The Seamstress of Ourfa

by Victoria Harwood Butler-Sloss

  “Let’s go,” Khatoun smiles. “Shut your eyes and let’s go there now.” She pulls the covers up and tucks them in around her daughter. Gently she begins to stroke Alice’s body, patting her gently along the spine as she curls into a ball. “There you go,” she croons, “we’re back at Grandma’s in the big bed on the floor. In front of you is the wall and the sunshine is coming in the window through the trees behind us. What do you see?”

  “I see lacy fingers playing games. Little hands and birds like angels.”

  “And what are the fingers playing with?”

  “A butterfly.”

  “A butterfly? How lovely. Is the butterfly flying?”

  “No, she’s eating…now she’s flying.”

  “Let’s go with her. Let’s be butterflies. Open your wings and dance up into the sky. Up. Higher and higher with the wind. Up through the clouds. How soft the blue is. Like an egg in a bird’s nest. And there’s a bird and she’s singing to you.”

  She begins to sing and before long a soft shudder slips through Alice as she finally releases into sleep.

  It is only as Khatoun slides her arm out from under Alice’s head and sits on the edge of the little divan, rubbing it back to life, that she notices Ferida hovering in the doorway. She has taken her slippers off and now slides noiselessly across the floor, her face tense, stretched tight like a drum.

  “Aram’s gone,” she whispers. “I went to get rid of his clothes and when I got back he was gone. I’ve searched everywhere, but there’s no sign of him. Both doors, back and front are locked from the inside. I even searched under the bed we made up for him; nothing.”

  “Where could he have gone?” Khatoun asks. “You left him in the bathroom?”

  “Yes.”

  “Maybe he got hot and went to sit down somewhere.”

  “I’m telling you, Serpuhi and I have been through the whole house; the girls’ rooms, the kids’, everywhere,” Ferida hisses. “Not even Grundug can sniff him out. Everyone is in bed except for those two sinking a bottle in the office. I haven’t said anything to them.”

  “But if the doors are locked how did he get out?”

  Ferida shrugs, “It’s as if he were never here except that his gun was on the kitchen table with the bullets still in it. And this. I found this in my pocket. He must have slipped it in somehow.” She hands Khatoun a rag, mottled brown with dried blood. At first it seems as if that is all there is but as Khatoun handles the fabric she feel something hard inside. She looks at Ferida, puzzled.

  “Go on. Open it, see what’s in it,” Ferida says.

  Khatoun unravels the cloth – a scrap from the kitchen which is wound around a piece of paper. Inside the crumpled paper, two gold teeth.

  “What does it mean?” Ferida asks, looking at the beautiful script that flows in a single line across the page.

  “I don’t know,” Khatoun shrugs. “Either we never find out or we ask Iskender to read it to us.”

  “Not now,” Ferida snatches the paper back and shoves it in her pocket. “Maybe later.”

  Khatoun holds the teeth up for inspection, and then they hear it. Somewhere, somewhere over the roofs and under the sickle moon they hear the unmistakable sound of laughter escaping; but when they run to the balcony and look up, the world is silent and all they can see is the sky shifting, pale as a dove’s feather with falling ash.

  [1]The Birth of Vahakn, Pre Christian, Anonymous. Translated by Gerald Papasian. Copyright 1987 by Gerald Papasian. Thanks to Gerald Papasian and Nora Armani; Sojourn at Ararat.

  Our Neighbours

  Ourfa, Summer 1916

  Khatoun

  Hunger. A reversal of nature.

  Ask anyone who has been truly hungry and they’ll tell you the same thing. It eats you from the inside. Hunger hollows you out and then fills you with nausea. After a while your muscles atrophy, your vision blurs and it becomes difficult to hear, despite the constant sound that dogs you. That low, never-ending drone that shifts like the waves, sometimes lapping, sometimes crashing on a rocky shore. And then there are the voices that accompany your every move – not that you move much. Some of them recognisable from long ago, others new, calling you forward before your time, occasionally soothing, more often terrifying in their fervour. And all of this goes on under a confusing swirl of distant conversation in a world that surrounds you but no longer contains you.

  “Feed me.”

  On the other side of the city, beyond the furthest roof the eye can see, the inmates of the prison are starving. Hunger floats from their lips and carries across town, drowning out the song of birds, shadowing the call to prayer.

  “Feed me.” Their voices lift in the wind and land nowhere. The whole city is in famine and every morning the sun rises, pokes her bony fingers into shadowy doorways and illuminates the pathetic remains of some wretch that didn’t last the night.

  The Armenian corpses are buried in ditches on the outskirts of town, clutching each other in an embrace of tangled limbs and half-lost hair. Their fingernails grow into each other, hooking infant to parent, lover to friend, rooting them to their unmarked graves that will sprout scarlet poppies one day. Moslem corpses are wrapped in a shroud and made note of. Five yards of cloth, a cake of soap and five gurush for the lucky undertaker. No wonder corpses are presented half a dozen times. Bodies have become barter. A hidden ring in a loose flap of skin. A pair of embroidered slippers. Rich, virgin hair in an easily sliced braid. The dead don’t care. For the most part they grin and are to be envied – they no longer feel hunger.

  Ferida had found her that morning – had almost walked past her, she was bundled so small in the corner. At first Ferida thought she was alive – that she had been fed – she was smiling so peacefully. But the girl didn’t respond to the startled shriek that accompanied her discovery. Her eyes remained open, calm, holding her last thoughts in that glassy stare. She’d been dreaming of home. Above her, the wide sky echoing with laughter as her brothers ran back and forth to the well, dropping stones in to see how deep it was. Her mother yelling at them as always, her floured hands streaking white against her red apron. The dogs were yelping, the chickens running for cover, the brook busily churning the mill at the side of the house. It was early morning and a constant stream of women passed her as they came for their bread.

  “Pari louys, Nairi,” their skirts swayed past. “Good morning. Are you feeding your dolly?” They smiled, red apple cheeks and chestnut hair and the morning was pleasant and the smell of bread sweet. Soon she would go inside and help prepare lunch while her brothers went to school. Soon she would eat and the pain in her belly would subside. Soon, very soon, she would lie down with her grandmother for their afternoon nap, and they would sleep curled up on the floor with the breeze cooling their feet. Soon.

  A tentative shove with a foot and she’d toppled sideways, still happy. Ferida sprinkled lime from her special reserve over both doorway and child and waited for One-Eyed Osman, the only Muslim with a cart who’d touch the infidel corpses, to arrive. He’d accepted her coin with a shrug and tossed the girl’s body on top of his pile.

  Since then, Ferida has scrubbed her hands three times and the girls are still on their knees scouring the flagstones with brushes, indoors and out.

  “I said hello to her,” Moug says, scrubbing tight circles into the floor. “Just yesterday. She wore a red hat. Did One-Eyed Osman take that with her?”

  Lolig tucks a strand of hair behind her ear. “Must have done, there was nothing left but lime. I spoke to her too, several times. Skinny little thing with nasty feet. She came from the mountains, from some village, north of Erzerum. Always muttering about the river and how each year some young boy would almost drown. She walked all the way from home to the desert then made her way back here. As if this place is any better.”

  “Yes. Why come back here?” Moug asks.

  Khatoun takes a sip of her tea. “Maybe she was looking for someone.”

  “Who?” Lolig asks. “Who co
uld she know here in Ourfa? I don’t get it. Surely things must be better in Aleppo, why come back?”

  “Maybe she was on her way to her village,” Moug shrugs, “and only got this far.”

  “Probably,” Khatoun says. “Returning to something familiar. Like the Kelaynak bird. Everyone wants to go back home, especially if they’ve been forced to leave. Even if home was no good we turn it into paradise up here,” she taps her head. “We prefer the safety of what we know to what we don’t. A lot of people don’t like anything new or different.”

  “That doesn’t make sense,” Moug says, her face pink with the exertion of scrubbing. “Every day is different. We never live the same day twice but we’re not afraid to get up in the morning. At least I’m not. I like the morning.”

  “Good,” Lolig laughs. “You can get up early and make the tea from now on.”

  “Giggling and laughing?” Ferida snaps, stepping back into the kitchen holding her broom by the neck. “A poor girl died from hunger on our doorstep this morning and you find it funny? I want these floors shining by lunchtime. The whole city is filled with disease and we won’t be laughing with typhus stupor in our brains. Now get scrubbing. And you…” she glares at Khatoun, “haven’t you got sewing to do? Your girls are getting lazy in the workroom.”

  Khatoun picks up her cup and heads towards the workroom, winking at Lolig and Moug as she goes.

  The sewing girls are taking a break, leaning over their machines and gossiping as they share weak tea. They sit up as Khatoun enters and start tugging at seams and rearranging materials under their Singers.

  “Pari louys, Digin Khatoun,” they chime in unison. Khatoun waves them down, drifting from machine to machine, checking what is left to be done. The orders for dresses have continued despite the wretched state of the city. There is nothing like war to widen the gap between those that have and those that don’t, and sequins and frills are still in high demand. It seems the hungrier people are, the more they need to distract themselves with frivolity.

  “Did they take the girl away?” Bzdig Shoushun asks.

  “Yes. One-Eyed Osman came.”

  “Poor little thing. All alone in a doorway.” Bzdig Shoushun blows her nose. “I feel so guilty. If only we could have fed her.”

  “And all the others like her?” Serpuhi asks. “We can’t feed everyone. We don’t have the resources. Look at us – if it weren’t for this place we’d be in exactly the same situation. And why guilty? You didn’t cause this famine.”

  “I know – but I can’t sleep at night, thinking about it. It eats away at me.” Bzdig Shoushun takes a fine pair of scissors and starts to snip away at some embroidery that has gone wrong.

  “Sleep?” Gadarine moans. “I get two hours if I’m lucky. During the day I manage to keep myself occupied. Sewing these beautiful dresses, I forget that we’re in war, that people are dying on our doorstep and we are virtually prisoners in this house. Every night I wake up in a panic and nothing I do can comfort me back to sleep. I’m so tired I can hardly see in front of me.”

  “It’s because you push your fears into the dark,” Serpuhi says. “And when you sleep the darkness wakes up. Everything you’ve shoved back there comes alive and eats at you. That’s why I maintain a temper – if something bothers me I get it out right there and then.”

  “Oh. That’s why you’re always smashing dishes,” Bzdig Shoushun smiles, “to keep calm.”

  “Maybe,” Serpuhi holds up the bodice of a dress covered in gold tendrils for Khatoun to see. “At least I get a good night’s sleep and my sewing is better than yours because I can see straight.”

  “But then you have broken dishes and Ferida to deal with!” Gadarine quips, a quick darting look at Khatoun.

  “One! One dish in all the years I’ve been here. Well, one dish and a teacup. And they were both accidents.”

  Khatoun waves her hand in the air. “I think that’s enough gossip for now. We need to keep working so we can feed ourselves. Thank God we still have orders.”

  “Park Asdoudzo.”

  “Thank God? Hah! I’m sure we should be grateful, Digin Khatoun – but personally I hate making these stupid clothes for rich fat women who have no idea what’s going on outside their doors.” Serpuhi tugs at the knots on the underside of the bodice. “We do all this work for them and they act like they love us but in reality we’re nothing to them. Giavour. None of them would think twice if we had to leave or if we died of hunger. They wouldn’t even notice so long as their dresses were made on time.”

  “That’s not true,” Khatoun says, crossing over to the young girl and picking up the dress. “We have many friends who work hard to give us business. They could easily go to another seamstress and then we’d be starving as well. This is beautiful Serpuhi, Begum Șenay will be delighted.”

  She hands back the dress and heads to the rear of the room, settling down at her own machine set up on the floor. She unfolds a gossamer shawl, part of a wedding trousseau, and begins to unpick the scalloped hem where it has puckered. After a while the chatter stops, the sound of fabric rustles through the room and the starving girl is forgotten; a pebble dropped to the bottom of a well.

  “At least we’re still together,” Khatoun whispers, unravelling a string of stitches. “Some of us, at least.” As the silver thread pulls away hundreds of little hexagonal sequins rain into her lap, an iridescent galaxy of familiar faces. There, with her ever-arched brow is sister-in-law Sophia nudging her, a young, frightened bride, into opening her wings. And there’s Anni – surrounded by an ocean of children who are now fatherless. And Sammi, their father. Poor, bright Sammi who could ride faster than them all but still got caught and hacked to pieces by a mob he must have known. And her father, Thooma, high on hashish these days. And Mertha, her mother, frail as an onion skin ever since she woke up, her hair in disarray, to find no news of her beloved brothers; the two of them vanished into thin air like the whole Armenian Quarter. No bodies to grieve for, no watch to pocket or ring to touch, just ash that she had watched from the rooftop and dusted casually from her locks. And the stitches unravel and there is Seyda of the red hair and Aram and his broken face and Iskender and her four children, thanks be to God, and Ferida and the girls. And the machines continue to hum as they have over the years, binding them all together.

  Bang! The door flies open in the usual way and there, standing in the sunny triangle that spills in from the hallway, is Ferida.

  “Good,” she barks. “Glad to see you all working at last. Bzdig Shoushun, when you finish, go and help with the boys. Serpuhi, since you hate making these stupid clothes so much you can come with me. We have carrion to buy so I can make lunch. Chop-chop,” she claps her hands and disappears down the bright corridor that connects the workroom to the rest of the house.

  Serpuhi folds away her sewing and adjusts her headscarf. “Why me?” she complains. “I hate going out.”

  “We need food,” Khatoun shrugs. “Just stick close to Ferida and do what she says.”

  “Yes. Nobody messes with Ferida,” Gadarine grins, “especially if she has Grundug with her.”

  The girls roar with laughter. “That mutt is half blind!”

  “And lame…”

  “And stinky…”

  “Not to mention the messes he makes in the courtyard,” Bzdig Shoushun slips in under her breath. “It’s disgusting.”

  “Grundug is like Ferida’s son,” Khatoun says. “And despite his age he’s still a good deterrent…”

  “Yes, nobody dares come near for fear of catching mange!”

  “Then you’ll be fine, Serpuhi – you’ve already got it!” Gadarine yanks at Serpuhi’s braid and Serpuhi turns from the bowl where she’s been washing her hands and flicks water at her.

  “Serpuhiiiiiiiiii!” Ferida yells from kitchen, “Lunch time today; not next week!”

  The sun is already high when they set off, poor Grundug dragging behind on a leash. He droops his head and looks at Serpuhi, willing h
er to let go of the rope so he can sniff his way back to the cool flagstones under the kitchen table. A playful breeze scatters litter along the cobblestones and the stench of refuse fills the air. The trio slip through the uncluttered lanes to the market place. Once, it bustled with women elbowing each other over apples and apricots. Today the meydan is empty. The smell of spice lingers but the stalls are bare. The pyramids of fruit and vegetables have been replaced with strips of cloth laid on the ground and scattered with a handful of home grown produce. Bands of children squat with outstretched palms, defecating where they sit. A few shops are open for business and in the far corner Etci Tosun The Meat Man stands in his doorway, his shoes covered in sawdust. His ears sprout hair thick as a sheep’s tail and his fleshy nose dissects a single grey eyebrow that curls up into wings at the sides. He lounges in the sunshine, using a knife to clean his filthy nails. He looks up as they approach and cracks a yellow-brown grin.

  “Ah, Ferida Hanum,” he beams as she pushes past him into the shop. “Always a delight to see your beautiful smile.”

  “Siktir git, Meat Man,” Ferida barks. “Serpuhi, tie Grundug to the post outside and get in here.” She turns to face the bachelor (who, had he not loved whore-mongering so much, might have had a decent wife to clean him up a bit) and holds out a handful of coins.

  “Don’t even think of cheating me. I want something edible – not gristle and bones and none of that spongy kak you call goat. I can tell horse meat when I eat it.”

  The eyebrow quivers and Etci Tosun the Meat Man exhales a little laugh. He shivers theatrically, his belly quivering as he adjusts the drawstring of his shalvar.

  “You make me so hot when you’re angry. I have just the thing for you, mistress – no gristle, no sponge, just a few bones. That is, if you like pigeon.” He smiles, his eye slithering appreciatively over Serpuhi as she bends down to tether Grundug.