by Jenny White
Two men stepped forward, one disheveled with a round head and wearing a stained jacket, the other tall and distinguished, looking a bit like a mad scholar. Kamil caught himself, aware that his mind had been drifting. The immediate danger may have passed, but he was responsible for what followed.
“This is my wife, Vera,” Gabriel was saying, “our surgeon, Victor Byman, Apollo Grigorian, our other comrades.” He pointed to each in turn, finally sweeping his arm at the thirty or so people behind him. Then he seemed to tire and let Vera lead him back inside.
“Come in,” she called out to Kamil in English, which seemed to be the language of the commune. He took a long look at Vera Arti, the woman he had sought in Istanbul and a torn corner of whose passport now rested on Nizam Pasha’s desk. She had amber eyes in a childlike face, and her hair fell in a shower of auburn curls around her shoulders. He imagined her in the room in Akrep’s basement and shuddered. He marveled at this young woman’s courage and fortitude in escaping such a place. She might be a witness to the fate of the Armenian girl, Sosi, but that conversation would have to wait.
As he led his men into the courtyard, he noticed that the monastery walls had been patched with clay and bricks, and some of the windows plugged with bales of straw. The yard was neatly swept, and there was a well and a big stack of firewood. The inside of the monastery, though, was in a shocking state. It had almost no furnishings, no cushions or carpets, just straw pallets scattered around the room, as if a flock of storks had nested there. A group of women and children sat clustered in a far corner of the hall. A fire roared in the hearth, lending the hall some warmth. Yorg Pasha was right—the commune was in no shape to start a revolution.
Apollo led him to a stool by the fire. “The soldiers can bed down in the storage rooms off the main hall,” he offered, but admitted that they didn’t have enough to feed them.
Overhearing him, Omar picked up his weapon and left with several soldiers.
Gabriel sat near the fire, wrapped in his fur, coughing. His teeth chattered.
“What’s wrong with him?” Kamil asked Victor, the surgeon, who had joined them.
“I think it’s pneumonia. A week ago, some refugees from a village came to us.” He indicated the group of women sitting together. “One of their children was ill and died. Gabriel held him and must have become infected.”
“Refugees from what?”
Victor told him what had happened. “We thought your men were the soldiers that had attacked the village.”
Kamil was appalled. “I had no idea the soldiers would attack women and children.” Of course you did, Kamil scolded himself. You’re not naïve. Huseyin, his colleagues, and presumably the sultan himself believed that what they called punitive expeditions acted as a deterrent to rebellion. Actually meeting the victims was a different matter.
“The women say they were Kurds. We thought they’d come here next, but it’s been a week now and we haven’t heard of any further attacks, although people have seen strangers in the area watching the roads. It’s almost as if they’re waiting for something.”
A couple of hours later, Omar and the soldiers returned, each with a dressed deer slung over his shoulder. The women made stew in cauldrons over fires in the yard. A young woman with yellow hair oversaw the serving of the food and, after the meal, sang ballads that entranced the soldiers and all the others in the great hall, their faces shining in the firelight. Some of the village women began to cry. Kamil watched Gabriel, who lay with his head in Vera’s lap, eyes closed, his breathing labored. This was the famous terrorist and bank robber, he thought with sardonic bemusement. Captured at last.
His eyes sought out Elif across the room. She seemed spellbound by the music. A smile played around her lips. If this was happiness, it was all the more precious for being fractured and fleeting.
Kamil could see flashes of the dream community that had entranced Yorg Pasha. Apollo had explained their plan to him, the need for more land, animals, and equipment so that the commune could become self-sustaining, the need for guns to defend themselves against a Russian attack. Gabriel admitted that when their weapons were confiscated, they needed to quickly acquire the money to replace them. But the explosion and the deaths at the bank had been the work of traitors, he insisted, nothing to do with the commune. Apollo had been the most eloquent defender of their vision. They wished only to prove, he said, that it was possible to create a society in which all members were equal.
It was a worthy experiment, Kamil thought, but carried out by unscrupulous means. He spoke to them about leaving. Gabriel seemed unwilling to consider it, but Kamil had the sense that the others knew the commune had no future now. It was urgent that the commune disband immediately. If he drew the stinger, perhaps the sultan’s venom would dissipate. Tomorrow he would make arrangements to escort the commune members back to Trabzon, where ships would take them out of Ottoman territory. The village women could accompany them, if they wished, to the safety of Trabzon.
80
FERIDE HANDED HUSEYIN the day’s newspaper. He had moved to a sitting position as the scabs that covered his body had begun to give way to scars. His face was marred on one side by a plane of puckered skin that extended from ear to nose. His eyebrows had not grown back. Feride thought he looked like a newborn and her heart ached for him. They spoke little, except what was necessary.
His lungs had healed enough that he could whisper, “Thank you.”
Feride nodded in acknowledgment and leaned over to kiss his good cheek, then turned away before he could say more.
It was an open secret now among the household staff that Huseyin Pasha was back and recuperating from a horrible accident, so they had moved him into a room with a view of the garden. The repairs on the house were finished, and the guards, now dressed in Huseyin’s livery, stood at attention beside windows and doors.
Doctor Moreno came once a week to look in on Huseyin. Afterward he sat with Feride in deep discussion over an accounts book. Feride’s attention was absorbed by a new project she had conceived together with Doctor Moreno and Amadio Levy. She would provide the money to set up a foundation for the Eyüp hospital, including a children’s wing. Feride’s donation would seed the project and attract other donors.
Bored, Huseyin had begun to wander about the house, leaning on a cane and frightening the servants who hadn’t yet seen his ruined face. Two guards always accompanied him on his rambles, increasing his irritation.
“I’m not an infant,” he croaked to Doctor Moreno on his next visit. The doctor reminded him of the attempt on his life and Feride’s. Huseyin quieted and nodded assent. Feride saw him look around for her, but she was standing near the door, where he couldn’t see her. Because of the scar tissue, he could no longer flex his neck.
She felt a deep pity for her husband. She wanted more than anything to soothe the pain from his face, from his soul. She would even be willing to take some of the pain onto herself to spare him the fear she could see in his eyes when he tried to speak and could only whisper. But she found herself shackled by resentment and anger, for which she berated herself endlessly. In penance, she brought him tea, adjusted his cushions, and chatted idly about the daily adventures of their daughters, who, after their initial shock at seeing him disfigured, had immediately forgotten and treated him as they always had, a benign presence to be propitiated and taken advantage of.
81
THE FOLLOWING DAY, Feride sent a message to the vintner, asking him to come by that afternoon at a time when Huseyin usually napped. While she waited for the vintner’s arrival in Huseyin’s receiving room, she ran her fingers curiously along the spines of books on the shelves and peered into the morocco leather folders of documents that covered his desk and the two side tables. She understood nothing about her husband, she realized, not what he did nor where his appetites lay, besides good wine and the occasional jest with his family. Was that her fault?
A servant announced the vintner’s arrival. Dressed in black, t
he man was short and plump, much like a barrel of his own wines, with red-rimmed eyes that looked as though he had been weeping. His short-cropped hair was blond mixed with white and circled his head like a halo. He stopped awkwardly just inside the door and looked down at his stockinged feet, clearly confused at being received not by the pasha but by his wife.
“My husband is traveling,” Feride explained. A thin silk veil swept across the bottom of her face but did little to hide the grim set of her mouth. “I’d like to ask you about something.”
The vintner looked surprised. “Madame, I sent this month’s supply of our best wines. If there was something wrong with it, I humbly beg your forgiveness. I will immediately replace it.”
“That’s not it.” Feride faltered. “The quality is fine.” She didn’t know how to proceed. It wouldn’t do to ask the man outright if her husband was having an affair. “I have heard of Rhea,” she said noncommittally, allowing the statement to refer to a woman or a type of grape.
“Vah,” the vintner exclaimed, falling to his knees. “You are so kind to remember my daughter.” He buried his face in his hands. “It’s been a terrible shock to our family. Our beautiful daughter.” He looked up at Feride, his anguished face streaming with tears. “So beautiful. A kind and dutiful girl. She was going to be married.”
“Married?”
“Huseyin Pasha arranged it. He has known her since she was a child when he used to visit the vineyards. He always had a space for her in his heart.” He stood and wiped his face with the back of his hand. “You are both very kind,” he mumbled.
Feride was stunned. It was worse than she had feared. Huseyin had planned to take a second wife. He must have been meeting Rhea the night he disappeared. They would have been in the restaurant together. Had she died in the fire? Seeing the grieving father, Feride didn’t feel triumphant. She grieved with him for everything she had lost, her husband, her marriage. This would be true whether Huseyin was alive or dead.
“I should tell the pasha myself about the tragedy that has befallen us,” the vintner said softly, “When will he return?”
“Not for some time. I’ll let him know. What is it you wish me to tell him?”
“That if Rhea were alive, she would thank him a thousand times for his kindness and efforts on her behalf. That I and my family are eternally in your debt.”
“What efforts?”
The vintner’s eyes appraised the servants arrayed around the room. “May I approach, chere hanoum?”
Feride wondered if he thought she would be shamed by speaking of this second marriage. She signaled her maids to withdraw to a distance, leaving them both alone at one end of the room.
The vintner knelt before her, his eyes on the carpet. “Our daughter was engaged to a friend’s son, a clever lad who would have taken over our business. More important, my daughter wanted him as her husband. But marriage was impossible as long as Rhea received unwanted attentions from a powerful man who also wished to marry her. I wouldn’t have allowed it. He appears cruel, and I feared he would use her badly. He had begun to demand her presence in compromising circumstances, and I was afraid for her, so I approached Huseyin Pasha for advice. I didn’t know where else to turn. Huseyin Pasha kindly offered to intercede so that our daughter could get married.”
At this, Feride’s breath caught, and she felt the heat rise to her face. She had been such a fool, she thought, with no concern for anything but her own pride.
“I’m sorry,” she said. It came out in a hoarse whisper.
“She was to have met the pasha at my cousin’s taverna that night to plan what to do. It was where she died, along with my cousin and his wife.” He was unable to go on. His mouth hung slightly open and his eyes stared blindly at the wall behind Feride as if at a great distance he could see his daughter there. His eyes widened. “Is the pasha also…? I thought he had been delayed.”
“He was badly injured but is recovering.”
“Praise be to God, who rewards the just and leads the innocent to paradise.”
Feride rose and softly uttered words of condolence. “May you be well. Our family is united with yours in sorrow. I’ll let the pasha know of your visit.”
82
THE NIGHT KAMIL ARRIVED, another group of women and children poured in through the monastery gate. These had come farther than the first group, through the forest, without coats and shoes. They were cut and bruised, freezing and in shock. Their men had been killed or escaped into the hills.
Everyone in the commune was mobilized to cook and pass out water, to tend to the wounded and comfort those who could be comforted. Some of the children sat listlessly, thumbs in their mouths or twisting their hair, while others swarmed together and squealed and bickered, as if nothing out of the ordinary had happened.
The refugees came all through the following morning. By noon there were at least a hundred people taking shelter at New Concord commune. The stench of excrement, mixed with blood and fear, spread a pall over the grounds.
Kamil climbed halfway up the stairs that led to the top of the wall that circled the property. He looked over the crowded yard, worried about what to do with all these people. The new refugees were a complication in his effort to disband the commune. They couldn’t just abandon them, and he doubted they’d be able to make it through the mountains to Trabzon on foot.
Omar climbed up beside him and said, “From the women’s description, I’d say the attackers are Kurdish irregulars.
“What we expected.”
“They’ll come here next. It’s almost as if they were waiting for you. The refugees are their calling card.”
“We have to protect these people.”
Omar nodded and climbed back down. Kamil saw him speaking to Apollo, who then called for attention. In a voice that carried across the yard, Apollo made a statement in Armenian, which Kamil didn’t understand. Omar told the villagers in Turkish that they should organize the cooking, cleaning, and managing the outhouses. Seated on an overturned trough, Siranoush Ana rapped her cane against the wall and, when she had everyone’s attention, began to issue assignments. The women looked relieved to have something to do, to have been called out of themselves and the unbearable memories of their own arrival a week earlier. Yedo and his cousins began to dig latrines.
Meanwhile able-bodied members of the commune took rifles from the storage room and placed stockpiles of ammunition at strategic points. The monastery had been built for defense. One of its two towers remained, along with a sturdy crenellated wall that ringed the property.
Kamil called his thirty soldiers to order. “You are Ottoman soldiers,” he reminded them. “You are representatives of the most civilized empire in the world, serving a sultan who cares for every peasant in his land as much as for every pasha. It is your duty to obey the orders given by your superiors, but it is also your duty to fight for civilization. The refugees that have arrived appear to have been driven here by the sultan’s irregular troops. These troops were given orders to keep the peace, and some have exceeded those orders by terrorizing the population. But I don’t want to hide from you that these troops were sent by our great padishah, just as you were. I see our mission as protecting the people in this compound. If these troops attack us, then our missions will conflict, and you must decide for yourself whether you are willing to remain here under my command. If we end up fighting them, that might be considered treason. As your commanding officer, I assure you that you are free to leave my command, and I will note it down as a transfer, not a desertion. You are free to go.” Kamil pointed to the gate. Not a man moved. The soldiers remained at attention. “Have you understood me?” Kamil asked. “If we fight, we may be fighting the sultan’s army.”
“Yes, pasha,” they responded briskly in unison. “As you will it.”
Kamil allowed himself a smile at the loyalty of the men who had accompanied him through such hardships already. For many this would be their first battle. He prayed it wouldn’t be their last.
He hoped it wouldn’t come to fighting. If he could speak with the other troop’s commander, he was sure they could escape bloodshed. Perhaps the excesses were the work of rogue soldiers, not the central command.
Still, it was prudent to be prepared for the worst. He stationed some men along the protected walkway at the top of the wall and others by the gate. Since the ground-floor windows had been bricked up and others blocked with insulation, once the door was locked, those inside the monastery building would be relatively safe.
The afternoon passed as slowly as if it were mired in clay. More refugees arrived, including a dozen or so local men, out of ammunition or having lost their weapons. Kamil issued each man a firearm, grimly aware that the guns were from the stolen shipment, and posted him at a station. The refugees all told more or less the same story. A group of armed Kurdish tribesmen had swooped in unannounced, rounded up whatever men and boys over the age of ten they could find, and shot or felled them with an ax to the back of the head. They had broken down the doors to the homes and taken gold and other valuables and carried off some of the young women, then left. Some reported meeting a man in a black uniform who had asked them in broken Armenian whether any strangers had traveled by in recent weeks.
KAMIL HEARD the thunder of hooves before he saw anything on the road. From the sound, he estimated at least a hundred men. As they came closer, Kamil saw that they filled the valley. He scanned the battlements to make sure his soldiers were in position. He had set men to guard the doors and windows of the monastery and some of the older boys to fetch ammunition.
“Two hundred, at least,” Omar commented. He checked over his weapons, a rifle with extra bandoliers across his chest, a pistol and an ax tucked into his sash, and a large curved knife in a scabbard at his side. He grinned. “Well, I’m ready.” The police chief’s face was charged with anticipation.