Gardens of Grief

by Boston Teran

  “I’ll expend no flares on the dead.”

  Nothing more was debated. John Lourdes turned and walked away. In his tiny cabin, he ticked up the gas lamp. He took the suitcase containing the articles of his trade and lay it on the bed.

  When John Lourdes returned, one of the Turkish officers noticed he was carrying a flare gun and a handful of flares. The officer called this to the attention of Rittmeister Franke. “Sir,” Rittmeister Franke said, “you are being advised not to use that flare.”

  “Miss Temple,” said John Lourdes, “please ask the first mate if any of these gentlemen have authority here.”

  She did as requested. The mate called up to the captain who was leaning into the forecastle railing.

  She relayed the answer back to John Lourdes, “They have no authority.”

  He loaded up the flare.

  The same Turkish officer spoke out again. Rittmeister Franke said nothing. John Lourdes saw the Turkish officer’s hand came to rest on the wooden holster that housed his Mauser.

  “Captain Franke,” said John Lourdes, “if you would be so kind as to notify the officer I am a citizen of Mexico. Then ask him, if he has ever seen anyone accidentally shot at close range with a flare gun.”

  Rittmeister Franke and the officer exchanged words for several strained minutes. The matter was resolved without incident.

  John Lourdes stepped to the railing. He had Miss Temple move aside, then he fired off a flare where the last body had been seen. White phosphor lit the sky and there, ferried on the black deeps, were the dead.

  Not one or two, but a ghostway covering waves. Like white statuary they floated weightless while the sea washed over them.

  “Why,” someone whispered, “are they all naked?”

  f i v e

  HE PORT OF Trebizond was an emporia from before Xenophon and the Greek wars with Persia. It has been called the “City of Tales” and from its citadel walls Marco Polo looked out upon the legendary Silk Road, where caravans carried their treasures across the deserts of antiquity. But on the morning Le Minotaur made dock, Trebizond was an armed encampment of the Turkish military.

  Transports lined the harbor, each throwing a shadow across the deck of the next. Howitzers on plank rafts were hoisted by high derricks from ship holes. Along the quay infantry brigades organized on streets teeming with horse-drawn carts and wagons and dull gray trucks. The ground there spotted with horse droppings and human filth. Even the sea air could not clean away the stench that comes with men at war.

  Amidst the chaotic traffic John Lourdes collected up his belongings on the dock by Le Minotaur.

  Miss Temple called to him, “John Lourdes!”

  She was coming down the gangway and no longer dressed as a young lady. She wore heavy cotton breeches and laced-up boots. A weathered knapsack was slung over one shoulder, and her black hair lay hidden beneath a plain scarf.

  “Miss Temple.”

  “There’s something I’d like to ask.” Her tone grew more serious. “A favor.”

  Before she could explain, Rittmeister Franke walked over and joined them. “Miss Temple. I want to thank you for the spirited debate.”

  “If only I could have done more,” she said, rather caustically.

  “I stopped to give you news.” He offered Alev Temple a newspaper. “The British fleet has been defeated in the Dardanelles. A dozen ships lay destroyed in the straights. The assault has failed.” He turned to John Lourdes. “As a citizen of Mexico, maybe one day, with my country’s help, your rightful homeland will belong to you.”

  She took from him the Turkish newspaper. It was replete with eyewitness accounts of the fighting. The headline:

  BRITISH SHIPS LEFT BURNING IN THE SEA.

  One report described the battle as a defining moment in Turkish history.

  The captain joined a group of officers on horseback. A saddled mount awaited. He rose in the stirrups expertly. “Miss Temple,” he said, “I heard you are on your way to Van. I, too. Expect fighting there.”

  The Turkish officers from the night before rode up and joined the Germans, and Alev Temple watched them with grave concern as they all rode off.

  “The favor,” said John Lourdes.

  She turned to him.

  “Whatever brought you to this country . . . whatever the true reason, you are often writing in a notebook. I wish you to keep a record of what you see. Take last night. Make a living record you can give to a consul, a missionary, or even a relief worker like myself. It is in this way we are trying to get the truth out. The truth of what is going on here. Last night for instance.”

  “What about last night?”

  “I believe you have an idea. I think you sensed what horror had occurred. Which is why you went and brought back the flare.”

  “But I still don’t know what it was.”

  “I say, last night is what the government defines as . . . deportation.”

  The relief fund missionaries she was traveling with called to her from the gangway as they descended. She put out a hand to say good-bye.

  “If kismet means for us to meet again, I have a slight request.”

  He regarded her closely, “Please.”

  “You will call me Alev, so I may call you John.”

  They shook hands.

  She said something to him in Turkish and started away. It sounded deeply felt, even touching. He wanted to ask what it meant, but did not. It was the not knowing that most intrigued him.

  The guide who was supposed to meet John Lourdes at the dock—did not. He set his larger suitcase upright and used it as a seat and waited. He felt the sweat of worry accumulate on the back of his neck. He drank a street peddler’s coffee that went down like warm tar and watched endless lines of badly outfitted infantry march by.

  Thoughts about his father came to him. He tried to trace the thoughts back to the headwaters of why. Why at that moment?

  Then the ghost of Rawbone filing his teeth for a picture perfect grin flashed across his consciousness and it all became clear. I am near thirty years old and halfway around the world in the middle of a war, thought John Lourdes. At about the same age, that outlaw malabarista father of mine had been in Manila, in another war, at another time, halfway around the world.

  “Efendi . . . ?”

  Caught off guard, John Lourdes came about. A man stood before him in raggedy clothes and scarred fez. If there ever was a living piece of human gristle, this fellow was it.

  “Mr. Baptiste sent me, if you are the John Lourdes.”

  “I am.”

  John Lourdes stood. He was near a head taller. The little man was paper thin, with bones like small knots of bark just beneath the flesh.

  “I watched. To know it’s safe. I have horses.” He pointed up the street.

  He was a fidgety bastard, and constantly running a finger across his lower lip. He grabbed up the rifle scabbards and one of the suitcases and asked John Lourdes to follow.

  “What do they call you?” said John Lourdes.

  The fellow rattled off a train load of names John Lourdes could not even repeat, let alone remember. “Best to call me Hain. That is the name I am known by. It was given to me in prison. By friends.” He smiled. “It means . . . rat.”

  Half to himself, John Lourdes uttered, “Why doesn’t that surprise me?”

  “Excuse, efendi?”

  “Nothing. You speak English pretty well.”

  “Missionary school. You know missionaries. Teach you—beat you. Beat you—teach you.” He spit in contempt. “My name also means renegade . . . Judas . . . scoundrel.”

  “What to bet you’ve earned that name.”

  “What good is one you haven’t?”

  Three horses were posted outside a waterfront tavern and watched over by an old wretch who sat on the ground beside them. In one socket the pupil floated there like a blue film.

  Two of the mounts looked to have done hard time. “My horse . . . pack horse,” said Hain. But the third mo
unt, “An Arab,” said Hain.

  The Arab was a pure creation. Courage and endurance not its only trademarks. John Lourdes looked from withers to croup.

  “The jibbah,” said Hain, running his fingers along the shield between the eyes. “And the mitbah,” he said as he caressed the neck. “Very fine. Mr. Baptiste gave me a good deal of money to see you had the right horse.”

  John Lourdes recalled reading the Arab had been brought to Europe when the Moor invaded the Iberian Peninsula. He gave Hain a hard look. “I’ll bet you pocketed the money and stole the horse.”

  Hain had been paid to lead John Lourdes to a village named Sophia, which lay about ninety kilometers southeast of the harbor. He was also to serve as interpreter. He asked many questions about the journey, which John Lourdes did not answer. The guide’s curiosity, though, was unwavering.

  The road cut its way through terrain that reminded John Lourdes of the western Rockies. On their ascent he could make out a train of foot soldiers moving toward crescent mountains in the east. Just beyond was Kars, where the Russian bear awaited. Another army of Turkish troops assembled at the base of Boztepe Hill. Its advance guard already had begun the drive south to Baghdad and the oil fields of Basra to check the British advance.

  As they rode through the blue shadow of hills the guide waved a hand across the wild and barren country. “The tribesmen here fought the Roman. They poisoned them with a drink brewed from honey. It made the Roman see monsters and demons.”

  John Lourdes thought a moment about this, “They have a drink like that where I come from.”

  “Yes, efendi . . . How is it called?”

  “Tequila.”

  He nodded at this new knowledge. From his coat pocket he took a battered chibouk. In a snakeskin pouch he kept a harsh, black tobacco. This he stuffed down into the pipebowl with fingers caked in dirt.

  Stooping in the saddle, he smoked. They rode in silence until John Lourdes asked, “What is your background . . . Your nationality?”

  “I am a Turk, when I need to be . . . A Muslim when I have to be, which is often . . . I am an Armenian when I need to be . . . I am even a stinking Kurd when necessary . . . But I am never a Jew.” He pointed the tip of the chibouk down to his crotch. “The belt around the head of the snake, if that is not missing, one cannot well lie about being a Jew.”

  He spit dryly and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. He was about to question John Lourdes again on the purpose of the journey when they came upon a legion of peasants adrift on a road that was consumed with their dust.

  Women and children all, and not an adult male among them. Being driven by Turkish guards and the scrabble of hooves. Moving off into the high grass John Lourdes and the guide eased their mounts past peasants carrying their belongings in meager bindles or strapped to their backs. They were a grave and haggard lot covered with flies.

  “The deportations,” whispered Hain.

  The guards kept the walkers in hard order with uncompromising cruelty, but even under that, hunger ruled. A boy broke loose and rushed John Lourdes. He grabbed at his pant leg, pleading.

  A moment later it was all madness. Other children, women, some too withered to bear up, charged toward the two men. The guide fared no better than John Lourdes. Their horses shied then panicked, the pack mount stumbled. The guards breeched the mob with a fury, beating their ranks back with rifles, trampling them.

  s i x

  HEY CAMPED THAT night high up off the road on a cleft amidst great stones that had once been part of a mithraic temple. Hain cooked strips of goat meat on sticks while John Lourdes sat with his back against a rock and wrote in his notebook.

  “Today, on the road, I heard people saying the same words over and over.”

  “Ahh, yes,” said Hain. “Hungry, hungry . . . please. The Armenian learns fast how to beg.”

  “Where were the men? Do you know?”

  “Deported. But you cannot give the Armenian too much sympathy, efendi.”

  John Lourdes looked up from his notebook.

  “If the world were different,” said his companion, “they would be the Turk. And besides, they are a filthy people.” Squatting there he turned the meat in the flame and wiped at the sweat on his face with a ragged sleeve. “You must not shake an Armenian’s hand. And do you know why?”

  “I do not.”

  “Because it is the hand he wipes his ass with. The truth. And they do not wash the hand afterwards. Also the truth.” His tone grew more resolute, more sharp. “They cannot be trusted. Especially their hooked-nose women to the marriage vows. I know this from personal experience.”

  He held out a stick with meat for John Lourdes, who looked at it, then asked, “Which hand do you wipe your ass with?”

  The guide’s face took on a wily grin, and the firelight shined on the black holes in his mouth where once were teeth. “Know too, efendi, the Armenian does not dream. This was taken from him by his god for sins committed against the Turk.”

  John Lourdes took the meat and some raisins in a bowl and ate. “Hain, what does the word fedayeen mean?”

  The little man thought the question curious and regarded John Lourdes just so. “Soldier . . . but not soldier. Fighter.”

  “And what do you know of a man named Malek?”

  The guide had been about to eat, but this query caused him true concern. “Malek. The angel.” He stared into the flames, his face grew strangely ambiguous. “The soldier priest.” He shook his head. “They say he dragged a Turkish officer into his church and before his people he hacked off the man’s head. He then said mass.”

  Both men went back to eating without a word more. The fire gradually drew itself upon the fallen rocks in shadow. Finally Hain could not contain his need and raised a voice, “Efendi . . . is he the journey?”

  That night a fog came to the hills. Pale as bone it slipped along the earth. From across the smoky embers the guide watched John Lourdes’ bedroll and in that slow, damp covering he slithered off to where the mounts were staked. He eased away a suitcase and on that silent hillside began to search. He kept staring at the bedroll and so was startled when a light fell about the gray air around him.

  Light and man had magicked out of nowhere.

  He looked to the bedroll. It lay still in a stream of gray mist. He turned to face John Lourdes. “I am ashamed, efendi. It was only my need to know . . . Is the soldier priest the journey?”

  John Lourdes switched off the light. “What should shame you,” he said, “is being so easily caught.”

  The town of Sophia was roughly nine kilometers west of Erzurum on a silent cart path up through a rugged gash in the hills. The fog still rode about the horses’ shoulders giving way in a ghostly manner as they proceeded.

  “You did not answer last night? About the soldier priest.”

  “But I did answer,” said John Lourdes.

  “Your silence, then.”

  John Lourdes said no more.

  “Efendi, you will die far from home.”

  He thought for a time on this and considered telling Hain about a certain priest, who in his old age, had come to Texas from Sinaloa. He had crossed the same Mexican desert as had John Lourdes’ mother to begin a new life. The priest often told the people of his parish in El Paso, one of whom was a boy named John Lourdes, “Everywhere I go, I bring my home with me.” In the end, he did not tell this to the guide, for he felt it would not matter.

  They came upon the town quite suddenly. A few sloping blocks of low rooftops rising above the mist. They rode a dirt street lined with empty windows and open doorways. The buildings were mud-brick and timber and to John Lourdes’ way of thinking, this is what would be called in Texas a hard scrabble existence. At the end of the street was a little square with a town well and a trough. Here they dismounted and let the horses drink.

  Facing the square was a church. And as in the west of John Lourdes, the poorer the town, the richer the church. It was not mud-brick but rather blocks of ston
e irregularly cut with doors and windows framed in ashlar.

  “Efendi,” said the guide. He was standing at the church entrance and pointing to a khatchkar embedded into the wall. John Lourdes walked up beside him.

  “This is an Armenian town. It says here . . . 1740.”

  John Lourdes looked. Chiseled into the rock was a cross with rays emanating from it. There was writing and the date.

  “The people we saw on the road,” said John Lourdes. “They could have been taken from here.”

  “We should leave, efendi.”

  “Walk the town on that side. Every house.”

  The guide did as he was told, but reluctantly. John Lourdes entered the church.

  The altar had been destroyed, the pews flung apart. From a window a high light fell across the gallery and upon the apse wall. Just above, on the vault ceiling, a fresco.

  Saint Sophia . . . The Mother Widow and her three haloed daughters: Pistis—Elpis—and Agape. Martyred women all. Time had phantomed the paints, leeching their shine, condemning their glory to everyday dust, yet never stealing the artist’s soul. Not even the blood streaked across the women and meant as desecration had done that.

  He thought of his own mother who had risen from unbearable sorrows. He thought of the heritage that had shaped and colored him, and he thought of the gentleman from the state department who had told him this assignment was given because he was not white. In the war between the flesh and faith, who will reign? How many times the old priest in El Paso had said that in answer to the everyday persecutions of life.

  Outside the church a bell was suspended from a heavy yoke. John Lourdes reached up inside the open mouth to feel for the clapper. From far down the dirt road Hain called out, “Efendi, come! Bring your field glasses!”