“I’m going to touch your chin now,” he says. His hand floats up to her face. He places his thumb on her chin and slips his forefinger underneath its soft underbelly. He is holding her chin now like a delicate flower. He only needs to lift it a few inches until she can face him, but those few inches span a lifetime and several continents. And he cannot do it. Does not want to. She must lift her chin herself, of her own free will.
“Please look at me,” he says. Once again he is pleading with her: to see him, to love him.
CHAPTER 30
The Handmaid
“IT IS ME,” he repeats over and over again, like the words are some sort of salve.
And what if it is you? Then what? You with your man’s beard and soldier’s uniform. You, who calls me by that other name. You may be you, but I am another matter. I am no longer.
“Where is everyone else?” he asks.
Gone. They are all gone, she thinks, still staring at his khaki uniformed chest.
“I’m sorry,” he says.
She makes her eyes smaller with hate and fixes them on the epaulet on his chest, a signifier of death and killing. She throws her head back and spits straight at the brass medal. He flinches but doesn’t move, allowing her saliva to linger on its target, then dribble down over a buttonhole.
“I was conscripted. I’ve been fighting in the south. I have had nothing to do with the deportations. I am not ashamed. Nor proud. I did it because I had to.”
His hand reaches into his coat pocket.
“I have something of yours,” he says. He is holding a pale blue fabric in the palm of his hand. He holds it out to her. The linen is soft and worn from a thousand uses, but she recognizes her initials embroidered in Armenian in one corner. It is the kerchief she gave him the night he followed Hairig, the night she refused him.
Seda feels her chin releasing. He is waiting for her to meet his stare. It is a small thing, this thing he wants. When she finally looks up into his face, something inside her breaks. Her body relaxes and she crumbles into him. She buries her face into his chest and cries, silently, with her open mouth resting against his beating heart. He strokes her quivering back like he once did by the river all those years ago.
Seda pours all her agony into him. He is an empty vessel, a container for her grief. Whoever he is—Kemal, soldier, ghost—the apparition tries to comfort her. He tells her to hush. And she does, eventually, pulling herself away from him.
His choices are deplorable, but then so are hers. The Lucine he wants is dead and gone. Now there is only Seda, the handmaid.
Seda squats down to the floor, scooping what is left of the flour into a single mound. With her finger, she spells her new name, Seda, and then with her eyes locked on Kemal, she points to herself.
“You’ve changed your name?” he asks.
She nods. He pauses, as if he’s trying to understand the meaning of this.
“You want me to call you Seda?”
She nods again.
“An ironic name for one without a voice, don’t you think?”
She underlines the name in flour.
“All right,” he says. “But why won’t you speak to me?”
There is no way to answer this question. To tell him that all the words in the world have betrayed her and she in turn has turned her back on them is impossible. She wants to tell him that though she cannot control her own actions or the actions of others, she has complete control of the little piece of flesh that lies dormant, housed in her mouth full of teeth.
“Has something happened to your tongue? Your throat?”
She shakes her head no.
“Then perhaps I can coax your voice to come out again.” He steps closer to her.
He understands nothing. This Kemal is just like the other, full of impossible dreams. Still, when he looks at her in that way, her body feels boneless and weak. She walks to the wooden door that leads to the courtyard and opens it.
“You want me to leave?”
She holds the door open in confirmation.
“All right. But can I come back tonight?” he asks at the door.
She says nothing.
“I will come when Hüsnü is with the woman Fatma,” he says before disappearing.
CHAPTER 31
Finding Faith
SEDA WAITS FOR Kemal in the dark. It has been so long since she’s waited for anything. Waiting is a luxury only those with desires and expectations can indulge in. When he whispered her name, the dead crow inside her awakened. Black feathers fluttering, sharp beak pecking painfully at her organs. There is a part of her that wants that bird dead and gone. Then there is the her waiting in this room in the dark.
She is standing when Kemal pushes the door open. He is still wearing the dreaded uniform, coat and all. The soldier’s hat is perched on his head, his beard is combed clean and his boots polished. He stares at her awkwardly before taking a seat on her cot. His stare is unwavering and full of intention. It makes her feel as though she is made out of liquid. She must sit, but there is nothing to sit on besides the cot, so she remains standing. Then the black crow takes over her body. She places her hands on her hips the way she used to, as if to ask him what he wants, why he is here. A kind of protest against this clandestine courting ritual.
He smiles at her. “Everything and nothing has changed,” he says.
She thinks about this, resisting the comfort the words give her.
“Have you got any tea?” he asks.
She turns to boil the water.
“You were always the one who spoke while I listened,” he says to her back. This is a lie. She spoke but never to him. She spoke to Uncle Nazareth, Anush and Bedros, to all of them, but hardly ever to him. When she turns around, his hat is no longer on his head. He turns it around and around in his hands nervously. He bites his lower lip so that there is only a line in his beard where his mouth should be. She keeps her eyes on his soldier’s hat. It disturbs and distracts her, reminding her of all the cruelty that comes with it. She removes it from his fidgeting hands, placing it on the table for kneading dough.
“We are not all monsters, you know,” he says.
Her mind fixes on the word we.
“I have nothing else to wear,” he says.
She lowers her eyes in sympathy.
Kemal extends his hand out to her. His index finger slides down from her knuckle to the tip of her finger, gently hooking it with his.
“Sit with me,” he says, and he is that other Kemal, the quiet boy with the shy glances. Only in that other life, he would never have dared to hold her hand.
His skin is dry and cool to the touch. His fingers do not tremble the way hers do. Outside, an emaciated crescent moon dips into the frame of her tiny window, the only other witness to his presence.
“I don’t really believe in God anymore,” he says. “I’m not sure I ever did. But finding you here is a blessing from God. You are a blessing from God.” He is still holding her hand.
Seda turns her head away from him and shuts her eyes tight. I am no blessing. I am hateful and selfish.
“You are everything that is good in the world,” he is saying now, and she can’t bear his words any longer. No, no. Seda is shaking her head. Her palm, the one he’s not holding, comes down hard on her forehead, then again onto the crown of her head. Once. Then twice. Harder now.
“Stop.” Kemal grabs her other hand. “Stop it.” He is holding them both in a tight grip on her lap.
Seda can hear her own whimpering like a riverbank running below his words. But she doesn’t stop it. She lets her tears pour out in place of words. The muffled sounds escape her like the first steams of a teakettle.
“I don’t care what’s happened. Whatever happened to them, Nazareth, Anush, your mother, your brothers. It wasn’t our fault. Not yours and not mine.” Kemal’s voice is desperate and pleading. “They were lucky. Did you hear? Lucky.”
Seda has heard stories about Der Zor, the Syrian Desert where the sur
viving deportees ended up. The people are described as diseased animals forgotten by man and God. Left to die. They say there is an entire desert littered with the bones of her people.
“They didn’t have to live like you, Lucine,” Kemal continues. “Carrying all their deaths around on your shoulders.”
Maybe he is right. Maybe they were spared and she is left here to suffer their loss. This is her cross to bear. It is all their crosses really. Kemal’s and Fatma’s and every neighbor and gendarme that did or did not have a cruel word or thought or deed. They would bear this cross eternally, together with their children and their children’s children.
“I have learned not to ask any questions,” Kemal says. “In this war, the answers are never pleasant. I will not ask you any more questions. But there is one thing I need you to do for me.
“Will you look at me with fresh eyes? Not with the eyes of the past or of the future. Just stay with me in the present, here and now. And I will do the same.”
It is such a strange request. If she could only oblige him, she would never have to think about the questions that plague her every breath. She will never be asked why she didn’t go back for Mairig, why she no longer had Aram.
“The past is full of sorrow and the future laden with worry,” he continues. “They are two weights that will surely drown us. I don’t want to drown. Do you?”
That is another question entirely. Which should she answer, the first or the second? Seda chooses to answer the first and ignore the second. Drowning would be too good for her anyway. She looks into his eyes, the same warm chestnut brown orbs he once accused her of stealing, and shakes her head.
“Good,” Kemal says. “Let us strip ourselves from time.”
With that, he begins to speak. He speaks to her of the souks in Baghdad, the spice market where one could find spices of every color imaginable, plus four or five more. He talks to her of the rug merchant who taught him the principles of perspective. He tells her about Tekin and Mehmet and eventually Hüsnü, who is just now fondling Fatma above their heads. Gaining her confidence inch by inch with every word until her hand no longer trembles and her lips form themselves into a forgotten line of a smile.
HE COMES TO her nightly, and always when the moon appears in her window. On that first night, the moon was nothing but a curved line, bent and thin, like a fingernail, on the verge of disappearing. But every night since, Seda listens as Kemal feeds the moon with his words until it is swollen and round. It burns bright, penetrating the dullness inside her chest where her heart used to be.
“Are you even listening?” he asks her now in the third week of their visits.
She gives him a slight smile. He has changed too. He looks less like a soldier and more like the boy she once knew. Last week, she held the mirror as he shaved his beard, leaving a neat little mustache behind. He wiped his newly shaven face with her pale blue kerchief. He asked if he could keep it and she acquiesced. The truth is his words are all she longs for throughout the endless days. If only she could give him a few in return. A syllable or two. But her tongue has forgotten what her mind clings to.
I dream of dark things, she wants to tell him.
“Hüsnü wants to leave,” Kemal says suddenly. “I can’t ask him to stay any longer. I’m afraid he tired of your friend days ago.”
Seda isn’t surprised. Fatma tired of Hüsnü before he even bedded her. She will be happy to be rid of him before her bey returns.
“He’s going to Istanbul, where his father’s a merchant.”
He is blabbering. Giving her needless details. Is he going with his friend or not?
“Don’t scowl,” he says, holding her chin in his hand. “Why are you scowling?” He laughs. “I didn’t say I was going with him. Do you want me to stay? All you have to do is ask me to stay, Lucine.”
There it is again. The name he called her when he first returned. The name he refuses to forget. She says nothing.
“You are a stubborn girl, Lucine Melkonian,” he says, his eyes shining.
Seda gives him a sharp look. Call me Seda, she wants to scream.
“Before we came here, our plan was to go to Istanbul and start a kilim or rug business. With my understanding of the artistry and Hüsnü’s father’s support, we could set up a stall, maybe even a small factory. Remember the rug merchant I told you about, the one in Baghdad?”
Seda nods.
“Well, he gave me a name. A contact, who will help me get started. Istanbul is teeming with foreigners. The money will be good. A fresh start for all of us. You too, maybe.” He hesitates, then says, “If you’ll wait for me.”
There is a long silence, in which Seda remembers the last time he asked her to go away with him. The sight of his slumped shoulders when she refused him. There was so much else to consider back then. Now there is nothing. Not a single thing.
She fixes her eyes upon his face and nods her head just once.
“No. No more nodding. Tell me yes or tell me no, but tell me.”
Seda rolls her tongue to the roof of her mouth, but it remains dormant in its cave. Evet, yes. Her tongue refuses to release the two little syllables so powerful, they could whisk her away from here, to the majestic city where her parents first met.
But Seda can be no one’s wife or mother. She is a ghost, a remnant of the sword. She shifts her weight on the cot, where they are both nestled. She leans into him. His eyes are darting from one feature of her face to another. She gets close enough to lose them and, shutting her own, places her lips on his. They lie there, two pairs of lips heaped on top of one another like a collection of pillows. Neither one moves. Then, slowly, gently, Kemal takes her lower lip into his own. She hears her father’s voice then. A sin against God.
What sin? What god? No more, Hairig, No more. Hush now. Please, Hairig. Hush.
Kemal kisses her eyes first. His lips rest on one eyelid, then the other, stamping each with the warmth of his love. He cradles her face in his hands and kisses her lips. In response, Seda’s lips seek him out. They part and let him in. She takes a deep breath, taking in the scent of his body and his breath all at once. Then, tilting her head back, she offers her neck to him. Kemal moves slowly, unwrapping this gift, sacred and sensual all at once. Her hands move down from the back of his neck to his shoulder blades, then lower to his back. Before he enters her, she holds him in her gaze and between her legs. Holding all of him. Limbs, thoughts, and unspoken prayers all find shelter in that embrace. When he thrusts, an unexpected current of warmth and pleasure moves through her. Her body feels as though it’s swallowed the sun. She takes him in, again and again, each time with new hunger. Seda opens her mouth and lets out a moan. Kemal cries out then and collapses onto her. Seda presses her nose into his neck, wraps her arms around his middle, and weeps. The moan is gone and the heat that filled her body, that made her feel whole just for a moment, that too is slowly disappearing.
The next thought that comes to her is unexpected and obscene, for at that moment, she thinks that perhaps, maybe, there really is a god.
PART V
1990
CHAPTER 32
Exile
THE SOUND OF Seda’s breath rises and falls, gentle and melodic, in sharp contrast to Orhan’s own frantic heart. Did the old woman just confess to murder? And if so, whose? He leans his body closer, taking in the contours of Seda’s sleeping face. He can see the still straight and narrow Roman nose, the almond-shaped eyes as they must have been before the upper lids lowered with age. Suddenly Orhan is certain that this is the woman in Dede’s black sketchbooks. Where does the chain link of this woman’s harrowed past attach itself to his own family history?
Seda opens her eyes slowly, smiling when she sees him.
“White days,” she whispers.
“Yes,” he says. “A white day sheds light.”
“Not always,” Seda says. She closes her eyes and takes a deep breath, pulling the bedsheet up under her chin. Orhan pours water from the pitcher on her bedside t
able into a cup and offers it to her. She purses her lips and drinks from it with her eyes closed. When she opens her eyes again, they are fixed, trancelike, on the opposite wall.
“I too lived in Karod once.” Her Turkish is old and rusty, but the dialect of the interior, rural and rugged, is unmistakable. She is from that “other Turkey.” His Turkey. “Until recently, I could remember very little from that time. I spent a lifetime forgetting it.”
This information does not surprise him. Where else would she have met Dede? As far as Orhan knew, Dede left Turkey only once, in World War I, when he fought as an Ottoman soldier in Baghdad.
“Maybe that is why I hate it here,” she says.
“Here?” he asks.
“The nursing home. It’s everywhere. They won’t let you forget it. It’s in the music, the damn sculpture in the garden, in schools and living rooms. You can’t open a book or sip a cup of coffee without confronting it.”
“Confronting what?” Orhan asks.
“The past.” The word comes out like an ancient curse. “Everything is soaked and mired in its bitter liquid. Our young people want us to live in it. They can’t get enough of it. Where did you come from? How old were you? How did you survive? They make you tell it over and over again, write it, record it, make videos. It’s exhausting,” she says. And he believes her. She looks thoroughly exhausted.
“Maybe they think it’s therapeutic,” Seda continues, “this sharing of past horrors. But not for me. I don’t want them poking their fingers into my wounds.” She jabs a finger into the air. “All these years, I was praying for a scab, a hardened piece on dull skin that would cover it all up. But I’m ninety years old, and still the thing festers like an open wound in my chest.”
Orhan thinks of his own past, the photographs and his time in exile, hidden under some hardened scab he has no intention of picking.
“I thought I could put it away,” Seda continues. “Abandon it like I abandoned everything else. But then here you are.”
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