Between the Two Rivers: A Story of the Armenian Genocide

by Aida Kouyoumjian

  “We have a system here,” Diggin Perouz was saying when Mannig regrouped back on the path. “After you pay your respects to Turkey in the mornings, you must run upstream and wash your hands and faces in the river. After that, you can come to the kitchen for tea—hot and sweetened tea.”

  She led them to a mid-sized tent. “This is the Infirmary,” she said. “See the flag above it?” She pointed to a fluttering Red Crescent on a white cloth rising from its peak. “You must tell me if you are sick so we can take you to this tent. We have medicine, too. Dr. Papazian, my husband, sent a few emergency items in case we need any. Luckily, no one is sick now.” She stopped to catch her breath. “We must keep clean at all times. That’s the law. The river is near us so we can wash ourselves and our clothes. And once a week, we will heat water to bathe you until you are seriously clean.”

  Next she stopped by a standard-sized tent. “Which six girls want to stay in this one?” she asked, addressing Adrine. “You probably should not settle down until all your children are sheltered first.”

  She led the depleted group from one tent past several others until all were housed except four. She put her hand on Adrine’s shoulder and whispered, “Adrine, Jahn. This is a good place for you and the rest. Two Vanetsi sisters live here. But I’m sure they’re already asleep. They get tired from all the dancing and singing they do throughout the day.”

  Dancing? Singing?

  Mannig gazed at Diggin Perouz. The woman was full of surprises. As if naming the toilets ‘Turkey’ were not enough! How about her instructions that one had to, ‘run to the river,’ ‘splash the face with cold water,’ and ‘before the morning tea?’ What else do they do?

  They dance.

  Her already confused image of a school melted into a vision of herself twirling in her yellow ruffled dress. Would it be called dancing if she gyrated and wailed in a sack cloth as she had in Mosul? Or between the lines of these tents? She fell behind Adrine to hop across a few stakes in her path.

  Diggin Perouz lifted the entrance flap of the tent. “There are two extra mattresses for the four of you. I am certain you will sleep like gazelles tonight. Adrine-Jahn! You are still a very young maiden, yet you have done the job of a grown woman. I assume Sebouh enlisted you to escort these children from Mosul to Ba’qubah.”

  Adrine nodded.

  “An awesome responsibility. And you have done it well. You deserve a good night’s sleep. Sleep peacefully. Well,” she chuckled. “I can guarantee you a restful night, but tomorrow, it will be different. I will need your assistance. We must see that all the orphans are settled, clean, and ready before Barone Mardiros arrives. We must make a good impression. He is bringing bolts of cloth for winter dresses and shoes for everyone.”

  Shoes?

  Mannig had forgotten what shoes felt like. She had worn her last pair three or four years ago. Triggered by the memory, her toes curled within the straps of her sandals. She had discarded her shoes in the middle of the desert because they weighed her down and slowed her pace in keeping abreast with the deportees. She remembered the instant relief of bare-footedness. But more so, she recalled that the reprieve had been fleeting. The desert thorns had their heyday and, by that evening, her soles had turned into a bristly hide of slivers.

  How would my feet feel in shoes, after all this time?

  22—Tête-à-Tête

  Trailing Diggin Perouz, Mardiros stopped at the entrance of the large tent reserved for visiting dignitaries. He slapped the dust off his khaki britches and kicked one boot against the other before stepping inside. Then, he removed his Topy, the British military hat used in the desert. “You are a marvel, Diggin Perouz,” he said, while she lit the lantern. “In spite of my late arrival, you accomplished much today.”

  She hung the lamp from a hook dangling from the central peak of the tent. “Work goes fast when the children are happy,” she said, facing him in the yellow haze flooding the interior. “You saw how their eyes shone—as radiantly as the sheen of the shoes each hugged as a prize.” She watched him wipe his brow above the tan line left by the brim of his hat and wave off a moth. She returned to the entrance and dropped the flap, impeding the surge of mosquitoes, veiling the moonless sky, and muffling nocturnal murmurs. She gazed at Mardiros, whose expression mirrored the excitement of the orphans. “Who did you say donated the shoes?”

  “Orozdi Bak, the department store,” he said, assisting her with unfolding an army cot. “Not all of the shoes, of course. We spent a nominal amount in the sook for another hundred or so. We wondered about sizes, so we selected a bunch of babooj-type loafers as well. We didn’t want any child to be without shoes.”

  “The children will remember this day forever,” Diggin Perouz said, airing a sheet above the cot. “Regrettably, this is all we can offer for your comfort,” she apologized. “Wasn’t unloading all those bolts of cloth a joyous sight, too? I will devise a fair plan to allot ample yardage to each child—so no orphan shall be without a new dress.”

  And no one shall learn the hazardous risk of the delivery, Mardiros thought to himself.

  The long horseback ride from Baghdad had demanded great alertness. He had escorted the mule-drawn carts, pyramided with supplies, for three days. Along with the six drivers, all wearing gun belts, he had trekked during the day and pretended to rest the two nights they had spent under the velvety dome of the sky, spangled with flickering stars.

  He shuddered, remembering how one night his consignment had almost been looted, and that the lives of the hired-hands—and his—might have ended.

  The yells and growls of hyenas had kept them alert. They built a fire for tea and augmented their waking hours with stories going back to the Babylonian empires about the wildlife in these ancient lands. “At least the ancient lions aren’t roaming these parts anymore,” the lead driver said, blowing at a chunk of charcoal flaming in the brazier.

  “The Assyrian Emperor was a great hunter,” another said, stretching his legs on the bedding—a quilt arranged on a straw mat. “He used wildlife for sport.”

  “But didn’t stoop below his royal status to aim his arrows at those vicious scavengers who pester at night.”

  “Hyenas are not only the desert ‘cleanup-crew’ of carcasses left behind,” one driver said, rolling a cigarette. “My nephew got attached to a hyena pup, so his father let him keep it as a pet. The two were inseparable. Cute gray striped creature … made us laugh. It had a zigzag trot that made it look like it was climbing uphill. The beast was harmless until it was about two years old. Then one day, it used its strong jaws on a baby-goat and ate the poor creature alive.”

  All eyes riveted on him, radiant and restless as the eyes of the hyenas glimmering from the hillside along the Eastern border of Iraq.

  Mardiros added a few more coals into the brazier. “We had better keep this ablaze until the sun comes up.” He urged the men to rest with one eye always open and both ears pricked for unusual sounds.

  He had hardly reclined on his mat when a shotgun rattled the quiet of the open sky.

  They were surrounded by marauders of the desert.

  The fire had served its purpose—it had deterred the hyenas from approaching their prey. But it had beckoned the robbers to their target.

  Confronted by the leader of the gang approaching on horseback, Mardiros, presupposing leadership, initiated a tactic for negotiation. “We carry no ammunition and no valuables,” he said, opening his cloak to show that there were no weapons in his belt. “Our cargo is shoes … we’re taking shoes to the orphans in Ba’qubah …”

  The chief raider fired a shot in the air and shouted to his cronies. “Wait!” He approached Mardiros for a better look. “Salamet,” their leader apologized, lowering his shotgun. “We didn’t know it was you, Say-yid Metrolose.”

  A collective gasp preceded a hush among the robbers.

  “Say-yid Metrolose is the son of Hagop Bey of Felloujah,” he continued. “My father and his were the best neighborly landowners b
efore the Big War.” He wheeled his horse about, wrapped his mouth with his red-and-white checkered kaffieh, and fired another shot in the air. “Tonight is not ours.” He led his gang galloping into the darkness of the western wasteland.

  “What was that about?”

  “Since when do you befriend pilferers?”

  “Why did he call you, Metrolose?”

  “Wait a minute,” Mardiros protested. “I need to catch my breath, too.”

  Only after taking several lengthy puffs of his cigarette did he try to explain.

  “That scoundrel and I grew up not too far apart from the Kouyoumdjian lands of Felloujah. He and I played war together. He could never pronounce Mardiros without stuttering. So he devised a nickname, Metrolose.”

  “That’s a good one,” the head driver said. “You do spew your words out fast like a machine gun.” He laughed, invoking the others into a nervous laughter.

  Their cackling resurfaced in his memory and he found it hard to repress his yearning to tell about escaping the harrowing incident to Diggin Perouz. He could not fully shake off the anxiety, which overwhelmed him even two days after the confrontation. He hoped his drivers would also be discreet; he had instructed them not to recount their experiences while under his employ, but wait until their return to their own families. News about marauding raiders could stop the flow of donations earmarked for the orphans.

  Watching Diggin Perouz unroll a mattress on the cot comforted him. The sanctuary of the camp restored his sense of accomplishment, although bearing news that might disrupt the orphanage disheartened him. He waited until Diggin Perouz aired a muslin covered quilt and set it at one end of the mattress before he spoke. “You are a great organizer,” he said, opening two folding canvas chairs. “Your cheerfulness and coordinating ability are hailed all over Baghdad.” He gestured for her to sit on one, while he sat in the other and crossed his legs. “I wish we could secure a few more volunteers like you.”

  She smiled. “Shall I make some tea?”

  ‘No, no,” he said, glad to delay divulging the new plans about the orphanage. “I have a better suggestion.” He darted over to his brown valise, the smallest of his three ochre leather bags. He unbuckled the two straps and lifted the engraved flap with his initials M.H.K—Mardiros Hagop Kouyoumdjian. He fumbled through the starched white shirts and monogrammed handkerchiefs that his valet in Baghdad had packed and finally retrieved a tear-shaped, clear bottle of cognac. “This is for you.”

  “Well, what took you so long? Let us sample it together.” She gestured for him to remove the wax seal of the crystal stopper. She reached inside the wicker cabinet, pulled out a shawl clinking with dishes, and set it on his cot. After untying its ends, she selected two glass teacups. “Not exactly snifters, but like Arabic tea, we can savor its rich caramel color as well.”

  He cradled the tiny two-ounce glass cup in his palm for a few moments to warm his cognac while she inhaled the bouquet of hers. They sipped with eyelids half-closed.

  “I had hoped your entourage included a few new helpers,” Diggin Perouz said.

  “It is useless,” Mardiros shook his head. “I’m disappointed in my Baghdadi community. They shun work themselves because their money talks. There is no one like you, Diggin Perouz—generous with money, self, and time.”

  “There’s you,” she interrupted, raising her drink to him.

  “Unlike you, I am a bachelor and have no responsibilities,” he said. “In fact, I have a good excuse to avoid that stuffy, decadent society of ours. I go to the parties because their money supports these orphans. In spite of the grumbling I get from my mother and the Kouyoumdjian females about my bachelorhood, I refuse to dally with snobbish society mothers, who flaunt their unmarried daughters at every social event.”

  “I would do the same if my daughter wasn’t already married,” Diggin Perouz said, and sipped her drink to the last drop. “These glasses are tiny.”

  He refilled hers, but refrained from quenching his palate. I brought the cognac for her consumption, after all. Instead, he took out his golden cigarette case and coyly held it open for her—unsure how free she felt to smoke in his presence. “My brother recently returned from London and brought these factory-rolled cigarettes with him.”

  She winked. “Who outside this tent would gossip about my smoking?” She reached for one and studied its perfect roll from tip to base, then repeated an old saying: “God save the dumb from the wicked.”

  Mardiros laughed. He lit her cigarette and a second one for himself. In silence, he watched puffs of smoke fill the tent as he debated the best time to inform her about the future of the orphanage. Remembering the letter from her husband, Dr. Papazian, he relished another excuse to delay revealing the plans to move the orphanage. He reached inside the pocket of his tweed jacket and handed her a sealed letter. “Your husband is anxious to see you back at home, I think.”

  “Only after someone replaces me,” she said, putting the letter in her skirt pocket without reading it. She poured another ounce of cognac into her glass. “I really don’t want to return to Baghdad. I am useful here—I feel wanted and I know I am filling a need. Seeing the orphans’ faces every morning is an affirmation I’ve missed in my life. You know of my teaching training. After all these years, I’m grateful to finally put it to good use. I enjoyed mingling with our friends in Baghdad while the children were growing up. After they were on their own, my existence seemed frivolous. Patients occupy my husband’s days, and the servants take care of everything. I felt useless and worthless. When I heard you at one of those society receptions, your plea for assistance moved me. I understood the need and knew I could fill it.”

  “I remember that very well,” Mardiros said. “You delighted us all with pertinent questions about AGBU’s origin and whether its board members had ulterior motives.”

  “You convinced me when you said the Armenian General Benevolent Union was Nubar Pasha’s brain child. I knew he disdained political organizations that are disguised as philanthropy. Like the Baghdadi Armenians, I had ignored the desperate needs of the surviving orphans until that evening in your presence.”

  “Obviously, your husband recognized those needs, also.”

  “Because he offered his medical services?” she asked.

  “Yes—and because he donated medicine for emergencies,” Mardiros said, un-strapping a second suitcase. “This time, he donated liquid quinine for malaria, and serum for bilharzias. He promised to ride here immediately, if life and death situations arose, such as an epidemic, God forbid. He also volunteered your ability to use a syringe, if necessary.”

  “He has faith in me.” She shook her head, looking at the long glass tube with a needle at its end. “He knows I’m skillful with an enema!”

  They both laughed as he clicked the lock of the bag shut.

  “When you tour the orphanage tomorrow,” she said, “we will put these supplies in the Infirmary Tent, which, luckily, has no occupants yet.”

  “You will show me around?” he asked.

  “Of course! We have been planning for your arrival for a week. The children are anxious to meet their Dear Father of the Orphans.”

  Mardiros let out a guffaw. “Father? You have made me a parent even before I am married.” He was as delighted with his title and her creative labeling as he was with the company of this unassuming lady. Noting her desire to talk about her thoughts, he further delayed his announcement. He offered her another cigarette.

  “One is enough,” she said. “You know, Barone Mardiros, other than Eghishe Vartanian, the teacher, and his wife, there are no adults here who can assume the responsibility of managing the orphanage. Many women from the Armenian camp help in spite of being needy themselves. But we can’t always expect them to give up their own burdens to help us. Luckily, several older orphans are eager to work. You will meet the girls from Moush who are our creative cooks; the ones from Bitlis are strong as well as handy; and the Vanetsi girls, with their dances and songs, cheer
everyone. All the orphans contribute to the day-to-day chores. But my advice, guidance, and presence are in great demand, since none is as old as twenty. And then, there is the orienting of new arrivals such as the twenty-four orphans from Mosul a week ago.”

  “Why only twenty-four?” Mardiros asked, knowing he had enrolled 200 or more orphans in Mosul before his mission to India to raise funds.

  “Due to the capacity of the rafts,” she said. “According to Sebouh’s note, my brother-in-law says they’re having problems with the train’s engine and no one knows when it will be operational. So he hired kalaks to take them down the Tigris River. Their arrival surprised me. No one fell off or drowned. God must have floated with them.”

  “I must change some plans, then,” Mardiros said, more to himself than to be heard. “I hope there is a telegraph office in Ba’qubah to notify Sebouh. He must stop sending the rest of the orphans to Ba’qubah.”

  “Should we all expect a change in plans?”

  “Yes—a big change. When the details are finalized, the officials in Baghdad will send a telegram about the go-ahead. We’ll have to wait for specifics.”

  Diggin Perouz put the stopper in the cognac bottle and pushed it deep. “I’m listening.”

  “AGBU decided to regroup all the orphanages throughout Iraq in Basra.”

  “Basra?” Her voice rose several notes. “What can Basra offer that we cannot?”

  “Indeed, we own an outstanding organizational compound here,” he said. “Barone Gharibian, the AGBU representative from Basra, and the World Relief committee, decided Basra would provide the orphans a permanent solution.”

  “I’m not surprised the Basrawi Armenians are outshining the Baghdadi ones,” she snickered, standing up to leave.

  He also rose and accompanied her outside the tent. “The British barracks there will become a school. Teachers from Basra can commute daily. I tell you, Diggin Perouz, the problem of access to teachers is much on the minds of the benefactors. How do you manage here with almost 600 children?”