The Orphan Sky (23 page)

I had never seen such a filthy gray sky—sagging, worn out, with scattered stains and fissures like the linoleum in Muezzin Rashid's apartment.

The sky of Kabul.

Sixteen hours in the air on a dilapidated TU-134, an hour and a half of circling over the airport defrosting the landing gear, hoping for the wheels to lower before the plane ran out of fuel.

And before the Mujahideen could shoot us down with their American missiles. How ironic it would be to come here and be blown up by missiles from Tahir's jazz mecca. Do they listen to Billie Holiday as they melt and mold lead into bullets to make them as flawless and penetrating as her voice? If so, we are doomed.

The TU-134 plunged onto the runway, raising a dust cloud the size of a nuclear mushroom.

“Welcome to Kabul International,” screamed a large poster in Russian, garnished with a hammer and sickle, a hammer so massive it threatened to squash visitors into the ground.

The Kabul International terminal reminded me of Taza Bazaar's Beggars Corner. It was a busy beehive of human misery. Men, only men, everywhere, cursing, haggling, begging, praying, waving their stumps—fresh relics of the war.

Outside, two wrecked buses waited—a fat yellow cylinder with shattered windows and a small, windowless tin canister punctured with bullet holes.

“I'm splitting you into two groups,” yelled Lieutenant Medvedev. He had collected us from the terminal and now counted us like sheep.

Twenty-eight of us, mostly dancers from the Belarusian folk group, Zabava, and singers from the Georgian Rustavi Choir. The rest, like me:
outsiders
—classical musicians. The man in charge, Captain Vassil Popovich, a Siberian force of nature, a polar bear with a shiny, bold head and a thick, walrus mustache, got drunk before the plane took off in Moscow and slept peacefully throughout the duration of our rocky flight. He also didn't take orders from anyone.

“Fuck off, Medvedev,” Captain Popovich shouted back. “My artists are delicate people. They go by bus. Their gear—suitcases, instruments—ride in that fucking tin canister.”

“I'm in charge here, and this is my order.” The much younger and lower-ranked Lieutenant Medvedev attempted to stand his ground.

“Wipe your soiled
zhopa
with your order.” Captain Popovich pushed the lieutenant aside and gestured to us. “
Gospoda
artists, what are you waiting for, a special invitation? You got it. Board the yellow bus.”

“But I have orders,” Lieutenant Medvedev almost whimpered. “And orders are orders. In case one bus blows up, the other goes on. And so does the show tonight.”

“Ai-yi-yi.” Captain Popovich stuck his sausage finger in Medvedev's sullen face. “Where did you grow up,
mudak
, to become so callous-hearted? These artists are our national pride. Our majesty, I can even say. They interrupted their valuable artistic schedules and risked their lives to come here and entertain assholes such as yourself, and all you worry about is your damn order.” He heartily spat on the ground and rubbed it into the cement with his boot. “Let's get moving,
gospoda
artists. It's dinnertime.”

A platoon of heavily armed troops escorted us through the city of Kabul. A city? A long time ago, maybe. Now it was just one big pile of rubble rising like a fatigued Mount Vesuvius in the aftermath of the eruption. And dark. Daytime dark, the sun buried alive in a thick shroud of smoke. A few passersby dashed away from our motorcade. Faceless women wrapped in heavy, opaque burkas pulled their barefoot kids inside, slamming doors and windows shut.

The motorcade passed by another larger-than-life Soviet placard. “Welcome to Kabul International!”—the same stern Russian letters and hemorrhaging Red Star.

“That's where you perform.” Comrade Medvedev pointed behind the sign toward a large area filled with debris, where hundreds of Afghanis in turbans and tunics moved in slow processions, cleaning, raising stands and rows of seats, piling rocks and sandbags. “They're setting up for your show. Used to be their football stadium.”

Our final destination was a partially demolished three-story villa with walls of muted olive-gray pebbledash, a tiled white ribbon beneath the cupolas, and arched Islamic windows, just like in our Gargoyle Castle but blocked with wood. Two ancient-looking marble columns guarded its entrance. Between them, another sign in Russian—“Hotel Kabul International.”

While everyone rushed to their rooms, I lingered in the foyer—a windowless basement with cracked walls, shredded gold-leaf wallpaper, a dusty bronze chandelier, and a folding metal table encircled by a dozen chairs. Lieutenant Medvedev sat at the table, our documents piled in front of him. I needed to start a conversation with him. To get on his good side.

“You probably have been here for a while,” I said, reverently, dropping into one of the chairs.

“My seventh month,” he replied without lifting his head, so all I could see was the hay-tinted crown of his buzz-cut head.

“And where do you come from?”

“Ural.”

“My best friend's brother has been here for almost sixteen months.”

“Ohhh.”

“She asked me to look for him.”

“What division is he in?”

“She told me but I forgot.”

“Then it's like looking for piss in a ditch.”

“What if I give you his name? Could you find him?”

“I guess.”

“I really—really—need to find him.”

Lieutenant Medvedev sized me up, a twinkle in his eye. “Not just your girlfriend's brother, ah?”

I nodded, biting my lip.

“All right, give me his name. I'll ask around.”

• • •

That evening, I played piano for ten thousand barely-out-of-their-teens boys who filled the Kabul stadium. Boys with pimples and crew cuts in oversized military uniforms, holding on to their toy guns. Toy guns that killed. I played as if there was no tomorrow. Because for many of them there wouldn't be, other than inside a coffin draped with a Soviet flag. Or on the Beggars Corner among the new veterans, showcasing their wooden limbs and glossy government medals.

But on this night, we celebrated life, surrounded by the snow-crowned summits of the soaring Kabul Mountains, safeguarded by dozens of helicopters hanging in the starless sky like luminous planets. With boisterous, patriotic Tikhon Khrennikov's
Five
Pieces
for
Piano
, loud enough to drown out the dissonant sforzando of the not-so-distant artillery explosions.

I played with all my might, plunging into thunderous passages, my fingers striking the keys like falling rocks.

I stopped abruptly, hid my hands in the folds of my skirt, the aftershock of my chords still hovering in the air. The unaware audience of boys broke into a stormy ovation, shouting, stomping their feet, asking for more. I didn't deserve their admiration at all. I had given them nothing but a stream of musical slogans. I had cheated them. I had used them to come here and get what I wanted—redemption.

What had I been thinking? That I would just show up in Kabul, find Tahir in this very real, very brutal war, and together we would fly to the Eiffel Tower on his magic carpet? How poetic, how convenient it looked from a distance. But here and now, that fantasy sounded as disjointed and obtuse as Tikhon Khrennikov's opus.

I closed my eyes and stroked the keys up and down the keyboard again and again, chasing away the spirits of deceit. Then I dipped my fingers into the opening theme of Rachmaninoff's Third. My first public performance of this defiant piece with the ephemeral, bitonal revelations I had been rehearsing for the last two years and still couldn't grasp.

I played the piano part and sang the orchestral sections to myself. With my fears and muse taking turns, I spilled out my soul through my music.

The Legend of the Stone Heart

A thousand and thousand-times-over moons ago, a maiden with skin as dark as chocolate lived in a small village in the Caucasus Mountains. One day, Div—a wicked demon—came to the village. In his traveling bag he carried a shining piece of the moon.

“Sell me your goods,” the maiden begged Div. “I want my skin to become as white as the moon.”

“If you marry me, you'll receive not only the gift of the moon, but all the treasures in my Moon Cave,” replied Div.

“I can't marry you, Div. My heart belongs to Ali the shepherd.”

“The choice is yours—if you marry me you become Mistress of the Moon Cave; if you marry Ali you stay a shepherd's wife and clean up after the sheep.”

The temptation blinded the maiden's soul, and together with Div she rode away to his Moon Cave and its treasures. There, as she anointed herself with shining pieces of the moon, her skin became moon-white, but the everlasting darkness of night devoured her soul.

“Take your moon treasure back,” she pleaded with Div. “Take your Moon Cave. Let me go to Ali.”

“As you please,” he replied. “Go to
Das Sehra
—Stone Desert—and there you will find your Ali.”

The maiden traveled many moons before she reached Stone Desert and found her lost love.

“Ali, it's me,” she cried. “I came back to beg your forgiveness.”

Ali didn't move. He sat, silent, looking at the sky, counting the stars.

She came closer. “Ali, don't you recognize me?”

Ali lowered his eyes, his stone-cold eyes.

“You are a beautiful maiden,” he said, “and your skin is as white as the moon, but I don't know any maidens with white skin.”

In despair, the maiden reached to touch his heart, but all she felt was the chill of Stone Desert. Her love's heart had turned into stone.

What about Tahir's heart?

• • •

I lay on the crude, dark-stained backseat of a UAZ-469 military jeep, dressed in a long, blue Afghani dress with a gray shawl covering my hair. Under a pile of uniforms saturated with stagnant sweat and cigarette stench. The small opening I'd created for my nose kept closing with each of the car's jerks and shudders.

“You all right?” Medvedev's voice cut through the crusty layer of uniforms. “We're almost there. Another maybe fifteen minutes. Keep tight. And like I told you—if anybody talks to you, don't say a word. Act as if you don't understand Russian.”

Medvedev had come to me after the concert as our artists' brigade waited for the convoy to be transported to President Babrak Karmal's palace for a lavish dinner. “I found your
friend's brother
,” he whispered furtively. “He's with the 108th Motor Rifle Division stationed near Bagram, the air base where you arrived. I can take you there tonight after dinner. You just have to wear Afghani dress…you look dark, like them…I'll get one for you. But don't tell anyone. I'm risking my head, you know.”

“Why? Why would you do this for me?” I asked, stunned.

Medvedev shrugged. “Your piano music touched me, you know. Really touched me. Like it pinched me all over my skin. You're a real talent. It's not every day that I meet real talent. Like my girl back home.” A pale scar above his left eyebrow stood out as his face turned red. “She did it to me too, you know. With her voice…sweet, sexy, you know. She's also dark like you. The first time I brought her home, my grandma crossed herself against the devil.”

“Is she waiting for you?”

Medvedev dropped his head. “I'll bring the dress,” he said, avoiding my eyes. “And don't speak Russian under any circumstances or both of us will stand before a tribunal. Understood?”

Suddenly, the vehicle jerked to the side and came to a brusque, tire-screeching stop.

“Documents,” I heard a high, nasal voice.

The door of the jeep opened, then slammed shut. Medvedev seemed to have gotten out. A few pairs of boots stomped on a gravel road.

“Hey,
mudak
, don't you see? It's Medved with his fucking whores,” shouted another voice, grumpy and boorish, swearing and slurring the words. “Let's see what kind of meat he's got tonight.”

I heard the sound of a tarpaulin being hurled up. Then someone shoved aside the uniform stack, and the bright, penetrating beam of a flashlight struck my eyes before assaulting the rest of my body. From behind the blinding shaft of light, a square, pimpled face with elephant ears peered in, grinning lasciviously, glazed eyes examining me closely, the breath of a rotten mouth turning my stomach.

“Medved, you're fucking God's gift. How much do you want for her?” The rough fingers of a probing, calloused hand thrust beneath my skirt and groped my thigh.

It was a trap.

Medvedev hadn't acted out of the kindness of his heart. He'd brought me here to sell. Tears of anger and despair burst out of my eyes. I wanted to scream, to scratch my way out of this horror. But the beefy hand bandaged my mouth while the other hand kept busy drilling a tunnel between my legs.

“No, Kolya, not this one,” said Medvedev sheepishly, pulling the soldier away from me. “She's for Colonel Prokhorov himself. She's a virgin. You know how he is—a family man, always careful. He wants them clean.”

The hand continued to try to separate my legs but with less conviction. “Virgin, you say.” The thumb managed to squeeze and probe itself all the way. Then, suddenly, it was hastily pulled aside. Followed by the sound of something—of someone?—thumping into the gravel. I was free.

“What the fuck is wrong with you?” yelled the slurred voice. “Why didn't you tell me before? What am I gonna do now? Walk around with my dick on fire?”

“Go jerk off in a bucket,” replied the first—the nasal voice—cackling. “What's the big deal? It's what you usually do, pederast.”

“I'll show you the bucket. I'll stick it in your ass.”

A fight broke out, accompanied by grunts and shouts, intercepted with the dull thuds of punches landing while I lay immobile as a lamb waiting to be slaughtered.