When her world ended, she was just old enough to understand that there were two kinds of people in the village. The people like her family, who went to the church on the hill, and the people who went to the mosque near the main square. She also knew that while everyone spoke Turkish in public, her family and the others who went to the church spoke a different language among themselves.
“Then one day soldiers came and began taking people out of their houses and gathering them in the main square. They were only taking the people who went to the church. The soldiers had begun moving down our street. My father had already been taken, the soldiers had found him in his shop. My mother brought us out into the garden. She was in tears, but we didn’t understand why, we didn’t really understand what was going on. She said we had to hurry, and brought us out the back door of the garden to a neighbor’s house. It was much smaller than our house, and it belonged to a family that went to the mosque. There were tears running down my mother’s face as she hugged each of us tightly and kissed us. Then she rushed out of the house and back into our garden without saying another word. We never saw her or my father again.
“My real name is Mari, but ever since that day I’ve been called Semahat. The woman of the house, I’ll always remember her as Aunt Semra, did her best to comfort us and make us feel at home, but we cried all the time. Our parents were gone and we didn’t know why. We weren’t allowed to go back to our house or our garden. We weren’t allowed to go to school, or to church. In fact we weren’t allowed to go outside at all, not even to play in the street with the other children.
“I don’t know how long we stayed there. It seemed like a very long time, but it probably wasn’t more than a few months. Then one day some men came to the house, there was a soldier with them, and they put us into the back of a truck with a few other children from our community. Some of them were my cousins. They brought us to a city, to a building where there were hundreds of children like us from other towns and villages. A few days later I was sent with a small group of children to an orphanage here in Istanbul.”
She stopped, and for what seemed like a very long time we sat in silence in the darkness. I felt as if the ground had fallen away from beneath me. My grandmother was Armenian. I’d never had any idea. In fact the thought had never occurred to me. I’d always loved her so much, and I felt a sense of shame for not having known about what happened to her as a child. For not having the slightest clue about the pain she’d lived with all her life. Finally, I broke the silence.
“What happened to your brothers?”
“I have no idea. I never saw or heard of them again. I tried to find out once, but I couldn’t get anywhere.”
“Do you know what happened to your parents?”
“Years later I went back to our town to see Aunt Semra. She was still living in the same house, alone, her husband had died and her children had long since moved to Istanbul. Our house was no longer there. Someone had built a large, ugly apartment there. It broke my heart to see that, but it would have been even more painful if the house was still there, if other people were living in it.
“Aunt Semra didn’t want to tell me what she knew. I had to push her, and it was only on the second day that she finally told me. After they’d rounded everyone up they marched them out of town. When they got to the bridge down the road there was a large group of men waiting. They raped the girls and the women, stole whatever valuables people had been able to take with them, and then slaughtered everyone and threw their bodies into the river.”
She began to weep again, and as I held her hand I gave in to the emotions swirling within me and began to weep as well.
Hours later, after a nurse had come to check her vital signs and give her medication—I think they gave her a sedative, too, because she was much calmer and a bit drowsy—she began to talk again. She told me that before she’d been at the orphanage for very long she was adopted by a Turkish family and raised as a Muslim.
“They were very kind, loving people. They gave me a home and treated me as their own. I know that they loved me, that they saw me as their own daughter. But I sensed that there was an unspoken condition. That I accept being raised as a Muslim. I don’t want you to think that this was forced on me, because it wasn’t. I accepted this at first, as a child, simply because I sincerely wanted to make them happy. When I was older I saw it as a way to fit in, to hide my true identity. I never lost the fear that it would be dangerous for me if people knew who I really was.
“My husband, the grandfather you never knew, he was the only person who knew and accepted who I was. When we were alone he called me Mari. He was a forward-thinking man. He believed in the Republic, in democracy and equality, and he thought that the practice of religion was backwards. He told me that I didn’t need to be afraid, that he would protect me. But I continued to pray five times a day and to fast during Ramadan. I never forgot that I was a Christian, yet somehow being a practicing Muslim had become part of who I was too. I also didn’t believe that anyone could protect me, and I didn’t want to put him in danger either.”
We talked through most of the night. Or rather she did. I mostly listened. She told me what she remembered about her mother and father, and her brothers, and the world that was taken from her. Her father’s shop, celebrating Easter at the church, and afterwards at a long table in the garden with all their relatives.
Toward morning, she sat up and took my hand and said, “There’s something I want you to have. It’s a necklace that belonged to my mother, and before that to her mother and her mother’s mother. It’s been in our family for generations. Aunt Semra kept it for me, God bless her. She said she’d always known I’d come back one day. She told me that even during times of desperate poverty she’d never even considered selling it, because passing it on to me was the only way she could repay my mother for all the kindness she’d shown her. I believe that it’s rightfully yours now, and that it will connect you to the people you never knew you belonged to. It’s in a locked box on the shelf in my closet. You’ll find the key taped to the bottom of my bed.”
This was the last thing she said to me. Soon afterwards she fell asleep. I sat and watched her for a long time, but I must have dozed off because the next thing I knew the sun was streaming through the window. The moment I looked at her I knew she was gone. She looked so peaceful, and I knew that she was finally free from the pain she’d lived with all her life. I said a prayer for her. Not a Muslim prayer or a Christian prayer, but a prayer from the heart.
The following day, her funeral was held at the local mosque, the mosque she’d gone to every Friday for so many years. She was buried in the cemetery as a pious Muslim, and I was the only one present who knew who she really was.
Later that day I opened the box and found the necklace, the most beautiful, most precious thing I’ve ever owned, and that I only wear on what I feel are very special occasions. Also in the box were her birth certificate and a small crucifix she must have worn as a child.
She made me promise never to tell a soul, and I didn’t tell anyone except my brother. I felt he had the right to know. I also felt he would want to know, but I was wrong. At first he refused to believe me. Then, after I showed him her birth certificate his face went white and he muttered something about our blood being tainted. This made me furious, and I started shouting at him. He started shouting back, saying that the Armenians had always wanted to destroy Turkey, they’d sided with the Russians during World War I, they’d spread lies about genocide to defame Turkey, organized terrorists to kill Turkish diplomats, and so on. This made me even more furious, and we had the fiercest, bitterest argument I’ve ever had with anyone.
I could see that he was truly shaken, both by what I’d told him and by my reaction to what he’d said. In the end, he took back his words, but begged me never to tell anyone else. If it got out that he was half Armenian, his career in the military would be finished. He’d never be
promoted; he’d spend the rest of his career in a back office in some remote province.
We didn’t see each other again except at unavoidable family gatherings, where we were always polite and friendly but never close. The last time I’d seen him, when we went to visit our parents at the house they’d retired to on the Aegean coast, he acted as if our falling out had never occurred, as if he’d forgotten all about it, and perhaps he had.
But those men in the rector’s office yesterday…. There were others who knew our secret, and this worried me. If they knew about me they knew about Necdet as well. But his career hadn’t been blocked; on the contrary, he’d risen quite rapidly. He was a full colonel now, and had an important position in military intelligence.
I was startled by the alarm. It was three o’clock. I got out of bed and dressed quickly. Kerem had fallen asleep in front of his computer, and was sleeping so soundly that he didn’t wake up when I put him to bed. I couldn’t resist the temptation to kiss him on the forehead, something I could never do when he was awake. Then, as I was turning off his computer, I saw that he’d already started looking up the things I’d asked him to research. One of the articles caught my attention. I wanted to start reading it, but I didn’t have time.
I put on my warmest coat, tied a green scarf around my neck, closed the door quietly behind me, and walked down the silent, empty hallway. It was so cold outside that my chest tightened instantly. The rain had stopped sometime during the night, but the sky was still overcast and I was sure it was going to snow.
The black Mercedes was waiting under the streetlight. I was grateful that Süleyman was on time, that he hadn’t made me wait in the cold, but as soon as I got in the car, I was assaulted by a thick cloud of cigarette smoke.
“What the hell is this! It stinks. Why couldn’t you get out of the car to smoke?”
Süleyman muttered, “It’s very cold.”
“You could at least have opened the window,” I said as I opened my window.
Süleyman put the car into gear and drove off aggressively, and much too fast. I realized that I’d hurt his feelings, and that I shouldn’t have spoken to him that way. But the way he was driving was childish and dangerous and I didn’t like it.
“Slow down!” I said sharply. “We have plenty of time.”
The cold air rushing through the window stung my face. Where the hell was Wagner taking us on the coldest day of the year?
“Süleyman, could you turn the heat on?”
“The heater isn’t working.”
As we sped shivering through the deserted streets, Süleyman’s anger and frustration seemed to fill the car. It was exactly 3:52 when we pulled up in front of the hotel.
The professor was waiting in the lobby, in his black coat and a black fedora. He stood and gave me a very formal and very grave greeting, and then picked up his violin case and a small wreath of white flowers. A ribbon on the wreath bore the words Für Nadia.
Outside, Süleyman held the passenger side door open for the professor, and I went around and got in on the other side. The professor’s manner was very solemn, almost gloomy, and I didn’t know what to make of it.
“Where are we going, professor?”
“To Şile.”
“Where?”
“Şile.”
Şile was a resort town on the Black Sea coast. It was a considerable drive, and would be completely deserted at this time of year. I was sure he must have got the name of the place confused.
“Professor, do you know where Şile is?”
“Yes.”
“And you want to go there at four o’clock on a cold winter morning?”
“Yes,” he said irritably. “I want to go to Şile.”
Süleyman turned around and asked me what was up.
“He wants to go to Şile.”
“What?”
“Yes, you heard me. If I’d known I’d have brought my bathing suit.”
We drove off, across the Fatih Sultan Mehmet Bridge to the Asian side and along the Ankara highway. The only vehicles on the road were trucks, and after we took the Şile turnoff we had the road to ourselves. No one spoke as we drove through the forest, and there was a palpable air of tension in the car.
I’d been to Şile with Ahmet once. It could have been a nice resort town, with its picturesque fishing port and restaurants overlooking a beach that stretched out into the distance, but it wasn’t. There was something squalid about it. We’d had too much wine with lunch and ended up having a fight, and didn’t speak the whole way back. I’d sworn I’d never go back to Şile, but here I was, and in the middle of winter at that.
What was this madman planning to do up here, and were those creepy security agents right to be suspicious of him? Was he going to flash a coded signal to a Russian submarine lurking off the coast, or had he buried some Nazi treasure out here during the war?
* * *
—
The American businessman in the seat next to me woke up a little while ago and tried to start a conversation with me. He asked me what I was writing. I wanted to tell him it was none of his business, but I’m trying to learn how to be nicer to people. So I just told him that it was something personal, something I had to do for my own sake. I was polite and friendly, but still managed to get the message across that it was in fact none of his business and that I wanted to be left alone.
It’s time to get up and walk around a bit again. Perhaps I should ask the flight attendant for some coffee. Or maybe I should take a little nap. Just for half an hour.
CHAPTER 6
As we sped along through the forest in the gray light of early morning, the professor took out an old map and began examining it. Then he turned to me and said, “Could we slow down a bit?”
I told Süleyman, and he slowed down. Then the professor said we needed to stop and back up a little. So we backed up about 500 feet until we reached a narrow dirt road that branched off to the left.
“OK, this is it. Tell him we need to go down this road.”
So I told Süleyman, and I saw him raise his eyebrows slightly in the mirror.
“Where are we going, professor?”
He gave me a blank look and just said that there was something of a personal nature he had to take care of. I began to feel decidedly uneasy. As we bumped along, the professor kept peering out the window as if he was looking for something. Or someone.
After a while the woods thinned out, then ended, and we were climbing a barren slope of sandy, pebbly soil. The track we were driving along deteriorated and we could only inch along.
“If the car gets stuck in this sand we’ll never get out of here.”
I didn’t say anything, and neither did Professor Wagner. Then, at the top of the slope, the sea opened out before us, dark, stormy and forbidding, with huge waves crashing against the rocks, sending up plumes of spray and receding in cascades of foam. Black clouds raced in off the sea like invading horsemen. Here we felt the full force of the wind, and the car seemed to shudder. Süleyman stopped the car, but the professor motioned for him to keep driving, so we began inching forward again until the track petered out altogether about twenty yards from the sea.
“This is as far as we can go.”
I didn’t bother to translate this for the professor. I don’t know if he would have heard me anyway, he was looking around in an almost agitated manner, as if he were trying to find something. There was nothing at all on the beach except an abandoned building back up on the ridge a little to the left. It was either in ruins or unfinished, with a small, glassed-in porch in front. A large, rusting sign announced it to be the Black Sea Motel. There was another smaller shack behind it with a tin roof that had been partly blown off.
The professor picked up his violin and the wreath and for a moment seemed at a loss for what to do. Then he looked out the rear window and said, “Can we bac
k up a bit, up to the top of that ridge?”
Süleyman muttered to himself and put the car in reverse. He put his arm on the passenger seat and turned to look out the rear window, but just as he started to reverse the engine stalled. He tried to start it again several times, but it didn’t respond at all. Then finally it turned and sputtered and we began to reverse slowly.
About halfway back up the ridge the professor asked us to stop again. Süleyman looked at him with a mixture of irritation and puzzlement. The professor took a deep breath, gave me a look that seemed almost fearful, but also somehow resigned and deeply sad.
“Forgive me, but I must ask you to leave me alone here for a little while. If you could continue on back over the ridge and wait for me there, I’ll come join you when I’m done.”
“And then?” I asked.
“Then…well…Then we’ll probably go back.”
When he opened the door, a gust of cold wind blew in. He climbed out slowly with the wreath and the violin, closed the door, and then stood there waiting for us to leave. Süleyman gunned the engine, either out of impatience or to keep the car from stalling, and the car lurched back. As we reversed, I watched the professor walk toward the sea, struggling against the wind, until we were over the top of the ridge and I could no longer see him.
As soon as the car stopped I got out and walked to the top of the ridge. Then, shivering in the cold, I watched the professor walk toward the sea, to the point where the highest waves washed onto the beach. Then he put down his violin, took a few more steps forward, and tossed the wreath into the waves. He stood there for a few moments with his hands clasped in front of him, then turned, and started back. When he looked up and saw me he seemed annoyed, so I went back toward the car.
Serenade for Nadia Page 6
