There Are Rivers in the Sky

The narrator describes how water is a bent, non-linear molecule made of two hydrogen atoms and one oxygen atom: H-O-H. Similarly, “[t]hree characters connect across borders of time and place, and together they make this story” (19).

On a November morning, a group of “toshers” scavenge through the shoreline of the Thames in London, now a dirty and polluted river heavy with industrial waste, sewage, and human cadavers. One of the women in the group, Arabella, is heavily pregnant, and she feels her water break. Arabella delivers a baby boy on the banks of the river, helped by the other toshers, at the same time that Queen Victoria delivers a baby girl in Buckingham Palace. 

A sobbing Arabella asks the others to throw the baby into the river; she cannot afford to keep him, especially since her husband is largely absent, abusive, and never sober when present. One of the older women in the group soothes Arabella and gives her laudanum. As Arabella falls asleep, the rest of the group christen the baby “King Arthur of the Sewers and Slums” (29). As the baby nurses, a snowflake falls onto his lips from above, mingling with his mother’s milk. It is the same drop that fell onto Ashurbanipal’s hair and carries those memories. Arthur will remember the taste of this snowflake, as he will everything else that ever occurs in his life: He “is gifted with an extraordinary memory—visual, verbal and sensory” (30).

A group of Yazidis gather on the banks of the river Tigris in Turkey for nine-year-old Narin’s baptism. Before the final drop of water can fall, the ceremony is interrupted by a bulldozer working on the construction of the Ilisu Dam; over 80,000 people will be displaced by this dam, and it will cause Hasankeyf, an ancient settlement once known as Castrum Kefa, to flood. The driver refuses to let the ceremony proceed, insulting the group by calling them “devil-worshippers” and ordering them to move.

Narin’s grandmother, Besma, decides that the ceremony was not meant to take place today. She decides that she will take Narin to Lalish, the most holy of Yazidi temples situated in Iraq, to complete the baptism instead. Some of the others worry that it is not safe to travel to Iraq, but Besma insists that it has never been safe; she believes that Narin ought to experience Lalish while she can. Narin was born with a genetic condition that will see her soon lose her hearing completely.

As they walk back home, Narin asks Besma why the man driving the bulldozer called them “devil-worshippers,” and Besma describes how the Yazidis have been misunderstood and persecuted throughout their history. Narin pours out the final drop of water from the interrupted ceremony onto her palm, feeling sad for her people. The droplet on her palm is the same one that “witnessed the birth of a boy, the force of another river” (44).

Arthur Smyth grows up to be an unexpected genius with a remarkable memory and an affinity for languages. He is enrolled in a school for disadvantaged children when he is nine, where he learns to read, write, and do arithmetic, and his teacher, Mr. Hopkin, is fond of him. One morning, when Arthur is 12, he arrives late at school to find a new teacher in Mr. Hopkin’s place. The teacher is displeased at Arthur’s lateness and refuses to believe Arthur’s explanation that he was taking care of his unwell mother. He is further infuriated when Arthur politely points out an error in one of the sums on the board, and Arthur is taken to the headmaster’s office.

The headmaster makes Arthur take off his breeches and attempts to molest him before finally caning him with a rattan stick. Arthur is distracted through his pain by a book that he sets on the headmaster’s table, entitled Nineveh and Its Remains by A. H. Layard. After he is done caning Arthur, the headmaster advises him to get along with his new teacher, as Mr. Hopkin won’t be returning. The headmaster reveals that Mr. Hopkin claimed that Arthur was a genius, but the headmaster doesn’t believe this, as he thinks that “[n]o genius ever came from the slums” (59). In response, Arthur rattles off the exact day, date, and details of the headmaster’s first arrival at the school, noting that the man has always been “dastardly,” and leaves the school premises for good.

Arthur wanders the streets and arrives in front of the British Museum, where two huge stone sculptures are being hauled in. Arthur asks a man in the gathered crowd about them, and the man explains that they are the lamassus built during King Ashurbanipal’s time, excavated and transported to England by Austen Henry Layard and his team. Arthur recognizes the name as the author of the book in the headmaster’s office, and the man is impressed when Arthur rattles off the long subtitle: “An Inquiry into the Manners and Arts of the Ancient Assyrians and an Account of a Visit to the Chaldean Christians of Kurdistan and the Yazidis, or Devil-Worshippers” (63). The man introduces himself as Dr. Samuel Birch, the “Keeper of Oriental Antiquities,” and invites Arthur to come study the lamassus up close anytime he wants.

Zaleekhah, known to her colleagues as “Dr. Z Clarke,” carries a cardboard box of her belongings to a houseboat docked along the River Thames in the Chelsea Embankment. The houseboat that she approaches is named “She Who Saw the Deep” (69). Zaleekhah remembers the messy breakup she had with her husband, Brian, a week ago that caused her to leave their shared house with a cardboard box of her things. They were both colleagues and are both scientists working on the conservation of water.

Zaleekhah receives a call from her uncle Malek. She breaks the news to him that she and Brian have broken up and that she is moving into a houseboat. Uncle Malek invites her over for dinner the following evening to talk. As Zaleekhah enters her new home, a couple of her neighbors shout out their welcome. In speaking with Zaleekhah, they mention that the owner of Zaleekhah’s houseboat also owns a tattoo parlor opposite the British Museum.

Zaleekhah settles her few things inside the houseboat, including the miniature lamassu that was a childhood birthday gift from her uncle. She sits down and sheds a tear, the drop of water having been a snowflake or wisp of steam somewhere else at another time in the past: “Water is the consummate immigrant, trapped in transit, never able to settle” (78). Zaleekhah does not want to live anymore, and she contemplates how she plans to die by water.

After leaving school, Arthur takes up a number of odd jobs to help fend for his mother and younger twin brothers in his father’s frequent absences. Arthur’s father returns, as abusive as ever, when Arthur is 13, and he drags him off one day to find a job at a printer’s office. Arthur’s father convinces Mr. Bradbury and Mr. Evans, the joint partners at Bradbury & Evans publishing house, to take Arthur on as an errand boy. He reveals that Arthur is a genius, making his son recall the events and details of random dates in the past, to Mr. Bradbury and Mr. Evans’s awe.

Mr. Bradbury shows Arthur the printing machine and all the material it has produced. Arthur spots Nineveh and Its Remains among the lot and expresses his interest in reading the book someday. He confesses that he has been intrigued by the lamassus ever since he saw them and wonders whether the Yazidis are truly everything that people claim they are or if they are simply misunderstood, just as Arthur has felt himself to be.

Narin urges Besma to tell her a story, and Besma narrates the creation story of the Yazidis. Narin observes the tattoo on Besma’s forehead—“three wedge-shaped vertical marks” (94)—a tradition that Besma inherited from her own grandmother and that Narin, too, wants to participate in someday. Besma comes from a long line of healers on her maternal side. Besma herself is a water dowser and uses water to treat the “maladies of the mind” (96). 

Narin and Besma discuss what will happen to their land after the dam is built. Besma tells her that the government claims that it will relocate all the graves that would otherwise be submerged, but she does not believe them. Narin asks about the one foreigner’s grave among those of their community, and Besma curtly states that it belongs to an Englishman who traveled here in search of a poem. Besma’s grandmother, Leila, knew him. He eventually died of thirst on the banks of the Tigris. However, Besma declines to answer any further questions about the man.

Arthur thrives at his apprenticeship with Bradbury & Evans and is given increasingly complex tasks and responsibilities owing to his diligence and hard work. The day he takes home his first wages, his father forces him to hand it all over, beating him when he claims that he owes his father nothing. When Mr. Bradbury notices Arthur’s injuries the next morning, he immediately realizes what has happened, but he agrees not to speak about it at Arthur’s request, as Arthur doesn’t want trouble.

Mr. Bradbury allows Arthur to borrow a copy of every book they print, and Arthur eagerly and voraciously reads each one. Eventually, Mr. Bradbury and Mr. Evans offer Arthur a permanent position, impressed by both his talent and his character. A week later, Arthur takes home a copy of Nineveh and Its Remains, and as he reads about Mesopotamia, his fascination only grows further.

Zaleekhah goes for a run along the Thames. As she runs, she remembers hiking in Turkey with her parents on a summer afternoon when she was seven.

Zaleekhah arrives at the Maleks’ for dinner and heads upstairs to her uncle’s study. On the way, she passes her old childhood bedroom, which stands opposite that of Helen, the Maleks’ only daughter. Zaleekhah and Helen were exceptionally close growing up, and though there is still deep mutual affection between them, they have drifted apart as adults.

Zaleekhah finds her uncle asleep in his study, a book open on his lap: Nineveh and Its Remains. Uncle Malek wakes up at Zaleekhah’s arrival, and uncle and niece discuss Zaleekhah’s marital troubles and her move into the houseboat. He tries to dissuade her from divorce, and Zaleekhah remembers the love and support that she has received all her life from her uncle, having been raised by him after her parents’ deaths. Nevertheless, Zaleekhah never felt fully at home there; she left as soon as she turned 18.

Zaleekhah asks Uncle Malek about the book, and he explains he has been reading it as research for an upcoming auction—a blue tablet from Ashurbanipal’s library in Nineveh is up for sale, and he is interested in purchasing it. Uncle Malek tries to give her a cheque, but Zaleekhah refuses it, to his disappointment. Presently, they head downstairs for dinner.

When Arthur is 14, he gets a chance to visit the Great Exhibition of the Works of Industry of All Nations, located at the Crystal Palace. Walking through exhibits representing numerous countries across the globe, an awed Arthur is seized with a desire to travel the world someday. Later in the day, he comes across a pair of lamassus that he believes are on loan from the British Museum. Examining them up close, he notices a burn mark on one statue’s right hoof and wonders what may have caused it.

The next day, Mr. Bradbury discusses Arthur’s visit to the exhibition, with Arthur professing that he greatly enjoyed it. Mr. Bradbury proclaims that Arthur is a “good boy” and gives him some money to treat himself. When Arthur returns to the office the next morning, he discovers Mr. Bradbury dead in the office, having consumed cyanide. Arthur is shocked and shaken by Mr. Bradbury’s death; while he continues to be the perfect apprentice, he thereafter withdraws into himself, becoming more silent and contemplative than ever.

Narin’s cousins visit Turkey from Germany, where they live. The family visits the cemetery together, and Narin shows her cousins the Englishman’s grave. For the first time, she reads what his tombstone says: “King Arthur of the Sewers and Slums / Born by the River Thames 1840 / Died by the River Tigris 1876” (142). She also notices that it is diagonally opposite her own great-great-grandmother Leila’s grave, as if Leila is watching over the Englishman.

That night, Narin wakes up in the middle of the night for a glass of water and overhears a conversation between the adults. Her uncle, Elias, is urgently trying to convince her father, Khaled, to move to Germany, as the Mesopotamian region is growing increasingly unsafe for the Yazidis with the rise of ISIS. Khaled, however, who is a qanun player who plays at weddings and events, does not believe in any imminent danger. He believes that there will always be a place for music and celebration, and thus for himself, rendering him and his family safe. 

Narin interrupts the conversation to greet her father and ask what a “fanatic” is, but he reassures her and tells her not to worry about such things. Only later, as Narin lies asleep in bed, does she register that Besma had remained silent throughout the entire conversation.