree. We climbed out of the bigger children's reach, the bark rough and sticky under our hands, the resin sharp and fragrant. My heart beat wildly in my chest, but I was safe with Leah.

Now, as my bow saws across the strings and sends up puffs of rosin dust, it occurs to me how small my terror was then compared to what I feel now.