chapter twenty

AMONG the precious things in our gear, the one Fatima likes best is Oleg’s violin. I put it on her knees with the bow. She runs her fingers along the curves of the body, the scroll, and then plucks the strings.

“Hmmm. Funny sound!” she says.

“The strings were gone, so I repaired it myself with wires I found in a dump,” I tell her.

Fatima takes the bow, secures the instrument under her chin, and starts playing. At first the tune is timid, but soon the notes get louder, until they soar, and answer each other. It’s a miracle that leaves me speechless.

When she finishes, her face is radiant. “It doesn’t sound like much, but it’s beautiful anyway,” she says. “My father taught me music. Do you want to try?”

She hands me the violin and sits next to me. Gropingly she guides my hands. Her hair grazes me. I feel her breath on the nape of my neck.

“Are you scared?” she asks.

“No.”

“So why are you shaking, silly?”

I try to contain my violent heartbeats. I concentrate, but Oleg’s violin resists, and Fatima laughs as she listens to my awful squeak-squeak. Never mind! I would take all the music lessons in the world to feel Fatima’s breath on my skin.… “Show me again! Teach me! Help me!” I tell her.

The only problem is that I’m grating on everybody’s ears and nerves. After a while Gloria begs me to stop.

“You don’t like music, is that it?” I say, vexed.

“Of course I do, Koumaïl. That’s precisely the point!”

Laughing, Fatima puts the violin back in its box. She promises that we’ll try again when Nour and Gloria go down to settle their business at the bar, something that happens at least once a day.

In fact, it’s the time I like best—being alone with Fatima. I read my catalog to her with the everyday French expressions, like “Oupuijetrouvéunbonrestaurant?” Wherecanifindagoodrestaurant? Or “Jesuimaladéjevoudrèvoirunmédecin.” Imsickandineedadoctor. Fatima repeats them, twisting her mouth in all directions. We also have a game: listening to the street noises. Fatima tells me what she hears, and I lean through the open dormer window to tell her what I see—a bicycle braking, two men insulting each other, a car accident, cats fighting.… She can guess a lot of things, and I think that her sense of hearing is as good as Zemzem’s.

“Do you know what Zemzem means in Arabic?” she asks me. “It means ‘murmur of water.’ ”

“Really?”

“And do you know what your name means, Koumaïl?”

“No.”

“It means ‘universal.’ ”

I don’t want to confess that Koumaïl is not my real name. That I’m really a French boy lost in the Caucasus.

Nour and Gloria finally come back up to the attic with corn pancakes, rice, and even meatballs with onions. We divide the feast into four equal parts, seated on the floor around the samovar.

Everything is fine up until the day when Fatima and I hear shouts in the Matachine, then a loud noise coming from the street. Fatima becomes pale.

“I can hear the growl of hatred and anger,” she whispers. “Something is happening!”

The next second Nour and Gloria pop through the trapdoor, out of breath and with somber eyes.

“The rebels!” Nour says.

“We can’t stay here!” Gloria adds.

I feel a great emptiness in my chest, as if it’s been punctured, and right then Fatima kneels in front of me.

“Allah has decided,” she tells me. “Promise me to grow up a lot when you’re in France, Koumaïl. Come, stand up!”

In spite of the terrible, heavy weight that is suddenly crushing me, I obey. Fatima draws me toward her and puts a hand over my head.

“Look how high you come up, Koumaïl. Right to my shoulder!” she says.

I step back to get a better view of the centimeters that separate us.

“If you want to marry me, you’ll have to come up to here at least!” she goes on, her hand suspended in the air above her own head. The challenge is immense!

“How will I ever reach that height?” I moan.

“You will, Koumaïl. If you take good care of yourself.”

I look at Gloria, who gathers our blankets, the radio, the kitchen utensils, the catalog, and stuffs them in the gear. Nour is already set to leave; she’s waiting for Fatima near the trapdoor.

“Hurry up!” she begs. “The uprising will reach us soon!”

I throw myself at Fatima. She hugs me quickly and then it is all over. We run down the ladder. Downstairs the man who opens the beer bottles is about to lower the iron gate over the bar door.

“Go quickly! It’s dangerous!” he shouts.

We are thrown into the street, in the middle of a crowd of fugitives, and the iron gate falls shut behind us. Fatima is dragged away by her mother. As I cling to Gloria, I understand that I am losing Fatima. Just like I lost Emil, Baksa, Rebeka, and the others the night the militia chased us from the Complex. Fear does that. It makes people run in every direction, it sows disorder, and after that you are completely lost.

“Fatima, open your eyes! Look at me!” I shout after her. “You don’t even know what I look like! You won’t be able to remember me!”

For an instant Fatima fights the crowd that invades the street. She turns back.

Her eyelids resolutely closed, she shouts, “I don’t know your face, silly, but I know your heart and the sound of your violin. That I’ll never forget!”