Seeker of Stars: A Novel

by Fish, Susan

  As we finished our meal, our father nodded to Salvi.

  “Gather your things,” he said. Salvi jumped up with a yell that pierced the stillness. Now his fate was clear, and it was what he had hoped. Our father shuffled off to bed. He was over the paralysis of grief, but our mother’s death had left him soured and hardened.

  “I’ll get my pipe.” Uncle Taz gestured at the roof.

  It was the only time on this visit that Uncle Taz and I sat together under the stars. He seemed to understand that my mother’s death had closed the book of my childhood. He spoke to me now as an equal, and I dropped the “uncle” in front of his name.

  “I tried, Melchi,” Taz said, sand trickling through his hands.

  “I know, and I’m grateful.”

  “You can learn from your father. He is a good man and a good rug maker.”

  “I know.”

  “He misses your mother.”

  “I know.”

  “It makes him lash out sometimes.”

  I smiled ruefully, fingering the bruise on my leg, where our father had thrown his sandal one day when I whistled as I walked through the workshop.

  “It won’t last forever,” said Taz. “Our father was the same after … our mother died. Be gentle with him, Melchi. And forgiving. Like Daria managed him.” When Taz said my mother’s name, his face twitched as though he was remembering a lost delight. I never knew whether Taz was in love with my mother, but he certainly loved her tenderly. And though he had many women, he never married.

  As Taz turned to go down the stairs, he paused and put his hand on my shoulder. “You are a good man too, Melchi.”

  Before I knew it, Salvi was preparing to climb up with Taz, who sat with the ropes in his hands. One hand upon his camel, Salvi turned to me. “Thank you, Melchi,” he said. “Don’t forget our sister.”

  I had forgotten the baby, and when the dust stirred up by the caravan had settled again, it gave me something to do when our father spent the early morning with his ledgers. I loaded figs, wine, and bread and carried them to our aunt’s house.

  When our aunt expressed surprise over not having seen anyone from our household for several days and inquired after our health, I explained the changes that had occurred.

  Our aunt chattered with surprise while I sat on the floor next to baby Daria on her goatskin.

  “Gone with Taz?” our aunt repeated. “I guess you boys are growing up. How is young Reta doing?”

  “Reta?”

  “The orphan girl. The one who makes your meals?”

  I had not been aware of her name. I shrugged and looked again at Daria, who gazed at me expectantly from her mat. I did not know what she wanted. “What do you do with her, Aunt Babu?”

  She smiled, perhaps recognizing my loneliness as well as my inexperience, and showed me ways to amuse a baby.

  That afternoon, our father took me into his workshop and showed me the tools he used and introduced me to the two men he employed. I had known them all my life, but instead of them slipping me bits of cheese from their meals as they would have done not long ago, they rose and shook my hand. My father was pleased with the questions I asked, and I saw happiness dawn on his face for the first time in a month.

  I settled into the routine of mindless dusty days in the workshop, ending, as I had predicted, with my head drooped on the table each evening. It was better that way. Better than staying awake with the hollowness of the house.

  ~ 3 ~

  Feasts

  When Salvi and Taz returned from that first trip, my brother had changed. His shoulders rippled, and his eyes had Taz’s ability to assess a situation in a moment. When he greeted me, though, Salvi commented on the changes in me—in my hands. I looked at them and realized how quickly they had grown to resemble our father’s: dye permanently ringing my fingernails, callouses at the base of each finger, and that annoying cut, which was daily aggravated by the strings of the loom.

  That first night, we were allowed to be boys again and to doze by the fire while Taz laughed and our father calculated profits. Salvi had stories to tell: a two-headed camel, a wall of sand rising during a storm, the men and women who danced naked under the stars. I scarcely listened in my immeasurable comfort at the presence of my brother and uncle. I could have missed my mother, but I was so hungry for happiness that I would not allow the grief to penetrate the moment. I found myself laughing, and the sound was foreign in my mouth and ears.

  The next morning our father took Taz and Salvi to see the rugs I had made in the workshop. “His fingers are still a bit clumsy,” our father explained, fingering the rug with a hint of a smile, “but he has the knack —and such an eye for detail.”

  “He gets that from his stargazing,” Taz said.

  “Honest work has helped Melchi forget his little hobby.” Our father patted my back.

  Taz looked at me. “Is this true, Melchi?”

  I shrugged. “I’m usually too tired. And it’s been a cloudy fall.”

  When our father proudly explained that I worked as long as he did, Taz became angry. “Melchi is still a boy!” he exclaimed. “Salvi sleeps nearly every afternoon as we travel.” (At this, Salvi protested.) “You’ll break the boy! There are worse pastimes than stargazing.”

  That night I lay rapt beneath the blanket of stars, enveloped in the beauty of the night. The next night I addressed Reta, who usually roused me in her attempts to retrieve my bowl, asking her to wake me fully so that I could go up to the roof rather than stagger off to bed. Meekly she agreed and never forgot the arrangement.

  As my body became that of a man’s, I began to look at girls the way my brother had and saw that they also were aware of me. I was taller now than our father, and I had work to do and responsibilities. This no doubt added to my appeal, but the only opportunities I had were under my father’s eyes, when we delivered a new rug to a neighbor’s or when our families met to share a feast.

  Late summer was a sociable time: gardens were harvested, animals were slaughtered, and feasts were held. Somehow the women worked out a schedule so we could share in one another’s bounty and no food would go to waste. Since my mother died, those who made such arrangements only sometimes remembered to include us, but my father’s workers never failed to invite us, and we in our turn hosted them. Garta was a young man with an industrious wife and no children; meals at their house filled me for days. The other, Manu, was a widower and the father of Leyla. Many of the boys admired Leyla, and as I watched her serve her father and mine, I could see why. Young Leyla had a woman’s body with full command of its powers. She sat next to my father, offering him dates and oranges from her bowl. Though she giggled often, no sandals did my father throw that night.

  I invited Leyla to come to the roof and was fully prepared for her to decline but was shyly pleased when she accepted. The next night, I was eagerly watching the light fade from the sky when I heard a noise behind me, and, excited to share my beauties, I turned to the waiting Leyla. As she moved toward me, her hips swayed sensuously. I was stunned.

  “What are you doing?” I managed to say, realizing in an instant that her interest in seeing the stars was feigned, or that perhaps she thought I was proposing an open-air tryst. Later I would consider the opportunity I had missed, but at that moment, I was only disappointed. Leyla, like my father, could not understand my passion.

  It became a test: I would invite girls to view the stars, and invariably they would think I spoke in some sort of code and would look at the stars in order to contrive a kiss. For a while, my contempt and passions melted together, and I accepted the beauties offered me. But I never invited those girls again.

  My friend Omar was now working with his father, making dyes, and we began to renew our friendship. A round, enthusiastic boy, Omar had always reminded me of a ripe date; now he had matured without losing any of his sweetness. When I invited O
mar to join me to view the stars, he was struck dumb at their beauty, as I had hoped Leyla would have been. Omar apprenticed with his father by day and with me by night until I had taught him everything I knew about the stars.

  One day, Omar came running to my workshop in the middle of the day. He held a scroll in his hands and offered it to me. Inside were diagrams of the stars and many words in a language I did not recognize. Omar had found the scroll in a stack brought back by one of his father’s men. Taz would know the language, I supposed. In the meantime, I pored over the drawings.

  That night when Reta woke me from the table, she gasped when she saw my scroll. Tears welled in her eyes. Tired as I was, this unusual display of emotion from the girl who was still largely invisible in our lives surprised me. “What is it?” I asked.

  “Your book,” she said. “It’s Hebrew.”

  “Hebrew?”

  “My mother tongue. Your book is a Hebrew book.”

  My chest tightened. “And you—can you—read Hebrew?” I asked.

  When Omar arrived, I was still at the table, listening to Reta as she faltered through the beginning of the book. The Hebrew descriptions of the beauties were less accurate than those of our own astronomers, but they had a cadence that caught the mystery of the heavens.

  Suddenly our lamp burned out. Omar yelled. I clapped a hand over his mouth. In the dark, Reta laughed quietly. I smiled.

  The next night, I invited Reta to join Omar and me in watching the stars. She agreed. My prize pupil Omar explained about the dance of the stars. I watched Reta’s eyes sparkle as she listened to Omar and then widen in amazement as she surveyed the skies. Tentatively she pointed out the patterns she had read about in our book. Reta did not come often—could not, I supposed—but when she did, she drank in the stars.

  One evening our class swelled to include a fourth—my uncle Taz. Reta retired to her room after Taz joined us. Taz indicated his pipe after her. “That one, Melchi—that one is a treasure.”

  I laughed and shook my head.

  “I’m serious. She’s fed you and that father of yours with his temperamental stomach. She knows her place, and she likes stars. What more could you ask, Melchi?”

  I laughed again. Taz was an incurable romantic, a bachelor always trying to marry us off.

  “She honestly is interested in the stars. Not like some.” I told him about the girls who had ignored the stars in their attempts to reveal their own beauties.

  Taz threw back his head and laughed. “Melchior! Melchior!” he gasped when he finally caught his breath. “Here you are at home with your out-of-the-world hobby, being propositioned left and right, and there’s your big brother traveling the world—and I have to pay the dancing girls to play with him a little. I knew you were the smart one, Melchi!” He laughed again, and soon we descended the stairs to sleep.

  Another night, Taz asked about Reta. I shrugged my shoulders, but Omar filled in details. An orphan of Jewish exiles, Reta had a large family in Israel but was not sure where or how she could find them. I was startled by how much Omar knew and wondered when he had learned it.

  “While you were looking at the stars,” Omar explained. “You shut everything else out then, Melchi.”

  ~ 4 ~

  Darkness

  One day, my world broke apart again. I was setting the strings of the loom when the bobbin crashed down, crushing my right hand and nearly severing my thumb. Threads wrapped around my mangled hand. I screamed at the sight. Manu sprang to my side. He began cutting the threads. My father stepped into the workshop.

  “What are you doing?”

  “Melchi’s hand,” Manu explained, not stopping.

  My father ran to me. My hand was bleeding freely. I felt faint as they untangled the web about my fingers. I willed myself to stay awake: if I fell, the threads would shred my hand. In my pain, I pictured the unmoving star, and, as in my dreams, I imagined myself grasping it and spinning about it. The stars were brighter than any I had ever seen. I wept for pain and for beauty. My arm tingled. Garta was back with the healer. She bound my hand with herbs. I was a child again, wrapped and carried. I was in my bed. Someone gave me bitter tea to drink. I fell into a starless darkness.

  Throbbing pain woke me. I was shaky, thirsty, frightened. When I saw a figure sitting next to my bed, I knew I must be sick if I was being attended at night. I assumed it was the healer, my aunt, or even Reta, but it was my father. He sat in the shadows, his eyes intent upon me. As I stirred, he rose and sat beside me. His tone was still gruff, but his manner was gentle as he spooned water into my parched mouth. For six days, until the risk of infection had waned, my father sat beside my bed at night. I am not certain he slept at all, but those days were hazy and confused.

  Still, I enjoyed the sensation of being cared for. As my father’s attention was devoted to me, I began to sense that the bitter absence that had filled him since my mother’s death had somehow eased, though I knew he had still never seen our sister, Daria, who was now seven years old.

  On the seventh day, the healer returned and changed the cloths on my hand herself. She looked intently at my thumb joint and nodded to herself.

  My father was watching her face with a matching intensity. When she nodded, he leaned forward. “Yes? Yes? He is recovering? He will work again soon?”

  At this, my stomach churned. I had not presumed much of my father, but I had assumed his concern for me was more paternal than proprietary.

  The healer was speaking. “It’s far too early to say,” she said in her clear voice. “You have done excellent work, keeping the wound clean. There is no infection, and that is the best I could have hoped for. It will be a full moon more before I can begin to know what will happen.”

  My father nodded. “I understand,” he said. “I can be patient.”

  During the next month I became a nocturnal creature, spending long nights with my beauties. When I watched them shift across the sky, I forgot my pain. The stars moved, but I remained still in my black uncertainty—and yet, I thought little about what would become of me. I joined my father for breakfast each morning, then slept all day until he returned at supper. One day Leyla came to visit me, rubbing wine on my temples when I agreed I had a bit of a headache. The smell of her aroused every fiber in my body, and her visit told me she had not been entirely discouraged or disgraced by my rejection two years before.

  Another day, my father roused me from bed to review the ledgers. As I added columns of figures in advance of Taz’s sales, I sensed I was being tested for a new role in the business. Though my mind was dulled, I caught my own errors quickly and was able to please my father. Writing the sums with my left hand was difficult, but I had learned to do many things with my left hand in the previous weeks.

  The day arrived for the healer to pronounce me healed. Salvi and Taz were to return soon, and I knew our father was behind in his preparation for their next trip. I had gone to bed early the night before, knowing that I would be back at work the hour the healer allowed.

  She arrived as we were finishing breakfast, unwound my bandages, and had me stretch and flex my fingers. I had secretly been doing so for more than a week. Though the skin was pale and wrinkled and the scar still fresh and red, I knew my hand was healed.

  The healer smiled as I demonstrated my muscles. Then she asked me to pick up a cup from the table. I was a scorpion with a broken claw—my fingers could not close to grasp or pinch. The smile on her face sank into a look of concentration, and she examined my thumb closely. I did not dare look at my father, but I could hear that he did not exhale.

  She shook her head, and my father sagged. “I was afraid of this,” she said slowly. “The accident severed the joint between your thumb and your fingers. I think the joint is dead. There was nothing more that any of us could have done. I am sorry, Melchior.”

  My father opened his mouth, closed it, opened it ag
ain as if to gasp for breath, and then turned and fled the house.

  Though he had disappeared within himself after my mother’s death, this time we did not see my father for three days. He missed Salvi leading the caravan for the first time, with Taz at his side. I had to explain what had happened, and I spent the first night of their return neither on the floor with Salvi, nor looking at stars, but adding figures with Taz. Salvi slipped out to look for old friends and did not come home till morning.

  ~ 5 ~

  Dream

  Soon after Salvi joined us, our father walked in. He was unshaven, but his face was as impassive as ever. He sat down to eat as though he had just arisen from a regular night’s sleep. Taz fell upon him with a tearful embrace.

  “My brother, we knew nothing of Melchi’s accident.”

  Taz’s tears reminded me that I had not wept myself. Reta brought tea to our father, who drank, oblivious to Taz weeping at his feet.

  Our father had missed that first evening, and there were matters to be settled now before work could be started. Once again I would be the object of their conversation, and as their scrutiny focused on me, like a single eye, I suddenly felt myself more grounded in reality than I had been since the accident. What had been unthinking, unworking limbo suddenly became fixity. I looked at the limb I had already learned to regard as useless, and tears welled up. I excused myself from the table, but our father held out an arm.