Bone Ash Sky Read Online Free PDF

what another girl was saying about dried meal being good for the pigs, and he was gone.
    When they arrived home, the chicken was cooked through and dripping fat. Mamma placed dough on the tonir over a bed of coals as they washed and prepared to eat. The dough was elastic, so transparent her hands could be seen through it. Minas took out his schoolbooks, not before telling Mamma she should sprinkle a little water on the bread as it baked to prevent it from drying out. She replied that a young man shouldn’t be so concerned over the doings of women, slapping the dough onto the hot surface, where it blistered. Yet Lilit knew she was pleased Minas knew about cooking and keeping house. She only yelled at him to keep Papa satisfied his only son wasn’t turning into a girl.
    Papa napped now near the smell of baking, his cheek cupped in one hand. Mamma went outside to pull up spring onions to have with their meat, and Minas sighed as he began to read from the light at the window. Lilit stood in the middle of the room watching them all; she could sense the mood of her family, of the town, concentric ripples of doubt under sedate Sunday streets. She was alone; she among them had nothing to distract her. A shiver of fear passed through her, but she was used to that by now. She unbuttoned her cuffs, rolled up her sleeves in prudent folds and sat at the piano.
    In front of her stood another window and a low white wall marking the boundary of their property. Mamma had never planted a vine or flowers over it; she said the shadows of fruit trees were beautiful enough. Lilit cracked her knuckles and looked at it now. Moving light seemed to draw letters on the rough surface, letters more powerful than those she wore at her waist. You will see him , it said. The shadows weren’t of leaves and branches, but of the diamond-shaped bars on windows that kept her inside. He will love you above all others . She began to play. Her fingers were long and brown and thin against the black and white keys. Two silver rings clicked against each other, point and counterpoint. The piano was badly tuned, some keys emitted no sound, some only creaked when she laid her fingers on them. But to her it was a wonder, singling her out to Yervan from the rest of the girls. She could play – granted, not very well – but she could play.
    She knew Yervan’s family would walk past on their way home, and she wanted him to hear her voice and stop, enchanted by its lilting beauty. My darling, my love, your sufferings and joys will be many. Mamma stopped to click her tongue.
    â€˜It’s Sunday, Lilit. Aren’t you ashamed of yourself, singing like a Turk?’

BEIRUT, 1995
    T here’s a hum and burning behind my eyes. The hotel curtains let in too much light; I wake at dawn every morning and can’t get back to sleep. I’ve been here three days now yet it feels more like years – or as if I never left. The same smells, sounds, undertone of anxiety. The bathroom tap drips in a slow, melancholy devotion. Yellowed sheets, threadbare with the washing of generations.
    I chose the Mayflower because it was where journalists mostly stayed during the civil war. Now, its faded gentility makes me alternately nostalgic and irritated. The lobby sombre and outdated, stiff fake flowers bleached white by the sun. My room airless, windows nailed shut, balcony doors rusted by sea air. But the staff are welcoming, and there are always a few journalists at the bar downstairs every night. There’s an uneasy excitement about the place, even with its shabbiness, the hotel incinerator under my room, the bathroom door that won’t close all the way.
    But I’m still only halfway here, still rising in the cold light of another sunrise, breathing the stale air of a Boston apartment that belongs to me now my godfather is dead. It’s been willed to me, and I feel glad and surprised and slightly queasy. It’s all happened so quickly: his