The Silence of Scheherazade

by Defne Suman

  With these thoughts in her mind as she descended the stairs, when she opened the door she was stunned to see before her not a young midwife but her daughter, son-in-law and grandchildren. In their hands were suitcases and bundles. One of her hands flew to her mouth in fear. She scanned their faces one by one. Her youngest grandchild, Nishan, was not with them. ‘What’s happened?’ she screamed. ‘Where is Nishan?’

  ‘Don’t worry, Mama. Calm down. There’s nothing to be alarmed about.’

  ‘Nishan? What’s happened to my Nishan?’

  ‘Mama, dear, do not shout, please. You’ll alert the neighbours. Nishan is with his other grandmother. Nothing has happened. We’ve come to get you.’

  Midwife Meline’s daughter interrupted her cool-headed husband. ‘Do you know how long we’ve been knocking? You frightened us to death, Mama! Where were you?’

  Meline put her hand on her heart to quieten it. ‘I’d fallen asleep, child. Are all of you all right? What’s happening?’

  ‘How can you sleep at a time like this? Come, gather up your things – we’re leaving. Bring all your valuables.’

  Midwife Meline touched her chest again, as she had in her dream, checking on the imaginary money bag. That was where she’d kept the gold coins she had counted out into the hands of Mahmut Aga when she’d gone to see him, all by herself, at his castle-like mansion in Goztepe. A part of her consciousness was still there, on the donkey’s back, reliving that morning.

  She had gone all that way in order to get a document from the aga, who had set his sights on her daughters’ honour because of a gambling debt incurred by her accursed husband. The officially stamped document testified that the debt had been paid in full. The aga’s insolent henchmen had shamelessly suggested to Nishan (not her grandson Nishan but her husband) that he use the girls to settle his debt. Fresh young girls were always happily accepted into Mahmut Aga’s harem.

  Meline had obtained the aga’s word that those despicable henchmen who had for months been frequenting her house, sticking their heads round the door and licking their lips as they watched Arpi and Seta doing their homework at the kitchen table, would never bother them again. Thank goodness, Mahmut Aga had shown himself to be an honourable man. Once the paper, which Meline did not understand a word of, had been officially stamped, he had kept his men away. The girls had gone on to make good marriages and have happy families.

  By allowing herself to be a tool in Juliette Lamarck’s demonic plan, Meline had saved her own daughters’ lives.

  ‘Mama, I’m telling you, come on. Are you not hearing me? Kemal’s forces have taken Alasehir. Pehlivan’s murderous gangs are on the way. We must hide. Come on, hurry! Collect up whatever you have; we’re leaving. We’re going to hide on the top floor of Hayguhi Hanim’s bakery.’

  Meline shook herself as if she were waking from a dream. ‘Pehlivan’s men are coming here? But what about the Greek line of defence?’

  ‘Unfortunately,’ her tall, slim son-in-law Arakel said softly, ‘the Asia Minor defence line is crumbling. The Turks have taken all of the Menderes Valley. Aydin, Usak and Manisa are burning. As the Greek army retreats, they’re setting everywhere on fire. We’re afraid that when the Turks arrive here, they’ll want to take revenge. As a precaution we’ve decided to hide in the attic of my mother’s bakery. Because it’s outside the Armenian district, we’re guessing it will be safer. Don’t leave anything valuable in the house. Collect all your money and your gold, and sew your jewellery into your dress. Are you able to walk as far as the quay? We may be able to find a carriage much sooner, near the cathedral.’

  Meline nodded.

  Suyane Street was dark and silent. Wouldn’t it have been better to do as their neighbours had and just close the shutters and hide in their house? The bakery run by Hayguhi Hanim, her daughter’s mother-in-law, was all the way over on the other side of the city, near the French Hospital. It would be no trouble to walk there – she wasn’t that old yet. She was a woman who had walked long distances all her life, and at fifty-seven her legs were still as strong as they had been in her youth. But now, fear, like a wily snake that had been growing fat and strong in her intestines for years, had woken up and cut off her strength.

  As they entered the courtyard of the cathedral to cross over to Dilber Street, Meline turned her face towards the dome of St Stepanos and said a prayer. Shadows were wandering about beneath the tall cypresses that filled the wide courtyard, and footsteps hurried in and out of the cathedral; people were carrying things inside. A couple pushing a covered wheelbarrow entered from the Suyane Street side. Seeing Meline and her family, they momentarily froze, until Arakel made a sign with his hand. They nodded and turned back to their work. The oldest grandchild, who was holding Meline’s hand, spoke not a word. Arakel was carrying his sleepy younger daughter in one arm. Under his other arm he was carrying Meline’s rug, which she couldn’t bear to leave behind.

  The group crossed the courtyard in silence, went out of the gate opening onto Iman Street, descended to the Agios Yorgis district, and continued from there to Great Taverns. Everywhere was smothered in darkness. Meline felt a current of electricity passing from the sweaty little hand of her granddaughter into her own body.

  Further down, the port was buried in a deathly quiet. Seeing the docks so silent was terrifying – docks that were always busy with the chaos and confusion of shouting porters, trunks lined up all the way from the warehouses to the sea, sacks full of figs that stopped you from walking more than two steps, camels with little bells tied around their necks, donkeys, horses, carts, and merchants from every country. The moon had disappeared behind the clouds, and beneath the unlit gas lamps the dark, undulating sea seemed to echo the disquiet which had taken over the city that night. There was not a single carriage in sight.

  Suddenly Meline’s granddaughter squeezed her hand. ‘Grandmamma, look! Look! Over there!’

  Everyone turned towards where the little girl was pointing. Up ahead at Passport Pier, on the sea side of the road, there was a great dark mass of something, moving slightly. Meline narrowed her eyes to try and make it out. Arpi, used to taking charge, marched a few steps towards it. Her eyes began to distinguish some shapes – a trunk, a rolled-up carpet, a table, then bags, bundles. And lying down among all those possessions was a river of people.

  ‘Grandmamma, who are they?’ Her granddaughter’s voice was shaking.

  Meline slipped her hand out of the little girl’s palm and made the sign of the cross. ‘Dear Lord, protect us.’

  ‘Grandmamma, what are all these people doing? Why are they camping on the quay?’

  Arpi came over and took her daughter’s hand.

  ‘Mama?’

  ‘Don’t be afraid, darling. It’s nothing. They have come from nearby villages and towns. They are refugees, escaping from the war. They left before the soldiers got to their villages.’

  ‘Where will they go?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  It was the first time the little girl had ever seen adults in a desperate state. She began to cry.

  Arakel spoke in a low voice so as not to wake the other child sleeping on his shoulder. ‘Greece will send a ship for them and they’ll get on it and sail to Chios. There’s nothing to worry about. By tomorrow they’ll all be gone.’

  The question on everyone’s mind but which no one wanted to voice hung in the air until finally the little girl asked it. ‘What about us?’ she said tearfully. ‘Will we be able to get on those ships too? Does Greece take Armenians?’

  ‘Mama, if you are tired, shall we rest?’ Even in the darkness, Arpi’s normally shining face was noticeably pale, and her head was dipped. She tried to smile. ‘What do you say, can you walk a little further? Grit your teeth – see, we’re almost there.’

  Midwife Meline was praying. She just nodded. Bad things, very bad things, were going to happen.

  They had reached the dark mass, which swelled like a huge wave to their left. Old people, women, children, m
en – hundreds of people were sitting, lying down, crying silently, moaning, gnawing on dry crackers with empty eyes, rocking their babies and speaking in low voices. Horses, donkeys, goats, cats and dogs wandered among them. They were all bunched close together, staring at the sea, a mixture of horror, sadness and hope on their faces.

  Suddenly something moved in the crowd. In the darkness a young man with a cap on his head and tattered shoes on his feet jumped out into the middle of the road.

  ‘Baby! The baby is coming! Help! My wife’s pains have begun. Somebody help!’

  Meline automatically jerked her hand from her granddaughter’s tiny warm palm. Arpi and Arakel straightaway moved to block her path. ‘Mama, no!’

  In one breath Meline shed her exhaustion and became once more the hawk-like midwife of old. She spoke to her daughter in a tone of voice Arpi remembered from her childhood.‘You must all carry on. I will find you at Hayguhi’s Bakery.’

  Striding towards the dark crowd, she vaguely heard her daughter’s protests, her granddaughter’s cries. As she walked, she was calculating. The French Hospital was too far away. Grace’s Maternity House was even further. The Dutch and Austrian Hospitals and Agios Charalambos were all fairly near; they could reach one of them.

  She caught the man with the cap by his arm. ‘Young man, you must run and find a cart. I’m a midwife. There are hospitals back over there – hurry and let’s get your wife there in time.’

  The young man took his cap in his hand and bowed his head. ‘Mother, I do not know how to find a cart in the city. Couldn’t we put my wife on the donkey we came on from the village?’

  ‘Impossible, son! Go on – run. It’s not as if you’re in a foreign country. Go and find a driver.’

  As he disappeared into the dark streets, hands and arms bundled Meline to the side of the pregnant woman. She was lying on an old rug that had come all the way from her single-windowed village hut to Smyrna’s quay. The shoes lined up along the edge of the rug conveyed a feeling of home to the people camped out on the dock. In the centre of the rug a single kerosene lantern was burning.

  The pregnant woman was on her hands and knees. Those around her were wiping her forehead and neck with handkerchiefs wetted with sea water. Seeing Meline, they stepped back to the edge of the rug. There was something in the woman’s manner, her attitude, that reminded them of the midwives in the village. Meline knelt beside the mother. She was a village girl, with big black eyes and dark skin. Under her dark red shirt with the sleeves rolled up to the elbow her arms were full and strong.

  ‘Be calm, daughter. You are young and sturdy. You will push your infant out in one breath. What is your name?’

  ‘Eleni.’ Without wanting to, the poor girl screamed. Ashamed, she turned her head away.

  ‘Endaksi, Eleni, my girl. All right. Your husband has gone to find a cart. We will take you to a hospital. Now, tell me, is this your first birth?’

  With her head, the woman indicated a boy with huge black eyes sucking his thumb at the far edge of the rug. He was sitting there bare-bottomed. Meline put her hand under the woman’s skirt to measure the dilation of the cervix; her fingers touched the hair on the head of the baby. The birthing had begun. She raised her eyes anxiously and looked at the crowd of barefooted women encircling them.

  ‘Ladies, prepare yourselves. The baby is coming! May God help us. She’ll have the baby here. Quickly, bring all the lamps, lanterns and candles you can find.’

  Within moments, the women had all knelt down in their patched skirts and surrounded Eleni.

  Meline took control. ‘Hold her behind the knees and pull back hard. Bring the lamp closer; hold it so that there are no shadows. That’s good. Eleni, come on, girl, push. Push as hard as you can. You’ve swum and swum and come to the end.’

  The young woman gave a piercing shriek. The crowd undulated with her scream and contracted as everyone moved closer together.

  ‘What’s happened? Have they come – the soldiers?’

  On the shore of that dark sea, in the midst of thousands of poor people who’d been forced to abandon their towns and their homes, Meline pushed one hand down on the woman’s belly and plunged the other between her legs. While her hands worked independently with all the skill which a lifetime of experience had given them, a different scene was playing out in her imagination.

  ‘The baby will be born dead, do you understand me, Midwife Meline?’

  It was Juliette Lamarck’s shrill, commanding voice.

  ‘Did you hear me? It will be born dead. We will bury it in the church graveyard, and we will never see you again. Do you understand? Tu comprends?’

  But no. The baby had clung to life. Life wanted to live. The tiny head had opened a way through the mouth of the cervix and pushed forward with all its might. The poor mother, just a child herself, had fainted from the opium and was not pushing her baby out. Meline had pressed on the girl’s stomach, then rushed between her legs.

  On the rug on the quay, a thick, sticky fluid was flowing from between Eleni’s legs.

  Edith’s white sheet had been a lake of blood.

  This was not a job that could be done alone. ‘Help me, ladies!’

  Midwife Meline’s consciousness flitted between the present and the past. Images from the past merged with the salt-smelling night.

  The village girl’s baby had to live.

  Edith’s baby had to be born dead.

  The women on the quay, old and young, rushed to help.

  In the Lamarck mansion, she’d been all alone on the top floor. The servants weren’t even aware that Edith was living in the turret. Juliette Lamarck had locked her daughter up there. Because she’d spent the last months of her pregnancy lying flat in her bed, young Edith’s legs had no strength.

  ‘Oh, my God! They’re both going to die!’

  The women were shouting.

  No, Edith would not die. That was the agreement. The baby would die. The mother would live.

  ‘I want my own daughter safe and sound. Do you understand me, Midwife? Next week she must be back on her feet and mixing with people. This scandal must end here. No one else will know except the two of us. Otherwise…’

  Juliette shook the wine-red money bag hanging around her neck. Gold coins rattled inside.

  ‘Otherwise, prepare your daughters for sex with Mahmut Aga’s henchmen. They are insatiable, I tell you, Midwife! Why are you staring at me so stupidly? Roll up your sleeves and get to work. You are an experienced midwife. No doubt you know how babies die in a delivery. Find a way. I shall be waiting downstairs.’ Meline caught the baby in the air. The women all made the sign of the cross and shouted in unison, ‘Ena koritsi, ena koritsi! A girl child! Eleni, your daughter has been born! Congratulations! Ah, Panagia mou, dear Mother Mary, how tiny! Mikroula.’

  She placed the tiny girl on her mother’s bare breast. Young Eleni was smiling as best she could from where she lay. There were no scissors to cut the umbilical cord. It didn’t matter. It could wait. The umbilical cord, beating like a heart in between the two beings, lay like a snake from the woman’s stomach to her breast. Just long enough to reach the nipple. Almighty God planned everything perfectly; the umbilical cord was exactly long enough to reach the nipple.

  The baby’s cries brought brief smiles to some of the faces in the crowd. Men, women and children who just yesterday had left their fertile villages and the bones of their ancestors gathered round the rug to see the tiny new arrival. The old women moved their lips; the men craned their necks to observe the intimate scene from a distance as they rolled their cigarettes and exhaled smoke into air that was filled with alien smells.

  Hope spread through the quay. Mana Ellas, Mother Greece, would send ships tomorrow to save her children!

  A young man took the mandolin he’d brought with him out of its black case. The baby, having found her mother’s nipple, ceased her crying. With the birth of Eleni’s daughter, the crowd had become one family. They embraced each other; they were all v
ictims of the same sad fate. As yet they had no idea that over the coming days their number would swell by three or four times, all of them squeezed between life and death.

  Exhausted, Meline collapsed onto the rug. The women ran to bring her water and she closed her eyes. Edith’s infant appeared in her mind. Its face was purple and it was making no sound. Had it died? Edith’s pulse was very weak. Wrapping the baby in a blanket, she placed it on the bed behind her and sewed up the tears in Edith’s flesh. When the beating stopped, she cut the umbilical cord. The girl’s lips were parted, her head had fallen to one side, her hair was stuck to her sweaty chest, her breasts, full of milk, spilled over from her nightgown’s frilly neckline. The baby’s tiny lips were searching in vain for a nipple; she had a bright red mouth and, just like her mother and her grandfather from Athens, she had curly black hair. Juliette Lamarck’s sin had produced another fruit. Eh, dear God, what you are capable of!

  Juliette Lamarck’s footsteps on the stairs.

  In her hand a moneybag full of gold coins.

  She looked at the baby; looked and in one glance realized it was alive. It was supposed to be born dead. Recalling their agreement…

  So be it. She replaced the moneybag around her own neck. Meline threw herself on the floor, covering the woman’s feet.

  ‘Madame Lamarck, I beg you! Madame Lamarck, I kiss your feet. Please have mercy. If I do not pay our debt, tomorrow morning the aga’s men will come for my daughters. Look, your daughter is alive. I saved her life. She was weak, I revived her. Madame Lamarck, I beg you, have pity on my children.’

  ‘This was not our agreement.’

  A hand on her shoulder. She turned and looked. She was still on the quay. The pregnant woman’s husband had come. He kneeled beside her, twisting his cap in his hands.

  ‘Mother, are you okay? Look, I found a carriage, but we don’t need it any more. You brought my daughter into the world. May the Lord Jesus bless you. May Panagia the Virgin Mary bless you, your grandchildren and the children of your grandchildren. Come, pedia, boys, let’s give our mother midwife a hand, let’s help her into this carriage.’