At the end of the avenue, hemmed in by trees on all sides, was a two-storey wooden house or what had once been a house but which was now collapsing in on itself. The roof sagged so badly that broken joists and wooden roof tiles lay in a jumble on the the floor below. Only one set of shutters hung from a rusty hinge. The glassless window frames had warped and buckled and thick ropes of ivy twined around and through them. And everywhere, from every niche and crack, greenery grew abundantly.
Anyush, the captain and I walked to where the door had once been, but Husik hung back as though this human habitation in his dominion was repugnant to him. Inside, it took my eyes some time to adjust to the darkness. The ground floor was more or less intact, and although the ceiling had crumbled in places and some of the dividing walls to the other rooms were mere wooden laths, it retained the shape and feel of a house. A rank house, which smelled of animal droppings and vegetation. Of mildew and mould and something else.
‘Cigarette ends,’ the captain said. ‘A dozen or more over here near the door. Ugh! What the Devil?!’
I turned to see him trying to shake something from the sole of his boot. He kicked it away as I looked around, unable to rid myself of the feeling that this house was overpoweringly sinister. The trees, the dark, the sickening smell of decay. And then I heard it. The first pitiful sound, weak and forlorn like a wounded animal.
‘Over there,’ the captain said, pointing to a spot near what remained of the stairs. I was closest and got there first.
‘Dear God!’
Someone moved behind me and I thrust out my arm to block their way. ‘Stay back,’ I said. ‘Don’t come any closer.’
It was Anyush, standing at my shoulder, her eyes staring and her face ghostly in the green half-light. Havat lay on her back, partially clothed but naked from the waist down and her breasts exposed. Her legs were still spread as though she was unable to move them, and one lay at an unnatural angle to the floor. The clothes beneath her hips were soaked with dark clotted blood, and pools of paler liquid congealed on her stomach, thighs and naked breasts. Her arms had been tied behind her back with one of the laces from her shoes, and her other shoe, laced tightly by her sister that morning, was still in place on her foot. She was lying in her own excrement, the smell of faeces and urine growing stronger by the minute. Suddenly the house was filled with a terrible noise. Havat’s eyes stretched wide and terrified sounds issued from her throat. She bucked and flailed, her useless leg flapping against the floor, and a raspy, gurgling scream came from the depths of her chest. Husik was standing looking at her, but it was the captain she was staring at in terror.
‘Get out!’ I ordered him. ‘It’s your uniform. Move outside, Captain!’
But the captain was unable to look away. His eyes were staring at Havat’s face and chin which were covered with dark, black blood.
‘Allah be merciful!’ he whispered. ‘Her tongue … they cut out her tongue!’
‘Captain … outside. Now!’
He stumbled across the room and lurched towards a window. Clutching the thick wooden frame, he threw up his last meal against the rotten shingle. It was now abundantly clear what had stuck to the underside of his boot. Anyush had recovered a little and was kneeling at Havat’s side, gently stroking her matted hair. The screaming quietened to a low sobbing as Havat recognised her friend. As gently as I could, I attempted to move the damaged leg, but the girl moaned loudly in pain.
‘The hip is dislocated,’ I said. ‘They must have used terrible force.’
From my coat pocket I took the bottle of laudanum I always carry and pulled out the stopper.
‘This is for the pain,’ I said to Havat. ‘I’m going to pour a few drops into your mouth. It’s a little bitter, but it will help.’
She grimaced as the tincture hit the back of her throat, and her hand reached out for Anyush. After a few moments she became quiet.
The old door to the house was lying near the back wall and between us we managed to lift Havat onto it. Using his knife, Husik hacked two holes in the wood and lashed his rope through them, so that he and I could pull the door along the ground like a sled. Havat didn’t make a sound. Her eyes were open and fixed on Anyush as though she were afraid her angel of mercy might disappear.
Water closed over Anyush’s head as she slipped beneath the swell. In the heaving silence she swam through the silty green until she had to come up for air.
She was alone in the cove because Jahan was unable to get away, and although he had warned her not to go anywhere without him, she needed the comfort of the sea.
Whenever she passed the wood she saw Havat again, her body lying in filth and the smell of her tormentors rising from her. The violence of what had happened frightened Anyush. The cruelty of it. She closed her eyes and dived again.
Word had spread quickly about the assault on Havat Talanian. Aside from the girl herself, the effect of it was most apparent on Sosi. Anyush’s friend was like a shadow of herself, tormented and silent as though it was she, and not Havat, who could no longer speak. She blamed herself for what had happened and nobody could persuade her otherwise.
Sosi’s mother was like a woman possessed. Bayan Talanian abandoned her bedroom and nursed Havat to a form of recovery. It was she who held her to the bed when Dr Stewart put her hip back in place. She who taught her how to walk again and fed her soups and broths until the swelling in the stump of her tongue died down. But nobody, neither Havat’s mother nor her sister nor indeed any living person, could persuade her to leave the house or the protection of its old and crumbling walls.
Diary of Dr Charles Stewart
Mushar
Trebizond
June 23rd, 1915
Havat Talanian’s ordeal occupies everybody’s mind. People talk and talk as if they might talk it out of being. For all our sakes, I wish it were that simple.
I’ve managed to relocate Havat’s hip and it has healed reasonably well, but her psychological state is fragile. She has become incontinent and screams uncontrollably whenever she’s left alone. I haven’t told Hetty any of the more distressing details and find myself becoming more circumspect generally. Paul’s stories of death lists and Armenian pogroms has upset her. As it happened, she learned of the assault for herself because it is talked of everywhere, and everybody has an opinion as to who is responsible. The streets are deserted at night. Families lock their doors and some of the children have been taken out of school. Our own children are forbidden to wander beyond the house, giving them the perfect excuse to idle for hours indoors, but at least we know they’re safe. Hetty’s arranged for the remaining schoolchildren to be escorted to and from the schoolhouse, and she herself is accompanied by Mahmoud Agha whenever she visits her patients outside the village. I am as fearful for my own wife as anybody else and cannot understand the mind of a man who would do such a thing. Arshen Nalbandian claims he saw a group of soldiers near the wood that morning, but Captain Orfalea assured me his company had spent the day at the barracks digging latrines. Could I take the captain at his word? From his reaction when we discovered Havat, I certainly believe that if his men were responsible, he at least knew nothing about it. Which begs the question, what other soldiers were involved? It has put me in mind of the invitation we received last week.
Another high-ranking Turkish officer, Captain Ozhan, invited Hetty and I to dine at his home in Trebizond. The captain’s second wife was attending Hetty for obstetric care in the run-up to the birth of her first child, and I had met Ozhan once or twice at the Vali’s mansion. He is a small, fair-haired man with deep pockets and big ambitions. His phaeton collected us at the outskirts of the city, along with a groom to bring our horses to his stable yard. The house was large and impressive, surrounded by a great garden containing fruit trees, vegetables and flowers. A conservatory, a pond with goldfish and even a flock of doves added a distinctly Victorian touch. Wearing a dark evening suit and stiff collar, he met us in the salon and offered me an expensive imported whiskey,
although he didn’t partake himself. The older of his two wives, a shy, small woman, wearing a hijab and plain black dress, had set the table for dinner and called Hetty aside to ask if it was done properly. The younger, pregnant wife also wore a hijab but her skirt was more European in cut and a brightly coloured pair of shoes peeped out from underneath. The women got on well and Hetty spent most of her time with them, while Ozhan insisted on showing me around the estate. Most of the land had been inherited from his father, but he had enlarged it, buying the adjoining plots and tilling it for grapes, olives and hazelnuts as well as keeping cattle and sheep. On the Ozhan farm there didn’t appear to be any problem keeping livestock fed or crops watered, and farmhands were very much in evidence despite conscription for the war.
Overall, Ozhan and I got on well enough. He was educated and showed a keen interest in modern medicine, but I did not like the man. There was an arrogance about him, a casual cruelty in the manner he adopted with his servants and wives. The following day, when we made to leave, Ozhan did not hide his annoyance that we would not stay longer. He had made arrangements, he said, that he and I would hunt for partridge in the hills. I thanked him but made the excuse of pressing commitments at the hospital and we left immediately. It was Hetty who overheard him castigating his older wife with a resounding slap for failing in her duty to impress.
‘I want to know who they are.’
‘Captain, sir …’
‘I want you to find out if the men who did this are in my company.’
‘It could have been the Jendarma, bayim. You have no proof they were soldiers.’
‘They were men in uniform, that’s all I know. If they were soldiers, I want the name and rank of every one. Every man who had a part in this.’
Lieutenant Kadri closed his mouth.
‘If you have no success, then I want you to find someone the men will talk to. Someone they trust. Use your contacts in the Jendarma if you have to. And check again where Corporal Hanim was that day.’
‘You saw him here yourself, bayim.’
‘Do it anyway. You are to report back to me. Everything you learn, understand? As soon as you hear, I want to know.’
‘Captain … whoever did this will not like being informed on by one of their own.’
‘You need to be discreet, but you have my word your name will not be mentioned.’
‘It’s not just that, bayim … there are similar stories coming out of Trebizond, and beyond. This is not the only incident of this kind.’
‘They attacked a simpleton, Lieutenant. A halfwit. We are soldiers of the Empire not animals in the field. I would expect my men to behave accordingly.’
‘With respect, bayim, you will never stop this. Do you punish some and not others? Whether you like it or not the men are being encouraged in it.’
‘To behave like beasts?’
‘Armenians are viewed as a threat, sir. The fewer the government have to worry about the better.’
The captain regarded his lieutenant coldly.
‘I am only repeating what the men are saying, sir. What they’re being told.’
‘Lieutenant, I’m trusting that you understand me when I say I have my reasons for wanting those names. I’m not particularly concerned how you get them, but I want them. Every last one.’
Jahan sat at his desk in the room he used as an office. It was cool and pleasant to sit in, both because of the thickness of the stone walls and the fact that it faced north-east, away from the midday sun. It was empty of furniture, except for a rickety table and chair, a wooden chest containing various documents and a series of nails hammered into the wall, on which he hung his tunic. Situated on the outskirts of the village, it had once been a mill house and grain store but was now used as a billet and storehouse for the provisions the company had been gathering since their arrival. Most of what they had accumulated, and it wasn’t much, would be sent to the Third Army in Van, north of the Persian border.
Pushing away the page in front of him, Jahan abandoned his attempt to write a letter home. It seemed futile writing letters when he never received any and had no way of knowing if his ever arrived. Anyway, his concentration was gone. When he had stood on that girl’s tongue, it was as if she robbed him of his peace of mind. The memory of her in that awful place would not leave him, her broken body, her nakedness and shame. It could have been any girl, or one in particular.
A knock on the door interrupted his thoughts and Lieutenant Kadri, let himself in. His expression was grim.
‘You have news?’
‘Names. All the men involved were soldiers but not from our company.’
‘Allah be praised! Where are they stationed?’
‘Trebizond.’
‘And their commanding officer?’
‘Captain Nazim Ozhan.’
‘General Ozhan’s son? His father is adviser to the German attaché. Thank you, Ahmet. I will write to him. On second thoughts, I will see him in person.’
The lieutenant remained standing before him.
‘Is there something else?’
‘This visit to Captain Ozhan, sir. You can make it if you wish but you’ll be wasting your time.’
‘I presume you’re going to tell me why.’
‘Because Ozhan was one of them.’
Diary of Dr Charles Stewart
Mushar
Trebizond
June 30th, 1915
On two occasions this week I made visits away from the hospital, and I have to admit I remain more than a little disturbed by the second.
Firstly, I went to see the Vali. Paul’s talk of an Armenian blacklist is gaining momentum in certain circles, and Hetty is beginning to credit these stories herself. She believes we have to exert our influence with the authorities to safeguard the hospital and the Armenians in the village, even though she knows my feelings on the matter of Paul’s ‘theories’. However, for my own peace of mind and hers, I agreed to talk to the Vali.
The Vali was more sombre than usual, but he vigorously denied there was substance to the rumours. The attack on the girl was being investigated, and the Armenian list was merely a formality, he said, a step towards taking a census of the country as a whole. I was relieved. Easier in my mind than I had been for months. Paul had overreacted as he was prone to do. It now became imperative that I talk to him and set this straight. Unusually, we had not had a visit from Paul in weeks, so I travelled to Trebizond to see him. At the hospital I was told he had been operating through the night and was resting in his quarters. Like Manon, Paul lived on the complex but in a single, sparsely furnished room on the top floor. I found him sitting on his bed fully clothed, unshaven and only just awake. I apologised for intruding and told him to stay where he was. In contrast to Manon’s apartment, there was nothing comfortable or welcoming about the room. Nothing of a personal nature, no pictures or ornaments, only the smell of an unwashed body and stale cigarettes. Paul was looking distractedly around him, searching the floor and patting down his pockets. He found his cigarette case in his white coat, and he lit up. I was shocked to see how thin he had become. His unwashed hair stuck to his head and he had the pallor of a coal miner. I mentioned that we were wondering why we hadn’t seen him for so long, and he said to tell Thomas he hadn’t forgotten his birthday and would make it up to him. I suggested he tell him himself, but Paul insisted he couldn’t get away.
‘The others can cover for you,’ I said. ‘Take a few days off. You’re always advising me to take things easier.’
Tilting his head back, he directed a long plume of smoke towards the ceiling before lying flat against the pillows.
‘They’re gone, Charles,’ he said.
He told me then that all the physicians and surgeons in the hospital had been taken, with the sole exception of Professor Levonian, who’s allowed stay only because he’s looking after one of the Vali’s wives. This made absolutely no sense. The Municipal Hospital has five times the number of beds I have, as well as three operating theat
res, an orthopaedic clinic and a TB sanatorium. It is not possible to run it on a reduced staff, never mind two doctors working alone. I asked him what exactly he meant by ‘taken’?
‘The list,’ he said. ‘All their names were on the list.’
Now I began to understand. As usual, he had misinterpreted the facts completely. It was clear to me what was happening, and I told him as much. ‘They’ve been conscripted,’ I said. ‘Exactly as I thought.’
I asked him if the nurses were still working, and he said that yes they were, which tied up my argument neatly. I then told him about my visit to the Vali and how his officials were gathering statistics for the census. Paul didn’t react to this. He kept staring at the brown water stain on the ceiling above his bed.
‘There has never been a census in the Empire, Charles,’ he said. ‘What makes you think the government would embark on one now?’
I told him that I didn’t know, that I would guess it had something to do with troop numbers and statistics, but Paul said that the Empire didn’t have the resources or the manpower. That no one in their right mind would take on a census in war-time. I had to laugh.
‘This is Turkey, Paul,’ I said. ‘Whoever said there had to be a logical explanation?’
He sat up suddenly, swinging his legs over the side of the bed and looking directly at me. A look so fierce that I thought he was going to hit me.
‘That’s a much loved saying of yours, isn’t it, Charles? “This is Turkey.”’
I didn’t like his tone and I didn’t like what it implied, but I reminded myself that he was overworked and exhausted.
As if to confirm it, he wandered off on a tangent so obscure that I hadn’t the first idea where the conversation was leading. He talked about the declaration of martial law, and the bank refusing to pay depositors, and the non-existent postal service. ‘But then we all know the postal service is something of a joke,’ he smiled. ‘This is after all Turkey.’
Anyush Page 12