The Claim

1-7-2015: Begin Chapter 2

After the tearful reunion, after the banquet, after days renewing old acquaintances and occasionally making new ones, absorbing the news of the village and seeing, whether by coincidence or design, almost none of Ozier and Inber (who was now insisting that he be called “Tune”) at all, there came a day when Esker had nothing to do. On that day, he rose, greeted his mother Iseret with the usual Good evening (he had mixed up the signs for “morning” and “evening” as a child, and the wrong greeting had survived his learning of the correct sign), then fetched eight eggs from the henhouse and cracked two of them into a bowl of tomato sauce, to which he helped himself from the pot that was already simmering on the stove. He picked up the small baton hanging by the stove and heated the bowl for himself until the eggs had poached in the sauce, then poured himself a cup of coffee from the other pot. By this time, his father Qeb had risen and Kem had arrived at the house. Iseret served the same dish of shakshuka to them, reserving two eggs for herself, and they discussed the day’s work over breakfast. The government had issued new quality standards for black silver, which necessitated new assurances from the Amen-Enkh plantation and its employees, which meant a huge amount of work drawing up new documents—but there was a great deal to be done on an illumination commissioned by one of Qeb’s Heru City clients, and a number of migrants from Qarna to the east needed work permits before they could begin work in Metu, or anywhere in Heru Territory. Kem insisted that he could handle the permits while Qeb concentrated on the illumination; Qeb allowed that Kem was skilled enough to do it, then began confabulating reasons that it could not be done anyway. This was a pattern with Esker’s father, of course—Esker, at eleven, had had to watch the henhouse like a hawk for damage, then repair it perfectly without permission, before Qeb trusted him to do it on his own—and he listened to the familiar back-and-forth with a dwindling but still warm affection. There was something else there too, though, a crawling feeling in his throat and the backs of his upper arms; this sensation had been rising for days, now, and he had not seen fit to look it straight on and examine what it was. 

Likewise, he declined to do so now. Instead, he stooped to leave the house, then walked the quarter-mile to Metu and wandered through the streets until he heard the sound that had been nagging at him since his return—the high, wistful sound of a violin.

His wandering was merely to pass the time; he knew where the sound came from. Across from the post office stood Old Pa Urshu’s house, which had been vacant when he was deployed. The same pair of rocking chairs flanked the same little round table on the same shaded porch, but a sign now hung over that porch: AZMERA BERTA, LUTHIER. Esker stood outside the porch for longer than was strictly proper, listening. It was the same tune, being played over and over again, with small variations in the pitch and quality of the sounds; Esker guessed the luthier was tuning an instrument. He walked two doors down to the Last Spike, Metu’s superior drinking establishment, and asked if he could take a glass of tea out for a bit. The server (a new man, whose name Esker had not learned) gave him the tea for free and the glass on loan, and Esker returned to the luthier’s porch and sat in one of the chairs.

The tuning continued for a while, then stopped. Then music began on a different violin, but this was proper music, designed to please a listener, not to expose weaknesses in an instrument. It was a serious melody, perhaps even a bit fussy, played well even through the difficult parts—but not playfully.

A young woman arrived, tall and straight-backed, her hair long and pulled back into a loose ponytail. Her frock was bright blue and green, not colors Esker remembered as typical Metu dress; he wondered if they were talked about. It seemed like the sort of thing talked about in small towns, but the impression seemed read from a reference guide, not formed from his own experience. He said Good evening with his hands as she entered the luthiery. If anything about the greeting surprised her, it did not show, and she said Good evening smoothly back, barely interrupting her opening of the door.