The Ruby Notebook by Laura Resau Read Free Book Online

lyre in her lap. “A horrible, sad, bloody time.”
    “Then how are you here?” I ask.
    Sirona looks at me, puzzled. “What?”
    “I mean, how can you be a descendent if all the women and children died?”
    “You’re sharp.” Her fingers glide over her bracelets, making a clinking sound. “A few of the Salluvii survived, hidden, preserving the ancient traditions of our people.” She plucks a few strings of her lyre. “
Alors
, a few centuries later, the Christians conquered the Romans. Over the centuries, people added new neighborhoods, new architecture, new art, layer after layer of civilization.”
    I click my pen against the table. The city must feel tired, always reinventing itself, piling on new identities. “So what’s the thing that makes Aix, Aix?” I ask. “Has anything stayed the same over the millennia?”
    Sirona doesn’t hesitate. “The springs. They are its essence, its soul, its timeless core. “People’s ideas about the waters have changed over time, of course.” She shakes her head. “These waters have survived a lot.”
    “Like what?” I ask, my pen poised.
    “
Ouf!
People were always fighting over the springs, trying to own them, making stupid rules. Those Romans built their fancy bathhouses two thousand years ago.” She makes a face. She obviously doesn’t think highly of Romans, as though they were bullies from elementary school she still resents. “And then,” she says, “when the Christians came along, they claimed the waters were the site of pagan rituals—‘diabolical activities,’ they said—and forbade the use of them.” She rolls her eyes. “And later on, during the prudishphase, the rulers decided that the waters encouraged debauchery, so they forbade women to use them. And when there were plagues and diseases, everyone blamed the waters.” She shakes her head.
    Layla says, “Sounds like a dark time.”
    “It was,” Sirona says, sighing. “It was. Luckily, there are those of us who’ve loved the waters through the years,
non?
We see past the fountains and wells and bathhouses and baptismal pools. We know that deep underneath all those layers is what truly counts. The source.” She sweeps her hand over the square, stopping at the huge fountain, where the pigeon man is standing amid a mass of feathers swirling and wings flapping.
    “Here comes my family!” Sirona announces as a woman and two men arrive, toting a collection of odd instruments and wearing hand-dyed tunics and rough-hewn leather sandals like Sirona’s. “We’re also a band. We’re called Salluvii.”
    “After your ancestors’ tribe?” I ask.
    She smiles. “You pay attention, don’t you?” She introduces the man with the silver-flecked beard as Grannos, and the younger one, her son, Bormanus. His girlfriend is Damona, whose brass bracelet snakes up her arm like Sirona’s, and blond hair encircles her head in a braided rope.
    They say “
Enchanté
” and “
How do you like France?
” and the basic pleasantries, and then go off to start playing. Sirona picks out a few notes on her lyre; then Damona starts blowing on a long, oval instrument, curved like a mountain sheep’s horn,with a bar across it that rests on her shoulder. Next, Grannos comes in with a bone flute, and finally, Bormanus with an instrument that looks like a long trumpet.
    In the next song, Sirona and Damona shake tiny bird-shaped clay bells as the men play. The ancient melodies sound almost eerie, entirely unlike anything I’ve heard before. It’s an unexpected combination of sounds, almost jarring. It’s not until I’ve heard a few songs that I begin to understand the rhythms, the patterns of notes. The band is obviously well practiced, with each person coming in at just the right time, without even any eye contact, as though they’ve been playing together forever.

    While Salluvii is in their second set, Layla leans across the table. “Hey, Z, you think your
fantôme
is out there somewhere?”
    I shrug.