Between the Two Rivers: A Story of the Armenian Genocide

by Aida Kouyoumjian

  Mannig remembered how Adrine read from a book in Adapazar and how her parents praised and admired her fluency.

  “Venerable-Father, I must tell you one more thing,” Mannig’s voice screeched in desperation. She quickly lowered her pitch with a cough. “My sister knows how to read. She can read the Bible to us in the orphanage while you are doing God’s work in Mosul.”

  “My child, my child,” he said, shaking his head at her persistence. “No one can read the Bible, except of course another priest, if any survived the massacre.”

  “Your grace. I have heard my sister read. She is very good in reading and in writing. She …”

  “My scouts have collected everybody we could find in Mosul. None encountered anyone who can read the Bible. So as of yesterday, we concluded our search. I disbanded my scouts and sent my report to Baghdad.” The priest finished his speech while stroking his beard.

  “Our gracious, reverend priest,” the supervisor’s rattling words rang above the low hum of orphans’ voices. She cleared her throat and wiped her mouth with the edge of her head kerchief. “All my life, your graciousness, I have wanted to hear God’s words—I have wanted to hear Him in the morning when I woke up and then again before I went to sleep. We owned a Bible in our home in Adana … but no one knew how to read it. It remained wrapped in its velvet bag. Before my mother died in Deir-Zor, she made me promise to guard it with my life. I have. Now I lay my head on it every night and pray in the darkness in my own way. How I long to hear the Lord’s words coming off those precious pages in the morning and then again in the evening!” She wiped her tears.

  “My sister will read the Bible for you any time you want,” Mannig said. Then added, looking at the priest. “She’ll read for us, too. Everybody in this orphanage wants to hear the words of our Asdvadz.”

  “My prayers will be answered,” the supervisor pleaded, choking over her words and glancing at the priest, “if only someone could read God’s message to us every day.”

  “I don’t have the time, assistants, or money to look for someone, somewhere, who is supposed to know how to read the Bible,” the priest said. “I have more important issues at hand.” Before he turned his back he added, “That’s final.” He slid his cross inside his vestment and tucked his mitre in his pocket. “Until next time. I shall return and we shall take communion together again.”

  Dikran untethered the horse, and Garina lugged the wooden crate.

  The priest mounted up quickly and, clicking his tongue, kicked the horse’s sides. He tilted his head and exited the orphanage without hearing the chorus of adieux he’d received from the children on previous visits.

  Dikran put his hand on Mannig’s shoulder. “Do you really know where your sister lives?”

  Mannig nodded.

  “Tomorrow you show me the way.”

  “After we have tea that’s heavily sweetened,” the supervisor added. “That donkey hauled a sack full of granulated white sugar.”

  15—Things that Matter

  What mattered to Mannig emerged unexpectedly.

  The way Dikran commanded the supervisor’s compassion opened Mannig’s eyes. For the sake of family ties, they dropped the requirement to “do this and don’t do that.” Mannig realized that depending on her wits alone, even with a strong will such as hers, could fall short. Despite the refusals and protests of the priest, Dikran’s boldness and the supervisor’s kindness had paved the path to reuniting her with her sister.

  Finding Adrine’s house proved to be complicated. Mannig had assumped that she knew the location of Adrine’s abode. Haji-doo’s warning, ‘You can’t cook pilaf with words,’ hung over her. At first, trailing Dikran from the orphanage into the outskirts of town and then into Mosul seemed to lead them in the right direction. When they entered the noonday sooq following a mule laden with baskets of produce, she experienced self-doubt. The babbling of hagglers, the ripe odors of roasting lamb from vendors’ braziers, and cardamom spices of bakeries disoriented her.

  “Let’s not go that way,” Dikran said upon exiting the market. He pulled the waistline of his army pants above his belt and veered away from the alley of the Armenian Church. “Where is your sister’s house from here?”

  Donkeys carrying gurgling water in goat skins reminded Mannig of the jug Adrine carried on her back for her Arab family. “She lives near the River.” They followed the animals into yet another strange neighborhood. The fetid sewage odors weighted her uncertainty to a level denser than a camel’s hump. Am I lost? She glanced back to check Dikran’s expression but saw only his back. His feet were anchored on the sides of the open drain while he urinated. She giggled, then continued to lead. They departed from one bazaar crowded with quibblers, entered an alley void of pedestrians, and trudged another path amid children playing jacks. She wanted to hesitate by another cluster of young ones playing marmar with real marbles—a grand game compared to the game of pebbles she used to play with the Bedouin children. Knowing her priorities, she pushed on to find Adrine’s abode. She’d assumed she knew her way around, but there were thousands and thousands of inhabitants in the mud-brick walled city.

  Dikran’s prolonged silence worried her. She had never witnessed his frustrations in the face of pursuits not of his own making. Might he get angry? Could she lose this chance to reunite with her sibling? Better to cut off the legs of pretense before they could lengthen further.

  She grabbed his arm. “Could we go back to our old khan?” she pleaded. “I really know the way from there—I promise.”

  “We’ll do it your way,” Dikran said, changing directions.

  They drifted into a district of large houses, with a palm tree or two topping the surrounding high protective walls. He hesitated—glanced ahead and beyond the bend. “This is not the short-cut I intended to take.” He gauged the location of the brilliant sun in the faint blue sky. “I thought we’d be back home by the time of late afternoon sun.”

  “These houses look familiar,” Mannig said, pulling his shirt-sleeve. “Adrine’s place must be here.”

  “Your sister lives with the rich?” Dikran shook his head. “We’re wasting our time. She’ll not stay at the orphanage.”

  “She will and she must,” Mannig insisted. “I’m depending on you to persuade her. You and the supervisor should do everything you can to keep her …” she stopped, held her breath. After scanning the neighborhood, she said, “Wait! Adrine doesn’t live with the rich. Her house is not one of those big ones. But it has to be nearby—I can smell it.” She hurried ahead of him, hopping across the open sewer run. She peered left and right, dashed more often than halted to check the façade of several courtyard walls.

  “There it is,” she yelled, pointing to a building with a corrugated roof and recessed inside a stucco-walled courtyard. She pressed her nose and chin through the slit between two planks of the gate and called, using Adrine’s adapted name, “Adi! Adi!” After a moment, she yelled in Arabic. “Iftahi el-baab, Adi! Open the door.”

  Hurried click-clacking of wooden-soled slippers across the stone courtyard shushed Mannig. If the khatoon opened the gate, she’d be a dead donkey. Two steps backward and Dikran’s full-size man’s physique became her shield.

  The gate creaked open. A surge of breeze fluttered the edge of Adrine’s floral smock, and crouching, she peered at her sister. “I told you not to come here,” she chided in Armenian, cupping her mouth to mute her voice.

  “We have good news,” Mannig chirped, facing her. “They have opened an orphanage. Dikran and I are already in—with many orphans. We came for you. Let’s go. It is getting late already. It took us so long to find your place. Hurry …” she pulled on Adrine’s sleeve. “Come.”

  “Leave me alone,” Adrine panted, freeing her arm. “And shush! Orphanage, m-orphanage! Get out of here! You will get me in trouble again.” She swung the gate, but Mannig squeezed one foot in, the other on the threshold.

  “You’ll never get in trouble at the orphanage,” Mannig sa
id. “Everyone there is Armenian. The supervisor is Armenian. The children are Armenian. The priest says the orphanage is our future and our fortune. Come, let us go …”

  “I will NOT leave my Arab family,” Adrine said, fluttering her nostrils.

  Mannig nudged Dikran. “Tell her about our place.”

  “We are lucky,” he said, after clearing his throat. “There is food for everyone and a quilt for each. There’s a roof over our heads and a supervisor who protects us.”

  “I have all of that right here,” Adrine said, trying to shut the gate.

  “It’s our destiny,” he said with a higher pitch than before. “Whatever work we do, it is for us and not for some landlord. We face problems together, and we share our joys with everyone. We are as one tribe under the same tent, so to speak. In the end, our efforts are for the sake of preserving Armenianness.”

  “And we talk in our own language all day long,” Mannig added.

  “I don’t care,” Adrine screeched with reddened face. “Leave me alone!” Startled, she jerked her neck and gazed toward the balcony.

  She must still be fearful of being observed.

  She shoved Mannig out, shouting in Arabic, “Imshee! Get out of here, you vermin!”

  “Who are you speaking with?” The khatoon’s voice preceded the shuffling of leather babooj slippers.

  “No one,” Adrine said. “She is gone.” Facing the approaching khatoon, she stretched her hands to her rear, signaling the duo to scat.

  The woman gasped at the mature young man towering by the gate. She swerved sideways and reached for the black chiffon veil that draped under her chin—she pulled it over her nose, up to the circles below her kohl-lined dark eyes. Her henna-polished fingernails secured the ends of the veil behind each ear. After turning around, Dikran discreetly retreated to the street.

  Mannig craned her neck and in Bedouin Arabic—the assertive dialect she learned in the desert and later on used in famine-stricken Mosul—said, “We have an order to take her, your maid, to the orphanage. Our … our …” She intended to say our priest but did not know its synonym in Arabic. Our mullah hovered on her tongue, but that denoted a Muslim cleric. Even describing him in a black robe, beard and Bible, seemed too complicated for her vocabulary. She feigned a cough and continued, “Our leader! Yes—our leader insists we take your maid to him. We must obey the command of our worthy leader. He insists Adi obey him, too. We will take her to him. She must leave your house.”

  The khatoon’s eyes narrowed as with a smile and she faced Adrine. Emphasizing some of Mannig’s unusual vocabulary, she said, “If the leader insists, then you must obey.”

  Both sisters stood aghast.

  “You’ll let her go?” Mannig asked.

  “But, Khatoon-Hannum,” Adrine pleaded, shoving Mannig aside. “I am very happy here. This is my home. You are my family. I only want to obey you.” Her voice wavered and tears glistened in her doe-shaped hazel eyes. She lifted the hem of her tunic and blew her nose. “Please, Khatoon-Hannum, don’t send me away. Keep me here. I want to stay with you. I will work hard … harder. I am so grateful to you, please. I am happy here. You can ask me to do anything, but please do not send me away.”

  “Your contentment is not my concern,” the khatoon said, the veil fluttering with each syllable. “It’s my effendi—he wants a Muslim girl in the house.”

  “Then I will become Muslim,” Adrine said, confident in voice and glance, taking a step toward the woman.

  “Many Armenian girls have done that,” the khatoon said, shaking her head. “The effendi has already decided … ” she choked, and then sighed as if for the impending relief from divulging more information. “He’s bringing in a second wife—to MY house!”

  “I will do anything she wants to be done, too,” Adrine rushed her words.

  “You don’t understand. All he thinks of these days is his zub,” she pointed to her crotch. “He has the gall to fornicate with two wives in one house,” she sputtered angrily inside her veil. “Allah should punish him for breaking the ‘one woman, one tent,’ tradition. He can’t afford a separate house for his slut, so his foolish desire is to activate his zub—I plan to see that he fails—the ser-seri. As the first wife, I will make that new girl the maid of the house. He has no idea what’s coming, believe me. I will put her to work like a slave, tire her so much that he won’t get satisfaction in bed no matter how young her kuss is.”

  Silence cut through her pain like ice.

  The lewd vernacular flabbergasted the sisters.

  “I must let you go,” she said. “Your mattraan” (Arabic for bishop) … she coughed, casting a mocking look at Mannig. “I mean, your Leader—if your Leader insists on your presence, who are you to disobey? I also say, you must GO. You may take those slippers with you. Now go bundle your other tunic. Go!”

  Adrine’s head dropped below her shoulders. Lowering her face, she shuffled her gabgobs across the courtyard.

  In spite of Adrine’s flowing tears, Mannig’s heart swelled with gratitude. Her sister’s ache aside, joy of success thrilled her inside and out. She wanted to kiss the khatoon’s hand. “We will leave immediately,” she addressed the khatoon while waiting for Adrine. “Our mattraan will be pleased. He will remain grateful to you and—”

  “Usskutee! Shut-up. Enough jabbering, you imp!” the khatoon uttered, tearfully.

  Upon Adrine’s reappearance, holding a small bundle under her arm, she gestured toward the clothes Adrine had washed that morning and hung to flap dry in the sun. “Take a kaffieh to cover your braid. Modesty pays in Mosul; its streets crawl with ser-seris like my husband.”

  Adrine pointed to a mustard scarf with lavender paisley designs and asked the khatoon, “This one?”

  “Any one,” the khatoon yelled. “Take them all, if you want.” She held the gate and shooed her out. “Imshee. Take care of your sister.”

  Mannig blushed. How did the woman know her identity? Adrine had always kept her outside the gate when she came scavenging for bread. One had never faced the other. Mannig had once spied a silhouette on the balcony—a female voice ordered the shooing away of that ‘useless sister.’

  The khatoon’s lifestyle reminded Mannig of the Bedouin. Abu Jasim, the head of the family who rescued Mannig from perishing in the desert, had had three wives, each established in a separate tent with her children. The first wife’s dominion extended to the activities of every one related in Abu Jasim’s tribe. The other wives catered to her wishes and hovered around for her comfort.

  Unlike the Bedou, Adrine’s khatoon considered Mannig useless. She should have seen me doing things for the first wife.

  Being recognized flattered Mannig. “How did the khatoon know me?” she asked Adrine as they departed the premises. “Did you tell her?”

  “I said nothing about anything,” Adrine sniffled while walking between Dikran and Mannig.

  “That woman knows everything,” Dikran said. “She looks worldly, grasps what goes on around her. She knew about Christian clerics. She acknowledged the fate of Armenian girls. Well, Mosul is like that. People know everything. Word of mouth repeats itself faster than an echo.” He glanced at Adrine as she wiped tears from her long lashes. “She must have been a good khatoon for you.”

  Adrine gave him a fetching look. She bawled.

  Dikran fidgeted with discomfort and quickly added, “You two sisters are very beautiful—even when one of you is crying, the other exultant. You don’t look alike, but you are both pretty.”

  Mannig ignored the flattery; she wanted to prevent Adrine from lingering on her loss. She ranted about a perfect future at the orphanage—how it was not just a place, but had a mood of its own, making the orphans proud, confident, and passionate. Seeing her sister’s passive demeanor, she entreated Dikran to confirm her words: “Tell her about the weaving, crocheting, and other crafts—the all-Armenian traditions.”

  Dikran waited for two mules pulling a cart loaded with large, oval watermelons to st
op braying. The three stopped, honing in on a horde of black flies devouring a half-cut of a lusciously red melon on top of the heap.

  He cast his gaze on Adrine, “And no longer do we sleep with one eye open.”

  Adrine swerved her long neck toward him and snickered. “That will never be true,” she choked. She rubbed her big hazel eyes—deep pools of liquid pain—and wiped her calloused fingers on the small bundle in her hand. She clenched her teeth.

  Mannig rejoiced—not only at the family reunion, but at the sight of her sister no longer suppressing her emotions. Even though Adrine sauntered in sad silence, Mannig knew she had regained the sister of Adapazar who angered quickly and laughed easily.

  Alive and together, they headed toward the orphanage—Adrine between Dikran, the tall one, and herself, still shorter than her sister who had towered over her in Adapazar. She had graduated from craning her neck to looking eye-to-eye—once a physiological impossibility. Mentally, they walked the path as far apart as the Tigris flowed from the Euphrates.

  “Dikran? Is that you?” A voice from behind made Mannig and him turn around. Unaffected, Adrine stepped forward.

  “Sebouh Effendi!” Dikran said, startled. Finger-brushing his thick brown hair, he walked back to the man standing on the front porch of the apartment building of his house. They shook hands. “I know, I’m supposed to be at the orphanage.”

  Mannig grabbed Adrine’s arm. “Wait. We must wait for Dikran.”

  “Is that his name?” Adrine said, glancing at the two men engaged in animated conversation, then focusing on Sebouh Effendi.

  “I think I’ve seen that man at the church,” Mannig said. “He was registering the children with the Barone.” She didn’t urge her sister to get closer to the duo for fear of being recognized as the girl who had tried and failed to enroll at the orphanage. She held her stance beside her sister who gazed at him unblinkingly. Seeing that something about the man attracted her sister, she asked, “Do you know him?”

  Her query hung in the air unanswered.