Nobody's Child (20 page)

The oxen walked slowly through the streets of Marash, and Mariam looked out of the narrow opening between her head covering and the yashmak on her face to see streets that no longer looked familiar. There was a quiet desolation to the place, as if removing the Armenians had cut the heart out of the city.

Mariam swallowed back tears as the mighty gates of the orphanage appeared. Rustem handed her the
reins, and then he hopped down from the cart and rang the bell. Mariam's mind was filled with the image of the first time she had come here so many years ago. Then, it was Paris who had answered the door. Little Paris, who was killed by Captain Sayyid. And it was Mariam's fault.

This time, the door was opened by Parantzim, the new orphan who had arrived just days before the deportation. Mariam was pleased to see that the girl smiled broadly and had a healthy glow about her.

“Is Miss Younger in?” asked Rustem.

Parantzim's eyes darted from Rustem Bey to the lady in veils, and then to the cart loaded with food. “She will be happy to see you, sir,” she said. “Let me take you.”

“Would you like to ride on the cart?” asked Rustem.

“I would,” was the enthusiastic reply.

Parantzim was so light that Rustem picked her up without effort and sat her beside Mariam.

Without speaking to Parantzim, Mariam tugged on the reins and the oxen walked forward. Rustem walked beside the cart.

They encountered Miss Younger, head bent down in thought, walking towards her office. She looked up in surprise when she heard the cart approach. Mariam noticed her eyes rest first on Parantzim, and then on Mariam — an unrecognizable lady in veils.

“Rustem Bey,” Miss Younger said. “How good of you to bring more supplies. I was just about to put in another order.”

“These are a donation,” said Rustem.

“Thank you,” said Miss Younger.

“May we speak to you in private?” asked Rustem Bey.

“Certainly,” she replied. “Let us go to my office.”

Rustem lifted Parantzim down, and she scampered away. Then he held out his hand for Mariam. The two followed Miss Younger in silence.

Once the office door closed behind them, Mariam lifted up her veil. Miss Younger gasped. “You're safe,” she cried. “Thank God.” Her eyes darted from Rustem to Mariam in confusion, trying to ascertain the relationship.

Rustem Bey did not illuminate her. They sat. “What is happening with the orphanage?” he asked.

Miss Younger walked over to the other side of the desk and sat down in her chair with a sigh. “Every day,” she said, “officials come with one excuse or another to take away more orphans.”

“But I thought you had been assured of their safety,” said Rustem.

“I have been. But Turkish orphanages have been set up, and these children are to go to them,” she said.

“These children cannot go to Turkish orphanages,” said Mariam. “They will forget that they're Armenian.”

“But they will be alive,” said Rustem Bey.

“Perhaps,” said Miss Younger. “We cannot be sure what the motivations are. I have been ordered back to Germany, but I will not go.”

“What about the other missionaries?” asked Mariam.

“Some have already left, but a few are staying. I have sent telegrams to the American Embassy, and I am hoping that American and Canadian missionaries will arrive here to keep this orphanage open. In the meantime, I am trying to keep the children safe.”

“As you know,” said Rustem Bey, “I have offered to help.”

“I cannot let you risk your life to hide Armenians,” replied Miss Younger firmly.

“But what if Mariam and I adopted a child?” asked Rustem Bey. “Would that be acceptable?”

Miss Younger looked in confusion from Mariam to Rustem.

Rustem Bey stayed silent.

“Trust us,” was all that Mariam would say.

“Which child?” asked Miss Younger.

Without hesitation, Mariam answered, “Parantzim.”

K
evork was awakened by the sound of buzzing flies. The sun had set and the air was chilly, but Kevork wasn't cold. The bodies of the other men kept him warm. He was stiff and sore but amazed to be living. Kevork pushed off the body that had fallen on top of him. He sat up, but was dizzy from loss of blood. He looked down at the bodies surrounding him and found the Vartabed. He reached out and touched his cheek and was shocked to feel that it was warm. Could it be possible that the Vartabed had survived too? Kevork placed his fingers on the side of the priest's neck. Yes, there was a fluttering of life. Kevork gently slipped his hands around the priest's body to find out where he had been shot.

“Do not worry about me, Kevork,” murmured the priest faintly. “I am anxious to meet my maker.” And then his head lolled over to one side. Kevork felt for a heartbeat in the priest's neck but couldn't find one.

Kevork thought that he was deadened to all emotion, but the death of Vartabed Garabed hit him hard. His body convulsed with dry heaving sobs. The Vartabed Garabed was such a good man. Why had he died while Kevork lived? Kevork sprinkled a bit of sand on the priest's body and said a prayer.

Kevork checked on the two other men. One was dead from a bullet between the eyes. The other man was breathing. Kevork pulled him away from the corpses.

Kevork forced himself to stand up and get his bearings. He didn't want to leave the other survivor to go looking for shelter. Kevork was afraid that the man would gain consciousness while he was gone, look around at the other corpses, then give up and die. So instead of looking for shelter, Kevork mounded sand as support and warmth on one side of him, and then he huddled up closely to the man's other side. Kevork fell asleep, not knowing if either of them would be alive at dawn.

It was the stillness that awoke him early the next morning. Since the first day of the deportation, Kevork had accustomed himself to being wakened by groans and screams of other prisoners as they were kicked awake. He had always tried to scramble to his feet at the first scream to avoid the kicks. But this morning everything was too quiet. He opened his eyes a tiny bit in the bright sunlight and moved his head from side to side, then struggled into a sitting position and touched the man beside him. Still warm. But he wouldn't waken.

Kevork fell back in exhaustion and drifted into an uneasy sleep. He dreamt that Marta was still with him, touching his cheek tenderly. He opened his eyes. Two Kurdish children in rags were trying to pry open his mouth. Overhead were the vultures.

“I will not die now,” Kevork cried out loud. The children shrieked and ran away. Kevork sat up and looked around. The man was still lying beside him. Kevork felt for a pulse. Nothing.

Kevork wandered aimlessly looking for shelter — any kind of shelter. He walked past countless Armenians, all dead.

Then he saw a shadow. If only he could get to the shadow, maybe he would be safe. With ragged feet on scorching sand, Kevork walked towards the shadow. When he got there, it was gone. He squinted his eyes and looked up at the ball of fire in the sky. “Will you kill me today?” he asked the sun. But he didn't die. He kept on walking towards imaginary shelters that would dissolve in the sand as he approached them. Kevork's tongue was thick and his throat was parched. Death would be a relief when it finally came.

Then something strange happened. There was something up ahead — and as Kevork trudged forward, it did not disappear! He thought for sure it was another trick, but he walked towards it anyway.

It was a shack. Or at least it had been, years or decades ago. The desert had eroded it down to the hardened mud floor. Only a bit of straw and mud wall still stood. During the middle of the day, this ruin would provide almost no shelter from the burning sun. But now,
past noon, there was a shadow already forming under one of the walls. Kevork collapsed into the meagre shade and fell into an exhausted sleep.

He woke up with a start.

A Kurdish child in rags, giggling. She threw a stone at Kevork.

It smacked him near his eye, but he was too weak to protest. When the child noticed Kevork was awake, she ran away.

Kevork lost all concept of time. It could have been hours or days that passed. Or maybe it was only minutes. His body was on fire with fever and it swelled up. When Kevork held up his arm to look at it, he remembered all the bloated corpses. Is this what it feels like to die? he wondered. Maggots feasted on his wounds. He had not consumed a drop of water or a crumb of food for as long as he could remember. It puzzled Kevork that he could possibly be alive, but then, he thought, maybe he was dead and just didn't know it.

Kevork heard a slight movement beside him and he opened one eye. An Arab boy in loose flowing robes was standing there, staring at him. He ran away when he saw that Kevork was awake. The next time Kevork opened his eyes, the child was back, this time with a wizened old Arab woman in tow. Kevork was surprised to see that her face was uncovered. In Marash, all Muslim women covered their faces. The woman bent down and wet Kevork's lips with water from a goatskin. She said something in Arabic to the child, who ran away, coming back almost immediately with some Arab men.

She stood up to face the men, hands on hips. There was an argument. Kevork listened through a haze of delirium. Then Kevork was dragged on a blanket to a cluster of tents in the sand.

The next thing Kevork remembered was the sensation of soft, woollen blankets beneath his burnt skin. The few rags that he had been wearing were gone, and his body had been washed. He could feel the stickiness of some sort of ointment on his back. His body was covered with a soft, loose cloth, but he was naked underneath. He could see the faint outline of the sun trying to beat down on him through a tent of tightly woven wheat-coloured cloth. Through a haze of delirium, Kevork felt the cool firmness of a clay cup touching his lips, and then the heavenly moisture of a tepid meat broth. The cup was offered briefly each time. Just enough for a tiny sip.

Kevork had no sense of time. It was like slowly waking up from a bad dream. As his consciousness surfaced, more details of his circumstances emerged. He could see the leathery brown hand that held the clay cup. The wrist disappeared into a fold of linen. He looked up and saw the wizened Madonna face of the woman who had saved him.

Kevork tried to speak, but she held up the palm of her hand as if to stay “stop.” And then, in Armenian, she said, “Rest. You are safe.”

G
uluzar Hanim watched through the latticed window in her own luxuriously appointed bedroom when her son's empty cart returned later that day. What infuriated her even more than the wanton giving away of food was the fact that there was yet another stray Armenian orphan sitting on the bench of the oxcart between Rustem and that Mariam. “What a bad influence she is,” she muttered under her breath. “I must look after this immediately.”

Rustem Bey had barely driven the cart back to the stable when a veiled servant girl came to inform him that his mother desired a cup of coffee with him in her room.

“Tell her that I will see her in an hour.”

“I am sorry, sir,” said the girl, looking down at the ground. “I have been told that you are to come with me now.”

He handed the reins to a stable boy and followed the servant.

His mother was reclined on a divan in her bedroom. She was fully dressed, but her eyes were closed, and there was a damp towel draped across her forehead.

“Mother, are you all right?” asked Rustem Bey. His voice feigned alarm, but he knew that his mother was fine. The damp cloth across the forehead was more an indication that she wanted attention than illness on her part.

“I have a headache,” she said. “I dreamed that this house was overrun with Armenians.”

Rustem smiled inwardly. She had been watching through the window. “I brought an Armenian child to keep Mariam company. She is very lonely.”

“You seem to be spending too much time with her yourself,” replied Guluzar Hanim.

“Is there anything wrong with me having an odalisque?” he asked.

His mother took the damp cloth from her forehead and she opened her eyes. “So you have abandoned thoughts of marrying her?” she asked hopefully.

“Yes, mother,” he replied wearily. “I have.” That it was Mariam who had abandoned the thoughts was none of his mother's business. That she was not his odalisque was also not her business. If everyone thought she was his odalisque, he could visit her in privacy when he wanted.

“But you must be married,” said Guluzar Hanim. “And the sooner, the better.”

Rustem Bey was too angry to respond. The last thing he wanted to think about right now was marrying someone else.

“It has been arranged,” continued Guluzar Hanim. “Halah Mustapha will be your bride.”

The news of Rustem Bey's upcoming wedding circulated the haremlik in no time. Mariam was initially hurt. Hadn't Rustem just asked her to marry him? Was he so fickle as to choose someone else so quickly? But when she saw the look of triumph on Guluzar Hanim's face over the dinner table that evening, she understood. This was in every way an arranged marriage. It was for the best, she thought. Perhaps this new bride would bring Rustem Bey the happiness he deserved.

Mariam found life in the harem to be exceedingly tedious. The days were spent playing with the kitten, sipping tea, and eating sweets. None of the women except she and Ani could read, and even so, there were no books. Ani occupied most of her days sitting in the corner of the room, working on a large piece of embroidery. It worried Mariam that she rarely went out to the garden and didn't eat much nourishing food. She would nibble on sweets and sip sweetened tea, and that was about it. She was becoming paler and thinner by the day, although her cheeks were bright pink and her eyes were bright.