Orhan's Inheritance

by Aline Ohanesian

  “He’ll be back before the end of the summer,” Anush says. “You’ll see.”

  Lucine fights the urge to take Anush’s braid in her hand and whip her with it.

  Instead she says, “Maybe you’re right.”

  “Of course I’m right. As Ottoman subjects, our men must serve in the Ottoman army. It’s normal.”

  Lucine winces at the word normal. She wonders how her sister has managed to forget the way the gendarmes woke them in the middle of the night, how they dragged Nazareth by the collar of his nightshirt and kicked him out the door. She wants to explain the difference between real soldiers and unarmed labor battalions. Uncle Nazareth says there is nothing normal about a government licking its wounds from the Balkan wars by making a scapegoat of its Christian Armenians. Every defeat the empire suffered meant more nationalism, more ethnic conflict, and more violence. Her people would never be Turkish enough or Muslim enough to be blameless.

  “We better get the boys ready for breakfast,” Anush says. It is understood. Anush will take care of six-month-old Aram, while Lucine will attend to Bedros, their ten-year-old brother. In the seven days since their uncle’s disappearance, Lucine and Anush have taken over their mother’s role while she hides in her room, mourning her brother’s loss.

  She hasn’t left her bedroom since that night. A headache is how their father describes it. Tending to her is an unpleasant but necessary task—emptying her bedpan, bringing her food—but the thought of her mother sitting in the stench of her own filth is unthinkable.

  Lucine places her hand on the doorknob and prays that her mother is still sleeping. When Mairig sleeps, her eyes don’t stare vacantly into the distance, her mouth does not betray the dark roads where her mind roams. When Mairig is sleeping, Lucine can pretend that she will soon get up from under her embroidered coverlet and resume mothering.

  The door squeaks open despite all of Lucine’s precaution. The air, trapped by the red velvet curtains, is thick and sticky. Mairig’s head is propped up at the center of her pillow, like a rare jewel. She blinks at the wall when Lucine stands before her four-poster bed. Lucine waits for Mairig’s gaze to land on her. When it doesn’t, she breathes a sigh of gratitude, thinking today Mairig will not put her despair into words.

  “He was all I had left here. The only thing I brought with me. That and my dowry. Silk dresses, tablecloths, gold and him, body and mind.”

  Lucine ignores her words. She bends down and retrieves the bedpan with both hands, careful not to spill anything on Mairig’s Persian rug, the one she brought with her from the city.

  “I’ve got nothing left here that is my own,” Mairig continues. “Nothing from that life before.” She is referring to her other lives again. The life she lived in Istanbul and the one she was meant to live in Paris. The lives in which her hands worked at a piano instead of the rearing of children, where she was not limited to hobnobbing with missionaries but instead conversed with composers and actresses.

  Lucine can’t understand why Uncle Nazareth’s presence made it all bearable, but it did. She can’t understand why she and her siblings are not enough for Mairig. Why she needs her brother, the missionaries, and all kinds of news from the capital. What Lucine does understand is that her mother’s unhappiness began long before Nazareth disappeared. She can trace it back even further than her own birth, back to the moment her parents met and fell in love. Falling in love had derailed Mairig’s life; Lucine has heard the story many times. Uncle Nazareth’s disappearance is only the last episode in that derailment.

  “Hairig will find him,” Lucine whispers.

  “Yes, yes he will,” Mairig says, turning her face away.

  Lucine drags her feet to Bedros’s room, wondering why Anush is so eager to marry and spend the rest of her life taking care of a brood of children, an as-yet-undetermined but no doubt foul-smelling husband, and a host of new family members that may or may not include a domineering mother-in-law.

  Bedros sits up in bed, his eyes still shut. As she pulls the nightshirt off her brother’s back, Lucine notices that he is still clutching the slingshot their uncle gave him for Easter.

  The morning of Uncle Nazareth’s disappearance, Lucine tiptoed past her sister’s bed, careful not to touch the door, which creaked at the most inopportune times. In the darkness of the hallway, she stepped over the seventh floorboard, knowing it too would betray her if given the chance. Downstairs Mairig was already busy preparing for their trip to the public baths. Lucine could hear her slippered feet brushing against the stone floor of their kitchen, filling the damp air with the smell of stuffed cabbage and soap. Lucine’s plan was to slip out the front door, take her uncle’s horse for a ride, and disappear into the nearby fields, thus avoiding all the ogling and nakedness of the community bath. She managed to get to the door and unlock it before the smell of Turkish coffee wafted up the stairs to awaken her father. But before she could open it, a violent banging came from the other side.

  The door swung open and Muammer Bey, the governor, entered the house. She didn’t dare look up, fixing her eyes instead on the yellow-and-brown marble of the worry beads hanging from his hand; they looked like the gouged eyes of a dozen slain tigers. He clicked one round orb against the next. One, two, three . . . stopping at twelve, though there were twenty-one more to go. Lucine knew there were thirty-three beads in all because she counted them on one of his last two visits, when he had tried and failed to persuade Hairig to give him Anush’s hand in marriage. Everywhere in the province young Armenian men were being taken from their homes, but only the Melkonians had the honor of a visit from the governor himself. There was a time long ago when the governor was considered a friend in their house. He would spend Friday evenings playing backgammon with Hairig, but Lucine liked him best for his magic tricks. If you caught him in the right mood, Muammer Bey would pull a pebble out of your ear.

  But there were no magic tricks and pleasantries that day. Muammer Bey ascended the stairs, two by two, with two young soldiers at his heels. One minute her uncle was upstairs sleeping soundly, and the next, he was gone. Her parents clamored to the front door, and Lucine was relegated to the back of the house with her siblings. She didn’t get a chance to say good-bye or to take one last look at his face. There was no more talk of going to the hamam that day. And today would be no different.

  Downstairs, Hairig is already seated at the dining table, waiting for his morning coffee. He is dressed in his three-piece suit, an affectation he assumed many years ago when he was courting Mairig, who was and still is enthralled with the West. His red fez and stained leather apron sit on the table, in bold contradiction to his European clothes—a reminder that he never quite managed to meld who he is with who she wanted him to be.

  Anush hums softly to herself, as she enters the room carrying plates of black olives and white cheese in one hand and the baby in the other. She places a half-eaten loaf of bread at the center of the table, before serving the tea and coffee. Her cheerful sounds and everyday movements are an affront to Lucine. Aram presses his cheeks into her chest, sucking in air in place of mother’s milk.

  “Where is the fresh bread?” Bedros asks, eyeing yesterday’s loaf.

  Anush looks at Hairig before turning to Bedros. “There is no bread anywhere. There’s a queue outside the baker’s shop, but his door is closed and the windows are boarded up.”

  Her words send shivers down Lucine’s spine. Months ago, the government charged several Armenian bakers with poisoning the bread of Turkish troops stationed in Sivas. Groups of Armenian men, regardless of their profession, were imprisoned, until a medical inquiry proved the charges baseless. The bakers returned safely to their homes. But where were they now? Why were they not at their ovens?

  “Never mind that,” Hairig says.

  Steam rises from his tiny coffee cup, a delicate thing made of white porcelain with tiny blue flowers dancing their way toward a gold-leafed rim. From Paris, Mairig likes to say. Forgoing the delicate handle, Hairig p
laces his dye-stained fingers around the rim, a habit Mairig detests. With her hiding in her room, there is no one to chide him about the proper way to lift a cup.

  “I want to explain some things to you.” There is a long silence, during which Hairig stares into the rising steam of his coffee cup. “Turkey has entered the war,” he says finally. “I know what you witnessed the other night must have been upsetting. But you mustn’t be frightened. Many things change when a country is at war. We have to prepare for what may be some difficult days.”

  Upsetting? Losing a favorite trinket is upsetting. Spilling one’s soup is upsetting. Having your uncle dragged out of the house by soldiers is another thing entirely.

  “Who are we fighting, Hairig?” Bedros asks. Her little brother, his eyes wide with excitement, has brought his slingshot to the table. The perfect symmetry of his face is interrupted only by a scar that goes from the center of his left eye to the top of his left cheek.

  “We are not fighting anyone, my lion. We are trying to sell carpets, but our government has sided with Germany against the French, British, and the Russians,” Hairig says.

  “What about the Americans?” Lucine asks, thinking of her beloved teacher, Miss Graffam, who hails from someplace called Maine.

  “They have not entered the war as of yet,” Hairig says.

  “You told us about all this in the winter,” Anush says, bouncing Aram on one knee.

  “Yes, but things have gotten worse, particularly for Christians. We are viewed as an internal threat, an enemy living within the state. The Armenian intellectuals in the capital were rounded up and arrested a month ago. The politicians, poets, priests, and composers have all disappeared.” His voice trails off. All four children follow Hairig’s eyes to the spot at the center of the table where his words have landed.

  “Under the circumstances, I cannot export my carpets anymore. I have made some difficult decisions,” Hairig continues, his voice hollow.

  “Yesterday I dismissed most of my men. For now, I will do what’s left of the dyeing myself. Anush, you and Lucine will help Mairig with her responsibilities.”

  “I can help, Hairig,” says Bedros, raising his hand like an eager schoolboy.

  “Good,” says Hairig. “You will all stay home from school for now, until things are clearer.”

  Clearer? How much more clear could things be?

  “We will have to wait and see which way the tide is turning. The best thing to do now is to cooperate and show our government that we are not a threat.”

  Lucine bites her lower lip to keep from speaking. With Mairig in bed and Uncle Nazareth gone, there is no one to reason with Hairig. “Uncle Nazareth would tell us to leave,” she says finally.

  “Your uncle is not here and we have seen where his ideas got him,” says Hairig. “I’m afraid your lessons at the American school will have to be postponed. I will send a note to Miss Graffam.”

  “No.” It’s out before she can retract it, but the idea of giving up her lessons and waiting indoors for the gendarmes to come back is too much. “Miss Graffam will help us. We can go to France or England. Mairig speaks French and my English is improving,” Lucine begs, but Hairig’s eyes are still focused on the thick mud of his coffee cup.

  “Men and women of God do not represent their governments, Lucine,” he says.

  “I’m not staying in this house and hiding,” Lucine says. “For what? What exactly are we waiting for anyway? We should try to find Uncle Nazareth. We could leave now, before it’s too late.”

  “Lucine, be quiet.” It is Anush, the keeper of all things pretty and fair and normal.

  “No, I will not be quiet. And what do you know? You’ve got your nose so far into your dowry chest, you can’t see what is happening right in front of you.”

  “That’s not true!”

  “It is true, Anush. Why do you think Father Sahag was killed like a dog in the street? Or Professor Fenjian was running in the streets stark naked a few nights ago? Huh?”

  On New Year’s Day, Father Sahag, the thirty-eight-year-old vicar, was driving toward his home town, in Sivas Province, when he was murdered by Halil Bey and his cete forces, men who only weeks ago were incarcerated criminals. There was no time to dwell on this or any other event because within days the authorities began their “interrogations.” Professor Fenjian, the mathematician from Roger’s College, returned from the questioning naked, except for a black sock strategically placed on his genitals, blowing in the breeze. Soon families all over Sivas were grieving the loss of their young men, conscripted into the army, arrested under suspicion, or simply gone missing.

  “Stop it!” Anush screams.

  “Enough!” Hairig pounds his fist on the table, tipping the delicate Parisian cup and startling the baby who’s still waiting for milk.

  Lucine propels herself away from the table. She hurries in the direction of the stable where Uncle Nazareth’s horse awaits.

  CHAPTER 7

  Red River

  KEMAL MOVES SLOWLY, careful not to wake anyone. At eighteen, he is tall and lanky for an Anatolian and therefore moves cautiously, almost apologetically through the world. He does not fold his bedding and store it in the low compartments of the sedir, as he usually does. Instead he looks around the solitary room and tries to absorb this rare moment of peace in the house. His grandmother lies sleeping on her straw mat in the left corner of the room, her broad back turned to the rest of the house. Wrapped in a shawl woven by her own hand, she lies at the foot of a mighty wooden loom. Bundles of yarn form a rainbow at the very top and strands of turquoise and saffron-colored wool weave in and out of one another, cascading at her chapped feet. She placed her bedding in this spot a few weeks ago, soon after the arrival of Emineh, his father’s new wife. Emineh lies in the opposite corner, on the right side of the house, where the family stores its foodstuffs. She huddles behind a small collection of flour sacks and bulgur barrels, carefully arranged to protect herself from his grandmother’s wrath.

  His father sleeps in the center of the room where a seven-foot post holds the ceiling up. His wooden leg is propped nearby, at a safe distance from the tonir, the sunken circular oven around which they eat all their meals. In more peaceful days, when his mother had been alive, they would crowd around its glowing embers, cracking seeds and telling stories before falling asleep.

  It will be hours before the voices of the muezzin chant the first of the five calls to prayer. Kemal heads toward the stable, where hidden among the chickens, sheep, and his father’s donkey is an old sack where he keeps his sketchbook. Kemal was only ten when he first saw it in the hands of Gevork, the Armenian apothecary, who scribbled something inside it every time someone made a purchase. Soon Kemal was making daily visits to the shop, leaning over Gevork’s shoulder, until the sly Armenian agreed to trade the half empty tome for two kilims of fine woven wool. It took Kemal a year to weave two kilims without his father’s knowledge. Nazareth had slipped him the extra wool, and his grandmother, ever the one to entertain his whims, helped him weave. At first, he did not know what he would do with the journal, since he had not been taught his letters. He ripped away the pages of indecipherable scrawls by the apothecary and began making his own markings, delighting in the way the graphite sounded against the smooth page.

  He holds it now and thumbs through the many drawings that fill its pages. It all started innocently enough, with drawings of bottles, flutes, and flora. Soon he moved onto the goldfinch, the bulbul, and finally to his grandmother’s face, always sitting before the loom. She posed for him unknowingly, like all the other creatures in Sivas.

  Drawing, and the way of looking it necessitated, became second nature to him. One day, seated at the foot of the imam, who was pontificating about the many authenticated miracles of the great prophet, Kemal picked up a stick and drew a portrait in the dust. It was a mindless act, like throwing stones into the river, and the likeness was not very good, but it was enough to make the imam stop midsentence. The old man spe
nt a full minute stroking his wiry beard before taking Kemal’s left earlobe into his plierlike knuckles and dragging him all the way home. On the road, the imam made Kemal repeat the following words, pinching harder when the boy was not loud enough:

  It is not permitted to draw anything that depicts animate beings, because the Prophet (peace and blessings of Allah be upon him) said, according to the sahih hadith: “Every image maker will be in the Fire.” And he (peace and blessings of Allah be upon him) said: “The most severely punished of people on the Day of Resurrection will be the image makers, those who tried to imitate the creation of Allah.” And he (peace and blessings of Allah be upon him) said: “The makers of these images will be punished on the Day of Resurrection, and they will be told, ‘Give life to that which you have created.’”

  When the imam knocked at the door, it was Kemal’s grandmother who answered. She assured the imam that the boy would be properly whipped. But when the bearded cleric left, Kemal’s grandmother simply swatted his head and returned to her loom. Despite her indifference, Kemal thought hard about what the imam had said. Not about the sin and its punishment but about the very last bit. What if he could give life to that which he created?

  It wasn’t the last time his sketching would cause him trouble. Just last week, in a fitful rage over the warring women of the house, his father spotted Kemal sketching listlessly by the tonir. Before Kemal realized what was happening, his sketchbook landed in the embers next to the roasted chestnuts. “This is not Constantinople,” his father said. “There is no poetry here. Only survival.” He then made Kemal promise to pay less attention to sketching and more attention to the weaving. It was a difficult promise for the young man, but he intends to keep it, at least between the hours of sunup and sundown. The rest of his time, Kemal reasons, is his own.