The Orphan Sky (17 page)

I waited near the door, terrified, tears pouring down my cheeks, while she stood at the window in smoke-filled silence.

“Animals,” she muttered angrily. “Absolute animals. To strike you at the time you're grieving.” Her hand clutched the collar of her coat, tightening it into a fist as if trying to block the air, to restrain her throat from speaking. “Why? Why did you give an excuse to your enemy to destroy you?”

“What enemy?” I asked, confused.

She released the collar, cleared her throat. “You're so naive, Leila. Don't you understand that there is a whole world of politics behind every success? Consider this: our new rector doesn't have any significant connections within the Ministry of Culture. Meanwhile, our former rector—with all his relations in the Party—now heads the rival Azerbaijani State Institute of Arts. And he's determined to put his institution on the map. To do so, he will stop at nothing.

“I'm almost convinced that he's behind the hounding to purge you from participation in the Budapest competition. Then they can have their student, that talentless Sharipov boy—or whatever his name—the one who took second place at the regional competition—to represent Azerbaijan in Budapest.”

“But, Professor, I haven't done anything—”

“You've done enough and more to destroy your entire life, Leila. Didn't I warn you months ago when you showed me the Vladimir Horowitz album? What did I say to you? Stay on course and away from murky waters. Dedicate yourself to building your career and future. Because the only altar for you to worship at should be the altar of music. The rest is mere garbage. But you didn't listen to me. Do you know why?”

I shook my head.

“Because everything came too easy to you. When I was your age, I dreamed of becoming a concert pianist. My parents couldn't afford a piano, so I befriended a janitor at my school, and she allowed me to practice on a broken, out-of-tune piano in the evenings. But no matter how hard I tried, I just wasn't good enough.

“While you had the perfect hands, musicality, and charisma right from the start. You didn't have to work hard—you're a natural. And unfortunately, you are also spoiled and reckless. You wanted to play the piano—your parents bought you an exclusive Bösendorfer. You won the competition—you received costly jewelry. All of which distorted your sense of reality, making you feel impervious to its dangers.”

Professor Sultan-zade threw her cigarette out the window, came over to me, and took my hands between hers, rubbing them softly as she always did before recitals.

“This system can be brutal,” she said in a low voice. “Very brutal. And now you've gotten yourself trapped between its grindstones.”

“Professor, please trust me,” I whispered in fast presto, touched by her compassion and desperate to prove my innocence to her. “The rumors, whatever you've heard about my indecent behavior—they are lies. Yes, I did spend a lot of time with the Mukhtarovs, but they are incredible people. They are cultural and intellectual and artistic. Tahir is a painter, and his grandmother, Miriam Mukhtarova, used to be a famous mezzo long time ago, before the Revolution. She sang with Feodor Chaliapin. She told me stories about Sergei Rachmaninoff. They were friends. Please believe me. I'm not a
sortu
. I haven't dishonored myself. Please believe me—”

“I do. I know who you are, Leila. I know you very well. I've known you for six years, since you were a little girl—always inquisitive, adventurous, and oh, so unique. Nothing will ever make me doubt your integrity.”

Professor Sultan-zade hesitated, then put her arm around me—something she had never done before. “I will help as much as I can. Meanwhile, let Mozart heal your broken heart. The way Schumann keeps mine together. Remember—the hurt is the place where the music enters you.”

“I'm sorry, Professor. I'm so sorry.” I wept, her empathy breaking down all my defenses.

“I know you are.”

Professor Sultan-zade hastily removed her arm, as if feeling uncomfortable for revealing her softness, and marched back to the window.

“Why are you waiting there by the door?” she said, assuming her usual pedagogical articulation. “We've already wasted ten minutes of your lesson.”

Like Schumann's
Papillons
, I took my wings to the piano.

“Czerny,
The
Art
of
Finger
Dexterity
,” Professor Sultan-zade announced. She lit a cigarette and turned away toward the darkening sky, as if losing interest in me.

But she couldn't fool me anymore. Despite her gruff exterior, I knew Professor Sultan-zade cared deeply about me, vowing me her support while compromising her own position.

• • •

On my way home, I took a shortcut through Mercury Plaza—an old fountain where the Greek god Mercury once stood beneath a large rotunda surrounded by mulberry trees. On a hot summer day, there was no better place in town to hide from the scorching rays of the Baku sun.

But no more. The mulberry trees had been cut, the rotunda turned into a mound of eroded bricks. Mercury lay next to it deposed, still holding on to his wand with two serpents entwined in mortal combat. When Almaz and I were young, we believed that at night, when no one was around, Mercury waved his magic wand, stepped off the pedestal, and flew into the star-studded sky to carry his messages.

Chechen workers sat cross-legged on a rug decorated with peacocks under the only surviving mulberry tree, drinking tea and counting prayer beads. Bulldozers circled the area like hungry hyenas, their teeth bared, juices flowing, eager to finish devouring Mercury Plaza.

One more page of my cloudless past had been torn off. I kicked a pile of dead leaves. The wind followed through, snatching and lifting them high into the air—a pageant of purples, dark reds, flame reds, browns, and yellows flitting in their last autumn dance.

I sped up. I knew what I had to do. To see Almaz before she left. To hold her close, as I used to, to hide my face inside her hair and to tell her how much I needed her. Even now.
Especially
now.

The rug at the entrance to Almaz's apartment was in place. I pushed it out of the way. The door behind was wide open. Inside, nothing but bare walls and the scent of Aunty Zeinab's saffron
plov
. And in the corner, propped against the iron-cast stove, was their wedding mirror with its Koran inscription. Shattered, with lightning bolts flying across its cracked surface.

I came closer and traced carefully one of the protruding slivers with the tip of my finger. Papa's eyes followed me, night black, their cradles overflowing with tears.

I closed my hand into a fist and pressed it against the broken mirror, grinding it in, hard, hypnotized by the streaks of red running down the sliced reflection of my face. Papa's face.

“Why? Why did you do it? Why? And why did you save me? Why didn't you just let me die?”

The condemnation hearing took place on November 4, 1979.

A bloody ocean closed in, eager to swallow me. Red banners, red podium, small red flags in the hands of the audience. Each member had received one to wave in support of my condemnation. The tribunal of three took their places at the table at stage center with their head in the middle—the Secretary of the Baku Komsomol Committee in Charge of Communist Ideology and Ethics, Comrade Guseinov. A veteran of internal cleansing. Tall, thin, soft-spoken, and neatly dressed, a crimson handkerchief peeking out of the breast pocket of his gray suit. He conducted the proceedings as flawlessly as a well-staged show. Raising his right hand, stilling the rumbling noises from the audience, he invited an orderly, morbid silence.

I felt my body scrunch up. Something icy crept up my spine.

Fear.

“Comrades, we're here today with a burdensome task,” Comrade Guseinov said. “We're here today to determine the future of one of our own. Yes, it's easy to point an accusing finger. We have all the facts—all the
raw
facts. They don't just
prove
Leila Badalbeili's guilt; they
scream
of her despicable, degrading conduct. But no. This is not what we do here. This is not what's written in our Communist codex of honor.

“What do we do? We give the benefit of the doubt. We paint a moral portrait of one of us who has slipped. Who knows? Maybe there is still hope. Maybe we can still give a hand to one who has fallen victim to her own bad choices. We shall see. And to do so, I'm going to invite you, her classmates and friends, to come forward and tell us who this young woman really is.”

I knew that no one would speak in my favor. And I knew that my fate had been decided before the hearing. But I still gasped and held my breath, waiting for a single word—or just the slightest sign of kindness—to bandage my tarnished honor.

Malik the Weasel was first, taking his time and enjoying every minute in the spotlight as he listed all my transgressions since kindergarten. What a memory he had. He even remembered how I had whooping cough in third grade and kept coughing and falling out of step with the others while marching in a school column at the Great October Revolution parade.

Then Vera, a girl with a stubby pigtail and mouse ears, who desperately tried—unsuccessfully—to become my best friend after Almaz dropped out of school, eagerly cooed her suspicions about my
elevated
interest in Western music, total lack of enthusiasm for our contemporary Soviet songs, and my questionable morals.

Others followed. A continuous stream of my schoolmates flowing to the podium. All singing the same tune with the same detached mask of condemnation, their inescapable slanders tearing down what was left of my spirit.

My headmistress testified last. She was my only hope. Just three weeks ago, Mama operated on her younger grandson. A bad case of neglected appendicitis. After the successful surgery, my headmistress swore in the presence of the whole hospital that she'd see her family burn in fire before she'd let a speck of coal fall on Mama's clan.

“As you can imagine, I am shocked,” she said, panting, pressing her small hand against her sumptuous bosom. “Shocked and dismayed at Leila's behavior. Who would have thought that a girl from such a distinguished family would get involved with a person of the lowest moral standing? Shame on you, Leila, for soiling the honor of a Young Communist, for bringing misery and embarrassment to your illustrious family. My heart goes out to your mama. Such a distinguished woman who's experienced so much sadness.”

She shook her head in distress and withdrew like a royal barge. With her departure, my tepid hope drowned in the enthusiastic applause of the crowd.

Comrade Guseinov rose from the tribunal table, straightened the pleats in his trousers, and took a few steps toward me. A spider on long, skinny legs.

“You are a stain on the reputation of our valorous Komsomol Organization,” Comrade Guseinov announced, sticking his finger in my face. “You are a stain that must be wiped out.”

High-spirited, continuous applause.

I kept licking and biting my parched lips, tasting blood.

Satisfied with his remark and even more so with the audience's reaction, Comrade Guseinov marched to the podium, placed his hands on the stand, gazed confidently at the audience, and began his closing speech:

“Comrades, I know how difficult it must have been for you to testify against someone you have known for a long time. But speaking the truth requires fortitude and an exceptional moral clarity. The tribunal has demonstrated both those qualities. And after hearing your honest, heartfelt statements, I have come to the conclusion that the previous life of this confused young woman has all led up to this dreadful moment.

“And after scrupulous deliberation, I am ready to proceed to the final indictment. Leila Badalbeili, standing here in front of you, spent day after day alone in the company of a certain criminal. A criminal who had a history of incarceration for the most abominable of all crimes—for attempting to betray our Motherland and desert to the decadent West. And how did she try to cover up her immoral conduct? By hiding beneath a chador.”

Almaz was right. Throughout the trial, Tahir's name had never been mentioned other than as a
certain
criminal
element
. No one cared about him. The pack of wolves was after me.

Comrade Guseinov paused to allow the angry murmurs of the crowd to surface before continuing.

“So this is my recommendation,” he said, rising to his fullest height, taking on the gravity of a grand inquisitor. “For immoral, degenerative behavior, I propose to expel this Leila Badalbeili from the Komsomol. And I recommend further measures, as well. I personally will submit a request to the Central Committee of the Azerbaijan Communist Party to revoke her participation in the Budapest music competition. She does not deserve the honor of representing our country abroad. Never! Now let's vote. Who is for the expulsion?”

A forest of hands flew up. The reaction was unanimous.

My world came to an end. Dark, grim hopelessness crashed into my heart.

“Comrades, now, for the conclusion, let me ask you a question,” Comrade Guseinov said, slowly challenging the audience with his daunting eyes. “What is the lesson each and all of you have just learned?”

I felt a brief moment of satisfaction at seeing the audience in panic. This was the only impromptu part of the proceedings, unlike the rest, which had been honed and rehearsed for weeks. Everyone dedicated their full absorption to the task, knitting brows, biting nails, tapping finger against forehead. Comrade Guseinov took it even further with his own dramatic pose—head rested on his fist, deep in inner reflection—a self-conscious portrayal of Rodin's
The
Thinker
.

“I'll tell you what the lesson is,” he said finally, releasing a spasm of relief in the audience. “And the lesson is—those who sleep with dogs will rise with fleas.”

Like a well-rehearsed choir, one row after another, the audience members got to their feet. Waving their red flags, they repeated Comrade Guseinov's slogan again and again:

“Those who sleep with dogs will rise with fleas! Those who sleep with dogs will rise with fleas!”

I stood at center stage, disgraced and terrified, alone against a crowd unleashing its inner beasts. Against a crowd swelling with more and more hatred toward me. If they'd had stones in their hands, would they have hurled them at me? Purposely missing my head, prolonging my humiliation, my suffering.

“Enough of it!”

A loud, commanding voice echoed from the rear of the auditorium instantly ending the Symphony of Odium.

Farhad, in a blue military uniform, made his way through the middle of the hall, strong and confident, fully aware of the effect his appearance had on the crowd. He wore his sense of self-entitlement as comfortably as he wore the brand-new azure badge of Alpha Group, the elite counter-terrorist unit of KGB.

“Oh, Comrade Farhad, what a pleasant surprise,” Comrade Guseinov said stiffly, not at all pleased by an unexpected appearance that seemed to steal his thunder. “Congratulations on your promotion. What could have made you interrupt your security training in Moscow to honor us with your presence?”

“I am here to straighten out the situation and to clear Comrade Leila Badalbeili from this unjust indictment.”

Farhad ascended the stage in one broad step and stopped next to me, shielding me from the crowd of people who had been keen, just a few minutes earlier, to throw me into a fire pit.

“Comrade Leila, please acc-c-cept my apologies,” he said solemnly, his dark eyes looking at me with deep empathy. “This investigation should have never taken place. I can only imagine the heartache you and your dear mother have endured, while still mourning the untimely death of your father, honorable Mekhti Rashidovich.”

I broke down, wailing hysterically. Crying out the shame, the guilt, and the losses. Pouring out all the tears that had been hoarded inside me in the past weeks. As if the realization of what happened had finally caught up with me, ignited by compassion from the most unlikely source.

Farhad retrieved a handkerchief from his pocket and held it out to me, waiting for me to wipe my tears. Then he turned to the audience and raised his hand. “Comrades!” he said. “I have arrived here at your gathering to correct a mistake. A terrible mistake.” He made a subtly dismissive gesture in Comrade Guseinov's direction. “With all due respect.”

He spoke without a microphone, and he didn't need it. His voice, full of powerful conviction, would have broken through a stone wall.

“Comrades, as you all well know, I have been away for the last few months going through vigorous training at the KGB Higher School in Moscow. In my absence and without my consent”—he shot a fiery look at Comrade Guseinov—“a special operation that I personally initiated was intercepted. Intercepted by the ego of one of our leaders.”

The audience held their breath in unison.

“Now, since the operation has been unfortunately disclosed, I can speak about its details. A while ago, I received a directive to investigate an establishment with possible links to Western intelligence services. I called upon this young woman standing in front of you—my trusted colleague and protégé, Leila Badalbeili, the granddaughter of one of the greatest heroes of our Communist Azerbaijan, Comrade Halil Badalbeili. Why did I choose her? Because there couldn't have been a more natural choice for an assignment of this magnitude. Especially considering the fact that Leila is a talented pianist and the suspicious establishment masked itself as a music shop.

“Using her intelligence and strong perseverance, she developed a plan of her own, and using a disguise—a chador—she was able to win the confidence of the suspected element. Gathering vital information, she reported to me just in time to expose a sophisticated Western plan to instigate a dangerous, catastrophic act. Need I say more?”

Farhad turned to me, a vague smile playing on his lips. I couldn't read it. But I felt even more lost in his words.

“Thank you, Comrade Leila, for your selfless service to your Motherland,” he said. “On behalf of our Komsomol Party, I wish you victory at the Budapest music competition where you, the ambassador of our Soviet Azerbaijan, will continue to carry the torch of success for your country and your people.”

He gave me a salute—a military salute—with his right hand flying briskly to his temple, the heels of his combat boots striking together. Then he began clapping, gesturing for the audience to join him. After a moment of confusion, the crowd sprang to their feet, stomping, applauding, shouting happy cheers, waving their red flags. At the side of the stage, Comrade Guseinov observed the spectacle. Fidgeting nervously, biting his lips, he stormed out of the auditorium.

Part of me felt vindicated, the other part petrified. What was all this about? Why would Farhad come to my rescue, sacrificing his principles and risking his own reputation? Why did he say that he knew of my communication with Tahir? And what was all that about me successfully exposing a dangerous Western operation?

“Comrades,” Farhad shouted, silencing the crowd, pulling a sheet of paper out of his briefcase and handing it to me. “Comrade Leila is going to sign an official report of her recent courageous activities, and with that, the case will be considered closed.”

I cautiously took the document. It spelled out how Tahir tried to use my innocence for American propaganda. There was an empty space left for my signature right next to my printed name. I kept reading it, again and again, trying to swallow the dryness in my throat, blinking nervously, as if hoping to clear my sight and find an entirely different connotation in the document.

Or was I simply stalling for time? Because I had to make a decision. Fast.

A decision? What decision? I'd made it a while ago when I stepped inside Tahir's world—only to discover my own. When the veil of ignorance fell away from my eyes. When I began to see the pain and the beauty of truth. No, there was no way I would betray Tahir. Not for the world. Even if I had to face another tribunal. A much scarier tribunal with Farhad as my main inquisitor.

I gave him back the report, my hand trembling. He wasn't smiling. Not anymore. His eyes stared at me like the two barrels of a gun.

The tension in the air reached its climax, blatant and contemptuous like the finale of Shostakovich's
Symphony
no. 7
, the timpanis echoing the sound of my departing footsteps.