Paris by Starlight, page 7
Yet, somehow, Levon’s awkwardness put her at ease. He sauntered in, as sodden as a man who’d tumbled into the waters of the Seine, and began shaking himself dry. At the counter, the proprietor was already reaching for his mop.
‘I’m going to need your help.’
Isabelle grinned. Here was the feeling. She could feel the anxiety sloughing off her; it was like shedding a skin.
‘I know,’ said Levon, sensing her amusement, ‘it’s not as if you haven’t helped me already, is it? But …’ Levon stalled, and Isabelle saw all the colour drain out of his face. ‘It’s Bebia,’ he whispered, ‘she’s fading fast.’
In a moment, she was on her feet. ‘Levon …’
Without meaning it, her arms were around him, and she was getting drenched too. Levon whispered into her ear, ‘I can’t take her to the doctors. Not one of them would have us. They’d be looking for papers and … she won’t risk it, not if it means we might be rounded up and turfed out. She says it’s nothing – but, Isabelle, it can’t be nothing. She walked three thousand miles, with barely a cough, whether we were sleeping in hostels or open fields.’ He hesitated, uncertain if he could give voice to what came next. ‘That’s how I know. If she made it through all that and she’s failing now, it has to be … real.’
She’d been waiting to be taken back to the apartment, back to that promise of a chicken dinner and the magic of the night garden above, since before Le Tangiers, and now here it was. By the time they got there – Levon showing her the perfect way of dodging the Métro turnstiles, so that only the unwatched cameras in the wall ever found out – the apartment was near empty. Only Levon’s aunt remained, carefully tending whatever was on the stove. ‘Mariam,’ Levon began, and asked her a question in their own language. As she replied, Mariam’s eyes lifted to the ceiling above.
‘She’s sent the girls up to the garden,’ he said, ‘to give my bebia some sleep. Come on, I’ll show you.’
Isabelle smiled at Levon’s aunt as, nervously crossing the apartment floor, she followed Levon through the door in the corner.
In the cramped back bedroom, Levon’s grandmother was curled in her bedsheets.
‘She’s sleeping?’
Levon whispered, ‘It’s daytime. She always sleeps at daytime. Well, it’s like Beyrek told you. Honouring the old ways.’
‘Is she getting out of bed at all?’
‘She’d taken Aram up to her night garden, just after dusk. She must have been showing him the flowers-by-night … and the next thing anyone knows, Aram was bawling. Thank the stars that he was, because that’s why Aunt Mariam went up there. My bebia, she’d collapsed.’
‘A heart attack? But Levon …’
Levon shook his head, as if to say he was powerless to know. He planted a single soft kiss on his bebia’s brow and, taking the leather-bound book from her bedside, ushered Isabelle back out of the room.
‘She says it’s all in here, everything she needs.’ He fingered the cover, the seven-pointed star that was embroidered in gold. ‘The story of Tariel, who lost his heart’s desire.’ He turned through pages bedecked with a thousand different spirals, until he found the story he was seeking. Here a woodcut showed a young man on his knees in front of a star fallen to Earth. ‘Tariel watches the Star fall,’ said Levon, ‘and knows it for his HEART’S DESIRE. Only, when the star stops shining – as it must, unless it’s anchored in the heavens – his heart stops shining too. So he goes on a quest to find the only things that can mend a broken heart …’
‘But Levon,’ Isabelle ventured, ‘it’s only a—’
‘A story, I know.’ Wearily, he snapped the book shut. ‘But what am I to do? She won’t let me summon a doctor. I’ve asked everyone I know where I can buy the right medicines, but this … this is what she wants.’ Turning back to the story, he started to read. ‘Ground ginger root. That should be easy enough. The earth of the old country. Well, that’s going to be harder. The pollen of a ruby-red flower-by-night.’ He groaned. ‘Even in the stories, it’s the rarest one. Tariel has to go on a quest to find it in the Khanate Beneath – that great network of caverns underneath the landlocked sea, where the dead kings still rule. It’s all just nonsense – I don’t see how any of it helps. The egg of the smallest songbird. Honey from the Queen of the Bees. Blood given freely, from one who loves you. Well, now we’re getting down to it. Honey and blood and the pollen of flowers that barely exist. I’ll bet you’re starting to see why I asked for help …’
Every day, it seemed, brought some new quest or another. Stitch them all together, and it made up the story of your life: just one quest stacked on top of another.
‘I’ll help you, Levon.’
All of his bravado was sloughing away. So, she thought, she had an effect on him too …
‘She’s my bebia,’ he whispered. ‘My mother’s gone, Isabelle. I buried her myself. We made landfall on the western shore of the sea, but by then the chill was already in her lungs. She lasted as long as she could, but then we had to go on alone. And as for my father – only the stars know where he is, if he’s even alive.’ He paused. ‘I need my bebia. I don’t want her to …’
But he never finished the thought, because Arina and the others were suddenly tumbling back into the apartment, and after that there weren’t any words at all.
*
There seemed so little Isabelle could do.
Honey was easy to find, though whether it was queenly enough was a question without answer. Neither she, nor Levon, had the inclination to go climbing the trees in the Luxembourg Gardens searching for nests, so a single quail’s egg from the market would have to do. Levon set Arina to scraping out the pollen of a bank of golden flowers-by-night that had sprouted, suddenly, from the leaf mulch in one of the gutters. But none of it was right, and the concoction they made looked more like a witch’s brew than it did modern medicine.
‘Blood from one who loves you,’ Isabelle said. ‘Well, that could be you, Levon.’
So he pricked his thumb and watched, dejectedly, as his blood marbled the potion.
‘Beyrek says there are back-street doctors. There’s a man from Senegal, studied medicine for seven years. But, here in Paris, he has to drive a taxi. If you pay him a fare, he’ll do what he can. The problem is …’
‘You don’t have the fare.’
‘I’ve a shift at the Métropol tonight.’ The blood had stopped beading on his thumb. ‘Thanks to you, Isabelle.’
She’d played in the bar of the Hôtel Métropol the week she’d first arrived in Paris. None of the staff there had known Hector, nor any of the other musicians – but she’d played there several times since, and made the acquaintance of the head concierge, an older man who kept wondering, out loud, if Isabelle might like to accompany him for a drink in the bar. She hadn’t (she never would), but at least he was good for something. The Hôtel Métropol had needed night porters – who doubled as night cleaners and, when the need was there, nightwatchmen – and Levon had needed steady, regular work. This was the kind of magic even a charlatan could perform.
They passed, together, into the back room where Levon’s bebia was propped up in bed, Arina at her bedside and Aram in her lap. The magic of family, thought Isabelle.
‘Did you make it, just like my Nocturne said?’
‘Yes, bebia.’
‘And your … friend?’
Levon looked at Isabelle, who understood not a word, and smiled. ‘She’s been helping, bebia. She found me work, at the Métropol. And …’
Levon’s bebia took the mug like a chalice in her hands, and put it to her lips. ‘I thought it might taste … sweeter.’
Levon could hardly hide his shame.
‘I’m going to bring you the doctor. The Senegalese.’
‘You’ll do nothing of the sort!’ she spluttered, bringing the concoction back to her lips. ‘What’s good for Tariel is good for me.’
‘Bebia, it’s only a story …’
She shook her head fiercely. ‘My night garden’s real enough,’ she slurped, ‘and so is this.’ Over the rim of her mug, she looked Isabelle up and down. ‘Tell her to come closer.’
Levon sighed. ‘She wants you to go closer, Isabelle.’
Isabelle smiled – there were grandmothers like this in all the untold corners of the Earth – but that did not quell the nerves as she crammed into the space between the wall and the bed.
‘Maia,’ the old woman said, and clasped a hand across her heart.
‘Isabelle,’ Isabelle replied.
Maia’s eyes looked straight through her, landing on Levon again. ‘I like her,’ she declared, ‘but you’ll have to do something about this language of hers. And … all that hair! It needs a good brushing. Arina, fetch the girl a brush. Levon, you can brush it.’
‘I’m not brushing her hair, bebia! She doesn’t want me to brush her hair!’
‘Nonsense. All a woman wants is a man tender enough to put braids in her hair. Wash the fish guts off his fingers, pour the hot tea, and pay her some attention. Arina, the brush!’
Arina tumbled for the doorway, but she needn’t have bothered, for Levon already had his hand on Isabelle’s forearm, teasing her away from the bedside.
In the apartment, where Levon’s aunt Mariam and the other girls waited, Levon pulled on his work boots and reached for his coat. ‘Don’t let my bebia know where I’m going. She’ll think my eyes have been opened, that I’m honouring the old world at last. She couldn’t possibly understand the idea of a night shift …’ He stopped. ‘Are you sure about this?’
‘I’m sure,’ Isabelle promised. ‘If anything happens, anything at all, I’ll call an ambulance. I’ll hide the rest of them up in the night garden, feed the paramedics some cock-and-bull story – just like we said.’
Levon’s face darkened. ‘What is … cock-and-bull?’
As Levon’s face darkened, Isabelle’s lit up in mirth. There was, it seemed, perfect balance in the world. ‘A pack of lies, Levon. I’ll tell them I’m a neighbour, that I’ve been looking in on her. Once they’re here, they’ll have to look after her, papers or not.’
‘Detained is better than dead.’
‘Exactly. And we can figure out the rest later.’
Levon lifted himself, puffed out his chest. ‘It won’t come to it. She is strong.’
Isabelle watched him go. If strength was enough, she thought, then Levon would walk the Earth until all the seas had boiled dry. But strength carried you only so far. Strength gave out.
For a moment, she stood and breathed in the apartment. So this is it, she thought. Paris. The great adventure. A quest waylaid. You set out with one grail in mind, and end up with quite another.
A little cough interrupted her train of thought and, startled, she spun on the spot.
There, peering up with big doe eyes, was Arina. And in her hands: a hairbrush, thick with her bebia’s hair.
There was work three nights a week at the Métropol. Three nights when Levon loaded laundry machines in the hotel cellars. Three nights when he ignored the catcalls of his overseer, kept his head down and carried on.
Three nights without Levon meant three nights when Isabelle came to the apartment to watch over Maia as she pottered up and down, or help her up the narrow stair to the night garden above. She was frailer in body than she’d been, but there was nothing frail about her soul. In the night garden, she seemed to come alive. Sometimes, Isabelle watched her bending down to breathe in the scent of her flowers. Or she’d coax Arina and the others to follow her up there, then sit them down to tell them stories from the Nocturne.
Isabelle needed no language to know how little Maia thought of this plot of Levon’s, to have her watched at all times. On the first night, Maia made for the apartment door, intent on bustling up to the night garden alone, the very moment Isabelle’s back was turned. On the second, she served Isabelle up a broth rich with chicken and ginger – and, as soon as Isabelle was eating, darted for the door. She was, Isabelle decided, the sprightliest sickly octogenarian she’d ever encountered. Her body might have been slowing down, but for everything it lost, her mind seemed to gain.
All that Isabelle could do was follow. Besides, there was such beauty in the night garden that she was happy to linger there, basking in the flowers’ hypnotic glow. Each night, the scents seemed stronger, the colours more vivid. Sometimes, in the corner of her eye, she could see a dazzling rush of colour flit through the air, as if tiny birds were dancing just beyond the corners of her vision. Sometimes, she could hear the beating of miniature wings.
Maia kept her distance, but soon the girls gravitated towards Isabelle. They, at least, wanted to know. At dusk one evening, Arina tugged on her arm and bade her sit down on the floor, where the two other younger girls were waiting. The elder girls, out all day roaming – or begging, in spite of the law Levon tried to lay down – had not yet returned.
Arina had produced a chequered board, and on it began to arrange a collection of cardboard pieces, cut out from the edges of some box. Then, once the game was assembled, she advanced one of the pieces – and, with expectant eyes, urged Isabelle to do the same.
Draughts, Isabelle thought, and tried to play it as such – but the stern looks from Arina, and the laughter from the other girls, quickly dissuaded her of the notion.
Next, she moved one of the cardboard scraps as if it was a pawn, a knight, a rook, but the howls of derision only became more intense.
‘So, not chess either …’
Arina picked up a scrap of cardboard. The word she said sounded like ‘Ulduzkhan’, which brought back memories of the story Beyrek had told.
Slowly, she pieced the game together. Pieces moved helter-skelter, seemingly according to whim, but after some time she perceived order in the chaos. The goal, she thought, was to join together the points of a constellation: the same seven-pointed star she saw stitched into the front of Maia’s Nocturne.
Games were a universal language, but there was one other language that they might understand, thought Isabelle. So, on the third night, she carried her harp up the north road and played for them as the stars came out.
‘Sometimes my fingers won’t work,’ she said as she stroked each string. ‘You three are the biggest audience I’ve played for in weeks …’
The thought made her shudder. Her rent was already overdue. If I don’t get out and start playing again, she thought, I’ll lose the apartment. But, more than that, I’ll lose Hector. I’ll lose the hope.
She was not certain she was ready to lose hope yet, so she started playing.
As the first bars poured out of her, one of the old canons her father used to play, she saw the bedroom door open and Maia appear, with her Nocturne in her hands. There she lingered, just listening as the canon sailed up and all around them.
The girls’ eyes were wide as they followed her fingers. She was speaking to them, she realised. In her own way, she was spinning them a tale.
An audience of four. Well, perhaps there was something she could build on here.
Music got her so far, but if she truly wanted to understand them – not just linger here, like some ghost in the family – she needed more.
By the end of the first week, she was starting to pick out words. By the end of the second, sentences were starting to make sense. In the third week, she made her first tentative forays in speaking their language herself – and, if it did not come as naturally as the language of music once had, they still knew to put milk in her tea when she asked, and to bring her pens and papers for their lessons … and to stop brushing her hair, no matter what their bebia declared.
At least, she finally knew, they were not speaking about her – or, if they were, they were keeping it to themselves.
Piece by piece, she got the measure of this odd, unwieldy family. Mariam was Levon’s aunt, and baby Aram – a newborn in arms as the old country burned – his cousin. Of the girls, Arina was the only one his sister by blood. Ana and Elen had been classmates of Arina’s in their little school by the landlocked sea. In the madness of those first days, their parents had been left behind. The elder girls, Natia and Nino, had first found Levon’s group in the camps outside Izmir, and again in the middle of the Aegean Sea, when the traffickers they’d paid for passage corralled two boats together for the second part of the crossing. Natia’s father had remained in the old country; he was the kind of man who loved a lost cause, and instead of fleeing the soldiers’ advance had taken – like Levon’s father – to the hills. Nino’s mother had been with them until Izmir. Nobody knew what had become of her. She’d left in the night, and the last reminder they had of her was the life savings she’d used to pay the traffickers at dawn.
By day, Natia and Nino went to explore the city. Sometimes, they begged. Levon had told them not to – but, then, Levon was not the sort of man who had to be obeyed. Natia’s father had been one of those: fishing on the landlocked sea by day, drinking in the longhouses by night, then throwing orders around like mortar fire whenever he came home. Natia said she was sure she could find work, just the same as Levon, but Maia had forbidden it: there was only one sort of work for undocumented girls in a city like Paris, and none of them had crossed continents to become some rich man’s slave for the night.
One night, as Isabelle helped Arina into bed, Maia looked on them with a quelling eye, before sloping up into the night garden.
‘Bebia’s angry,’ said Arina. ‘She wants us to start living by night as well.’
‘Like in the old country …’
‘Did they used to live by night in Paris, as well?’
‘Not here, little one.’ She was getting used to the feeling of the words, but Arina was working hard at her French as well. They were spending an hour each night sitting over Levon’s dictionnaire, and perhaps it was this that frustrated Maia most of all.
‘She’d rather we were listening to her Nocturne …’
‘What’s in that book?’ Isabelle asked, as she tucked the covers in around the girl.
