Between the Two Rivers: A Story of the Armenian Genocide

by Aida Kouyoumjian

  If he included all the orphans’ needs, he would produce a tome. Notebooks and pencils topped his list, but permanent items such as chalkboards remained off the chart. The school in Basra provided everything. But he needed to return to Baghdad for these basic needs immediately.

  He packed his smelly shirts and socks to prepare for an early start home. He craved a real cleansing at the bathhouse. A week’s accumulation of dried sweat had beaded his armpit hair. He refused to speculate the condition of the growth on his back. Girlish squealing and giggles wafting from the riverbank tempted him to bathe as they did, but he lacked the courage to immerse himself in the cold river. He had emphatically forbidden any orphan to serve him by heating water in a caldron and lugging it to his tent. The alternative was what he assumed Diggin Perouz did—having to resort to wiping himself with a soaked towel, dripping the cold water down his torso and legs and messing the tent floor. Unaccustomed to cleaning up after himself, he hoped no one discovered the puddle until after his departure.

  The first place I go in Baghdad will be the bathhouse. Then ask Ya’qoub, the Kouyoumdjian household valet, how to manage in the primitive surroundings of the orphanage.

  “Barone Mardiros?” Diggin Perouz called outside his tent. “May I speak with you?”

  “One moment.” He grabbed his burnoose, wrapped it around himself, and lifted the entry flap to face her. “Is there a problem?”

  “No, on the contrary,” she said. “The orphans want to make a presentation on your last night with us.”

  “But I’ll be back before they realize I’ve gone.”

  “I know,” she whispered. “But the children don’t count on their tomorrows. Their hopes and expectations evaporated in the heat of the desert along with their loved ones. They’ve learned to live life one day at a time. They want to show their appreciation to you tonight.”

  A lump blocked his speech as he suppressed his sorrow. Sadness was easier felt than spoken. “Give me a moment,” he said, and pulled up his trousers. He stepped out, slipping on his khaki jacket and following her to the clearing beside the kitchen tent.

  He greeted Barone Eghishe, the teacher, seated on a bench along with the few older students who assisted with his daily instructions.

  They jumped to their feet in deference to authority and pointed to one of the two folding chairs reserved for them.

  “No, no!” Mardiros gestured to them to relax and helped Diggin Perouz to her seat.

  “Do you hear giggling?” Diggin Perouz giggled herself. “They are hiding behind the kitchen tent.”

  “This is all their idea,” Barone Eghishe cupped his mouth and leaned toward Mardiros. “The orphans rearranged the benches to make it look like a stage. I am very anxious to see their performance myself.”

  A whistle startled Mardiros.

  A line of the older girls flanking the kitchen tent approached him, held up their tattered skirts, bashfully curtsied, and then hopped to the periphery of the makeshift stage. They formed a human arc as a backdrop. Joy emanated from their sparkling eyes; radiant faces reflected their exuberance.

  Mardiros marveled at their high spirits. Who would guess they had suffered so much?

  “Next time, they will be wearing their new uniforms,” Diggin Perouz whispered, while a band of small girls clad in rags filled the stage barely two yards from the spectators’ seats. “I see something interesting,” she continued. “The lead girls in the back row are the Van sisters, and the ones in the front are their tent mates. They must be the inspiration behind this production.”

  A shaky soprano in the back row led the entertainers into a song. Some voices rose with confidence, others faded with apprehension. They stood in place—stiff as mummies—wide eyes fixed on Mardiros, lips barely moving and bolstering their courage to sing Mare Hyereneek, the Armenian National anthem.

  Mardiros’ eyes beaded with tears. He couldn’t remember the last time he had heard the Fatherland melody or reflected on its lyrics. The orphanage emerged as a single kaleidoscopic humanity bound with invisible strings he failed to define. He wondered about his own Armenianness. Who could have foretold, even a year ago, that he would be sitting practically in the middle of the desert and appreciating the ethnic culture of his ancestors? The Kouyoumdjians had long accustomed themselves to the European lifestyle of the wealthy Middle Easterners. They valued German opera, played Chopin and Debussy on musical instruments, and decorated their homes with Renaissance art. They preferred to speak English or French when hobnobbing with the highbrow intelligentsia.

  Mardiros easily recalled the evolution of his involvement with the orphans. Scene after scene replayed in his mind—his initial encounter with the philanthropic delegation of AGBU at an afternoon tea party, the day he had impulsively volunteered, his first contact with an Armenian starveling and consequent registering of strange family names from remote enclaves of Asia Minor. Momentous or trivial, incidents flowed in and out of his stream of consciousness. He had discovered his identity wrapped up in a folding chair in the open air of Ba’qubah, and he knew his life would be empty without the orphans.

  He drifted off for a time before he realized the singers were now dancing. They jigged in one spot, then another; bopped around, then twirled, intertwining their hands and clapping. Their faces radiated ecstasy, their footsteps, exuberance. Their joyfulness lifted him up. What luck to experience this!

  His heart throbbed as it never had at the Agoomp, the Armenian Club in Singapore. There, surrounded by beautiful society ladies gowned in the latest European finery, the entertainment included opera singers and professional can-can dancers. There, he had cajoled the wealthy patrons to reach into their pockets for large contributions. In Ba’qubah, his heart needed nothing in return. His head was stimulated by life in Singapore, but here at the orphanage, it was his heart that was fulfilled.

  The orphans linked their pinky fingers and, while stomping in a circle dance, burst into a robust song. Free of inhibitions, children big and small, on stage and backstage, hopped and swayed, seemingly more for themselves than to please the Father of the Orphans.

  After several rounds of the dance, Diggin Perouz stood up and coaxed the adult spectators to join in. “The steps are simple. Everyone can do them. Come, let’s share in the children’s enjoyment.” She clasped Mardiros’ hand in her left and Barone Eghishe’s in her right and pulled them into the circle, cutting into the pinky-to-pinky links of the dancers.

  Unaccustomed to Armenian traditional folk dances, Mardiros was less than confident. He kept his sight glued to the feet of his partners to copy their rhythm, to follow their pace, but alas! He remained embarrassingly clumsy. If his family saw him doing a circle dance they would never again call him ‘maestro’ or ‘debonair’ as they had when he waltzed or fox-trotted with the society ladies. Even doing the tango in Singapore for the first time had soon become second nature. Folk dancing? That required a knack he lacked.

  At first, he fell behind the beat and bungled the foot patterns. When he managed to catch up, the circle enlarged its perimeter to link in new dancers. Two of them found his little fingers. Vanouhi, the dance teacher from Van, held his left hand. He smiled and squirmed. He depended on her lead yet felt intimidated by her expertise. The face of the petite girl to his right remained hidden behind thick chestnut hair. He felt her vigor streaming from her little finger to his, helping him to master the pre-patterned movements. Her vitality propelled him to go on and on, wishing the night would have no end.

  “Mannig! Mannig!” a few dancers chanted, standing in place and clapping in rhythm. “Mannig! Do your Adapazar jig!”

  Others echoed the call. “Yes! Do the Adapazar jig!”

  Mardiros’ left pinky lost its link, and his arm hung limp and awkward. Not knowing what to do, he slipped his unused hand into his pocket and stood motionless in the circle.

  The little girl with the thick chestnut hair moved to the center of the circle, dancing to her own music—not in step or unison but twi
rling round in loops, jigging in place, then skipping in and out—a simple dance imbued with complex feeling. She hopped and bopped on bare feet, her movement portraying a life of past anguish and present joy.

  Mardiros recognized her. The girl with the sore feet. They called her Mannig. Did I hear Adapazar? He kept his focus on her as best he could, while her twirling became faster and bouncier and the chanting of the orphans grew louder and faster.

  In a flash, he remembered Mannig of Adapazar. The same little girl in Mosul who had tried to fool him into admitting her into the orphanage, even after the other officials had shooed her away. Why had they refused to register her? ‘She is self-sufficient and not as needy as the others,’ they explained. For reasons Mardiros himself couldn’t explain, he had overridden the others’ decision and registered her. He breathed in a sigh of relief. I’m glad this waif is in Ba’qubah.

  Mannig danced as if she would never stop. Giggles and laughter accompanied her twirls. Finally dizzy, she fell. Everyone gasped. But she got up and continued to twirl, peppier than before. Her energy was boundless.

  Concerned, Mardiros reached out and caught her arm. “Stop!”

  “Why?” she chuckled. Freeing her arm, she twirled away.

  Why? Mardiros fell silent. Why, indeed? No one should interfere with joy. The girl lived in her own world of unforgettable moments. She was one of a kind, and no one was going to deflate her grand image of herself. No one could know what memories and experiences ran like hot lava through her mind. She was building her own museum of extraordinary sights and sounds. Who was he to limit her treasures? And what for? Because she was dizzy? Here was a little girl at last enjoying life.

  Who was he to interfere?

  Normally, his life consisted of one task after another, leaving him constantly preoccupied with his own agenda. Tonight, he had no obligations—no errands to complete, no reports to write.

  Under the azure sky of the Ba’qubah night, he came face to face with life. Joy had invited him in, and he had almost let it pass by.

  The children’s vitality flowed into him. His spirit soared free and fierce. He held Vanouhi’s arm, linked his little finger with hers, and sidled in with the dancers. He linked his other pinky with Mannig’s. He liked being squeezed between Mannig and Vanouhi. He concentrated on his partners’ feet, trying to follow their lead—two steps, right; one step, left. The repetitiveness helped his confidence. He ignored his body’s need for rest but went on and on—just like Mannig.

  Mannig looked at him and then at his reluctant feet. Scanning the dancers’ faces and their confident movements, she smiled and squeezed his pinky in hers. “You are almost good.”

  26—The Ladder of Joy

  On December 31, 1920, a deep cloudless sky accompanied near-freezing weather, but Mannig’s canvas tent kept the warmth from escaping.

  She was huddled with her beloved tent mates around a brazier, her cheeks rosy with the heat from the burning coals. The company and conversation of her friends lifted her spirits. A quilt on her shoulders, and a bowl in her hands, she sipped the three-grain soup and reveled in the novel sensation of chewing chunks of meat.

  “An extraordinary meal for a special day,” Vanouhi said, indicating how much the meat enhanced the soup.

  “A treat to end the Old Year and welcome New Year’s Day,” Takouhi added.

  Mannig loved her tent mates—all seven of them, the two sisters from Van topping her list. They were her dancing mentors, and the seamstresses who were designing her uniform with special stitches. The word ‘design’ was perhaps an exaggeration, but to Mannig, the two panels of navy colored cloth dangling off her bony shoulders transcended style. While the sisters measured her arms to fit the sleeves, they argued about the length of the hem.

  Mannig impetuously kissed each one of them on their cheeks.

  “Long sleeves keepeth thy arms warm,” Vanouhi said, stitching a square cloth into the armhole.

  “It addeth flair to thy dancing,” Takouhi added.

  Her bare skin tingled at the touch of the bristly wool fiber. The garment was not unlike the yellow organdy dress in Adapazar without the silk chemise. Chemise! Mannig snickered at the futility of visualizing her genteel lifestyle of old. She wore her new dress with love, scratchy as it was. She knew it wouldn’t ever wear out, even though it wore out her skin. But whenever she twirled, whirled and swayed at the camp, in her mind’s eye, she was dancing in her Adapazar dress. She put one foot forward, lifted the hem of her rectangular dress and curtsied to the applause coming not from her parents but from the sisters from Van.

  Mannig often brushed kisses on their cheeks. She wanted to love her sister, Adrine, also, but was rebuffed. Mannig assumed the rejection was not personal, but Adrine’s way to protect herself from horrible memories of her rape. Adrine would touch Mannig, but she never allowed anyone to touch her in return. Mannig’s skin tingled and she felt comforted when her sister ruffled her hair before she braided it for the night. She likened her sister’s soft touch to Mama’s. Adrine’s nearness helped sooth her when the sky thundered or when dinner occasionally consisted of just sweetened tea and bread. She relished sharing the tent with family.

  She relentlessly dipped into her sister’s reservoir of knowledge about anything and everything. As much as she loved dancing, she loved knowledge more. After the two slipped under their quilts for the night, they whispered about facts and figures instead of giggling as most children did. She revered her sister’s scholarship. When Mr. Eghishe observed Mannig’s aptitude and declared, “You can advance to an upper class,” Mannig wanted to smother Adrine with kisses and shout, I owe my knowledge to my smart sister. But Adrine recoiled from being hugged, although she smiled at Mannig’s words, “I owe my progress to our bedtime talks.”

  Mannig proudly entered the brown bannered tent of the advanced students. She paid close attention to the history lesson until her attention was diverted. Recitations wafted in from the green bannered tent where the beginners were memorizing their multiplication tables. She mouthed the words chors-ankam-ootu before her former classmates’ childish voices repeated, four-times-eight ....

  An hour later, she became fascinated by the geography lesson about Iraq, Iran and Syria. “These are the new names of our ancient lands,” Mr. Eghishe explained. “They butchered our ancient lands to appease the political demands of the victorious British and French ....”

  Again Mannig’s focus shifted to the wafting childish voices, chiming, “Aip-pen-kim-ta,” the Armenian alphabet. She missed her peers—the giggling, the whispering and delighting in uncomplicated matters. More so because four of her tent mates, all older than she, were segregated in the beginners’ class.

  “They, too, will advance soon,” Adrine promised. “You ought to become their mentor and tutor them.”

  Mannig cherished her sister’s confidence in her and whatever Adrine said, happened. At seventeen—a senior adult at the camp—Adrine coordinated their tent routine with few words, concise directions and authority.

  Adrine’s restlessness on this very cold night piqued Mannig’s curiosity. More talkative than usual, she was jabbering while performing a routine chore. “Here is more coal,” she said, replenishing the brazier several times. “We will burn the lamp deep into the night.” She giggled as she refilled the kerosene lamp, a task she normally assigned one of the tent mates in the mornings. She always insisted that they study by daylight to save fuel. Her excessive blinking and frequent gazing at the tent entry flap made Mannig suspect that something was imminent.

  A sudden thump outside hushed all sounds in the tent except the crackling of coals. While everyone held their breaths, Adrine dashed to the entryway. She put a finger to her pouting lips and shrugged her shoulders to feign ignorance. She stared into Mannig’s petrified countenance, then at each girl.

  Adrine’s impish look, exaggerated body movements and high pitched voice foretold a treat.

  “What’s that?” Adrine squealed, lifting the ent
ry flap then dropping it shut. She tiptoed to the edge of the flap. Hesitantly, she peeked through the gap and singsonged, “Who is out there?”

  The sisters from Van dashed to her side.

  “Go away!” Vanouhi shouted unconvincingly.

  “Don’t bother us!” Takouhi echoed.

  Adrine held them at bay and opened the entry wide. “Who comes visiting us at midnight on New Year’s Eve?”

  The sisters stared into the outside darkness. “Someone has cometh and gone,” Vanouhi said.

  “He left his mark with a thump,” Takouhi added.

  “Aha!” Adrine exclaimed. She went outside then came back in clutching a bag of oranges. She went from girl to girl, handing one to each, keeping the last one for herself.

  “They fell from the sky,” Vanouhi said, rubbing her hands all over the piece of fruit.

  “From the basket of Gaghant-Baba,” Takouhi named the gift-giving Patron of the New Year.

  “Gaghant-Baba watches children all year long,” Adrine said. “He gives gifts to the good children on New Year’s Eve.”

  Dazzled by the glistening fruit in her palm, Mannig held the orange as if she had caught a star. She shook it near her ear, hearing only the whisper made by the tips of her fingers brushing against her hair. She whiffed its tanginess, rolled the cool skin against her cheek and, imitating Adrine, dug her fingernails to score the peel. A splattering zest sprayed into her eyes with a bitter sting. Nevertheless, like everyone else, she cast the peels into the brazier and was dizzied by the fragrance. Finally, she popped a wedge into her mouth and let it swirl between her teeth. Squishing it slowly, she relished the sweet juice showering her mouth. She popped in a second wedge.

  A desperate cry, “Mine is bad!” focused all eyes on a little girl kneeling on her mattress. She held up the rotten wedges as tears rolled down her cheeks.

  Mannig froze mid-bite. Silence blazed in the tent. The girl’s tears rolled down in a deluge.

  As pained as the girl, Mannig darted over to her to share one of her own plump, juicy wedges. A moment later another girl dashed over with a wedge of her own.