The Ghosts of Anatolia

by Steven E. Wilson

  “Thank you, Abu Abraham,” Sirak said. “We’re very grateful the Patriarch has provided us with this apartment.”

  “You’re welcome, my children. After everything you’ve lived through, it gives us all great pleasure to have you here. I’ll be your contact for any matters related to Saint James Convent or the Patriarch. Enjoy your dinner and I’ll see you at mass this weekend.” He stepped outside, walked across the courtyard and disappeared down the stairwell.

  Izabella and Sirak barely had enough time to spread a blanket on the floor before Mariam came to fetch them for dinner. She led them through the darkened courtyard and introduced her frail husband, Hovsep. The old man was seated at a small wooden table illuminated by two paraffin lamps. The table bore a soup pot, a basket of bread and several dishes of food. Mariam seated Sirak beside Hovsep and Izabella next to herself.

  “Hovsep, will you lead us in prayer?” Mariam asked.

  Hovsep bowed his head, and in a halting, throaty voice, recited the Lord’s Prayer.

  Izabella opened her eyes and caught Sirak’s stare. She smiled forlornly.

  Sirak took the basket offered by Mariam. He tore off a piece of bread and passed the basket to Hovsep.

  Mariam served soup to Izabella and Hovsep and passed the pot to Sirak.

  Sirak helped herself to an ample serving, along with portions of olives and figs. He sipped the soup. “This is delicious,” he exclaimed.

  Mariam smiled appreciatively. “I’m glad you like it. It’s Hovsep’s favorite.”

  The old woman rambled incessantly throughout the entire meal. Mostly, she talked about her garden, but also about the affairs of Saint James Convent and their old friend who’d lived in Sirak and Izabella’s apartment for twenty-four years, before she died.

  Umm Krikor brought in the coffee and desert, and the conversation turned to Sirak and Izabella’s trip from Syria and details about what they could expect in the Armenian Quarter and Jerusalem. The old woman showed surprising discretion in not asking them about their past. She seemed to sense it was better left alone, at least for the time being.

  Finally, they said their goodbyes and Sirak led Izabella through the darkened courtyard to their apartment. He lit a paraffin lamp on the table and filled an old basin with water from the cistern. Izabella washed herself, while Sirak retreated to the back of the room to unpack his bag. Once Izabella was done bathing, Sirak emptied the basin in the courtyard, refilled it from the cistern and cleaned himself from head to toe.

  Sirak knelt beside his sister’s blanket. “Goodnight, Izabella,” he whispered.

  “Goodnight,” she replied tiredly. “Thank you for taking care of me.”

  Sirak kissed her tenderly on the forehead. “You’re welcome. Thank you for being here. I love you; sweet dreams.” Blowing out the lamps, he lay on his blanket and stared up into the darkness.

  “Sirak, will you say a prayer for us?”

  “Of course. Dear God, thank you for watching over Izabella and me, and bringing us safely to Jerusalem. Thank you for providing us this place to live with good neighbors. Thank you for the food we shared tonight. Please guide us in our search to find Stepannos and Papa, and show us...”

  A tremendous explosion shook the ground beneath them. Sirak bolted up on his blanket. A succession of pops echoed from the distance.

  “What’s that?” Izabella called out through the darkness.

  “It was a bomb, and that’s gunfire. But it’s not close.”

  Sirak lay back. Taking a deep breath, he exhaled anxiously. His thoughts drifted to the last time he’d heard gunfire. It was on a dark night two years earlier, when he’d joined a group of young Druze fighters in a surprise attack on a French army outpost a few kilometers from Rashayya. A tremendous firefight ensued, and several French soldiers and Druze fighters were killed—including his best friend, Joseph, who’d died when a bullet shattered his skull. The memory of his friend staring up lifelessly from the ground had haunted Sirak ever since.

  “Sirak?” Izabella whispered.

  “Yes, what is it?”

  “Are you asleep?”

  “No.”

  “Do you remember tonight when Abu Krikor said the Lord’s Prayer?”

  “Yes.”

  “When we were young, Papa said it on special occasions like Christmas.”

  “Yes, I remembered that, too.”

  A long silence was broken by the distant bark of a dog. Izabella sobbed quietly.

  Sirak rolled onto his side and reached for her hand. “Are you okay?”

  “I miss my mama and papa.”

  “I miss them, too.”

  She sniffled. “And I miss Abee and Ummee.”

  “Me, too.”

  “Goodnight, my brother. I love you.”

  “I love you, too.”

  PART THREE

  CHAPTER 49

  September 13, 1996

  Bedford, Ohio

  A slight woman with mousy hair looked up from her computer as a wiry man in paint-spattered overalls stepped through the office door. He limped inside carrying rusty bolt cutters.

  “What are you doing, Bob?” she queried with surprise. “Weren’t you supposed to meet Jason for lunch?”

  “I am, but Juan wants the lock cut off that past-due unit so he can clean it out. What’s the number?”

  Barbara opened a file on the computer and scrolled down the page. “J-2.”

  “If Jason calls, I’ll be there in fifteen minutes.” Bob, the owner of the self-storage business, walked down the alley past several one-story buildings filled with storage lockers. Heading up the last access road, he walked nearly to the end. He glanced at a pickup truck that zipped around the corner before heading up the last walk to unit J-2.

  “Would you look at that?” he mumbled to himself. The keyhole on the padlock was corroded. “The damned thing hasn’t been opened in decades.” He jerked down hard on the padlock, but it held secure. He inserted the oxidized hasp into the teeth of the bolt cutters and forced the handles together. Suddenly, they snapped. “Shit!” Clutching his fingers, he grimaced with pain and raised his hand to his bifocals. He shook his head disgustedly and wiped the blood on his pants.

  The rusted bolt resisted his dogged back-and-forth efforts to retract it out of the doorframe. He pounded the pin with the bolt cutters until it edged clear of the frame. Finally, he jerked the door open.

  Stale air wafted out of the darkened locker. He reached inside the pitch-black room and flipped on the wall switch. The bulb was burned out. He fetched a flashlight from his pocket. Taking a step inside the locker, he stopped dead in his tracks when the beam fell on a stack of machine guns, rifles and shotguns piled against the back wall. “What the hell?” he muttered incredulously.

  He stepped forward and crouched down for a closer look. The rusty old guns were caked with dust. Bob pointed the beam at the other side of the storage locker and it fell on a stack of cardboard boxes. He stepped across the room, opened the top box and shined the light inside. “Oh my God,” he gasped, “fuckin’ dynamite!” He gently set the top down and backed warily out of the unit.

  The attendant jogged up the access road to the office and barged through the side door, then bent over to catch his breath.

  Barbara bolted up from her computer. “What’s wrong?”

  Red-faced, with beads of perspiration running down his face, Bob clutched at his chest. “Call the police.”

  “Why?”

  “Just call them, damn it!”

  Bob peered up the access road at unit J-2. A portly police sergeant carrying a radio ducked beneath the yellow crime scene tape and hurried towards him.

  “Are you the one who called this in?” he asked.

  “I’m Bob Johnson, an attendant here; I opened the unit, and Barbara called it in.”

  “Mr. Johnson, the bomb squad will be here in five minutes and agents from the ATF and FBI are also on their way. There’s enough dynamite in that locker to level this block. We�
�ve evacuated the day-care center, elementary school and gas station, too. I’m afraid you’re closed until at least tomorrow.”

  “No problem, Sergeant, just get that crap out of our building.”

  “The feds will want anything you’ve got on the people who rented that unit. Why don’t you go get your records together?”

  “Okay, I’ll be back in a few minutes.”

  “Wait up at the office, and I’ll send the feds to find you.”

  Bob rounded the end of the building just as a white sedan with the blue-and-gold ATF insignia on the door panel pulled through the police blockade. He pointed up the access road and the car sped past him and stopped near the sergeant. An athletic-looking man wearing a coat and tie stepped from the car. Sergeant Vickers lifted the crime scene tape and led him to the building.

  Bob watched the two men pull on gloves and disappear into the storage unit before he turned and hobbled back into the office. “Barbara, the police need the records on J-2.”

  She smiled and held up a file. “Got them! I knew they’d come looking for them.”

  “They’d have to get up early in the morning to put one over on you. All those episodes of Hollywood Crime Story you watch are finally paying off.”

  “Ha!” she chuckled. “It’s a helluva lot better than those Texas Hold ’em tournaments you’re married to.”

  Bob sat down at the desk and opened the file. He looked up at a heavily-armored truck that lumbered past the building. CPD BOMB SQUAD was stenciled on the door. “What’s the tenant’s name?”

  “The most recent one was named Louise Corona. But look at the past few renters’ names. Does anything strike you as strange?”

  Bob perused the file. He shuffled back and forth through several papers. “I’ll be damned—just three tenants since 1980—Louise Corona, Louise Buschel and Louise Cazian. They’re all named Louise.”

  Barbara laughed. “No shit, Sherlock. What else?”

  He shuffled through the file and looked up again. “They always paid in cash?”

  “Every time.”

  “Is this everything?”

  “That’s it. I looked in the old file cabinet, but there’s nothing else for that unit.”

  “Okay, why don’t you lock up and head home? We’re closed for the rest of the day. I’ll call you later.”

  “No need to ask me twice.” Barbara got up from her desk and fished a ring of keys from her purse. “If you’ve got any brains, you’ll take them that file and get the hell out of here, too.”

  “What? And miss all the excitement?”

  “Well, then, I just hope you left me this place in your will.”

  “What will?” Bob chuckled. “I’m living forever.”

  The ATF agent looked up from the file. “Is this everything you have, Mr. Johnson?”

  “Yes, as far as I know.” Bob turned, and glancing down the access road, spotted two men dressed in protective suits wheeling a cart to their truck. “Barbara searched all of our records. She’s very thorough and has worked here for twenty years.”

  “Three women named Louise in sixteen years,” the agent muttered. “What a coincidence. Do you remember what any of these women looked like?”

  “No, can’t say that I do, but Barbara might. She handles all the payments. She’s gone home for the day, though.”

  “Thanks for your help, Mr. Johnson. Now, I want you to leave the area until the explosives are removed. Here’s my card. Please leave your home phone number with the policeman at the gate.”

  “James Butler, Special Agent,” Bob read aloud from the card. “Yes, of course, sir.”

  “I’ll be in touch. Thank you.”

  Bob hobbled away to the office. As he walked past the units in the J building, he couldn’t help but wonder what else lay hidden behind the dozens of monotonous orange doors.

  CHAPTER 50

  October 5, 1996

  Richmond Heights, Ohio

  Keri turned into the driveway and pulled forward to his father’s darkened house. His truck squealed to a stop and he got out.

  It was a surprisingly warm fall morning that belied the yellow, orange and brown leaves fluttering across the yard. The first rays of the sun danced through the colorful oak and maple trees that lined the narrow residential street.

  He climbed the steps and rapped twice on the front door. The light snapped on above the porch and the door creaked open. Sirak was dressed in a flannel shirt and trousers with a floppy fishing hat pushed back on his balding head.

  “Ready, Papa?”

  “I’ve been ready, but I can’t find my rod and reel.”

  “I have everything we need, including bait. Let’s hurry before it gets too late. We can pick up coffee and donuts on the way.”

  “Okay, just let me turn off the lights.”

  Keri got back in the truck and started the engine. Sirak stepped outside a moment later. He locked the door and hobbled down the walk. Keri waited patiently for his father to struggle into the seat and slam the door.

  “The boys aren’t coming?” Sirak asked.

  “They couldn’t make it after all. Troy and Kevin have a hockey tournament in Ann Arbor this weekend and both of the families drove up to cheer them on.”

  “You should’ve gone with them.”

  “And miss a chance to go fishing? No way. Besides, I’ve got tons of work to do tomorrow and they’ll be home late.”

  “Well, next time you call and reschedule. It’s important to spend as much time with your children and grandchildren as you can. Take it from your papa. I didn’t, and now I regret it.” Sirak smiled happily. “Better yet, next time take me with you.”

  “It’s a long drive and a long weekend, Papa. They usually play four or five games. I’m not sure you’re up to it.”

  “Nonsense. I’m in better shape now than I was twenty years ago.”

  Keri smiled and turned into the Bedford Coffeehouse. “Okay, we’ll all go to the next tournament together.”

  Keri exited the freeway just west of downtown Cleveland. He drove to the Whiskey Island Marina and parked in a gravel lot next to the indoor boat-storage facility. They gathered their tackle and chairs and walked out to the breakwater. Finally, as the sun’s rays hit the tops of the sailboat masts in the marina, they baited their hooks and cast into Lake Erie.

  “Any word on your promotion?” Sirak whispered.

  “Unfortunately, the central office just announced several layoffs of senior executives. I doubt I’ll get promoted any time soon.”

  “That’s too bad.”

  Keri felt a nibble on his line. He jerked his rod. “I missed him…

  “Papa, I was wondering, did you ever find out what happened to Nurse Barton after she left Aleppo?”

  Sirak nodded. “I tried to contact her after we moved to the United States. I eventually found out that she had made it back to Oklahoma and lived with her brother on his farm. She married a banker from Altus, Oklahoma, and they had three sons. But she and her husband died in a car accident in the late thirties.”

  “So she never knew what happened to your mother and you?”

  “No, at least not as far as I know. I wish I’d contacted her before she died.”

  “Maybe it was better for her to hold onto the hope that your mother and you kids made it to Jerusalem.”

  “Maybe, but she must’ve suspected the worst. Mama would’ve contacted her if she’d reached safety. They were like sisters.”

  “Yeah, I guess so. Papa, do you feel like telling me about the years you spent in Jerusalem before we kids were born? How did you meet Mama?”

  Sirak didn’t look up. He stared at the water rippling circles out from his line.

  Keri glanced up at his father. The old man’s haggard face was sallow in the rays of the early morning sun.

  “We got a lot of help from the Armenian community and the old woman, Umm Krikor. I’m sure Izabella would have gone crazy without her. After all the years of support she’d gotten from
Asuza and Ammar, there’s no way she could’ve kept her sanity without Umm Krikor’s mothering. I owed her a lot. Medical school would’ve remained little more than a dream, if it hadn’t been for her.”

  “What was it like living in the Armenian Quarter?”

  “We settled into the community as lowly Kaghtagan, as the long-term residents of the Holy City referred to us. Izabella spent her days in the courtyard gardening with Umm Krikor; while I began an arduous search through the Patriarch’s records for any sign that Papa and Stepannos had reached Jerusalem. I spent many long and lonely and futile weeks in those offices. I searched refugee lists, baptismal records, and birth and death records, along with many other Patriarchal records Abu Apraham made available to me. I never found even a scrap of evidence Papa or Stepannos reached Jerusalem. All the while, I longed to return to Rashayya, to the only peace I’d ever known and the pretty young woman I left behind.”

  “You were still in love with her?”

  “Yes, hopelessly. I never stopped thinking about her, not for a single day. I met a few young Armenian women in Jerusalem. One father even talked with me about marrying his daughter. But my heart was still in Syria.

  “I enrolled at the St. George’s School in Jerusalem. I studied the Bible, Arabic, geography and other topics, until Jeremiah and his brother made arrangements for me to enroll in the medical school at the American University in Beirut. That began just over a year after we arrived in Jerusalem. At first I declined the opportunity because I was sure Izabella would not be able to function if I left Jerusalem. But several of the church elders, along with Umm Krikor, encouraged me to go.”

  “How could you afford it? It must’ve been very expensive.”

  “It was, but I entered into an agreement with the Patriarch to provide three years medical care to the poor Armenians of Jerusalem for each year of support I received to attend school. And so, in 1929, just before the Palestine riots erupted, I began my medical training in Beirut. During that time, I returned to Jerusalem only two or three times a year, and then only for a few days at a time. It took several days to travel by boat from Beirut to Jaffa, and then by train from Jaffa to Jerusalem, but the biggest problem was that growing Arab resistance made the trip increasingly more dangerous. I earned my degree in five years. Then I returned to Jerusalem and the ongoing strife between the Arabs and Jews that tore the city apart.”