‘Hey,’ the lieutenant shouted to a soldier swimming nearby. ‘Catch that barrel.’
The soldier swam to it and put his arm over the wood, but the greasy staves slipped out of his grasp and floated away. A faster-moving current in the middle of the river caught it and pulled it further downstream.
‘Are there only women in the Ottoman army?!’ Pulling off his jacket and boots, the lieutenant sprinted down the bank and waded into the water. He swam hard, passing the barrel in a few strokes and placing himself in its path so that it bumped off his chest and bobbed between his outstretched arms.
‘Get up.’ The Ferret was standing behind Anyush. ‘I said get up.’
He kicked her hard with the toe of his boot and she tried to move away from him, struggling to get to her feet. She was shaky and dizzy from lack of water, and when he pulled her back along the road behind a group of spindly acacia trees she didn’t cry out. Nobody noticed when he ripped open the top of her dress and pushed her to the ground.
‘Don’t make me use this.’
Pulling a pistol from his pocket, he pointed it at her head and pushed down his trousers with his other hand. Anyush lay like a corpse beneath him as he positioned himself between her legs. His face loomed above her so that she was looking into his animal eyes, one brown and one blue.
‘No!’ She lashed out at him and kicked with her legs. Like a wild animal she bucked and twisted until the cold click of his pistol sounded in her ear.
‘If I have to screw your dead corpse, I will.’
Drops of his sweat fell on her face and she became still like a broken bird. He grabbed her chin when she turned away and wrenched her head around. ‘Look at me. You’re going to remember this.’
Straightening his back, he pushed her legs apart with his knees. ‘Have a good look. I want you to know how it feels to be fucked by a man like me.’
His mouth widened into a smile, and a trace of that smile still played about his lips in the instant before he collapsed on top of her. Above him, Khandut stood like the ghost of someone Anyush had once known. Throwing the rock to one side, she grabbed the soldier’s legs and dragged him off. Anyush got to her feet. The two women looked at each other. Khandut was hardly recognisable. She was wasted and ill, and tufts of her hair were missing so that large patches of her scalp were bare. At the side of her head a bloodied ear hung by a band of skin. Anyush heard a keening sound and realised it was coming from herself. Tears she had not shed at the surrender of her child or the death of her grandmother. Khandut took her in her arms and held her. They stood together as if they had spent a lifetime holding each other just so.
On the ground, the Ferret had started to twitch. A low moaning sound came from him, as he began to crawl towards the road. In one quick movement Khandut picked up the rock and brought it down again and again on the back of his head. Bits of bone and hair flew into her face and blood spattered her dress. Anyush watched in silence. As the life’s breath was beaten out of him, she wished only that he would be still. When the rock finally slid from her mother’s hands, very little remained of the Ferret’s head. Khandut crouched beside the body and rolled him onto his back. Wiping the sweat from her brow, she began to undo the buttons of his tunic.
‘Quickly.’ She glanced at Anyush. ‘Get your clothes off.’
Anyush sensed the lieutenant approaching before she saw him. Keeping her eyes down, she made as if to empty a stone from one of her boots. Relief flooded through her when he walked away, and panic took hold when he came back again. The Ferret’s cap was pulled well down over her eyes and the uniform fitted reasonably well, but up close she wouldn’t fool anyone. A bead of sweat trickled from her hairline. Khandut was walking ahead and sensed something was wrong. She stopped and turned around. The lieutenant was now less than two feet in front of Anyush and she had no choice but to look at him. He stared directly into her face. A look she recognised. One she had seen on other soldiers’ faces when they distanced themselves from what they were about to do. He pulled the cap from her head so that her plait uncoiled onto her shoulder. Grabbing her by the hair, he jerked her head back, exposing the skin of her neck. She could hear the whisper of the blade pulled from its sheath and winced as the sunlight reflected off the metal into her eyes. This was it. This was how it would end. Very soon it would all be over. Please God, let it be quick.
Then, the strangest sensation. Pleasant almost. Made her feel sleepy. Her head swung free, dipping towards her chest before righting itself again. The lieutenant’s knife was clenched in one hand and her plait in the other. He retrieved the cap from the dirt and handed it to her. Throwing her hair into the scrub, he left her staring after him.
As the sun was beginning to dip in the western sky, the Shota reappeared. Once again, they surrounded the convoy, lining up along the opposite bank of the river and the near side of the valley. Murzabey was at the head of them. Anyush slipped around the back of the crowd and positioned herself so she could hear.
‘That was quite a story your captain spun at our last meeting,’ Murzabey said to the lieutenant. ‘I was going to teach him a lesson, but it seems his horse has taught him a very painful one on my behalf.’ He laughed. ‘Don’t worry, I let him go. Not many men lie to me and survive, but the colonel tells me he is not to be touched.’
‘What do you want?’ the lieutenant asked.
‘I want what is mine.’ The bandit nodded at the convoy. ‘Abdul-Khan made me a promise. You and your men ride to Gümüşhane, and I will take the Armenians.’
All eyes turned to the lieutenant. The captain had saved them from the Shota before and they prayed for redemption again. One of the women began to keen and an old man wept shamelessly. Lips moved in silent prayer and still the lieutenant would not speak. From the cholera wagon the German looked on, his camera forgotten. All around them, on every side, the bandits were ranged like bars in a cage. They had cut off all routes of escape and any hope of help. Two hundred Shota faces watched from the crest of the hill, eager for the reckoning. The lieutenant stood before them, his head bowed. Murzabey was smiling. He knew what the lieutenant would decide. He had been counting on it. When the soldier nodded, a terrible cry rose from the Armenians at his back.
Anyush found Khandut where she had left her at the end of the line. Khandut looked at her daughter and nodded. ‘You have something I want,’ she said.
Hidden in a pocket of the tunic was the Ferret’s pistol. Anyush’s fingers closed around it but she didn’t draw it out.
‘Don’t prolong this, Anyush. No man is ever going to touch me again.’ Khandut held out her hand. ‘Give it to me.’
Anyush pulled it from the jacket and laid it in her mother’s palm. The sound from the convoy behind them was growing louder: keening and crying and the gathering words of a prayer. Khandut slipped the gun into her pocket, and, without speaking to her daughter again, she pressed herself into the crowd.
No words, no keepsakes, no memories. More lonely in that moment than she had felt in her life before, Anyush looked into the space where her mother had been.
‘You. Follow me.’ The lieutenant appeared out of nowhere. ‘Stay at my back. Don’t speak to anyone and don’t go anywhere without my say-so.’
He walked over to where the other soldiers were already mounting their horses and packing the wagons, but Anyush couldn’t move. Her legs were weighted to the ground as though she were tethered. Around her people clung to each other; they prayed, some stood in silence. Children pressed their hands to their eyes and mothers wept for them. Everyone watched the soldiers prepare to ride away. The lieutenant saddled his horse and was about to mount when he realised the girl hadn’t followed. He looked back to where she was standing and their eyes met. Anyush understood what the look meant. That she could stay if she wanted. That she could die here with the rest of them because there was nothing more he could do for her. Anyush wanted to stay. She wanted to be with her mother and the people of her village, but her legs began to move. She adva
nced on him slowly as though trying to walk through stone. The covered wagon carrying the cholera soldiers had already moved out, and the rest of the company were mounted and waiting for the signal to leave. Handing her the reins of the Ferret’s mare, the lieutenant mounted his own horse and led the cavalcade away. Anyush climbed unsteadily into the saddle and fell into step behind them.
The screams reached them when they had covered less than a mile. The air was suddenly thick with them. The horses’ ears flattened along their necks and their eyes bulged. The men of the 23rd rode as if their lives depended on it and didn’t look back. Not once. Not even at the first gunshot scattering flocks of roosting birds into the evening sky.
He remembered the early part of the journey clearly. Each stone, each hole and rut in the road jolted him into pain-wracked consciousness. Lying beneath the sun in his sweat-soaked clothes, he could feel the blanket sticking to his leg where blood oozed from the wound. Muslu had rigged a canvas bivouac over him for shade, but with the heat and choking dust the air beneath was almost unbreathable. At times reality eluded him. He felt himself drifting into a daze, a dream-like state where he was floating on the sea, struggling to keep himself above the waves. Then he was awake, staring at the canvas above him and jolted into consciousness by the agony in his leg. Tiny movements at his side reminded him of his daughter. He reached beneath the blanket and felt for her chest, less than the span of his hand and barely moving.
After the first couple of hours Muslu stopped so they could drink and water the horses. Jahan had to force Lale’s mouth open with his finger so that she might take some. Armin’s alcohol was having an effect, but her shallow breathing was a worry. Watching the captain’s efforts, Muslu whistled mournfully between his teeth.
‘Her spirit is fading, Captain. She will not last long.’
On the road, he lashed the horses with his whip and drove hard without slackening the pace. If they lasted at the speed he was driving them and if the water supply held, then he believed they stood a chance. But that chance faded as a line of Shota appeared on a bluff rising in front of them. Muslu reined in the horses and Jahan pushed Lale further beneath the blanket.
‘We meet again,’ Murzabey said, looking down on the captain from his horse. ‘In much changed circumstances.’ He smiled. ‘Colonel Abdul-Khan and I had a most interesting conversation. Between friends, you understand. You are a convincing liar, Captain. You disobeyed the colonel’s orders, which didn’t please him. Not in the slightest.’
‘I was protecting Turkish citizens. I would do it again.’
‘Fortunately for both of us you are unlikely to get the chance. But you must remember that you are guilty of a far more serious crime. Of lying to me. I did warn you that I would have my retribution.’
The bandit dismounted and walked over to the wagon, holding his rifle in his good hand. Using the muzzle, he lifted the blanket from Jahan’s leg. The weight of the captain’s arm held it down on Lale’s side.
‘Nasty injury, young captain. You must be in a lot of pain, and yet you bear your suffering well. I have a strange reaction to seeing someone in pain … I want to prolong it or end it. Which do you think I should do, Captain? Choose.’
The captain looked into the bandit’s eyes. They shone in anticipation. Death at Murzabey’s hands would not come with a bullet to the heart.
‘Let my driver go,’ Jahan pleaded. ‘He had no part in this. Let him drive on to Gümüşhane.’
‘A man of honour! I wonder if the colonel knows of such admirable qualities?’
Murzabey signalled to two of his men who unstrapped a water barrel from a pack horse and rolled it towards him. Taking the empty barrel from the wagon they replaced it with their full one.
‘The colonel has his reasons for wanting you alive, and I will honour them,’ Murzabey said. ‘Unlike you, Captain, I keep my promises.’
Rolling the empty barrel up the incline, his men strapped it to the pack horse. Tentatively Muslu picked up the reins. Jahan felt a tiny movement at his side and willed the child to be still. Murzabey was looking into the wagon again. Something had drawn his attention.
‘Oh I almost forgot. There was one other thing. About that retribution …’ In one quick movement Murzabey swung his rifle by the muzzle over his head and brought it down with all his strength on Jahan’s broken bones.
Darkness was falling when they arrived in Gümüşhane. The lieutenant, the German and Anyush lagged behind the others by a couple of miles and were the last to arrive. In the course of the journey the German discovered their companion was not a soldier. Anyush had slipped from the saddle and lost her cap, revealing her identity to him. Armin stared at the Armenian and the lieutenant looked nervously at him. Nobody said anything. Anyush lay on the ground thinking of the pictures the German would take of her, like the ones he had taken of Parzik. Getting off his horse, Armin approached. He put his hand inside his tunic and she flinched.
‘Drink?’ he asked, handing her his goatskin. ‘You should have some.’
Taking the canteen from him she emptied it to the last drop.
‘Can you ride?’
She nodded.
He helped her into the saddle and guided her horse back onto the road. With a nod to the lieutenant, they travelled the last few miles to Gümüşhane.
The main gateway to the town was just visible in the darkness when a group of gendarmes stepped into the road. The soldiers were ordered to dismount.
‘Stay on the horse,’ Armin whispered. ‘Don’t talk.’
He and the lieutenant got down.
‘Armin Wegner?’ one of the gendarmes said in English. ‘You are under arrest.’
‘What am I accused of?’
‘Where is your camera?’
The German indicated the wooden boxes on the pack horse, and two policemen unstrapped them and placed them on the ground.
‘What’s this about?’
The boxes were opened and the gendarme peered inside.
‘Your equipment is being impounded by order of Colonel Abdul-Khan and Field Marshal von der Goltz.’
He nodded and the lids were put back in place.
‘You have upset two very important men, Lieutenant Wegner.’
His eye travelled over the German and the lieutenant before coming to rest on Anyush.
‘You. Get down off that horse.’
‘A word of caution …’ Armin said. ‘If that soldier gets down you will not get him up again.’
‘That is not my concern. Dismount at once!’
Cold fingers of fear crept along Anyush’s spine. She tried to move but couldn’t.
The gendarme strode over, his arm raised to pull her off.
‘Don’t touch him!’ Armin shouted. ‘He is highly infectious.’
‘What’s wrong with him?’
‘Cholera.’
‘A number of our men contracted it on the march,’ the lieutenant said. ‘We buried three along the road.’
‘Then get him out of here,’ the gendarme said, stepping away. ‘Bring him wherever you were going! You, Lieutenant Wegner, will come with me.’
With a last look at his companions, the German followed the gendarmes into town.
Everything was confused. Day became night and night day. Muslu pushed the horses hard, keeping one eye out for Shota and another on the captain. At times he was delirious and at other times lucid, reaching for his daughter lying beside him. Early on a bright, clear morning, Muslu drove the wagon through the old walls of Gümüşhane. There was no hospital in the town but there was a medic attached to the barracks and that was where he was headed. Jahan came to, as houses and buildings swam into focus above him.
‘Where are you going? Stay away from the barracks. Muslu, listen to me. Look for a boarding house.’
‘Captain, bayim, the barracks will have a doctor. You are in no fit state to go anywhere else.’
‘Not the barracks … understand? The ev sahibi at the boarding house will help but no soldie
rs.’
Reluctantly, Muslu did as he was told and turned off the main street. Manoeuvring the wagon carefully, he drove down a narrow cobbled lane in the direction of the river.
The ev sahibi, the landlady, was small and thin with startling blue eyes and wrinkled skin. She was wearing the traditional costume of the nomadic desert tribes and a burnished leather burqa over the lower half of her face. Her house stood in a street barely wide enough to accommodate the wagon, but it had a gated archway leading to a yard which was hidden behind a high wall. Muslu offered her a substantial bahşiş, which she took without a second glance. If she thought it odd that a wounded soldier should wish to hide in her house rather than return to the barracks, she kept her opinions to herself. Children began to cluster around, but she shooed them away and bolted the gate shut behind them. Once inside, she pulled back the blanket covering the captain’s leg. She clicked her tongue and shook her head, sniffing loudly at what she saw. Jahan made an effort to sit up. The smell of rotting flesh was overpowering and the leg had turned dark purple in colour.
‘No doctor in Gümüşhane,’ the old woman said. ‘Old Doctor Kemal died of cholera and young Doctor Kemal moved to Sivas.’
‘There must be someone … a bone-setter or chekeji?’ Muslu insisted.
‘No chekeji’s going to fix that.’ She turned her pale eyes on the captain. ‘Deserter?’
He shook his head. On impulse, he lifted the blanket to reveal the tiny figure lying beside him. Lale was on her back, limbs splayed and head rolled to one side. Her mouth hung open and her eyes were tightly closed.
Anyush Page 26