As the Poppies Bloomed

by Maral Boyadjian

  Both women shivered. Turgay was fully in the present now and staring stonily before her. “Run home, child. Return to your sweet mother. If God decides that I should continue to live this life and see another Easter, perhaps I might share another piece of chorek with you and your family.”

  Turgay had said God, Asdvadz, as her mother had taught her. She had not said Xuda. It had taken one long, concentrated beating from the Kurd for the tiny Arev to become Turgay, and Asdvadz to become Xuda, until today.

  Anno stared wide-eyed and tried to speak, but Turgay did not need a response. She turned to finally cross the stream.

  What they both saw made them freeze in disbelief. The stream had risen so rapidly that only the very tips of the boulders peeped out at them, the rest submerged in wild swirls and surges of water. The water seemed to be frothing and racing its way to empty into the Sassoun River.

  Anno’s hands went to her forehead. Further upstream, the banks would be still wider apart and she would not know how to locate the crossings in the dark even if the stream had not risen. She frantically reassessed the only crossing known to her and found it had vanished.

  Turgay had also been rapidly weighing the situation before them and had decided that lingering at the water’s banks any longer was folly. She grasped the muddied hem of her skirt and pulled it up past her knees, revealing short, bent legs again covered in black. As Anno realized what she intended, she cried out in protest, but Turgay had already taken one step forward. Anno’s hands stretched out to pull her back, but the old woman waved her away.

  “Run home, Anno. Run home,” she called back over the rush of the water. “May your mother forgive me.”

  Anno clutched her head as she watched Turgay’s slow, steady progress. After the first two steps, she began gripping the boulders for support instead of trying to walk along their slippery backs. Now she was submerged waist-deep in the current, struggling against the water’s force.

  There remained almost ten feet of crossing for Turgay to reach safety and had even a viper appeared at Anno’s feet, she would not have left her spot. She dared not call out. She knew the woman was using every ounce of concentration to reach safety.

  The rain fell in mocking dances, vertically, then diagonally, and Anno’s eyes stung and blurred.

  Turgay took one more step and her body lifted out of the water an entire foot’s length. Anno realized she must be standing on a rock. She held her breath, waiting for Turgay to move on. How much longer would the woman’s strength last, she wondered? Had anyone thought to give her bread today? Anno’s neck and shoulders ached from the strain of helplessness. She was lightheaded herself.

  Turgay remained unmoving, perched on her rock. Anno tipped her head back and opened her mouth to catch the rainwater. A few drops slipped down her throat and she looked again to see if Turgay had moved forward.

  Anno blinked in confusion. Her head whipped to the left and right. Turgay had disappeared.

  Anno’s heart pounded in her ears. She opened her mouth to call out and could make no sound. She plunged into the water and recoiled at its iciness. On the banks, the cold had numbed her feet, but her calves and thighs tightened now with shock. Her hands reached into the water, her arms stretching out blindly into its depths. Flailing emptily, she stepped deeper into the current and saw, just an arm’s length away, Turgay’s white head emerge. Stumbling and scraping against the stream’s bottom she grabbed at Turgay and pulled her head out of the water. The old woman’s eyes shot open and Anno lost no time in dragging her body the last few feet toward the far side of the bank. Beneath her feet, sand and rocks shifted and dislodged. Anno tripped and slipped, heavily unbalanced, almost safely to the edge when, ready to collapse herself, she trod heavily on the sharp edge of a rock. The rock turned instantly under her weight and, together with Turgay, Anno crashed sideways into the water. The impact of her temple against a boulder was the last thing she knew.

  C H A P T E R 22

  "We have a girl baby. Call the baby’s father…” Mariam’s voice trailed wearily. She searched the room for Yeraz.

  Yeraz was controlling an urge to scream as loudly as the babe’s mother had this last hour. Instead, she pulled close to Old Mariam and ground out each word. “Anno ran from the house. I must go see that she has returned.”

  She left Old Mariam as she was burying the umbilical cord near the front door. It was a tradition strictly followed, to ensure that the child would never travel far from the hearth.

  Twisting a large shawl tightly around her head and shoulders, Yeraz stepped out onto the lane. She had not noticed the change in weather, and the rain surprised her. Her anxiety rising, she moved quickly.

  She found her home dark and empty. She had already known that Anno would not be there. But where could she have gone? Yeraz considered the possibilities. Could she possibly have run to Daron? Remembering the stricken look on her face at Vartan’s denouncement, Yeraz knew it was likely she had. Her breath came hard as she imagined the merchant’s face, all their faces, upon seeing Anno at their door, at night and alone. How had everything unraveled so?

  Why had Vartan said, “Not that family?” What did he know about them that was so serious, that Yeraz had no knowledge of, nor Mariam, for that matter? Vartan was a tolerant man. His flexibility and goodwill had gained him this position as village leader over and over. What was it then that even he would not tolerate?

  Yeraz looked behind her. She was as alone as she felt herself to be. She allowed herself to run.

  As she pushed open Mariam’s heavy front door, Vartan rose to his feet at the sight of her. She loosened her shawl and attempted to still her breath.

  “Our neighbors have a girl child…” she started, but her voice broke. Her eyes filled and she gasped, “Anno is not at home! She has been gone this last hour and more.”

  A dreadful silence ensued.

  “The babe came so fast. I could not get word to you.” This last was almost inaudible and directed to no one. All present knew that Vartan had refused the Markarian clan’s proposal.

  Vrej stood now with the men. “She must have gone to Lucine,” he offered, then quickly contradicted himself. “No. No. She would feel more comfortable with Takoush. Girl talk is what she will be after.”

  He looked around, hoping for support for his simple solution to a problem that seemed so grave. But the men’s eyes remained on Yeraz. They sensed there was more to be said.

  Yeraz knew that time wasted would work against them. There was no room for secrecy any longer. She tried to draw a deep breath, and looking straight into Vartan’s eyes, spoke as if there was no one else in the room. “You should know, Anno wanted this marriage very much.”

  Vartan’s eyes narrowed. Yeraz saw and knew that this would be as impossible as she suspected.

  “She has been waiting months now for Daron’s family to take some step toward arranging their union. But she never expected your reaction today. In short, she may have gone to Lucine or Takoush, but she may have gone straight to Daron.”

  Vartan found he could not move. Haig found himself wishing for the first time in his life that he paid more attention to his wife’s talk. His older brother was watching him a bit accusingly. And Vrej found himself unimpressed with his parents’ separate concerns. So little Anno had found and chosen a husband for herself right under their noses. Was that so awful? He would wait for these slow movers no longer. The night was dark and wet and Anno should be found, wherever she might have chosen to go.

  “I will go straight to Takoush. If she is not there, I will go to Lucine. I feel certain I will find her.” Vrej had already opened the door and stood with his hand on the frame.

  “You will meet us in the church square in twenty minutes,” Vartan spoke. “If she is in neither of those places, then I will go to see Mgro.”

  “You will not go alone,” Haig and his brother spoke in unison, having studied his suppressed wrath. They understood how quickly these circumstances could turn to fe
uding.

  Vrej’s running feet could be heard no more and the men pulled on their coats and hats. Yeraz had still not moved from her spot inside the door, and she imploringly watched Vartan for some sign of encouragement or warmth as he passed her. He did not even look her way.

  Haig’s wife, unable to ignore her desperation, laid a wide arm across her shoulders, and it was Yeraz’s undoing. She turned into the other woman’s arms and shook with sobs of dread.

  The walk to the church square was a silent one. Even Uncle Hagop seemed to have no advice to give. Vartan was calculating and recalculating a situation that could have no positive outcome. If she were found safe with either Lucine or Takoush, there would still be two entire families who would know of this night’s business. If she were not found there, but with Daron, then they would have to marry. That was, if they had not already run away together, somewhere, for just that reason. Vartan did not have much faith in Mgro’s morality to try to restrain them.

  Then he thought of Yeraz. What of her part in all this? Why had she not shared her knowledge with him? That pierced him almost as much as his daughter’s name linked with the Markarians’.

  He glanced sideways at Haig, who had studied him constantly all night and now finally spoke. “If I had a daughter, I would be more concerned that she may be accosted this night at one luckless turn, by a snake. Or a Kurd,” Haig spat, equally cold-blooded avenues to a lingering agony and death. “And I would be relieved to find her in the home of anyone who cared for her, instead of that.”

  Once in the church square, the four men climbed the red and black tufa stone steps to back close into the frame and shadows of the church door, avoiding the steady pour of rain.

  The smell here of the dampened wooden door and the porous tufa beneath his feet brought memories to Vartan of Sundays, so many Sundays. Anno’s spongelike baby fingers buried deep in his moustache as he held her against him while they walked along the twisting lanes to the church square. Yeraz would pretend to not notice that Anno’s care had been left to the father. Anno toppled his fez and ate bits of bread from his fingers and still he would keep her with him. He did not call out that she was a distraction, a disturbance to be removed. Yeraz would turn away and allow them their love.

  Later, as Anno grew, he would extend his index finger and together they would walk the roads. Vartan steered her away from the wagon ruts, the stones, and the deepest hoofprints to safer, smoother paths. Then, was she perhaps in her eighth year, as they stood side by side inside the confinements of the church’s walls? He faced the altar, his eyes on Father Sarkis and his mind on the waning health of their best hen. He noticed Anno’s body arched, her head tipped back to look up into the dome. Her mouth had fallen open and she was still inching her head backward to get a better view when she lost her balance. Her arms swung wildly to prevent a fall, and that was when her gaze met his. Vartan could have laughed out loud at her antics and her near escape. Anno saw, clearly, the crinkles at the corners of his eyes and beamed at him with pure, conspiratorial joy.

  Vartan cleared his throat now, at the memories and the fear lodged there.

  Vrej ran into the church square, sprinting as fast as he had started out, and sprang up the steps. His head was bare and his coarse hair was pushed off his forehead. He blinked the rain from his eyes to focus uneasily on the dark faces watching him from the shadows. The intensity of their gazes was searing, and he shook his head once before speaking, his throat grating the words, not from exertion, but from dread.

  “Takoush has not seen Anno at all today. Neither has Lucine. Avo is taking Lucine to be with our mother now.”

  A deep and dirty oath regarding the woman who had borne Mgro ground out of Vartan’s throat. He lunged down the steps and the rest followed him closely, through the church square and down the hill to the edge of the village, to Mgro’s door.

  ANNO’S HEAD STRUCK the boulder and her cheek scraped along its curve until she fell face downward in the rising stream.

  Turgay, long accustomed to a role as mute spectator to the passage of the days of her own life, watched Anno’s head disappear and her clothes billow and swell. Steadied for the moment, she steeled herself, her soul, for another incomprehensible loss. Then, Anno’s head lifted, lifted and lowered. Turgay’s body became a wheel, thrust in motion. Reaching Anno’s side, she lifted her head out of the water and pulled her, at last, to the far side of the stream.

  Deluged, Anno and Turgay lay unmoving on the ever-softening bank, as the temperature on their mountain plunged.

  C H A P T E R 23

  Mgro’s door did not open at once. No one expected it would.

  Vartan rapped again and eventually Mgro’s voice, gruff and suspicious, could be heard through the door.

  “Who is there?”

  Vartan gave his name. The sounds of the large key forced through its turns came to them, and the door swung open. Mgro stepped back to make room for them to enter, his face puzzled and his dark eyes searching. These were not frequent visitors to his home, and certainly not at this time of night. And judging from Vartan’s face, the man was barely containing himself. Something was gravely wrong.

  When still no one spoke, Mgro waved his arm in the direction of the stairs, and they all ascended. Once in the front room, they began searching all its corners, ignoring the startled faces of Mgro’s family.

  Nevart stared from her corner beneath a candle, her silvery hair let down and loosely braided. She pulled her shawl tighter around her and leaned forward anxiously. Her granddaughter, Nairi, close to her side, dropped her doll and bit her lip as she watched the men. Manuel and Naomi stood close together and their faces mirrored the same look of bewilderment and concern. Daron scrambled out of an adjoining room with his shirt hanging loose and open-collared over his pants.

  All five men’s eyes settled on him, and finally, Mgro’s voice boomed. “For the love of God, what has happened?”

  In all the years since Mgro’s wife’s death, Vartan had not entered this home. He had never had reason to. Yeraz had, he was certain. Now, the utterly tranquil and ordinary scene they had intruded upon unsettled him.

  He did not remove his eyes from Daron. The young man was muscular around the shoulders as all the village men would be, but he had not developed their slouch yet. He appeared to be strong, and as Vartan remembered, alert. Much like Vrej, he looked ready to leap forth, but common sense held him back. Another young man, Manuel’s son, he assumed, appeared and stood close to Daron’s side.

  Daron’s black eyes locked with Vartan’s and did not drop to the floor. Finally, Vartan spoke. “We are searching for Anno.”

  Had the room not been so deadly silent, perhaps not all would have heard, so reluctant was Vartan to even speak the words. But as it were, all did hear. Nevart heaved herself to her feet and all took anxious steps closer.

  Mgro opened his large, empty hands and shrugged his shoulders. His forehead now heavily lined, he implored, “But why here?”

  Daron, his feet already thrust into leather boots, stepped closer, past his father even. “Why? Why do you not know where Anno is?”

  Vartan suddenly wished mightily that Anno had been found here. Even here, however upset she might be.

  Daron was fully aware of how many eyes were on him. Anno’s father, her brother, Mariam’s sons. He did not care. They would not be here looking for her if they had not exhausted all other hope. What they knew and what they thought bothered him no more. Anno was missing and he thought he could hurl himself at any one of them now, with furious release.

  Vartan, accepting that the time for discretion and half-truths was over and that holding back information could only diminish hopes of Anno’s recovery, explained fully and simply the reason for Anno’s anguish and then her departure.

  “When?” Daron nearly growled. “When did she leave?”

  “A good two hours ago,” Vartan said and turned to Haig. They started down the stairs, making plans for a larger search. Vartan turned hi
s back on a household scrambling for coats and lanterns and one pair of black eyes filled with censure and fear.

  News of Anno’s disappearance made its way to a dozen households. Sixty men and boys gathered in the church square with lanterns flickering and bodies wrapped against the cold and the rain. They were separated into four groups and sent in four different directions, told to return in one hour. If she had not been found by then, more people would be gathered. The details of her disappearance were not clear, and though they speculated furiously, they trod on, all expertly scanning and searching Salor and its surroundings.

  Daron joined none of these groups. He could be told what to do no longer. Instead, he concentrated on the workings of Anno’s mind and heart as he knew them. Having heard that her father would not allow their marriage, and the reason why not yet known or discussed, she had fled. She had not gone to Lucine or Takoush. Why had she not come to him? Her rejection of him renewed itself in his thoughts over and over until he stopped walking. His steps had been aimless as it were, just a restless, agonizing motion. While possibilities of her whereabouts rushed through his head, Kevork hovered close. He was suffocating with inactivity, horrified at the endless rolls of fog that at times even blocked his view of Daron, just paces away.

  “Anno moves with purpose,” Daron began. Kevork strained to hear. “If she has been gone these last two hours, she may have set out before the rain began.”

  Kevork burst forth, “Daron, the girl is not crazy, is she? She cannot be out in this rain! She must have sheltered somewhere.”

  Daron faced Kevork and continued to voice his thoughts out loud, slowly and calmly, as if they were not standing in a gray, frigid cocoon. “If she did not go to anyone, then she might have gone to the willow.”

  Kevork tilted his head, trying to accept this possibility. This very old, beloved tree was just behind the village homes, on a short plain upstream from where water was collected. It was known as “the sweethearts’ tree,” as betrothed couples met there, in open view of passersby, to converse and become acquainted with one another.