reaction to the odors emitted by particularly vile wounds, his eyes stung by smoke, the wailing of babies haunting his ears. He sat his horse, hardly aware of the crackling fires, the barren doorsteps and the empty holes of housefronts, the carrion birds, the soldiers who gaped at him as he passed, trusting Hillel to search out and choose the street or alley that would lead to Amram. They passed into a narrow defile flanked by high houses that reached out for one another as they rose overhead until they were parted only by a cool dark band of twilight. The horse’s shoeless hooves struck the paving stones with a knock like iron on bones, and then they emerged into a broad square, nearly as spacious as the piazza at Ravenna, and there on the wide steps of the despoiled mosque, one of whose minarets stood blackened and frail as a burned-out brand, with his arm around the slim shoulders of Filaq and a snoring Hanukkah curled at his feet, wearing the dice-playing smile of a man who could never be surprised, sat Amram.
He rose a little unsteady to his feet. His face was streaked with ash, ash lay on his hair and scalp and his eyes were crazed with pink. He came wincing down the steps of the mosque as if his back or hips were bothering him, and he and Zelikman fell into each other’s arms. From within the mosque came the broken voices of men at prayer. Amram stank of burned tallow, smoke and a hard day’s labor, but underneath it all there was the familiar smell of him like sun on dusty sandstone. The sound of prayer found some kind of grateful echo in Zelikman’s heart.
“Late as usual,” Amram said.
CHAPTER SEVEN
ON THE SEIZING
OF A LOW MOMENT
H anukkah had been kicked awake by worse men, among them his own father, and so the curses he muttered, with his eyes shut and the honeyed hand of a dream still caressing his thigh, extended no further into history than the African’s great-grandmother and confined themselves to envisioning her use by scabby Pecheneg stallions, making only glancing reference to the attentions of Bactrian camels. The true object of Hanukkah’s spleen was wakefulness itself and the world that it would oblige his five outraged senses to certify. Hanukkah had soldiered in the army of an empire at peace and had thus dealt and witnessed death only in small batches, and he was shocked by the scale of slaughter he had seen today, wrought by foreign invaders against Khazar men and women like him—children of Kozar the son of Togarmah the son of Gomer the son of Japheth the son of Noah—“people of the felt walls,” burners of dung fires, sworn to the solitary god of the clear blue sky, whether that god was called Tengri, Jehovah or Allah. Most of all he was shocked by the pointless butchering of a stranded Rus, mute, dazed and trembling with some fever, white as a fish belly, who was dragged by the Arsiyah from his hiding place and slashed open like a gushing sack of wine. After that, Hanukkah curled up on the steps of the mosque and withdrew into sleep and his dream of Sarah, of the faint smell of burning sandalwood when she took his head into her lap, a dream from which Amram’s toe now dislodged him with all the tenderness of a boathook
Hanukkah sat up, and opened his eyes, and saw amid the smoke, dust devils and steady snow of ash a gaunt, bloodied figure, tottering, asleep on his feet, his black cloak crusted and dragging behind him, the air around him wavering in a madness of flies.
At the sight of the Frank who had saved his life, Hanukkah felt something swell inside him, like the bladder that kept a sturgeon buoyant and swimming true in the dark of the Khazar Sea. Men could be broken more terribly than he had ever imagined; but they could also be repaired. Hope was a powerful cordial, and for a moment, with the burn of it at the back of Hanukkah’s throat, he could only stand there, barking like a goose. Then he wiped his face on his filthy sleeve and hurried to Zelikman’s
He rose a little unsteady to his feet. His face was streaked with ash, ash lay on his hair and scalp and his eyes were crazed with pink. He came wincing down the steps of the mosque as if his back or hips were bothering him, and he and Zelikman fell into each other’s arms. From within the mosque came the broken voices of men at prayer. Amram stank of burned tallow, smoke and a hard day’s labor, but underneath it all there was the familiar smell of him like sun on dusty sandstone. The sound of prayer found some kind of grateful echo in Zelikman’s heart.
“Late as usual,” Amram said.
CHAPTER SEVEN
ON THE SEIZING
OF A LOW MOMENT
H anukkah had been kicked awake by worse men, among them his own father, and so the curses he muttered, with his eyes shut and the honeyed hand of a dream still caressing his thigh, extended no further into history than the African’s great-grandmother and confined themselves to envisioning her use by scabby Pecheneg stallions, making only glancing reference to the attentions of Bactrian camels. The true object of Hanukkah’s spleen was wakefulness itself and the world that it would oblige his five outraged senses to certify. Hanukkah had soldiered in the army of an empire at peace and had thus dealt and witnessed death only in small batches, and he was shocked by the scale of slaughter he had seen today, wrought by foreign invaders against Khazar men and women like him—children of Kozar the son of Togarmah the son of Gomer the son of Japheth the son of Noah—“people of the felt walls,” burners of dung fires, sworn to the solitary god of the clear blue sky, whether that god was called Tengri, Jehovah or Allah. Most of all he was shocked by the pointless butchering of a stranded Rus, mute, dazed and trembling with some fever, white as a fish belly, who was dragged by the Arsiyah from his hiding place and slashed open like a gushing sack of wine. After that, Hanukkah curled up on the steps of the mosque and withdrew into sleep and his dream of Sarah, of the faint smell of burning sandalwood when she took his head into her lap, a dream from which Amram’s toe now dislodged him with all the tenderness of a boathook
Hanukkah sat up, and opened his eyes, and saw amid the smoke, dust devils and steady snow of ash a gaunt, bloodied figure, tottering, asleep on his feet, his black cloak crusted and dragging behind him, the air around him wavering in a madness of flies.
At the sight of the Frank who had saved his life, Hanukkah felt something swell inside him, like the bladder that kept a sturgeon buoyant and swimming true in the dark of the Khazar Sea. Men could be broken more terribly than he had ever imagined; but they could also be repaired. Hope was a powerful cordial, and for a moment, with the burn of it at the back of Hanukkah’s throat, he could only stand there, barking like a goose. Then he wiped his face on his filthy sleeve and hurried to Zelikman’s
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