Part 20 (1/2)
He did not expect the answer she gave. He expected sympathy and advice, not fear.
She shrank back: ”Did you touch it?”
”I rolled it into a handkerchief,” he said.
”I meant, did it touch your skin?”
He tried to think. He had not wanted to touch it; instinctively he had taken it up in his handkerchief, wadding the fine lawn cotton around the object so that he would not feel its ridges and b.u.mps.
”I d-don't think so. No, I am sure.”
She had been holding her breath; now she exhaled slowly. ”And words? Did you use words?”
He shook his head. ”I did not know what to say.”
She frowned. ”Let me look at your eyes.”
She stared into them for a time, then slowly she raised her hands and outlined the form of his head and shoulders in the air.
”It is as I thought. You are cut off from G.o.d, Ibou.”
”I pray to G.o.d!”
She cupped her chin in her hand, and said musingly, ”Yes, you pray. But can he hear you, as you are? Do you have problems, Ibou? Pains, worries, that keep you awake at night?”
He stared at her, frightened a little. ”Yes.”
”I guessed it.”
She turned and began to rummage in a little silk bag.
”What are you doing?”
”What I can.” She took something from the bag and laid it beside her on the divan. Then she took his hands in hers. ”Someone has put a spell on you, Ibou. That is why when you pray, he cannot hear you.”
The aga's nostrils flared. ”What can you do?”
”We must find you a guide, to take you back.”
”You? C-Can you guide me back?”
She looked at the frightened man levelly. ”The choice does not lie with me. I cannot choose to be your guide to the light, Ibou. It is you who must choose.”
”Then-I choose you.”
She shook her head. ”How do we know that this is the choice of your heart? You have to draw your guide to you, Ibou. Listen. This is what you must do.”
68.
THE girl had shadows beneath her eyes, no doubt about it. Her face was drawn; at the rehearsal she had played so timidly that Donizetti had almost lost his patience.
”Violins! Violins!” He had tapped the lectern with his baton. ”No, no. This is not what I want.” He mimed a violinist crouched over her instrument, hands feebly shaking. ”No. Andante! Forza! Take the lead!” He swiped down with his invisible bow and glared at the violins.
The violins had looked nervously at Elif. Her eyes were downcast: she had no intention of meeting Donizetti's.
”Elif,” Tulin whispered. ”Are you all right? You look-” She had been about to say the girl looked ill, but it was unmannerly to be too direct. Unwise, perhaps: people said it brought the eye. She bit her lip: the word hung in the air, unspoken.
Elif looked at her nervously. ”What is it, Tulin? What can you see?”
”Are you eating well?”
”Eating?” Elif hesitated, as if she were thinking about this for the first time. ”Yes-no. I'm frightened, Tulin.”
Tulin smiled and patted the girl on her knee. ”What of? Some girl, is it? I can speak to her.” She said it with emphasis: she was older, the orchestra girls respected her.
Elif laced and unlaced her fingers on her lap. ”It's not what you think. Oh!” She put a hand to her lips, where it fluttered against her mouth. ”Something bad,” she breathed at last.
Tulin glanced around. Donizetti, the Italian, had gone with a little bow and a wave, and now the girls of the orchestra were packing up their instruments. Bright-eyed, a little flushed, they chattered together in low voices. One girl was giggling with her hand over her mouth; another was prodding her neighbor with a fiddle bow. A blond Circa.s.sian bowed myopically over her score, holding her hair back above her ear with one hand, wondering where she had gone wrong before.
For the girls this was a moment of freedom, before the tall black eunuchs stepped in and respectfully shooed their pretty charges to their ch.o.r.es. Respectful but firm, especially with the younger girls of lower rank whose jobs kept them far away from the body of the sultan.
Tulin frowned at the frightened girl. Elif was a kalfa, but only to a little girl: a little girl of scant importance.
”If it's something bad you must tell me, Elif,” she said quietly. ”I think there are many things you don't understand. You're young.” She put out a hand and eased a lock of the girl's jet-black hair over the tip of her ear. ”When you talk about your troubles they always seem less. Don't bottle things up.” She smiled brightly and held the girl's chin. ”Look! Maybe it'll turn out to be nothing at all!”
She saw the struggle in Elif's eyes, the warring doubt and hope. The girl blinked fiercely: doubt won. ”This is very bad,” she said in a thin voice, close to tears.
Tulin considered. ”Come, my little one. You can tell me, whatever it is. I am quite sure you have nothing to worry about.”
69.
THE man with the knife had walked a long way.
He joined a camel train, and walked with it in silence for three days. When the camels halted at a town, the man walked on.