The Gendarme (12 page)

I remember World War II, but as a civilian. I was in my forties then, working two jobs. I was not yet a citizen. After the Depression, after those difficulties, I thought of little but work. Yet the war stirred something in me, some new sense of patriotism. I had begun to think of myself as an American. I wanted to help. Carol wanted to volunteer, as a nurse. But Lissette had been born then, Violet was on the way. So I worked.

Carl is on modern topics today, though. Affirmative action. The Negroes again.

“I tell you, it’s nuts,” he says. “This country’s going to hell. Everything we fought for, the government’s pissing away. Giving it to the coloreds, who don’t want to work. They don’t want to do anything, except breed.”

I nod my assent. Carl forgets that my grandson is half black. He does not know, for I do not tell him, of the discrimination I suffered myself, the lost jobs, lower wages. Even now, with my darkened skin, I sometimes feel the sting of disdain, the expressions of false superiority—I, who have worked all my life. I look around at all the things I have purchased, the conveniences, the luxuries. The dishwasher and washing machine. The air-conditioned house. As a child could I have thought of ever having such things? For some reason today they seem dated, though, worn. Am I pleased? I think I would have had more if my skin had been whiter.

I imagine sometimes what life would have been if I had not been injured. If I had not met Carol. I would have remained in Turkey, perhaps become a tradesman. Living in a small house made of stone, making trips to the baths. Drinking tea in a café. A life full of poverty, at least comparatively so. Yet there is an appeal to it. It is silly, I tell myself. But I cannot shake it.

The doorbell rings again. I rise, and answer. A black man stands in the threshold.

“Yes?” I am uncertain. It is as if he has appeared from my conversation with Carl.

“I’m from Allied, the home health agency.” The man’s voice is low. He is tall. He has a beard. “For monitoring,” he says. “Ted has the day off.”

Violet appears and welcomes him in. His name is Ethan. I go back to Carl, to explain.

“Because of my headaches, Violet thinks I need to be monitored. A waste of money.”

Carl’s face is the color of sausage. “In your home?”

I nod. “I suppose it is better than the nursing facility.”

Carl shakes his head. “My kids better not try that. I’d rather be shot. I never did that with Gladys, and I damn sure don’t want it done for me.”

Carl’s wife, Gladys, had been an invalid, as well. She died at about the same time as Carol. I notice that Carl speaks now of Gladys in adoring terms, whereas before he complained much about her.

I hear Violet and Ethan from the other room. Carl’s eyes move to the sound, as if he can see through the wall. I am reminded that after the war, Carl worked for the Federal Bureau of Investigation.

“Does he stay the night?” he whispers.

I nod.

Carl rolls his eyes.

Our conversation is broken. Carl rises with difficulty, makes for the door.

“God, I’m in pain.” He straightens to normal height. “I envy you your health.”

“Carl, I have a brain tumor.”

“Hey, what year did you become an American citizen?” he asks suddenly.

I think. “Nineteen forty-nine. Why?”

“Just wondering.”

I ponder this as he leaves. I have wondered before if Carl remembers whom I fought for, the way he carries on about us veterans and such. Sometimes our conversations bring scraps of memory, battle sounds, the fierce shuddering when mortar shells hit cold mud. People were buried alive then. The steep ditches, the wetness. We were ill equipped. There were rats. We were so hungry.

I go back to Violet and Ethan. He is not talkative, like Ted, only nodding as Violet delivers instructions. I say nothing, either. We stare at each other.

Ethan is not a movie fan. He sleeps through most of
The Lion in Winter
. But my mind is not on the film. I keep thinking of the dream, trying to remember. Did I know girls in my village? Are there Armenians I remember?

I stand. “Are you from Wadesboro?” I ask Ethan, who struggles awake.

“From Tifton,” he says. Some fifty miles away.

“Do you like it here?”

“Yeah. It’s okay.” He stretches his legs. He is a large man, over two hundred pounds. “How ’bout you? Where’re you from?”

This question again. “I have lived here forty years,” I say. “Before that, New York. I was a builder.” I do not go into before. I never do, unless asked.

But Ethan goes no further. He says little the rest of the evening. We have dinner, roasted chicken that Ethan warms in the oven. He speaks in low tones to someone on the phone, laughing occasionally, his voice soft and throaty like a baritone saxophone. Then I go to bed, early. It is only just dark.

 

 

 

That night,
Mustafa tries to kill me.

I fell asleep in a sitting position, near Araxie and the old woman called Dodi, beneath a moonless, starry sky made pregnant with clouds. Mustafa kept to the camp’s other side after the exchange with the Arabs, but we were small enough now that I saw his glances my way. I prepared my defenses—my back against an outcrop, my rifle loaded and ready. I even secured a new weapon, a blunt, curved
yataǧan
hidden since Harput by a now-dead deportee. But my efforts at remaining awake foundered, weakened by fatigue and the stress of Araxie’s illness. She had vomited and defecated throughout the day, twisting, feverish. I brought her water and offered her small pieces of bread, both quickly expelled by her body. She gritted her teeth through her misery. At other times she slept. There was little I could do for her except wait, and pray.

Her voice awakens me now, soft and insistent, the words in Armenian but the tone unmistakable. A warning. She is some distance away, in the protective arms of Dodi, but I know she has spoken. I turn, listening, but only the stir of the deportees breaks the silence: the moans, the evacuations of the sick, the sniffles over the dead and dying. What must they dream, these shreds of humanity—of loved ones now gone, banquets once held? I pull at my beard, shift my position. A bat zaps down and away. Insects hum. A wolf howls in the distance. I hear nothing else.

And then it comes, the tremor through the rock at my back, the click above and behind. Movement. I crouch against the rock’s base, one hand on the rifle, the other on the large knife. I peer at the top that is tall like a house, note again how it tapers down either side. Anyone coming over the crest will have a large drop and be easily visible, even in the darkness. Approaching from the side will take longer, provide exposure.

I wait. The sound comes again, masked by a spasm of illness in front of me. The movement is careful, timed to blend in, but its tone is different, scampering where the other is forceful, shielded instead of frontal. It lasts a shade longer than the deportee’s emission, stops a second later, a hollow-sounding echo left to bounce in its stead. The attacker realizes his error, for he waits some time before moving again, maybe ten minutes. I wonder whether he sees me, conclude he probably does not, yet. I keep still. I rub the haft of the knife, prick my finger on its long, convex blade. A powdery thirst dries my throat.

A loud plop sounds, ahead and to my right. I remain rigid, rotating my gaze to take in the floating blackness. Nothing. I recognize this as the feint, as the hope I will emerge to check the sound’s origin. I take several deep breaths. A long stillness follows. Again, I feel more than hear shifting above and behind me. I ponder my strategy. Blood trickles from my finger where it traced the blade’s edge.

Araxie has not spoken since the words that awakened me. I wonder if they were even intended for me, whether it bespeaks coincidence or providence that they penetrated my sleep. Her head now rests in a different position, her face angled toward me, her eyes shut. I am reminded of the night we met, under the trees, in the starlight—how things have changed in a few days. As though a river has hit a slope and its water shoots sideways. There is new ground, there are paths unknown. But am I not the same? I am a gendarme. A guide through the wilderness.

The tremors sift through the rock again, higher this time, almost directly above me. A few grains of sand fall and sprinkle the earth below. Releasing the knife, I grab a handful of pebbles and fling them to my left, at the same time pitching myself to the right. A gunshot explodes, kicking sand and debris near my feet. I raise my rifle and fire at a black shape near the top of the outcrop, dust and smoke spewing about me. I fight my way backward, out of this haze, in time to see a dark form drop from the sky and knock my gun from my hands, kick, roll, and re-form into an upright, compact shape: Mustafa. He holds his hands in front of him, like an animal brandishing its claws, shakes sand from his hair, utters a low growl. He starts toward me. His teeth grip a short knife, the effect a malicious grin.

Backing in the direction of my original post, I keep my eyes on his enormous hands, the palms as wide as a goat’s head. He advances. He spits the knife into one hand, flinging it with his teeth in an amazing feat that sends a shower of his breath some distance toward me. I backpedal. I reach the spot where I waited, stamp my feet, searching in vain for the
yataǧan
I must have dropped there. I look for a weapon, a shield, a diversion—anything. I hesitate.

He charges. I dodge to my left, feel the rush of air, the sour smell of his skin as he thrusts past, the knife arcing. He turns, quicker than I expect, his eyes moist with excitement. Saliva mats his thick beard. I back away again in the direction of the camp, fearful I will trip over something and find him on top of me. Instead, my left foot meets the hardness of my knife.

I look behind him and yell, bending to pick up the weapon as he makes a half-turn at the ruse. He recovers instantly and launches at me again, swinging his blade like a hammer as I roll to my left, my hand on the
yataǧan
’s edge. His knife catches the top of my head, shearing hair and skin, releasing a cascade of warm blood that explodes down my face. I flip my blade into the air, catch it at the haft, and thrust at him, all in one movement, blood in my eyes, my vision obscured. His roar and the thunk of resistance indicate contact, but I cannot see it. I yank back the
yataǧan
, wipe at the goo on my face. I taste the earth in my blood.

Mustafa grips his right arm, the knife gone from his hand. His hand clenches back and forth like the claw of a crustacean. I expect him to charge again, to take advantage of my impaired vision, but he remains still, perhaps dazed by his injury, a wounded animal now unable to move. I inch closer, the
yataǧan
erect, focused now on the rasp of his breathing, the glint of his eyes, until a new pulse of blood finds its way down my face, blinding me, opening me to his lunge, to the oversized pincer of his hand on my throat. I gasp, my weapon dropping, the rattle and glug of my failed breath loud against the camp sounds behind me. I see only his moist lips, the yawn beyond his mouth and the curled hair that surrounds it. I reach my hands upward, intent on his throat, but my strength has ebbed, his one hand more powerful now than my two. His face drops closer, emitting his foul breath, and I wonder if he will not kiss me, suck out the last of my life in a bitter caress. Dark turns to stars, to a strange, blinding light. I flail my hands in desperation, in search of any contact, my one hand finally colliding with liquid, then a rubbery substance, then hardness. I plunge my hand deep into his injured arm, pulling at slippery tendons, wrapping my fingers around ligament and bone. He screams, a hoarse, bleating noise like a camel’s whine, his head against the side of my face. His hand loosens, then falls, dribbling down my chest to bounce off my knee. I rise, coughing, feel for the
yataǧan
, and find it. I brandish the weapon. Deep gulps of air fill my lungs.

Mustafa runs, his right arm limp and flapping, his body hunched to one side, away from the camp, into darkness. I am too weak to follow. For a time his footsteps sound on gravel and rock. Then all is silent, save for my high-pitched wheezing.

I gather my rifle, seeking other points of protection. I expect Mustafa’s return. Finding a small embankment near one end of the camp, I set up beneath it, a position with my back to the deportees, defensible against outside attack. I run my hand through my scalp, dislodge a piece of loose skin, and elicit another stream of warm blood. I finger my swollen neck. The clouds break, the light of the stars becoming stronger and brighter. The camp mutters and drones behind me.

I turn. Violet stares from the hallway, her hand on the light switch. I turn back, to the coughing form before me. A black man lies with his back twisted, his head bent close to my chest.

“What happened?” I ask. A coldness enters my stomach.

“You were choking him. I heard him call out.”

The man—Ethan—gags, his hands near his throat. He struggles to turn, rises to a near-sitting position, topples and falls. I glance at the clock: 7:27 a.m. I reach around him, to help him sit up.

“My God.” Violet’s voice is unsteady.

Ethan lifts his head, his eyes red and watery. His neck puffs outward like a lizard’s raised frill. He holds his hands near his throat, pulling at nothing, as if their presence might help his breathing, or ward off further assault.

I shiver against a chilled sweat, the growing realization of what must have occurred.

“I . . . was dreaming.” My gaze swings to Violet, to Ethan. He struggles to swallow.

“Are you okay?” I bend closer to him. “Violet. Please bring some water.”

I turn back.

“I . . . I do not remember.” My voice is garbled. The dream plays out before me, the struggle with Mustafa, the hand, the knife. I finger my own neck. My breathing sounds coarse.