The Eye of Midnight

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by Andrew Brumbach


  The cousins stared at each other, their faces pale.

  “I’m sorry I’ve dragged you both into this,” said Grandpa, “but now I see only one way out, and that lies in the middle of the desert on the far side of the globe. It’s the medicine we must take if we would be free of them.

  “But there is a silver lining. It would be the adventure of a lifetime, and for my part, I would choose not to leave my grandchildren behind—the grandchildren I have only now in my old age begun to know. I find I’ve grown rather fond of you both and have a mind to keep you close by, where I can look after you. And who knows, maybe we will have the chance to leave our mark on one another along the way.”

  Maxine caught her grandfather’s sleeve and clenched it tight. “I don’t care about adventure, Grandpa,” she said. “And traveling across the ocean in some rat-infested, leaky old boat sounds perfectly awful to me. But I don’t want to leave you. I’ll follow you wherever you go.”

  This pierced the old man’s heart, and for a moment his confidence seemed to falter. He scratched his chin and opened his pocket watch, pondering something inside the case, but presently his certainty returned, and he looked to his grandson.

  “How about you, my boy? Can I interest you in an adventure?”

  “I don’t know,” said William. “I’m not so sure my parents would care much for the idea.”

  “They almost certainly would not.” Grandpa nodded. “I will answer to them, however.”

  William’s eyes glinted as he pondered the prospect of surveying a shimmering stretch of dunes from the hump of a swaying camel, and the corners of his mouth twitched slightly.

  “I’ll take that as a yes, then,” said Grandpa, ignoring Sufjin’s disapproving scowl. “Now it’s time for bed. No more hijinks. We have a mountain of preparations to make in the morning.”

  The Mayfly Inn slept. The world was dark and quiet; even the crickets outside rested from their sonnets. In the delicate stillness Maxine rose from her bed and crossed the room. She raised the window and felt the cool, damp night steal in over the sill; closed her eyes and smelled the silver-leafed cottonwoods, heady-sweet and tart like apple cider. When she opened her eyes again, William was standing beside her, holding the silk-swathed mirror.

  “Summer sure got here in a hurry, didn’t it?” he said, casually unwinding the black silk ribbon as he watched a host of fireflies wander the meadow between the porch and the lapping water of the lake.

  “Is it what you thought it would be?” asked Maxine. “When you showed up on Grandpa’s doorstep, did you ever imagine any of this?”

  “I guess not,” he said with a laugh. “I sort of thought I’d be playing backgammon and bird-watching all summer.”

  Maxine studied William’s face for a moment. “You’re as happy as a cricket, aren’t you?” she said. “Sailing off into the East like Sinbad, with a pack of wild-eyed killers on your trail.”

  William cocked his head and grinned.

  “Well, that’s just swell for you,” she said drily. “I guess I shouldn’t be surprised—you have the same last name as Grandpa, after all. I’m not sure I’m cut out to play the fearless globe-trotter, though. I was actually kind of excited about spending my summer in the library.”

  William handed her the mirror. “Sorry, M, but adventuring’s in your blood. Like Nura said, we’re family. You’re a Battersea, too, you know, whether you have the same last name or not. You’ve proved it a hundred times.”

  “I have?”

  “Well, sure. You outfoxed the White Rat with an ashtray, and stared down the whole temple with a shaving mirror, and stuck a Hashashin with a hat pin for good measure.”

  “That’s a few shy of a hundred….”

  “Aw, who’s counting, anyways? Besides, you didn’t really want to haunt the library all summer long, did you? I mean, books are fine and all, but who wants to spend their whole life living someone else’s story?”

  Maxine thought about this for a moment, then pushed her cousin aside. Hoisting herself up onto the windowsill, she dropped to the lawn below.

  “Where do you think you’re going?”

  “Come and find out,” she said without looking back.

  Maxine walked barefoot down to the water’s edge, the long sash of black silk streaming behind her as she went. The mirror was cold and heavy in her hands, and a familiar pall gripped her as her fingers worried the strange eyelets along its outer edge. She sank to the ground, stretching out in the grass and staring up at the night. In the meadow behind, William came trailing after and flopped down beside her so that the tops of their heads were touching, and the fireflies seemed drawn to them and circled like will-o’-wisps round about where they lay.

  “Tell us your secret,” Maxine murmured, holding the Eye of Midnight to the sky at arm’s length, as if it were a celestial compass, the ancient astrolabe of the Orient magi, pointing always east, and they searched there on its surface for some veiled testimony or clue. But the mirror betrayed no confidences, and in its face they saw only their own faces, ghostly pale and luminous in the moonlight, and through its eyelets, a host of stars that burned and swung above in myriad infinite silence, like the stretching sands of Araby’s distant shores.

  AUTHOR’S NOTE

  With certain novels, it is interesting to learn where historical fact has crept in and left its smudgy fingerprints on the fiction. While I suspect my readers would never mistake William and Maxine’s encounter with the villainous Hashashin for a history textbook, they might be curious to know which of the details do have their roots in real life.

  The truth is, the Hashashin did exist, about a thousand years ago. They were a secret order of trained killers based in a remote hideout near the present-day border of Turkey and Iran, and they carried out the schemes and political plots of a succession of Grandmasters, each of whom went by the colorful title of the Old Man of the Mountain. They were fearless, fanatical, and invisible, and for almost two centuries they were the dread of the Middle Eastern world.

  Then, in 1295, a young Italian named Marco Polo returned from an extended vacation to the Far East, bringing back a fascinating and often imaginative narrative of his travels, including one particularly compelling tale involving a desert fortress called Alamut with a hidden garden and a horde of sinister assassins all willing to give their lives unquestionably in the service of their charismatic leader.

  Marco Polo’s sensational account of the Hashashin quickly captured the imagination of the Western world, but it has raised a multitude of questions from historians: Was there really a secret garden of paradise behind the walls of Alamut? How did the Old Man of the Mountain compel his followers to do his bidding? Were the Hashashin truly villains or simply another faction in the complex fabric of a turbulent time?

  When I first read about the legends of the Hashashin, however, my imagination immediately leapt to questions of the “what if” variety. What if the Hashashin were never really stamped out by the Mongols in 1275? What if they only slipped away into the shadows, biding their time, waiting for an opportunity to execute a diabolical plan to conquer the world? And what if, in 1929, they descended, in all their exotic, terrifying, Arabian Nights glory, on the unsuspecting populace of New York City?

  While the Hashashin and their deadly daggers are no fabrication, the mysterious relic known as the Eye of Midnight is another matter. It is my own invention, and though it has no historical basis, it seems a likely artifact in light of the abundance of magic mirrors in Arabian literature and the Old Man of the Mountain’s reputation (among his followers, at least) for mystical powers. The Cafara, the Sons of the Cipher, are a figment of my imagination as well. I found it interesting to suppose that there was another clandestine society—a virtuous fraternity set in opposition to the Hashashin, sworn throughout the centuries to stand against the plots of the ruthless sect.

  As for New York City, things have changed a fair amount since the Roaring Twenties. The jazz clubs on Fifty-Second Street a
re gone now. Ellis Island no longer welcomes its huddled masses yearning to breathe free (indeed, even in 1929 this had already become a more seldom occurrence), and alas, that luminous cathedral of Beaux Arts architecture, Old Penn Station, was torn down in 1963 to make way for Madison Square Garden. Those things were all there, though, once upon a time, and I’ve done my best to re-create the ambience of old Manhattan with reasonable accuracy. There never was a Knickerbocker Plainsong Cemetery, I’m afraid, but you can still visit Cleopatra’s Needle on the east side of Central Park, and if you look carefully, perhaps you will find the bench where Nura’s satchel was snatched in Battery Park.

  And then, of course, there is Colonel Horatius Battersea, a prime specimen of that peculiar breed of swashbuckling explorer, agent provocateur, travel writer, and spy that seemed to abound at the turn of the twentieth century, an era when adventuring was a bona fide occupation. The colonel was inspired by men and women like Lawrence of Arabia, Freya Stark, Sir Richard Francis Burton, and Gertrude Bell—fascinating figures, all of them, and well worth the effort of tracking down for their own exploits and memoirs.

  So there it is. A complicated concoction of factual elements and bald fiction all stirred up in the same cauldron. If I’ve taken any liberties with history, it was always for the sake of my deep conviction in another truth: that we are all designed for an adventure, that it lies in every young heart, and that losing ourselves in the pages of such things, even for a few hours, may kindle something in our souls that can never be extinguished.

  GLOSSARY

  1920s Slang, Idioms, and Terminology

  “Applesauce!”: “Nonsense!” or “That’s absurd!”

  bats: Crazy.

  billy club: A nightstick often carried by policemen.

  blower: A telephone.

  bogeyman: A nondescript individual or creature of terror, often invoked to frighten children.

  Brylcreem: A brand of popular hair pomade. See pomade.

  cabbage: Paper money.

  Charleston: A fast, spirited popular dance.

  cigarillo: A small, thin cigar.

  cloche: A close-fitting, bell-shaped woman’s hat.

  coffin varnish: A term for bootleg alcohol, typically of poor quality, from the period of the Prohibition.

  conk: A person’s head.

  drugstore cowboy: A young man who hangs around on street corners or in drugstores.

  Dumb Dora: A phrase from popular culture referring to a dim-witted female.

  eight bits: A “bit” is a colloquial term meaning twelve and a half cents. Since no coin exists in this denomination, the term is used in cases of even multiples (e.g., two bits being a quarter, four bits being fifty cents, and eight bits being a dollar).

  flappers: A class of women characterized by disregard for traditional norms of dress and behavior.

  flat tire: A useless or inept person.

  “for the birds”: Pointless or useless, of interest only to suckers.

  gink: An odd man.

  “Go on!”: “That’s ridiculous!” or “Quit pulling my leg.”

  “have kittens”: To have a fit of anxiety or anticipation.

  nighthawk: A person who likes to be out and about late at night.

  “Now we’re on the trolley!”: An expression used when someone finally understands or does something correctly.

  plus-fours: A style of baggy trousers reaching below the knee (presumably four inches longer than typical knickers), popular for active pursuits.

  pomade: A greasy, perfumed ointment used primarily by men for grooming the hair.

  thimblerigger: A swindler who operates a shell game.

  Tommy gun: Nickname for the Thompson machine gun, which became infamous for its use by gangsters. Also known as a “Chicago typewriter” or a “chopper.”

  whelp: A puppy; a smart-aleck.

  Foreign Words and Expressions

  “Aferin” (AH-fay-rihn, Turkish): “Nice job” or “Well done.”

  al-kaljin (al-KAHL-jihn): An invented term, meant to be a westernized portmanteau formed by the corruption of a pair of Arabic words (al-khayl, “horse,” and jinn, “hidden ones”) used as a designation for a wooden statue that can be brought to life when possessed by a spirit known as a jinni.

  Alamut (AH-la-moot, Persian): Literally “the eagle’s nest.” The desert fortress of the Old Man of the Mountain and the Hashashin, located somewhere between Turkey and Iran.

  Ana (ah-NA, Turkish): Mama.

  Baba (bah-BA, Turkish): Papa.

  bir canavar (BIHR ja-na-VAR, Turkish): An ogre or monster.

  diwan (dee-WAN, Arabic): A sheaf of papers; more specifically, a collection of poetry.

  djambia (JAM-bee-yah, Arabic): The chosen weapon of the Hashashin, a long dagger with a distinctive backward-curving blade.

  effendi (ih-FEN-dee, Turkish): A title of honor and respect.

  fida’i (fi-dah-EE, Arabic): Literally “the sacrificial ones.” A plural or singular term for the trained assassins within the Hashashin order.

  gorunmeyen (GOO-roon-MAY-en, Turkish): Unseen, invisible.

  “Hist!” (HEESHT, Turkish): “Shush!”

  jinni (JIH-nee, Arabic): In Arabian mythology, a spirit or demon with an essence of scorching fire.

  “Marhaba” (MAHR-ha-bah, Arabic): “Hello” (an informal greeting).

  Rafiq (rah-FEEK, Arabic): The highest rank within the Hashashin order, bestowed on the members of the inner circle of the Old Man of the Mountain, who commands the fida’i in the Old Man’s absence.

  sadiqi (SAH-dee-kee, Arabic): friend.

  “Tasharrafna” (tah-shah-RAHF-nah, Arabic): “A pleasure to meet you.” Literally “You honor us.”

  “Vay canina!” (WHY JAH-NEE-nah, Turkish): An interjection expressing disbelief, along the lines of “Oh brother!” or “You’ve got to be kidding!”

  Miscellany

  Araby (from French): A poetic term for the geographic area historically called Arabia.

  astrolabe (from Greek): An archaic instrument used in astronomy, to take altitudes and measure the position of the stars.

  cassock (corruption of Arabic): A close-fitting ankle-length frock or tunic.

  diabolus (Latin): A devil, demon.

  divan (from Persian): An eastern-style low bed or couch, furnished with cushions.

  hubble-bubble: An eastern-style water pipe for smoking tobacco, also known as a hookah or shisha.

  jackal (corruption of Turkish): A long-eared member of the dog family that hunts in the desert by night.

  kohl (Arabic): In the East, a dark black powder prepared from iron sulfide, applied to the eyelids for cosmetic, health-related, or mystical purposes.

  magi (from Persian): Historically, members of an ancient Persian priestly class; more broadly, magicians or astrologers of the East.

  moniker (obscure origins): A name or nickname.

  obolus (Latin): A silver coin referred to by ancient Greek writers when describing the toll required by Charon, who ferried souls across the river Styx to the land of the dead.

  portcullis (from French): A heavy grate, formed of horizontal and vertical iron bars, spiked on the bottom and suspended by ropes or chains in order to be lowered quickly to defend a gateway against an assault.

  scimitar (obscure origins): A curved sword with a single edge, used predominantly by the Turks and Persians.

  windlass (obscure origins): A mechanism consisting of a wheel with hand spokes set on a horizontal axle, around which a rope is spooled for the purpose of hoisting heavy weights.

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  It takes a village, I think, to make a book. My particular village is a charming one, inhabited by some of the most talented, supportive, long-suffering people I could ever hope to know.

  Deep appreciation to my amazing agent, Danielle Chiotti, who has tirelessly held her lantern aloft to guide me through the perilous spheres of the world of publishing, and to my wonderful editor, Rebecca Weston, who understood the story
I wanted to create and had the insight and imagination to make it come to life. We did this together.

  Compliments and recognition as well to all the wonderful people at Delacorte Press and Random House who made the publication of this book possible, and to Kate Welch, who plucked my manuscript from obscurity and the query pile at Upstart Crow Literary.

  To my friends Dan Haase and Skye Jethani, who subjected my chapters to the crucible and convinced me to share Maxine and William’s adventures with a broader audience—it’s a pleasure and a privilege to walk the journey with you.

  Heartfelt gratitude to everyone else I foisted this book on, when it was still definitely not ready for prime time—to Todd Martin, Ken Kunz, Rachel Rusin, David and Renee Brumbach, and Colonel Dave Oleson; to my grandmother Maxine Brumbach, who I’m certain lent more to my heroine than just her name; and to five particular young people—my boys, Jacob and Drew, and Katie Chamberlain, Jackson Elliot, and Chris Haase. It was their enthusiastic responses to this book that allowed me to hope it could connect with the adventuresome hearts it was intended for.

  Most especially, love and thanks to my wife, Lisa, who supplied the space and endless encouragement I needed to see this book through to the finish, and to my mom and dad, who still tell me I can be whatever I want to be when I grow up.

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  Andrew Brumbach grew up square in the hippie community of Eugene, Oregon, surrounded by artists and musicians and storytellers. He studied art in Texas, traded bond options in Chicago, and spent a few years lost in the neon neighborhoods of Tokyo. Somewhere along the way, he married the girl of his dreams and had four practically perfect kids, but he never overcame his weakness for the power and transport of story. Now he lives in suburban Illinois but secretly daydreams about chasing bandits across the desert with Lawrence of Arabia and Gertrude Bell under cloudless, starry skies. The Eye of Midnight is his first novel.

 

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