Orhan's Inheritance

by Aline Ohanesian

  He sits on the floor of the stable, drawing by the light of an oil lamp. A magnificent peacock struts across the page, peculiar only in that it has the lovely breasts of a young woman. Before Kemal can ponder why breasts have become so prominent in his recent drawings, he hears the shouting.

  “She’s taken it! She’s taken my silver thread off the loom!” his grandmother screams.

  “I did no such thing,” Emineh says.

  There is a low murmuring from his grandmother, followed by the booming sound of his father’s voice shouting, “Enough! Kemal! Where in Allah’s name is he?”

  “I’m here, Baba, preparing the donkey,” Kemal calls out.

  “Hurry it up. We are due at Hagop Effendi’s this morning.”

  The news immediately brightens Kemal’s mood. The Melkonian family is an enchanted lot. Hagop Melkonian is one of the few men who’s called effendi, a man of authority and education. His great big house stands on top of a hill, overlooking the entire valley. It has two stories, as opposed to one, and no animals are allowed anywhere near it. The whole place is crowded with furniture the likes of which he has never seen before. They eat their meals on a long wooden table, as opposed to a rug. Mrs. Melkonian plays the piano and entertains missionaries, switching from French to Turkish and back again with the same ease as someone who goes from milking a goat to a cow.

  And then there are the two girls. They eat with the men and exchange ideas and opinions freely. Now the thought of seeing his friend Nazareth or catching a glimpse of the lovely sisters makes him feel lighter on his feet. Ignoring the morning call to prayer, the father and son make their way out of the valley.

  “These women are driving me mad, Kemal,” his father says.

  “I know, Baba.”

  “Your grandmother doesn’t understand a thing. But you do, don’t you, boy?”

  Kemal nods.

  “You know why I’ve brought Emineh. She is a good weaver and young . . . young enough to bear more children. Soon you’ll have brothers and sisters. Won’t that be nice?”

  When they’re not arguing, Emineh and his grandmother are in charge of weaving the kilims, the small prayer rugs Mr. Melkonian exports throughout Turkey, England, and Persia. His grandmother is the sole master of the massive loom, where large rugs worth far more than a kilim are woven. She sits before her altar of wool from sunup until sundown, her hands moving feverishly, tying up to three knots per second. Sometimes her hands are so fast that even Kemal’s keen eyes cannot make out their movements.

  “Is that why we’re going to Hagop Effendi’s? To get more wool?” Kemal asks.

  “We were supposed to get more wool days ago. He’s probably noticed an increase in our productivity since Emineh arrived. Maybe he will be forced to offer us more for each piece. That kilim your grandmother wove last month was easily worth forty paras.”

  Kemal remembers the piece, a geometric pattern, lush with six different shades of green. “It was lovely,” he says.

  His father stops his mule and looks down at his only child. “Get your mind out of the clouds, boy. Pay less attention to the colors and more to the coins. Do you want to work for an Armenian dog for the rest of your life?”

  “No,” Kemal whispers, although he would like nothing more than to spend his life working alongside the Melkonians. He spends the rest of the journey imagining himself in the bosom of that boisterous clan. Racing on horseback against Nazareth, the lace and ribbons of the lovely Anush, the refined elegance of Mrs. Melkonian, and finally the sharp wit of the clever Lucine, in whose company he grows quiet and light-headed. God knows he has been very careful, trying hard not to stare at her or be alone in her presence.

  A web of narrow streets, worn by centuries of use, leads to the ancient Armenian churches and monasteries, some of which date back to the Crusades. Beyond them is the town’s center, encompassing the market square, city hall, and other government buildings. There is an invisible border that separates the Muslims from the Christians, the Turks and Kurds from the Armenians and Greeks. Kemal and his father cross this border, leaving behind the orchards and vineyards of the lower valley and climbing toward the fertile wheat and barley fields of the upper plateau.

  The remainder of the journey is a silent one, except for the sound of the Kizil Irmak, the Red River, whose water is stained crimson by the clay hills it passes on its way to the Black Sea. Kemal fixes his eyes on the horizon, toward the village of Karod, where the Melkonians live.

  Despite the morning fog, Kemal can see the house clearly. Cut stones, each a different shade of gray, are stacked one upon the other. The upper two stories are timber frame filled with sun-dried bricks and plastered with lime, and the roof is capped with tile. His father describes it as “offensive,” and most of the Turkish villagers agree with him. It isn’t the size of the house that they find so distasteful, nor its location, perched high above the hill, overlooking all of Sivas, but its occupants that they cannot tolerate. Prudence demands that Christians in Anatolia show a certain amount of modesty, and the villagers agree that Hagop Melkonian has trouble keeping his head down.

  Inside, the massive courtyard has lost its usual ordered rhythm. Seventeen copper cauldrons stand in their circular formation, but the customary bustle is missing. Only Demitrius, the Greek half-wit and son of the village midwife, is loitering around the cauldrons, waiting for instruction. The six men, including Hagop and Nazareth Melkonian, who soak, stir and dry the wool, are nowhere to be found. Kemal’s father eyes the bushels of wool lying around the yard.

  “Our sheep are sheared once a year. Where in God’s name do they get all this wool every month?” his father whispers.

  “Magic sheep,” Kemal says, suppressing a smile.

  Before his father can respond to his son’s indolence, Hagop Effendi bounds toward them, spectacles in hand, vest uncharacteristically unbuttoned, a furrowed brow in place of the placid tranquillity that usually graces his face.

  “Kemal, where have you been?” he says, breathless.

  “Good morning, sir.”

  “Nazareth’s gone. He was taken in the night,” Hagop Effendi says.

  “Taken where?” Kemal asks.

  “He’s been assigned to the labor battalions.”

  “Perhaps we should come back later, at a better time,” his father says, already inching his way out of this family drama. Whispered rumors of impending doom have been circulating for weeks. The fate of these infidels is no concern of his. Kemal, on the other hand, feels as if he’s been struck.

  “And Lucine,” Hagop continues. “She is upset. She left the house hours ago. I’ve looked everywhere. Go and find her.”

  Kemal mounts the rough back of his father’s mule and races to the river, where he knows she likes to take Nazareth’s horse. The landscape, like his grandmother’s shawl, melts into multiple shades of green wool. In his mind’s eye, he can see Nazareth being dragged out of the house. Did they press the tip of a bayonet firmly to his back? Was there time for him to pack a few things: his dagger, his lucky riding coat, the one with the missing button?

  His thoughts are interrupted by the sound of the Red River, whose chatter grows louder by the minute. Kemal sees Nazareth’s horse and dismounts. He ties his animal to an apricot tree about a hundred yards away from the riverbank and makes his way toward the water. His heart thumps with excitement when he realizes he will finally be alone with Lucine.

  She is seated on a sunburned slope of honey-colored grass. Her hair is loose and wild from the morning ride, her swollen eyes fixed upon the river, the stillness of her gaze confronting the river’s restlessness. Kemal doesn’t see the steady stream of tears or her small chest heaving silently until he is standing just above her.

  He says nothing and lowers himself onto the grass beside her. She takes a deep breath but does not look at him.

  “He’s gone,” she whispers between sobs.

  “I know,” Kemal says. They are the first words he’s uttered to her in a long time,
ever since the sight and scent of her became too much to manage.

  “You mustn’t worry,” he says. “He is brave and clever. He will persevere.” Kemal puts a timid arm around her shoulder. It is the first time he’s touched her in so intimate a manner. When they were little, he would hoist her up by the waist as she climbed a tree, and console her when she inevitably fell, but all that was a very long time ago. Kemal lets his palm cup her shoulder. The gesture releases a flock of tears as Lucine folds into him. He knows he should say something, but the feel of her soft hair brushing against his face, the scent of her, a hint of honey and jasmine, the curve of her neck make him dizzy. She’s just a child, he tells himself. A rich Armenian child.

  “If he isn’t safe, then nothing, no one is . . .” she says, removing herself from under his arm and turning her eyes back to the river.

  “Shh, that’s enough. How long have you been crying?” he asks, trying to coax her back to the present.

  Lucine shakes her head. “You don’t get to tell me what to do,” she says. “You’re not him. Since when did you start talking to me again anyway?”

  “Since right now,” says Kemal.

  “You don’t just stop talking to people for no good reason and then change your mind. You’re either a friend or you’re not.”

  “You’re right, I’m sorry,” he says. “Now no more crying. What’s this business about quarreling with your father and running away?” he says, trying to look stern. This time her head snaps to attention, and she is looking straight at him. He braces himself for the fury she will pour into him. It’s happened before. Twice. Twice he’s been the lucky recipient of that hot fiery liquid of emotion and intellect, only they hadn’t been alone.

  “What would you have me do? He won’t go looking for Nazareth. And he forbids me to go to school. If you think I’m going to sit around and wait to be taken like Nazareth or, worse yet, cower in a corner of my room, then you’re as foolish as he is.”

  “No one is asking you to cower,” he says.

  “No? They’ve taken my uncle, your friend, and no one seems to want to do anything about it.”

  “What does that have to do with your schooling?” Kemal says.

  “The only chance I have of happiness is hidden somewhere in my books. I’m going to be a teacher, like Miss Graffam, not some woman slaving over a tonir.”

  “But you’re only a child,” Kemal says.

  “I am not a child! There are fifteen-year-olds all over Sivas getting married, having children, and who knows what else. I am no child, Kemal. Besides, you’re only a few years older.”

  Kemal lingers on the sound of his name in her mouth, between her lips.

  “Well, if you’re not a child, I suppose you’re a woman then,” Kemal says. There is a pause, and he wonders if he’s gone too far.

  “You think you’re so clever don’t you?” she says, straightening her spine.

  “What? Something wrong with being a woman?” he asks.

  “I know your definition of a woman, and it does not interest me,” she says.

  “Really? What is my definition of a woman?” Kemal has never had a conversation so sweet.

  “Someone who bows her head and mends your socks and bears a half-dozen children.”

  He laughs as she mockingly bows her head and makes to mend an imaginary sock.

  Lucine stops quite suddenly and looks up at him, adding, “Someone who suffers silently.” She grows quiet and serious now, her eyes filling with a knowing melancholy.

  I will never make you suffer, he thinks. His hand is at her cheek, but only for a moment. The contact wakes her from her moral slumber and she jumps to her feet.

  “I better go home now,” she says.

  CHAPTER 8

  The Crier

  KEMAL: THE TURKISH boy. Kemal: the weaver’s son. Kemal, her uncle’s keeper, who always stood quietly at his right. He had not only talked to her but let her cry on his shoulder, making her angry and energized all at once. Lucine blushes when she remembers burying her face in his chest. She did not know how much she missed him until he started talking to her again. Ach pazoog, my right hand, Uncle Nazareth called him. Kemal hadn’t extended a fist to the enemy but an open palm to her face.

  She whips the horse into a frenzied speed, racing away from the river and her confusion. Inside the courtyard, she hurries past bubbling cauldrons, past Hairig’s expectant eyes. She knows she should apologize for storming off—a dutiful daughter would. But looking at Hairig would mean confronting the fear in his eyes with the shame in her own.

  Once inside, she heads to the library, which is not a library at all but a set of bookshelves, carefully arranged perpendicularly against one wall of the parlor. She sinks into Hairig’s red velvet floor cushion and places her trembling hands under her thighs. Her eyes dart from one title to the next, looking for answers to questions not yet formed in her mind. But the titles offer no answers, only reprimands.

  “Daughter,” Hairig whispers from behind her. Lucine, wishing to avoid his eyes, fixes her gaze on the volumes above her. He too searches the shelves and finally selects a thin leaflet she recognizes as the collected poems of Daniel Varoujan, the poet of Sivas. Hairig lowers himself to the divan and opens to “The Longing Letter.” He points a finger to the seventh stanza, and waits for her to read it.

  Oh, come, my son, your ancient home restore!

  They burst the door, they swept the larders bare.

  Now all the swallows of the spring come in

  Through shattered windows, open to the air.

  “It’s about a mother waiting for her son’s return,” he explains. Lucine nods, eyes lowered to the words. “Isn’t it lovely?” Hairig asks.

  Lucine shrugs. “All our songs and poems are so sad,” she says.

  “Poets write about what they know to be true,” Hairig says. “And we Armenians, we know about loss. When I was young,” he continues, “I only read poetry. Your grandfather was mortified. He wanted me to be fierce like my brothers, but I didn’t have it in me.” Lucine’s ears perk up at the mention of Hairig’s family. He lost all but one brother in the Red Sultan’s massacres, so named for all the blood he managed to shed before the Young Turk Revolution instilled constitutional law. Hairig rarely ever spoke of his lost brothers.

  “What your grandfather didn’t understand is that strength comes in different disguises. It does not always ride a mighty horse or wield a shiny sword. Sometimes we have to be like a riverbank, twisting and turning along with the earth, withstanding swells and currents. Enduring.

  “You,” Hairig says, pointing his finger at her, “are like my brothers. Strong and fierce. But sometimes it’s better to be like the river. Gu hasganas? Do you understand, Lucine?”

  “That is how I survived,” he says, closing the leaflet. “I may have shamed my father by refusing to fight along with my brothers, but what matters is I survived and my mother lived to see it. And the same will happen with your uncle Nazareth,” he says, smiling at Lucine and stroking her hair. She gives him a weak smile and wills herself to believe him.

  “I wooed your mother with the help of these books,” he says, waving the volume in his hand. “There was a time I could recite whole poems to her. She didn’t expect that from a merchant. Did I ever tell you how we met?”

  Lucine nods. It is a favorite story among the family, retold so many times that she is almost sure she witnessed it herself. He begins it anyway. “She came into your uncle Varouj’s store in Constantinople with her mother. She was planning to leave for that music school in Paris within weeks and needed fabric for her fancy new dresses. I was there delivering wool and taking inventory. I’d been in that store a thousand times, surrounded by rare silks and deep wools. I had been swimming in a sea of color for so long, nothing really stood out anymore. But the moment she stepped inside, every color and cloth in the room was crisp again and focused. Like someone had finally cleared my vision by giving me a pair of spectacles. Oh, I am not ashamed to s
ay that I was love-struck immediately. Of course, it took a lot of hard work, especially with your grandmother, to take me seriously as a suitor,” he says. “I didn’t speak French and I had never been to a proper school.”

  “Kemal touched my cheek.” The words spurt out of her mouth like discarded watermelon seeds. They drop into his story, interrupting it, staining its familiar beauty with their unwanted presence. Her words make Hairig’s mouth fall open and the kindness in his eyes disappears.

  “What?” he says, his breathing shallow.

  “He was only trying to . . .”

  “What? He was only trying to what?” Hairig demands to know.

  “Comfort me,” Lucine says, eyes lowered.

  “Stop.” His voice is steady and firm. “Stop before I get any angrier.”

  “But you’ve always liked him,” she offers, still not daring to look up.

  “I like succulents as much as I like tulips, but you don’t see me planting both in the same patch of land.” Hairig’s body shoots up from the divan. “You stay away from him. This is no time to disgrace the family. There is an ocean of spilled blood between us, the blood of my brothers included.” His hand, still holding the leaflet, shakes violently.

  “He is an employee, a common villager, and a Turk.” Hairig spits the last word out like a piece of phlegm. He takes Lucine’s chin between his thumb and forefinger, lifting her head until her eyes meet his. “Just because we live side by side, does not make us the same,” he says.

  Lucine wants to object, but he holds her in his stare until she winces from the shame.

  “It is a sin against God. We are Christians first, Armenians second, and only after, Ottomans. He doesn’t even have a last name, for God’s sake.

  “Don’t disappoint me Lucine,” he says finally. “My heart could not take it.”

  When he’s gone, Lucine thinks about his words and wonders where the longing in her own heart fits into the order of things.

  The next four days are spent in a familiar fog of house chores, away from the courtyard and the river, away from her father’s averted eyes and far away from Kemal. A tray of green beans for de-stringing, a carafe of coffee for Mairig’s headache, a game of marbles with Bedros, and sometimes, when Anush allows it, a sweet cuddle with the baby. Lucine likes to press her nose into the soft fold of Aram’s neck, to breathe in his sweet tangy smell. She is enduring the way Hairig prescribed. But it is not enough to quell the foreboding and excitement of her nights, when she lies awake alternately reliving the moment when Kemal’s palm pressed her cheek and the dreaded night of Uncle Nazareth’s abduction.