The Blue Hour

Chapter 1: Hamid

He fixed his gaze in front of him, on the steady rise and fall of Jurad's body. It was dimly illuminated by the light from the oil lamp in Jurad's hand. In the flickering light, the corroded cast iron of the water conduit glowed orange. Over time, layers of dark, grimy dirt had accumulated in the conduit, which was built but never used, making it a home for rodents and spiders. The sharp claws of the rodents scratched as they scurried out of sight. An earthy smell came from rotting leaves and from puddles of stagnant water that leaked or seeped from the surrounding soil. It stank. A humid, sticky, nauseating smell.

He crawled on. Hands and knees burnt. Too often, his hips scraped against the sides of the conduit. He ceded to an urge to stretch his body, bumped his head and winced. Were the conduits becoming more narrow? Push on. He inhaled, dampness and death. Panic stirred in his gut and, as if to contain it, he pressed his lips tightly together, earth and sweat tasting. How long had they been here?

A sharp jolt made him freeze. His nails clawed the iron. Another tremble like a convulsion, a rattling, metallic noise, and the sound of glass breaking; the light was snuffed out. Was the earth trying to spew them out? Or had the outside world crumbled on top of them? All was still, all except his thumping heart.

"Jurad?"

Out of the darkness, Jurad's deep voice emerged: "I'm right here. The lamp broke."

"What was that?"

"The earth trembled. There could be more coming."

Jurad added something in his native tongue, a curse; he spoke Turkish, French and Greek, but found it more satisfying to curse in the language of his childhood.

On they crawled. It was hard to breathe. His mouth had gone dry, and he shook; an attack of panic, he knew the signs. Count, he told himself, one, two, three, four. He counted everything, to keep his mind off things he would rather not think of, or because there was nothing better to do. Sixty-three steps across the salon to his brother's apartment, six-hundred-twenty-seven steps from one garden wall to the other, the feathers on the wing of a falcon (countless, though he kept trying), the number of fresh dates served with his morning meal (always five, a coincidence or, a kindred soul in the kitchen counted the dates he put on the plate - it felt like a secret bond between them, making him feel less alone), the number of days since his mother died (eight-thousand five-hundred and ninety-one days).

Ahead of him, he heard Jurad shuffle forward. Or was Jurad behind him? He couldn't tell anymore. In the total darkness, he had lost all sense of direction and time. He stopped and turned his head upwards, the ground seemed to open beneath him, he fell, as if down a deep well, bumped against the conduit wall and gasped.

"Your Highness, you alright?"

"Call me Hamid, I told you." Jurad was not to blame. In all the years they had known each other, since they were boys, he had never called him anything but Your Highness or My Lord, and could not imagine calling him anything else. "It's nothing," Hamid added in a more gentle tone. "Let's continue."

Whatever argument he might have evoked for embarking on this madness, he had now forgotten it. This wasn't rational, there was no good reason to justify the risk they were taking. He clenched his teeth.

"Look, there's light! We've arrived!"

He lifted his gaze. In the soft glow, he could again make out the contours of Jurad's body. He crawled on, faster, towards, what appeared to him, to be a new life.

Jurad pushed aside an iron grill, heaved himself upwards, and disappeared. Following close behind, Hamid emerged from the womb of the earth and landed on a cold floor. He lay panting, humid from sweat, watching the moonlight fall through the barred windows in a shimmering pool on the stone floor. He blinked and choked back laughter; next to him on the floor was Jurad, and he was black with dirt.