Anyush (34 page)
Authors: Martine Madden
T
he lieutenant and Anyush walked along the main thoroughfare in Gümüşhane. The street was full of evening shoppers and men heading towards the mosque, but the town made little impression on Anyush. She didn’t notice the tall thin houses with their steeply pitched roofs and heavily studded doors of dark wood. The ancient Süleymaniye mosque cast its shadow over her and Abdal Musa, the highest of the Gavur mountains, loomed above her, but she may as well have been walking in the desert. She followed the lieutenant with no thought of where she was going or what lay ahead. Somewhere in her mind she had an idea of herself, a woman dressed as a man and walking, always walking.
‘Keep up,’ the lieutenant hissed.
A strong smell drifted by every now and then, and she realised it was coming from herself. People were stepping off the path, and a number of them crossed to the other side of the street.
‘What am I supposed to do with you?’ the lieutenant muttered. ‘A stinking, half-dead Armenian? Who in all the Ottoman Empire would be stupid enough to take you?’
They turned into a square set out as a souk and spice market.
‘Stay here,’ he told her, pointing to a covered alleyway.
When the lieutenant had gone, she dropped to her haunches and laid her head on her knees. She wanted to close her eyes, to sleep, but someone came running down the lane.
‘
Merhaba
,’ the boy said.
His small dog sniffed around her feet. It barked once and sat on the ground beside her.
‘Come here!’ the boy called, reversing out the way he had come. ‘Come on, Kapi.’
‘Watch where you’re going!’
The lieutenant grabbed the boy by the shoulder and spun him round. ‘Your mother never tell you to respect your elders? Hey … I know you. You’re Hasan’s son!’
The terrified boy wriggled out of the lieutenant’s grasp and darted down the street, his dog chasing at his heels.
‘Wait … come back!’
But the boy had disappeared into the crowd milling around the souk. The lieutenant turned to Anyush and looked thoughtfully at her.
‘Put these on,’ he said, handing her an abaya and burqa. ‘I know just the man who will take you.’
Diary of Dr Charles Stewart
Gümüşhane
August 28th, 1916
We have been on the road now for almost four weeks and this gruelling journey is taking its toll. Heat and dust have exacerbated Hetty’s bronchitis to such a degree that I have decided to stay another two days in Gümüşhane. Her physical vulnerability concerns me, but her mental distress worries me more. The children too are not themselves. They have become watchful and silent, disturbed by the terrible sights we encounter as we travel across country: lines of walking skeletons, abandoned and dead-eyed children, bodies left to rot by the roadside. Thomas has avoided me since leaving Trebizond. He disappears like a shadow whenever I enter a room, and speaks in monosyllables if at all.
This evening I stood at the window of our lodgings watching the crowd milling in the street. Hetty lay resting on the bed behind me while the children were eating with the landlady downstairs. I was thinking of America and how it has become an unknown country to me, when I realised Hetty had spoken.
‘Did you say something?’
‘How do you do it? How can you bear being amongst them or touched by them?’
She was lying against the bolster, her hair hanging loosely around her shoulders and her eyes bruised from lack of sleep.
‘Savages and child murderers.’ She pushed herself into a sitting position, her gaze ranging over the meagre furnishings and patched bedlinen in the small room. ‘Everything is evil. Corrupted. Even the damn food.’ With a sweep of her hand, she pitched the tray on the bedside cabinet to the floor.
‘Hetty!’
‘I wish I was back in Springfield. I wish I could wake up in my old room and hear my mother playing the piano downstairs.’ She began to weep. ‘I wish the last year had never happened and that I might wake up with Lottie in my arms.’
I went and held her to me. I have never desired anything so much as to give her what she wanted but she pulled away from me and lay down again, turning her face towards the wall. The bed was small but she took up very little of it. I reached out to touch her hair and it was soft between my fingers. A young woman’s hair. There was not a trace of grey. I wanted to bury my face in it. To feel her wrapped around me like a cocoon. I wanted to make love to her in a way I hadn’t done for years, but she kept her back to me, pulling her shoulders around her like a shield.
‘Father …’ Robert put his head round the door. ‘Somebody wants to speak to you downstairs.’
A diminutive old woman stood in the doorway, covered from head to toe in a black abaya and burqa. Gripped in both hands was a large covered basket such as the vendors use in the market. She was speaking to the maid in the dialect of the Jenaibi nomads and I understood very little of it.
‘Thank you. Nothing today,’ I said, closing over the door.
But the woman placed herself solidly in the door frame and lifted the heavy basket towards me. Just as suddenly she dropped it again and made to hide it behind her skirts. The landlady had materialised in the hallway and was listening.
‘
Teşekkür ederim
,’ I said, ‘I will deal with this.’
Reluctantly the landlady took herself off down the passageway while I turned my attention to the visitor. The children crowded around, staring curiously at the caller. Nothing was visible of the woman except two darting blue eyes and small wrinkled brown hands. She spoke too quickly for me to pick up more than a word here and there, and she kept glancing behind her and pointing to the pannier on her arm.
‘I don’t understand,’ I said. ‘You want me to buy something from you?’
‘Perhaps she needs a doctor,’ Thomas suggested. ‘
Doktor
?’
‘
Hayır
!’ the woman said, shaking her head.
‘Then I’m afraid I can’t help you.’
I made to close the door, but the woman planted her foot on the threshold and stabbed a finger at the basket, muttering something none of us understood.
‘Why doesn’t she just show us?’ asked Milly, reaching out to lift the lid, but the woman slapped her hand away.
‘Maybe there are snakes in there,’ Eleanor whispered.
‘Don’t be stupid,’ Robert said. ‘There are no women snake-charmers.’
I had understood she’d said something about being thrown in prison and began to suspect she was selling black market goods, something she clearly thought we would want.
‘I’ll ask the landlady to translate,’ I offered.
‘
Hayır
!
Hayır
!’ Thrusting the basket into my arms, the woman turned on her heel and disappeared.
‘No,’ I said, as the children made to look inside.
The landlady was watching from the kitchen doorway.
‘Upstairs.’
Everyone thundered up the steps to our bedroom where Hetty was sitting upright, her eyes wide with alarm.
‘Nothing to worry about,’ I said. ‘Just a pedlar making a delivery.’
She relaxed and made to lie back on the bed, but something about the basket caught her eye. ‘Bring it here.’
I put it on the coverlet beside her and took off the lid. The children crowded around to see. Inside, an almost naked baby lay curled up asleep. Small, emaciated and smelling strongly of alcohol, the baby tried to open its eyes and closed them again, mewling softly like a kitten. Milly and Robert reached in, their mouths round with wonder, but Hetty shooed them away and lifted the little girl into her arms. ‘She weighs almost nothing.’
The child’s head turned towards her breast and everyone grew silent.
‘There’s a letter,’ Thomas said, taking a folded paper from the bottom of the basket.
‘Read it.’
‘It’s just an address,’ he said, looking at it closely. ‘In Constantinople.’
‘Bring me that ewer and basin,’ Hetty instructed Eleanor. She took the cloth
from around the baby’s legs and started to wash her.
‘Look,’ Millie said, ‘it’s a tulip!’ Her finger traced the shape of a flower just below the baby’s left nipple. ‘This is Anyush’s baby!’
All eyes looked at the tiny creature nestled in Hetty’s arms. The street below grew quiet, and somewhere in the distance the muezzin called the faithful to prayer.
‘
Allāhu Akbar
.’
In the room beneath us the landlady stopped arguing with the maid and we heard the soft thud of a prayer mat unrolled onto the stone floor. The people of Gümüşhane bowed their heads, prostrating themselves before their God.
‘
Allāhu Akbar
.’
Allah is great. Allah is good.
‘Milly,’ Hetty said, ‘fetch me Lottie’s baby clothes from the trunk.’
‘T
he room smells,’ his mother said, drawing back the drapes and opening the shutters to let in the morning light.
Jahan kept his eyes closed, hoping that if he didn’t answer she would leave and let him back to sleep. Every day since his return to his parents’ home in Constantinople, he lay awake through the night, listening to the house groan and the wind whistle down the lane that separated the Orfaleas from their neighbours. He kept his eyes on the shadowy patterns of the Chinese wallpaper while the room grew dark and then lightened again towards dawn. He counted the number of figures in every square foot. He knew the shape of the low-branched spreading trees drooping elegantly over water. He could tell that all the birds were flying east and the turtles sitting on the rocks looked to the west. The clock in the hall counted out the hours as he waited to hear the call at dawn to morning prayer. Then he would sleep, deeply and dreamlessly.
He woke in the late morning to sunlight crashing through the windows and gusts of girlish laughter drifting up the stairs. His sisters came to see him, looking wonderingly at the cripple in their brother’s bed.
Madame Orfalea’s skirts rustled as she busied herself about the room. She threw open the window, letting in the sound of a carpet being
beaten in the yard below.
‘
Lèves-toi
, Jahan,’ she said, coming over to the bed. ‘Madeline is here to change the linen.’
‘I want to sleep.’
‘You’ve been doing nothing but sleeping, and Madeline has plenty of better things to do.’
‘Tell her to come back later.’
‘Jahan, do me the courtesy of looking at me when I’m speaking to you.’
He turned onto his back to see his mother holding out his crutches and the maid standing with a stack of sheets in her arms. Reluctantly, he threw off the covers and sat up. Madame Orfalea’s eyes turned to his stump. The oozing had stopped and the bandages were dry. With a satisfied nod, she left his crutches by the bed.
‘Your clothes are on the chair,’ she said. ‘And your father’s barber is here. Ring the bell when you’re dressed.’
‘I am perfectly capable of shaving myself.’
‘As you wish.’ She paused at the door. ‘Your father is a little better today. He’s asking to see you.’
‘I have no desire to see him.’
‘Jahan … please …’
‘I will breakfast in my room.’
After his mother and Madeline had gone, he collapsed back on the bed and closed his eyes. He was beginning to remember the last weeks in Sivas before he returned to Constantinople: the smell of the hospital, the filth, the overcrowding, soldiers calling for their mothers and hamals bickering over their belongings before they were even dead. Jahan could see Muslu’s face peering anxiously into his own and he had an idea that Armin was there, telling him they were going to cut off his leg. Or maybe it was a dream. Like the dream he had about Murzabey. The
bandit was standing beside his bed, holding a huge scimitar. It hung on the end of his good arm, the tip of the blade buried in the dirt and old bloodstains tarnishing the hilt. In the dream Jahan prayed it might be too heavy for him or broken, but Murzabey lifted it over his head and the metal flashed in the sunlight, and there was something warm on Jahan’s face and he heard someone scream and remembered no more.
Sitting up, he took his crutches from the chair and swung away from the bed. Time to go outside. The wandering started as a means of getting away from the family because his moods frightened them and their offers of help were met with storms of bad temper. Getting downstairs wasn’t easy, but as he grew stronger he managed it without sliding on his backside. The cobbled streets were difficult to negotiate with crutches, and the skin of his arms erupted in sores from chaffing against the wood, but he wouldn’t give up. Nobody looked twice at the one-legged soldier. By 1916 the citizens of Constantinople were used to the sight of the maimed and wounded on their streets. At first, he got as far as the squares close to Grande Rue, hobbling past the cafés and embassies, but as his strength grew he travelled further, reaching the quayside or crossing over Galata Bridge into Stamboul. He spent the day wandering the streets, taking refuge in coffee houses and with the raki sellers until it was time to go home. Because there was no gasoline to light the street lamps he often walked back in almost complete darkness, and on one such evening he stumbled near Galata Bridge.
‘Captain Orfalea!’ the soldier said.
‘Muslu!’
‘Sir … are you hurt?’
‘No, no, I’m fine. It’s good to see you, Muslu.’
‘You too, sir.’
‘I never got the chance to write to you. I wanted to thank you.’
‘Wouldn’t have got it anyway,
bayim
. I’ve been in the Mediterranean.
Our company will be back there in two days. Whole army is being sent out if you ask me.’
The corporal was trying not to stare at the captain’s amputated limb.
‘Let me buy you a coffee,’ Jahan said. ‘The Brioche is still open.’
They took a seat inside, out of the wind blowing up from the river, and ordered coffee and pastries.
‘You look well, sir.’
‘You too, Muslu. Where were you in the Mediterranean?’
‘Gallipoli. It was terrible. They say the Anzacs and the Allies lost thirty-two thousand troops but our losses were nearly as bad. The Fifth Army has been decimated.’
‘I know. I heard.’
Muslu tucked into a slice of baklava.
‘What about the others?’Jahan asked. ‘Were they in Gallipoli with you?’
‘Only D
Ü
zg
Ü
noğlu and Lieutenant Kadri.’
‘Ahmet! I’ve been wondering where he ended up. How is he?’
Muslu looked at the captain. Flakes of pastry clung to his moustache.
‘The lieutenant is dead, sir.’
‘Oh …’
‘Took a sniper’s bullet.’
‘I’m sorry. I hadn’t heard.’
‘How could you,
bayim
? With troubles of your own …’ His eyes flicked to Jahan’s leg and quickly away again. A cat crept under the table and Muslu kicked it with his foot. Beside them, a waiter began to sweep the floor, getting ready to close for the evening.
‘Sir,’ Muslu said, ‘the child in the wagon, the one you hid … I always wondered did you ever hear anything of her?’
‘No. Nothing.’
What happened in Gümüşhane was only dimly present in Jahan’s memory, but he did remember the old woman and that she had brought
Lale to the Stewarts. Every day Jahan checked the post arriving in Grande Rue, and every day he was disappointed.
‘You will hear,
inşallah
.’
‘
Inşallah
.’
‘D
Ü
zg
Ü
noğlu is here, sir. In Constantinople. He’s at the hospital, with a stomach wound, but they say he’ll recover. He was asking for you.’
They talked for a while longer about the company and what had happened in the past months. When they finished, Muslu stretched out his long limbs and wiped his hand across his mouth. ‘Not many left now,
bayim
.’
‘No. Tell me,’ Jahan said, ‘when you met Lieutenant Kadri at Gallipoli … did he say what became of the convoy?’
‘He never discussed it. But the Shota came back. You knew that, sir?’
‘No. I had hoped …’
‘D
Ü
zg
Ü
noğlu told me. They came after they stopped us.’
‘What about the convoy? The Armenians … did any of them …?’
‘No,
bayim
. None.’
Refusing Muslu’s offer of assistance, Jahan got to his feet and bade him goodbye. In almost complete darkness, he walked to the house on Grande Rue and lowered himself onto the front steps. The night had grown cold and the granite beneath him radiated a tomb-like chill. He sat there while the lamps in the windows went out and dense black cloud gathered above him, obliterating the stars and the night sky.
