The Orphan Sky by Ella Leya

Author:Ella Leya
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Sourcebooks
Published: 2014-11-24T22:10:10+00:00

CHAPTER 21

The condemnation hearing took place on November 4, 1979.

A bloody ocean closed in, eager to swallow me. Red banners, red podium, small red flags in the hands of the audience. Each member had received one to wave in support of my condemnation. The tribunal of three took their places at the table at stage center with their head in the middle—the Secretary of the Baku Komsomol Committee in Charge of Communist Ideology and Ethics, Comrade Guseinov. A veteran of internal cleansing. Tall, thin, soft-spoken, and neatly dressed, a crimson handkerchief peeking out of the breast pocket of his gray suit. He conducted the proceedings as flawlessly as a well-staged show. Raising his right hand, stilling the rumbling noises from the audience, he invited an orderly, morbid silence.

I felt my body scrunch up. Something icy crept up my spine.

Fear.

“Comrades, we’re here today with a burdensome task,” Comrade Guseinov said. “We’re here today to determine the future of one of our own. Yes, it’s easy to point an accusing finger. We have all the facts—all the raw facts. They don’t just prove Leila Badalbeili’s guilt; they scream of her despicable, degrading conduct. But no. This is not what we do here. This is not what’s written in our Communist codex of honor.

“What do we do? We give the benefit of the doubt. We paint a moral portrait of one of us who has slipped. Who knows? Maybe there is still hope. Maybe we can still give a hand to one who has fallen victim to her own bad choices. We shall see. And to do so, I’m going to invite you, her classmates and friends, to come forward and tell us who this young woman really is.”

I knew that no one would speak in my favor. And I knew that my fate had been decided before the hearing. But I still gasped and held my breath, waiting for a single word—or just the slightest sign of kindness—to bandage my tarnished honor.

Malik the Weasel was first, taking his time and enjoying every minute in the spotlight as he listed all my transgressions since kindergarten. What a memory he had. He even remembered how I had whooping cough in third grade and kept coughing and falling out of step with the others while marching in a school column at the Great October Revolution parade.

Then Vera, a girl with a stubby pigtail and mouse ears, who desperately tried—unsuccessfully—to become my best friend after Almaz dropped out of school, eagerly cooed her suspicions about my elevated interest in Western music, total lack of enthusiasm for our contemporary Soviet songs, and my questionable morals.

Others followed. A continuous stream of my schoolmates flowing to the podium. All singing the same tune with the same detached mask of condemnation, their inescapable slanders tearing down what was left of my spirit.

My headmistress testified last. She was my only hope. Just three weeks ago, Mama operated on her younger grandson. A bad case of neglected appendicitis. After the successful surgery,

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