“We met with Zengin Pasha.”
Raffi nodded at the well-heard-of name.
“The entire meeting was quite short. And we had our own appointed spokesman. It was not I, Yeraz.”
Yeraz nodded in relief. The less notice taken of Vartan, the better, she felt.
“Zengin Pasha was well agitated. The Ottoman Empire is at war and he said that he wants all the men of Sassoun, aged twenty to forty-five, to join the armed forces.
“We stood in a row. We offered no argument. When we left, the Pasha looked pleased with himself.” Vartan chuckled ruefully. “I do not think he was impressed with the fierce, fighting mountain men he had been warned of. He fed us and sent us on our way.” His face sobered. “It is as you say.” Vartan looked at Raffi. “Something is different this time.”
In deep autumn Zengin Pasha sent his authorities to Sassoun to collect the volunteers their village leaders had promised. They arrived in Semal, passing herds of sheep but no shepherds. The roads were curiously empty of people, yet they felt as if they were being watched. They saw an occasional donkey and heard only the distant clucks of the chickens. They decided to pound on the doors, to shake off this eeriness and have their needs met at once. They were a delegation of three but decided not to separate. It was better to have one another’s support and nod of encouragement when dealing with Christians. Sometimes they provoked.
The doors did not open, but a boy appeared. He was disturbingly fair-skinned and the short, coarse hair on his head was the color of wheat. His large, brown eyes stared up at them anxiously. His toes would finally bore holes through the tips of his shoes within the week.
“Please,” he bowed and beckoned.
The delegation would rather have kicked him aside, but followed him instead to a house built into the sides of a hill, the first in a row of four. They passed through the open door to find the dwelling deserted save for two men, the village leader and the priest.
The Armenians said they were not prepared. If they would be forgiving, would be patient, they might move on to Geligouzan, and by their return, their volunteers would be ready.
The room was bare. There was nowhere to sit save the floor. There were no smells of bread or boiling, bursting grains and spices and onions. They saw only a lone jug of water and a cold toneer. They did not wish for water and, their annoyance in their task rising, left.
Outside, the boy had vanished. Two of the delegation stopped to urinate into the mud wall of a house before climbing onto their horses. Geligouzan was a larger district with almost fifteen hamlets. They would see that their needs were met there. They headed south, not knowing that word of their coming was traveling faster than they.
In Geligouzan, they dismounted almost immediately to ease their muscles. They had missed enjoying their long midday meal on their embroidered cushions, their pastries served with their coffee, their slow afternoon’s nod and slumber.
Here they at least saw movement on the roads. On the right, an old woman sat cross-legged against a wall of rocks stacked in varying shapes and sizes. Her head was tightly wrapped, revealing only a face slackened and deeply folded. Her hands, the same shade as a dried tobacco leaf, gripped the end of an earthenware churn and rocked it. Her eyes dully followed the Turks’ movement, but she did not care enough to turn her head to follow their progress down the road. If she was to expend energy, better to swat the flies that gathered at her eyelids.
The delegation headed for the church square. It was not long before they were directed to the entrance of another house. The room was a bit larger here. There were rugs on the floor, and they were seated. Two old men sat sentry at the door. The delegation was dryly welcomed by the village leader who resided there. A low wooden table held bread and yogurt, tomatoes and oghee. They stretched their legs and ate a few mouthfuls quickly, directing the old men to send word that the volunteers must meet at this location at once.
“What volunteers would that be?” asked one of the four Sassountzis seated before them. “You want young, able-bodied men for your army. We have had none for the past twenty years.”
The tassels atop their fezzes swung like pendulums with the swift swivel of three heads.
The Sassountzis shrugged back at the challenge in their eyes. “Twenty years ago the government demanded back taxes from us, many years’ worth. If we had the coin to pay for even one year we would have. We eat what we grow. Look around you. Do you see anything we have that you would even care to carry back? Our cattle and our sheep, which put the very food in our mouths, were stolen and slaughtered by the Kurds. The Kurds the government armed specifically for that reason. The great Sultan sent in his army, and together with the Kurds, they killed our boys and young men, the ones you have come for now.”
The village leader spoke without emotion, his voice even and conversational. The Turks half expected the conversation to turn in their favor at any moment.
“Ten years after that, you returned and did more killing. Your soldiers lived at our expense. You filled your prison with innocent villagers and then, because that was not enough to assuage your fear of us, you killed again the men and boys you have come here today searching for.”
The delegation returned to Moush and the few men of Geligouzan descended from their hiding places.
When the same thing occurred in two more villages, the delegation was fired.
The Sassoun village leaders and elders conferred and decided that their men would be hidden each time they were asked for volunteers. At the same time, they would begin training for their own self-defense.
Before the ground froze, the “ovens” of Talvorig village were filled. They worked furiously. The iron ore in their mountains was close to the surface. Very close. They dug large wells and filled them with oak and hazel wood. They refilled the wells with the same iron-rich soil they had dug out. The wood burned, and in the extreme temperatures the melted iron flowed within the well. Once the well cooled, the iron was collected and moved to the forges.
Sassoun’s isolation was such that they knew they could not expect help from others and were cut off from most communication. The Kurds who lived around them in effect surrounded them and were already well armed with guns and ammunition. The Sassountzis would have to make their own.
C H A P T E R 38
Winter came and they had news that those Armenians who had joined the Ottoman army were being removed from the ranks. They were disarmed and forced into labor battalions. Underfed and scantily clothed, they built roads and dug trenches. The trenches were often their own graves.
Again there was a gathering in Vartan’s home.
Aram, too, had returned to Salor and now sat across from Avo. Aram’s fists lay clenched on his thighs and he did his best not to look at Lucine’s husband. Blessedly, the younger man seemed not to notice. Aram concentrated on the reason for their meeting.
“Gendarmes and soldiers gather peasants from their fields and march them away instantly,” he said. “Their wives run after them with quickly wrapped loaves of bread and clothes.”
Eyes did not move from his face.
“Many times, these men are simply shot dead as soon as the first hill is rounded.”
“You have seen this?” Mgro demanded.
“Yes. You will not read of this in the newspapers from Moush,” he continued. “They have lists now of the number of people in each village and their gender. Burning houses simply means that the gendarmes did not find all the men on their list. They do not wait.”
It was as they had heard.
“No Armenian is allowed to own so much as a razor. If I were found with one, all of Salor would be burned to the ground.”
The men looked at each other as the same thought passed through their minds. When would the Turks turn their attention to the remote highlands of Sassoun, where their scanty collection of ammunition was being painstakingly manufactured and hidden?
Their mountaintops were blanketed with several feet of snow. The wind blew thr
ough the passes and the trees, and the roads in and out of Sassoun became impassable. Raffi and Aram did not leave Salor.
Eagles and hawks soared above and the people sheltered in what appeared to be an idyllic winter retreat, cocooned in their homes, perched on their mountains. In truth, they passed their days meeting and discussing and preparing, though they did not know for what.
The New Year came and 1915 began. On Christmas Day a great pot of hereesa bubbled over a slow fire in Yeraz’s kitchen. The contents were simple. Wheat, lamb, water, and salt boiled from sunrise to mid-afternoon. Long wooden spoons were kept close to beat the mixture with strong hands, several times each hour, until all the ingredients melded into one another. The fibers of the wheat softened and finally melted and the meat became tender threads of flavor. Drizzled on top was golden butter, the color of a sun they had not seen for months.
In her last month of pregnancy, Anno was given the seat of honor on the divan. Daron sat with his bowl of hereesa on the floor next to her brothers, the table before them holding only the customary lavash and oghee.
Vartan, Mgro, and the other men were smoking in an adjoining room and the women intermingled and went where they were needed.
Lucine and Avo’s Daniel was the center of attention. At nine months he was a fat, happy baby with sparse wisps of brown curls upturned all over his round head. Anno watched Lucine’s thin arms carrying and shifting him all day. She longed to play with him now but was not permitted to lift him. The older women feared his weight would be too much for her.
Anno’s pregnancy had passed quickly. Except for her early yearnings for food and sleep, her body was not especially weighted. She would have enjoyed a long walk and a chance to take deep gulps of air away from their cramped rooms filled with restless minds and wringing hands, but the weather had transformed the lanes into icy courses of treachery. Through the walls, the wind’s squall still came to them and the snow flew in every direction. No one would ever allow her to walk three feet from the door without being lifted bodily off the ground with cries of warnings and caution. Nothing less than the arrival of Christmas would have softened Nevart enough to allow her to come even this far.
The small of her back was aching again. She had not removed her eyes from Daron and her brothers. Their bowls of hereesa were nearly untouched. The lavash had dried and curled at its corners. Cups of oghee were held but never lifted to their lips. They spoke of flintlock pistols left and forgotten since the 1904 massacre in Sassoun. Even those single-shot weapons were being unearthed and restored.
She needed to move a bit. Her back felt twisted. “Mama, do you need anything from the stable?” she asked. In the cool ground there, containers of preserves, cheese, potatoes, and vegetables were stored.
“No, my daughter.”
“I shall go, then, and stroke sweet Meghr’s nose a bit.” And let the chickens peck at my skirts, she thought. How many were there now? What had the Kurds left them with this last autumn?
Yeraz wrapped Anno in a scratchy shawl, the weight of which caused her to spread her legs for balance. Daron watched Anno allow Yeraz to wrap her as high as her neck and then pass them to disappear into the grain room that led to the stable. The only heat there would be what came from the bodies of the animals.
The cows, all four, greeted her with their rumps first. They were gathered at one end of the stable, much like gossipy women. Their heads turned at her entrance and bobbed in greeting. The hens and their chicks were roosting everywhere, high and low, and Meghr, standing in the middle of the stable floor, unused to days of inaction, days of only eating and waiting, pricked his ears and turned to face her in hopeful readiness.
Anno laughed aloud at him. He did not need to speak. She understood that he missed his mountain trails, his leaps and swims, and his nights outdoors. Standing in a stable with these placid beasts was hurtful to his dignity.
Anno hugged his neck and stroked his nose, all the while apologizing for their mistreatment of him. The light in his eyes told her he understood and he dropped his head to accommodate her height. They stayed that way a while, and then Anno thought to collect some eggs. She was not cold and did not wish to return to the smoke-filled room to sit again.
She found two eggs right away and was snatching her hand away from the hen’s beak when her fist closed in agony. The warm yolks oozed between her fingers and down her wrist as she threw her head back in shock. Her arms reached out and grasped at nothing.
The tearing pain in Anno’s groin dropped her to her knees and her mouth opened as if to call out, but only trapped air escaped. Clutching her belly with her left arm and balancing on her right, she looked back toward the grain room. It was so far, she thought. When had she gone so far?
Her chest heaved repeatedly as she sucked wide-mouthed at the frosty air. Her mind worked through the shock of the pain, but her limbs would not cooperate.
The next contraction turned Anno’s arms to rubber and she rolled to her side and ground her head into the straw and dirt beneath her. The urge to push the baby out was all she knew and she growled as she ripped and tugged at her clothing.
The wind’s squalls had turned to screeches that rattled the heavy walnut door, and Daron began to regret their having made even this short walk out today. How could he ensure that Anno did not slip on their way back down the road? He would walk just ahead of her and clear her path, or perhaps, he considered, she should stay the remaining nights in her father’s house, after all, until the baby’s delivery. No, he knew she would never agree to their being parted. They would not stay much longer then, he decided.
Anno screamed now with the tearing. She knew she screamed and that someone should certainly hear. Meghr stood close, his nostrils quivering at the smell of blood.
“Now Anno has stayed too long in that stable,” Yeraz commented disapprovingly. “She will catch cold.”
“Lucine, call your sister,” Avo instructed. “Then we must leave. It seems this wind and snow is not thinking of resting.”
Lucine stood in the relative warmth of the narrow grain room. Her calls to her sister went unanswered, and, annoyed that she would have to enter the still colder space of the stable, she opened her mouth to speak sharply. But Meghr’s anxious snorts stopped her. His nudging at something lying on the ground brought her to a full understanding, and Lucine’s screams penetrated the walls of the house to mix and swirl with the howls beyond.
Only seconds later, Anno knew she stared into her mother’s face. She was aware of her shoes, her pantaloons being pulled off. She heard Daron’s voice, so close, and the thump of Meghr’s hooves as he nervously beat the hay-covered ground she lay on. Strength came over her and she responded with instinct.
Yeraz and Lucine grappled with her straining body.
“Anno, my daughter, you must turn. Turn before you try to push.”
Yeraz abandoned any thought of carrying her into the warmth of the house. It was too late for that. But she at least was determined to position Anno on her hands and knees, so that the delivery would be easier. As it was now, Anno fought her mother as fiercely as she fought the pain searing through her.
Daron was pulled away from Anno’s side by her brothers. They averted their eyes, sick with guilt that they had not come searching for her earlier.
Anno’s contraction eased and Yeraz and Lucine quickly turned her onto her knees.
“Now, Anno, calm yourself. This cannot be rushed.” Yeraz pulled the thick, damp curtain of hair away from her face. “All is as it should be. Only push again when you feel ready.”
“Where is Daron?” Anno panted.
“With our brothers,” Lucine answered.
“He must not worry…” Anno bore down until exhaustion again overcame her and she dropped to her elbows, forehead grazing the ground. “Daron must not worry. Tell him that I will be all right.” Her voice was just above a whisper.
Yeraz and Lucine exchanged glances, but neither moved, believing it was Anno who needed their atte
ntion, not Daron.
Anno felt their doubt, their stillness. “Tell him,” she growled as the pain returned. “I am not like his mother.”
Yeraz gasped as her insensitivity toward her pesa dawned on her. She had completely removed the reason for Daron’s mother’s death from her mind.
Guilty as well, Lucine had already scrambled to her feet.
“Hurry, my daughter. Tell him all is well. It should not be long now.” Yeraz bent over Anno again as she strained and pushed with new determination.
Clean white sheets had been brought from the house and Yeraz spread and readied them. Now Daron and Lucine both knelt close to Anno. Daron spoke in a low voice to Anno and smoothed her hair time and again.
It was not long before a baby girl emerged. Their daughter, tiny and pale, with traces of feathery black brows framed over tightly screwed eyes, squealed in protest in Yeraz’s hands.
Lucine held the baby while Yeraz worked quickly with the cord and afterbirth. She was not overly concerned with the place the babe had chosen to be born. Raffi’s square of ground had not been much different. But the cold was a dangerous factor. She stole glances at Daron. He would not move away.
“Hold the baby, Pesa. Cover her and take her inside near the fire.”
Daron reached for the baby as he was told, only to hand her to Vrej, who stood expectantly at the opening of the grain room. He then returned to stand close to Anno.
Yeraz and Lucine glanced at him with discomfort. They realized that he stood ready to deal with the cord himself.
Soon, Anno was covered. Her teeth had begun to chatter, whether from shock from the quick delivery or from the cold they did not know, but a small army of men hovered nearby to carry her in when ready. Yeraz called out now. Daron gathered her into his arms.
Uncle Hagop himself had prepared Anno’s mattress. He had even pulled her own bedding out from the bottom of the pile. But how different everything was from the last time she had lain on her mattress in the front room. How grateful they all were to divert their thoughts from the Turks and the war. Instead, they grasped the tiny fingers and exclaimed, too loudly, when her dark gray eyes grudgingly opened. They laughed at her perpetual scowl and exclaimed at how she ever so slightly resembled her uncle, Raffi.
As the Poppies Bloomed Page 18