The Hunger (11 page)

Anna tried to pull her to her feet, but she refused to move. Another soldier passed by. He surveyed the scene, then casually took out his gun and shot the woman in the chest. She fell back, dead.

The other deportees who were still forming the column close by, turned their heads away and walked on. Anna, who was spattered with the woman’s blood, had slumped down to the ground in a faint. The Armenian soldier got off his horse, picked her up, and hoisted her across his saddle like a sack. The body of the woman was left where it was a warning to all who would be tardy.

Each day of marching was like the last. Every day, a few more people would refuse to go further, and they were either left at the side of the road to fend for themselves in the wilderness, or they were shot.

Marta, still dressed as a boy, was thankful that she blended in. Aside from her, there were a few other girls dressed as boys, and Anna, whose strange paleness repelled the soldiers. All of the other females left in the column were children and grandmothers.

As the days wore on, the column of deportees inched closer to the heat of the desert. Each day, the stores of food became scarcer, as did the water. Marta
was grateful for the Turkish gold pounds sewn into her clothing. She traded one of the coins for a leather pouch filled with raisins and a flask of water. She supplemented her daily ration of a stale piece of mouldy bread and a cup of water with her own life-saving supply of nourishment.

Anna and Mr. Karellian walked at the end of the column, keeping their eyes open for stray children. Once, while the group was resting at the end of a gruelling day, a Turkish woman came by, inspecting the children, looking for a suitable boy. She spotted a relatively healthy four-year-old and squatted by his side.

“Would you like to be my son?” she asked, handing the boy a cup of water. He drank it greedily. Anna walked over to the woman. “You Turks belong in hell,” she said. The woman looked up sadly. She paused, looked back at the little boy and said, “I can’t change the world, but I can save a little boy.”

The child wanted to go with the woman, so Anna shrugged her shoulders and called after him, “Go! But always remember: you are Armenian.”

One day, the gendarmes ordered the deportees to divide into two groups. One was for all the married people, the other, all the single. Questions buzzed up and down the column. What would be better? To be married or single?

“Maybe they’re going to make sure all the married couples will be deported with each other,” suggested
Marta hopefully. “We should pretend to be married.”

“Or maybe they’re going to kill all the married couples,” Kevork countered.

All around them, people were frantically looking for “husbands” and “wives” so that they could go stand in the married group.

“Marta,” Kevork said. “Let us not make a mockery of our love. We should stand with the singles group.”

Marta was not happy with this suggestion, but she didn’t argue. The group of married people was about triple the size of the singles group. Anna and Mr. Karellian, who could have easily posed as a couple, were also standing in the singles group.

The gendarmes came over and ordered the married group to march over a huge sand dune to the left, and the singles were ordered to keep marching along the road to the right. Moments later, Marta heard muffled screams. All in the married group were bludgeoned with hatchets and clubs. No need to waste bullets.

As the days passed, the sun beat down and the air was unbearably hot. Water and food were scarce. The bedraggled column of deportees was being marched into the heart of the desert.

Daily rations no longer existed. Marta watched as one woman in her group resorted to eating tufts of grass that grew in patches all over the desert. She watched with despair, when later the same day, the
woman curled into a ball of agony and died from the toxic effects of the grass. There was no food to be had, and no food to be bought.

Marta watched with fascination a certain man who would follow behind one of the soldier’s horses. When the horse defecated, he would fall to his knees and pick through the droppings for a stray kernel of undigested corn. The man lived, while others around him died.

They were marched to Tel Abiad, a community on the banks of the Euphrates River, south of Urfa. Thousands upon thousands of men, women, and children, half-starved, with blistered feet and open sores showing through their rags, had been gathered together.

The sight of the eerily still blue water made Marta gasp. This was the same river she had seen in her vision. She looked down at the clothes that she was wearing and nodded in understanding. Her shirt was now tattered and nondescript, as were her pants. She had come back to where she had started. There was one difference—on her feet were boots. The sand she had been walking on had worn the soles down to the thickness of a wafer, but they still protected her feet.

“Water,” muttered Kevork, as he gazed longingly at the still blueness. He was about to break forward and run from the column, risking the whips and bayonets of the gendarmes, but Marta grasped his arm.

“That water is death,” she warned.

Kevork shrugged her hand off his arm and was about to step forward when they were both distracted by cries coming from the the river. On the banks were half a dozen Armenians who’d had the same idea as Kevork. They had drunk their fill of salt water. Stomachs distended with malnutrition and dehydration now burst like rotting fruit. They died an agonizing death as the gendarmes looked on, grateful that they didn’t have to waste more bullets.

One day, Kevork pointed to a man in a tattered group of deportees resting on the side of the road, “Does he look familiar?”

“No,” said Marta. “Who do you think it is?”

“I am sure that is the Vartabed Garabed.”

A “Vartabed” was an Armenian priest. And when Anna had first led her group of orphans back to Marash from Adana, her first stop had been to the Vartabed’s residence. In his kindness, he had arranged for Kevork, Marta, and Mariam to be admitted to the orphanage, and he had asked Miss Younger to hire Anna as a cook. Onnig, who had been very young at the time, had refused to leave his aunt and grandmother to go to the orphanage with his sisters, and thus the family had been further fragmented.

“God Bless you, Very Reverend Father,” Kevork said, kneeling in front of the startled priest. Marta got on her knees beside Kevork and bent her head in humility.

“You look familiar .... yes I know you two are Adana survivors,” exclaimed Vartabed Garabed. “You were living at the orphanage … correct?”

“Yes,” Marta replied, trying hard not to show the pity she felt for the priest. While Marta and Kevork had been able to scavenge bits of food, it was obvious that the priest had not eaten for some time. He had wasted away so dramatically that it was a miracle he could still live. Marta had an urge to force him to eat. She felt around in her pocket and pulled out a few dried raisins, left over from her bag.

“Vartabed Garebed, please take this.” She placed the raisins in the priest’s hand. Father Garabed looked down at the precious food as if he didn’t recognize what it was. Marta felt liking shaking him.

“When were you deported?” asked Kevork.

“My parish was one of the last groups to leave Marash,” replied the priest, still staring absently at the raisins.

“Do you know what happened to the Hovsepian family?” asked Marta.

“Your aunt … and her children … and your grandmother... correct?”

“And my baby brother, Onnig,” added Marta.

“Three children, that’s right.” The priest absent-mindedly picked up the raisins one by one, but didn’t eat them, and then said, “I heard that the three children were taken in by a Moslem family in
Marash to be raised as Turks. Nobody knows what happened to your aunt or grandmother. They were not with the others when that area was rounded up.”

“Do you think they might be in hiding?” Kevork asked.

“Where would they hide?” asked the priest.

Escape

Every day, soldiers chose a group of deportees and took them away. Mr. Karellian was among the first of their friends to be dispatched. Nobody ever came back. And Marta and Kevork could only guess what happened to them. Each day, new deportees arrived to take their place.

Now that they were no longer in transit, groups of Kurds congregated on the outskirts of the trans-shipment area, risking the wrath of the soldiers in hopes of making a bit of money by selling food to the deportees. Both Kevork and Marta still had coins sewn into their clothing. The Kurds were happy to exchange food and local currency for a piece of Kevork’s gold.

Marta savoured every bite of mouldy bread and every shrivelled olive. She watched with dismay as her once strong and healthy body withered and contracted. But she would not let the Turks win. She was determined to live.

Marta and Kevork separated themselves from the Marash deportees and made a point of blending in with the newest set of arrivals each day. Anna still walked behind the last stragglers in the column, ensuring that they didn’t get lost. Nobody knew what she managed to eat, but she refused all the food that Marta and Kevork offered her. They kept the Vartabed Garabed with them, and shared with the priest any food they could find. But Marta saw him giving away every precious morsel.

The three of them lay low, but they could only delay their fate for so long.

One morning, Marta woke up with the sharp realization that her precious boots were gone. Kevork’s were also gone. As they had slept through the night, a band of Kurds had stealthily come by, removing all in sight that was of value.

Marta watched as Kevork walked over to the corpse of an elderly Armenian who had died during the night. Gently, he removed the man’s shirt, and as he walked back to where Marta was sitting, he tore the shirt into strips and handed half of them to her. “Wrap these around your feet,” he said.

When Marta was finished, she looked down at her feet as a well of apprehension rose up in her throat. With the dirty rags twisted round and round her feet, her outfit was now exactly as it had been in her dream. She looked around at the malnourished group of
deportees who had somehow still managed to survive.

Kevork still sat beside her, wrapping his feet in the rags, when a soldier came up to him and poked him with a bayonet.

“You’re still here?” the gendarme remarked in surprise. “Get over with that group!”

Kevork got to his feet and stumbled over to the newest doomed mass of humanity.

Marta got up and followed him. “Go away!” Kevork hissed.

“I go where you go.”

“You! Get back with the others!” As the gendarme grabbed Marta by the shirt to pull her away, it tore, exposing creamy white skin.

“Hey! You’re a girl! I thought all the girls were gone by now!” The soldier grabbed Marta’s arm and she cried out in pain. Kevork pushed away the restraining arms of the gendarme and ran toward Marta, but another gendarme noticed and stuck out his foot, tripping him. That man held a bayonet at Kevork’s back. “Move and you’re dead.”

The soldier who held Marta called out, “Friends! I’ve got a girl here!

Just then, Anna came from out of nowhere. She grabbed a bayonet from a nearby soldier’s belt and lunged at the man who was holding Marta. He saw her coming and ducked in the nick of time. Then the guards and deportees watched in horror as Anna
lunged again, this time stabbing Captain Mahmoud Sayyid in the neck. Time stood still. Soldiers and deportees alike stared as the man collapsed, blood soaking the white of his uniform. Anna stood defiantly beside him, the bayonet with its bloodied blade still gripped in her hands. The soldier who was holding on to Marta was as mesmerized by the scene as everyone else.

“RUN!” shouted Anna, breaking the spell. Marta pulled away from her captor just as his grip was regaining its strength. She dashed into the crowd.

The man’s attention was now directed at Anna. “Infidel!” And with one swift movement he pierced Anna’s heart with his bayonet.

Then the soldier turned to deal with Marta. But she had vanished. The other prisoners had quickly closed their ranks upon her, hiding her from the soldier’s sight. The soldier grabbed the Vartabed Garabed by his twig-thin arm and marched him over to Kevork’s doomed group. “You can pay for that girl’s insolence.”

Marta watched helplessly from her hiding place as Kevork and the priest and ten other men were packed into a wooden dinghy and pushed out onto the Euphrates. They were being taken yet deeper into the desert.

Marta choked back tears as she watched her beloved Kevork disappear over the horizon. For just
one moment, she hesitated. What was the point of even trying to escape? They would catch up with her sooner or later and she would die like everyone else.

But she had no illusions about what would happen to her if the soldiers found her. And she did not plan on letting that happen. She lay low, hiding among the deportees until night. The emaciated group had fallen into an exhausted sleep, but most of the soldiers stayed up to drink and play cards. Marta waited until the wee hours of the morning when the soldiers had drifted off to sleep too. Even the gendarme who was supposed to be keeping the night watch had fallen into a deep sleep. After all, where could these people possibly go?

Marta gazed at the hilly areas in the distance.

Quietly, she picked her way through the mass of inert bodies. Marta was at the very edge of the encampment. Just a few more steps ...

“Halt! Who goes there?”

It was the same young soldier who had started this journey with the orphanage contingent.

“You’re the traitor Armenian,” Marta said boldly.

“Don’t say that!” he responded, stepping back hesitantly. “I’ve become a Moslem.”

“Hypocrite.”

“I could kill you,” said the youth.

“Go ahead.”

The boy did nothing. The two Armenians glared at each other. Then Marta walked fearlessly out of the
encampment in full view of the young soldier. She knew that he was watching her, but he did not shoot.

She headed for the hills by the light of a new moon. She found several caves, all of good size. But there was a problem. Deportees before her had also found this hiding place, and the caves were full of death. Marta thought of her own parents rotting in a cave in Adana.