Susan Fletcher - Alphabet of Dreams

by Susan Fletcher

  She hesitated, searching my face with her eyes. Then she thrust her baby into my arms and pointed down the lane where the others had gone. She pantomimed opening something: a gate? Then she motioned farther out, toward a ridge of hills beyond the village.

  I began to fumble with a saddlebag, thinking to fashion a cradle there from our cloaks and blankets. The woman signaled me to wait and disappeared inside. The sounds of hoofbeats welled up, suddenly louder. Hurry! Then here she was, holding out a wide loop of cloth, knotted at one end. A sling. I took it, pushed my head and one arm through the loop, and set the baby inside.

  “Go, Ziba! Run!”

  I drove her down the lane, between clusters of fleeing townsfolk, their mantles billowing out behind them, their sandals kicking up clouds of dust. We scattered a small flock of goats and then, with the goatherd’s shrill imprecations still in my ears, careened through the rear gate. I turned Ziba off the road; we jolted down the terraced hill toward the ridge where the woman had pointed. The baby began to fuss and cry. There was a din all behind us—a terrible din. Women screaming … Glancing back, I saw, through the open gate, moving glints of silver, flashes of red.

  But no one pursuing. Not yet.

  We crossed a shallow gorge; the sounds of the village faded behind. Ahead, as the ridge drew near, I saw that it was pockmarked with caves.

  Quiet now. In his sling, the baby gulped little hiccoughing breaths but no longer cried. Wind rustled in the leaves of an olive tree; a curlew cried hauntingly from a ledge.

  We came to a place where a cluster of cave openings pitted the face of the cliff. I whooshed Ziba down and dismounted. Babak, still awake, slid down after. I scanned along the way back to Bethlehem, searching for soldiers. None—but they might yet come. Many people had seen us there; many people had marked us heading for the rear gate. If the soldiers caught sight of Ziba, they would know where to hunt for us. I slapped her rump. “Go!” I said. “Get along!” She bleated reproachfully, then began to forage along the slope, among the clumps of dry grass.

  I clambered up the hillside toward the largest cave opening. Babak clutched my hand and, favoring one foot, stumbled along behind.

  CHAPTER 52

  THIS PERFECT DARK

  Darkness swallowed us up, cool, familiar. The baby fussed softly. I cradled him in one arm and tucked Babak’s hand between my elbow and my side. I felt my way along the rough rock walls, deep into the cave. Soon, the walls shrank close about us, and soon again, I had to stoop and bend down and crawl. “Go before us,” I said to Babak. He obeyed without question—crouching at first, soon dropping to hands and knees.

  The baby was unwieldy, hanging down from my body. His head wanted to loll sideways and spill out of the sling; his little feet kicked and thrust against me. Once, his head nearly struck the floor of the cave, and many times I bumped my elbow, scraped my arm. But my body soon remembered what it was to move groping through the dark, through a close, knee-gouging passage while holding treasure in one hand—food, or a lamp, or some prize I had stolen and retrieved to the City of the Dead.

  There was a ringing in my ears, a faint, tinny ringing—some dim echo of the terrible din in Bethlehem—and the dank, cool smell of stone and earth. The baby grew silent, grew heavier, his head large and solid in my cupped hand. My knuckles and palms and knees all sang with pain.

  And now I felt Babak halt before me, felt him sit down. I settled myself beside him, laid the baby in my lap. Babak leaned against me. I nuzzled the moist, downy hair on the back of his neck. With my fingers I traced the dimensions of the small cavern around us: floor and walls and ceiling.

  It pressed in close, enfolded us like a womb.

  I waited.

  I felt them breathing against me, Babak and the baby, each in his own rhythm. I could see nothing in this perfect dark, but oddly, I did not crave a lamp. My mind’s eye blinked open, and bright images swam before it. Of Suren and Zoya. Of Giv and Pacorus. Of Melchior, Gaspar, Balthazaar. Of Koosha and his kin. Of stars wheeling slowly across the great arc of the nighttime sky.

  What was it all for, the far, blazing omens of the night and all of this long journey? So that three old men, each chasing his own dream, could pay homage to the son of a carpenter?

  Melchior—dreaming of power.

  Gaspar—dreaming of knowledge.

  And Balthazaar. What did he dream of?

  I wonder if the humbleness of this birth may be the very crux of the matter, he had said. It has more to do here, with the heart.

  It occurred to me now that one might know a man from his dreams. That dreams, like stars, might make up an alphabet, a pattern of signs through which we might read the pulses of his heart, the temper of his soul.

  And I …

  What of my dream?

  I had sent Suren in pursuit of it, and now he was lost. I had bled out Babak’s spirit to buy it. Clinging to my dream, I had held myself and my noble kindred above those who had shown me kindness. I’d shown kindness only to Babak. And now—because of me—he, too, was lost.

  There had been nothing of humbleness about my dream. There was heart in it, true—but twisted by bitterness.

  Still, who wouldn’t be bitter, in my shoes!

  I could feel the rise and fall of the baby’s breathing against my legs. I could feel the rise and fall of Babak’s breathing against my side. How strange that the whole of my grand dream had come down to this, the rise and fall of two small boys’ breath.

  And the babies …

  Beside me, Babak began to hum. He rocked, back and forth. Rocked and hummed. Hummed and rocked.

  “Oh, Babak,” I whispered.

  He shifted, moaned, threw an arm about me. I embraced him close, leaned back against the cave wall. My eyes drifted shut.

  I dreamed.

  Mother comes to me first, walking across the garden, her gown swaying, her silver bracelets jingling, flashing in the bright morning light of Susa. I can smell her now; the scent of jasmine fills me up with a long-forgotten joy. I see her face clearly, as if through sundappled water: her arched brows and curving lips, the dimple on one cheek. She smiles at me and a golden warmth envelops me and I remember how it feels to be loved. And now my father comes to stand beside her, handsome and proud, and here is Suren, too. Suren! I want to ask him: Where have you been? Did they find you? Did they hurt you? Why did you not come for us?

  And now my grandmother appears—silver haired and lively eyed. She kisses each one upon the cheek … and this is how she tells me they are dead.

  “Sister!”

  I opened my eyes to darkness. Chilly darkness. Something heavy on my chest—the baby. Someone’s hand moving across my face.

  “Sister!”

  Babak’s voice.

  “Sister, listen,” he said. “I had such a dream!”

  Dream. I, too, had dreamed, the first one I could recall since Susa. I reached up to my face, found Babak’s hand there, covered it with my own. Tears prickled at the corners of my eyes, spilled down onto my cheeks.

  “Sister, don’t cry. It was a splendid dream. I was walking down from a mountain, with many people. There was a leper; he stood at the side of the road. He came to me and asked me to help him. I touched him, touched his face, and—”

  I stiffened. “Babak, I told you, never, ever touch—”

  His hand slipped out of mine. “It was a dream, Sister! I touched him, and the sickness on his skin was gone. And when I woke … I was awake. Not dreaming anymore.”

  “Not dreaming, Babak? Truly awake?”

  I groped to find his hand again—to find both of his hands. There. So small, his hands. He had something clutched in one fist, something that felt soft. I tugged on it. “What’s this?”

  “Oh,” he said, sounding surprised. Blindly, I coaxed his hand open. I took out what was there; it felt like a crumpled piece of cloth. I unfolded it, tried to see it with my fingertips. Yes, a bit of—not wool, but linen. Soft and threadbare, perhaps from many washings.


  “It was in my boot,” he said. “Squishing my toes. I pulled it out.”

  A piece of cloth?

  I recalled Melchior, in our room this morning. What are you doing? I’d asked.

  I’d searched all through Babak’s clothes, but …

  It was in my boot.

  What had Gaspar said to Melchior? You were bent over that baby far too long. What were you doing, I wonder?

  “Whose is it?” I asked Babak now. “Whose cloth?”

  “I don’t know,” he said.

  “Was it a man? Was it … a child?”

  “I don’t know. This time, I don’t. It could have been a man. Or a boy. It could have been a woman or a girl. I don’t know.”

  And then I remembered something else. Before, Melchior had said, it was for me. Now it is for him.

  For Babak? Was that what he had meant?

  “Can we go now, Sister? I’m hungry.”

  The baby stirred against my chest. I had forgotten about him, forgotten …

  The soldiers. The babies.

  Tears were streaming from my eyes. I gave myself over to them, began to shake apart with sobs. Crying for those babies. Crying for my mother and my father. Crying for Suren, for what I’d done to him. Crying for Babak, truly awake at last? Crying for the sight of my mother’s face—still fresh in memory—and the warmth of her love.

  And now another crying. The baby in my lap. Alive.

  Two cryings, braiding round each other.

  At last, I took a deep, juddering breath, then another.

  “Sister.” Babak found my hand. “Sister, let’s go.”

  I followed him, crawling first, then stooping, and finally standing straight, groping back along the cave walls toward the heartbreaking light of the world.

  CHAPTER 53

  HOME

  “Mitra! Mitra, come!”

  Leah was calling me. I wiped the butter from my fingertips, handed the pot to Babak. “Here, you finish with Ziba. I haven’t yet swept the rooms.”

  I pulled a stool over so he could reach the mange high on the camel’s shoulder. Babak stepped up and began slathering on the butter. “Is that better?” he asked. “Do you feel better now?”

  Ziba groaned and snuffled in Babak’s hair.

  I watched Babak for a moment, let my eyes linger on the soft fullness of his face, the solidness of his body. It seemed he had grown a hand’s length in just the past few months. Soon I would have to stitch a new band to the hem of his tunic.

  “Mitra!”

  “Coming!”

  I slipped out the stable door and into the late-afternoon shadows that stretched across the courtyard of the caravansary. I wove among the travelers and their belongings—bundles and bales, crates of chickens, cooking pots, wine jugs, rolled-up carpets and beds. Leah stood at the top of the steps, waving the broom at me. “Sweep,” she said. “A caravan comes.”

  Over the past months I had learned many words in their language. Sweep I knew well. And caravan. And Mitra, come. By now, my ears were nearly fluent in listening, but my tongue learned a good deal more slowly. Thank you I had learned early, for I had much cause to use it.

  I took the broom from Leah; she relaxed her frown into a fond smile and patted my cheek. “Hurry,” she said—another word I had learned all too well.

  As dust rose before my broom, I thought back to when we had first come here, to Bethany, this past autumn. Hannah—the kindly young woman in Bethlehem, the one whose baby we had taken to the cave—Hannah and her husband, Reuben, had brought us here when they left Bethlehem. They had had to leave. The sight of their live infant son had brought renewed grief to those who had lost theirs to Herod. It was too much to bear. Reuben had taken us to his brother Levi, who owned this caravansary, and to Leah, his wife.

  Like their own two sons, Babak and I were expected to work—work hard—and received no pay beyond a room to stay in and food to eat. My waking hours were full of grinding grain and baking bread, of spinning thread and weaving cloth, of milking goats and drawing water. And sweeping! But Leah and Levi had treated us fairly and, over time, strong bonds of affection had grown among us. They even allowed me to take time from work to pray, and did not ask which god I prayed to. The Wise God, it was. It lent me comfort, praying.

  Now, above the scratching of my broom, I heard the caravan coming through the gates and across the stones of the courtyard—the jingle of bells, the shouts of men, the groans of many camels. I wondered what this one would bring. Such far places the sojourners came from! India and Bactria, Egypt and Rome. I liked to watch them in their various garb, and to study the different shades of their skin and configurations of their faces. I liked to listen to the rhythms of exotic tongues.

  But what I listened hardest for was the language of home. Such a comfort to the ear, the dear, familiar rhythms of Persia! And yet every time they caused a longing to rise in me, an aching in the heart.

  I wished I could go to the gallery and look out, but the travelers would soon be wanting their rooms, and I was only halfway done with sweeping.

  And so I was surprised when, not yet finished with the last of the vacant rooms, I heard the jingle of Leah’s ankle bracelet, saw her in the doorway. “Give me the broom, Mitra,” she said. “Some sojourners are asking after you. Persians.”

  Persians? For me?

  My mother’s face leaped into my mind’s eye, as clearly as if I had seen her only yesterday. And then my father’s face, strong and grave. And Suren …

  But no. I knew it could not be.

  And then a frightening thought. The Eyes and Ears of the king.

  Once, I had spoken to Levi about them, in case they should ever come to the inn. He did not think they would look for us here, nor recognize us if they found us. “But it is good you have told me,” he had said. “There is need for vigilance.”

  “Did the travelers say who they are?” I asked Leah now.

  “I know not. Levi said they were searching for you in Bethlehem, and someone told them to come here.”

  So Levi was with them. Good. Still … who might they be?

  “Mitra? The broom?” Leah was holding out her hand to take it.

  I blinked. “Oh,” I said. “Here!”

  I did not go directly to the stairs, but crept out on the gallery from a vacant room and peered down into the courtyard. Camels were kneeling as riders dismounted; men were unpacking, leading animals to the stables, fetching water. A group of men stood talking to Levi by the stairs. Persians, indeed; I could see it by the cut of their clothing. Women’s garb here was not so very different from that of women in Persia, but I would never accustom myself to the men of this place, who kept their hair and beards short, and never wore trousers beneath their tunics, even when they rode!

  But wait—the man who stood nearest to Levi …

  Giv!

  My feet sent me flying across the gallery and halfway down the stairs before I knew what I was doing. I slowed then, and straightened my head-cloth, feeling suddenly shy as I walked down the remaining steps. “Giv?” I said.

  They all turned, as a group: Levi, Giv, and three others. Giv’s eyes widened; the whole of his ears and scalp seemed to shift. I let my eyes rest for a moment on his face, grown precious in memory: the high, jutting cheekbones; the slit in his nose; the deep furrows on either side of his habitual scowl. “Ramin,” he said. “You are much changed.”

  I glanced down at my tunic and mantle—long, as women wear them. “I am Ramin no longer,” I said. “Mitra is my name.”

  “Mitra.” Giv made a small bow, as if introduced to me for the first time. “I did wonder. The name suits you.” He hesitated. “And Babak?” he asked softly. “He is …”

  “Well.”

  Giv drew together his eyebrows, as if he could not believe what I had said.

  “Yes, truly he is whole and hale. You must come to him; he will be so glad to see you; he—”

  “Mitra.”

  I turned to the one who ha
d said it, a man not as tall as Giv. He was gazing at me intently, directly—most improperly!

  “Koosha!”

  I didn’t realize I had said it aloud until he smiled, and I heard in my mind the echo of my voice.

  “So I was afraid you wouldn’t remember me, then,” he said. “It’s been long betweentimes, and you were a boy when last we met, as I recall.”

  I gaped at him. Having spoken without thought, I could not now think to speak.

  One of the men sternly cleared his throat, and Koosha turned to him. “You recollect my father, Ardalan,” he said to me. “And my uncle Kouros.”

  I nodded, shut my mouth. Now I recognized them as well. They, too, had been kind. Finding my voice at last, I asked after their journey; they said it had been long.

  “But profitable,” Koosha put in, smiling straight into my eyes.

  Heat rose in my face. I looked away, but not before I saw Ardalan turn to glare at him.

  “Come,” Levi said amicably to the travelers in his heavily accented Persian. “Let us sit and talk together.” Behind his back, he motioned me to go.

  That night, wide awake and restless, I set a lamp beside Babak and sat watching him sleep.

  A peaceful sleep.

  Since the cave in Bethlehem he had had no dreams for others, no dreams of dreams that pointed to events to come. Sometimes I wondered if he missed it—the gift of prescient dreams. Dreams that powerful and wise men attended to. Dreams that made him a magical boy, unlike any other.

  And sometimes it seemed that he did miss the gift. Twice, I had discovered, he had tried to make it come. Each time, he had stolen a sash from one of Levi’s sons and slept with it next to his skin. Each time, he had been teased and had thought to find some way to tease back. But their dreams did not come to visit him.

  I had scolded him severely when I found the sashes in our room, all the while thinking, He would not have done this before. It would not have occurred to him.