The Gendarme

by Mark T. Mustian

  “It is not your fault,” he says. Something short of a smile cracks his lips. “You are a strong man, for your age.”

  I look down. Images from the dream stream back: Araxie’s neck at the ziggurat, the bloody fight with Mustafa. But this man is a stranger.

  “I’m okay now.” His voice sounds better, more like wet cardboard. “How are you?”

  “I am fine.” I bring my head up. “You will see a doctor?”

  “Yes.”

  I nod my head. I want to explain—how do I explain? “It is odd,” I say finally, “these dreams that come now. I have not experienced anything like them, not in all the many years of my life. It is not as if I dream the house is on fire—I keep dreaming a certain story, a continuing story. As if I am another person, living a different life.”

  Violet shifts at the kitchen counter. Ethan stares.

  “What happens in your dreams?” Violet’s eyes show fatigue.

  “Suffering. Cruelty, and bravery. It is a trek. People are dying.”

  “And fighting, I gather,” says Ethan.

  “Yes. Fighting.” I stare at his hands—so large, like Mustafa’s.

  The doorbell rings. Violet goes to answer it, leaving Ethan and me to stand, looking at each other and then away. There are voices, a closed door, a starched uniform. The police have arrived.

  The officer is a thin, dark-haired man with a bluish face—Officer Hanna. He begins by examining the bedroom, then takes Ethan’s statement, then Violet’s. This is done in the living room while I wait in the den. I hear little of the conversations other than a few words here and there: “hallucination,” “brain tumor.” I have the TV on, The Poseidon Adventure. I eat but taste nothing.

  The doorbell rings again. Another muffled conversation takes place. I assume it is more policemen arriving, but instead the door opens and Mrs. Fleming enters.

  “There you are. I saw the police car. I wondered what was going on.”

  I am surprised but not displeased. She is sympathetic, someone to talk to.

  “I assume Violet told you what happened,” I say. My voice is low, and distant.

  “She said you were dreaming. That you walked in your sleep.”

  “Yes.”

  “What were you dreaming?” She takes a seat on the couch, across from me. Her face is pinched in concern.

  I stir the remnants of my food. “I dreamed I was in a fight.”

  “With whom?”

  “Someone who wanted to kill me.”

  “Why?”

  Sweat forms at my hairline. “I would not do something he wanted.” The dream flashes back, harsh in its detail. I fight it, fight the sense that I’m falling.

  “What?”

  “I would not sell someone into slavery.”

  Mrs. Fleming moves closer, her eyes bright with attention. “What kind of slavery?”

  “I am unsure—something like a harem.” I spread my hands. “I would rather not discuss it.”

  “Okay.” She sits back in her seat. “How fascinating. At one time I kept a dream journal. Do you write your dreams down?”

  I consider this. The dreams are clear now in my memory, even from the first cold and wind, but will they remain so? So much time has gone past, now. I have forgotten so much.

  Officer Hanna enters with Violet, motions that it is time for us to talk. I follow him into the living room, leaving Violet and Mrs. Fleming behind in the den. Ethan is not in the room when we enter. I assume he has given his statement and left.

  I sit down on the couch. The room seems dingy. Dust breaks and glides through the air. There is the photo Lissette once gave me of the Statue of Liberty, arm raised in greeting.

  “Your name, please.” The voice is measured, southern.

  “Emmett Conn.”

  “Your age?”

  I give it. Certain rights are explained—I do not have to answer. It is not like TV. The questions unfold. Was I angry with Mr. Eppes? Have I dreamed like this before? Ever had a similar altercation?

  I am polite in response, cooperative. No, I was not angry. The dreams are elaborate, confusing. I have not fought, not in years. I did not know this man’s name.

  “What will happen now?” I ask when it is over, when he has closed his slim notebook.

  “I don’t know,” he replies. “We need to talk with the medical people. We need to speak again to Mr. Eppes. We’ll have to see. You will stay in the house?” He directs this to Violet, who has entered the room.

  We shake hands.

  I retire to the den, where Mrs. Fleming still waits. There is silence, an awkwardness.

  “Perhaps I’d better be going,” Mrs. Fleming says finally.

  I smile. “Thank you for coming.” I am grateful, truly grateful, but I sound only bored. I wish to be alone now, in the dark of this . . . this . . .

  Mrs. Fleming smiles back. “I’ll check on you.” She swings her hips as she exits.

  Violet calls Dr. Wan’s office, wades through responses, insists on speaking to the doctor, says she will hang on. My hands still tremble. I think of a job site in New York, a scaffolding failure in which a man broke his leg. I was not at fault, but there was an inquiry . . . Haley—that was the man’s name. I felt bad for him afterward. The inspectors questioning, big men with clipboards. I was older then and yet nervous. Could I not still be deported? I remember them talking to my subordinate as if I were not there, as if I were too stupid to bother with, too foreign or dark. I read Shakespeare, Steinbeck! Were my teeth fixed then? Another ground for derision. We spent good money fixing my teeth.

  A squawk comes from the phone. “How are you this day!” I hear the voice from where I’m sitting.

  Violet explains the situation. The phone whispers. Violet murmurs and clucks. There is a pause, then she holds out the receiver, the phone cord unwinding to become almost straight, like a rope. “He wants to speak to you.”

  “Mr. Conn! Hello!” Dr. Wan’s voice buzzes, a dragonfly caught in a drum. “This is unfortunate. As I think you will agree, it must be treated seriously. You will need to be monitored. Your medication needs to be adjusted. You may need to see a psychiatrist.”

  A psychiatrist? I am already being monitored. He continues his discourse, but I am thinking again, about history, about genes, how babies’ eyes are blue at birth and then brown. About time slipping past like a wind, ninety years, and at the end there is turmoil, as at the beginning. And the middle—the long and dulled middle? Working, providing. Shaping. So much is wasted.

  We drive to the medical office, meet with Dr. Wan. Blood is drawn, more questions asked. There is testing to be done, evaluation. And then? I am tired. We sit in the car afterward, the radio on, the melody triggering some memory of music, something—a chord?—from the time long before. I yawn and it fades. I want to ask Violet if she finds it embarrassing, the old man bringing shame, the bitter switch in our postures. Or is it now satisfying, perhaps even pleasurable? I turn but her head is bent as she writes, some note on what to do next or things not to forget. She looks determined. She reminds me of Carol, extracting me from the British. I stare out the window and say nothing more.

  We struggle toward Aleppo. The sky becomes the ground, the clouds crags and valleys, turning and shifting and re-forming like sand. Vultures circle, suspended on updrafts, silent, held by a string or a thought from beyond. The sun grows hotter, the terrain drier, water soon becoming our most immediate objective. Our supplies are never enough, particularly for those suffering from dysentery. Many collapse, left behind as we trudge on in the sun. One boy of perhaps nine or ten develops gurû-sized lip blisters. The tongues of others turn gray and black. Still others are dragged on thin blankets, pulled by hunched women without shoes, their feet scabbed and bloodied. I allow for multiple breaks and water searches, at the same time insisting on progress. Reality dictates completion of this journey, for any of the group to survive.

  We descend on wells like jackals. We buy water (with coins the deportees pull fro
m clothing or orifice) at exorbitant prices. We lick dew from leaves, we beg when trains puff by, we forage in empty fields. We see no sign of the Arabs we encountered earlier, no sign of Mustafa. I place Karim, who has improved to the point that he can now ride a donkey, at the back of our group to guard against attack. He eyes my wound with interest but offers no questions, makes no reference to Mustafa. I keep a close watch on him. I sleep little.

  Araxie descends to near delirium. I keep a goatskin of water especially for her. I check on her constantly. The old woman who tended to her when she first became ill grows sick herself and dies and another woman named Ani takes her place, wiping Araxie’s forehead, changing her soiled clothing. I offer them various modes of transportation, placing them aboard my horse, pulling them behind in a small cart. Araxie actually feels most comfortable walking, plodding with her head down, her footsteps heavy in the dust. During one such march I thank her, for I am sure she saved my life by alerting me to Mustafa’s attack, but she offers no response. During other periods I question myself, wondering why I am here, why I covet her and not others. She is haggard now, the bones visible in her thin shoulders, her arms rigid and stick-like. She smells like rotten meat. The eyes that had so beguiled me before squint now against glare and sand, her lips swollen, her face burned by the sun. Still, I worry, I plot. I dream. I will not let her die.

  We follow the railroad tracks, the route I have been told leads to Aleppo and beyond, to Damascus. More trains pass, headed in both directions, their rumble apparent long before any sighting. Several of the northbound trains carry Turkish soldiers in familiar olive-tan uniforms, the soldiers gawking and laughing, shouting derisive epithets. Their jibes make me cognizant of my own appearance, more like that of a deportee now than of a gendarme, my police tunic faded and stained, my head still bandaged from Mustafa’s attack. The occasional travelers on foot or horseback avoid us, giving way or making wide circles. One Turkish-looking woman tosses food at my feet, a package of bread, cheese, and halva. Others shout, or sneer, or look on in silence.

  The terrain changes as we near Aleppo, desert giving way to tended fields, to farmers working at crops. We pass apricot orchards, fields of wheat and barley, groves of pomegranate trees. Children scurry near a house in a field. A group of adolescents stare from the side of the road. Several peddlers’ carts pull around us, knives and cookware jangling. Our pace quickens. Mothers urge their children on, the dying gain new life. It strikes me that I have left my homeland; I have entered a foreign state. For the deportees this will become a way station, a refuge until the end of the war, perhaps a new home. For me, all is less clear.

  Farms and fields give way to houses, to people and streets. I stop our group on a boulevard fronted by large white buildings, searching for someone of officialdom, marveling at the sights and colors. Aleppo is large, much larger than Harput, with hordes of exotic-looking women, some covered in black burkas with only slits for their eyes, others with large gold earrings and bracelets stretching from wrist to elbow, still others in colorful clothing and flowery hats. Boys in caftans dart and run, men in suits smoke. Vendors young and old offer walnuts, breads, and candies on tablets hung from their necks. Turkish, Armenian, and Arabic mix in the air, stirred by a flowery language I assume to be French. A number of men in military uniform pass, paying no attention to our filthy band. Finally, an officer in a crisp uniform and tall black boots crosses the street toward us. I move to address him.

  The man asks something in Arabic. I bow, exposing the wound atop my head. I remember again my appearance. I straighten, pressing my heels together in some semblance of military posture.

  “Effendi, I have delivered these deportees from Turkey,” I say in Turkish, my voice still graveled from Mustafa’s grip. “Many are ill.”

  The man spits, kicks at the ground. “So I see.” His Turkish has an Arabic accent. “You Turks send to Syria your lice, your vermin, and your dying, yes?” He looks over the remains of my group, reduced now to maybe sixty-five, then turns back to me. “Most of the gendarmes leave them to find their way here on their own.”

  He spits again and points to an unfinished two-story structure a block away. “That building is being used as a hospital for refugees,” he says. “Take them there.” He scratches his head. “Widows will need a permit to stay. Children will be cared for. Others must leave.” He shakes his head, eyes the group once more, and departs. His weaponry clinks as he walks.

  The hospital is a partially constructed stone building with open holes for windows, but it offers shelter and a measure of cleanliness. For the deportees it provides some sense of finality to the endless journey. A number will find friends or relatives from previous caravans, people who can care for them, help find food, educate them to the rules and customs of a strange and foreign city. The facility is crowded but habitable, the conditions infinitely better than the pit at Katma. The hospital is run by a team of Syrian doctors and nurses who insist on hygiene and provide adequate clothing, food, and water. Medicine is available for the diarrhea that plagues many. Even I receive treatment and a dressing for my injured scalp. Araxie is placed on one of the cots reserved for the sickest patients, her filthy clothing removed, water and medicine forced down her throat. Her eyes are closed. She stirs and coughs and gives signs of appearing more comfortable, but she does not wake.

  I stay with her for some time, sitting with the old woman Ani, who has cared for her, watching her chest rise, listening to the thin draft of her breathing. Flies buzz, nurses in stiff white caps come and go. The sun creeps in through a hole in the stones, tossing shadows against blank walls, but neither Ani nor I say anything. The shadows lengthen as the day goes on, plunging the room to dusk, then darkness. The cries of the muezzin come and I prostrate myself, orient myself toward Mecca. The sounds and smells of the hospital creep up through the walls. A small bit of bread and some yogurt are delivered. Finally, a nurse summons me.

  “The Syrian official in charge wishes to speak to you,” she says in broken Turkish. I follow her downstairs.

  A slender young man with a small mustache awaits me. He is about my height, probably only a few years older, dressed in an official-looking smock, his feet in strange-looking sandals. He introduces himself formally in passable Turkish, states his name as Hussein. He does not smile.

  “This facility is for refugees only,” Hussein says, his fingers tracing the edges of a small clipboard. “You are a gendarme, yes?”

  I nod.

  “You must leave.”

  “I . . . I have been injured.” My voice sounds foreign in its mangled state.

  “You must report to the military garrison, or I will inform them of your presence.” He lowers the clipboard. “I do not expect they will be pleased to hear from me, injury or not.”

  I study the man, the way his hands move, the thrusting forward of his smallish chest. To explain my status will be futile. I have seen men like this before.

  I shift my feet. “What of the deportees?”

  “What of them?” His face compresses, the beginnings of a sneer. “You have killed most of them already—are you wishing to finish the job now? You have delivered them, those that have made it. Now leave.”

  “Will they be allowed to stay?”

  “Some will, some will not. The rules change. At present, any woman who can prove she is a widow may stay. Everyone else must go.”

  “What about the children?”

  The man shrugs. “To the extent the orphanages can take them, the young may remain.”

  “And the others?”

  The man’s face contorts again. “Many will go to Ras al-Ayn, where there is a refugee camp. But why do you care? Could it be there is a sevmek among them?”

  He uses the Turkish verb for “love,” but I know what he means.

  “No. I am merely concerned. I have traveled with this group for many days.”

  I turn to go, to retrieve my rifle and few belongings.

  “Effendi.”

&n
bsp; I turn again.

  “Do not return.”

  9

  I awake to a gray dawn, to the last vestiges of the closest stars. Moisture dampens my face, courtesy of a wet breeze that fails to quell the suffocating odor of urine, feces, and aged, dampened straw. The stable, if you can call it one, is open to the sky, its roof long since burned or blown away. Its other occupants, a horse and two oxen, shift and doze. Flies buzz. Wooden slats creak softly in the breeze. I brush at my legs, at the vermin crawling upon me. I stand and brush again.

  The horse is not Gece. I sold my companion the day before, a parting both necessary and sad. Negotiations began with one merchant, then another, until I had been through six traders and upped the price considerably, though still to an amount only a fraction of his worth. A fine Arabian with all the stamina and intelligence of his breed, he’d been well cared for despite the rigors of our journey. He watched as I accepted the coins from the dour Arab who purchased him, his head cocked, his eyes unblinking. I turned my head as he was led away.

  I wandered the streets of Aleppo afterward, past the suq and the spacious courtyard khans, past beggars and peddlers and mosques and graveyards, past stables and markets, soldiers and refugees, on to the ruins of the giant fortress rising up from the city’s center. The citadel, stacked layer upon layer over ancient buildings and cultures, was supposedly large enough to house a garrison of ten thousand, supposedly stormed only once, in 1400, by Tamerlane. I walked around it, observing the men and soldiers who marched down ramps worn with centuries of use, staring at its moats and walls, my mind on survival, on a plan (begun with the sale of Gece), of what to do next. My plan of how to stay near her.

  Difficulties abound. Despite the sale of my horse, I have little money, no place to stay. I should have reported to the military garrison as I had always intended—I would move from the gendarmerie to the military, receive further instructions. Instead I am a deserter. I have no papers, at least none I want to show anyone, something any respectable employer will almost certainly ask to see. Given the Ottoman army’s need for soldiers, a number of Syrians are being conscripted, such that even if I have proper papers or employment I am still subject to being pulled away. I dare not go near the hospital, not after the officious Hussein’s warning, though I find myself unconsciously circling back in its direction, hoping for a glimpse of a familiar face: a nurse, a doctor, or someone who might tell me she is better, someone who will know she has been permitted to stay.