Khatoun wanders into the kitchen and lifts the lid off a pot. Everyone else has already eaten, thundered upstairs and flung themselves into bed for siesta. She piles her plate with beans, takes some bread and an onion and heads for the courtyard. The fountain dribbles water and a small bird with a blue chest stands at the edge, eyeing her. It takes three hops and cocks its head to the side. Khatoun flicks a crumb across the tiles and watches the bird sweep it up into the eaves. She soaks up the juice on her plate with her bread and crunches into her onion. When she has finished she takes her plate to the kitchen, mixes yoghurt and water in a glass and heads upstairs to her room.
Iskender lies sprawled out on their bed like a star. She puts her glass down, tentatively moves his arm aside and slides in next to him. Iskender coughs, reaches out and buries his head in her neck. Khatoun closes her eyes, inhales her husband’s garlicky sweat and floats out over the desert and into the blinding sun.
The light is dazzling, hurting her eyes. Below her, two hawks circle in wide lazy arcs, searching for prey. They call to each other mournfully, their wings tense. Somewhere a child cries – a miserable wail that not even a breast would comfort. And then the world opens up and Khatoun falls, jerking to a stop. She’s on the ground, covered in dust, heart thudding. If she runs fast enough, she knows, she’ll be able to fly again. The sun glints on her bangles as she prepares for flight. Like a well-honed athlete she stretches out her fingers, arches her back and begins to run. Faster and faster and she’s in the air, coasting low over the scrubby terrain. The sensation is exhilarating, a memory of previous flight, but before she can soar her skirt snags. The more she tugs, the more she gets entangled. Blackened tree branches burst out of the earth and pull her down, piercing her organs. She watches her blood spread, a flower blooming over the earth but can’t open her mouth. The birds circle above her and that teething baby wails for its mother and the earth beneath her opens up and again she falls with a lurch that leaves her skin stripped from the bone.
Iskender is leaning over her, shaking her gently. Someone is tapping at the door. “Wake up,” he croons. “You were shaking in your sleep.”
Khatoun sits up and massages her arm. The tapping at the door continues.
“Yes?” Iskender calls out.
An eye, half a pair of lips and a fragment of nose slide around the door.
“There’s a man waiting downstairs. He told me to give you this,” Lolig waves an envelope in the air and Iskender pads across the floor to get it. Inside is a note, scrawled in childish writing. He reaches for his glasses and scans the piece of paper.
“It’s from Begum Șenay; she wants you to go to her house as soon as you can. Her man is waiting downstairs to take you. She says not to worry about her dresses, she has something for you but you must get there as soon as possible.” He removes his spectacles and rubs his eyes. “Is everything all right?” he asks.
Khatoun nods. “Everything’s good. Lolig, tell Bayram I’ll be down in ten minutes.”
“Yes, Digin Khatoun.”
Minutes later Khatoun steps out into the balmy air in a fresh dress and headscarf. Bayram stands in the shade by the door in traditional stripes and cummerbund. He smiles when he sees her, extends his hand and helps her up into the covered wagon. He leaps into the front seat in one bound, displaying the lithe body he works so hard to maintain, and they set off through the streets at a pace. A handful of shops have already opened and a scattering of people are milling about, getting on with afternoon chores. Everyone seems to know Bayram, particularly the women and they call out to him as they pass. He delivers jokes like letters, leaning back in his seat with his fez pushed up at a rakish angle, guiding the horse and cart through the narrow streets of the Assyrian Quarter and on to the prosperous tree-lined avenues surrounding the Dergah Gardens.
As soon as they arrive, Khatoun deposits her shoes in the nook in the wall and is admitted into the women’s quarters behind the fine grille work. The patterned walls are cool to the touch, the polished floors slippery as glass. Through a door, carved and inlaid, Begum Șenay is waiting, seated in a large room encircled by low divans, her unslippered feet powdered white. The air is thick with incense, the room illuminated in a fine cobweb of light. In front of Begum Șenay, a polished tray steams with tea and a young girl immediately pours a glass for Khatoun as she settles down onto the cushions.
“My most honoured guest, Khatoun Hanum,” Begum Șenay bids in formal welcome. “Please join me.” She waves the girl away with a flicked wrist. As soon as they are alone she leans across the table, a finger to her lips. “I’ve asked you here for a reason,” she whispers to Khatoun. “Move closer.”
Khatoun shifts her cushion until the soles of their feet touch. Begum Șenay drums her fingers on her glass. She smiles. Takes a sip of tea. Exhales.
“My husband and I have weathered some storms.”
“I’m sorry…”
“No need to be sorry. That orospou Orlan with udders is the one suffering right now. But between my husband and me…things are good again. Thanks to you.”
Khatoun laughs, “But I’ve never even met him.”
“And nor will you. He doesn’t fraternise with women – not decent women, anyway. Orospou, tangos, çaças, definitely!” she spits on the floor. “Anyhow, I consider myself in your debt. I could never wear the dresses you make me in public…but in private…” she laughs and lowers her voice again, her eyes on the door. “He wants children, so anything I ask for these days he gives me.” She sits back on her cushion and takes a sip of tea, pearls of sweat beading her upper lip. “You probably think I’m stupid but I knew nothing about the marches other than what I had been told. That they were pilgrims. Families, relocated out of harm’s way. After you spoke to me I came home and questioned my women.” Abruptly, without warning, Șenay slaps her face hard. “Nobody ever tells me anything!” she screeches. “I’m ignorant! Stupid! All I care about is clothes and perfume and sex. That’s what everyone thinks. But that’s all I have. That’s all I am given.” She is heaving with sudden tears; her pale face blotched with anger and a neat pink handprint. “I will be a mother, Insha’Allah, and all the gossiping will end!” She throws herself into Khatoun’s lap, her flesh rolling in waves as she weeps.
Khatoun bends over her, a hesitant hand hovering over her shoulder. “I’m sorry to hear of your troubles,” she begins.
“No!” Begum Șenay screams into Khatoun’s skirt. “I don’t want anyone sorry for me!” She heaves herself back into a seated position just as the door opens and the skinny girl who served tea ventures tentatively inside.
“Siktir git!” Begum Șenay screeches, hurling a glass at the unfortunate girl. “And don’t come back until I tell you!” The glass shatters against the wall and the door slams shut again. Begum Șenay blows her nose into her hand and wipes it clean on the hem of her robe.
“Give me more tea,” she says, stabbing her finger towards another glass. “Please.” She swallows the drink in one go, dabs delicately at her lips and lets out a huge sigh. “Vay, vay, vay. Khatoun Hanum, in the hours since I last saw you I have learnt a lot. I have heard the truth and probably a lot of lies but it has brought me somewhere and that is here.” With a flourish and an awkward lean, she pulls out an envelope from under her seat. “My husband wrote it for me. Don’t worry, I paid him for it.” She slaps the packet down on the tray, displaying all her gold teeth in a filthy laugh. “From my lips to his pen.”
Khatoun stares at the envelope. “What is it?”
Begum Șenay tilts her head back and smiles. “A release form. He’s working with some military tribunal. The Divani Harp. He gave me this to take to the Millet Khan where the pilgrims…the deportees are kept. I have permission to take half a dozen girls to help me in my home. And three for you. Only…if we find any babies…I take them too.”
Khatoun looks at her friend in disbelief. The seal on the envelope is red, thick, stamped with a heavy hand.
“Let’s do it
,” Begum Șenay whispers, heaving laboriously to her feet. “Let’s go now and get those girls before he wakes up and changes his mind!” She puts a finger to her lips, tiptoes to the door and yanks it open, grabbing the young girl who has been eavesdropping by the hair and slapping her viciously across the face.
“How many times have I told you not to spy on me!” she screams. “Go and get my carriage and have Binnur and Alef wait for me in the courtyard.” The weeping girl flees and Begum Șenay ushers Khatoun out of the room, leaving the warm red and gold Ottoman carpets patterned with the ghostly imprint of her powdered feet.
They slip through the corridors until they reach an enclosed garden where half a dozen women sit in the shade near the fountain. Two of them peel off and follow Șenay and Khatoun through an archway into another, smaller yard where a covered araba with two horses is waiting. They heft Șenay into the cabin, chattering as they climb in after her. Thick drapes enclose them, the heat of the long day stuffed inside. The clashing perfumes and stale air give Khatoun an immediate headache and she loosens the buttons at her neck as Bayram cabrioles into his seat and they lurch off.
“You’ll have to wear this when we get there,” Begum Șenay says, throwing a çarshaf to Khatoun. “Cover up completely. It’ll make our lives easier. And let me do all the talking, you just nod and do what I say.”
By the time they reach the Millet Khan, Khatoun is feeling sick. She pulls the curtain open and lets a sliver of cool air in. Bayram dismounts and bangs on the khan’s wooden doors. A trickle of sweat snakes down Khatoun’s face and the sea roars in her ears. After several repeated knocks, a small door cut into the gate opens and a gendarme clambers out. Begum Șenay slips her hand through the drapes and hands the sealed letter over.
“Let’s see how long this takes,” she snorts. The gendarme disappears and within seconds the gates creak open and they are admitted into the khan.
With the heavy doors slammed shut behind them they pull the drapes open and are immediately hit by the smell. A high wall encloses a yard packed with mules, donkeys and horses – all of them shifting disdainfully away from a mangy pack of dogs foraging in their dung. Khatoun takes a shallow breath and looks up. Thin streaks of pink tear across the cobalt blue sky. A lone star is visible.
Above them, on the second floor, a balcony runs the length of the enclosure. At first it looks as if washing has been hung over the railings to dry, and then Khatoun makes out a face and then another. Hundreds of people are draped over the balustrade, watching them silently, their faces just discernible in the waning light. The gendarme who admitted them tells their party to stay put and disappears with the letter. The horses twitch uneasily, spooked by the scavenging dogs. Bayram curses and scrapes the sole of his slipper on the edge of the wheel.
“Sit inside and don’t move,” Begum Șenay orders Binnur and Alef. The girls nod, happily retreating behind the curtains. A few minutes later the gendarme reappears.
“This way.” He leads Begum Șenay and Khatoun across the yard into a long dark room. A small iron bed lies next to the wall, a dirty sheet hanging over a length of wire that runs alongside it. The bed is unmade and the room smells stale. Cigarettes, feet and sleep. In front of the cot, near the only window, a large desk sits buried under a mountain of paper. A uniform sits hunched over the paperwork, head in hands, cigarette smouldering in the overflowing ashtray in front of him. As they approach the desk he rubs his face and looks up, a single black eyebrow framing his mournful eyes. The skin around his cheeks is pockmarked, his lips thin and flaky. He’s left his shirt unbuttoned at the neck, allowing a promiscuous tuft of black hair to escape. He shifts his elbows back, lifts himself from his chair a few inches.
“Welcome, welcome,” he says, clearing the phlegm from his throat. With a lazy wrist he gestures for them to sit, which they decline, then sags back into his chair. “So,” he says fingering the letter, “you’ve come to get some girls.”
“Yes,” Begum Șenay nods, her bosom manoeuvring itself to eye level. “I need half a dozen women to help in the home and my friend here needs a handful as seamstresses. She’s sewing for the war effort. Uniforms,” she indicates Khatoun behind her.
The officer looks them over and nods. “Good. Take them. Less for me to deal with.” He reaches into his pocket, pulls out tobacco and papers and rolls a cigarette, ignoring the one burning in front of him. “My duty is to safeguard the security of our borders. These people are spies, subversives and troublemakers – the ones that are left.” He lights the cigarette and exhales. “Asker will show you upstairs. Take whomever you want – at this point they’re all ugly. Useless to me or my men.” He lifts himself out of his chair, slumps down again and dismisses them with a wave of his hand.
The gendarme leads them back through the quadrangle. Up a flight of stairs, two soldiers sit playing pishti on the landing. After a brief word, they scrape back their chairs and unlock the door behind them. The gendarme excuses himself “to urinate” and Khatoun and Șenay squeeze past the soldiers into the room.
The place is buzzing with flies, the smell of human excrement overwhelming. Several thousand women and children are huddled together, bound together by their own stench and there is hardly enough space to breathe. Despite this, Begum Șenay bats the smell away, picks up her flesh and moves forward, resplendent as a ship on the ocean. Sadly for her the floor is so thick with people and the room so dark she can’t go far. She stops, strikes a dramatic pose and is about to speak when a commotion breaks out at the other end of the room.
A narrow door opens onto the street which is higher on this side, the khan having been built on a slope. Two men appear, their faces covered with cloth, one of them brandishing a torch. They poke about with their feet and yell muffled curses at the exhausted people. Anybody that doesn’t move or yelp in pain gets dragged to the end of the room, sprinkled with lime and thrust out the door. At least two dozen corpses are flung onto the wagons lined up waiting along the street. The men are just about to leave when Begum Șenay speaks.
“Stop! Your torch. I need it.”
The gravedigger scowls. One of the guards who followed them in whispers in his ear and sullenly he hands it over.
“Where are you taking them?” Begum Șenay asks. “The bodies?”
The torchless man shrugs. “Outskirts of town.”
“Will you bury them?”
“Of course. With great ceremony,” he snorts, the door screeching shut behind him.
Begum Șenay reaches for Khatoun and drags her close. “Let’s choose our girls and get out of here,” she whispers. She takes a deep breath and holds the torch up, illuminating herself beautifully. “We’ve come to take some of you away,” she announces. The room remains silent, the travellers watching her dispassionately. “I said, we are here to save you,” Begum Șenay smiles.
Silence.
“What my friend says is true,” Khatoun says, switching to Armenian. “We have a paper allowing us to take some of you home with us. Tonight. Now.”
Still no response.
A bent silhouette appears in the doorway to the gallery. “Listen. Listen to them. I know the truth when I hear it. Listen to what they say.” The shadow approaches and extends a bandaged hand.
“Pastor Ghizirian. Follow me.” Bare feet, one of them dragging. The remnants of pastoral robes. He leads them outside onto the balcony. A glorious magenta sky. Bodies wrapped around each other like pack dogs.
“You say you have permission?” he asks. Deep gullies from nose to chin. Eyes thick with crust. Beard, oozing in patches.
“Yes,” Khatoun confirms. “This is Begum Șenay – her husband works with the Divani Harp.”
Pastor Ghizirian nods. “And how many souls can you save?”
“Nine,” Șenay beams. “Six will come with me; three will go with Khatoun to help with her sewing.”
“I see.” The pastor dabs at one of his sores with his bandaged hand. “And the girls that come with you – what will happen to t
hem?”
“They’ll live in a big house and have a good life.”
Pastor Ghizirian smiles at her and nods. A rheumy tear slips down his nose and he strokes it into his tattered beard.
“I promise they’ll be looked after,” Begum Șenay continues. “My husband gave me his assurance.”
“Your husband,” the pastor says. He leans against the balustrade, taking the weight off his bad foot and the sky darkens to a deep bruise. “Insha’Allah. This way. Follow me.”
He leads them to the far end of the balcony where a handful of women sit around a mangal, warming scraps of bread. They make space for him as he approaches and listen quietly as he bends down and whispers. They nod and mutter, occasionally looking over at Begum Șenay and Khatoun. Eventually one of them stands and approaches Khatoun.
“I am Armenouhi,” she says kissing Khatoun’s hand. “God bless you. I will go and live with the Bayan. This is my friend Arshalous, she will come and live with you.”
Arshalous hobbles towards them on filthy wrapped feet. Shorter than Khatoun, she wears a tattered dress that ends at her knees. Dark eyes and thick eyebrows that almost meet in the middle. There is something child-like about her despite her skin – pinched like an old woman’s and yellowing. Her lips part into a wide grin and several front teeth are missing. She touches her hand to her heart and bows her head before disappearing into the dark room.
“Arshalous will find some others,” Armenouhi says. “And this,” she indicates a tiny creature by the fire, “is Hripsime. She goes wherever I go.”
A young girl sits huddled in a filthy blanket, her hair shorn to stubble. Her face is black with soot, her eyes closed as she dozes. Armenouhi nudges her awake and gestures with her hands. Slowly Hripsime stands, the blanket dropping from an extended belly, obviously in the last months of pregnancy. She stares blankly at Șenay and Khatoun.
The Seamstress of Ourfa Page 17