Sparkers (4 page)

“Yes, but I had to go with him. He's deaf.”

“Surely your mother could have taken him?”

“My mother works, sir.” Anxious to head off further questions, I ask, “Since the exam's not over yet, do you think I could start it now?”

“The proctors cannot make irregular accommodations. The rules state—”

“Please, Aradi, there was nothing I could do.”

“Did you just interrupt me?” says the headmaster.

The blood reverses in my veins.

“You are dismissed, Levi. The SSE will be offered again next year.”

W
here were you yesterday?” Leah demands when I burst out of the apartment building in the morning, my violin case banging against my leg and Caleb on my heels. My friend is waiting on our doorstep with her own fiddle case.

“You're here already?” I usually meet her at her place when I bring Caleb over.

“Of course I'm here!” Leah signs hello to Caleb before continuing. “I could barely concentrate yesterday, wondering what had happened. I came by after school to find out, but you weren't home. It was the SSE, Marah!”

“I know.” I turn to Caleb.
Can you walk to Leah's by yourself?

He just grins and disappears around the corner. As Leah and I start toward school, I tell her about my morning at the District Hall and the headmaster's total lack of sympathy.

Leah strides faster in her agitation. “What will you
do
?”

“Wait till next year, I guess.” That's what I told Mother last night. After leaving the headmaster's office, I went on a long, dazed walk through the city and didn't return home until the sun was sinking. Mother was waiting for me, distressed and overflowing with apologies even though I didn't blame her. We all knew when Caleb's birthday was.

At school, Leah and I climb to the music room on the top floor for our first class. We play in the medsha, a classical ensemble consisting of twelve musicians: three violinists, two violists, two cellists, two flutists, a lyrist, a horn player, and a percussionist. Each of the six upper years at Horiel Primary has a separate medsha, and Aradi Imael, our music teacher, conducts all of them.

A knot of Final musicians reaches the classroom just ahead of Leah and me. Our friend Devorah, her cello case slung over her shoulder, holds the door for us.

“Where were you yesterday?” she asks me.

“Yes, what happened?” asks Miriam, one of the flute players.

“I missed the exam,” I say shortly, following Leah into the room.

“Good morning,” says Aradi Imael from her desk.

“You missed the SSE, Marah?” cries Reuven, the third violinist, as he plucks at his instrument.

I wish they would all shut up. Aradi Imael looks at me with concern but says nothing. I take my seat and unpack my violin.

Once everyone is tuned, Aradi Imael takes her baton from the conductor's stand and steps onto her podium. She's not very tall, but her confident bearing commands respect. I think she's younger than Mother, though her black hair, worn in a short, thick braid, is more streaked with gray.

She asks us to pull out “Where Wind Blows Not,” an old north-lands folk song arranged for medsha by the Ashari composer Toviah Adam. It's my favorite of the pieces we're performing at our winter concert next week.

Amid the rustle of sheet music, my violist friend Shaul leans across Leah and Reuven and asks, “How'd you miss the SSE?”

“Long story,” I murmur. While Aradi Imael scribbles a marking in her score, I tell him and Reuven about the District Hall.

“They could've been more flexible,” Reuven says indignantly.

“Bastards,” says Shaul. I flinch.

“That's enough,” Aradi Imael says sharply. She doesn't tolerate abuse of kasiri in her classroom.

“Sorry. It won't happen again, Aradi.” Shaul flashes a lopsided smile, but there's a defiant edge to his gaze. His father was once imprisoned for organizing a factory protest, and one of his cousins was killed in a government crackdown on restless workers.

Aradi Imael raises her baton, and the violins begin “Where Wind Blows Not.” I breathe with the music as the sound grows. I love the texture of the strings, the hollow sweetness of the flutes, the depth of the horn. Contentment wells up in me and flows into the warm vibrato of my fingers.

After we've played the piece once straight through, Aradi Imael drills us on some finer points of phrasing. When the period ends, my classmates pack up and flock to the stairs. I'm about to follow when Aradi Imael beckons me.

“So you missed the SSE,” she says when we're alone. “How did you manage that?”

I can't meet her eyes as I explain about Caleb and the test.

“Oh, Marah . . .” Aradi Imael sighs and then thinks for a moment. “I might have an idea, but I need to do some investigating first. Visit me at home at the end of the week, all right? Sixthday evening. It's 19 Fayil Street, in Mir District. Now run along.”

Surprised but encouraged by her invitation, I join my class downstairs outside Aradi Nabot's room. Three immigrant boys from Xana are joking by the door in their native tongue. A moment later, our teacher pushes through the throng of students, a stack of papers pinned under his elbow.

“Why aren't you lined up properly? Out of my way.”

We shrink back, and Aradi Nabot turns his key in the lock. Hardly have we filed in and found our seats than he slaps the papers onto his desk and begins to pace in front of the blackboard.

“I've graded your essays,” he says, “and I'll warn you, the class average was abysmal. Some of your classmates' compositions were so dreadful I despair of teaching them anything about the study of literature.”

While the teacher's back is turned, Shaul stretches his face into a caricature of Aradi Nabot's and silently mimics his ranting. His impression elicits a few muffled giggles, but I only sigh. The day always goes downhill after medsha.

• • •

A
FTER
SCHOOL
, L
EAH
and I roam the neighborhood. The air is crisp, but we're in no hurry to get home. We pass two women carrying home bags of damp clothes from the laundry. Younger children returning from school leave their books on cracked concrete doorsteps and play in the street, passing around leather balls or breaking apart discarded crates to make wooden swords. On the corner, the coal delivery man's horse and cart are waiting under the street sign, half of which is broken off.

Leah and I reach the neighborhood park and settle onto a bench.

“What did Aradi Imael want after medsha?” my friend asks. “Was it about the SSE?”

I nod. “She said she might be able to help me.”

“How?”

“I don't know. Maybe she can find me some work to tide me over till next year's exam.”

“What if it was giving violin lessons to children?” Leah says, excited. “You could do it, Marah. You're the best player in the medsha.”

I shrug, gazing into the juniper. I appreciate the compliment, but I'm too discouraged about losing a year for it to cheer me.

“What do you want to do later on?” Leah asks as a squirrel scampers across the gravel path at our feet. “Devorah's planning on being a bookkeeper. Miriam wants to study nursing. And Shaul wants to go to the halan engineering school by the river and play with electric wires.”

We laugh.

“This might sound strange,” Leah says, growing serious, “but I've thought about working in an orphanage.”

“That'd be perfect for you,” I say, thinking of all her younger siblings. It would make Leah happy to do something so difficult, and so good. I couldn't bear caring for all those children only to send them to the textile factories when they were old enough, so they could repay the government's charity.

“What about you?” Leah asks.

“I don't know,” I say quietly. Maybe I could work at a library. Or become a teacher. Everything depends on the SSE, though, and there's nothing I can do about that now except wait.

We rise from the bench and wend our way toward the gate. A flash of red catches my eye. At the foot of a naked shrub, a small bird with a crimson cap and throat huddles on the ground. 

“A house finch,” Leah exclaims, approaching the bird but stopping at a respectful distance as if to avoid frightening it. “It's injured!”

I sigh. “Maybe it's just stunned. It'll fly away soon.”

“No, he won't. Look how his wing is hanging.”

She's right. I wince. “It might've been kids. I've seen them throw stones at birds before.”

Leah clicks her tongue in disgust, still watching the finch.

“Come on,” I say, swinging the gate open. “I don't think we can help it.”

She follows me into the street, hesitates, and walks back into the park.

“Leah, the last bird you brought home died,” I say, exasperated.

“I can't just leave him,” she protests. “A cat will come along and rip him apart.”

Fishing a handkerchief from her skirt pocket, she advances toward the limp bird, almost cat-like herself. She drapes her handkerchief over the finch's back and scoops it up, her palms over its wings.

“You're crazy,” I tell her. “Are you sure about the orphanage? Wouldn't you rather be an animal doctor?”

Cradling the bird, Leah shakes her head. “Children are more important.”

• • •

A
T
THE
END
of the week, I set off for Aradi Imael's. The most direct route from Horiel to Mir lies through the nicest kasir district outside the city center. Halani usually stay out of such neighborhoods, but skirting this one would add so much time to my walk that I decide to chance it.

Horiel's dinginess first gives way to a different halan neighborhood where the paint on the buildings isn't chipping and useless junk isn't collecting in the street. Some apartments even have window boxes, though nothing is blooming this time of year. Clots of workers saunter down the street, swinging their lunch pails and joking with each other.

I pause at an intersection as people stream out the doors of a fane, a Maitafi house of worship. It's a halan congregation, of course, and most of the faithful coming down the fane's front steps are women. They drape shawls over their shoulders and wind bright, knitted scarves around their necks. Clasped in their hands are copies of the Maitaf, their sacred book. A few of them smile at me, and I try to smile back, feeling awkward because I'm not religious.

When I cross into the kasir quarter, the transition is marked. Here, the limestone apartment buildings are much grander, five or six stories tall with rows of enormous windows on every floor. Elaborate stonework frames the front doors, and wrought-iron balconies extend from the buildings high above the street. I've heard a single kasir family will occupy an entire floor of one of these apartment buildings. This is the sort of neighborhood where Sarah, the girl I saved at the Ikhad, probably lives. I wonder if she still remembers me and the story I told her.

The sun is setting, so I hasten down the neat sidewalks. As I walk along the fence of a large public park, a woman stops in my path and says, “What are you doing in this part of the city?”

She wears a black felt hat trimmed with a striped feather and a fur scarf that looks like it was once a fox. Her outfit makes me very aware of my simple braid, my old-fashioned cloak, and my darned stockings.

“I'm on my way to Mir,” I say, edging along the iron fence.

She sniffs. “Well, hurry then.”

I walk faster, scowling at the sidewalk. Finally, I arrive in Mir District. I find Fayil Street and number 19 in the fading light. It's a narrow townhouse. When I knock, Aradi Imael answers almost instantly.

“Marah!” A smile lights her face. “Come in.”

I follow her into the living room, where a fire is blazing in the grate. Above the mantelpiece hangs a plate with a Laishidi-style brush painting in its center.

Aradi Imael offers me a threadbare armchair, and I sit down. She passes through a curtain into the kitchen and reappears bearing a tray with two tea glasses, a teapot, and a plate of almond biscuits.

“This must have been a distressing week for you,” she says, pouring the tea. “I'm sorry about the SSE, but I might have a solution.”

She hands me a glass of hot tea, and I take a sip. It's black and smooth and calming.

“I spoke to a friend of mine about you,” Aradi Imael continues. “He's the headmaster of a secondary school for musicians called Qirakh.”

I glance at my teacher in surprise. In the firelight, her golden skin takes on a reddish cast.

“You're a talented violinist, Marah,” she says. “Any music school would be lucky to have you.”

I flush. “My thanks.”

“I explained your problem to my friend. He said they'd be willing to consider an application from you based on your primary school record alone, without the SSE. And while Qirakh's focus is music, you'd receive a more than adequate secondary education.” Aradi Imael raises one eyebrow at me. “What do you think? Are you interested?”

Does she even need to ask?

“Yes,” I say at once. “Music school sounds wonderful. And if there's any way for me to go to secondary school next year, I want to try.”

“Good!” Aradi Imael beams. “I should mention, Qirakh was founded by Xanite immigrants, and the student body is still predominantly Xanite. There are those who don't think well of it.”

I nod my understanding. Many Ashari look down on Xanites, who have immigrated to the north lands in droves to flee a decades-long civil war in their homeland. Nevertheless, Xana is the country with which Ashara and the other city-states have the closest economic ties and the most in common culturally. In fact, the people of the north lands descended from Xanite migrants who crossed the sea and established the kingdom of Erezai centuries ago.

“That doesn't bother me,” I assure my teacher. Tensions between Ashari and Xanite students have never been high at Horiel Primary.

“You'll have to audition, of course,” says Aradi Imael.

“Oh.” The only auditions I've ever played have been for seating in medsha, and I've never faced any real contest for first violin.

“I'll be frank,” she says. “Most students who audition for Qirakh take private lessons. You'll have to work hard in order to compete with them.”