Nobody's Child (14 page)

When he was finished, he grabbed Mariam's hand and pulled her towards his horse. He lifted her as if she were no more than a doll and pushed her onto his saddle. Then he put his boot in the stirrup and nearly kicked her as he got on the horse in front of her.

Mariam leaned back on her hands to avoid his boot, and as she did so, her one bloodied hand branded the horse's rump. The sickle slipped out of her skirt. She tried to grab it, but she was too late. All she saw was a flicker of metal disappearing in a swirl of dust.

As the stallion galloped through the gates, she was forced to hold the Captain's belt so she wouldn't fall off. Unaware of the last bit of blood that had smeared on his clean uniform, he smiled approvingly at her. “That's more like it,” he said.

She turned her head. The last thing she saw was her sister and Kevork and the other “adults” herded together by soldiers with bayonets. Their desperate plan had not worked at all. All three of them had been deemed “adults” and they had been split apart. Her one comfort was knowing that Marta had successfully hidden her gender and that she and Kevork would — for the moment — be together.

M
ariam felt nauseous when she looked down and saw the ground moving under her. She tightened her grip on the officer's belt, but felt a wave of bile rise in her throat. The smell of his pomade mixed with sweat was overpowering. For a brief moment Mariam considered loosening her grip from the officer's belt and falling off the horse, but then she looked around she saw that the Marash she knew no longer existed. As the stallion travelled down a street in the Turkish district, Mariam saw that the houses were shut tight. There were no children playing in the streets or housewives gossiping behind courtyard gates. Even the roofs were empty. Once, Mariam saw a veiled women's eyes peeking out at her through a latticed window. After that, Mariam had a vague sense of being watched.

When they left the Turkish district and entered the Armenian section, things changed again. It was silent and still as it had been in the other parts of the city, but here
the silence was from emptiness rather than hiding. While in the Turkish district, the only smell that Mariam had been aware of was that of the officer's sweat and hair, but now there was another odour. One that lingered on the tip of her memory. Faintly metallic. Faintly rotting.

The stallion came to a dead stop. Mariam craned her neck to see over the officer's shoulder. The road was blocked by an oxcart loaded to overflowing with household goods. A chandelier, bolts of rich cloth, a large intricately carved wooden wardrobe, kitchen pots.

What confused her was that the man holding the reins of the oxcart wore an ill-fitting Turkish army uniform, but he didn't look like a soldier.

“Move aside,” said Captain Sayyid firmly.

The man whipped the ox and its bellow echoed in the eerie silence, and it took a few steps forward, clearing a space in the road just wide enough for the officer's horse to step through. As they passed, the man grinned lewdly at Mariam, revealing rotted teeth. He turned to Captain Sayyid and said, “I see I'm not the only one gathering up Armenian riches.”

Mariam trembled.

The stallion got just a few houses further down the narrow winding street before there was another obstruction. This time, it was a small pyramid of household goods abandoned in the middle of the road. There was bedding, a half-empty sack of grain, worn and patched clothing. Whoever had plundered it wasn't satisfied with the meagreness of his loot.

As Captain Sayyid manoeuvred the horse around it, Mariam couldn't help but visualize the terrorized family
who had been ordered out of their home and then robbed of these poor items. Where was that family now?

They continued down the street, through scenes of abandonment and plunder, until they arrived at a stately home in the oldest part of the Armenian district. Mariam knew that this house belonged to Hagop Topalian, a wealthy Armenian jeweller. Hagop's brother had been the mayor of Marash before the Young Turks overthrew the Sultan, but the family's influence had diminished in the last years.

The Captain dismounted and tethered the horse to the gate.

Mariam slid off the horse, stumbling and landing on her hands and knees in the litter-strewn street.

He prodded her with the toe of his boot. “Get up,” he said.

She stumbled to her feet and he pushed her towards the open gate in the street wall. Mariam was overcome with fear, but she willed herself not to show it. She decided that she had to concentrate on memorizing every detail of everything that she passed. Perhaps this information would somehow help her escape.

Forcing herself to concentrate, she noticed that the exterior of the huge house looked dull and weathered, but Mariam saw that the walkway through the garden was a beautiful mosaic in subtle tones of white, grey, and wheat-coloured marble. The garden itself was abundant with flowering shrubs and fragrant lemon trees, but some of the trees had been bent to the ground, and one was snapped in half. There were bits of debris on the walkway — broken china, shards of crystal, stains. And muddied footsteps.

There were three white marble steps that led to a wide double door of intricately carved wood. The doors were weathered and dark, but beautiful nonetheless. The Captain held the door open and pushed Mariam inside. Mariam noted that the door was not locked.

K
evork stared down the barrel of the gun that was pointed at his nose.

“Tomorrow morning at dawn,” said the soldier, “you will all gather back here for deportation.”

Kevork nodded. The soldier lowered his weapon. “Any Armenian who resists deportation will be shot,” said the soldier. “And any Turk who assists an Armenian will have his house burned to the ground, then he will have to watch while that ‘saved' Armenian is executed.”

With that, the soldier turned and left. The others who had aimed their weapons at Marta, Anna, and the rest of their group lowered them. They followed the first soldier out the gate.

As soon as they were gone, Miss Younger ran to Paris. Mara, the girl who had caught her, was slick with blood. She had stumbled to the ground with the weight of Paris.

Miss Younger knelt, then gathered Paris in her arms. As she ran to the orphanage hospital, Kevork could hear her pleading voice, “Please God, let her live.”

He felt the warmth of Marta's hand in his. “I must go,” she said. She let go of his hand and followed Miss Younger.

The children dispersed in silence. Some followed Miss Younger and Marta. Others walked towards their dormitory rooms.

Kevork lingered, walking over to where the stallion had stood. With the toe of one newly made boot, he traced the hoof marks in the dust. Anna lingered too. She walked up to Kevork. “Nephew,” she said, “I know that this is hard for you. It is hard for me, too, but we will pull through. Trust in God.”

Kevork looked up at her with a flash of anger. “God?” he said. “If there was a God, he wouldn't let this happen.”

Anna's hand flew to her mouth and she regarded Kevork with sorrow. “Even in the darkest times, God gives us people to love,” she said. She stood on her toes and kissed him quickly on the cheek and then she turned and walked away.

Kevork was left alone in the courtyard. He stared at the orphanage gates and thought of poor Mariam, carried off by a Turk. He thought of his mother. Was she still alive? What was her fate? Would Mariam's be the same?

He looked down at the pattern his boot was making in the dirt and he noticed something flickering in the sunlight. He knelt down in the dirt and felt with his hands. Mariam's sickle. She must have dropped it.

Kevork picked it up. It was coated with a light layer of dirt. He cleaned it with the sleeve of his shirt, then held it in both hands, feeling its weight. “Bad luck,” he said to himself. “Wherever this sickle goes, it causes bad luck.”

He knew that Marta would want to preserve it. The sickle was her only memento of her mother, after all. But Kevork was loath to let her have it. He took it with him back to his workshop and hid it in the corner of the very top shelf.

Marta met him as he was locking the door to the workshop. “Paris has died,” she said, with tears in her eyes.

“Perhaps she's the lucky one,” replied Kevork.

T
he room that Mariam stepped into was spacious, almost cavernous. The floor was of pale yellow marble, and by the fade marks, it was obvious that a huge carpet had recently covered most of it. Similarly, the plain white plaster walls were bare, but there were hooks along the upper edge. The rich silk wall hangings and paintings that had recently adorned the room had been taken down. In front of a massive marble fireplace, a desk had been set up, and sitting behind it was a man in a loose cotton robe and a tasselled fez, holding a quill pen and frowning over lists on paper.

The man looked up when the Captain pushed Mariam forward. “Is this one for you, or is she for sale?” the man asked in a businesslike voice.

“Let's see what price she will fetch,” said the Captain.

The man dipped his pen into ink and then wrote something on the paper in front of him. Without looking up, he said, “Name.”

“Give him your name,” said Captain Sayyid.

“Mariam.”

“Age?”

“Sixteen.”

“Are you whole?” asked the man.

“Wh-what do you mean?” asked Mariam.

“Deformities,” stated the Captain. “Do you have scars? Have you broken bones?”

“No,” said Mariam.

“Disrobe,” said the man at the desk in a bored voice.

“What?” asked Mariam.

“Take off your clothing,” said the Captain, frowning with cold impatience.

“I won't,” she said. No man had ever seen her naked.

The Captain punched her in the stomach so hard that it took her breath away. She fell, sprawling on the floor. He dusted off his hands. “There are many ways of hurting you without it showing.”

Mariam looked up at him with unadulterated hatred.

She stumbled back to her feet. Spasms of pain coursed through her abdomen, but she willed herself not to cry.

“Do as the man asked,” he said.

With trembling fingers and a bright red face, Mariam complied.

“Turn around,” said the man at the desk.

Mariam did. She kept her eyes lowered, but she could feel the clerk's and Captain's gazes burning into her flesh.

“Good,” he said. “You can get dressed.”

As Mariam fumbled back into her clothing with hot tears of anger burning her cheeks, she heard the man say
to the Captain, “You've found yourself quite a prize. She'll fetch a good price.”

“Yes,” said the Captain. “Just remember that it was me who brought her in.”

The man looked up from his list. “Of course,” he said, with a toothless smile. Then he picked up a bell from the desk and rang it twice.

Without another word, the Captain turned and left. Mariam stood there, alone with the clerk and her anger. She willed herself to look passive. Anger would get her nowhere right now. A few moments passed, then a door opened. A short Turkish woman bent with age and covered from head to foot in a black chador entered the room. The only part of her face that showed were her eyes, and they were wrinkled and rheumy. The woman extended a gnarled hand and grasped Mariam by the elbow. “Come with me,” she said, not unkindly.

When Mariam stepped forward, her knees buckled beneath her. She didn't know if it was from the pain in her abdomen, the shock of the situation, or the worry she had for all her loved ones. What was happening with Marta, Kevork, and Anna? What about Anahid Baji, Ovsanna, and the children?

The woman put a firm arm around Mariam's waist to support her, then led her back through the door and down a long hallway. Mariam's breath came in gulps as she tried to deal with the pain and keep her composure. She willed herself to take note of everything she passed. It could mean the difference between life and death.

There were two doors on one side of the hallway and one double door on the other side. All three doors were
closed, and in each doorknob was a key. As in the main room, valuable goods had obviously been stolen from the hallway. There were unfaded squares on the walls where pictures had recently hung, and there was a bare wooden table at the far end of the hallway. The floor itself was bare pale hardwood, with darker strips of hardwood closer to the walls. The long runner carpet that had graced the hallway had obviously been pilfered.

The woman stopped in front of the double doors and turned the key, then pulled the door open. “In, please,” she said to Mariam, guiding her by the elbow and leading her in.

The air in the room was humid with sweat, and Mariam had trouble seeing because there was a heavy curtain on the window and no lights in the room. She stepped forward. The old woman stepped back out into the hallway. The door closed and there was a loud click as the key turned in the lock.

“Sit here,” said a woman's voice from somewhere on the floor. Mariam knelt down, then felt around her with her hands. She could feel sleeping pillows scattered on top of a woven carpet. As her eyes adjusted to the darkness, she could also make out the form of a woman lying on her side on one of the pillows.

“May I pull back the curtain?” asked Mariam.

“If you wish,” said the voice.

Mariam stayed on her hands and knees and felt her way towards the window. She reached out and felt the texture of heavy silk brocade. She drew it sideways. Light streamed into the room from outside, bringing with it a gust of cool breeze. Squinting from the sudden light,
Mariam felt around the window frame, then found a tasseled sash and tied the curtain back.