The Orphan Sky (29 page)

The
wedding
caravan
brought
Princess
Alsu
to
her
groom's tent, where he filled the palms of her hands with white lilies. In the morning, when Princess Alsu opened her eyes, tears dropped from the lilies' petals, their barren stems binding her wrists together.

I struggled to breathe, gulping air in rapid staccatissimos. I was a dummy laced up into a triangular corset, stuffed inside a mound of white brocade and satin, my fingers and toes henna-dyed, my nails blood red. The wedding veil covered my face and kept my feelings out of sight, assuming there were any feelings left after I'd taken Almaz's
elixir
of
oblivion
—a shot of opium with cognac—to numb my heartache.

The squad of waiters in red
çuxa
, traditional coats, and balloon-like trousers moved around in slow motion, carrying trays with caviar and champagne. The hundred or more guests congregated between the gilded columns of the Art Nouveau wedding chamber, sneaking furtive glances at their reflections in the cobalt-mirrored ceiling.

The crowd consisted of two distinct groups. One was the upper echelon of Baku society all in black silks, furs, and taffetas, emitting the surreptitious scents of oud oil and jasmine, women sparkling with their diamonds, rubies, sapphires, and emeralds. Richard Strauss's crowd. Elegant, affluent, melodious like his
Der
Rosenkavalier
waltzes.

The other group—Farhad's relatives—loud, speaking with their hands, resembled an Azeri folklore ensemble preparing to perform a traditional wedding scene. I had to admit that Farhad had done an admirable job of disassociating himself from his flock. Fit and composed, wearing a jet-black tuxedo, he bore no likeness to his relations. Strutting around in gaudy polyesters and gold chains and stones too hefty to be precious, they trailed the tails of their multilayered skirts, practically blending with the vibrant peasant images depicted on the wall murals.

Nevertheless, those people seemed to have brought with them the crystal air of humbling mountain summits and rapidly flowing rivers from their faraway village in the Caucasus Mountains—something so natural and feral it made me feel ashamed for marrying someone I didn't love.

At first, Farhad didn't want to invite his family. He hadn't been in touch with them in years. But his boss insisted. Apparently, his and Farhad's maternal ancestors came from the same area in the neighboring Republic of Dagestan. So Farhad invited his immediate family—his parents and three sisters—but the entire
aul
had shown up.

“One with a plow—seven with spoons,” whispered Professor Sultan-zade to me as she passed by, slightly squeezing my forearm in silent consolation. She liked Farhad as much as she liked Richard Wagner. Once asked why she didn't attend a premier of his
Die
Walküre
at the Baku opera house, she replied, “Why would I submit voluntarily to that fascist's torture?”

“Let me see the bride's face.” One of Farhad's aunts unceremoniously lifted my veil. “Oh, she's
gözel
,” she intoned. “Our Farhadik
jan
brought a rose to our garden. A
halva
face.”

“
Halva
makes the mouth sweet, but we'll see if it fills up our stomach,” Farhad's mother replied.

She was an Amazon woman—tall and physical, with a healthy glow to her face, two thick black braids reaching to her waist, and catlike gray eyes—looking as young as if she had given birth to Farhad while still in her early teens. Her husband looked more like her father. In his sixties, gaunt, with the dark, parched skin of a highlander and the same pitch-black eyes as Farhad, he seemed lost inside his suit. Chronic tuberculosis had been wasting his body away.

Finally, Farhad's boss, KGB General Tamerlan Jabrailov, arrived and made his way through the crowd—a handsome, personable man in his midforties with light skin, short-cut black hair, an aquiline nose, and the same hypnotic gray eyes that Farhad's mother had—a hereditary mark of people from the North Caucasus region of Dagestan. He wore a linen suit and a bright yellow necktie. He made me think of Papa, who had never yielded his eccentricity to the etiquette of dressing.

General Jabrailov approached us.

“Salam eleykum.”
A brisk handshake with Farhad.

“Welcome to the family, Leila.” He gave me a close, scrutinizing look through his glasses—identical to Farhad's. “I've heard a lot about you, but even the best of praises didn't make a fair judgment of your charms. You're a beautiful and inspiring young woman, and Farhad must be overjoyed to have you as his bride.”

The ceremony started.

A middle-aged woman in a formal dark suit came in from the side door, thick kohl making her eyes pop out of her face. A dragonfly. Proceeding to the center of the room, her stilettos drum-beating the floor, she took her place at a table underneath the flag of Soviet Azerbaijan.

She'd make a good warden in the gulag
, I thought to myself as she droned through the official marital lines in her book. “…Upon taking the responsibility of creating a new family unit to carry on and safeguard the principles of Communist ideology and morals…”

I glanced at Mama standing among the Richard Strauss crowd. Stylish as always in a black silk suit with a thread of black pearls, her strawberry-and-cream face pale, wearing a polite smile, her eyes seeking mine.

The warden reached the end of the official marital manual and slammed the book closed. Spreading her stilettos wide, she took a breath, deep enough to support a coloratura note, and barked: “Under the flag! Of the Soviet! Republic! Of Azerbaijan! I. Announce. You. Leila. Badalbeili. And. You. Farhad. Abdul. Azizov. Husband! And! Wife!”

The party lasted into the night with endless toasts, lots of drinking, and two orchestras trading places. One played dance music; the other—a trio of
kemancha
,
tar
, and
dumbek
—accompanied a young
mugam
singer. Blind, his body swaying like a blade of grass, he sang a poetic ghazel, every line a stab to my heart.

Beloved, you lifted my soul to heaven, then plunged me into despair.

My life is an infinite nightmare, but I can't stop longing for you.

You treated me like a scented rose, then plucked me and threw away—

A caught, unwanted prey, but I can't stop longing for you.

Did her beauty blind your eyes? Did you take her to your skies?

Oh, your cruel heart of lies, but I can't stop longing for you.

Where are you, my sun-faced lover? Come back. Take pity on me.

Without you, I'm dying in misery, but I can't stop longing for you…

What? What had I done, Tahir? Why did you leave me here to suffer, to sell myself? To live like a serpent inside a closed bag, pretending, lying, waiting to coil my way out?

At midnight, Mama kissed me a sad good night. In accordance with the custom imposed by Farhad's kin, I wouldn't see her until we returned from our honeymoon. Then Farhad's mother, sisters, and a dozen of his female relatives led me to the bridal hotel suite overlaid with red roses, red symbolizing the blood of a sacrificed lamb—another custom. At least they didn't insist on slaying an animal here. Or maybe my sacrifice was enough.

Someone put a little boy in my lap—an Azeri ritual meant to help me deliver a male as my first child.

“Be with son,” said one of the women.

“Be with son,” sang along all others.

Mehriban, Farhad's youngest sister, patted my hair with rose water.

“Abundance and male heir.” Farhad's mother placed a mirror with red ribbons in front of my face. An old woman in a ruby-studded kaftan sprinkled the mirror with donkey milk, chanting, “With Allah's help… With Allah's help…”

Pouring rice, silver coins, and sweets over my head and shouting the traditional “Aparmaga Gelmishiq” song, the women undressed and laid me under the blanket.

“Let the night last as long as the spring, and the pain pass as quickly as a flower blossom,” they sang, kissing each other, sweeping their arms in wide circular motions, undulating their waists, dancing their way out of the bridal suite. Leaving me all prepared and garnished for Farhad.

My mother-in-law kissed me on the forehead and followed after them, closing the door behind her.

The women would spend the night in the lobby, waiting for the bloody sheet to sanctify the marriage and parade it in their village as a proof of my virtue.

Farhad arrived shortly thereafter, drunk. He sat on the bed, glowering at me. “Do you think I didn't see how you were looking at my family? With disdain. Why? Because they're not up to your
noble
blood?”

Reaching out to touch me, he abruptly pulled back, squeezed his hands into fists, shook his head, and stumbled to the window.

“I've been treating you as if you were a virtuous bride. Haven't touched you, waited for the wedding night. Sacrificed my pride for you. No one would dare to tell me this to my face, but I know what they're saying behind my back—that I've married a whore. Everyone knows that you've given yourself to that
pox yiyen
.”

I pulled the blanket over my eyes, hiding from Farhad's swearing.

“What did he do to you? Huh? Tell me. How did he
atdirmaq
you?”

He threw the blanket out of the way and lowered himself over me, his body moving closer and closer, his knee forcefully spreading my legs. Then, suddenly, he stopped, grabbed my hair and twisted, watching me intensely, enjoying my pain. A jackal playing with its kill.

“Farhad, please stop it. It's in the past. I'm your wife now.”

“Wife? No. You're my whore.” He laughed drunkenly, breathing into my face. “My defiled whore…the thrown-away leftover of the Mukhtarov bastard.”

“No, Farhad. Please.”

“Please what? What do you want me to do, Leila? Tell me. Tell me nicely. I know you can be nice. Show me how nice you can be. Show me.”

Did I have a choice?

I closed my eyes and dove into the stench of tobacco and alcohol. Into the swamp of stale sweat, seething lust, and the insatiable Napoleonic ego of a shepherd's son and a KGB rising star. Falling down and down. Down a rabbit hole of young male with wounded pride.

“Say you love me, Leila.”

His eyes against mine, reflecting my shame in their black darkness.

“I love you, Farhad.”

“Say it again.”

“I love you.”

“Again.”

“I love you.”

He fell asleep, still on top of me, a contented smile on his face.

I carefully got out of bed and went to the bathroom. My whole body felt raw and achy. Filling the tub with scalding hot water, I climbed inside, gulped the last vial of Almaz's
yatistirici
, and lay back in the bath, slowly running my fingers through the water. The flow seemed natural, musical, blurring my bruises into a chromatic, Impressionistic palette of colors.

If Sergei Rachmaninoff could practice his
Concerto
on a silent keyboard, why couldn't I do it on the water? I drew the staccato arpeggio, my fingers moving fluidly, buoyed by the heat of the water. Then I gently submerged my hands, sustaining the chord in all its depth and sheerness. A pause—Vladimir Horowitz's pause—lightening the darkness with just a stroke of air.

I could breathe. My music surged with the new vitality, fueled by rage, the lightning tempos breaking through the clouds, scaring off the ghosts of the night. Windy passages lifted me off my fetters, driving me across the sky to a far, faraway island adrift in a sun-drenched turquoise sea.

I slept for a while in the safe music cocoon. Then back to reality, I cut the side of my leg with a razor and rubbed the bleeding incision against the sheet. My gift to Farhad.

In the morning, we left for our honeymoon at a resort on the Black Sea, a special resort reserved for the KGB elite. By the time we returned, Mama was gone. She had been appointed the director of a large children's hospital in Kuba—a provincial town 170 kilometers to the north of Baku—and given a splendid residence there.

Farhad moved into our flat in Villa Anneliese.

• • •

I hadn't seen Almaz since before my wedding, over a month ago. I knew Farhad wouldn't approve of my continuing friendship with her. On Monday afternoon, knowing that he would be staying at work into the evening, I called and told Almaz I'd stop by for some quick tea.

A few minutes later, the phone rang.

“I forbid you to see her,” Farhad said in a hostile low voice. “You hear me?”

“Yes.”

“That's it.” The phone went dead, leaving me petrified.

At supper, Farhad acted as if nothing had happened. He cooked a delicious
shirin-pilau
—fruit stewed with sugar on top of rice—and served it on a tea table in Papa's smoking room, then sat on Papa's favorite lion chair, perched his feet on the lions' paws, and poured himself some sweet Georgian wine.

“To you, my love.” He raised Papa's silver goblet. Emptied it.

I knew it was Farhad's call for me to pay attention to the lesson that would follow.

“Do you know why I love you so much?” Farhad began, wiping his mouth with a napkin. “You're irresistibly beautiful, gifted, artistic, and you're naive as a child. You're floating in your own sky, with the rest of the world contained inside the pages of your Rachmaninoff's
Concerto
. But even with all this, I didn't expect you to be
that
stupid.”

Farhad poured himself more wine. Deliberately slowly, as if enjoying my anxiety.

“You embarrassed me today, Leila,” he continued. “I had to be called from a meeting to deal with this situation—my wife and a whore spending time together. Didn't it ever occur to you that by marrying me you'd left your past behind and started living as a reputable woman and the wife of a KGB officer? That your running around with the filth of our society was over? Or is it some psychological need of yours to mesh with them?”