But then one night they didn’t come. All three of them stayed in their separate rooms anyway, afraid of what would happen if they didn’t. They listened to the sounds of distant war rumbling over the city, and wondered what was happening.
‘Why didn’t they come last night?’ Katya asked in the morning.
‘Better things to worry about maybe,’ Salim said, with a breath of hope in his voice. ‘Maybe this means the army’s come back.’
But the men came that night, and locked them away as usual. In the following days, planes began to fly over the city and drop bombs. Their thuds and cracks rumbled through the earth, as though great worms were burrowing deep below ground. A few days later, the same thing happened: the men didn’t come that night. From then on this would happen once every few days, and they were left alone to wander the museum halls at night.
The days and nights went on like that, and soon they were left on their own in the museum more often than not. It was as if the men had forgotten about them. Through the nights when they couldn’t sleep, Lola would sit in the library, reading the torn pages of the English books. Katya and Salim would lie in the dark in the office room and talk into the early hours: about their childhoods, doing impressions of the teachers they’d hated, reciting the plots of movies they both knew. When they slept together for the first time, it seemed like the most natural thing in the world, like coming home, and afterwards they lay together in the dark without exchanging a word.
One afternoon, Katya found Salim sitting on the roof, looking out over the city evening. The roads were emptied of traffic, and the woodpecker Kalashnikovs rattled in all directions. Since their imprisonment in the cupboard, none of them liked to be alone in the museum when the power was out. Katya stood with Salim while he smoked cigarette after cigarette with shaking hands, then crumpled his empty packet and threw it over the edge into the wind. She ran her fingers over his fist closed against the concrete, and his muscles softened slightly. His hand opened and he held hers, both of their palms clammy.
‘I managed to get some phone signal today,’ he said. ‘Just a flash, for a few seconds. Some texts came through. I think if I queue them up, I might be able to send them too, to local numbers at least.’
‘Any news about what’s going on?’ Katya said.
‘They’ve banned pickles.’
‘Pickles?’
‘They think people might ferment them into alcohol. They’re mad.’
The dark marks under his eyes were laced with burst arteries. Katya watched him, and then ran her hand along the line of his unshaven jaw.
‘Salim,’ she said, ‘be honest with me. What’s the worst that could happen to us?’
He shook his head and wouldn’t meet her eyes.
‘What I’m most scared of?’
‘Yes.’
‘That they’ll split us up. I’m amazed they haven’t already. That we’ll disappear into Syria. They have a network of prisons there. Run by men freed from the regime’s dungeons. Torturers, men with broken souls. The things I’ve heard, Katya …’
The thinness of his voice chilled her more than his words. She thought of the news articles about her dad. Disappeared without a trace.
‘Salim …’
He hid his face.
‘I don’t want to be in one of their videos,’ he said, his voice tiny. ‘I don’t want my mother to see me. And Athir. That’s what I fear most.’
‘And me? What should I fear?’
He looked right over into the distance this time, and didn’t answer.
‘We’re going to be fine,’ is all he said, some moments later. ‘We’re going to get out of here.’
‘Salim … if they split us up, and you escape, promise you’ll find me?’
He turned to her, and she saw his eyes glassy with tears. He ran his hand along her jaw, making her shiver.
‘I’d never stop looking.’
Katya put her head on his shoulder, and he wrapped his arms around her. The two of them rocked there for a while, and then sat down together against the balustrade. Katya felt a strange freedom in the way the sun warmed her skin: the same sun that fell on her home across the sea, the same light. From somewhere, the maddening smell of apricots drifted to her, making her mouth water.
They stayed up there for hours, watching the muted comings and goings of the city. A peanut seller rolled past with his cart, and gave some to the armed men waiting outside the museum, without taking any money. Patrols stopped on the street to chat with the guards. A woman put up washing to dry on a nearby rooftop. Around midday, Katya looked over the balustrade and saw with a stir that Abu Ammar was standing on the fairway in the palm-tree shade. He was giving some kind of sermon to his men.
‘“If you see the black banners coming from Khorasan, join their army,”’ he was reciting in English, his voice cool and clear. ‘“The East and the West will gather against us. Soon they will fight us with one hand.”’
Every so often while they sat there, Salim’s phone would buzz and bring him some piece of news or rumour. Every time, he hunched over its screen, shielding it from the sun with his hand, and repeated it to Katya in that same dark tone.
‘They’re lashing people in the Bab al-Tub Square … they’re searching vehicles for hideaways … they’ve killed the professors in the university, and moved heavy equipment into the campus … they’ve set up checkpoints on the roads …’
She wrote out a message to her mother on his phone and tried to send it. ’Mum, please don’t worry about me,’ it said. ’I’m safe, I love you.’ She wasn’t surprised to see the ‘sending failed’ message when it came. As the sun set, and the moon came out a perfect white, Katya looked up into the deep blue sky, where a tiny dot glinted like a star, circling higher than any bird: a drone, a distant eye watching and waiting. She waved at it and brushed the hair from her face as the wind picked up around her.
That night, she and Salim lay down together on her mattress, and Lola came to join them, the three of them curled up together. When she closed her eyes, Katya felt the illusion of her hands moving over objects, the way legs can still feel the motion of the sea after hours on land.
‘We have to get out of here,’ Salim murmured. ‘We have to escape.’
‘How?’
‘We’d need a car. We wouldn’t get far on foot. Some weapons. Some way of getting out of here unseen. A distraction.’
‘But if we tried, and they caught us …’ Katya whispered. She could feel Salim shaking beside her.
‘They’ve already caught us. Katya, never trust a word they tell you. You’ve made this deal, but you have no idea what you’re doing. The moment we run out of pieces for them to sell, they’re going to kill all three of us, or make us wish we were dead. Outside … in the city … Athir says they’ve been crucifying people.’
In the dark, she heard the papery sound of his lips moving together in silent prayer. She ran her fingers along the line of his bow-shaped lips. When she slept, she dreamed that she was responsible for hundreds of little statues, some the size of small children, others as small as mice, all with wide black eyes. Some were in good condition; others fell apart even as she tried to hold them together. She woke up and found someone choking her. A shadow above her, crushing its hand into her throat so she couldn’t breathe. Then she woke up again, gasping and reaching to her throat in the dark. Salim was gone. There were sounds coming from the hall, the sound of shuffling footsteps. She got up and peered out of her door, into the lines of the exhibits. She saw a dark figure in the hall, a little hunched. Her skin went cold. It turned, and the shape in the dark resolved into the figure of Salim.
‘Salim, what are you doing?’
‘Nothing,’ he said. ‘I just had an idea.’
‘Salim, what are you …’
‘It’s nothing. Nothing. Go back to sleep.’
Aurya
Aurya woke up feeling as if she were suspended on ropes, swinging in the breeze, and her eyes swam. She fo
und that she was being carried in a piece of cloth that smelled of ash and cinnamon. A figure was holding either end, and through the cloth they looked like men made of shadow. Panic crawled over her. They thought that she was dead. They were carrying her to her grave, to be buried.
‘No!’ she croaked and thrashed out in fear. ‘I’m not dead! I’m still alive!’
One of the men burst out laughing. She craned her neck and saw that it was Abil. He was struggling a little with his end, while Sharo held the other.
‘That’s good to hear.’
‘It’s all right, Aurya,’ Sharo’s voice said, and Aurya twisted to see him better. ‘You fainted. But we’re going to see Enkidu now. We’re going to see my lion!’
Dread still echoed around her body. She tested her legs and stood up, weak and cold, the world like a reflection in a pool that someone had disturbed. There was the taste of vomit still in her mouth.
‘The King,’ she said, feeling a rush of embarrassment. ‘I threw up in front of the King.’
‘He’s seen worse, I think,’ Abil said. ‘Once an emissary from Judea came to see him during the war, and the King made him stand on one leg for the whole of their meeting. The man wet his robes.’
Aurya noticed that there were still specks of oil on Abil’s cloak and legs. The image of that head, the oil dripping down its face, its white eyes and the way the King had cackled as it was strung up in the tree, kept flashing back into her mind.
‘Who was that man?’ she asked. ‘That head?’
‘That was the old King of Elam,’ Abil said. ‘He died years ago. That was the last time we marched up into the hills, and the last time the Elamites made war on us.’
‘Our father fought in that war,’ Aurya said. ‘And against the Medes.’
‘It was a hard war.’
They soon arrived at a squat building off the palace’s outer courtyard. They were met there by a shirtless man with a shaved head and a thick mat of hair on his chest. He was chewing something breathily.
‘These two are here to see the lions,’ Abil said. ‘Did the King send you a tablet about this?’
‘Yes yes yes,’ he muttered, and turned inside, gesturing for them to follow and chewing a little faster as he went.
‘I have to go,’ Abil said, catching Aurya’s gaze with a nervous flash. ‘But I’ll see you soon, when Master Bel-Ibni comes to inspect the carvings.’
‘Thanks,’ Aurya said. ‘See you soon I hope.’
She took Sharo by the hand, and they both followed the animal keeper inside. She noticed the patterned tattoos that wound up one of his arms, dots and lines intertwining along the wrist. The smells of hay and animal urine were heavy in the air, huffing noises from the stalls. Horses were stabled there, feet hobbled with ropes, and further on, donkeys and a pen of camels that groaned like old men. Sharo’s eyes were wide with joy at the sight of the animals, and his memory-pain didn’t seem to bother him.
They stepped outside into a rear area where a balustrade overlooked a sunken enclosure. When Aurya reached the parapet, ripples of horror washed over her. Below were maybe a dozen lions: huge males with thick, matted manes of black and gold; lean females with sharp eyes; young lions with manes only half-grown. They were lounging on the pit’s shady side, purring and grunting to each other in their own language. Aurya thought of all the dreams she’d ever had about lions chasing her through the reeds; all the dreams about her mother, and one of these beasts dragging her away. Sharo struck his palms together in excitement.
‘Look Aurya – there he is!’
He pointed, and she followed his finger. There in the corner, slightly away from the other lions, was the young male that Aurya had first seen in the old village pit. It was curled in on itself, eyeing the other lions with suspicion but not fear. It licked the wound on its rear foot, fringed by a new growth of pink skin.
‘He’s doing well, Aurya,’ Sharo said. ‘His foot’s healing.’
‘Yes, Sharo. Looks like it is.’ She glanced at her brother, bobbing on his toes on the parapet edge. ‘What is it about them?’ she asked. ‘Why do you like the lions so much?’
Sharo looked at her and blinked.
‘They’re the last really wild things left.’
The shirtless animal keeper watched them without curiosity, scratching his belly. Aurya saw that on the parapet on the other side of the lion pit, a goat was waiting with its feet tied together, its eyes rolling back in its head in fear at the sounds and smells from the pit below. She thought it would be better if Sharo didn’t see that part.
‘Thank you for showing us,’ she said to the animal keeper. ‘I’m sure he’ll come back to see them again soon.’
The animal keeper shrugged. Whatever he was chewing seemed to fill him with a kind of vacant calm.
‘Any time he likes. Before the spring, of course.’
‘What happens in the spring?’
He made the lazy motion of an arrow being pulled back in a bow, and then gestured towards the palace. Aurya’s stomach dropped. She looked to see if Sharo had seen it, but he hadn’t; he was leaning over the balustrade, bouncing a little on his feet, looking down at his lion.
‘Be careful, Sharo,’ she said. ‘Don’t fall in.’
Aurya and Sharo rejoined the masons at the palace entrance. Aurya took Sharo’s arm and walked back through the city with the apprentices. Nineveh had turned sleepy in the heat of midday. Men sat in the shaded spots between buildings, playing games with knuckle bones on lacquered tables, groups crouched around the same beer jars, sucking from their reed straws and laughing in hoots. The whole place looked different now. Menace shifted beneath everything.
In one open square near the river, Aurya saw a crowd gathered in front of a platform where women and men bound with ropes and chains were standing, wearing only filthy cloths, their heads newly shaved. A fat man with a thin stick was calling out prices to the crowd, and they were shouting back at him.
‘What are they doing?’ Aurya asked Harkhuf the Egyptian.
‘They’re selling slaves,’ he said with tired eyes. ‘The King had a good war in Medea last season. Means the price has really dropped.’
‘Those are Medes?’ Aurya said. They didn’t have hair like animals or mouths full of pointed teeth. They looked like normal people. A woman was dragged up on to the platform next, some clumps of hair still clinging to her shaved scalp, and the frenzy of the crowd increased. Aurya turned a corner in the street before she could see what happened. As they climbed the hill back to the masons’ workshop, hungry children followed the procession of masons at a distance. The master clucked his tongue at them and pretended to pick up a stone from the street, which made them scatter, a trick people used on dogs.
As soon as they got back to the workshop, the apprentices began their work. The Egyptian handed Aurya his tablet, the shape of the King scratched into its wax surface. The men all copied out their lines on the stone with charcoal, and Aurya couldn’t help staring as the King’s face came into view: the shape of his jaw, the geometry of his almond eyes. She could see the artful flicks of the wrist the apprentice gave to each stroke.
After a few moments, an apprentice to her left, who was sketching the King’s chair and table, faltered. He let out a whimper. He looked at his wax tablet again, and then back down at the stone.
‘Master,’ he said, and the mason grunted. ‘Master, there’s a problem.’
The master mason didn’t look over.
‘What is it?’
‘Master, I made a mistake.’
‘No,’ the master growled, swinging around.
‘I took the impression correctly,’ the apprentice stammered. ‘But when the girl … when she fainted, I went to catch her, and I must have smudged the sketch I made.’
‘What do you mean? Smudged where?’
‘Here, my lord. The King’s new chair and table. I can’t see the design on this side.’
The master hurried over and peered at the tablet. The colour d
rained from his face. He seized the apprentice by the front of his wool cloak, then struck him hard on the cheek so he dropped his tablet and stylus. The crack of the blow made all the other apprentices flinch and stop their work.
‘The chair! The table! You idiot, how could you come back here without them? You know how the King is about details. You saw how proud he was of that new table.’
‘Master, I’m sorry. Please forgive me.’
Aurya watched with a cold guilt creeping over her, the man’s cheek turning red. She knew this was it: that the mason would now throw them both into the streets.
‘Can’t you go back to the palace?’ Aurya said, her voice tiny. ‘Take another sketch?’
The master’s hard gaze rounded on her. The apprentice’s eyes turned watery and large, and he shook his head, silently pleading with her to be quiet.
‘Go back to the palace, in the middle of the King’s ablutions?’ the master hissed. ‘I might as well cut off my own hand. And tomorrow he’s out in the Westlands, and then the day after that … smash all their heads!’ he screamed, and his face went bright red. ‘I should have known this would happen, taking in urchins off the street!’
Behind her, Sharo scuffed the earth with his heel.
‘I can do it,’ he said.
‘You keep quiet, boy,’ the master growled, jabbing one shaking finger at him. ‘By all the gods, I will have you out of my workshop by tomorrow.’
‘No, I can do it,’ Sharo said. ‘Look.’
He bent down and took the stylus dropped by the apprentice, then squatted down in the white dust covering the ground and began to sketch out the design of the table: the lion feet on each leg, the decorative finials, the ornate central piece. As the master watched, he let the apprentice go, and his jaw became looser in his skull.
‘What is this? What are you doing, boy?’
‘This is the table,’ Sharo said. ‘And this is the chair design.’
All Our Broken Idols Page 20