by Jenny White
Vahid twisted and aimed his revolver at Kamil just as Kamil fired.
Expecting the Kurds to rush through the door, Kamil leaped out the window and ran into the forest, keeping to the tufts of grass that he knew wouldn’t take the impression of his boots. But he didn’t go far. The pistol still smoked in his hand. He planned to return for the girl. And if the tribesmen were going to take retribution on the surrounding countryside for his rash act, he had to know and do what he could to stop them, or at least to warn people. Much to his surprise, the Kurds hadn’t charged into the house after the shot had been fired. When Kamil looked back from the forest, they were still sitting around the fire. They thought Vahid had shot the girl, Kamil realized.
He wedged himself into a cleft of rock, close enough to see the men with his field glasses. One stood and shouted something at the others. An argument ensued, with some of the men gesticulating toward the mountains. Finally one of them knocked on the door of the headman’s house. Hearing no response, he went in, then hurried back out and strode angrily to the edge of the square, staring out at the forest. The others crowded in and emerged, shaking their heads in disgust. Within minutes they had saddled up, strapped their wounded to their mounts and set off at a rapid pace along the lane in a direction that led away from the monastery. Still, Kamil couldn’t be sure they wouldn’t return once it was daylight. Perhaps they were simply going to a less blood-soaked village to spend the night.
89
THE DAY DAWNED without another attack, and the survivors peered carefully over the monastery battlements. A light mist blanketed the trampled field outside the gate, and they heard birdcalls and the sound of water running. Levon took Siranoush Ana aside and told her, “Ana, I bear dreadful news. When we passed through your village yesterday, we found your husband in the square with nine others. They’d been dead at least a week. We buried them.”
“May you be able to bear it, Levon,” she responded. “And what of your father?”
Levon grimaced and shook his head.
“I’m sorry about all your losses. Your son and daughter were enormously courageous. Each had the heart of a lion, like their father.” They stood in taut silence for a moment. “I know you were a great friend of my husband,” Siranoush Ana continued, her voice a calm murmur. “Before I left our village last week, I went to the square so that someone would bear witness to our men’s deaths. I closed all of their eyes onto this world, so henceforth they will see only paradise.” She laid her hand on Levon’s arm. “You will see your children again in paradise.”
When no further attack had occurred by late afternoon and the day had become unseasonably hot, the survivors decided to bury their dead and set some men to digging in the meadow behind the monastery. A quarrel broke out about whether to bury the enemy dead as well, but it was decided to move those that had died inside the monastery walls out to the side of the road, where the Kurds could retrieve them. A search was made for the guide, Sakat Ali, but neither he nor his body could be found.
Victor had barely slept since the attacks began. Inside the monastery hall, he loped stiffly from one wounded person to another, treating them with whatever was at hand. He had long since run out of supplies, so Alicia had set several women to work boiling strips of cloth and collecting lengths of twine, needles, and thread. Alicia helped him clean the wounds and, with the help of Omar and one of the soldiers, held the patients down while Victor sewed them up and, in two cases, amputated. There was no anesthetic and no alcohol. Victor cauterized the wounds with the flat of a sword that had been heated in the fireplace.
KAMIL HAD returned to the monastery shortly after dawn, a different man from the one who had ridden out hours earlier. Propped in the saddle before him, wrapped in a blanket, was the unconscious girl. Now I really am a murderer, he thought, feeling neither regret nor shame. Omar and Levon hurried to meet him, but he would tell them nothing except that he hoped the Kurds wouldn’t return. What Kamil had seen in that room was etched into his eyes, and he refused to make it any more real by telling someone else about it—not even Elif.
He searched inside the monastery and scoured the courtyard for Elif, but no one had seen her. Numb with anxiety, he slammed through the gate and walked to the back of the monastery, where the meadow was cut by a raging stream fed by waterfalls hurtling from the cliffside. The sun was hot on his back and the meadow steamed. Whenever he stepped into the shade of a tree or boulder, the chill of winter returned.
He found Elif lying on her back beside the stream. Her eyes were open, and for a heart-stopping moment he thought she was dead. But she smiled up at him, and he found that he hungered for her as badly as he had ever wanted anything. Her face and hands and clothes were entirely covered in blood, as if she had bathed in it. The bare branches of a willow tree formed a yellow cage around them, letting in the sun. Kamil knelt beside her and, sliding his hand behind her head, leaned over and kissed her. He tasted iron, and his lips clung to hers through the stickiness of someone else’s blood.
“Come on,” he said, indicating the stream that sparkled yellow and green in the sun.
She grinned, her teeth white in her red face. “Are you mad? We’ll freeze our hides off.”
“I could use a new hide,” Kamil answered, stripping off his clothes. He unbuttoned her shirt and slipped it over her head, then removed her trousers and her undergarments, remarkably white despite the mud and carnage. Hand in hand, they walked into the stream. It was fed by rapids upstream and swollen with snowmelt, deep enough for them to walk in up to the waist. The water buffeted them and pulled them off balance. Holding hands to steady themselves, they squatted and dipped their heads under the rushing torrent. Despite the sun on their backs, the water was freezing cold, so they didn’t remain long.
By the time they got back to the willow, Elif was shaking. Kamil rubbed her body with his wool undershirt until her skin glowed. Then they pulled on their clothes, still dirty and stiff with blood. Their eyes met for the first time since Kamil had found her under the willow. He felt as though he were looking into a deep, clear pool. He had no more understanding of what kind of woman Elif was, but he felt somehow that they understood each other. He was no longer sure he understood what kind of man he was.
When they returned to the monastery, they found Levon raging over the bodies of his children. It was as if now that the danger was over, all of the powerful man’s reserve had broken like a dam under a flood. Kamil wished he could tell Levon that his children had been avenged, but he knew that was a meaningless statement. The dead are not less dead when they are multiplied.
Levon saw Kamil. “Welcome, oh representative of the sultan. Take a look at what you have brought us.” He threw out his hand to indicate the sea of wounded men and women lying on the flagstones of the hall.
Kamil walked toward Levon. “To all of you,” he said loudly, “may you be well. I’m sorry about the loss of your families. I came here to investigate this community. Clearly I wasn’t here to kill anyone. Or did you not notice that I was inside the walls, not out there with the Kurds?”
Levon aimed his rifle at Kamil. “One more dead body won’t be noticed,” he snarled.
The room froze. Kamil heard the click of a cane and looked down to see Siranoush Ana standing between him and the barrel of Levon’s gun.
“We’ve all lost more than we can bear, Levon,” she said in an even voice.
Levon slowly lowered his gun and nodded. “We want these people out of our valley.” He flung his hand at the hall. “Right now,” he bellowed.
“These are mostly your people,” Kamil pointed out.
“I mean the socialists, the Henchaks, whatever they are,” Levon answered wearily. “No, pasha, you’re right. We all have to leave. The villages have been destroyed, all the food looted, and those devils might return at any time. There’s nothing to go back to. And it is true that without this community’s guns, we wouldn’t have survived at all.” He nodded to Apollo and Vera. “Thank you,” he
told them in Armenian. He hobbled from the room, shoulders bowed. Siranoush Ana watched him go, and Kamil saw tears in her eyes.
THEY SPENT a last night in the monastery. Kamil grabbed a quilt and stretched out on the floor. He was too exhausted to look for where Elif had bedded down. The sleep of the dead, he thought just before he fell into a profound slumber.
Sakat Ali crept through the monastery hall in the early hours. The fire had died out. No one was on duty this night after the battle to feed the flames, as on other nights. The hall was pitch black and cold. The guide knelt beside Kamil and looked down at his dreaming face. The man was smiling in his sleep, Sakat Ali realized. Akrep was going to pay him handsomely for killing the pasha, but he would enjoy it too. No man should be happy amid the misery of his fellows. It showed that the pasha had no honor and deserved to die.
With his good arm, Sakat Ali drew a knife from his sash. “You thought you won, didn’t you?” he whispered. He had followed Kamil out of the monastery and almost been discovered when that fool Omar arrived. But Sakat Ali was clever and remained undiscovered, even after the pasha had shot the Akrep commander without provocation.
Killing Kamil now would be nothing more than executing a treasonous murderer. That is, if Vahid had died.
90
THEY FINISHED BURYING their dead, including Yedo and five of his cousins. The body of Sakat Ali had been found that morning in the stable, his throat apparently cut by his own knife, still clutched in his hand.
Omar told Kamil that he had heard Sakat Ali approach him in the night. “I took him outside for a little talk before he said good night. As we suspected, he was an Akrep agent. He followed you to Karakaya and saw you shoot Vahid.” Omar looked at Kamil appreciatively. “At first he thought Vahid was dead, but regrettably he wasn’t. Looks like you blew off part of his right hand, though. Our spy fixed his boss up and hired someone to take him to Trabzon, then came back here to kill you. And that was his last assignment.”
“Thank you.” Kamil found the words inadequate for the immensity of saving his life.
“Vahid might die on the way, but I don’t see it. The devil has a thousand lives.”
A priest from among the refugees said a prayer for the dead. Vera placed a bouquet of meadow hyacinths on Gabriel’s grave, one of a long row marked only with piles of stones. Then they focused on organizing the living.
Kamil set out at the head of the column of close to two hundred frightened and desperate men, women, and children who had no homes to return to. They passed the Kurdish corpses by the side of the road. Mothers hid their children’s faces in their skirts.
Rapids from the early-spring melt had made the river unnavigable and cut off the road to Rize on the coast, closer to them than Trabzon. Levon and his men rode ahead of the train of refugees, checking the road and forest for ambushes and foraging for food and supplies to feed the mass of fleeing people who had once been their neighbors. Omar and the remaining soldiers brought up the rear, making sure no one was left behind. In this manner, they plodded through the mountains. Kamil sent one of his men ahead to alert the governor of Trabzon that they would need food and shelter when they arrived. He wondered whether Vahid had arrived alive or whether they would pass his carcass on the road.
The road followed the river until the flat land gave out and they were forced to climb the hills along narrow paths, passing through ravaged villages blazing with rare yellow rhododendrons. Their numbers swelled as they moved through the valley and survivors from isolated communities joined the refugees. Most of them either had relatives in Trabzon or wished to escape the province on one of the ships in the harbor.
The journey to Trabzon was long and miserable. Although the end of March, it was still winter in the mountains. Winds ripped through the gorges, and clouds settled so low that they drenched the skin. Days were warm as long as the sun shone, but then they were plagued by swarms of biting insects. At night the temperature plummeted, and people built small fires or dug themselves into the forest loam for warmth. Children whimpered in fear as wolves howled and jackals yipped on the hillsides. Levon’s men occasionally brought sacks of clothing and boots that they distributed. Kamil assumed they had gathered them from abandoned villages along the way. There was no sign of the Kurds. Were they not willing to fight without Vahid?
When the refugees reached the town of Ispir, the mayor put them up in homes and stables, and the town’s women baked bread almost continually. The mayor insisted on billeting Kamil with his own family.
Some of the refugees who had relatives in Ispir decided to stay, but after a few days it became clear that the town couldn’t sustain its generosity toward the rest. The townspeople were running short of food, and tempers flared. Kamil ordered those who wished to go on to Trabzon to resume their march through the mountains.
Levon’s men hunted wild boar, goat, and deer, which they roasted and then distributed among the refugees, along with bread and leather sacks of salted olives, cheese, dried fruit, and whatever they could forage. Fish were plentiful in the river and easy to catch in nets. Still, it wasn’t enough for the enormous number of refugees as others joined the column. Fights broke out.
Elif, Alicia, Vera, and others rode back and forth along the long line, handing out food and looking for stragglers, people who were too weak to go on. When the terrain allowed, they used carts to transport the old and ill, but some of the passes through the mountains were too narrow or too steep and treacherous, and they had to be carried on donkeys or on people’s backs. At times they waded through mud up to their knees. The rocky terrain destroyed the horses’ shoes, and some of the animals fell lame and had to be left behind. Omar had insisted on walking with his stick, in order to free up transport for others. But after two weeks on the road he fell ever more behind.
“You’re too proud to be seen on a donkey?” Kamil taunted him.
“I’m too proud to throw an old woman off a donkey so I can get on,” Omar retorted, sitting on a rock by the side of the road. His face was red and sweating, and the bandage around his leg was crusted with blood. “Just leave me here.”
“You’d rather die here?”
“Why not? It’s as good a place as any.” He looked around. “The sweet smell of pine, the sun on my face.” He grinned, but Kamil saw the effort behind it.
“It’s not very heroic after all you’ve been through to die at the side of the road like a hare that’s been hit by a cart.”
Omar frowned and focused on a woman sitting in a patch of vivid blue hyacinths breast-feeding her infant. She had deep circles under her eyes and the blank look of exhaustion. “My definition of heroism has undergone some revision.”
“As you like, you stubborn, selfish old mule, but think about your wife and Avi. Don’t you have some responsibility to them? You’re just too lazy to live.” Kamil stalked off.
THERE WAS plenty of water. It fell in sheets from the side of the mountain, surged in the rivers, and trickled in streams amid the stones. But the mass of people made sanitation a problem, and some became ill with diarrhea. When Victor fell ill, Alicia tied him to his horse so he wouldn’t fall off and stayed by his side. Omar rode on a donkey, up front where Kamil could keep an eye on him. When he became delirious, he too had to be tied to his mount. Too ornery to die, Kamil hoped, casting anxious glances at his friend’s slumped form.
It took them almost a month to get to Trabzon. The road behind them was studded with fresh graves, particularly toward the end of their journey. One of them was Victor’s. Another belonged to Siranoush Ana. Her daughter had carried her mother’s body on her back for five days before they convinced her to allow Siranoush Ana to be buried. At each burial, one of the surviving priests said prayers and they erected a wooden cross, hastily carved with the deceased’s name. At Siranoush Ana’s burial, the grim-faced Levon had cried like a baby.
The following afternoon, they passed through a meadow where hundreds of tiny yellow blooms had forced their way through the sheet of
snow. Kamil rode off alone and dismounted on the pretext of examining the flowers—marsh marigolds, tiny goblets of sunlight. He picked one of the flowers and wrapped it in his handkerchief, then placed it inside his coat alongside the dead soldiers’ documents. He walked far enough away that no one could see his shoulders heave or hear his sobs.
WHEN THE minarets and church towers of Trabzon were in sight, a roar went up among the refugees and people began to push forward. Levon rode up next to Kamil and, pressing his fist against his heart in a gesture of friendship, met Kamil’s eyes. Kamil nodded his head in acknowledgment. Levon spurred his horse around and, together with his men, melted into the forest. Kamil wondered whether they would go back to their land or stay in the forest as outlaws. They had a thousand guns after all. He wished them well.
At the edge of the city, Kamil was met by the governor, this time not with a band but with a contingent of gendarmes. The governor looked stunned to see the train of refugees.
Kamil dismounted and went to speak with him. It didn’t escape his notice that it took the governor a good few moments before he bowed and uttered words of respectful welcome. Kamil realized that the governor hadn’t recognized him at first. No wonder. He was filthy, his clothing in tatters, and he now had a full beard.
“Thank you for meeting us,” Kamil responded. “These people need food, lodging, medical care. I presume you had word of our arrival. I sent a messenger some weeks ago. What have you been able to prepare?”
“The city elders have refused permission for them to enter, my pasha. They’ll have to go back.”
Kamil stared at the governor in disbelief. He flung his hand at the crowd behind him. “Take a look, sir,” he said, trying to keep his anger in check. “They are in no condition to go anywhere, and there is nowhere for them to go back to. They will remain here.”