“Barbara had begun to calm down. She was sixteen now, and I figured she was becoming more mature. She asked me to bring home some matches from the Masal Café, saying she needed more than were available in the house. I couldn’t refuse such a simple request. After all, there were enough matches in the house to burn it down, so I assumed she wanted them for something inconsequential.
“The evening Eshkhan lost the pigeon war and his peşenk was killed, I stole one hundred matches from the Masal and gave them to Barbara. She kissed me. That was the first time anybody other than Poor Anahid or Zovik had kissed me. I watched her break the phosphorus tip of each match and swallow it. After the fourth or fifth, I asked her what she was doing. She waved me away with a dismissive flick of the wrist. She swallowed the tips one by one.
“The house woke up to the sound of her crying and retching. Poor Anahid, Zovik, and I huddled in the doorway and watched as her father tried to examine her, as her sister tried to comfort her, as her mother tried to talk to her. Barbara had the yellowest skin I had ever seen.
“And Zovik whispered, ‘You don’t trample upon fate. Evil will close its circle.’
“Barbara vomited and vomited. Her sister was holding her. Her mother began to cry. She called out, ‘Barbara, Barbara, talk to me. What’s going on?’ But she wouldn’t touch her daughter. When the doctor noticed the broken matches on the ground and under the bed, he moaned, ‘Oh, no.’ Her mother saw, and the first word out of her mouth was a strident ‘Whore.’
“Barbara vomited some more. Her father whimpered, ‘You didn’t have to take so many.’ He looked vanquished. His eyes seemed to be melting. Her mother’s eyes were afire. ‘How could you do this? How could you be so disloyal? How could you betray your faith?’ she hollered.
“ ‘If you had only told me,’ the doctor said. ‘You are my child. For you, I would have done it. For you, I would have gotten rid of the baby.’
“Barbara had trouble breathing. Her life evaporated before our eyes. She clutched her father’s wrist. She said, ‘I did not pleasure him enough,’ and gasped her last breath.
“Of course, I didn’t go to work that day. The doctor’s wife went crazy. She went to her room and began to pack. ‘I am leaving hell,’ she said. Thank God, no one asked where Barbara had gotten the matches. But then the doctor’s wife came up to me and yelled, ‘You live while your better died. I want you out of this house.’ She moved toward me, but Poor Anahid quickly shoved me behind her. The doctor’s wife slapped Poor Anahid and retreated to her room.
“Poor Anahid sent me to our room and told me not to come out no matter what was happening. I stayed there for hours and heard all kinds of things going on in the house. Then one of the pigeoneer’s assistants arrived. I thought he was going to ask me to go to work, but he told Zovik that Mehmet no longer had any need for my services. Mehmet also suggested that I leave town, because Eshkhan had vowed to kill me in front of four witnesses. He had been told that I whistled, captured his peşenk, and killed him with my own hands.
“It wasn’t true, of course. But who would believe me? I wouldn’t be able to convince Eshkhan. And if I did, then maybe Mehmet would kill me. I was in trouble. Zovik and Poor Anahid were crying in our room. The doctor’s wife was crying in hers.
“Poor Anahid and Zovik decided that I should leave as soon as possible. They were at their wits’ end and knew no one I could be sent to. I told them that I knew someone who might help. We left our room quietly, tiptoeing along the corridor, hoping not to be seen, and went to see Serhat Effendi. The effendi said I should go far away. He had a cousin stationed in Cairo. He had not written to him in a while, wasn’t sure where he was exactly, but the effendi could find out his address in a month’s time. Poor Anahid told him I didn’t have a month. He said I should go to Cairo anyway. There should be no problem finding his cousin, since there couldn’t be that many Turks in Cairo. He gave me a letter and money to buy train and boat tickets.
“The only thing I knew about Egypt was that Abraham and Moses and Hagar left it and were happy never to return. Back at home, Poor Anahid packed my few clothes. ‘You can’t go to Cairo,’ she said. ‘How will you find his cousin? That’s just crazy.’ ‘And do you think a Turk will take in an Armenian orphan just because his cousin asked him to?’ said Zovik. ‘You must go somewhere safer,’ said Poor Anahid. ‘Beirut. Go to Beirut. Seek out the Christians. Go to a monastery. They will feed you and care for you.’ I knew less about Beirut.
“I said my last goodbyes to Zovik and Poor Anahid. I didn’t say goodbye to my father,” my grandfather said to me. “I came to Beirut and created our story.”
The cold made me shiver, and I huddled closer to the stove. My grandfather drank his bitter tea, a palliative for his digestive problems. “When I’m no longer in this world,” Grandfather said, “and they ask whether you believed me, what will you say?”
I didn’t think he expected a reply. He sat next to his stove, looking dejected. His pant legs were pulled up high enough that I could see his pale, hairless shins.
“You’re eleven now,” he said, “and I was eleven.…” His voice trailed into nothingness before he whispered, “You know now who I am.” He removed the metal lid of the stove with the spatula and threw in his spent cigarette. He stood slowly, creakily, and stomped to his room. When he came out, he handed me an old white kerchief. “You are my blood,” he said. “This is for you.”
Inside the kerchief was a jewel, a tiny turquoise Fatima’s hand with dark-brown and black blood encrusted in its grooves.
Five
The entire palace buzzed with stories of Fatima’s arrival. Some said the slave girl had come back on a flying carpet, which rose back into the heavens after the traveler alighted. Fatima had returned with a herd of jeweled elephants. She was accompanied by a band of brigands or a thousand jinn. She wore a crown of rubies. She wore a robe of gold.
The emir and his wife interrupted their breakfast on the terrace and hurried into the palace. The vizier and the courtiers were gathered around Fatima in the throne room. Fatima greeted the emir and his wife with the requisite courtesy. The emir was oblivious to the change, but his wife realized, not without some weariness and concern, that the woman before them was no longer a slave. Fatima bowed too well. The emir insisted she regale them with stories of her adventures, and she did, albeit with a few omissions: adventures, yes; assignations, no.
“Will the healer be able to help us?” the emir’s wife asked.
“Absolutely. She gave me the cure.”
“And the underworld? You entered Afreet-Jehanam’s domain and he gave you back your hand?” the emir asked.
“He felt I earned it.”
“Preposterous,” the vizier scoffed.
“It was as I said,” Fatima replied.
“Are you certain?” the emir said. “No one can doubt your courage, Fatima. There is little need to salt and pepper the story.”
“She arrived on a flying carpet,” said one of the courtiers. “I saw her. She descended from the heavens.”
“The underworld is not up there,” the vizier said. “No man has ever descended to a demon’s lair and made it back alive. This tale is a lie. I would suggest the slave girl offer some proof of her exotic journey.”
“Would you be willing to place a wager?” Fatima asked. “If I produce proof, are you willing to surrender everything you have on you at this moment?”
And the vizier agreed. Fatima brought her left palm to her face and blew on it. Red dust appeared, multiplied, and formed a cloud that hovered before her. The imp Ishmael ran out of the dust. His brother Isaac followed, toward the vizier. “I claim all the gold,” he said. Fatima’s breath turned into orange dust upon touching her palm, and Ezra jumped out. Jacob ran out yelling, “The jewelry is all mine.” Job disagreed. “It is mine, I tell you.” The dust kept swirling above Fatima’s palm, then turned blue, and Noah emerged, followed by Elijah. Violet Adam was last.