Nobody's Child

by Marsha Forchuk Skrypuch

  With the candle to guide her, she looked for another opening. The next one she found had no blood at the entrance, but she shone her candle in just in case. A single migrant worker dead. One of the leering men from the barn.

  Because there was only one, and she could step in closer, she dotted the man’s brow and hands and feet with the oil in a sign of the cross, and then she ripped a strip from one of the veils and draped it over him — symbolic of a shroud. She finished the ritual, then backed away.

  Her gruesome journey of discovery continued. Difficult as it was, she had to find her own parents. She knew it immediately when she finally found them. When she shone her candle into the opening, the first thing that set this group apart was her mother’s dirt-encrusted wool skirt. She was curled into a tight ball and she looked like she was sleeping, except for the slit across her throat, and all the blood. Her father and uncle were crammed into the crevice in front of her, as if they had tried to protect her to the death.

  Mariam reached in. She touched her mother’s face. Then she reached to her father’s face and closed his eyes, then she did the same with her uncle.

  She could see the skin of water still fastened around her mother’s waist, so Mariam reached in and unfastened it. With the water, she would be able to perform a more complete burial observance.

  She ripped off a strip of cloth from the already ripped veil and saturated it with water. She dabbed her parents’ and uncle’s faces and hands and feet with the wet cloth in a ritual cleansing, and then anointed the brows and hands and feet with oil in the sign of the cross. She had her mother’s last veil left, and so she lovingly draped it across the corpses.

  Mariam had a feeling like being out of her own body and watching down as this strangely calm girl-woman went through the motions. She was beyond emotion, and in some ways she felt that she was beyond death. There was only one thing she could think of at the moment, and that was to give her family the traditional Armenian burial they would have wanted. A shiver went through her as she dropped pebbles onto the veil. For a moment she thought she heard her mother’s voice saying, “Look after your brother and sister.”

  She said one last silent prayer, then left the cave.

  Her eyes took awhile to adjust when she was finally out of the cave again, and the first thing she saw was the strained looks on the faces of her brother and sister. She nodded grimly to them. “They’re dead,” she said. “But they are in heaven now.” Is there a heaven? she wondered. Wherever they were, it was better than this.

  Onnig and Marta enveloped her in their arms. The children huddled together in their grief, and soon they fell into an exhausted sleep.

  Mariam heard dogs howling in her sleep and woke up with a start. She looked around her and saw that it was still broad daylight and very hot. Onnig was soundlessly asleep, but Marta was whimpering. Mariam gently shook her sister’s shoulder until she opened her eyes.

  “We should cover the mouth of the cave,” said Mariam. She didn’t want to say out loud what her fears were — that wild dogs would tear apart the flesh of their dead family. The thought was too gruesome to share.

  Marta looked at her older sister and nodded. “Yes,” she said.

  In a frenzy of energy, the sisters gathered stones and twigs and piled them up at the mouth of the cave. Marta fashioned a crucifix from two straight sticks, then leaned it against the front of the cave. Mariam placed a lit candle in front of it. Then they roused Onnig, and the three children prayed.

  CHAPTER TWO

  Mariam was jolted awake by a hand placed on her shoulder. She clutched Onnig, who was asleep in her lap, and squinted her eyes open. It was Kevork. He was with an odd-looking white-haired woman.

  Mariam sat up. She was confused that Kevork was alive, and she was confused by this strange companion of his. “We were at your house but we couldn’t find you …”

  “I know,” said Kevork. “I saw you.”

  Onnig opened his eyes to the sound of the familiar voice. When he saw Kevork, he tumbled out of his sister’s lap and ran to him. “Where have you been?” Onnig asked.

  Kevork sat down on the ground and took Onnig in his arms. He nuzzled his nose into Onnig’s downy hair and thought of Arsho. “It will be fine,” said Kevork, rocking the child gently. “You’re safe. Thank God.”

  Kevork felt comfort in the closeness of the child, but it also sharpened his sense of loss. His mind suddenly filled with the memory of Mariam when she had stepped into his house the day before. He had watched her from his hiding place in the rafters, his heart pounding with fear. When he first heard her footsteps, he thought the Turks had come back.

  It had been more than the sound of footsteps that had sent him up to the rafters in the first place. His mother had just put stew on to simmer, and the knife that had chopped the vegetables was still resting on the cooking hearth. She was in the courtyard, gathering figs for breakfast.

  Arsho was napping in her cradle, suspended by a rope from the rafters. One end of the rope had been tied to the loom so that as Anoush wove the intricate patterns into her prized carpets, Arsho would be rocked to sleep.

  But the morning coziness had been shattered when his mother stepped back into the house, fear in her eyes, but with resolute calm. “Hide,” she said urgently, pointing to the rafters.

  Kevork stepped onto the table-like top of the tonir and hoisted himself up. From his hiding spot, he watched as his mother threw the handful of figs on the tonir, and, with shaking hands, took the knife from the hearth and hid it in the flap of her waistband. Then, with careful urgency so as not to wake the child, she pulled the rope to Arsho’s cradle all the way up to the rafters and secured it with a knot. She was about to step onto the tonir to hoist herself up into the rafters beside her son when the door burst open. Kevork willed himself not to cry out in fear as he watched his mother quickly drop down onto his cushion and pretend that she was calmly eating her breakfast.

  A soldier holding a bayonet, smelling of smoke, stepped in. “Where’s your man?” he asked Anoush.

  “Dead,” she replied.

  Kevork listened to his mother’s lie. His father was away, selling carpets, but the answer seemed simpler.

  “You’re alone?” he asked, inspecting the dim interior with a quick glance.

  “Yes,” she said.

  Kevork held his breath.

  Arsho whimpered.

  The soldier looked into the rafters and spied the cradle. Kevork willed himself to be invisible. “Typical lying Armenian bitch,” said the soldier, then spat on the floor. “What else are you hiding? Where are your weapons?”

  He walked over to where the cradle was suspended, then severed its rope with a single slash of the bayonet. The cradle crashed to the floor. Arsho wailed. The soldier raised his bayonet as if to strike the baby.

  In a flash, Anoush had the kitchen knife to the soldier’s throat. “Leave my daughter alone,” she growled.

  From above, Kevork shook in fear. What was his mother thinking? The soldier was twice her size. He had to save his mother. Without making a sound, he positioned himself to jump down on the soldier, but there was a loud crashing sound. The soldier and his mother struggled, knocking over the loom. Then his mother kicked hard at the pot, sending scalding stew splattering over the soldier, who cried in pain, but also over little Arsho, whose wailing became even louder.

  “That’s enough,” said the soldier. Then he gripped Anoush’s wrist so tightly that the knife clattered to the ground.

  Kevork watched in horror as the soldier kicked the cradle hard, knocking Arsho onto the floor. The child stopped crying. Then the soldier picked up his mother, as if she were nothing more than a sack of cloth, and walked out the door.

  Kevork was utterly confused by what he had witnessed. The soldier had not killed his mother. He had taken her. Kevork had heard stories of things like this, but in the stories, the woman always killed herself to save her soul. A jumble of emotions rushed through Kevork’s mind. The Turk
had knocked the knife out of his mother’s hand so she couldn’t kill him — or herself. What was happening to her now? Kevork tried not to think about it. The important thing was that she might still be living. But if she was living, did that mean she had lost her soul?

  Kevork was immobilized with fear and confusion and horror. It was his sister’s continued silence that made him finally lower himself down from the rafters and step onto the tonir. He walked over to where his sister lay amidst the bits of stew and upended cradle. She looked like she was sound asleep. A wave of relief washed over Kevork. It was only when he bent to gather her in his arms that he realized she was limp in death.

  He sat cradling his sister’s body for uncounted moments, and it was then that he heard footsteps and voices. Fearing that the Turks had returned, he placed Arsho’s body in the rafters, then hoisted himself up beside her. He watched below as Mariam, not a Turk, entered his house. He was relieved to see that she was alive, but he was too full of sorrow to speak.

  Later, Kevork ventured out to find his friends. Now he sat in front of the cave rocking Onnig on his lap, enveloped in his memories.

  Mariam looked over and saw that Marta was sitting up, rubbing sleep out of her eyes. Then Mariam looked up at the woman who had accompanied Kevork. She wasn’t very old: perhaps twenty. But she had abnormally pale skin and stark white hair hanging loose down her back. Her eyes looked pink-rimmed and sore, and the irises were a frightening blue instead of the usual dark brown. Mariam tried not to stare. She had seen women with yellow hair before, and many older women had white hair, of course, but she had never seen anyone who had the colouring of this woman. Mariam felt an involuntary shudder run up her spine.

  Kevork lifted his face from Onnig’s hair and noticed Mariam’s gaze. “This is my aunt Anna Adomian,” he said.

  The woman looked Mariam in the eyes and bowed slightly. Mariam felt ashamed of herself. She imagined that this woman got stared at a lot for her appearance.

  Mariam stood up and brushed the dirt from her dress, then she extended her hand to Anna. “Glad to meet you,” she said. Then she introduced her brother and sister.

  “I’m albino,” said Anna.

  “What?” asked Mariam, confused.

  “I was born this way. My parents were dark like you.”

  “Oh,” said Mariam, not really understanding.

  “You must be thirsty,” said Anna. She reached into the folds of her dress and drew out a skin of water. She opened it, then offered it to Onnig first.

  “Yes please,” he said, and opened his mouth expectantly. Anna squirted some water in, then offered the skin to Mariam.

  The action reminded Mariam of her mother, and she had to will herself not to cry.

  Anna looked beyond Mariam to the grave behind her. “Where shall you go now?” she asked.

  “We have no place here,” said Mariam. “We must get back to Marash.”

  “You cannot go to Marash right now,” said Anna. “Come to the village with us.”

  “But the village is destroyed.”

  “Not completely,” said Anna.

  “I won’t go,” said Onnig, scrambling from Kevork’s lap and walking towards the rock-covered entrance of the cave.

  “Onnig, my soul,” said Mariam.

  “Mommy and Daddy will come back. I know.”

  “They’re dead,” Mariam said softly.

  Onnig shook his head stubbornly.

  “Mommy and Daddy are in heaven.”

  “No,” said Onnig.

  He banged at the rocks. “Mommy, Daddy, wake up.”

  Kevork walked over to Onnig and picked him up, dodging his thrashing arms and legs. “Let them sleep for now,” he said. “We’ll come back for them later. Let’s go,” he called over his shoulder to the others as he walked briskly, carrying the kicking, crying boy with him.

  Mariam glanced longingly back at the mouth of the cave as she followed the rest of the group. Her heart was filled with heavy sadness. So many times she had chafed under the watchful eyes of her mother and father. And so many times she had complained about her poor lot in life. What she would give now to turn time back a few pages and have her parents alive and their family whole again.

  Recent footsteps had made a pathway from the cave to the fields, and she followed the others as they walked down it. Onnig was still wailing in Kevork’s arms, but he was no longer struggling. It was quick thinking on Kevork’s part, she thought, to take charge with Onnig. Not that it made a whole lot of difference in the long run. Would the devastated village be any safer for them than the cave of graves?

  “Allah is great. Some of you live.”

  The voice startled Mariam from her thoughts. It was the boss. The Turk who had given their family a job and a place to stay.

  He stood before the weary group on the path in the middle of his barley field. He was pushing a wheelbarrow. Mariam could see that it was filled with sickles and other farming implements. He had been collecting the tools that had been left scattered in his fields when the attacks occurred. Mariam could feel a new wave of sadness rise in her throat: each sickle represented one Armenian, and here they were, piled up like so much garbage.

  Mariam’s first reaction was a feeling of hatred for this man. He was a Turk, and it was Turks who had killed her family. But he looked kind and distraught, and not at all threatening.

  “You are the only ones I have found alive,” he said. “My name is Abdul Hassan. Come back to the migrant camp where you will be safe.”

  As Anna stepped forward to speak to the man, Mariam noticed that a wave of fear crossed his face and he gripped the blue ceramic bead that hung from a strap around his neck — his amulet to ward off the Evil Eye.

  Anna was of course familiar with the effect her appearance had on people, so she lowered her eyes and said, “Thank you for your kind offer, sir, but we must get back to the village.”

  “As you wish,” said Abdul Hassan. “But at least let me feed you.”

  He manoeuvred the wheelbarrow to turn down the pathway. They followed, Onnig whimpering quietly, still in Kevork’s arms.

  The Turk’s house was a few hundred yards beyond the barn where the male migrant workers had stayed. It was two storeys tall and made of mud bricks like those in the village. It was bigger than the homes in the Armenian district, but not as large as many in the Turkish district. Instead of a bricked-in courtyard, the garden could be seen from a distance. A goat and a few chickens ran free.

  A stout woman with her hair completely covered under a long veil and a gauzy yashmak over the bottom of her face stepped out of the cottage and shielded her eyes with one hand so she could get a better look at her husband and his guests. She surmised the situation quickly, and disappeared back through the doorway. Moments later she came out carrying a rolled up carpet.

  “This is my wife, Amina Hanim,” he said to Anna and the children. Amina bowed deeply.

  Her husband took the carpet from her, and she went back inside. He spread the carpet on the ground. “Please sit down,” he said. “I will be right back.”

  Mariam looked at Anna with a question in her eyes, and Anna nodded imperceptibly. “Very well,” said Mariam. “I guess we’ll sit.”

  Mariam sat down, then reached up to Kevork, who was still holding onto Onnig. Kevork loosened the little boy’s grip around his neck and placed him in his sister’s lap. Onnig had stopped whimpering and was looking around in curiosity.

  Marta settled in beside her sister, then Anna and Kevork found spots on the carpet too.

  Mariam looked at the strange group. Here they all were, sitting on a carpet waiting for food. They had been orphaned by Turks, yet here they were, being fed by Turks. It was all so odd.

  Amina Hanim came out with a tray holding a large earthen pitcher and several tall clay glasses. She knelt down and placed the tray in the middle of the carpet, lifted up the pitcher and poured a creamy thick beverage into each of the glasses, then gave one to each of her guests.


  Mariam sniffed the contents of her glass, then sipped. It was a delicious yogurt drink the Turks called ayran and Armenians called tan.

  Abdul Hassan came out of the house, bearing a platter of food. He set it on the carpet beside the tray of tan. There was a stack of Turkish tonir bread cut in wedges, black olives, cheese, and sliced wild cucumbers. Mariam reached forward and took a wedge of the Turkish bread. She ripped off a large chunk and put it in her mouth. It amazed her how good it tasted. Amidst all the terror and sadness of the last twenty-four hours, Mariam hadn’t once considered food, but now she was famished. The bread was aromatic with a hint of yogurt and yeast and salt, and it was quite different from the unleavened Armenian flatbread. She tore off another chunk and gave it to Onnig. He ate it hungrily.

  The husband and wife sat silently at the edge of the carpet, watching their guests eat. Each time someone finished their glass of yogurt, the woman would pour out some more, and she went back into the house when the platter was nearly empty and came back with a bowl of nuts and figs.

  In normal times, Onnig would have eaten quickly and then gotten up to play. These were not normal times, however, so he sat quietly on his sister’s lap long after he had eaten his fill.

  “The killing is finished,” said Abdul Hassan, as his wife gathered up the remnants of the picnic. “The Sultan’s amnesty period is over.”

  Mariam frowned in confusion. “What do you mean, amnesty period?” she asked.

  “Sultan Abdul Hamid proclaimed a twenty-four-hour grace period for crimes against infidels,” explained the Turk. “The grace period is up. Turks who kill now risk being prosecuted.”

  “That is good to know,” said Mariam, although she didn’t feel good about it at all. Her parents and who knows how many others had just been killed in a state-sanctioned action.

  “The village has been decimated,” said Abdul Hassan. “And although the immediate risk is over, I don’t know how safe it is for Armenians. You are welcome to stay in the barn. I could probably find some work for you to do.”

  Kevork looked up from his place on the carpet. “My house in the village is still standing,” he said. “We’ll go there.”