Nowhere Land: A Stephan Raszer Investigation

by A. W. Hill

  “Three hours?” He shot her a doubting look. “How is that possible?”

  “Three hours,” she affirmed, pointing at her wristwatch. “And you come back . . . with her. What are we supposed to think?”

  “I don’t know,” Raszer said. “I think I need to sleep on it. Which bunk is mine?”

  Francesca indicated the cot Ruthie had already passed out on.

  “She saw your pack underneath.” said Francesca. “She has a sharp eye, and a better nose, and she has already made her claim.” She paused. “Sleep well, Father.”

  “I intend to honor my vows.”

  “We’ll see. Men of God should never deny themselves the true chapel. I doubt those vows will hold up tomorrow.”

  “What, exactly, is going to happen tomorrow?” he asked her.

  “It is the first full moon of spring and the last night of the Jam in this town. You might call it an explosion of love . . . and we will need every drop of it for what is ahead. Restore yourself, Father, first with sleep and then with laughter. It may be a long time before we laugh again. And who knows how long before you have a woman?”

  She turned away and he reached for her, taking gentle hold of her upper arm. She glanced at his hand, then raised her eyes to him. He nodded toward the tavern in front, now closed but unlocked. She followed without resistance. When it was dark, he spoke softly: “Listen. I don’t know what the hell happened out there. You can spend your life reading the lives of the saints and still not be prepared when something holy comes your way. I only know that it probably had to happen, and that she probably has to be here. She told me . . . she has dues to pay.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “Maybe that she got her sister into this mess and now feels like she has to be part of getting her out. Maybe to honor her friend Shams. Or maybe it’s just that everyone looks for redemption in their own fashion. There was a car out on the highway. An American limo . . . pretty rare here, I would think. And a village boy, running away, saying something about men who take the children. Could they have tracked Mikhail?”

  “It might be the same men . . . or different men,” she said. “The wars have stirred up an army of orphans, ready to follow anyone with a smile and a stick of candy. Half the village girls will have whored themselves before they are sixteen. Many will end up in debt bondage. Wars make some men rich. Limousines are not as rare as you think.”

  “So you don’t think we need to get the hell out of here . . . like, tonight?”

  “I will think it over,” Francesca answered. “But I think we are safest here. Turkey is crawling with predators right now, but they rarely enter the villages. Especially not this village. They wait on the outskirts. At the moment, we are better off here than on the road. When the festival is finished, yes . . . by that time we must be invisible.” She touched her thumb and forefinger to his eyelids and said, “Now . . . to bed.”

  The music began just after dawn with simple dance rhythms beaten out on frame drums by the village women. The drums looked like oversize tambourines without the jangles and were played with the heel of the hand. Raszer had awakened to the sound and lay still, tapping the rhythms on the frame of his cot in imitation. They seemed to be in mixed meters of three and four, but he sometimes lost the downbeat.

  His impulse had been to rise immediately and go to the street, not to miss a moment of whatever timeless ceremony was about to begin. His body, however, had been made a prisoner of Ruthie’s limbs. The mattress was barely three feet wide, and she had entwined herself in him. As soon as he was fully awake, he realized he had just two choices: to disengage or accept. Raszer got up.

  He’d slept fully dressed. Now he pulled on his boots without bothering to lace them and stumbled into the tavern to find Ismet smoking at the bar, a carafe of what Raszer hoped was coffee at his elbow. The front door was open; the drums echoed off the cobblestones. Raszer lifted a hand in greeting, then turned and quietly closed the door that led to the sleeping quarters. Shaykh Adi slipped through at the last second and joined him at the bar.

  Ismet filled a demitasse with coffee as thick and black as pitch. He pushed over a little bowl of rock sugar and without a word, dropped two large chunks into Raszer’s cup. This was Turkey. It was presumed he wanted it sweet. Raszer lit a cigarette, gave the dog a scratch on the head, and took the coffee down in a single gulp. His teeth ached like ice on a new filling. On the next cup, he’d forgo the sugar.

  Normally, he’d have tapped the bartender for all he knew about the day’s festival and the general lay of the land, but he didn’t speak Kurdish and he’d already discovered he wasn’t going to get far with Arabic. He decided to try English, just so he didn’t have to sit there mutely, exchanging awkward smiles and nods.

  “Big party,” he said, gesturing toward the street.

  Ismet returned a mostly toothless smile and poured him more coffee. When he went for the sugar, Raszer lightly touched his leathered knuckles to ward him off.

  “Not much of a sweet tooth,” Raszer said, touching a finger to his teeth.

  Ismet mimicked, tapping his empty gums, shrugged, and said something that probably meant, Yeah . . . you see where it got me.

  “I feel like an American asshole, coming here without boning up on your language.” Raszer stubbed out his cigarette.

  “Assshhole,” Ismet repeated, and grinned. He took one of Raszer’s smokes for good measure and lit it with both pleasure and a sense of entitlement. After exhaling blue smoke over Raszer’s head, he nodded in the direction of the open door.

  “Mum sondii,” he said.

  “Come again?”

  “Mum sondii.” Ismet retrieved a nearly exhausted candle from the end of the bar.

  “Candle,” said Raszer, touching it.

  The proprietor filled his cheeks with air and blew.

  “Candle . . . blown . . . out.”

  Ismet nodded.

  “Tonight?” Raszer asked.

  “Yes. Tonight,” said his host, and turned a little circle with his hands in the air.

  For a few minutes, they sat in companionable silence. The Raszer stood, gestured to the street, and offered Ismet another of his cigarettes before heading outside.

  At this stage of the day, the parade was mostly grandmothers and children wearing boldly dyed prints of indigo, tangerine, saffron, and cinnabar. Some of the children carried handmade pinwheels in matching colors. A few old men stood nearby looking on, their skin like sun-dried fruit. The sixteen-to-sixty age group was entirely unrepresented, probably sleeping in, in preparation for a long night.

  With the rising sun, the hillside village turned first pink, then lavender, and was finally bathed in a glow like the skin of a blood orange. The elders acknowledged Raszer politely as they passed, some even granting little bows. Only later did it occur to him that it the presence of Shaykh Adi at his heels was probably what had elicited such gestures. He knew from his studies that the Alevi people believed in the transmigration of souls, but it surprised him that they identified a saint in canine form so quickly.

  After a while, he went back inside. It was best, he thought, to wait for the others to wake before doing any serious exploring.

  He and the group held a council at suppertime. They’d had an afternoon of sun, music, and bittersweet local ale, and refrained from discussing the business ahead of them. Ruthie’s arrival had introduced too much uncertainty, so, for the time being, they simply allowed the pageantry to wash over them. The five of them—plus the dog—took an outside table at the village’s only sit-down restaurant, a little kebab place with waiters in yellow turbans who took turns sitting in with the band when they weren’t handling orders. The stone patio was set back from the street and wedged between the restaurant and a tobacconist’s shop. The sun was dropping, and in less than an hour it would be cool, but for now the day’s warmth remained on their skin. They’d spent the day strolling, sampling meat pastries, learning the local dance steps, and observing what, to a
ll appearances, was a typical spring festival with pagan roots but offering no hint of the evening’s promised revelry. Throughout the afternoon, the two women had kept each other in their sights.

  The drinking did not begin in earnest until the unmarried young men began to materialize at around three o’clock. This was probably out of consideration for the children, who, along with their grandparents, began to disappear as the sun dropped.

  Raszer took Ruthie aside at lunchtime, but she seemed preoccupied and not in the mood for explanations.

  “Why, Ruthie?” he asked. “And just as important, how?”

  “I can’t not be here,” she mumbled behind red-tinted sunglasses.

  “Because you feel responsible for what happened to Katy.”

  “Don’t shrink me, okay?” she replied, turning away. “Can’t people ever just do something because it feels right?”

  “Sure,” he said. “Some people can.”

  She glared at him. “But not me, right?”

  “Sure, people act on noble impulses. But this can’t have been all that impulsive. Things get complicated when you travel to a war zone. How’d you pull it off so fast?”

  “Shams and me,” she said, “we were gonna come here and look for Katy. Had it planned for a long time. Then you came along . . . and he died, so I adjusted the plan.”

  “Who paid for the ticket? I’m not sure I believe—”

  “You think because I live in a fucking trailer that I don’t have resources?”

  “I have no doubt you’re resourceful. But you have to admit—”

  “Look, mister.” She sighed and gave him a square-on look. “Can I tell you something?”

  “I’m listening.”

  “Henry left me some cash, money he skimmed from the gun and dope deals him and Johnny were doing for these dicks. Nobody knew about it.”

  Raszer calculated the odds that there might be even a drop of truth in her statement. He doubted it, but didn’t argue.

  “Money would explain a few things. Not all of them.”

  “You don’t look so bad bald,” she said. “And with that slash on your face, it makes you look kind of holy and nasty at the same time.”

  “That’s good,” he said. “Maybe you won’t fuck with me as much.”

  “So, what’s the story with the Italian bitch? I don’t think she likes me.”

  “You ought to be able to figure that one out. And if you expect to hang around, you’d better follow her lead. She’s tougher than you are.”

  “Are you fucking her?”

  “I’m a priest.”

  “Since when did that make a difference?”

  At 7:07 by Raszer’s wristwatch, things suddenly got unnaturally quiet and Raszer heard a distant mey flute, accompanied by something that sounded a bit like castanets. The tune was haunting, infectious, a string of notes repeated again and again and commanding attention. On the patio, a few of the young men began to tap out the rhythm on their tables and exchange knowing glances. The women—some veiled but most in colorful headscarves—whispered and giggled with one another. One of them boldly removed her scarf and shook out her chestnut hair. None of the others followed suit, but most began to sway gently in time.

  When the sound of the flute floated close enough to tickle their eardrums, it was joined by drums of a deeper tenor, and soon after, the saz player in the restaurant band began to pick out the tune. Dante leaned over to Raszer and said, “It’s beginning. Watch the street.”

  “The holy men and dervishes will come first,” said Francesca. “To bless the feast and remind us that it is a zikr, a remembrance of our origins.”

  “What is this?” asked Ruthie.

  “Nothing you’ve seen in Azusa,” said Raszer. “Not even in Taos.”

  Ruthie returned a blank look. Francesca smiled privately and began to sway in time.

  Now the waiters emerged in a procession, carrying silver trays crowded with small glasses containing an amber-colored liquid. After all the patrons had been served, all but one set down their trays and joined the saz player at the bandstand. The remaining waiter went to the gates of the patio and stood patiently with a full tray. When the first of the red-sashed dervishes twirled into view, he stepped into the street and began to distribute the communal elixir to the vanguard of holy men. Not only did each manage to claim and hold on to his glass without ceasing to whirl, they all then extended their arms and poured the concoction into their mouths without spilling a drop. On that signal, the bandleader raised his own glass and directed all to drink. The liquor was deeply herbal, and Raszer registered it as even more potent than Ismet’s raki.

  “Wow,” he said, his eyes watering. “Can I take some of this home with me?”

  “You’d never get it past the airport dogs,” said Dante.

  Francesca nodded. “Not the male ones, at least,” she said cryptically.

  Raszer had a thought, but kept it to himself.

  There was a small explosion as the vanguard of spinning fakirs collectively cried out, hurled their glasses to the bricks, and then danced barefoot in the shards. Not one of them flinched, faltered, or let out a cry of pain.

  “That’s the one I want to learn,” said Dante, looking on.

  Raszer nodded and felt the flush of the liquid amber spread into his limbs. It seemed to induce a cathartic reaction, because he could sense the glass underfoot.

  Next in the procession came a breathing mass that soon revealed itself as a train of men and women in interlocking human circles, alternately revolving and meshing ceaselessly, like the gears of some elaborate machine. Though Raszer had seen nothing quite like it, he had heard of such things, and sensed that intricate, ancient ring dances like this one had been humanity’s original expression of group identity. Within each grouping, the dancers linked arms and chanted the flute’s melody. Collectively, the circles interconnected like a child’s paper chain, one turning through the next, and at first the mechanism remained an illusion. After a minute, however, Raszer saw that there were breaks in each ring through which the others wove. Once he’d seen this trick, the next move became apparent: With every full turn, each circle would “give up” one participant to the next circle, gradually seeding the links in the chain with members of the other sex, until, when they’d reached the point of gender balance, they began to shed their opposites and restore themselves to homogeneity—although with an entirely new makeup of individuals. In this way, the circles were continuously refreshed and their members redistributed, so that in a roughly seven-minute cycle, every man had been linked once to every woman. The front circle was constantly replenished from the rear. The mathematics of it were pretty impressive.

  “It’s brilliant, isn’t it?” said Francesca.

  “It’s a giant sorting machine,” Raszer observed.

  The waiter delivered a second round. Table by table, the restaurant’s patrons rose to join the dance.

  “It’s electrical,” said Dante. “The dancers who get passed are like free electrons in a circuit. When it gets going fast, the whole thing starts to hum like a transformer.”

  “All dance is ultimately about survival,” said Francesca. She turned to Raszer, clinked his glass, and drank. He did likewise. “And now,” she announced, to him and to the table, “it’s our turn.”

  It seemed to Raszer that she had sent him some code. The prospect of ending the evening in her embrace was far from unappealing. But the story of this night wasn’t theirs to tell. The dance would tell it, and the dance did not seem to play favorites.

  All ecstasy worth the name flows from repetition at increasingly higher spiritual voltages. For three hours, the dance wound its way through the hamlet without letting up. At the end of those hours, there was little left of Raszer as he knew himself. The whole thing was a quantum blur, and so was he. The night had dropped, the troupe of musicians had grown to the size of an orchestra, and the air was rich with a sweet, earthy fragrance that might or might not have included opium sm
oke as a component, along with human oils and the vapors of the liquor. As the drums grew deeper, louder, and greater in number, they overwhelmed all but the shrillest of the wind instruments. Over the course of his revolutions, Raszer came to know the face, the breath, the laugh, and the kiss of just about every soul in the village, save for the elders and children who’d retreated behind their doors. The dance was designed to shrink the circles by twos over time: from twelve to ten to eight to six to four, and with each diminution to increase by inverse proportion the amount of time the participants spent linked in sweat and sinew.

  The couples who left immediately joined other similarly reduced circles, such that their size remained constant, giving up one couple at a time until, finally, there were only pairs. The sorting ensured that no woman would end up dancing with the one who’d brought her. When it got down to dyads, they locked arms and spun themselves into a centrifugal cloud until, by and by, one of the parade marshals—the holy men—would tap someone on the shoulder. This, he inferred, indicated a kind of temporary betrothal: a license to be licentious.