Nobody's Child

by Marsha Forchuk Skrypuch

  Kevork raised his eyes to hers. “What do you mean?”

  “Rumour has it that all the Armenians drafted into the Turkish army were executed.”

  “But it says ‘heart failure,’” said Kevork.

  “As do all the other letters,” replied Miss Younger. “I suppose they’re correct. Execution does cause heart failure.”

  She set the crumpled letter down on the workbench, then stepped over to Kevork. Even though he was a head taller than she was, she gave him a motherly hug. “I am so sorry for your loss.”

  Kevork hugged her tightly and swallowed back his tears.

  The bell rang again, jolting Kevork out of his memories. The sun had risen further, and now his dormitory room was fully visible. Kevork moved his head left and right and saw that he was the only one still in his cot. All of the other boys had dressed and made their beds and were at breakfast. Kevork reached under his pillow and felt the edges of the papers with his fingertips. So it wasn’t all just a terrible nightmare: his father really was dead. He reached in further and touched the envelope, in which he’d wrapped the gold coins. He drew the envelope out and dumped the contents onto his palm. Nine gold coins. This was the sum total of his family now.

  He closed his palm around the gold and held it to his heart. His father was dead, but Kevork was comforted by the fact that his father had tried to come back to find him. He hadn’t been abandoned after all. As he lay there alone in the dormitory room with a fistful of gold resting on his heart, Kevork first said a prayer for the soul of his father, and then he made a pledge. “I will live in a way that would make my father proud.”

  Then he wiped the remnants of tears from his face and sat up to start a new day.

  Aunt Anna’s white hair was pulled back into a bun and the sleeves of her white shirt were rolled up above her elbows. She was kneading a huge round of golden dough by the time Mariam walked back into the kitchen.

  “I saw Rustem Bey leave just as I was coming in,” said Anna.

  Anna had aged hardly at all in the last six years. In fact, if anything, she seemed to have gotten younger. The constant frown of worry that lined her face after the Adana massacre had softened, and she had gained some weight, making her pallid skin look healthier.

  “I don’t know what to make of him,” said Mariam. “I’m surprised that his father lets him speak to me so much.” Mariam washed her hands, then grabbed an apron from a peg and tied it around her waist.

  “In fact,” said Anna, giving Mariam a meaningful look, “I wouldn’t be surprised if Rustem Bey had his father pay a visit to your grandmother.” She gave the round of dough she was working on one last punch on the flour-covered table, then said to Mariam, “This batch is ready to shape.”

  Mariam looked at Anna in shock. There was only one reason that Rustem’s father would pay a visit to her family, and that would be to ask for her hand in marriage. Both Turks and Armenians followed this tradition of arranged marriage.

  The two worked side by side in friendly silence, each considering weightier things. They divided the dough into balls, then rolled each ball out flat and thin. The flat circles of dough were doused with flour, then stacked in a mound on a large wooden platter.

  “You can’t be serious,” said Mariam. “Anahid Baji would never make me marry a Turk.”

  Anna looked up from the dough she was working on and met Mariam’s eyes. “Your grandmother would do whatever she felt was in your best interests.”

  “I can’t imagine it would be that,” replied Mariam, flushing in anger.

  She took a bowl of water then stepped outside to check on the baking pit, glad to get away from Anna and the conversation for the moment. The heat from the pit made her flush even deeper as she stuck her head through the opening of the shed and looked down at the glowing red coals. She dipped her fingers into the water then flicked it onto the hot stone sides. It sizzled in an instant. The baking pit was ready.

  She walked back into the kitchen.

  Anna looked at her with a flash of frustration in her eyes. “Do you not understand what is happening?” she asked.

  “What do you mean?” asked Mariam.

  “The Turkish government is rounding up all the Armenians and deporting them. If you married Rustem, you would be safe. And you would be in a position to protect your family.”

  Mariam’s eyes filled with tears. “She wouldn’t ask me to do that,” she said. “Besides, they are only rounding up the men.”

  Anna’s lips were pressed into a thin line of disapproval, but she said nothing more on the subject. The two worked together in silence for the moment.

  Mr. Karellian didn’t say a word when Kevork walked into the workshop fifteen minutes late, but instead nodded to him in sympathy and got back to assisting Dikran, the first-year apprentice, in the art of waxing and twisting a sturdy length of linen thread which would then be used to sew on soles.

  There were six boys altogether besides Kevork who were in training: one for each year of apprenticeship. He looked at the row of boys sitting in order of age and size, all working industriously on their various projects. What did the future hold for these boys? wondered Kevork. Best not to think of that too much.

  There were two things that Kevork had been working on. One was the project that Mr. Karellian had set for him, and that was to make himself a pair of boots. Most of the orphans wore mismatched sets of cast-off shoes and boots donated from North America and England. And most of what the shoemaking apprentices worked on was re-soling old shoes, matching them into sets as best they could and patching holes. However, Mr. Karellian was an optimist, and he felt that his charges should be prepared for the outside world after the war: perhaps a life in another country. So in addition to the practical work of fixing old shoes, apprentices in their last year were required to make one pair of boots from scratch for themselves. Kevork had been required to skin a dead cow, scrape the hide, tan it, make a custom shoe pattern, then cut the leather to shape.

  With Mr. Karellian’s permission, Kevork had taken on a second project. Not only was he making himself a pair of boots, but he was also making a pair for Marta. Mr. Karellian’s one admonition was that he work on Marta’s boots only once all the other apprentices had left. Cowhide was hard to come by, and he didn’t want to set a precedent.

  Before Kevork took down his own pair of boots to work on, he went over to the corner where Marta’s were stored. He lifted up the corner of the oilcloth and took a peek. They were there. And they were almost finished. By the time Anna and Mariam were finished baking all the bread, morning classes at the orphanage had ended, and the girls at Bethel had an hour of free time before prayer service and lunch.

  Mariam wanted to visit Anahid Baji. Was it true what Anna had told her? Was Rustem Bey really going to ask for her hand? Mariam wrapped a few fresh loaves in a square of cloth and then ran out of the kitchen.

  As she hurried down the street towards the double gates at the entrance, she passed Paris and a couple of other girls. They were playing hide and seek. Another girl, who must have been new because Mariam didn’t recognize her, was sitting on the ground, watching the others with forlorn eyes. The sight brought a lurch to Mariam’s heart. She remembered how lonely she’d been when she arrived six years earlier, and she’d had her sister to keep her company. Mariam stopped. She squatted down on her heels so that she was eye-level with the new girl.

  “Are you hungry?” Mariam asked in a soft voice. She opened up her square of cloth with the still-warm bread.

  The little girl drew her eyes away from the game of hide and seek and looked at Mariam. Her nose wrinkled at the aroma of the bread, and then the pink tip of her tongue darted out and wet her lips. She nodded hesitantly.

  Mariam broke off a bite-sized piece and placed it in the girl’s palm. The girl looked at it for a moment, then popped it into her mouth. “Thank you,” she said.

  Mariam held out the rest of one loaf.

  The girl’s eyes brightened. “Really?
”

  Mariam nodded, then placed it in her hands. “What’s your name?”

  “Parantzim,” said the girl.

  Mariam had a momentary start. Images of her own dead mother came back, but she quickly suppressed them. “You’ll be fine here,” said Mariam. “Just come to the kitchen if ever you’re lonely or hungry.”

  Parantzim flashed Mariam a brief smile of gratitude, then concentrated on devouring the bread.

  Mariam stood back up, then hurried down the street to the orphanage gates. She had to see her grandmother! She reached up to unlatch the door.

  “Mariam, stop.”

  Mariam turned around. Miss Younger’s brow was beaded with perspiration and there was a look of concern in her eyes. “You cannot go out onto the street by yourself right now.”

  “Why not?” asked Mariam. “I have done it before.”

  “Just yesterday, one of our older girls was accosted in the market. The political unrest is making it unsafe.”

  “But I have to see my grandmother,” said Mariam.

  “You cannot go alone,” said Miss Younger.

  Mariam knew better than to argue. She walked back with Miss Younger towards the central complex of buildings. Marta would be finished her lessons, and Mariam knew where she could be found.

  As Miss Younger turned towards her own office in the administrative building, Mariam continued to walk down the main street of the orphanage complex until she reached Beitshalom at the far end.

  She passed a group of barefoot boys playing ball in the boys’ courtyard, and then passed Mr. Karellian and a few of the German missionaries, who were sitting at a table under the shade of a tree in front of the teachers’ sleeping quarters. Mr. Karellian and one of the missionaries were playing a game of chess. The others were watching and sipping steaming cups of Armenian coffee.

  Mr. Karellian looked up as she passed and smiled. She inclined her head to him, but didn’t stop.

  She could see that the door to the shoemaking workshop was wide open even before she got there. This meant that Marta was likely there with Kevork. If Kevork was there by himself, or the workshop was empty, the door would have been closed. The only time the door was left wide open was when Kevork had a female visitor. And that visitor was invariably Marta.

  Mariam rapped on the open door. “Come in,” called Kevork.

  Kevork and Marta were each sitting on work stools facing each other, their knees not touching, but only inches apart. It surprised her to see them like this. She knew that they were fast friends, but today they looked like more than that. She regarded her sister and realized that the childishness she had seen there in the darkness of the morning had been more in her mind than reality. Marta was a young woman. It wasn’t just the soft curve in her breast, or the leanness that was beginning to show in her face. More than anything, it was the way she was looking at Kevork.

  As Mariam stepped into the room, Marta brushed the corner of her eye with the back of her hand, and Kevork stuffed a piece of paper into his shirt pocket.

  “Is there something wrong?” Mariam asked, looking from the one to the other.

  Marta stayed silent and looked down at her hands. Kevork reached over to Marta and touched her arm, and then he looked up to Mariam.

  “My father is dead,” he said.

  “My God,” said Mariam. “I am so sorry.” She walked over to Kevork and Marta and placed her bundle of bread on the worktable. She knelt down where they were sitting and wrapped an arm around each. They stayed like that in silence for several minutes.

  Kevork broke the silence. “You came in here looking like you were about to tell us something. Not more sad news, I hope?”

  “No,” said Mariam. “I wanted to visit Anahid Baji, but Miss Younger warned me not to go alone.”

  “Because of the unrest?” asked Kevork. “She mentioned to me that the Turks are cracking down on Armenians even more than they were.”

  “Yes,” said Mariam.

  “There is something Aunt Anna needs to ask Anahid Baji on my behalf,” said Kevork. “Perhaps we should all go together?”

  Marta appeared startled and looked up at this last comment, and Mariam caught her eye. There was only one question that Aunt Anna would ask on Kevork’s behalf, and that would be a marriage proposal.

  It was a sad testament to the times that the question would be asked without parents. Instead of the father of the prospective groom asking the father of the prospective bride, it would be an aunt asking a grandmother.

  When they entered the Armenian district, Mariam knew that something was very wrong. There was a stray goat stumbling on the cobblestones, bleating in distress, and there was a faint metallic smell in the air.

  “Look,” said Marta, pointing down around their feet. Hundreds of chicken feathers speckled with blood were scattered about. The only sound in the air was the howling of wild dogs in the distance.

  “Quickly,” said Mariam. “We must get to Anahid Baji’s.”

  With hearts pounding, the group ran down the winding street and around the corner to Anahid Baji’s house. The latch was broken on the gate and the door creaked eerily in the windless air. A bunch of grapes, mashed with a boot print, stained the entrance.

  The scene brought back a rush of terrible memories for Mariam. It was just like Adana. A vivid image of stepping into Kevork’s house so many years ago and the horror of Arsho’s empty cradle filled her mind. She stepped past the broken gate and ran through the garden that she had known since she was a child. The front door of her grandmother’s house was unlocked and it opened with a sigh when she pushed on it.

  What struck her first when she stepped inside was the coldness. There was no fire in the ojak. Not even a single ember. The big bed had been put away behind the wall curtains, but the floor was dusty with footprints. In the midst of the footprints was Arsho’s little pillow from so many years ago. Mariam picked it up and dusted it off, then sat down on the edge of the hearth, resting the pillow in her lap. Onnig had come to love this pillow. And even as he got older, he had kept it. Had he discarded it now, or had they left so quickly that he dropped it?

  The others had stepped in by this time, and Marta climbed the steps to look on the roof while Kevork lifted the carpet from the entrance to the root cellar to check down there. Empty.

  Anna walked over to Anahid Baji’s hope chest and opened it. Empty.

  Anna sat down beside Mariam. She reached out and touched the discarded pillow with her fingertip. “Where could they have gone?” she asked.

  “I don’t know,” said Mariam. And why didn’t they tell her first? The only way Anahid Baji and Ovsanna and the children would leave without telling Mariam and Marta would have been under force. The thought sent shivers through her.

  When Marta came down from the roof, her face was very pale.

  Mariam set the pillow down on the mantle of the ojak and stood up. “What is it?” she asked Marta.

  “I could see the strangest thing when I looked in the distance. A huge snake of dust — beyond the walls of Marash. I could make out oxcarts and people walking. Countless people walking towards the desert.”

  CHAPTER NINE

  “Hurry!” cried Miss Younger as they stumbled through the outer gates of the orphanage complex. “I was afraid you would never get back here.”

  The foursome had managed to convince six urchins from the street to come with them as they rushed through the winding streets back to the orphanage. One little boy had stumbled and fallen, and Kevork had picked him up and carried him most of the way in his arms. Marta had two little girls — each holding one of her hands — and Mariam carried a toddler. Anna carried the younger sister of an eight-year-old boy who followed close by her heels.

  Miss Younger pushed them all inside and then locked the gate behind them. Mariam was taken aback by the wild look in her eyes. “The deportations have started,” Miss Younger said. “And not just the men.”

  The statement hit Mariam like a blow. It exp
lained what happened to Anahid Baji, Ovsanna, and the children. And it explained what Marta had seen in the distance. She set the toddler down and clutched onto her sister’s shoulder so she wouldn’t fall.

  “The orphanage has been given notice that all of the Armenian adults on staff will be deported.”

  “You cannot let that happen,” said Mariam.

  “I have no choice,” replied Miss Younger. “Death is the penalty for hiding an Armenian adult.”

  “What about the children?” asked Mariam.

  “The mayor has assured me that as long as we cooperate with the Turkish army officials tomorrow, the children will not be harmed.”

  “Thank God,” said Mariam.

  “However,” continued Miss Younger, “we must all assemble in the courtyard tomorrow at dawn, bags packed, and ready for further instruction.”

  “Even the children?” asked Mariam.

  “Yes.”

  Aunt Anna could see the fear forming in the eyes of the urchins who had followed them into the orphanage complex for safety. “Come with me,” she said, pasting a brave smile on her face. “I will get you some hot soup, and then a bath and clean clothing.”

  As she herded the new children towards the kitchen, she turned her head towards Kevork. “You and Marta and Mariam must prepare for tomorrow. Go.”

  Miss Younger followed Anna, carrying the toddler. Mariam, Kevork, and Marta were left standing just inside the locked gate.

  “What shall we do?” asked Mariam, a look of desperation in her eyes. “Will the Turks consider us children or adults?”

  Kevork didn’t want to say it out loud, but he was certain that they would all be considered adults. And while his father was killed by the Turkish army, there were worse things that could happen to women.

  “If we can stay together, we have more chance of surviving,” said Kevork.

  “The Turks will separate the sexes,” said Mariam. “That is a certainty.”