Between the Two Rivers: A Story of the Armenian Genocide

by Aida Kouyoumjian

  Surely, the Barone will hand out the required clothes soon. But where was he? Engrossed in the prospect of life at the orphanage, she had forgotten to look for him during the walk.

  Seeing no one else awake and not knowing what to do, she slid back into her bedding and peered around the courtyard and at the several doors facing the fountain. Which one opens to my classroom? Ayp-Pen, Kim-ta … She recited the beginning of the alphabet and as it had yesterday, the rest vanished from her memory. Remorse thumped in her chest. Disappointed at having neglected her studies during the deportation, she withdrew inside her quilt to hide her ignorance.

  I’ll remember everything when I enter my classroom.

  When will the school bell ring?

  

  The giant door swung open for a new batch of orphans led by Dikran.

  Mannig dashed to hug him. “I feared I might never see you again.”

  Dikran backed away, freeing himself from her embrace and confronting those who witnessed Mannig’s demonstrative welcome with a shrug of his shoulders. Seeing the courtyard full of children, he spoke with confidence. “The batch I just brought is the last. The Moslawi poor will no longer have to compete with Armenians scavenging the alleys.” He locked the gate behind him. “I’ve completed my mission. Finally, I can actually do the essential chores of the orphanage.”

  Mannig lifted the loose end of the bundle he dragged and stepped behind him. Using the term of endearment, she said, “Dikran Jahn. Please tell me, when will they ring the bell for classes? The sun is so high, and it must already be midday.”

  “What classes?”

  “Classes for school, of course,” Mannig raised her voice in disbelief. How can Dikran not know about the place and purpose of the orphanage? “When will the teachers call us to our classrooms?”

  “What teachers?” Dikran asked, raising his thick eyebrows the way older men often did. “Mannig, Mannig! This place is not a school. It is a refuge for homeless children. This khan is only to shelter us, provide food, and protect us from getting lost.”

  Mannig swallowed a lump of disappointment. She had already lived in a shelter in Mosul; no harm had befallen her and she had never gone astray. She had counted on the orphanage to educate her. But now her friend had quashed her hopes.

  Reality hurt.

  Tears stung her eyes and her heart felt crushed. Disappointment made her short of breath. She fought against crying—she had shed enough tears when the gendarmes closed her school in Adapazar. She had resisted tears even after discovering her mother’s dead body beside her at the deportee camp in Deir Zor. I won’t cry now, either. She lowered her gaze, sighed, and dragged her feet behind Dikran.

  “You are sad?” Dikran touched her arm. “Take my advice, Mannig Jahn. ‘No expectations, no disappointments’ is my philosophy. Be thankful for our lives.”

  “But … but …” Manning whimpered.

  “Listen to me,” Dikran stopped, facing her. “Be grateful—we escaped the massacre by the gendarmes—we survived. Be thankful—we’re not scattered among strangers—we’re with Armenians. Be appreciative—people like the Barone have found a place for us to live together—we’re …”

  “What about the Barone?” Mannig interrupted. “Can’t he make this place a school?”

  “I suppose he could do many things,” Dikran said, putting his bundle on the ledge of the fountain. “Actually, he has returned to Baghdad for more assistance and supplies. There are hundreds of orphans across the lands between the two big rivers.”

  “What two big rivers?” Mannig’s curiosity had been piqued. Might Dikran become a teacher?

  “The Tigris and the Euphrates Rivers … but that’s not important. What’s important is the size of the area. The Barone will be very busy collecting children and settling them in orphanages; I wonder if we will ever see him in Mosul again.” Dikran splashed his hands in the gurgling cold water, cupped his palms, and slurped. He slouched, leaning against the gray granite wall of the fountain. “I must rest … I know there are many chores to be done … now go! Find out why all the girls below the balcony are squealing.”

  Craning her neck above the group, Mannig saw a shiny pair of scissors in the hand of the supervisor cutting a girl’s hair short to the scalp. The spectators cringed and squirmed at each click. The victim was her bed partner, whose tears rolled down her pallid face more profusely than her black locks dropping onto the red bricks. “What’s her name?” Mannig nudged her neighbor.

  “Garina.”

  “What did she do to deserve such punishment?” someone whimpered.

  “It’s the law of the orphanage,” another whispered.

  The moaning and sighing rose higher when the supervisor applied the hair clippers to Garina’s head, leaving little but fuzz. Mannig watched placidly, but noticing the girl to her right coiling her curls as if fearing a permanent loss, she nudged her. “It will grow again.” She caressed her own long locks. “Once my mother hacked my hair … with a butcher’s knife … in Deir Zor. See how it has grown?”

  “Ooooh!” The girl squirmed and chewed on her hair. “Did your mother hate you?”

  “Of course, not. There was a deadly sickness at the deportee camp and my mother said long tresses would promote it. She was right. She cut mine and I didn’t get sick. I didn’t die.”

  A tall girl behind Mannig leaned forward. “The supervisor suspects lice because the girls were scratching their heads.” She straightened, continuing with authority. “We’ll soon all look alike … but eventually, it will grow long again. But no one knows what color it will be. It may even grow curly!”

  Mannig swung her straight hair before her eyes. Was my hair chestnut color in Adapazar? Curly? Everything had changed in Deir Zor. A lump rose in her throat. No one in the vorpanotz knows how I looked before the deportation—not even me.

  Mannig took her turn without apprehension. She relished the zippy fingers and scissors across her head, almost like Mama’s pampering hands tying a ribbon. Had it been yellow? The memory of her yellow dress swelled her eyes with tears.

  “Up!” the supervisor pulled Mannig by her sleeve. “Follow those girls and wash your head.”

  Reawakened, she stood up. Was it finished? Daydreaming had distracted her from the sensation of human hands on her scalp. Nevertheless, the clippers’ touch must have stirred nostalgic memories, making the mundane magical. The fuzz tickled her palm. Wash? A bathhouse?

  Mannig stepped into a roofless, brick-walled enclave in the courtyard. How unlike the steam-filled and jasmine-scented hammam in Adapazar! Instead of the prattle of playful children scampering in the nude, this cacophony of shrieking orphans, still clothed in their rags, stunned her.

  The girl ahead of her rubbed a bar of soap onto her naked scalp, eyes shut to avoid stray suds; then she leaned forward, groping for the ladle in the bucket of water hauled from the courtyard spring. Any luxurious images of bathing Mannig had acquired prior to the deportation evaporated at the orphanage.

  A tight pinch on her arm startled her.

  “Scrub thy head with this.” Garina handed her a brick-size-soap. “Scrape with its edge and lather every bit of thy scalp, like I have.” She dropped to her knees and ladled water onto her head. “A-a-a-akh! Co-o-o-old.” She screeched, shaking her head and spraying droplets every which way. “This is colder than the springs of Van.”

  The coarse edges of the soap bar grazed Mannig’s scalp. She endured its abrasiveness but not the iciness of the water. She shrieked like Garina, and shook off the clinging water in the manner of a dog.

  At the exit, the supervisor handed Mannig a yazma from a stack of multihued scarves. Mannig’s eyes focused on the yellow one topping the pile.

  “You can have that one instead, if you like,” the supervisor said, smiling at Mannig’s delight.

  Across from the spring, the boys received a similar head-shaving from the Old Effendi. There were only twenty or thirty male orphans. Even so, Mannig gave up trying to reco
gnize Dikran. She squatted against the wall next to Garina.

  “They all look like turnip-heads.” Garina snickered at the boys and faced the sun. “Only the girls get a yazma. On this occasion, we have an advantage. But what is the use?” She sighed as tears glistened down her broad cheeks.

  Touched, Mannig reached out and grasped her hand.

  Garina squeezed back, then holding one end of her scarf, she blew her bulbous nose. “I came to the orphanage for nothing, anyway. Without hair, my chances are zero anywhere in the world.”

  “I am sad, too,” Mannig said, “but not for my hair. This place is not a school.”

  “School?” Garina probed. “Who cares about that?”

  “Don’t you want to learn anything?”

  “What I want is to marry an Armenian man,” Garina said, scanning the courtyard. “If I were in Van … if any Van men survived the massacre … if only ….” She wiped her cheeks and gazed afar. “I came to the orphanage to find a man. The only one here is the Effendi, and he’s married to the supervisor. I should have stayed in Mosul and married an Arab.” She sighed, gesturing toward the bunch of boys huddled for warmth. “There’s no hope among them … they are so immature … naive about Eros.”

  Mannig ignored the unfamiliar word “Eros,” assuming it to be part of Garina’s lazy dialect, common to Armenians of Van.

  Haji-doo’s image appeared, admonishing finger-wagging-sloppy enunciations with, “Put your tongue to work—you are not a Vanetsi peasant.” After a moment, Mannig nudged Garina: “If they made this place a school, the boys could learn all about it.”

  “Schools don’t teach such important things.”

  Mannig stared at Garina. Yes, this older girl, maybe fourteen or sixteen, claimed worldliness, but what would a Vanetsi know anyway? Peasants, Haji-doo called them. Mannig closed her eyes with sadness. This building was neither a school nor a nurturing home. The courtyard walls curbed the freedom she enjoyed in the old khan; the regimented hair-cutting and bathing impinged upon her free spirit, and the dwelling was confining. This place is worthless. She agreed with her Vanetsi bed partner. Feeling a chill on her shoulders, she pulled at her neckline. “My dress got wet in the bathhouse.”

  “Let me take care of it for thee,” Garina said, grabbing the ends of Mannig’s yazma and retying them into a tight knot. She slid the fringy ends inside the neckline of Mannig’s gunny sack. “This will separate thy skin from the wetness. Now turn thy back to the Mosul sun—it dries everything to the bone.”

  Mannig relished the silky patina of the yazma on her neck, but more Garina’s attentiveness. Someone cared for her. She glanced at her, and the two exchanged smiles.

  “Two hundred girls in one place,” Garina said, shaking her head. “Thou wilt soon find out how the supervisor puts us to work. Remember my words. We’ll cook and sweep and collect firewood … while twenty childish boys will get pampered … just because they’re boys. They will sit and do nothing. They will be the princes of the orphanage, and we their slaves, and …” Garina abruptly stopped speaking and rose from her squatting position. She stretched her neck and squinted. She leaned forward, honing in on her find.

  “What is it?” Mannig yanked at her sleeve.

  Garina held still; her thick-lashed brown eyes sparkled with intensity.

  “Tell me, please!” Mannig insisted.

  Garina remained silent. Her nostrils flared with short breaths, enticing Mannig to rise and see what held her attention.

  At the far end of the courtyard, the boys crouched. They’re orphans, too. Next to them, smoke plumed from the smell of dry droppings. Nothing special. The supervisor stirred the smoldering soup cauldron. Hardly worthy of attention. The woman was talking to the tall, lanky fellow beside her while pointing at the gate with her free hand. He nodded his turnip-head in consent.

  “You must be very hungry,” Mannig said, looking at Garina again. “Soon she will call us to dunk the chunk and sip the soup.”

  “Soup?” Garina snickered. “Who cares about food? That boy next to the woman … he looks like a man. Amahn, Amahn! My luck …” She adjusted the yazma around her face and dashed toward the duo.

  Mannig focused on the boy listening to the supervisor. His attentive silhouette reminded her of another tall and thin fellow. Finally she recognized him, despite his bald head. Dikran.

  12—Do This … Do That

  For several weeks, Mannig performed chores she had never imagined doing in a school. The routine required a whirlwind of “doing this and doing that.” She liked gaining new skills, not necessarily for the increased dexterity they gave her but for the novelty of the experience. Self-sufficient, the vorpanotz prized itself on how it used its work-stations to teach life skills. But these were not the skills she wanted. I’ll never learn to read or write.

  “Pull!” Garina ordered. Mannig was helping her operate the hand mill for grain. The two sat in the red-brick courtyard facing each other, alternately pulling and pushing the upright handle, rotating one circular upper sandstone slab sitting atop another. The supervisor had assigned the two girls the task of grinding barley for the daily bread flour—the grinding sound often being the first to greet the ear in the morning.

  Mannig appreciated the novelty of the chore, but she knew Garina resented it because she did not respect the supervisor’s authority. “Who does she think she is?” Garina grumbled in an undertone after each command. In retribution, she called her peece gunnig behind her back, meaning ‘filthy woman.’ When the two eyed each other, Mannig saw venom darting from Garina’s gaze.

  “This is nothing but a hissing task,” Garina said. “That peece gunnig better assign others to this Whirr and Purr task.”

  “That’s a perfect tag,” Mannig said. This was yet another label Garina had given to the various work-stations in the courtyard. “I like the sounds of whirring and purring. The humming is murky—not musical—but it comforts me like Mama’s lullabies.”

  “Go on, be the sentimental one, if thou must. In Van, it is the work of a servant. To me, this is hard work demanding a man’s strength. The peece Sup (for supervisor) could have commanded the big boys to assist us.”

  With her free hand, Garina poured a palm full of barley into the funnel-shaped opening for the pivot. She gauged the flow of the golden-hued seeds from her hand while the upper slab rotated about the wooden hinge fixed in the center of the lower stone. “Thou, too, must pour in the grain,” she said. “Thou ought to get used to the ‘feel’—when to feed the hole and how much.”

  “I’d like to,” Mannig said. “But we’re out of barley.”

  “Aha!” Garina smirked. “I told the peece Sup we needed more grain, and that the sack is too heavy for you. This week, I can’t carry weight. I have the curse.”

  Aha, Mannig thought. As usual, this Vanetsi had slurred her lazy tongue over another strange word.

  “I hope she delegates the strongest and oldest boy to haul some.”

  Her words were barely spoken when Dikran approached with a gunny sack on his back.

  Instantly, she re-framed the fringes of her yazma and finger-brushed her eyebrows. Her eyes shone brightly, and the corners of her lips turned slightly upward. She sprang to her feet just before he set the sack down and coyly touched his hand, supporting the bag. “You’re so sweet to do this manly job for us frail girls.” Touching his arm more than the sack, she assisted him with sliding the weighty bag beside her feet.

  Dikran glanced at her, tilting his head to one side, grinning and cocking his left eyebrow.

  What an unusual facial expression. Was he surprised or unaccustomed to assistance? Garina, too, slanted a look of delight at him. Shrugging his shoulder, he bent and pulled the sack closer to the mill before emptying it on the ground between the two girls. He swung the empty burlap sack onto his shoulder, floating dust every which way. Straightening up, he asked Mannig, “How do you like the vorpanotz now?”

  “I’m always doing this or doing … ” Mannig bega
n, but Garina’s anxious gestures stopped her.

  “We’re very happy,” she said confidently, her eyes warning Mannig not to declare otherwise.

  Mannig couldn’t help but drop her jaw in amazement at how deftly Garina lied.

  “Because thou art with us,” Garina sweetened her voice and stepped closer to him. She wrapped her palm around his biceps, inside the rolled-up sleeve of his khaki military shirt. “We’re happy because thou art under our roof. We depend on thee. We need thee to protect us, always. Thou art so strong. So grown-up …”

  “That’s good to know.” Dikran freed his arm. “I shall relay your comment to Sebouh Effendi in Mosul. Such news will be encouraging to Barone Mardiros, too.” He turned his back to leave.

  Garina pulled on his shirttail. “Wait. The Sup isn’t anywhere nearby to see thee befriending me … us. Stay here and talk to me … us.”

  “I have many chores to do.”

  “Thou could do things for me … us,” Garina smiled into his eyes. Then she pointed to the sheepskin around the mill stones and the heap of the issued flour. “I want to carry it with thee to the Fiery Front.”

  “Where?” Dikran asked open-mouthed, looking at Mannig.

  “The toneer at the baking station.”

  Dikran smiled, shaking his head. “Not to worry.” He kneeled and scooped the flour into the white muslin sack.

  Garina knelt, too, her knees touching him and her hands brushing his. She whispered a word or two into his ear, but mostly they filled the bag in silence, until a fine layer of flour remained around the mill.