All Our Broken Idols

by Paul M. M. Cooper

  Once her work was done, Katya went back and sat with the body of the man from the dust room, lying now in its airtight sack, the broken array of its teeth still visible through the acetate. It was ready to be transferred to the lab. The men from the archaeological department would come to pick up the body in the next few days, and it would be taken down to Baghdad. Katya felt sad to see him go. She sat and let her eyes wander over his leathered skin, and the contorted angles of his cheekbones, crushed by the weight of time and earth. She sat and thought about the colours and sensations that had once flickered on the inside of that skull, the loves and fears and uncertainty, the distances crossed by its dreams.

  The next day, Katya went out to the dig. She was surprised when Salim joined her. He didn’t speak much while he worked, but Katya liked his presence nonetheless, the calm and meticulous way he moved over the site with little flourishes of his hands, the sleeves of his shirt rolled up to reveal the sun-darkened skin of his forearms. They heard gunfire in the city, and he murmured the makes and calibre as he heard them.

  ‘Kalashnikov,’ he would say, the way her dad used to identify a bird by its call. ‘Beretta. Glock.’

  They improved the trench’s drainage and uncovered a wider section of the white dust layer, found some more artisanal tools turned the aquamarine of corroded copper.

  ‘More evidence of some kind of work going on here,’ Katya said.

  ‘Yes. I wonder what they made.’

  Around midday, they took a break and sat on the wall in the shade of the olive tree, watching the wind cross the land and moan in its hollows. Salim seemed miserable, so Katya told him what she’d read about the plant life of Assyria, how the ancient kings had brought back trees and herbs from their conquests and planted them in their palaces. She told him about the lettuces that grew in ordered rows in the temple gardens of ancient Egypt. Then she let the sound of the wind settle in between them. Finally, Salim spoke.

  ‘You can almost see them some days, can’t you?’

  Katya looked up at him, squinting in the glare and dust.

  ‘Who?’

  He gestured out at the site.

  ‘All the people who used to live here. Walking through these disappeared streets.’

  ‘Sometimes.’

  Salim took several glugs from his water bottle and handed it to her. He coughed and looked sideways at her.

  ‘I wanted to tell you, before I told the others,’ he said.

  Before I told the others. Katya collected that fragment to examine later.

  ‘What is it?’

  ‘Well … we’re coming to the end of our funding for the dig. A couple of months at most. And I don’t think we’re going to get any more.’

  ‘But … the body, the room with the dust …’

  He shrugged.

  ‘There’s just no interest from on high. And with the security situation the way it is … We may have to take what we’ve got and write it up.’

  ‘Wow.’ Katya felt a sudden panic. ‘I hadn’t … you know …’

  ‘Yeah.’

  She bit her lip and felt a constriction in her throat.

  ‘I’ll really miss this place. And you. All of you, I mean.’

  Salim nodded with his lips pursed, but he didn’t get to reply. An army helicopter came flying over the ruins, staying low to avoid opportunist gunfire. He pointed up and screamed over the thwump-thwump of its rotors, ‘That’s their idea of patrolling for looters!’

  They both shielded their eyes and mouths, helpless as the cloud of debris and dust swirled over them, ripping up their tarpaulin, and the branches of the olive tree swayed.

  Aurya

  It didn’t take long to gather the contents of Aurya’s and Sharo’s lives. Their house already seemed abandoned, empty as a river shell. They found a dog nosing at one of the beer jars, but it dashed out at the sight of them. In their father’s room, his empty sheepskin still wore his imprint. Aurya stood and stared at it for some time, and then picked up one of the beer jars, swung it hard against the wall with all her force so the shattering filled the empty house.

  ‘Aurya,’ Sharo said, watching as she picked up another jar. ‘How will we find our cousin when we get to the city? Do you know their name?’

  ‘We don’t have a cousin in the city, Sharo,’ she said, and hurled the jar into a cluster of others. Flies burst into the air, fizzing in panic. ‘It’s just something I said. So they’d take us with them.’

  ‘But the city,’ Sharo said. ‘Aurya, what will we do once we get there?’

  ‘Don’t ask stupid questions,’ she snapped, trying to still her breath. She kicked another jar, and it toppled and split. But she knew it wasn’t a stupid question at all. ‘We’ll find something to do and someone to help us. People in that city must be kinder than out here.’

  ‘But Aurya … the city will be so big. It’s going to hurt my head. I won’t be able to draw it all …’

  ‘Do you know how much Father owes to that crook Nilmaher?’ Aurya said, picking up the last jar. ‘If we stay here, we’ll lose this house, and we’ll be up at the crossroads before the end of the month. We’ve got no choice, Sharo.’

  ‘I trust you, Aurya.’

  She threw the last jar against the wall, left a rose of beer dribbling down the bricks. Then she went to the door and looked down at the ships lining the bank, the men busy heaving the stone on board. Another group of slaves was building a lattice, lashing together stripped lengths of young willow: a cage for the lion in the pit.

  ‘And there’s something else. Father said something before he … something about our mother.’

  Sharo’s face didn’t move. He watched Aurya closely.

  ‘What did he say?’

  ‘He said there was no lion. That she never got dragged away.’

  Sharo’s eyes wavered just slightly.

  ‘Did he say anything else?’

  ‘He said something about a place called the house of dust. He said that’s where she is. Sharo … do you remember anything about that day? The day she died? Could our mother still be alive?’

  She expected him to say something, but he just went on staring at her. His eyes were black and deep, the way they always went when memories were flickering behind them.

  ‘Sharo, tell me if you know anything!’

  ‘She’s not alive, Aurya. She died that night.’

  ‘How do you know that if you don’t remember anything, Sharo? Was there a lion or not?’

  Sharo put his hands on his head.

  ‘Aurya, it hurts. I can’t think about that day. It’s a locked door. Every time I bang on it, it hurts.’

  She put her hand out and touched his shoulder.

  ‘Sharo … if there’s any chance that she might be alive, we have to find her. Maybe someone in the city will know where the house of dust is. Your lion’s going to the city too. You’d like to follow him, wouldn’t you?’ Sharo nodded, head still in his hands. ‘We can’t stay here, Sharo. It’s an adventure. Like in the story. Right?’

  After a few more moments, he lifted his head, dark eyes big and watery. Then he looked around the house at the patches of light and shade falling in the broken rooms.

  ‘We’ll look after each other, Aurya. Like in the story. We’ll protect each other.’

  Aurya nodded, and the two of them stepped outside, watching together as the slab of stone began the slow journey up the gangplank and on to the boat, its ropes crackling and men shouting and heaving around it.

  ‘But, Aurya,’ Sharo murmured, ‘you shouldn’t lose yourself in hoping. Our mother is dead. I’m sure of it.’

  Aurya was about to snap back at Sharo, but just then she saw a movement nearby, in the reeds that ringed their field. Up ahead, a small face peered from the undergrowth, looking even more like a river vole than ever. It was Nebo-Pishtim. His eyes narrowed at them as they approached, and flickered for a moment over the wound on Aurya’s head. He wasn’t with his friends, and he had a strange look that sh
e’d never seen on his face. Her necklace still hung on a string around his neck, and she felt a flash of anger.

  ‘You’re in big trouble, Nebo,’ Aurya shouted at him. The boy bared his teeth but didn’t come any closer out of the reeds.

  ‘What are you talking about?’ he hissed.

  ‘I told the watchmen you took my necklace.’ She gave a cold smile and approached. ‘See those men down there? They’re from the capital.’

  She watched Nebo-Pishtim’s eyes wander over the flotilla of boats, the man with the peacock robes, the scribe with his tablets, the dozens of soldiers with their bright armour and pointed helmets, their beards and long spears.

  ‘You’re lying,’ he said. ‘The watchmen would never … not for a little …’

  She smiled a little wider and counted a few heartbeats, let the fear do its work.

  ‘You don’t think so? Didn’t I tell you my mother was from Nineveh?’

  She watched his mouth open, his mind working furiously. Then she pointed down to the bank.

  ‘And look what those slaves are building, Nebo.’

  ‘What?’ he spat. She allowed herself a pitying smile.

  ‘It’s a cage.’

  When she looked back, he’d gone pale as cut tamarisk. She held out her hand, palm outstretched. Trembling a little, he took off her necklace and handed it back to her, careful not to touch her hand.

  ‘I know what you did,’ he said, his voice high and strangled. Aurya paused.

  ‘What’s that?’

  ‘I saw you,’ Nebo-Pishtim said. ‘Last night, out near the pit.’

  And Aurya realised what it was, that strange look in his eyes. He was afraid. She watched him, her whole body numb. She tried to keep her face calm.

  ‘We weren’t out by the pit. You imagined it.’

  ‘I was throwing out our old matting,’ he said. ‘I hid when I saw you. “Sharo,” you said. “Sharo, help me do it.”’

  Aurya grabbed Sharo’s hand and turned to walk down to the boats.

  ‘You’re a liar,’ she said, trying to control the pitch of her voice.

  ‘I’m going to tell everyone,’ Nebo-Pishtim shouted after her. She kept on walking without looking back, feeling the ground suddenly unstable beneath her feet, her whole body alive with fear. ‘I’m going to tell everyone what you did!’

  When Aurya and Sharo returned to the boat, the team of slaves had already heaved the slab of gypsum on board. The men’s backs shone with sweat, their faces wrinkling with effort along well-worn lines, calling to each other in a strange language of brass and cool water.

  ‘Put your things over there,’ the peacock man said sharply. ‘Abil-Ishtar, search them and put their things away!’

  The boy with the feathered headdress nodded, and beckoned for Aurya and Sharo to follow. He made them turn out the folds of their wool cloaks, and when he saw Aurya’s blade fragment, he put out his hand.

  ‘I’m sorry. Not with the King here.’

  Aurya gripped the piece of iron tightly, but then let the boy have it. The siblings sat down among the crates and earthen jars like pieces of cargo. Aurya made quick prayers:

  To the god of cities

  To the god of gamblers

  To the god of hinges

  The boy brought them two clay bowls of barley porridge flavoured with fried leek. It was the most delicious thing Aurya had ever tasted. She ate it without even using her hands, slurping up the porridge and licking the clay-tasting bowl clean. Beside her, Sharo did the same. The young servant boy looked a little afraid, as though he’d just fed two wild animals.

  ‘Is your name Abil-Ishtar?’ she said, wanting to prove she wasn’t a wild Elamite.

  ‘You can just call me Abil.’

  ‘Abil,’ she repeated.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Do you work for the King?’ she asked, trying not to sound impressed.

  ‘No. I work for master Bel-Ibni, and he works for the King.’

  ‘He’s a servant too?’

  ‘Yes, a servant. And many other things besides. A doctor, a soothsayer, a reader of the oils.’ Abil looked out towards the reed bank.

  ‘I’m sorry about your father,’ he said.

  Aurya kept her gaze on the deck, felt the whole of it shifting low on the water as it took on the weight of the stone.

  ‘He wasn’t a very good father.’

  Abil shrugged.

  ‘Still. The lions are everywhere these days. There’s been a plague of them, killing the cattle, taking women and men from the villages too. They come wandering down from the hills, following the river. Even as far as the gates of Nineveh. I heard of one nobleman whose head slave trapped one in his attic and had to keep feeding it until his master came back.’

  The thought gave Aurya a crawling feeling on the surface of her skin.

  ‘Why are there so many?’

  The boy shrugged.

  ‘Who knows what plans the gods have?’

  ‘And why are they putting it in a cage? Why can’t they just kill it?’

  The boy motioned to the plum-pink awning at the centre of the flotilla.

  ‘The King wants lions.’

  ‘What does he want them for?’ The boy didn’t answer, just straightened the crane-feather crown on his head.

  ‘Your brother’s quiet, isn’t he?’ Sharo shifted beside her.

  ‘He is sometimes. When he’s not telling his stories. Our mother knew all the ancient stories, from the time before the flood. And Sharo remembers every one she told him. Word for word.’

  ‘That’s impressive.’

  ‘My brother’s like that. He can remember everything. Everything that’s ever happened to him. He gets this memory-pain though, when too many new things happen at once. It hurts, and then he has to draw things to make the hurt go away.’

  Abil watched Sharo with curiosity, tongue pressing into his cheek.

  ‘He can remember everything?’

  ‘Yes.’ Aurya became suddenly aware of how much she’d given away. ‘Please don’t tell anyone.’

  Soon the lion’s cage was ready, and the men hefted it up on poles. All the while they’d been building it, Aurya had sat on deck and watched the people of the village gathering up on the reed bank. She could see their heads appearing through the undergrowth: she recognised the charrer’s boys, the potter and his wife, all of them looking down with the nervous, curious eyes of deer. Could Nebo-Pishtim have told them already? None of them, at least, seemed brave enough to approach.

  The best place to hide was in the crowd, she thought, and most of the men were now gathered around the empty cage. Aurya went to find Sharo, who was crouched on the bank beside the gangplank. He was drawing a lion in the mud with a reed, with several soldiers gathered around him, watching.

  ‘Sharo!’ she said, eyeing the men warily. ‘Come on now, stop that. You want to see, don’t you? When they rescue the lion?’

  Sharo shook his head.

  ‘No, Aurya.’ But she took his hand and pulled him away. ‘They’re not going to hurt him, are they, Aurya?’

  ‘I don’t know. It’s what it would deserve.’

  Aurya and Sharo followed the men through the reeds. When the soldiers reached the old village and peered into its abandoned well, they tutted their tongues and curled their lips.

  ‘Stand back, children,’ one said in a foreign accent. ‘Not a sight for you to see.’

  Aurya and Sharo held each other in the vine-strewn ruin of one house, with tamarisks bursting out of its windows. They watched as the men made loops of rope, tested their strength, and then threw them down into the pit. From the bottom, the lion gave out a roar with every throw, and Aurya’s stomach clenched like a fist at the sound. It was a difficult shot, but soon one soldier snapped the rope taut and dug his heels into the earth. The slaves rushed to hold him and stop him from being dragged in. Aurya reached for Sharo’s hand as the rope jumped and leapt in the man’s grasp. The creature in the pit gnashed and snarled, but before l
ong, the men had the lion snared by a dozen ropes. They all stood on one side and pulled together. The animal’s sounds changed.

  ‘Aurya, they’re hurting it,’ Sharo said.

  ‘Isn’t this what you wanted, Sharo? It was going to starve down there.’

  The slaves heaved to a count, and the ropes cut lines into the mud. When the lion came into view, Aurya didn’t feel the fear she expected: she felt a burst of pity. It looked ridiculous. All four of its legs were pinioned in the ropes, which looped around its belly too. It looked as ungainly as a hoisted cat. Its tail was flicking furiously, and it whined in pain and terror as the men dragged it up the pit wall.

  At the top, the soldiers prodded it with their spears, striking its rear with canes and driving it into the waiting cage. It had little choice: when it was in, they snapped the door closed and tied it shut. The lion was frantic, trying desperately to turn in the narrow cage, its tail whipping the bars, the ropes still wound around its limbs and body. When the men lifted the cage, the lion’s claws flashed out and cut the hand of one soldier. He cried out the names of gods, and the men all kept their distance after that, but he laughed proudly as they headed back to the boats. One younger man lingered for a moment and glanced down into the pit where Aurya knew the remains of her father still lay. He reached into his belt and threw a crust of bread into the pit. He caught Aurya’s eye.

  ‘So he doesn’t have to beg for crumbs in the city of the dead,’ he said, and then hurried off after the others.

  On the way back through the reeds, the lion whined like a dog. It lashed at the bars of its cage as the men stepped over rocks and willow clumps, rocking it from side to side. Aurya got as close as she dared, close enough to see the lion’s eyes, huge yellow bulbs with a point of deep black in their centre. Those eyes rolled in their sockets, and the whole length of its hide shivered in fear. The rust of dried blood still painted its muzzle.

  ‘Aurya, look at his paw,’ Sharo said. Maggots curled in the pink wound. ‘Aurya, do you think his foot will be all right?’