No Man's Land: Writings From a World at War

by Pete Ayrton

  It was the shopkeeper who had refused to sell the material at five kouroush an arsheen. The Turk had met him again in the street, and had asked:

  ‘Well, will you sell it at five kouroush, you infidel?’

  ‘No!’

  And the Turk had started to shout:

  ‘Help! Help! He insulted my religion! I was walking by quietly and he insulted Mohammed and our holy religion!’

  And so the crowd had set upon the Armenian and had broken his nose and cut his lip. Whilst at every blow the shopkeeper had shouted:

  ‘I’ll give it away for nothing, but I will not sell it at five kouroush an arsheen! You can take it!’

  No one had bothered to ask why the man who was being beaten should be shouting these words, or what connexion they had with the holy religion.

  *

  Dikran, the goldsmith, had a vineyard near the slaughterhouse of the town. I had gone to the vineyard of a relative of ours, which was next to the goldsmith’s.

  At noon, a Turk, carrying a basket, entered Dikran’s vineyard and asked him for some grapes. The latter did not want to give him any, but his mother intervened:

  ‘I should; he is a cur; he would only create trouble.’

  So Dikran gave him some, but without filling the basket. The Turk demanded that he filled it completely.

  ‘It would be too heavy to carry,’ said Dikran, playfully hinting that he did not want to give any more.

  The Turk insisted on having a full basket. The mother intervened again, but Dikran was furious and refused.

  ‘You have enough there, and I gave it to you for nothing!’ Dikran exclaimed. The Turk demanded again. They started fighting.

  Dikran was a thin, delicate man; whilst the Turk was well built and strong. Dikran had the worst of the fight; he was thoroughly beaten and even lost a tooth. No one intercepted.

  ‘He is a cur, he would go and create a thousand and one mischiefs!’ they all said and allowed him to be beaten.

  Five days later, Dikran was summoned to court.

  I went to the trial to see what would happen, in spite of my mother’s orders to keep away from such places.

  The Turk appeared in court with a white handkerchief tied across his forehead. Dikran was supposed to have struck him on the forehead with a stone and broken it. Dikran was condemned to two months’ imprisonment, and he was beaten as they took him to prison; whilst in court Dikran begged them only to remove the handkerchief and see for themselves if there was a wound there.

  But they refused to listen to him: there was the government doctor’s report, and that was enough!

  When they had taken Dikran to prison and we had come out of court, I saw with my own eyes how, once he was in the street, the Turk untied his handkerchief without the slightest compunction, and put it in his pocket. There was not a sign of a wound, not even the trace of a scratch on his forehead.

  *

  One day, in broad daylight, a terrible piece of news went round: an Armenian barber had cut the throat of a Turk whom he had been shaving!

  The news spread like lightning. Everyone tried to shut their shops immediately and go home. Within fifteen minutes the shopping area of the town looked as it did on Sundays – deserted.

  What had happened?

  The barber had been shaving the Turk, when an Armenian acquaintance had come in and whispered in his ear:

  ‘What are you doing here? The Turks and the Armenians are fighting outside!’

  This had been simply meant to be a joke.

  The barber had thought for a minute: they had already started outside, and here before him was a ready-made opportunity. So he had taken advantage of it, and then he had hurried out, razor in hand, to join in the fray. When he had discovered that everything was quiet outside, the prospect of the consequences had horrified him. He had jumped on to a horse and had fled out of town.

  That evening the barber’s wife was taken to prison, was beaten, and persistently questioned:

  ‘Where’s your husband hiding?’

  *

  The Ottoman Constitution was declared.

  There was an outburst of greetings, kisses, embraces; an overflow of affection and of brotherhood.

  The prison gates were opened, and out came the political prisoners, amongst whom were also my two teachers.

  A celebration of freedom took place in front of the government house. Out came the Turkish revolutionaries and spoke about the Constitution.

  It was the first time that I had seen Turkish revolutionaries. How was it possible for a Turk to become a revolutionary? That was what I had heard and believed.

  I was on my way back from that celebration, tired, covered in dust, thirsty, and full of joy.

  I met Shemsy in the street.

  We had not greeted each other for a long time. He had called my father an ‘infidel’, and I had called his a ‘cur’. We had often called each other by these names before and had made it up, but on that occasion we had directed them at each other’s parents.

  I, in particular, had been painfully hurt, because at the time when Shemsy had insulted my father, he was turning to dust in the cemetery…

  Shemsy looked at me out of the corner of his eyes.

  So did I.

  I smiled.

  He did the same.

  I do not know how, but our feet moved towards one another and our arms embraced each other.

  Shemsy dragged me to their home. The house seemed so strange to me – I had not been there for a long time. He led me in, ignoring the custom of segregating the womenfolk in their home. I kissed his mother’s hand. I turned and saw Sanié, who stood there smiling. Our hands went forward in the way they do when one’s heart wants to applaud.

  It was a very long time since I had last seen Sanié without her violet veil.

  She had lost a little, a very little, of her ethereal qualities, but she had become more full-blooded.

  When I gripped her hand firmly, she blushed, her lips trembled and, turning to her mother, she whispered something. There was so much femininity in her whisper that, at once, I visualized her swimming in the pond, and the icy water quivering with the sunny warmth of her body.

  *

  The kisses and embraces did not help in any way, because barely a few days later ‘wise’ Armenians whispered into the ears of others:

  ‘Don’t be deceived!’

  ‘Wise’ Turks also whispered:

  ‘Beware, the Armenians want to rule our country and abolish our religion!’

  The clock seemed to have been put back.

  *

  When we were children, we used to play a game called ‘Armenians and Turks’. It was a simple game: there would be a mass of stones in the centre, called the ‘fortress’. The children would divide into two teams, to occupy the ‘fortress’. One of the teams would be called ‘The Armenians’ and the other, ‘The Turks’.

  ‘The Turks are going in, boys!’

  ‘The Armenians are getting near the fortress! Attack them!’

  It was looked upon as an innocent game.

  And it continued so until the First World War. The same game was played during that war, with the exception that, this time, the sides were taken by real Armenians and real Turks and they were playing on real soil, roused by an immeasurable hatred.

  No one, absolutely no one, ever told us not to play this game. Whenever we did the grown-ups, men with moustaches, men famed for their learning and for their seriousness, would watch us and smile. And they would usually be delighted when the ‘Turks’ were defeated. The passions would become so heated that the ‘Armenians’ would call the ‘Turks’ during play by those insulting names which they did at other times.

  We would always be faced with one difficulty at the beginning of the game: no one would want to be a ‘Turk’. We would be forced to draw lots. Anyone who drew ‘Armenian’ would be enormously delighted, whilst those who drew ‘Turk’ would be upset, reluctantly taking part in the game, simply to obey the
rules of children’s games.

  It was in this spirit that we grew up.

  And future generations will tell a strange tale:

  ‘Once upon a time, there was a small and ancient nation, which lived in the lands extending from Lake Van to the Mediterranean Sea and from Baghdad to Byzantium. This ancient nation was made up of farmers, poor craftsmen, intellectuals, merchants, landlords, bankers, high government officials, dustmen, servants, slaves and so on. These people were ardently loved by their wealthy compatriots beyond the limits of their country. They were likewise ardently loved by ministers of Western countries, because of their black and beautiful eyes and because they spread culture throughout the dark East.

  ‘Moved by their ardent love, the wealthy compatriots and the Western ministers pushed these people into fighting their neighbours – neighbours who differed from them in religion, in blood and in culture, and who possessed swords and armour, an army, a navy, and superior numbers.

  ‘And once upon a time, there was a great war. The whole world was enveloped by the smoke of gunpowder, and there flowed rivers of blood. The ministers and the wealthy compatriots shouted into these people’s ears: “The hour of freedom has come! Strike your neighbour! Strike his crescent with your cross!” The black and beautiful eyes of this ancient nation sparkled with the desire of freedom. An unequal fight began; they struck; and were struck. And of these ancient people there remained a mere fragment, in memory of a nightmare.

  ‘Whereupon, with supreme and sublime cynicism, the ministers and the wealthy compatriots laughed at the bones and the ashes…

  ‘And three apples fell from heaven: one for the story-teller, one for the listener, and one for the eavesdropper…’

  Vahan Totovents was an Armenian writer born in Mezre (modern Turkey), a small town on the Euphrates, in 1889. He served as a volunteer on the Caucasian front during the war. He went to war to see his country liberated.

  I saw instead its total destruction, and torrents of my countrymen’s blood. I saw human suffering of such depth that there can be nothing deeper in this world. I saw nights gorged with blood. I saw men crazed with hunger; I saw bloodthirsty mobs attacking innocent men, women and children, and I heard the howls of their innocent victims.

  After the war, he went to live in Yerevan in Soviet Armenia. In the 1930s he was accused of producing works lacking in proletarian content and exiled to Siberia. Little is known of his last years in exile. Totovents died in 1937. This extract is taken from his Scenes from an Armenian Childhood, written and first published in 1930 (filmed as A Piece of Sky by Henrik Malyan in 1980). The touch is light but the message is clear: children’s games are not innocent.

  ÖMER SEYFETTIN

  WHY DIDN’T HE GET RICH?

  translated by Izzy Finkel

  ‘A few pages from the diary of a teacher.’

  7th of January

  THEY SAY THAT A NATION without a history is a happy one. I’ll add that a person without recollections is a happy one, too. Since I taught history for five years, I found it necessary to cast my eye over a fair number of books. No sooner had I left school than I ordered the works of the historians Rambaud and Lavisse. The commerce in used books to which I’d gradually become accustomed since then had filled up my library quite a bit. Now I suddenly find myself having read all of these books. It did not escape my notice; this thing we call history is the bearer of misfortunes! It makes no mention of felicities, or else it skims past them superficially. Even in the most joyful and most fortunate of periods it is expert at discovering some calamity, perfidy, anguish, or poison! This sorrowful tendency within the record of man that is history is found also in man himself. Each misfortune, affliction or grief leaves a deep mark like a scar on our souls. Our delights and our joys, our happy days melt away and are forgotten with the very weightlessness of a dream. Just this morning, in the corner of my drawer I found a notebook I had begun to scribble in ten years ago. I looked over what I had written. There was nothing there to afford me peace of mind! I had recorded at length how my darling mother who died of cancer gradually ebbed away, and how we’d suffered terrible burdens as the poor thing was dragged off beyond redemption, moaning and wailing into perdition… What terrible remedy is time! Now I cannot feel one scintilla of those burdens. Then I went abroad! There were but two lines about this! Then I got married! There is no mention of that at all. I had a child. I hadn’t written about that either. Involuntarily I sniffed in these pages, which for some reason had yellowed without ever seeing the sun. The bitter, narcotic smell of an ailing autumn! From these old leaves, amongst these old books, from these old forgotten notebooks, ah! The smell of mourning.

  *

  Yes, if only I had not had such memories to write about. How empty are the eventless, regular, self-same days! But how free from pain… After the war broke out this emptiness, that is to say this contentment and peace, abruptly broke apart. I must have abandoned my habit, because for two years I didn’t set down any of the things I’d experienced. To be living happily in the world of beliefs, in the world of opinions, to be living happily in the pursuit of knowledge, that spiritual pleasure which resembles no other delicacy – and suddenly to be thrust into the darkness of want! To crawl along a desert of famine without hope, under a maelstrom of hunger, and to witness those close to you meet their slow, uncomplaining deaths! How miserable I was that day! Whatever my wife had had, we sold. Not a linen bath towel remained. Our bedding, our bedsteads, the library my father had left me, even the pram of my poor child, my poor Orhan, went off to be pawned when its turn came. My monthly salary was fifteen lira… We even pawned the house that my mother had given me, the house that had guaranteed me an income of six lira. The bread rations we ate, the cracked wheat with olive oil we got from the school! I am in awe of my wife’s fortitude. She managed to take care of both the house and the child. She is endlessly darning socks. She takes apart the old ones. She dresses me and her child.

  –If only the fighting would stop! All this will be forgotten, she says.

  But I do not see that this crisis has any hope of ending soon. What will become of us? From time to time I consider going abroad. But those coming from the outside say that their hunger is worse even than ours. Remembering the terror of tomorrow turns my mind upside down. I’m struck dumb. I still can’t think of what to say. I can’t collect my thoughts on paper.

  *

  14th of January

  I ought not to have begun to write again in this inauspicious book! Yesterday Orhan fell ill. Our neighbour the doctor who came round to treat him as a favour told us to feed him only milk. Milk… A measure of it is half a lira! I piled all the books I own onto the back of a street porter. I sold them. Off they went. Sixty lira’s worth of cash came into my hands. I bought charcoal with twenty of it. The cold was wretched.

  *

  30th of January

  Turning it over in my mind, I realise that a life like this is no longer livable. That evening, when I was having my boots polished, I asked the shoe-shine boy how many pennies he received from his master each month.

  –Twenty lira! he said. A gypsy child of sixteen! I’m the thirty-one-year-old scion of an ancient family! I was brought up in the most comfortable fashion. How can I, with a wife and with a child, get by on fifteen liras a month? A challenge? It’s not even possible! For two years we’ve been selling and scrimping, topping that up with the fifteen liras to ward off death. But it can’t go on like this. In a month’s time I won’t have anything left to sell. I need to find a job. Teaching would fail to feed not just a man but a chicken.

  *

  16th of February

  I had been looking for work for fifteen days. At last I found something from a bookseller, translation for ten kurush a page. I can’t describe how happy it made me… Each section brings in one hundred and sixty kurush. I get thirty lira for a three-hundred-page book.

  *

  7th of April

  I have got into the habit of do
ing a regular ten pages of translation a night, for which four hours will suffice. And so it goes… It seems as if our life is improving. Orhan can drink his milk. Semiha and I will be able to acquire a pair of ration boots each. The fact is that working every night without break has ruined my eyesight. But we found a solution to this. Last week I bought some glasses from the eye doctor.

  *

  2nd of May

  Yesterday I chanced upon a friend of mine, Shem, in Cenyo… The boy had bunked off from when we were in secondary school. I used to see him from time to time. He had become a businessman.

  –I’ve got seventy-five thousand lira! he said, in just two months…

  –You’re joking, I laughed.

  –You’re welcome to ask any bank you want.

  –But then how can that be?

  –It’s pretty easy if you can find your ‘angle of approach’!

  An ambition was stirring inside me. Seventy-five thousand lira in two months… I remembered how I’d sweated for one single lira. Four hours every night by the light of a carbide lamp I’d bought from the Germans in the interests of economy. The man opposite me was quite stretched as if to burst from health. Jewels studded his plump fingers.

  –So what’s this ‘angle of approach’ business then?

  –It’s easier than tapping up Topal!*

  –Who’s this Topal?

  –Come on… Where have you been? You’ve really no idea who Topal is? Good God! Whoever gets a piece of him becomes a millionaire! Today, all of Turkey is in his hands! Seventy five thousand million lira jumps into action at his behest.

  He began at great length to explain the virtues, the talents and the capabilities of the chief of procurement. I listened in amazement. At last I explained that I knew not a soul in the War Ministry. He felt for me.

  However:

  –Don’t be so crestfallen, he said, there’s no need to tap up Topal directly. It’s enough that you tap up a man of his man…

  –Well then, I’m tapping you up! I said, laughing.