The Orphan Sky by Ella Leya Read Free Book Online Page A

couldn’t understand the words. Instead, I contemplated them like the images in old black-and-white movies: ripples of rain sliding down a window; the lights of the city fading into the night; sea waves breaking across a deserted beach; two silhouettes against the moonlit path, their hands entwined, their first kiss.
    I closed my eyes, embarrassed. Exposed. The passion of the music stripped me of my usual common sense and left my heart vulnerable to secret desires. Now I knew for sure that I was in a sorcerer’s lair. That I should run from this place as fast and as far as possible.
    But I couldn’t leave. I yearned for more as if I had fallen under the spell of Aladdin’s music. The music had awakened in me something thrilling, forbidden, and so powerful that I felt wings—not fish scales—growing out of my skin.

CHAPTER 5
    Azerbaijan had always played an important role in world affairs due to its unique geographical position at the crossroads of Iran, Turkey, and Russia. In the past, Islamic Azerbaijan served as the gate between the mysterious faraway East and prosperous Europe. By the 1970s, Soviet Azerbaijan had become a faithful, staunch outpost of European Communism as it made its way farther into Asia.
    Our ally, Hafez al-Assad, became the president of Syria, and a Stalin disciple, Saddam Hussein, took the presidency of Iraq. The Iranian Revolution, with its Communist roots, sent the Shah and his family packing and out of the country. And the Marxist Party of Afghanistan appealed to the Kremlin for military support in its fight against the Islamic Mujahideen.
    May 1979 was the month that would reshape the entire world. It was then, behind closed doors, that members of the Politburo of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union signed a top-secret document ordering the invasion of Afghanistan. That single decree was the irrevocable beginning of the end of the great Soviet Empire, which had been crumbling since its inception in 1922. Of course we, the people of the Empire, had no idea at the time. Communism—the only order of life we knew—kept its mighty grip on our hearts and minds.
    On Friday afternoon, I left college early to attend the Assembly of the 26 Baku Commissars District Committee of Komsomol for the first time as its junior member. Afraid to be late, I ran all the way there—along busy Communist Street, past the white colonnade of the Azerbaijan State Philharmonic Concert Hall, past a beehive of people moving in and out of the Baksoviet Metro station, past the pointed arches and ornate facade of the Academy of Sciences, and all the way to Nizami Square with the magnificent bronze sculpture of the medieval poet Nizami Ganjavi.
    The sun patted me on the back. The wind sprayed me with salty mist. A shortcut through the alley, down Uzeyir Hajibeyov Street with its row of blooming magnolia trees, and I arrived at the steps of the District Komsomol Committee Headquarters, joining the motley crowd of delegates.
    At exactly twelve thirty, the heavy doors opened, and we poured into the auditorium. Red satin covered its walls. A crimson banner hung over the stage with the slogan: “Long live Azerbaijan, the younger brother of the Soviet Union.” At center stage, a placard depicted our founding fathers—Karl Marx, Friedrich Engels, and Vladimir Lenin—their names painted in gold on the red streamer of the Revolution.
    I took my seat next to a young woman from some rural aul who wore a long, purple dress with multiple skirts, her head scarf tied in a knot so the ends stuck out like ears. On my other side sat a Russian sailor with the frame of a bear and the face of a Siberian husky, his watered-down blue eyes heavy with exhaustion.
    The auditorium boiled in anticipation, but the sound of the drums silenced the crowd instantly. Comrade Farhad, poised and stately in a formal black suit, came onstage from the left side carrying the flag of Soviet