The gendarme by M. T. Mustian

Author:M. T. Mustian [M. T. Mustian]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Roman
ISBN: 9780399156342
Published: 2010-09-02T07:00:00+00:00

11

I sneeze. It is dusty amid the rubble of the knife maker’s shop: the chisels on their racks, the unfinished product from the day before, the bucket of water, the anvil, the dulled fire. I stretch, rubbing my stomach, scratching my head. I remember the conversation with Abdul the night before, about the man looking for someone like me. The plan.

The door to the shop creaks open. A woman’s head appears, covered in a black scarf. She lingers in the doorway a moment, her eyes adjusting. Then she focuses on me.

“Abdul is dead.”

“What?” I take a step toward her. “What happened?”

“He died in his sleep. He coughed and coughed, and then he was still.”

She glances around the shop, as if she has never seen it. She is a short woman, her head barely rising to the level of my chest, her eyes far apart and set deep in her face, like a bird’s.

I look down, unsure of what to say. I have grown to like Abdul and his quiet, competent ways. He has treated me fairly, even covered for me. Now he is gone.

“You must leave,” the woman says, without a trace of emotion.

I nod, set about gathering my extra shirt, my tunic, my meager coins. I place my knife in my pants, the knife I bought from Karim. I straighten the bedding I had only just risen from. It all takes longer than it should because my hands are stiff and trembling, my vision watery. I want to look at her but do not. I finish gathering my things and stumble to the back door, conscious of her gaze still fixed on my back. “Good-bye,” I whisper, as the door closes behind me. I hear the latch fasten shut.

The smells of early-morning Aleppo rise, odors made sharper by my numbed, shaken state. I slip past a flock of bleating sheep, past men on camels who look like they’ve ridden all night, past corpses facedown in the street. I have no idea where I am going, no plan of what to do next. I stick to alleys and side streets, to the dark of Aleppo’s passageways. I find myself near the hospital, and then backtrack, through a wealthier section comprised of courtyards and chiseled stone, past the missionary-run Armenian orphanage and its crocheted socks and blankets arranged hopefully and pitiably for sale. I walk for what seems like hours but may be only minutes. I count the minarets near the citadel, one to twenty-nine.

I stop at the first cries of the muezzin, there before a white-domed church. I kneel, orienting myself toward Mecca, my lips forming the familiar words, my forehead bent low to the ground. Each time I raise my head I see the cross at the church’s top, odd and blasphemous but at the same time familiar, as if I have been here before, knelt in this spot, bowed before both of these things all my life. I continue, prostrated, the prayers spraying from my lips and merging with others as my mind bends to my need.

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