Vartan looked at Raffi, his own son, who had risked his life to protect the deeds of the very man Vartan had scoffed at and dismissed as immoral. He pulled his eyes away from him and turned to Mgro. He knew, he felt every word he had heard from him to be the truth.
With difficulty, Vartan cleared his throat. “We had not understood each other in the least, my brother.”
Mgro shrugged. “You believed the story you were meant to believe, for my protection. I should have considered that, knowing how our people like to talk, that just because my travels had ceased, the memories and the stories regarding them might have, let us say, flourished.”
“I believe I shall make a call again to your hearth tonight, shall I, Vartan?” Mariam intervened quickly. “There was a matter we were discussing, an important matter, and we were disturbed, weeks ago, by births, by deaths, and by sickness.” Her throat swelled at this last and she wiped at her nose.
“Yes,” Vartan agreed readily. “Let us put that right, Sister Mariam. We shall wait for you.”
That evening, Raffi tried not to use the butt of his rifle for balance as he walked in the snow. Their rifles were different from the ones the Turks used and it would cause his trail to be followed.
He moved further and further away from his father’s house, but a huge sense of relief went with him. He would keep Anno’s shining face in his memory a long time. She had leaned her forehead against his arm and cried tears of relief and joy. They had wracked her body in such a frightful way. She had not asked what the reasons were for her father’s change in decision. She did not care. They had always been important only to him.
She had promised him, promised sincerely that she would begin to eat and drink again. Or, he had told her, she must not be surprised if Daron looked at her and fled. She promised, knowing that truth about her appearance lay in his jokes.
Mariam would be busy again this night. She would take word of the Vartanian clan’s consent to Nevart.
He had made two hurried visits after that morning’s meeting with Mgro. He had gone to see Lucine. He had wanted to, of course, but he also went because Aram would ask of her when next they met.
Then he had gone in search of Daron, wondering at how so many people so close to him had suffered these last weeks based on a falsehood. He did not dwell on what would have happened to them all if he had not come.
Daron was in the stable planing wood. He shaved a two-foot length of walnut, but it was in the rough, early stages and Raffi could not make out what it might become. Daron had not seen Mgro yet, and Raffi’s entrance into the dim stable startled him. He stood quickly and tool and wood fell to the ground. “Anno?”
Raffi thought how tired he was of seeing spare faces and anxious eyes looking back at him. Daron was Vrej’s height and age, and just an inch or two shorter than Raffi, but he seemed older than them both. Raffi sighed with regret.
He clasped Daron’s shoulders at once and spoke sincerely. “I have come to thank you for saving my sister’s life. It is a debt my family and I will carry always.” He hugged the surprised boy to him warmly. “You will forgive my family’s mistakes. They were not at fault. They will, after all, soon be your family too, and why start a life with your beloved and keep blame for them in your heart?”
Raffi had not thought it possible for Daron to pale even more.
“All will be sorted out by tomorrow,” he had promised. “Let us have a spring wedding.”
Now Raffi listened to the crunch of his footsteps as they took him further and further away from Salor.
C H A P T E R 30
"My girl, your face and that wall you see there are the same color!” Aunt Marie, relieved and liberated as they all were with Anno’s promise to Daron in marriage and the festivities to come, had loosened her tongue once again.
“My daughter,” Yeraz pulled her aside in her own diplomatic fashion. “You will eat small portions, all day. It will be gentler on your stomach and easier for you, in general. You will be yourself again quite soon.”
Anno cooperated fully with all their instructions and demands. She wanted, more than anything, to see Daron and not have him disappointed in her appearance. But she also longed to be able to go outdoors again. There were short, unexpected periods of sunshine, and she ached to turn her face toward it.
The New Year’s approach coincided with Nevart’s first formal visit to her future khnami. The older woman contemplated the snow-covered, icy road. A coarse wool scarf covered her more decorative head covering underneath. Naomi walked two paces behind and pushed her mother-in-law forward when necessary. Both were unrecognizably bundled against the bitter wind and snow, but not even a blizzard could have deterred them that afternoon. They carried one large tray of wrapped almonds and candy and picked their way past the icy portions of the lane.
It was that visit which demanded the Vartanians’ return visit today. It was early January and the eve of Christmas. Anno would at last see Daron again. It had been just over two months since she and Turgay had tried to pass over the stream. She was more herself again in appearance. She smoothed her hair. The mirror had reappeared somehow and she used it often. She wore Lucine’s old coat, but underneath was a new, dark-green dress that she and Yeraz had sewn together. The sleeves and skirt were the perfect length and her wrists and socks were no longer mockingly exposed.
Their entrance into Mgro’s vegetable garden bore no similarities to the last time Anno had been there. She wondered if she dreamed the sight of Daron’s father now leading Vartan past the snow-patched garden. She looked at the muddy rows to her left where once the purple eggplants had grown fat in the summer sun, and then she stole a sidelong look at Yeraz. Her mother winked back at her. She, too, would not forget that pivotal day.
Once inside, Anno was dizzied by the number of hands she kissed. She paused when she came upon Mgro’s father. She had never been this close to the old man. The fingers of one rugged hand spread wide and he patted her head reassuringly. It was good that she was not required to speak, because she glimpsed flickers of Daron on his worn face and this peek into the future brought tears to the surface again. She kissed his free hand and squeezed his fingertips with spontaneous affection, breaking the rules of custom, but lifting his heart.
At the end of the circle of family members, she knew Daron was near. Patience thinning, she hurried, reaching for Old Mariam’s hand without looking to see to whom it belonged. The old woman’s belly laugh caused her to look up, and good friends once more, Anno laughed as well. She broke the second rule of custom and threw herself into the old woman’s arms.
At last, she stood before Daron, and they were mirror images of one another. Their hands hung limply at their sides and their weary, drawn faces gazed back at each other. They had trudged and stumbled but made the long journey home. Daron’s face haltingly lifted into a smile as Anno drew near, and there she saw a new maturity and depth of ardor. Flecks of gold lit Anno’s eyes at the sight of him.
C H A P T E R 31
The long winter had finally ended and the sowing had begun. The rivers and streams were dangerously flooded now from the rains and the melting snow. Anno had walked to the stream’s edge with Vrej once she was able. They did not speak at all when they reached the crossing where she and Turgay had been found. The currents crackled and bounded mischievously over the banks. It seemed they would wash away the memory of that night long, long ago. Anno wished they could.
Anno was almost completely recovered and was well encouraged to spend time outdoors to restore the color to her skin. Yeraz watched her stroll away instead of helping with the midday meal and its delivery to the fields and did not say a word to stop her.
She and Daron were to be married after Easter, well before the harvest, when it would be possible to spare time for a wedding. Aunt Marie and Yeraz had already put their heads together and scrutinized Anno’s figure to plan a becoming wedding gown.
She decided to walk to the end of the village and then to the orchards
. The fruit trees bloomed now like endless rows of enormous bouquets. She walked between the plum, cherry, and apricot trees with their shades of white, pink, and purple blossoms and tipped her head back as a breeze shed their lacy petals on her hair.
By the time she reached the cornfields, she had tired, and she seated herself on a tree stump to rest. She watched the oxen pull the steel-tipped plowshares and turn the hearty red soil. Anno searched each figure. She was not at all certain if Daron would be here. He could be in any of the fields, but her legs had carried her as far as this one.
Someone in the distance straightened and broke away from the others. Her face broke into a proud smile as he walked toward her, unhurried and almost thoughtful. His shirtsleeves were pushed to his elbows and his head was again bare.
Anno knew she should not be here. There were designated times and places for betrothed couples to meet, but it was she who would receive a scolding later that day and she was past caring.
“Anno! What are you doing there?” Daron called out to her laughingly.
She watched him, straight and spare. His eyebrows were not great and coarse like so many of the village men’s and his black eyes were not overshadowed by them. His nose, she had teased enviously, was as if it had been drawn and shaped with the use of a straight edge. His mouth, she now knew, was silken.
Anno shrugged and spread her hands. “My mother still feels I am not truly well enough to work, so I am free to roam on a morning like this.”
“I am glad.” Daron smiled still. “I am glad that this is where you wanted to roam to.”
“Well, if I had not found you here, I was going to begin climbing the hills next, one by one.”
“I believe that,” he answered.
They watched each other’s faces intently. Private moments together were still so rare.
“Anno, I shall never let anyone else decide what is right or wrong for us again. No one.”
Anno was taken aback at his sudden seriousness.
“I nearly failed you.”
“No! You did not…” Anno began, but his raised palm silenced her.
“No one,” he finished.
C H A P T E R 32
Lucine snatched the needle and cloth from Anno in annoyance.
“Oh, Anno! What do you think of walking to the church on your wedding day with a crooked dress? At least pity Daron. Do you wish to embarrass him?”
Lucine’s belly was in her way regardless of what task she tried to perform. Things simply slid to one side or the other. There was less than a month left until her delivery, and she had come to spend that time in her father’s home as well as to help prepare for Anno and Daron’s wedding within the week.
Anno knew it was Lucine’s discomfort causing her to speak so sharply, and she did not care. She did not care what anyone said or did or whether her dress collar sat straight against her neck or not. She was to be wed in five days.
EASTER HAD COME and she and Daron had sat in Vartan’s courtyard beneath the silky grape leaves and tendrils newly unraveling along the length and curves of the vine. She had held a good-sized, braided chorek topped with a red-dyed egg in her hands and gazed at it, unable to take a bite out of its crisp, toasty end.
“It seems I cannot enjoy this, Daron. I feel as if Turgay Dade should come hobbling up to claim it.”
“Anno, that old woman died that night because her mind was not right and her old body did not handle her wanderings. You know that, do you not?”
Daron worried about the guilt she still carried and wished to be done with it.
“If I could just lay this on her grave, I would be, at last, content,” she tried.
“You cannot,” Daron answered simply and sharply. They could not place a Christian offering on a Muslim grave. It was unthinkable. His eyebrows had arched with aggravation and his eyes had narrowed. It was an aspect of him she had never seen and she knew her words had been the reason for it.
Anno turned her favorite part of the chorek to Daron instead and he took the first generous bite. His dark eyes locked with her honey-colored ones and thoughts of Turgay faded.
C H A P T E R 33
On the morning of her wedding day, Anno lay awake long before the sun rose. She listened to the deep breaths and snores of her family. Their bodies were heavy with the marrow-deep fatigue of the urgent work and care of spring coupled with the preparations of the wedding and its feast. And the sad knowledge that yet another family member would leave them.
Anno had grown a bit ashamed at how eager she had been for this day to come. She still steeled herself at the start of a conversation in fear that the topic might be Daron, might be a new bit of information heard, and Vartan’s consent might be a grave misunderstanding after all.
She blinked into the darkness and knew she did not imagine that the first rays of the day had fingered their way through the windows so that, at last, its arrival could not be denied.
Yeraz had lain watching her youngest child wring her hands as they rested on top of her blankets. She had been staring at the window for quite some time now and Yeraz knew what she waited for. She prayed her daughter’s married life would bring her the joy she so fiercely anticipated. To witness Anno’s happiness was all she wanted. It would help diminish the slicing pain she would feel when she stowed her pile of bedding on the bottom along with Lucine’s.
Later that morning, Uncle Hagop sounded a good sigh of content as he shuffled to the front door for the second time since he had risen. He had already given the most favorable prediction there could be, and that was that their mountain shone down on them with clear distinction and that their girl’s wedding day would proceed as it should, without a single hindrance. He studied Maratuk once more now and nodded with as much pleasure as if the mountain and he had planned the details of its splendid display. He was about to close the door again and turn back inside to oversee the bustle he so enjoyed, when Haig’s wife called to him to hold the door. She had expertly maneuvered her wide hips through the courtyard entrance carrying a tray that matched her width. She was pulled into the circle of women who had finished dressing the bride.
There was an Armenian village a good distance south of Van, near the border of Syria, which was completely immersed in the making of silk, from the cultivation of the worms to the production of yards and yards of silk fabric sold and coveted in the nearby districts. The tailors of Van also valued this silk, and after much inquiry and trading, Mgro was able to obtain two square yards of it in alternating shades of red. Nevart had presented this fabric to Yeraz on Easter Day. It was sewn into a sash and twisted and tied snugly at Anno’s waist over her wedding dress. Anno dug her fingers into it now, unconsciously, as she watched the commotion before her, so uncharacteristic of her father’s house.
Anno’s dress was not as ornate as Lucine’s had been, nor had Anno participated in the cutting of it. The work had fallen largely on Aunt Marie and Yeraz and, at the last, Lucine. Anno had only fingered the material in passing. Its sole ornament was the sash at her waist and the coins on her cap and strung across her chest.
Their front room was filled with people, so many that Anno could no longer see the walls. No one cared to sit either. They clasped Anno and Yeraz and each other, and her father, even, seemed to have smiled more than a few times today already.
Eventually, she was aware that the room hushed. The door was locked and there was silence. Anno felt dizzy. Let this end, she prayed. Let her see Daron’s face. Her eyes roamed the room until she found Old Mariam. She was seated comfortably on the divan, close to where Vartan and the other men stood. Her eyes had been on Anno for some time now.
Teasing and laughter carried through the closed door. Manuel’s voice could be heard and the door was pulled open. Coins clinked into Vrej’s hand. A fine lace scarf, long and voluminous, was presented to Yeraz. And at last, Anno saw Daron. He wore a simple tunic and shalvar of a matching deep blue. A fringed scarf wrapped across his forehead, and at his waist was a dagger, she
athed and housed in a red sash. Anno went to his side before it was time, causing bursts of laughter at her eagerness. Uncaring, Daron pulled her with him to kiss Yeraz’s hands.
Later, of her wedding, Anno was only to remember standing at the altar forehead to forehead with Daron. She wore his mother’s wedding ring and squeezed her fingers tightly to feel its presence. Cords were tied around their foreheads and Anno breathed in the familiar dampness of the ancient walls.
In the church square, the skewers of lamb sizzled and drippings fell into the fire until the meat was wrapped in lavash and distributed to the guests. There was oghee and dancing and the meat was pulled again and again and served with potatoes and mushrooms and greens. There was cheese and pastries and the men clenched fists with one another and, shoulder to shoulder, danced in circles around the bride and groom until the ground beneath them shook.
Their bed was in a small room just above the stable, made ready for Daron and Anno. It had one small window and it lent a clear, although narrow, view of the orchards beyond. Anno was enchanted by it, having spent her life in a space that offered no free view of the outdoors.
Grape hyacinths, tulips, and iris could be seen blooming from the window. Their colors dotted the flatlands between and around the spaces least trodden. But most of all, Anno was glad to see the poppies. Blood-red with their black faces pointed in every direction, they seemed to watch over the land. As a child, she had plucked them from the ground only to watch them wilt and fold over before she could walk the road home with her short legs. She had learned soon enough that they would stand sentinel for long days in the early spring, but would not survive if ever separated from their roots. She had learned to only finger their silky petals, only peek into them as the bees bore themselves into their powdery pistils, and only watch over them as they watched over her.
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