The Geographer's Library

Jon Fasman
holding his head up. Ripples of black and sickening purple encircled his
swollen-shut eyes. His nose was nearly flat, broken in uncountable places and
ways. His split and puffy lips were opened slightly and revealed a bloody
mouth of half-teeth. He looked like he had been soaked in wine and his head
inflated. The bruises continued to his shoulders, where the photograph
ended. Porat tried to stifle a sob, but it came out as a reedy exhale that collapsed
his torso. Kulin didn’t move.
“What has he been charged with?” Porat asked, sitting up and readjusting
his turban.
“Hajji, I don’t know. But I can promise you—”
“Promises from an agent of the Soviet government are worth less than the
breath it takes to utter them. But tell me, what choice do I have?” Kulin said
nothing. “You see?”
Porat walked over to an ornate copper chest in the corner of the room. “I
am sure that you will be well paid for your troubles here. A young man like
you can have cars, jobs, girls. Nice home for your mother. But whatever you
receive will be less than the worth of what you carry back. And what you
carry back I would give a thousand times over for Akbarkhan, my son, my
only son.
“Akbarkhan is the last male descendant of the Samanid scientist and
musician Ferahid. I can trace that line back for more than one thousand years,
all through the fathers. Tell me, how far does your family line reach? Who are
you?” Porat glared at him intently.
Kulin’s father worked in a lathe factory; his mother was a secretary at a
local Party office. His grandparents were farmers. His lineage ended there; he
kept silent.
“I suppose it hardly matters,” Porat said, unlocking the copper chest and
withdrawing a carefully wrapped parcel. “It has taken me, and my father, and
his father before that, and all our fathers, centuries to find these flutes. Now
they are yours. Our family’s greatest treasure in return for its continuance. A
painful but, in the end, very easy choice.”
Kulin unwrapped the package and saw two little flutes, one gold and one
silver. He turned them over and was going to check the inscription when
Porat banged his cane against the oven. “Put those away and listen; you are
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