Bone Ash Sky by Katerina Cosgrove Page B

be punished for wedding cousin to cousin? Will my daughter be cursed? The Arabs do it all the time.
    Minas coughed slightly and frowned as well, but Selim knew it was only because he was excited. Excited enough to say stupid things. He peered through the veil at the face of Anahit beside him, a face he’d known since his eyes could focus. Such filmy skin and translucent eyelids, such innocence, such trust in him. She wore the heavy bracelet his father had given her the day she arrived in Beirut. Selim looked down at his mirror-shine shoes, flinching from her gaze.
    Now he shook his head to chase the memories away. This same bracelet circled his left wrist, caught and refracted the morning light as he rubbed at his neck with a flannel, scrubbed the back of his knees. It was a strange design, of bold interlinked silver squares and Armenian crosses, too masculine for a woman. One of the squares was slightly larger, and on it was engraved the surname Pakradounian , twisting along his inner wrist like a snake. It made a lozenge of light on the shower tiles. For a moment more, he was distracted from the demands of his day to stare at the pattern: Look at the way I influence the world. Then he turned his attention to his responsibilities. He mentally ticked off the least important items on his list: return telephone calls to the Red Cross, the Red Crescent, the UN, foreign-media news agencies; no time to attend to them now. Enquiries about lists of Muslim deaths, casualties, victims of the Phalange. Unimportant. Anything they claimed could be censored before printing by the Phalangist office, anyway. The priority today was to boost morale. Although the other militias didn’t know it, the Phalange had suffered a beating in the last few months. He allowed himself a chuckle. The Israelis will soon help us reverse that . And they won’t stay a minute longer than they have to. Just long enough to ensure a Maronite peace. Liberators.
    The hot water ran out within minutes. He jumped about underneath the dying stream, trying to wash the shampoo out of his hair and the soap out of his armpits without freezing to death. His penis had shrivelled to a dried date: insignificant. It was the only part of his body he forced himself to rinse thoroughly before he turned off the water. After all, it was the most important thing.
    They’re here, Sanaya said to herself. They’re really here now.
    Scattered machine-gun fire reverberated through the corridors. It felt as though the gunmen would burst through the door in a moment, accuse her of everything and condemn her in an instant. There was a knock. She jumped. The door opened a crack and a black-veiled head poked through. Rouba’s cheeks were rounder now, yet unhealthy, as if swollen by her grief. Behind her, Hadiya’s flower-like face peeped into the room, eyes huge with fear.
    â€˜Hadiya’s scared,’ Rouba said. ‘She kept asking for you. And I persuaded Issa to come up too. Do you mind if we—’ Issa squeezed through before them, hanging his head. Sanaya came with short hurrying steps, one hand outstretched to Hadiya as she fixed her gaze on him.
    â€˜Sorry, Issa—I—I’m surprised to see you here.’
    She scooped Hadiya up into her arms, at the same time surveying Issa’s face, attempting unsuccessfully to hide her stare. He was wounded, and blood seeped through an inexpertly tied bandage on his shoulder.
    Rouba pushed forward. ‘He won’t let me look after him. Sanaya. Maybe you have some influence. He insists on bandaging himself.’
    Issa squirmed under the combined gaze of both women, embarrassed.
    â€˜I haven’t been out there at all today. My commander said I needed some time off after—after this happened to me. Of course I wanted to keep going—’
    â€˜Of course,’ Sanaya echoed. Something in his voice wasn’t right, as if he was hiding something. Lying. Yet why should he? She