Vial of Tears, page 17
“And there’s more. Legend has it that there are secret passageways to Earth, but the knowledge of their locations has been lost. You see, as the Phoenicians fled Earth, the storm god, Ba’al Saphon, remained to fight. He roiled the sea and threw invading ships upon the rocks. He shook the earth and sky, causing earthquakes, wind, and lightning. But the enemy could not be routed, and finally, he vanished. Ba’al Saphon has never been seen again.
“It was he who sealed the boundaries between worlds so the Phoenicians’ enemies could not follow them into the underworld, and it was he, they say, who left well-hidden rifts, should they ever wish to return.”
The knowledge of their locations has been lost.
But Zayin had promised she would help Sam get home, if she was paid in tears. Was it a lie? Did no one know where these gateways were? Not even someone like Zayin, the consort of a god?
If only Sam could be sure. Who could really help her?
“How did everyone end up here?” Sam asked. Maybe understanding better how the Phoenicians had originally gotten into the underworld would give her a clue as to how, or where, to get out. “Like, how exactly did that work? Teth told me a little, but…”
Helena raised an eyebrow. “Môt invited Ba’alat Gebal—goddess of fertility, beauty, and love—to shelter here. She was an impossible desire, but he saw the opportunity, and he begged her to join him in the underworld for safe haven. As the war raged, and as the Phoenician people on Earth were being slaughtered and taken as slaves, the goddess accepted on one condition. A considerable one.” Helena raised a finger. “She would join him if all others could escape with her as well. And so the underworld was flooded with refugees—including gods.
“Ah, look, I had forgotten this one.” Helena unrolled another scroll and smoothed it out. “An ancient fairy tale about the magical sword, guarded by a ghūl named Marid.”
Sam sat up straight, suddenly breathless with the memory. “And a riddle,” she added.
“You know this tale?” Helena asked.
“I…,” Sam said, grasping for the details. She thought of the gruesome illustration in Eshmun’s library. It had seemed so familiar. And then her mother’s voice came to her once more. Sometimes things aren’t what they seem. “I remember… I remember my mother used to tell us a story about a cave… and a monster that lived there. I remember it scared Rima. The monster eats the dead.”
Helena nodded. “Most likely the same story I was told as a child. I then told my son, who then told your mother. The cave is real,” she explained, “and Marid, the ghūl, is real. They exist here in this realm. But no one has been able to retrieve the sword.” She held a finger in the air again. “It is the only weapon that can kill a god.”
Sam could feel her eyes widen. She leaned over the scroll, searching the words even though she couldn’t read them.
“Do not even think of it,” Helena warned, watching her closely. “A thousand men have died in that cave.”
“But what if I need it?” Sam asked. “What if I have to fight a god to rescue Rima? Or to get out of the underworld?”
“Cast every last shred of the thought out of your head. You cannot fight the god of death,” Helena said sternly. “Understand: He owns the gateway from the underworld to gihannā—no matter where he treads, beneath him is a ready doorway. Phoenician hell is an endless sea with no ports and no wind.” She gripped Sam’s wrist. “It is a mariner’s worst nightmare. The damned float on rotten flotsam among other evil souls for all eternity. Would you wish to be banished there? Doomed forever?”
“But Eshmun’s uncle might already have Rima!” Sam said, eyeing the dying embers in Helena’s fireplace. The god of death. She thought of the hellfire and Môt’s powerful voice, of his plumes of flaming flies. She shivered with dread. “Rima is being taken to Kition. I’m running out of time to save her.”
“You will not go with Eshmun,” Helena said suddenly, smacking a palm against the table. “You will stay here. Let him sail with his men!”
“I have to go.”
A silence fell between them.
Sam sat back. She took another sip of her coffee. Her eyelids were heavy, but she needed more answers.
“I wish I’d never touched Eshmun’s coin,” she said quietly. Her lashes grew hot with sudden tears.
“As do I,” Helena said. “If I could go back, I would never lay my hand on that jug.” She was quiet for a moment, then refilled Sam’s cup of coffee and nudged a plate of dried fruit toward her. “You can tell me the truth.”
“Tell you…?” Sam asked, confused.
“Where it is. Eshmun’s obol.”
“I dropped it in my garden back home. Or Rima might have it,” Sam added, remembering her lie.
“Hmm,” Helena said. She didn’t press further. “You may ask me one more question,” she said, patting Sam’s hand. “And then you must sleep.”
Sam already knew what her last question would be. “Tell me how Eshmun would unlock the tar´ā.”
“It might have something to do with this,” Helena said, pointing to one of the unrolled lambskins on the table. She ran her finger down its text. “The blessing of Ba’alat Gebal…,” she mumbled, skimming ahead. “The prophecy of the sun… ah, yes, here it is. This passage speaks of a dagger tipped with a golden key. The key forged from Chusor’s gold, it says.”
Sam studied the indecipherable words beneath Helena’s finger. She thought of how she’d wanted to stab Eshmun straight through the eye. Sam looked up at her great-great-grandmother and flushed. She would be outraged if she knew Sam had wanted to kill Eshmun—and that she still intended to draw his blood, when she had the chance.
What other lead for escape did she have? Zayin no longer had Rima—maybe she never did—but the coveted items obviously held great value, and her threats still haunted Sam. She would be back to collect, sooner or later.
Would Zayin uphold her end of the bargain? To tell Sam what she knew about a portal home? Could Sam sell Eshmun’s tears, hair, and blood—commodities—to someone else for the same, or better, information?
“So Eshmun is not only supposed to find the doorway, he needs a special golden key to unlock it?” Sam asked. “Where is he supposed to get that from?”
“It is unknown. Chusor did not escape to the underworld when the Phoenician civilization fell,” Helena said. “Nor did his coffers of sacred gold.”
“What if it’s all a fairy tale, then?” Sam asked. “Obols and passages and golden keys.”
“Why do you doubt?” Helena asked with a laugh. “Look where you are! And how you arrived here. Do you not believe that Eshmun’s obol has power? That Chusor’s gold can unlock another world?”
Helena leaned toward Sam, lowered her voice to a whisper: “Aren’t you afraid?” She pressed a finger to Sam’s chest, to her heart.
“Of what?”
“Death.”
Sam swallowed. “Of course I am.”
“And so,” Helena continued, “what if you had a coin that you knew would take you to paradise, to heaven, the hereafter, to šmayyà… whatever you choose to call it? At the time of your death, the obol is placed beneath your tongue, and then its magic takes you to your family and friends who have gone before you.”
Beneath your tongue. So that was why Eshmun thought she’d hidden the obol in her mouth.
“I would want to find my coin,” Sam said, thinking of the fine line between life and death. The heart beats and then it doesn’t. A plane disappears from the radar. We take a breath, and then we don’t. Tenuous. Fragile. The lines between worlds were thin.
“Everyone would.”
“Or another sure way. A route from one world to the next. Passage.”
She imagined what it would look like. A funnel, maybe, like the one that had brought her here. But this one would be lined with soft blue skies and flecks of sparkling light. It would smell sweet. It would be warm. Inside, there would be the sound of laughter and music.
“The son of a god and a mortal… foretold to be a salve,” Helena said reverently. “From the day he was born, he was destined to come to the underworld. To heal this land. To lead the lost to our afterlives, so we may rejoin our long-deceased loved ones.”
“But he hasn’t delivered.”
“And so there is doubt brewing,” Helena said, nodding. “There has been for quite a long while. When I arrived, there was even talk that the prophecy needed to be reinterpreted.”
“Read another way?” Sam asked. “Why?”
“Think.” Helena raised an eyebrow. “Could the god mentioned in the prophecy mean Eshmun instead of Melqart?”
“Eshmun,” Sam mused. “He would be the father,” she said, making sure she was following correctly. “And he would have the mortal wife.”
Helena nodded. “He has not yet been married. And so there were those who believed I was the mortal. A young woman delivered into his arms by fate and gold—a bride from another world. They urged Eshmun to marry me, so that we could have a child. That child would be the one to fulfill the prophecy.”
“The child of Eshmun and a mortal woman,” Sam said, understanding.
“But I was already married!” Helena said, again slapping a hand against the table and making her coffee cup jump. “I’d already had a son! The prophecy is specific in that regard—the woman is a virgin, and there shall only be one male child born to her. That is why none of the gods had much interest in me. I was already…” She swept a hand toward a copper tray on the table. It had turned greenish, and was pitted with dark spots. “… tarnished, so to speak.”
Sam mulled all this over.
“Besides,” Helena said, “I did not love Eshmun. I hated him! He had brought me to this world, had taken me from my family. How could I be his wife? Even now, after all this time, I wake up sometimes and think I am home. It takes me a moment to remember where I am.”
“How could you ever forgive him?” Sam asked. “I’m so angry, I could just…” She glanced at Helena, biting her lip. “This is his fault.”
Helena leaned down and scooped Qamar into her lap, stroking her head as she spoke. “Soon after I arrived in this world, Eshmun overheard me talking about a serval cat I once had. A wedding gift.” She smiled. “Oh, how I adored that cat. She brought me such comfort. She would disappear for days at a time, as a wild cat should, but one day my heart told me she’d been gone too long.”
Helena sucked in a breath. “I found her, shot by the roadside. The horrible men who sometimes raided our village had killed her—that happened in those days, you see. I buried her and prayed on her grave until the day I was brought here.”
“Eshmun got Qamar for you,” Sam guessed.
Helena nodded. “She was an orphan, like me. No family.” She reached across the table, once again squeezing Sam’s hands. “Until now.”
Sam squeezed back. “You forgave Eshmun then?” she asked.
“Oh no,” Helena said. “It has taken many more acts of kindness on his part. A century of good deeds.”
“A hundred years,” Sam said in disbelief. She motioned to Helena’s mural on the wall. “How do you even keep track of time? The sun never rises or sets.”
“It is an imperfect art,” Helena said, nodding to a few plants growing on her windowsill. “Thanks be to Ba’al Hammon, the god of agriculture, we know by the seasons of crops, the gestation periods of the animals, the blooms on flowers. There are clues.” Sam smelled the outside air coming through the windows, balmy and fragrant from blossoming orange trees.
“I wondered how anything could grow without the sun,” Sam said, thinking of her backyard garden, the tomatoes. The green pepper plant Mom had bought with her casino winnings. “Ba’al Hammon. He’s another god here in the underworld?”
“Yes.” Helena leaned into Sam, close. She studied her face. “Now I see it.”
“See what?” Sam asked.
“You have the eyes of my husband!” Helena said something else in Arabic, a reprimand. “How could I have forgotten?”
Sam smiled. “Your eyes are just like my mother’s,” she said. “Exactly. And they remind me of how my sister’s are like our father’s.”
“It is a strange thing, isn’t it?” Helena asked. “How traits can skip a generation or two, and then they are reborn again?”
“You really don’t hate Eshmun anymore?”
“No. Though I am angry with him once again. He has reopened an old wound.”
Sam nodded. Helena had told her she could ask one more question, but that had been at least a dozen questions ago. She stifled a yawn.
“It is a strange life here, but not a terrible one,” Helena said comfortingly. “You will become accustomed to it, as did I. Qamar and I have hardly aged, thanks to the vials of tears Eshmun gives me every now and again. He takes care of this city and its people. There is much love in Sidon.”
“The tears give you eternal youth?” Sam asked, though she was already sure of the answer.
No wonder Zayin wanted them. Make haste, she’d told Sam in the mountains. I do not care to grow any older waiting.
“They do not grant eternal youth,” Helena said. “Death waits patiently for all of us. But the tears are quite curative, as you can see.”
Helena turned her hands over: They were rugged and worn, but her beautiful face was only creased at the corners of her eyes. Sam would have guessed her age to be forty.
“We tell no one of these vials of tears,” Helena said, nodding to them in their row by the plants. “Do you understand? No one. Otherwise I would have thieves at my doorstep—and much worse.”
“I understand,” Sam said.
“I can still see my son’s face,” Helena said. “A child’s face. In my mind, he is forever young.”
Sam let the silence that followed hang over them. Finally Helena took a breath and went on.
“We work hard for our food here,” she said, still examining her hands. “I sweep the floor. I wash and mend clothing. I bake bread. In all honesty, my life has not changed much.” She smiled. “It is not so bad.”
“I’ll take you back home with me,” Sam said earnestly. “First I need to find Rima, and then we’ll figure out a way.”
Helena shook her head. “What would be there for me? What is that world like after all these years?” she asked. “No. Eshmun will find your sister and bring her here. I will look after you both. After all, you are family. You have the eyes of my husband and the hands of my son.” She tipped her chin at the fireplace, the mural of the sun, a stack of terra-cotta plates, her oblong windows that let in the dusky light. “This is where I live. I have animals to tend, friends who make me laugh. Even if I could, I would not go back now.”
“But we don’t belong in this world,” Sam insisted. “I’ll find a way.” The more she said it out loud, the more possible it seemed.
“So very long ago,” Helena said, “when the Phoenicians fled from Earth, they were refugees of war. They were the displaced, the homeless. They struggled. The ruḥā frightened them, as did the absence of the sun. To them it was a cursed bargain—they were saved from the sufferings of conquest, and yet this was no paradise. Trapped here, they of course only wanted to go home.
“But later, for those generations who came after, for those born here, this was all they knew. It is home. We have food and beds, songs and poetry, work and dreams. Going back now would make no sense.
“Death will come for me eventually, and I will become ruḥā,” Helena continued. “But I keep hope that a gateway will open for us all someday. Just as Eshmun recites the names of his lost friends and family, I try to keep close the names and faces of those I will see again in šmayyà.”
The coffee had grown cold and sleep was impossible to fight. Sam put her hands to her chest, her heart aching. Helena looked so much like her mother it hurt.
“You’ve been here since 1903,” she said. Helena had missed two world wars. She would not know what a microwave was, or a computer or a cell phone. Men had walked on the moon.
“Yes, my love,” she said. She pressed her palms against Samira’s cheeks, gently cupping her face. “Do you understand what I am saying to you?”
Sam nodded and forced the lump in her throat to recede. “But did you look for a way?” she pushed. “Did you search?”
“I did.”
She led Sam to the back room, where there was a cot waiting. Judging by the layer of cat fur on the pillow, Qamar must have slept there often. Helena helped Sam settle in, pulling the blanket to her chin and kissing her forehead tenderly.
“You are so brave,” Helena said. “Braver than I ever was. But I cannot let you go. Eshmun will take his best boat with his fiercest crew. You will stay here. If need be, I will put a hundred locks on the door to keep you safe inside.” She ruffled Sam’s hair, her newly cut bangs. “Eshmun will agree.”
Sam didn’t have the energy to protest; now that she was lying down, she struggled to keep her eyes open. “Your cat’s name was Shams,” she said. “I remember now. When we were little, my mother told us stories about a serval cat.” She smiled at Helena. “She wasn’t forgotten.”
“Sleep, my great-great-granddaughter.” Helena let out a small laugh. “It never ceases to amaze me.”
“What?” Sam managed to ask as she began to drift into a dream. Sleep was taking her so quickly.
“Life,” Helena said simply. “Life.”
15
Keep an eye on your mom while I’m gone.
Dad’s voice woke her. She sat up and looked around the room as if she might find him sitting quietly in a chair, watching her sleep. But of course he wasn’t there. He was only in her dreams.
The curtains glowed with an amber cast, like bronze on fire. She smelled coffee and spices and burning firewood, and she remembered where she was. Dad wasn’t in this world, and he probably wasn’t in the world back home, either. He wasn’t anywhere, except in her memory.
