Between the Two Rivers: A Story of the Armenian Genocide

by Aida Kouyoumjian

Barone! That meant Mr. in Armenian—easy to remember. Was he the one with honey-colored eyes? He looked the kinder of the two. She bit into her sandwich, but each swallow induced more tears. They rolled down her cheeks. Will I ever go to school?

  “The vorpanotz,” Dikran consoled her, “would resemble a khan anyway, and like this one, will be crowded.” Glancing up at the ceiling patched with reeds and corrugated tin, he added, “Perhaps it will have a real roof.”

  “Where is it?”

  “There isn’t one yet. The Barone is searching for a building to house the homeless children,” Dikran said, handing her a few more raisins he had found clinging in his pocket. “I was surprised at the masses of vagabond children who mushroomed at the church! You and I are fortunate in our khan.”

  He unrolled his mat for the night. “I feel secure working for these gentlemen,” he said, and lit up a cigarette. “The Barone gave me a whole pack.” He inhaled a few puffs and faced Mannig, who lay on her mat, knees to chest and whimpering. “Don’t cry. Before long, a good Armenian man will come along and marry you. Unlike me, he will provide all the beautiful things you deserve.”

  You don’t understand, she thought. All I care about is schooling. The children at the vorpanotz will learn to read and write while I’ll be imprisoned at this khan. She pulled her quilt over her legs. The crescent moon peeked into her stall through a displaced plank on the roof and shone in her teary eyes. The amber rays may be beaming on the sky-piercing minarets, touching the neighboring flat roofs, but not shining on anyone as unhappy as she. No one suffers my pain. Tears lolled her to sleep.

  She awakened to a bright day that buoyed her gloom-filled spirit despite the familiar surroundings. Buzzing flies clouded piles of grime; manure patties lined up to dry gave off a familiar reek. However, living with Dikran ensured the end of loneliness. She preferred this to the comforts of the qasr. Still, something troubled her soul.

  They said I don’t qualify.

  “You’re alive because you scrambled for your own air,” her mother’s words fanned her thoughts like fresh breeze. At one point during the deportation, the Armenians were crammed into a cattle train. Mannig scooted, crawled, and slithered through legs, feet, and squatters in the people-packed box-car to poke her nose into a hole on the wall. Her own efforts secured the breath of life; otherwise, she too, would have suffocated like Sirarpi, her younger sister.

  Today must unwrap itself like a precious gift, she thought. If I am to be happy, it is up to me. She raised her hand and firmly wiped off a remnant of a tear. Her scheme emerged before the khan dwellers arose to relieve themselves in the water can.

  She was sure that being clean and wearing a new dress had barred her from the vorpanotz. Dikran’s protection further prevented her enrollment.

  Lest anyone sense her movements, she held her breath while she slipped into her grubby old dress. Pounding in her temples flushed her whole body, but the heat wasn’t enough to blunt the coldness of the burlap against her skin. More than anything, she wanted to pee and tuck herself back under her quilt. Then what?

  She hid her pretty dress under the mat and slid into the rising summer haze. She ran so fast that not even the dogs had time to bark.

  The smell of rotting vegetation signaled the nearness of the river. She battled a cloud of mosquitoes fluttering over a stagnant puddle, sloshing through the cool mud along the weedy shore and displacing the brown frogs that puffed their bellies like bellows.

  She clutched a chunk of mud and squashed it all over herself, clotting her hair with muck and tangling it in strings across her face. I wish my lower lip were still split and bleeding. She tore her dress seams knee-high, unraveled the hem until it hung in shreds, and dangled one sleeve off the shoulder down to her elbow.

  Soon women trickled toward the river. Robed in black abayas and balancing water ewers on their shoulders, they gazed at Mannig’s antics—caking her legs with sludge. She persisted until she stunk of filth before leaving the privacy of the riverside to the Moslawis attending to their daily routine.

  I am ready. She ran up the alley, past the two-way donkey trail, and onto the dirt path toward the Armenian Church.

  Bees buzzed their thin shimmering wings around her, and a company of butterflies flickered in a riot of colors ahead. She concentrated on finding a way to nick her toe without too much pain. Each time she tried to kick a rock, her instincts prevented her from exerting the necessary force. A bad idea, anyway.

  A few steps ahead, unknowingly, she stepped on a spiny hedgehog curled up in a ball. The painful sting immobilized her. Zakhnaboot! With contorted face, she flaked off the caked mud and pulled out the needle. The oozing blood elated her. She bent in half, squeezed the puncture hard, and dripped red over her finger. She smeared droplets on her lower lip, then her thighs, knees and legs. I hope the stain stands out over the grime.

  The sight of the church slowed her to a shaky pace. The noonday yellow warmed the reddish hues of its brick walls. A low tone of babbling children in the courtyard induced a big calming breath and the necessary courage.

  She entered the courtyard, limping on one foot.

  The two effendis were writing names again. Will either recognize me?

  The one with the receding chin removed his red felt fez, exposing a sweaty bald head shining like a mirror. She feared a bad omen, should it reflect her image. His brain may tell him my identity. She stepped backward and snuck a glance at the other. The Barone. He won’t tell me apart from the others. After all, sticky hair covered her face, and the pretty dress lay in the khan.

  Clothed in a European-cut suit, he reminded her of her father. Might this man be as kind? Unlike Baba, he wore a healthy mustache, trimmed and uncurled.

  Exaggerating a phlegm-choked cough, she hobbled toward him, and barely a step away, stopped to pant. She lowered her eyes to just below his heart and, deliberately enunciating the word chojoukh—Turkish for child—and mahhal—the Arabic for place—she stuttered, “Why so many chojoukhs here? Is this mahhal for orphans?”

  “Well … yes,” the Barone answered, as if pleased to be talking with someone instead of just registering names.

  His deep voice sounds like Baba’s.

  “Anny joo’aaneh,” she expressed hunger in Arabic, and then continued dotting similar words into Armenian syntax. “I’m an orphan. Can I live here? I have no mahhal to go to.”

  “What do you mean no place to go? Where did you come from?” the Barone asked.

  “Fiil shari’at,” she waved toward the street. “I saw the chojoukhs … and I followed them.”

  “Are you Armenian?”

  “Yes. I think so,” Mannig hesitated. Her thoughts darted back and forth like a squirrel, but she focused her eyes on the ground before she spoke in perfect Armenian. “I’ve lived among the Arabs for so long I’m confused who I should be.”

  The Barone stood up, and his voice rising in suspicion, he asked, “Where’s your own family?”

  She stepped back, forced a tear. “The Turks massacred them.” She sniffled for added antics and pretended painful cold standing barefoot on the courtyard stones.

  “Who do you live with?” he asked, searching for truth in her eyes.

  He suspects my lie. Compelled to continue with the act, she lowered her gaze to the tip of her nose. “An Arab family. They took me in, but they beat me now. See the blood? They say I must become a Muslim like them.”

  “Don’t you want to?” he said, restraining a smile.

  “Oh, no! Haji-doo, my grandmother in heaven, will cry if I become arabicized. Please, Barone. You must save me. I cannot fight for food in the streets safely, and the awful khatoon … she beats me every day.”

  “Impossible!” he said. “I have not heard of any Arabs mistreating little Armenian girls. Who is this monster? You must show me her house.”

  She succumbed to a wave of terror. Was her lie discovered? Vye! All my efforts in vain! She cried—real tears. “No! I won’t go near that house ever again.
You can go if you want. It is over there. But I will stay away … I am scared … they will beat me.”

  “Where is the house?” the Barone insisted.

  Mannig stared at him through the strings of her hair and noticed the tips of his mustache rising a bit. Is he teasing me? She refused to let the tide of her lies go out and reveal the rock. He must not get the best of her. “Barone,” she said. “Are you sure you want to see the hovel?”

  “Let’s go.”

  “It is far from here. The cut on my foot hurts a lot. It will take a long time to reach it. What about all these children in the courtyard?”

  “They can wait,” he said. “They will be all right until I return. Are you going to show me the way?”

  “Barone … I will try to walk. Oh! Ah! It is so painful … those stones are so rough. The house lies this way. You follow me.” Seeing her entrapment, she led him toward the gate of the fence, hobbling, limping, coughing once, pulling her leg with both hands, stumbling once and moaning spasmodically. She wrinkled her face with pain. “Barone, the sun will disappear before we get there.”

  “That’s quite all right. I can find my way back,” he murmured.

  Oh, heavens my God! What am I going to do? Take him to the khan? I’ll be a dog for there are no Arabs there. I must take him to Adrine’s—her khatoon hates me anyway. Oh, Haji-doo. Will God hear me? I need help, dear Jesus. I promise not to lie again.

  “I guess we have gone far enough,” she heard the Barone say.

  When they approached the gate of the courtyard, he grabbed her ripped sleeve. “I admire your determination to enroll at the orphanage. I refuse to crush your enthusiasm. Let’s go back and get you registered.”

  “Really, Barone?” Mannig squealed. “Thank you. Thank you. I will always remember your kindness. You will be in my prayers every day. My dreams will be of you for the rest of my life.” As these last words tumbled out of her mouth, the courtyard seemed to transform into a happy place housing flocks of birds singing with one voice. The church walls shimmered in myriad colors, the reds blazed like flickering flames, the yellows pure like amber, and the blues, a thousand times clearer than the sky.

  I must show him my gratitude beyond words.

  She took the Barone’s hand to kiss it first, then to raise it to her forehead.

  He pulled it back before she placed her lips on it. “You should only kiss the hand of a priest. And I am not a priest.”

  “But you are more wonderful than a priest,” she exclaimed.

  “What is your name, you little jinni?” the Barone asked.

  9—It Shall Be April 1, 1906

  “Her name is Mannig.” The Barone directed his partner to register her in his ledger. He watched him dip the pen in the inkwell, tap it, and with a flourish, spell M-a-n-n-i-g before he scooted into his chair to register the orphans lined at his side of the table.

  Mannig leaned forward, wanting to see what her name looked like on paper, sandwiched between the other scribbles. How beautiful! The elaborate calligraphy attested to every advantage she assumed schooling promised. The hollow darkness in her heart vanished and a bliss-filled flavor swelled her imagination. I, too, will learn to pen my name. Her spirit soared like the vibrant butterfly in flight she had seen earlier.

  “What is your surname?”

  The man’s voice grounded Mannig.

  Surname? What does the word mean? Her head felt empty, her memory blank. She peered into space in as deep a silence as the quiet growth of a weed. What must I say? A wrong guess might deny entrance to the orphanage. Think. Remember. Invent. The bread baker had called her Maria.

  “Maria?” Her raised voice betrayed self-questioning. Then quickly, she camouflaged a sigh of relief when the registrar dunked the pen in ink and scribbled in the next column.

  “Mannig Maria,” he said, without looking up at her. “Now tell me your surname.”

  “Yab-nayeh,” she whispered, hoping the mistress’s label sufficed.

  “That’s Arabic for girl,” he said. “Family name … family name.” He studied her face. “I need your surname.”

  Mannig drowned in ignorance. Confusion suffocated her. I’ve flunked the school’s first exam. The mistress had stripped her of the only name she owned, while these Armenians required more than one! Her eyes lost focus as she stared at him, her heart pounding tearfully.

  “You do have a last name, of course,” the registrar repeated, holding the pen in limbo. “Don’t you know it? I must enter it in the next column.”

  Hoping to distract his attention, she squealed, “The pen. The pen,” and pointed to the drop of ink about to drip on the ledger.

  He swung the pen and shook a drip into the ground. “Have you forgotten your family name, child?”

  “No one told me anything,” she replied honestly. She remembered everything she’d seen or experienced but nothing beyond surviving the massacre. What she never heard of didn’t exist. Wherever she went, they took her at face value and no one had inquired about her identity. Might Romella know? Adrine? Mentioning them or their relationship would surely jeopardize her orphan status. She kept mum.

  “Do you know your parents’ names?” he asked.

  Of course! “My mother’s name is Mama and my father’s, Baba.” She breathed confidently.

  The effendi shook his head.

  I failed again. How could her parents’ names be wrong?

  “Kheghj aghcheeg!” Resting his chin in his palm, he repeated, “Pitiful girl. I suppose you don’t know your birth date, either. Do you know how old you are?”

  “I don’t,” she mumbled, tears streaking her cheeks over her ignorance of anything the effendi asked. How was she going to succeed in school? Obviously, I’m NOT worthy of the orphanage. Without a surname, ignorant of her parents’ identity and uninformed about her age, she lost heart over ever making anything worthy of her life.

  Not entirely.

  She cranked up her wits for another chance. “I remember going to kindergarten in Adapazar.”

  “Aha!” exclaimed, the effendi “That’s good. We will call you Mannig of Adapazar …”

  Thank the Lord for His goodness. Haji-doo’s words echoed in her head.

  “Unless we’ve already registered a Mannig from Adapazar,” the effendi said, sliding his finger up and down across several pages of the registry.

  Her breathing had stopped, hearing blocked, and sight veiled. What will happen to me if I am not Mannig from Adapazar? Fear of another rejection paralyzed her.

  “Well, Mannig …” the effendi’s voice eased her muscles’ stiffness, “you are, from now on, formally registered as Mannig of Adapazar. Unless …”

  Oh, no. Not another rejection.

  “Unless, of course, you tell us your surname. Actually, you’re the first survivor from that town. You are the one and only Mannig of Adapazar.”

  The one and only. Mannig squeezed her eyes shut in delight—almost glad not to have a family name. What responsibilities did owning a unique name entail? She’d do anything to live up to it.

  “You don’t know how old you are,” the effendi resumed, “but you say you remember going to kindergarten. Right?”

  Mannig nodded and then choked, dreading he’d find more faults in her.

  “Well, you must have been four, five, or six years old,” he continued, looking at his partner. “Barone Mardiros, do you know the date when the Adapazarians were deported?”

  “In the spring of 1915, I believe,” the Barone answered. “Its citizens were the first to be purged by the Turks.” He then glanced at Mannig. “Adapazar—so that’s where you’re from—nice affluent community across the Bosphorus from Boleess (Constantinople).”

  “We rode the train to Boleess!” Mannig squealed, excited at how the conversation between the effendis triggered the memory of her past. She relished this moment that had revived a bit of her history. She saw herself in the train with Mama, Baba, and her four siblings, all dressed in new clothes traveling to vi
sit her uncle.

  “I know her town,” the Barone said, facing the effendi but casting a calm and reflective glance at Mannig.

  Mannig honed in on his face and finally knew who he resembled. Baba! Her father too, had had honey-colored eyes and wore a similar expression when he handed out sweet-and-sour candy in the train to pacify the children in their seats.

  “When I was a student at Robert’s College,” the Barone continued, “my friends planned an excursion to Adapazar, but I thought I ought not to interrupt my training for the Olympics. But when my coach insisted I take a break, I enjoyed the town immensely and its beaches at Izmit.”

  “What shall I write down for age?” the effendi asked. “How old do you think she is?”

  The two men eyed Mannig—up and down. They asked her to spin and checked her from front to back, all around—from mucky hair to bleeding toe.

  Their scrutiny disconcerted Mannig. She fidgeted and heard her heart pound but did not hear their comments about her shape and height. She remembered tearing her armholes before coming to the church and instinctively pressed her arms against her bodice to hide her nipples. She decided to tolerate anything as long as they admitted her.

  “Let me figure it out.” The Barone rubbed his forehead. “This is 1920. If, five or six years ago, she was six or seven, I guess she must be eleven or twelve now.” He looked at her again and instructed, “Write down ‘thirteen.’ ”

  The calligraphy of being thirteen in the ledger fascinated Mannig.

  “Would 1906 be the year of her birth?” the effendi asked. But, seeing the Barone engrossed with another orphan, he wrote “1906” and mumbled, “As we have done with others like you, today will be your birth date. This is the month of April, and today is the first day of the month. So Mannig of Adapazar, if anyone asks you about your birth date, tell them you were born in Adapazar on April 1, 1906. Will you remember?”

  “Yes, effendi,” Mannig said, wanting to thank him, but he waved her aside and indicated that she should move on toward the sanctuary where the registered orphans waited in twos and threes, squatting down on their heels.