The Silence of Scheherazade

by Defne Suman

  As the boat pushed its way past the bobbing corpses and out into the forbidding sea, they caught a last glimpse of Juliette Lamarck, racing through the crowd in the direction of Punta. Leaping like a deer over the prone bodies of those who were sick or had fainted, she passed the ruined Kraemer’s, the Théâtre de Smyrne with its roof on fire, and the American Consulate, where it looked as if hundreds of fireworks were exploding all at once, and plunged up Bella Vista into one of the many flaming side streets. Then she disappeared from view.

  How did Juliette know that Midwife Meline had left the baby at that orphanage? Did her guilty conscience get the better of her, prompting her to find the midwife and question her? Did the owner of the donkey that had carried Meline to Smyrna go gossiping, and did his words reach Juliette’s ears? The answers to those questions were consumed by the fire, as was Juliette Lamarck.

  When Jean-Pierre was eventually able to return to those miserable, fire-ravaged ruins, to that place which could not even be called the ghost of beautiful Smyrna, he could find neither the orphanage nor the neighbourhood in which it had been located. The crowd on the quay had dispersed, leaving only bloodstains and headless, handless, fingerless bodies floating in the sea.

  No one had any information concerning Juliette Lamarck.

  *

  Well before the meeting of the Lamarck family – minus Juliette – in the hotel room in Paris, before he’d heard about what had happened to Juliette, Avinash knew, as he stood on the deck of the Iron Duke in the ominous red light that was obliterating Smyrna, that Edith’s baby had not died.

  While he was stroking his sobbing lover’s hair with one hand, with the other he had taken from his pocket the photograph of Edith as a young girl which he had found in the library earlier. The child was alive. In Smyrna, which was dying in the roaring claws of the fire, a fire that was growing brighter, Edith’s daughter was caught somewhere between life and death.

  Daragaci

  The Greek Cemetery at Daragaci was packed. Families had raised the marble lids of their graves, taken out the coffins and hidden their girls in groups of twos or threes in the empty holes. Then, with everyone weeping, they closed the heavy marble lids again and left the girls in the graves.

  Katina, holding Panagiota’s hand tight, ran up to Akis, who was walking in front. ‘This is not our family cemetery – what will we do? If only we’d gone to Chesme. And it’s quieter there too.’

  Akis didn’t answer. Both their sets of parents were buried in Chesme. Maybe their families still living there had put their own children in the graves. What times these were.

  Gypsy Mimiko was in charge. He had obviously planned this out long ago and he was now striding through the weeping and wailing crowd with resolute steps, clearing a path for his family and Akis, Katina and Panagiota behind him. There were people opening graves everywhere.

  A woman in a black headscarf was beating herself and sobbing at the head of her husband’s grave. ‘Come and save us now!’ she shouted. ‘An army of soldiers passed over your daughter. They tore the child to pieces. Where are you now when we need you so much?’ She hammered at the white marble tombstone, which responded to her pain with sombre silence.

  The woman looked like the mother of Panagiota’s friend Elpiniki. Panagiota tried to get Katina to stop. ‘Mama, wait. That woman is Kyra Rea, I think.’

  Katina did not stop. ‘Forget about that now, kori mou. Keep walking.’

  Tiny Katina had turned into a raging bull. Chin held high, she strode forward into the heart of the cemetery, dragging Panagiota behind her with superhuman strength.

  Elpiniki had fled to Athens with her Greek lover. Long before this disaster, when it had become obvious that she was pregnant, her lover had put her on the first boat to Greece. Elpiniki’s mother had taken her younger daughter Afroula and gone round the streets surrounding the square announcing to everyone like a town crier that Elpiniki was no longer her daughter. Everyone knew that once the baby was born, Kyra Rea would forgive her, but when she’d walked around the neighbourhood with Afroula ringing a bell, they’d pretended to agree with her by coming to their windowsills and clicking their tongues.

  Since Elpiniki was in Athens, the daughter who’d been raped had to be Afroula. Afroula was not even fourteen yet. Panagiota hurried on.

  When they got to the edge of the cemetery overlooking Paralikopru Road, they stopped. To their left a woman was giving birth on top of a family grave; other people were burning bones to boil water. Immigrant Turkish boys from Crete were selling water and oil at exorbitant prices. Some of them were carrying trays with photographs of Mustafa Kemal and miniature Turkish flags. Wandering around amid the graves, ornate statues and crosses, they were yelling at the tops of their voices, ‘Buy these flags and pin them on your collars and no one will touch you! Save your lives!’

  Gypsy Mimiko glanced around at the statues, the inscriptions on the gravestones, the cypress trees and the gravel – taking his bearings. He counted the graves to his right, walked to the third one and knelt down. Adriana’s twin sisters followed behind their father like wind-up dolls. He stood up, a triumphant smile on his small face, and raised two shovels in the air, showing them to Akis.

  ‘They’re right where I left them, thank the Lord.’

  The twins hugged their father’s long legs.

  ‘We’ll hide my little girls here, and we’ll dig a hole for the older ones in the kinotafio, the mass grave for the bones of the dead. No one will think of looking for them there. Come on, boys, give us a hand to raise this slab.’

  Panagiota and Adriana looked at each other fearfully. Mimiko’s sons rushed to help their father move the heavy marble.

  ‘There must be another empty grave,’ Katina whispered to Akis. ‘How can we bury our child in the earth with all those bones? Come, let’s have a look.’

  ‘Are we at the market bargaining for fruit and vegetables, woman?’ Akis roared. ‘Don’t you see how many families are kneeling around every single cross?’

  It was true. The cemetery was full of families fighting each other. On discovering that someone else had commandeered the grave that belonged to them, they were yanking out the girls hidden there and replacing them with their own children. The nineteen granddaughters of one woman were slugging it out with their fists at the bottom of their grandmother’s grave.

  Mimiko, wiping the sweat from his forehead with his shirttail, came to stand between Katina and Akis. ‘Kyra Katina, the land behind this patch of heather is allocated to the kinotafio, the ossuary. Trust me, it’s the safest place. Even if they do dare come into the cemetery, they won’t think of looking there.’

  After they’d closed the marble lid on the little girls, Mimiko and Akis grabbed the shovels and began digging. The women went onto the heather patch to gather laurel leaves and grass to cover the opening which would be left for the girls to breathe. Katina wouldn’t let go of Panagiota’s hand. When the men unearthed a bag of bones, Adriana’s teeth began chattering. She reached for Panagiota’s other hand. Her skin was like ice, but she leaned into her friend’s ear and murmured, ‘It will be like burying ourselves at the beach, like we used to do when we were little at the Diana Baths. Just like that.’

  When they had dug a hole big enough to hold both girls, they helped Panagiota and Adriana down into it. ‘It would be best if you lay facing each other,’ said Mimiko. ‘Hold your hands under your chins, so you can dig your way out if you need to.’

  The girls lay in the hole like twins in their mother’s womb, with their knees drawn up to their stomachs and their fingers under their chins, as if they were praying. As the men shovelled the earth back on top of them, Katina and Sofia knelt and placed handkerchiefs over their daughters’ faces, making the sign of the cross three times as they did so.

  Panagiota, acutely aware of how upset her mother was, tried to comfort her, as she always did, disregarding her own fears. ‘Don’t worry, Mama dear,’ she said from behind the handkerchief. ‘No one will
find us here. And we’re not alone. If we get bored, we can talk to each other.’

  Still on her knees, Katina prayed that God would protect her good-hearted child. The wind carried the tang of scorched wood, molten metal and boiling flesh; the cypress trees swayed in the darkness, as if trying to give meaning to all the smells. Women were screaming from the direction of the street.

  Quickly, they closed the hole, covered the vent with dry twigs and laurel leaves, and scattered the bag of bones they’d excavated.

  ‘We can’t stay here. We’ll attract attention,’ said Mimiko. ‘Let’s go back into the middle of the cemetery.’

  ‘I’m not moving from here!’

  ‘Kyra Katina, for the sake of our daughters, we need to mingle with the crowd.’

  ‘No! Impossible. Ohi! You go and mix with the crowd. I will stay here to keep watch over my child.’

  ‘Katina mou, when the bandits see you keeping guard, you think it won’t whet their appetite? Ade, ade. Let’s get out of this heather. We won’t take our eyes off them. Come.’

  With difficulty they pulled Katina out of the heather and over to the middle of the cemetery. She collapsed beside a marble gravestone and began to cry. Sofia, with her little daughter Irini in her lap, sat beside her, holding her hand. No one paid any attention to them among all the other sobbing, moaning women. Everyone was entreating God, Mother Mary, and every known angel and saint to protect their own daughters.

  Someone screamed from the edge of the cemetery, ‘The gasworks is on fire! It’s about to explode. We’ll all be burned to death!’

  From beneath the dark earth, Panagiota flinched. Her neck was itching terribly from the leaves and grass covering their heads. She tried to make out Adriana though the white handkerchief that smelled of mastic. She could hear women shrieking – some were giving birth; others were escaping the fire. Families were combining forces and shifting the heavy stones again, getting their daughters out of their hiding places and fleeing from the cemetery.

  The gasworks was one street below the cemetery. Panagiota scratched at the earth with her hands and tried to move her legs, but the soil was pressing down on her like a heavy blanket. She was suddenly overtaken by panic. How would they get out? If the gasworks exploded and fire spread through the cemetery, they would suffocate to death. Pulling the handkerchief off her face, she shouted into the leaves, ‘Adriana, we have to get out of here. Ade! Move your hands and feet and dig. Adriana! M’akus? Do you hear me?’

  The two friends began to twist and turn like worms in their earthen hole. Dust, dirt, leaves and weeds stuck to their sweaty foreheads and necks. The world was loaded upon them like a nightmare. They were trapped. Forgetting that they were in hiding, they moaned, yelled and howled with all their might, like wild animals. But their screams were heard by no one.

  Nearby, Mimiko was trying to soothe Katina, who was out of her mind with worry.

  ‘Kyra Katina, the fire’s a long way away. Even if it does get nearer, it won’t cross the railway track. Look, you can see the gasworks chimney from here – there’s no fire there. People are shouting because they’re panicking. Trust me, this is the safest place to be – for us and for our daughters.’

  Katina was in no state to listen to any more talk. She grabbed the shovel that Mimiko had dropped beside a grave, and when Akis made to stop her, she swung it at him. ‘If you come any nearer, you’ll end up worse than these stinking corpses! Katalavenete? Do you understand?’

  Akis had never seen his wife like this. He followed her to the heather patch.

  ‘Fire! Fire! We’re all going to burn to death. Kegomaste!’

  Katina shovelled the earth out of the hole and Adriana and Panagiota staggered out. A flood of people was stampeding past them through the heather, heading for the stadium.

  ‘Run, Panagiota! Run, kori mou!’

  Panagiota turned around, trying to see her mother and father among the growing throng of people racing for the stadium. Katina was short, but she could always spot her father’s burly frame in a crowd. As she stopped to look for them, someone crashed into her from behind and she stumbled, hit the wall beside the railway track and fell. Her dress was ripped and her knee was bleeding. She tried to stand up. People were streaming past from her right and her left. Some tripped over her and fell flat on their faces, others trod on her and carried on.

  When eventually she managed to grab onto the wall and pull herself up, she heard her mother’s increasingly shrill voice.

  ‘Run, Panagiota mou. Run, yavri mou! Run to the quay!’

  The human tide, twisting like a snake, paused for a moment in front of the train station. A black cloud had settled on the narrow residential streets ahead, obscuring everything. Which way were they supposed to go? Panagiota stumbled into Bournabat Avenue, which happened to be right in front of her. She could hear the roar of the fire in the distance. Somewhere beyond the streets that crossed the avenue – was it far away, or near? – houses and churches were collapsing, scattering sparks as they fell, one after the other.

  A group passed her, dived down Vasili Street and turned in the direction of Panagiota’s neighbourhood. She couldn’t see Adriana or her parents. She only hoped they would find each other at the quay.

  A young man from up front shouted out, ‘Go from Parallel Street to Punta – the fire won’t get as far as Punta!’

  The very young and the very old fell by the wayside, and no one paid them any heed. A large group started down the avenue. One of Panagiota’s shoes got stuck in the tram rails; she carried on running with one foot bare. The smoke rolling down the street was creating clouds darker than the night, causing people to completely lose their sense of direction. A fat man who was running in front of Panagiota stopped suddenly – at the corner of Parallel Street, probably – and everyone behind him bumped into one other. Panagiota again tripped and fell, hitting her head on the pavement. She squealed with pain as blood dripped from her temple.

  The people at the front began dropping to the ground, exposing the people behind them to a hail of bullets from men with machine guns who were holding the street corners. Were they bandits, or soldiers or gang members? Panagiota was now sprawled in a lake of blood. She squinted through half-closed eyes. The gunmen were coming towards her, emptying the pockets of the dead as they went. Her teeth were chattering; her whole body was shaking like a leaf. In just a few seconds they would realize she was alive. She was at the back, near a corner. Slowly she withdrew her bare foot from under the dead body of the fat man. The looters were hurriedly snatching up the riches from the fallen, tearing off the jewellery that women had hidden under their dresses. She would have to act quickly.

  She waited until all the men were leaning down, then with a massive effort she sprang to her feet like an arrow and, limping, plunged left, disappearing into Mesudiye Avenue under a cloud of black smoke. Behind her a voice shouted, ‘Catch the whore! Make her pay!’ But when her pursuers got to Kosma Street, none had the courage to jump into the vast, open-mouthed oven that greeted them.

  Panagiota ran into the heart of the fire. She ran and ran and ran.

  At first she ran slowly. She felt sick; her lungs were choked with smoke and she had to stop to cough. Nails and shards of glass sliced through her bare foot. Then her lungs cleared and she ran faster, faster, becoming one with her surroundings, losing herself in the light, the noise, the wind. Her legs, which had felt as heavy as an ingot under the thick blanket of soil, now felt as weightless as a feather, flying her forwards, on and on. The streets to her right and left glowed orange; the sky was a copper bowl. The skirt of her dress caught fire at Tercuman Street. Flames licked her legs, but she didn’t feel them any longer. Nothing got through to her – not the stench, nor the din nor the horror. She was going to die. Oh, Mother Mary, what a great relief it was to have accepted death! If only she’d known this earlier. Some of the streets to her right, lined with warehouses, hadn’t been touched by the fire’s deadly tongues, but she didn’t even
consider going down them. There was no stopping her now. She had become the wind. She was Smyrna’s mischievous wind, smelling of roses, salt and seaweed, a cure for all ills.

  What gentle comfort the prospect of imminent death brought amid such horror. If only she could tell the crowds on the quay to quickly surrender themselves to death. Death was freedom!

  A building collapsed to her left, scattering sparks into the sky like fireworks. Without slowing down, Panagiota glanced over at the sign on what remained of its wall. It was one of the fashionable boutiques. Goodbye furs and muffs and lacy underwear, and hats from Paris. May all the stuff that had promised a happier life burn in this hell. There was only one happy life, and that life was in the little house with the blue door. It was hidden in the pot of beans they dipped their bread in. It was sitting at Katina’s knees on the couch by the bay window; it was in Grocer Akis’s spice-scented hands caressing her chin; in the brief touch of Stavros’s knee under the table. Since that life had now disappeared, let all the hats, corsets, muffs, cafés, and hotels with ballrooms burn. Let them all turn to ashes.

  A coal-black horse thundered out of a side street. With his legs aflame, he looked like a mythical creature. Like Panagiota, he too was galloping into the heart of the fire. Seeing her, he reared and whinnied with pain. They ran together down Bella Vista Avenue, which had become a corridor of fire. Panagiota found she could run as fast as the horse. Oh my God! Of course, vevea, she was the queen. She was Smyrna, the single-breasted Amazon warrior who had founded the city four thousand years ago. This was, of course, the horse that Smyrna had ridden bareback. After thousands of years they had found each other. Without slowing, she turned and smiled at the horse. The horse neighed. They were united, complete. If she were to get on his back, she would feel even more complete.