The Orphan Sky (34 page)

The
Orphan
Sky
is the first novel about Azerbaijan written in English by an author born in Baku and published in the United States.

How much of
The Orphan Sky
is rooted in your own past?

Just like my heroine, Leila, I grew up in Baku in the seventies when it was part of the USSR. My mother was a well-known pediatrician, my father headed the engineering department in the subway system, and both my sister and I began studying classical piano soon after we were old enough to walk. My family didn't belong to the Communist oligarchy, but we lived comfortably. My transformation from a dedicated Lenin Pioneer to a young person fascinated by Western culture began when I was twelve, when a tiny music store with a green door opened across the street from my school. Everybody warned us: “Don't take a single step inside that place. The store sells poisonous albums from the black market, and the owner is a sorcerer or an American spy.”

I remember walking by the store for months before I worked up the courage to go inside. The man in the store wore a turban, and he looked like Aladdin. He also had a poster of Liza Minnelli on the wall. As I stood in front of it, mesmerized by the energy exuded by that half-naked alien woman, the owner played a vinyl recording of her singing “Maybe This Time.” The music seemed to come from a different world—unknown, beautiful and free. The world outside my own. The world I became determined to discover.

Music plays a major role in
The Orphan Sky
—from traditional Azeri to jazz and classical. Your main character, Leila, is a child prodigy, whose classical piano excellence eventually provides her with a path out of the Soviet bloc. You too are a well-trained musical artist who took a similar path. Is Leila's relationship with music a reflection of your personal journey?

Yes and no. I started as a classical pianist, but the encounter with the “poisonous music shop” ignited my passion for jazz that led me to a local musician: Vagif Mustafazadeh—the father of Azerbaijani jazz. From him I learned the ins and outs of jazz improvisation, along with the intricacies of
mugam
, our traditional Azeri music. Driven by a dream to sing jazz in America, I applied to the government for permission to leave the Soviet Union. So naive. Instead, I joined the “black list” of dissidents, with no hope of ever seeing the world beyond the Iron Curtain. I moved to Moscow, studied composition at the Conservatory of Music, performed with the Jewish Music Theater, recorded a children's album that sold over three million copies. I toured with two major jazz orchestras across the Soviet Union, far and wide, with its red banners, Lenin monuments, and pig fat for food. Just like Leila. But, unlike Leila, I didn't have to defect.

I came to America because of a lucky occurrence. In the summer of 1989, I was singing at a Moscow club across from the U.S. Embassy one night when the American entrepreneur Armand Hammer came in to celebrate his birthday. His entourage included lawyer Mickey Kantor, who would later become the campaign chairman for Bill Clinton. During the break, we struck up a conversation, and I confessed my desire to get out of the Soviet Union. A week later, a telegram summoned me to the U.S. Embassy, where I was told that my son Sergey and I could emigrate to America.

Soon after Leila defects to the West, she gives up her music. Was that true of you as well?

I almost did. My son Sergey and I arrived in the United States—in Norfolk, Virginia, of all places—with two suitcases and three hundred dollars. My ex-husband, a high-ranking officer in the division of Soviet Electronic Warfare, wasn't allowed to leave the country. And my dream of a music career in the West quickly drowned in the reality of what I was facing. I had to buy food, pay rent for a cockroach-infested apartment, and never show my disappointment to Sergey. So I took a job at a manufacturing company, gradually bringing music back into my life—teaching theater and voice at the Old Dominion University, performing with my jazz orchestra Selah, later moving to Chicago and coaching actors and singers at the Center for Voice. Then tragedy struck—my son Sergey was diagnosed with leukemia, and the next two and a half years we spent together in hospital rooms, moving between incredible highs and lows, writing poetry and songs together, hoping to record them some day. After Sergey died, I had nothing to hold on to, except those songs, our music… Music was my only way to remain connected to Sergey's spirit. It still is.

You grew up speaking Russian and Azeri, and now you're writing fiction in English. Where and when did you learn English? How challenging is it for you to write in a literary fashion in a new language?

My parents hired an English tutor for me when I was five years old, and later I studied English in school. But my real coaches were Billie Holiday and Ella Fitzgerald. I learned the words and their meaning through their musical expressions—a truly universal language. And because of that, my process of writing in English is similar to composing music. Words are my musical notes, formed through melody. I follow its rhythm, syncopations, harmonies, dissonances, climaxes till I reach that sacred place of creative freedom where I can pour my heart out on paper.

Is the Maiden Tower legend something you grew up with?

Maiden Tower is Baku's most celebrated and mysterious monument. I was about six years old when my mother took my sister and me to the tower for the first time. Standing on its crown, she told us the Maiden Tower legend about the Shah who decided to marry his daughter. Hoping the Shah would change his mind, the girl, who was secretly in love with a young knight, asked her father to grant her one wish before their wedding: to build a tower that would reach the sky. The Shah didn't change his mind. When the construction was finished, he confined his daughter in the tower until their wedding night. But the knight killed the cruel keeper and rushed into the tower to free his beloved. Hearing heavy steps echoing through the tower and thinking it was her father coming for her, the princess waved her arms like wings and threw herself into the Caspian Sea. A heartbeat later, her knight reached the top of the tower. All he saw was his maiden's veil carried away by the wind.

After I heard that legend, I became determined to save the princess. I kept going back to Maiden Tower, time after time, climbing its steep stairs, hoping to change—to fix—the ending of the legend. Many years later, I finally did it in my novel, transforming the princess into a magical Firebird, giving her and her knight another chance.

Where do you draw your inspiration from?

From life. I've been fortunate to live and travel around the world. Every place adds another dimension, another spark to the creative process. Whether I sit on my balcony in Laguna Beach watching the sun dip into the Pacific Ocean, or drive on Lake Shore Drive along the Chicago skyline, cross the Pont Neuf in Paris, climb Gaudi's cosmic creations in Barcelona, wander through the museums in the presence of Goya, Caravaggio, Renoir, Miro… And then, after all those experiences, I lock myself away from the world in my loft and write and compose, with the soundtrack of Vladimir Horowitz's piano, Billie Holiday's voice, Maxim Vengerov's violin, and London rain tapping overhead against my skylight.

Thank you for reading
!

We hope you enjoyed
The Orphan Sky
by Ella Leya.

Help other readers find books they'll love by writing a review or lending this book to a friend. If you'd like to find out more about this book and others like it, check out our mailing list for updates on new releases and access to exclusive content.

Sign up now to be one of the first to get the scoop on Ella Leya, her latest books, and other great titles from Sourcebooks!

SIGN UP NOW!

My eternal gratitude—

To my family: Stuart, Micah, Inna, Nick, Jim, and especially my father, Pavel—you are my home, wherever I am…

To Don Heckman, my patient reader and encouraging friend.

To my agent, Jeff Kleinman of Folio Literary Management—you tamed my wild imagination into a phenomenon called
author
.

To my editor, Shana Drehs of Sourcebooks, Inc.—your keen intelligence elevated my Maiden Tower draft into
The Orphan Sky
book.

To Anna Michels, Heather Hall, and Heather Moore of Sourcebooks, Inc., for taking this book out into the world.

To my homeland, Azerbaijan, whose sunshine sustained me through the darkest of days.

Ella Leya was born in Baku, Azerbaijan, and received asylum in the United States in 1990. She is a composer and singer and lives in Laguna Beach, California, and London.
The
Orphan
Sky
is her first novel.