All Our Broken Idols

by Paul M. M. Cooper

  He left soon after, and Abil gave Aurya an apologetic look as he followed. Her heart gave a gentle tug to see him go.

  ‘Think about what I said,’ he told her as he left. ‘About the tablet house.’

  ‘I will.’

  Aurya felt truly alone. Later in the day, a crier went around announcing details of a runaway slave. Lamentations sounded from a death down the street. The workshop dust filled her lungs, her hair, settled on her eyelashes.

  She felt clumsier every day. She made ugly scars with slipped chisels and pinched her skin with the mallet. Bruises swelled like purple berries across her fingers. When she tried to brush the dust from her work surface, small slivers of knife-sharp stone would slice little cuts in her hand. Sharo moved on to carving vine leaves, birds, bunches of grapes. The master mason would stand right behind him as he worked, peering over his shoulder.

  ‘And you did this just from memory?’ he would say of a piece Sharo had made, showing birds resting in the curls of a grapevine.

  ‘Yes, of course,’ Sharo would reply. He never seemed pleased or proud of what he was making, but Aurya hadn’t seen his memory-pain trouble him for days now. All this time, Aurya felt that sliver of stone sink deeper into her heart. Sharo knew something about her mother that he wasn’t telling her. He claimed she was dead, but wouldn’t tell Aurya how she died. And he would never help her find the house of dust.

  When everyone had left the workshop, and the evening light slanted down through the canopy, turning the dust in the air into columns of gold, Aurya went over to look at Sharo’s carving. She ran her fingers over its surface. It was beautiful: well-proportioned and detailed, lovingly shaped and polished. But it had something else too, something she couldn’t name. She looked at the birds caught in mid-preen, tipping their heads to one side and looking at the bunches of grapes with the little beads of their eyes. The stone felt alive. Aurya’s fingers tingled a little to touch it. Jealousy boiled in her gut. With a kind of numb shock, Aurya realised that for the first time in her life, her brother didn’t need her.

  Aurya looked out over the city, at the white smoke rising from workshops and houses, the coloured awnings flapping everywhere, the palms and the rolling greenery cloaking the river, the floating bridge of boats thick with traffic, and wondered where in this huge city she would ever find her mother.

  The first time Aurya ran away, she expected to get in trouble. She thought she might be punished or beaten for it, but any clue about her mother would be worth a hundred beatings. After the first meal, she had wrapped her cloak around her shoulders and taken a basket of rubble with her down to the gate of the workshop as though to empty it over the wall. She felt the eyes of the apprentices as she went. Then when she reached the gate, she dropped into its shade, pulled the cloak over her head like a shawl and left the basket behind. No one had spotted her. She kept on walking, down the hill and past the beggar children, not quite believing that she’d got away with it.

  Down near the river, she found markets and workshops at the water’s edge, weeds growing up through cracked jars. She didn’t speak to anyone at first. She ran away from some drunks gathered in a doorway who shouted at her. But in one workshop, an old woman sitting in a pile of coloured fabrics saw her and offered her a date. She took it.

  ‘I’m looking for my mother,’ Aurya said.

  ‘Poor child,’ the woman said, in a strange accent. ‘Where did you last see her?’

  ‘I’ve never seen her. But I heard she’s somewhere called the house of dust. Do you know where it is?’

  The old woman closed her eyes and shook her head, turning her face away, and after this she wouldn’t say another thing. Aurya spent the day near the quays on the river, watching the ships unloading, wondering which of them had sailed past her old home on the riverbank.

  When she returned to the workshop in the evening, she expected a beating at least. But the master seemed not to have noticed she’d been gone. He’d been teaching Sharo to use the circle-drawing tools, half-moon implements that turned against the stone with minute precision. Her brother looked up for a moment when he saw Aurya come in, but the mason paid her no attention.

  As the weeks went by, she went walking in the city more and more. She learned the names of the different districts, the different gates. She held her nose as she walked through the streets lined with mud and waste, where people stayed close to the house walls to avoid the foul water, and merchants charged tips to let women ride their buffalo across. She watched the brick kilns in the south belch smoke and the soot-covered men, the heaps of broken pottery higher than the roofs. She learned where to find the copper market, the fish market, the grain market. She smelled the evil spirits that lurked in the courtyard drains, covered with planks of wood. She saw people vomiting in the streets, and men in drinking houses taking women into the back rooms. She got chased by a gang once, and by a pack of dogs another time, both times climbing on to a rooftop to escape. She saw a dead body in an alleyway, swollen and flyblown, half-eaten by the dogs. She learned how to recognise the Babylonian dialect, the Phoenician dialect, how the tenants beneath the Ishtar Gate elongated their vowels when angry, or how the Judean women in the east would snort when they laughed and sat veiled in their shops, how the bakers in the Elamite quarter put cloves in their bread. She heard all the city’s rumours, and the news of wars and rebellions and famines that trickled in from the empire’s edges as though from another world. Nineveh: when she tried to think of it all, to hold everything she’d seen in her head, it made her feel a strange kind of fear.

  Everywhere she went, she asked people for the house of dust. It had a strange effect. They closed their eyes or shook their heads. They mumbled a mysterious reply or just hurried on, casting words of protection over her as if she were a wandering shade who’d taken human form to trick them.

  It was a day like this that Aurya saw the army leave for war. Sharo had gone to see his lion, and she wandered out into the city. She was loitering on a scaffold near the fruit market when a horseman came trotting down the street on a white horse, leather wrapped around the bottom of its hooves. He shouted, ‘Clear the street! The army of Ashur approaches.’

  The fruit seller beneath her packed up the persimmons he’d laid on the street as though a storm was coming. The first soldiers came marching into the market square with the blare of trumpets and thumping drums. Aurya sat and watched as the spear-men and the archers came past, the men with their woven shields and spears clattering together over their heads, their thick beards and pointed helmets catching the sun. Then the cavalry on their horses, and the brightly painted chariots with studded wheels. Another column of spear-men came past, and then a huge siege engine like a wooden building, rolling on giant iron-studded wheels. It went on and on: hundreds of men, then thousands. By the time the sun was high overhead, the men were still marching past. They had been marching for hours. Aurya became sure that the same men were passing her again and again, that they were turning off into some side street and doubling back around. She climbed a little higher on the scaffold, and looked out over the walls, to where the snaking column darkened the road far-off into the distance, an endless stream of soldiers so vast she couldn’t see the end. After that, the whole thing seemed frightening: that there should be so many men, that they should all be marching out to destroy some place she’d never seen.

  That night, she dreamed that she was marching in that endless column, and that people ahead of her were whispering about something terrible that lay ahead. No one knew what it was, but they knew it was terrifying. No one could turn around; the tide of men drew them all on. Aurya tried to escape the column, but the marching bodies pressed in around her on either side. Ahead, the sky was turning orange, flickering with flames and belching smoke. All together, the men began to sing.

  The last months of spring passed slowly in Nineveh. The fifty days of heat were on their way, and in the fields outside the walls, the fresh grass was growing. On the slopes where the
sun fell, flowers grew like a foam, and the sky over the city was filling with birds. People slept in the afternoons, in the shade of awnings.

  The King didn’t leave with his army. He rarely did, preferring to let his generals deal with his wars while he toured the kingdom or spent time with his soothsayers. He visited the mason’s workshop one day when Aurya was there. She was glad she’d stayed; the King brought with him his servant and Bel-Ibni, who was wearing brilliant robes in orange and magenta, and Abil came with them. Aurya thought that he’d grown taller since she’d last seen him. She had too: her limbs were starting to feel too long, which didn’t help her clumsiness. Abil’s eyes sparkled a little when he saw her, but he was busy attending to his master.

  ‘All health to your majesty,’ the master mason said, and fell to his knees. ‘I am your dog and servant.’

  The King was wearing plain white robes that day, so it was almost blinding to look at him in the sun. He swept from place to place, impatient to see his garden scene.

  ‘These clothes, Bel-Ibni … How much longer did you say I have to wear them?’ he bellowed at one point.

  ‘Just the twentieth and twenty-first, my lord. Until the danger of an eclipse passes.’

  ‘Shamash, they itch …’

  The carvings were nearly finished, and Sharo had even been allowed to perform some small detail work on the edges, and on the table and royal seat. The King leant down and inspected the minute vines and flowers, the cups and whisks held by the attendants. He reached out and brushed the powdered stone from the carving of the table.

  ‘This detail around the chair and the table is magnificent,’ he said. ‘Who did this?’

  ‘My lord,’ the master mason gushed, ‘it was the boy you brought here from the riverbank, in your infinite wisdom. He has a gift for the art of stone.’

  The King turned around and looked at Sharo, who was standing still and silent, his eyes fixed.

  ‘I knew it,’ the King said. ‘Didn’t I say so, Bel-Ibni?’

  ‘Many times, my lord,’ said the servant. The King rattled the gold-flowered band on his wrist.

  ‘Well done, boy. And his sister? How is she doing?’

  Aurya pretended to get on with some work, moving her hands busily but uselessly around the piece of stone she was working on.

  ‘Not nearly as well, my lord. I really think that …’

  ‘Brothers and sisters should always stick together,’ the King sighed, and looked up into the sky. ‘Sometimes I wonder if my own brother … if we had known each other better at that age. Maybe it could all have been avoided.’

  ‘Who knows what the fates hold for different paths?’ the master mason mumbled, and he mopped some sweat from his neck and behind his ears. He cast Aurya a look full of bitterness.

  ‘Well, this looks very good, very good,’ the King said.

  ‘Can I come and see my lion today?’ Sharo blurted out, and everyone muttered nervously at his almost interrupting his majesty.

  ‘Of course, river boy. You should see him while you can. There’s not much time left!’

  ‘What do you mean?’ Sharo asked.

  ‘Well, it’s nearly time for the hunt. Just a week now, isn’t that right, Bel-Ibni?’

  ‘That’s right, my lord.’

  ‘The hunt?’ Sharo said, furrowing his brow. ‘What are the lions hunting?’

  There was a moment of silence, and then the King burst out in laughter, and slapped his hands together with a boom. Everyone else hurriedly joined in and tittered. Sharo just stood there, not understanding, and Aurya couldn’t bear to look.

  ‘You will give your apprentices the day off work,’ the King said before preparing to leave. ‘They will all want to see the hunt, I imagine!’

  The master mason bowed.

  ‘Of course, your majesty.’

  Aurya got to speak to Abil briefly before the King’s entourage left. She noticed the crescents of clay under his fingernails.

  ‘Is it any better for you now?’ he asked.

  ‘No. I still hate it here,’ Aurya said. ‘I want to come to the tablet house. I want to learn how to read.’

  ‘You can. Tell me any time you want, and I’ll ask the teacher. He owes me a favour since I got him an audience with Bel-Ibni.’

  Aurya looked at Sharo, who was standing there alone among the chattering apprentices, still wondering about what the King had said. She felt that little sliver of stone sink deeper into her heart.

  ‘When they kill that lion, it’s going to destroy him. I’ll be the only person who can calm him down.’

  ‘I hope you do come to the tablet house,’ Abil said. He seemed a little braver than he’d been before.

  ‘Me too. I sometimes go and sit in the fruit market, near the old palm. Will you come meet me there on market days? You can tell me some of the stories you’re learning to read from.’

  ‘I will. I promise.’

  He got up to follow his master. A little whirlwind of dust was gathering and dancing in the afternoon air.

  That night, Aurya dreamed of the heat and smell in the animal enclosure. She was walking past the stalls where the horses and camels were kept, but there were people inside in their place. Their eyes followed her as she walked past, terrified eyes peeking through the gaps in the wood. She could hear them whispering: ‘Murderer … murderer … murderer.’

  ‘I’m not,’ she tried to say, but they just kept on whispering. With a growing sense of dread, she walked to the sunken lion enclosure. Fearful noises came from the bottom. The lions were down there, lying and sleeping in the dust. Sharo’s lion was there, curled into the shape of a half moon, and curled up beside it was Sharo.

  ‘Sharo!’ Aurya cried out to him. ‘What are you doing down there? They’ll kill you.’

  Sharo didn’t look up. Was he already dead? The lion lying beside him lifted its huge head and fixed its enormous yellow eyes on her. Its jaws opened and its long pink tongue lolled out.

  ‘He’ll never help you find her,’ it rasped. ‘You’re on your own now.’

  Aurya shot awake with a gasp. She turned and saw Sharo lying with his back to her, curled in that same half-moon position. The birds outside were beginning to call.

  Katya

  The morning came with a strange silvery light that settled over everything. The world to Katya looked slick, sheened as though made of chrome. Salim still had no reply from Athir, and they kept repeating the same questions to each other. Had the text gone through? Would he be able to hide the parts on such short notice? Could he do it without getting caught? Salim checked his phone every minute as they ate chickpeas straight from the tin and talked over their plan. Neither of them had much of an appetite, but they knew they had to eat.

  ‘There’s no way of telling if it went through,’ Salim said. ‘And if we go out there, take all this risk, and nothing’s there?’

  Katya pressed her tongue gently against the sharp edge of the can, felt the tingle of the ragged metal’s charge.

  ‘There’s no backing out now,’ she said, unable to summon anything more reassuring. ‘We’ll find out soon enough.’

  After breakfast, Katya and Salim stood in the museum entrance hall and waited for Abu Ammar and his men. Lola was hiding upstairs, which she normally did when the men came to the museum. Katya hadn’t told her about their plan. As Katya had hugged her and told her they’d be back soon, she looked at the girl’s stubborn face and had a sudden vision of what would happen if they were caught. She thought of Lola waiting up there all day for them to return, alone and scared in the museum.

  ‘Lola … stay safe. Please. If the men come here, hide, or try to escape any way you can.’

  The girl nodded grimly and wrapped Katya in a hug.

  Down in the museum hall, nerves sung in Salim’s voice.

  ‘So … You remember what we have to do?’

  ‘Yeah.’ That same quaver in her own voice. ‘When you think it’s clear, you start digging near the tree, try to find the par
ts if they’re there. Then I cause some kind of distraction.’

  ‘Yes. Save it until I move over to the tree.’

  ‘Yup. And then you wrap up the fan belt in the canvas with your digging tools.’

  ‘If it’s there.’

  ‘If it’s there. But what if …’

  There was a sharp series of thuds on the museum door. Metal, the butt of a rifle. Katya met Salim’s eye, and he squeezed her hand.

  ‘Let’s do this,’ he said. The door opened, and Abu Ammar entered with two men wearing scarves, balaclavas and stolen military gear. Katya was glad at least that the skull man wasn’t among them.

  ‘What’s this?’ Abu Ammar sneered, and pointed at Salim. ‘You didn’t say anything about bringing him.’

  ‘I need him,’ Katya said.

  ‘No way. He’s staying here.’

  Katya held him in her gaze. Don’t show weakness.

  ‘He knows the site better than anyone. I won’t be able to find anything without him.’

  Abu Ammar ground his teeth and gave a long breath through his nose. But he shrugged and gestured to the men. They roughly handled Katya and Salim, zipped their hands together with cable ties and marched them outside, where a car was waiting that smelled of cigarette smoke and mud. The men put sacks over their heads, and Katya breathed in the smell of whatever it once held, a rich perfumed smell like nutmeg that made her want to sneeze. It was sweltering in the car, and the zip tie cut into her wrists where they were still tender and scabbed from the nights in the cupboard. Through the weave of the fabric, she could see points of light, the shadowy backs of two men in the front seats. Abu Ammar was in the passenger seat, she thought. The third man sat in the back with her and Salim, but he didn’t sit between them. Katya felt Salim’s thigh against hers. She reached out her little finger and touched his hand, feeling the warmth of his skin. She felt him flinch in surprise, but then he touched hers back.

  The journey felt longer than usual. Katya described the position of the site to the men, but had no idea if they were taking the right turns. Eventually the car stopped, and those same rough hands pulled them out.