Orhan's Inheritance (20 page)

“Do you think I want to be escorting this heaping pile of shit you call your flock? We are being attacked on every front by people who worship your god, their god.” He keeps his eyes on her, but his finger points at the deportees. “If you hadn’t filled their minds with all sorts of ideas, they wouldn’t be in this mess.” Lucine wonders if this is true. There are rumors that those who convert to Islam will go unharmed.

“This has nothing to do with God,” Miss Graffam whispers. “Let me remind you that Germany, your ally in this war, is a Christian nation. Please, let them have a little water.”

“You’re right, this has nothing to do with God. These people attack us from within our own borders. Collecting arms and waiting patiently to join the Russians and the English when they invade our borders. Every country has the right to do away with traitors.”

“These people are not revolutionaries—”

“Enough,” he interrupts, shouting. “In this country, madam, we do not discuss politics with women.” Then, composing himself, adds, “Tonight you will come to Malatya with me. The governor of the province has requested your presence.”

“I will do no such thing,” says Miss Graffam.

“You can and you will,” he states simply.

“Who will escort these people when you leave?”

“Others. Replacements.” He shrugs, walking away from her.

“Perhaps I will tell the governor of our treatment here,” she threatens at his back.

“As you wish, madam,” he says, an almost imperceptible smile creeping across his face. “We leave in less than an hour.”

Miss Graffam leads the last of the hopeful in an impromptu prayer. Lucine stands outside the group and waits patiently for the celestial entreaties to come to an end.

“You didn’t join the prayer,” Miss Graffam says to her finally.

“I don’t need prayer,” says Lucine.

“Everyone needs prayer, Lucine.”

“Not me. I came to ask you for a favor.”

“Anything.”

“My father’s insurance papers. Can I have them?” asks Lucine.

“They are back in Sivas.”

“Then will you take the horses?”

“The horses?” her teacher asks.

“Tell them you can’t walk. Make them take both horses. Please.”

Miss Graffam’s sad eyes drift toward the sleeping infant in Lucine’s arms and then back to Lucine. “All right,” she says, nodding her head slowly.

The missionary leaves early that evening, accompanied by the commanding officer and a gendarme, all on horseback. Miss Graffam’s big cream-colored hat recedes away from the river. Another trusted adult disappears from her life, but this time it is a gift.

“Where is she going?” Bedros asks.

“Malatya.”

“Will she get help?”

“She will try.”

“Are we going to be flies and follow her?”

“No, Bedros, where she is going there will be soldiers, and you and I need to stay away from people for a while. We will follow the river down as close as we can, staying close to nature,” she says.

“So we won’t get swatted,” he reasons.

She smiles, surprised at his cleverness and at her ability to smile at it.

“But we’re going back for Mairig, right? And Anush?” he asks.

Lucine pretends not to hear him. The four remaining gendarmes issue no new orders. With their commander gone, they disrobe and reward themselves with an impromptu bath in the river. The deportees huddle closer together, turning their backs to the river both from modesty and from envy.

“It’d be nice to bathe with a beauty,” the thick-lipped gendarme barks at their backs.

“Anyone who wants to bathe with a beauty won’t be bathing with the likes of you,” says a fresh-faced soldier, laughing. He reminds Lucine of a Greek boy who once courted Anush. Earlier in the journey, this soldier seemed kinder than the others, but soon he was just as cross as the rest of them.

Lucine waits until all four are up to their necks in river water. “It’s time,” she whispers to Bedros. “You walk along the caravan on the side of the river. I will do the same on the other side. Stop along the way, just like a fly would, going from one group of people to the next. Make as if you are searching for family members. When you get to the end of the caravan, make your way to the brush. Aram and I will be there, waiting for you.”

“How will I find you?” he asks.

“Don’t worry, I will find you.”

She waits for the bony mass of his back to recede, then makes her own way to the wild uncultivated bush that dots the road all the way back to the bridge. She sticks her pinky finger into Aram’s mouth. He slurps and sucks on the makeshift nipple in relative silence. Very few people raise their heads when she approaches. Everyone is concerned with themselves and what’s left of their own. When she gets to the last cluster of deportees, she walks behind the nearest bush and squats as if answering nature’s call. The sky goes from blue to gray, deepening until it resembles one of Hairig’s fabric dyes. Lucine imagines him standing in his leather apron up in the clouds, stirring the colors of the sky until they are dark enough to protect his loved ones.
Protect me, Hairig. Hide my body from the wolves and vultures.

She scans the groups of deportees for Bedros. The gendarmes are out of sight, but she can hear them swimming in the river. A branch snaps behind her and her heart leaps into her mouth. Could Bedros have made it to the bush before her? She remains completely motionless, frozen in her squatting position.

“Don’t move.” She recognizes the voice as well as the deep, openmouthed breathing of the thick-lipped gendarme. “Don’t move and you won’t be hurt,” he says from behind her. He is closer now, his breath heavy. “Bend over.” He wraps one arm around her waist and pushes her neck down with the other until her knees buckle and her forehead hits the ground. Aram squirms on the ground between her elbows and knees.

The gendarme’s boot grazes Lucine’s calf. He lifts her skirt and rips the bloomers off her backside. Exposed, prostrate, she is too shocked to cry. A bead of water or sweat from above drips down her back.
Dear God
. A prayer bubbles to the surface, but she bites her lip. She will not plead with him. Not with God and not with this bastard. She has never been more afraid. She closes her eyes.

He places his hands on her hips and pulls them to him. But something stops him. Lucine hears a loud thud, like the sound of an empty bucket falling in a deep well. He collapses on top of her, his heavy breathing stopped. She bears the dead weight of his head and torso to protect Aram who is trapped underneath. He slips off her back, and his body lands, like a sack of bulgur, on the ground beside her. From his slack-jawed face a pair of startled eyes stare back at her. When she looks back, Bedros is standing there, a large rock in his hand. Without dropping it, he extends his other hand out to her. It is the same little hand she’s been holding all along. She weeps but says nothing.

They walk swiftly, side by side. Lucine wraps the sleeping Aram in his blue swaddling cloth and places him on her back. Empowered by fear, arms swinging, she takes one long stride after another, still holding her brother’s hand. As they walk away from the river and toward the mountains, her eyes and ears scan the earth for predators, soldiers, villagers, anything that may come between them and survival.

CHAPTER 22

Eagle Eye

SOMETHING ABOUT THE
tip of the gun embarrasses Kemal, makes him want to cover it up or stand in front of it. Perhaps it is the sharp bayonet poking out at the very end. Kemal knows he is blessed to have it. There are rumors that soldiers all over the empire are without guns. Still, if he could get rid of that bayonet at the end, he would. The other trainees lunge forward, thrusting their bayonets into imaginary abdomens. They whirl like dervishes and strike down hard on the rifle with their left hand, pretending to disembowel their victims.

Only Tekin, the burly one, does not practice. He sits nearby, his uniform straining against the bulk of his body, whittling away at what looks like a small piece of pinewood. Kemal does his own lame dance with the bayonet at a safe distance from the rest of the division before sitting down not far from Tekin. He takes Lucine’s handkerchief from his breast pocket and presses it to his nose, letting her lavender smell wash over him. It has been a constant companion, this little pale blue kerchief consecrated with his blood, a reminder of the wound that led him here. He strains his neck toward Tekin, trying to recognize the shape emerging between the man’s fingers.

“A finch,” says Tekin, his steel-gray eyes glued to the pine and blade. It’s the same blade he uses to trim his beard. He is easily a foot taller than all the rest, and much broader, so gets to do as he wants. The perpetual scowl he wears on his face contradicts the smooth, broad brow and straight nose that would otherwise render him handsome. Kemal wonders if Lucine would refuse a specimen of manhood such as Tekin, before remembering that he hasn’t got a last name either.

“For my son,” Tekin says.

Kemal nods, embarrassed of his thoughts. “Sorry. Didn’t mean to pry,” he says.

“Damn eunuch,” Tekin says.

“Pardon?” asks Kemal.

“You heard me,” he says. He stops whittling and turns his eyes to Kemal. “If you’re going to apologize every time you fart, burp, or try to kill someone, you’re just as worthless as the rest of them.” He nods to the group of men dancing with their bayonets.

Sorry, Kemal thinks. “Are you a professional soldier?” he asks.

“No, I’m a professional survivor,” says Tekin. “Now if you’ll fuck off, I’ve got some whittling to do.”

Kemal wonders how much of the man’s temperament is due to hunger. It has been almost two days since their last ration. Even then, there was only one wagon of food for the 370 trainees. Nurredin Pasha, the officer in charge of their training and transport, is constantly promising more bread, but the mess hall is more or less empty.

When he was first conscripted, Kemal had only his despair to keep him company. He imagined the army would be a haven of adventure and sport. It would pick him up like a gust of wind and throw him to the four corners of the empire. But mostly he hoped it would erase her from his memory and transform him into something new and unrecognizable. At first, it didn’t disappoint.

Though the training camp was only sixty kilometers from his home, to him it felt completely foreign. Here he could become whoever he wanted. After an embarrassing medical exam, during which he stripped naked for a man with a peculiar accent and spectacles, Kemal was given his very own uniform: a fez, a jacket, pants, a pair of woolen socks, a water canteen, rawhide sandals, and a pair of puttees—strips of cloth that wrap around his ankle to his knee. All six items were his and his alone, and they gave him a new sense of ownership and importance. But the thrill of being in full uniform disappeared when he remembered she would never see it. Now the uniform only makes the heat more unbearable. Where it once fit snugly around his shoulders and middle, it now hangs loose.

Competing with the heat and hunger is a third discomfort characteristic of his new life: monotony. Morning drills are almost always preceded by a breakfast of weak tea. Bayonet drills and rifle marksmanship take up his afternoons, and evening drills are only rarely interrupted by immunizations and the rare first-aid lesson. And of course, there is the marching. Every time an officer wishes to take a nap or go to the coffee house, the trainees are asked to march. Marching, it seems, is the Ottoman army’s answer to everything.

“Damn it!” Tekin’s massive hands have accidentally clipped the finch’s wings with the carving knife. Grunting, he throws the pine bird into a nearby bush and walks away.

The wingless bird falls from one branch to another until it lands in the mud. The trainees leave for yet another marching drill, but Kemal does not join them. He picks up the wooden creature, tracing his fingers over its crudely carved body. Tiny slashes imitating feathers cover the entire surface, but its eyes and beak are barely visible. Kemal takes a pencil from his breast pocket. He cleans the dust and debris off with the linen; then using his pencil, he begins to revive the pathetic bird. First, he works on the creature’s eyes, creating an expression of such fragile beauty that the more difficult task of refashioning its wings becomes a necessity. He ignores the break in the wood where the wings once were and decides to render the bird at rest instead of in midflight. Soon a pair of wings graces the sides of its breast, and expertly drawn tail feathers are etched in its rump.

“Get up, boy.” His commanding officer, Nurredin Pasha, stands against a cloudless sky with Lieutenant Hikmet at his side. Kemal stands up, looking straight ahead, back straight, arms at his side, the finch in one hand and the pencil in the other.

“What are you doing here, soldier?” Nurredin asks.

Kemal knows not to answer.

“Why are you not marching with the rest? Who do you think this training is for?”

Kemal says nothing.

“He has a pencil in his hand, sir,” Hikmet says. “And a kerchief.”

Nurredin snatches Lucine’s kerchief from Kemal’s hand. He turns it over with disinterest, then throws it back at Kemal.

“A peasant with a pencil,” Nureddin says. “Interesting.”

“Like a woman with a sword.” Hikmet chuckles.

“Tomorrow you will report to the officer’s tent for a literacy test,” Nurredin says. “But for now, a lesson in obedience. Whip him,” he tells Hikmet.

When the first blow lands on his bare back, it makes a noise that rings in his ears and vibrates all the way down his spine. Kemal winces but does not scream. Each time the leather belt lands on his skin, he squeezes the bird in the palm of his hand. And when the thrashing is over, Kemal suddenly decides it will not go to waste. He swipes his fingers across his lower back and spreads the warm red liquid of his insides all over the finch’s belly.

Kemal limps to the barracks, carrying the red bird over to the straw mat where Tekin is resting.

“What the hell happened to you?” Tekin asks.

“For your son,” replies Kemal, handing him the red-bellied bird.