Nobody's Child

by Marsha Forchuk Skrypuch

  As the Turk regarded the motley assortment of survivors, Mariam could see the sympathy in his eyes. “The little boy,” said Abdul Hassan. “It will be difficult for him in the village. Amina Hanim and I have no children. We could adopt him.”

  Mariam hugged Onnig tightly to her and willed herself not to sob out loud. She knew Abdul Hassan was being kind, but she couldn’t bear the thought of her brother being raised by someone else. “Thank you for your offer,” she said. One hot tear rolled down her cheek. “But we would like to stay together.”

  “You could stay together in the barn,” said the man, not unkindly.

  The offer was all wrong, and Mariam knew it. If they stayed at all, Onnig would grow up thinking he was Turkish. And to stay in the barn and work for this man was not a possibility. The barn just recently housed the migrant workers who had been massacred, and their own parents had been massacred right on this land. Mariam couldn’t imagine the nightmares she would have here.

  “Or we could take you and your sister and the little boy into our house,” he offered.

  Even though she would still be with her brother and sister, and even though they would be fed and clothed, and perhaps even loved, she did not want to grow up as a Turk. Onnig was clinging to her and trembling slightly in her arms. He seemed to have an inkling of what the Turk was offering. And she could tell by his reaction that this wasn’t something he wanted, either. She looked at her sister. Marta caught her eye and shook her head slightly. Mariam looked at Anna and Kevork. They remained silent, but their eyes were sorrowful. What would happen to them? wondered Mariam. A deformed woman and a young boy alone had no chance of survival.

  Mariam looked at the Turk and shook her head. “Thank you,” she said, “but I think we will all stick together.”

  “At least let me give you something,” said the Turk. “Your parents had not been paid yet for all their work. I will give you that.”

  Mariam nodded. Her parents had earned that money. With blood.

  The man rose to his feet, then stretched out his hand to help up Anna, then Mariam and Marta. “Your family’s supplies are here too,” he said.

  He went into his house and came back with a small purse of gold. “Here,” he said, thrusting it into Mariam’s hands. She tucked it into her belt beside her mother’s sickle.

  They followed Abdul Hassan down to the place that had been their encampment. Mariam held back a sob as she looked at their humble pot for pilaf and their sleeping carpets. Her whole world had shifted, yet nothing had changed.

  “Those are yours,” said the Turk, gesturing towards the meagre supplies. “And take what you need from the barn.”

  Mariam knew that if she tried to say anything out loud, she would burst into tears, so instead she simply nodded at Abdul Hassan. This constant mention of the barn upset her greatly. The last thing she wanted to do was to go into the migrants’ barn and root around the dead men’s belongings for something good. Leave that for some other scavenger.

  She slung her father’s rucksack onto her back and helped Marta shrug into their uncle’s. Kevork and Anna gathered up what they could, and then the little group thanked the Turk for his kindness and headed back down to the village.

  Walking through the village gates was an eerie experience. Instead of the faint scent of lemon and the happy shrieks of children, there was a sharp smell of ashes and cold silence.

  Survivors had collected their dead off the streets, and Mariam could only imagine the many burial rituals that were happening in silence in the houses that surrounded her. She was overcome by sadness. They walked all the way to Kevork’s house without encountering a single soul.

  When she stepped through the gate of the courtyard, the first thing she noticed was freshly turned soil under the mulberry tree. She didn’t ask: she knew this was Arsho’s grave.

  Inside, the house was much like she had seen it last. Mice had come and cleaned up the remnants of the stew from the floor and the figs from the now-cold ojak. She was grateful to see that Kevork had put away the cradle. Onnig was unsettled enough already, and the sight of the broken cradle would have grieved him beyond despair, she was sure.

  Mariam set down the rucksack, then went to the ojak and stirred the ashes, looking for cinders. There were none. She opened up her father’s rucksack and drew out a package of prized matches. Taking some kindling from a stack at the side of the ojak, she lit a small fire. The ojak was the heart of any Armenian home. And she had to put heart back into this one.

  CHAPTER THREE

  For Kevork, that first evening was the hardest.

  The day of the massacres, he had been in shock, but now the shock was subsiding and the sadness was sinking in.

  While Mariam lit the ojak, Kevork mournfully dismantled his mother’s broken loom. The wood was no better than firewood, it had been crushed so badly. He lovingly unhooked the half-made carpet and folded it carefully so that it wouldn’t fray where it had been slashed by the soldier’s bayonet. He found his mother’s favourite veil — a solid swath of sky blue — and used that to wrap up the carpet. It was his last remnant of his mother.

  When it was time for them to sleep that night, Kevork took down the three sleeping pillows: one for Anna, one for Marta, one for Mariam. Then he rooted around in the rafters and found a small pillow that his mother had woven and put away for safekeeping. It was supposed to have been for Arsho when she was old enough to sleep out of her cradle. He gave that one to Onnig. For himself, he used his mother’s half-made carpet wrapped in her veil.

  The night air was warm enough for sleeping outside, and for weeks, Kevork and his mother had carried Arsho’s cradle to the roof and they had all slept in coolness under the stars with the faint scent of mulberry blossoms in the air. Sleeping outside this night was out of the question, however. There was a chill in the air that had nothing to do with the weather.

  They arranged their pillows in a circle around the cold tonir instead. As he fell asleep that night, he buried his face in the veil. It still held the scent of his mother, so he breathed it in deeply and tried to suppress his sobs.

  His eyes were still closed the next morning when he noticed the aroma of freshly brewed coffee. For a moment he thought that it had all been a very bad dream, but when he opened his eyes, he saw that it was Mariam sipping coffee at the fireplace, not his mother. A steaming demitasse sat in its saucer beside her on the hearth. She was going through the contents of her father’s rucksack, a frown on her face.

  She looked up. “We don’t have much food left,” she said.

  “We have a sack of flour,” said Kevork. “Also, raisins, olives, nuts, and oil.”

  “Anna found a ripped sack with flour spilled all over behind the house,” said Mariam. “There is nothing else.”

  “There are still figs on the tree in the courtyard,” said Kevork.

  “Yes, there are,” replied Mariam. “But your chickens are gone, and your goat. We’re going to have to go to the market.”

  So once everyone was up and had eaten a light breakfast, they headed to the Armenian market.

  But of course it was gone. Who was left to run it, after all? The houses in the Armenian district that weren’t burnt down were either empty or barricaded tight.

  “We still need food,” said Anna.

  Mariam had drawn out a few gold coins from the purse Abdul Hassan had given her, and these she held tightly in her hand. The purse itself was hidden under her belt. “Maybe we can go to the market in the Turkish district?”

  In all the years that Kevork had lived in the village, he had never once been to the Turkish market. The two districts were so separate that there could have been a wall between them.

  “I guess we have no choice,” said Anna. “But first we must go home to prepare ourselves.”

  Anna wrapped her hair into a tight bun at the nape of her neck, then found one of Anoush’s veils and secured it over her head, covering her hair entirely. Her eyes were really her most startling featu
re, and when she secured a yashmak over the bottom half of her face, her eyes were even more noticeable, but there was nothing she could do about that. She took Kevork by the hand and led the way.

  Mariam followed, carrying Onnig on her hip, and Marta was at her side, her doll clutched protectively.

  As they walked down the main street of the Turkish district, Kevork was painfully aware of the sensation they were causing. Children playing on the street were called in by their mothers, and doors were quickly closed. The men they passed were angry at the sight of Armenians in their district. Anna kept her eyes down, and so her unusual appearance was not immediately noticed.

  Beyond the mosque was a canopied bazaar between two narrow streets. Anna slowed down and slipped behind the children and kept her gaze to the ground, well aware of the disturbance her appearance would create at closer scrutiny.

  Mariam noticed that the vendor at one of the stalls seemed less hostile to their presence. While others looked the other way or pretended they were closed, this man regarded them with curiosity. The goods he sold were not as varied as some, but there were sacks of rice, onions, cucumbers, and raisins: items they sorely needed. She opened her palm and showed the man her coins. “Kind sir,” she said timidly, “would you sell to us?”

  At the sight of the coins, the man smiled. “What would you like?” he asked.

  While Mariam bargained with the vendor, Kevork stood back and sized up the rest of the stalls. His eyes were drawn immediately to a familiar sight. At one of the stalls was tied his own goat, Sevo. Could it possibly be? He walked over to get a better look, and sure enough, this goat was solid black, except for a small brown splotch on her left side.

  “Sevo!” he said with delight. He got down onto his knees and wrapped his arms around her. As he breathed in her familiar musky scent, tears sprung to his eyes. In finding Sevo he had salvaged a tiny bit of his beloved past. Sevo bleated in recognition and nuzzled her nose to Kevork’s cheek.

  The vendor stepped proprietarily beside the goat. “This is Ghara,” he said. “I’ve had her for two years. Birthed her myself.”

  Kevork looked at the man skeptically. He knew the man was lying, but what did it matter? What police officer would believe an Armenian boy over a Turkish man?

  Kevork waited for Mariam to finish her purchases, then motioned her and Anna over.

  “How much is she?” asked Mariam. She recognized Sevo immediately. Anna stood a few steps back, her hair still covered and her eyes averted.

  The man smiled. “Six lira.” “That is too much,” said Kevork, with an angry flash in his eyes. “You stole this goat from my family, and now you are trying to steal her again.”

  “Then don’t buy Ghara,” the man said.

  Anna stepped beside Mariam and Kevork, then raised her eyes. There was a sharp intake of breath from the vendor. He clutched the blue stone suspended on a strap around his neck and held up one hand, palm out. “It’s the Evil Eye,” he said. “Stay away.”

  “We want that goat,” said Anna, gazing at him intently.

  “Take it.”

  “We would also like two chickens,” said Anna, relishing in the man’s discomfiture.

  “Four lira,” the man said hastily. “My best two chickens and my beloved goat.”

  Mariam counted out the money and handed it to the vendor.

  The man grabbed the coins, then shut up his booth.

  Kevork grinned broadly as he led Sevo down the street by her rope. Over one shoulder was a sack of rice. Onnig carried one of the chickens, while Marta carried the other. When they were out of earshot, Kevork looked at his aunt. “Thanks,” he said.

  Anna smiled.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  As they stepped inside the steamy stone entranceway of the bathhouse and waited for the attendant to appear, Mariam looked around her nervously. “Are you sure we will be accepted?” she asked Kevork.

  This was the first time they had attempted to go to the public bath since the massacre. It was located just outside the Turkish part of the village, in a neutral area, and was the one place where Armenians and Turks would mingle freely on a regular basis.

  “This is the only public bath,” replied Kevork. “Where else could we go?”

  Mariam was dressed in a loose tunic and trousers, and she held Anoush’s towel tightly to her chest, as if for protection. Marta was dressed similarly, and she also had an Adomian towel, as did Kevork, but they would have to rent ones for Onnig and Anna. She didn’t need a full lira for the baths and towel rentals, so she had brought a handful of piasters — penny coins.

  Just then, the bath attendant stepped through the entranceway. She was a hugely obese woman with a bun of greying hair hennaed red. The two large towels she was wrapped in gave her a semblance of modesty, but her massive arms were bare, and so were her calves. On her feet were pattens — a type of sandal on platforms used in bathhouses to keep the feet away from dirty, sudsy water. Her pudgy fingertips were pink and wrinkled from the vigorous scrubbings she’d been giving her clients all day.

  “Good morning, Sophie Hanum,” said Kevork, bowing his head slightly.

  “Good morning, dear,” she said, smiling at Kevork, then regarding the other people in his group.

  “Why are you coming on women’s day?”

  Kevork usually came to the bathhouse with his father on Thursdays, but some nine-year-old boys still came on Tuesdays with their mothers. It was a borderline age to be let into the women’s baths. “My father is away right now,” said Kevork with a tremble in his voice. What Armenian in the village wasn’t coming to the bathhouse with a changed family circumstance?

  Sophie Hanum frowned and thought a moment. “There is no doubt you need a bath,” she said, wrinkling her nose. She looked at the rest of the people in the group, and her eyes rested on Onnig. “Very well,” she said. “You can go in. You’ll be good company for the little one.”

  Kevork sighed with relief. He didn’t want to go all alone on men’s bath day. Mariam handed Sophie the fee for the baths and the extra towels and they walked in.

  They were each led to separate rooms where they removed all of their clothing, then they were sudsed and soaped and shampooed and rinsed by bath attendants until their skin was pink and their hair shone clean. They met back up in the common area, where there was a huge pool of steamy water.

  The bathhouse was a sociable place, and people gathered there for gossip as much as for cleanliness. Many people walked around completely naked, while others were loosely covered with silk wrap-arounds. It was bad form to be too bundled up in a bathhouse because it made others ill at ease. Without their clothes on, the children looked no different than the Turks. Even though everyone knew who they were, they were accepted without hostility. Even Anna was treated with courteous disregard.

  Young children screamed and splashed, while their mothers and grandmothers looked on fondly. Onnig grinned for the first time in days and pulled Marta and Kevork into the warm water with him.

  Stepping into the warm water brought back so many happy memories for Kevork, but it also reminded him of everything he had lost. When Kevork still came to the baths with his mother, he would meet up with Taline and his other friends. Sometimes, Taline would bring an air-filled sheep’s bladder with her, and they would float on it together to the middle of the pool. But when he looked through the steamy dampness now, he didn’t recognize a single playmate. It also felt very odd coming to this place without either his mother or his father. As the water swirled around him, Kevork felt like he was washing away his past.

  Mariam’s reaction was quite different from Kevork’s. She was used to going to the baths in Marash with family members and she missed them dearly, but this unfamiliar bath did not evoke memories.

  It confused her to watch the reaction on the women’s faces when she walked in naked to the pool area. She knew the Turkish custom of women sizing up other women in the baths for the men in their families, but she didn’t consider herself a woma
n yet. It also surprised her that they were sizing her up so intently, when she was just an Armenian.

  Turkish men never got a chance to see what prospective brides looked like under the veil, and many stories circulated about rich men being tricked into marrying the ugly sister. The fact that women bathed together naked gave them a certain power over their men. First wives would try to ensure that their husband did not take on a second wife who was threateningly beautiful, and mothers tried to ensure the opposite.

  Mariam blushed with embarrassment at the envious whispers and glances she was receiving. Mariam turned and looked at Anna. She was shocked to see bitterness on the woman’s face, a mixture of anxiety and disapproval. That upset Mariam. After all, what had she done?

  CHAPTER FIVE

  As the weeks wore on, the survivors fell into a comforting routine. Anna, the only adult, was the nominal head of the household, but her ability to help the children was limited. While the Turks left her unmolested, they also left her unhired. There was no opportunity for her to earn money and look after the children she had become responsible for. All they had to live on was Mariam’s purse of coins. With each succeeding week, the purse got lighter, and there was no means of refilling it.

  Most of the surviving Armenians gradually moved out of the village and Turkish families took over the Armenian section. There were no children for Onnig, Marta, and Kevork to play with. So their house became a refuge and a prison. Each night, Mariam counted her piasters and liras, and each night she tried to estimate how much longer their money would last.

  Once, when they were in the bathhouse, Mariam overheard a conversation between two Turkish women:

  “The Sultan has been deposed.” The woman who said this was young and pregnant, and she was sitting at the edge of the warm water pool with her feet dangling over the side. She had a towel loosely thrown over her shoulders, but otherwise, she was naked. She looked down at her friend, who was neck deep in the pool.