“Oh, yes. Her name is Seda Melkonian,” Orhan says, suddenly aware of his thick Turkish accent.
“Room 1203,” she says. “But it’s lunchtime, so they’re all in the dining hall now. Go down this main hall and turn right. You’ll see the sign.”
Orhan walks a maze of corridors and hallways before finding the dining room. He pauses just before the glass-paneled French doors. The room is filled almost entirely with old women. A handful of men sit at a rectangular table, huddled together for camaraderie or protection. They roll dice into wooden backgammon trays, the way men in his village have done for centuries. Women in mint green scrubs roam the room, adjusting wheelchairs and spoon-feeding hesitant mouths. He steps over the threshold and is immediately confronted by a din of noise coming from a television in one corner of the room. On the screen, a man with perfectly coifed white hair and matching teeth is presiding over a game show of sorts. The contestants stand before an enthusiastic crowd shouting out prices of things ranging from a blender to a new car. Orhan stares at the screen, marveling at the spectacle of garish colors, a celebration of consumerism and wealth accompanied by shiny smiling people and loud music. Distracted, he does not at first notice the robed and slippered woman approaching him. She cradles a plastic blue-eyed doll and calls out to him in what he assumes is Armenian.
Oh God, please don’t be Seda. He never considered the Melkonian woman might be senile or suffering from some kind of dementia. He gives the woman with the doll a cautious smile. She points an accusing finger at him, and holds the matty-headed doll tight in her other arm. It stares at him too, its rosy lips and cheeks in direct contrast to its shorn locks and tattered dress. Orhan tries to ignore the woman, but she points her crooked finger straight at him.
“Don’t mind her. This is Mrs. Vartanian,” says a hefty black woman, wearing a uniform. Her name tag is decorated with stickers of puppies and reads “Betty.” She takes the woman with the doll gently by the arm.
“She thinks you’re a soldier,” says Betty. The woman presses her plastic doll to her chest before spitting at Orhan’s feet. He looks down in disbelief, his ears burning with disdain.
“She don’t mean nothing by it,” says Betty. “Do you, Mrs. Vartanian?”
“It’s okay. I understand. She’s . . .” He fishes for the appropriate English word and finally settles for “old.”
“We like to call it mature,” Betty says.
Orhan nods, making a mental note to look up the word mature later in his English-language dictionary. “I am here to see Seda Melkonian,” he says.
She scans his face for a moment.
“She is expecting me,” he adds.
“Right over there,” Betty says, pointing to a woman with short hair the color of unpolished steel. She is bent over a piece of needlework. Orhan can see her gnarled fingers, hooked like a great eagle’s talons, working diligently at a delicate piece of fabric. He takes a few steps toward her, then stops. Unlike the woman with the doll, Seda Melkonian is impeccably dressed. She wears a navy blue cardigan with a violet silk scarf around her neck. Orhan takes a deep breath and continues toward her, stopping only when his feet are planted right in front of her chair. She smells strongly of jasmine.
“Mrs. Melkonian?” His voice is smaller than it’s been in years.
The old woman raises her head. She has a lovely face, despite its creases. Her eyes have a haughtiness to them. Greenish gray with flecks of gold, they take him in, starting at his shoes and pausing at his shoulders before finally coming to rest on his face.
“Orhan Türkoğlu,” Orhan announces, extending his hand. When she doesn’t take it, he clears his throat and fixes his eyes upon her, looking for a clue about her identity. She looks nothing like his father but a bit like himself with his own hazel eyes and tawny skin. Could this woman hiding in a nursing home in Los Angeles be flesh of his flesh? Orhan’s grandmother had died of tuberculosis within a year or two of his father’s birth. Her sister, Auntie Fatma, arrived shortly after to take care of Orhan’s father, the young Mustafa. No photographs survive of his paternal grandmother. But then, few in Anatolia could have afforded such things back then.
When Orhan’s own mother died in childbirth, Mustafa watered the repressed seeds of his anger with large amounts of raki. And later, when he found God, he replaced the raki with a stronger cocktail of theology and nationalism. Mothers birthed, then died, in the Türkoğlu family. Not even their ghosts stayed behind. Perhaps this is why Orhan is almost thirty and unmarried.
Suddenly, Orhan is eager to get beyond the awkward introductions. He considers how best to explain his presence. A flock of generalities swirl in his head about the importance of his mission, but all he can manage is “I sent you a letter.”
She does not respond.
“I speak perfect English,” he says.
The old woman raises an eyebrow at this.
Embarrassed by the exaggeration, Orhan adds, “I mean, I am fine speaking English.”
After an uncomfortable silence, he grabs an empty chair. “May I sit?” he asks, then before she can respond, he sits down. He waits for her to say something, about the letter or its contents, but the old woman picks up the embroidery in her lap, arranging it just so.
“As you know, my grandfather, Kemal Türkoğlu, has passed.” The words cut through him, forming fresh wounds. Orhan looks for a hint of sadness in her eyes at the news and, finding none, continues, “And he’s left our family home in Karod to you.”
The old woman lowers her head so that her silver hair falls forward, masking the sides of her eyes.
“Do you have any idea why he did that?” he asks suddenly.
She does not answer.
“Are you a distant relative? A friend maybe?” The question seems idiotic as soon as it leaves him.
Orhan looks around for someone with authority, only to find Betty staring at him suspiciously. He has every right to be here. So why are his hands sweaty?
“Excuse me,” he says to Betty, lifting a finger in the air.
Betty continues looking at him, but does not move. “Yes?” she says.
“Does she speak?”
“Pardon?” says the orderly, her southern twang lingering on the first syllable in a way that makes Orhan feel even more foreign.
“Mrs. Melkonian—does she speak?”
“When she wants to,” says Betty, arching one penciled eyebrow at him.
Orhan sighs. Will that be soon? he wants to ask.
He turns his attention back to Seda, who’s making small loops with her needles. Her gnarled fingers move slow and steady in circular motions. Orhan wills himself to be patient, trying to remember that all this may be too much for her. But as a hexagon emerges in the needlework, he feels himself growing more and more angry. Say something, he wants to shout at her. He stretches a hand out and places it on top of the needlework, stalling her hands.
“Do you know who I am?” he asks her.
The old woman looks into his face for a long defiant moment. “Evet, yes.”
Orhan is silenced by her answer, spoken in the familiar language of his mother tongue. There is no mistaking the disdain in her voice. Her eyes bore into him, offering up a challenge he can’t quite comprehend.
“You want the house,” she says in English, looking away from him again.
“That’s right,” he says, recovering. “It’s been in my family for almost a century.”
The old woman does not respond to this.
“Can you imagine how we must feel? No, of course you can’t,” he says, answering his own question. He presses his lips together in an effort to contain the emotions. This is when he remembers the photo.
“I wanted to show you this,” he says, pulling out the last photo he took of the house before leaving Karod. He looks at it again before handing it to her. He had hoped that the barren tree and the crumbling facade of the house would discourage this Seda woman from seizing the property, but the intense chiaroscuro makes it a
powerful image. The tree and the house have never looked more exotic. He hands it to her anyway.
“You see, the house he’s left you is not in very good condition. Barely standing, really. It’s in the middle of nowhere, but it’s got a lot of sentimental value for my family. My father and aunt live there now.”
The old woman exhales audibly when she’s confronted with the photograph. She recoils back from it when Orhan holds it out toward her.
“I am prepared to offer you more than what the property is worth,” he says. “All you have to do is sign this agreement stating you will take payment in exchange for the property. It’s incredibly generous, given that the house rightfully belongs to my family.”
“I don’t want your money,” she says, her eyebrows knitted together with scorn. “If I sign, you’ll leave and never come back?” she asks.
Orhan nods. “You have my word,” he says.
“Give me your pen,” she says, without looking at him.
Orhan exhales, letting all the air trapped in his chest out. He extends the legal papers and a plastic pen in her direction and waits for her to sign.
CHAPTER 5
The Staff of Moses
IT IS A nothing pen, the kind of pen people discard without thinking, but he holds it out to Seda like the staff of Moses. If a wooden staff could part the Red Sea, then surely a plastic one could do the same. And the sea of her past is red indeed. She’s managed to stay away from its shores all her life, to ignore its gurgling sounds, its demand for more sacrifice.
Mrs. Vartanian points a finger at the young man’s back, yelling,“Turk eh.” A few residents look him up and down, then turn away. Betty was right. He is handsome in a rugged sort of way, with insistent eyes set deep in his square skull. He smells of cinnamon and cigarettes.
“What’s going on here?” Betty is standing above their hunched figures.
Seda immediately spreads her hands over the documents. “None of your business,” she says.
“Those look like legal papers,” says Betty. “Does Ms. Ani know you’re signing those?”
“Don’t be a busybody,” Seda snaps.
“It’s not really right to ask little old ladies to be signing things without legal counsel, is it?” Betty says to Orhan, ignoring Seda.
“She doesn’t need legal counsel,” says Orhan.
“Last I checked, I’m an adult,” says Seda. “I can sign whatever I damn well please.”
“It’s only a small matter,” Orhan says.
“Then you won’t mind if she sleeps on it,” says Betty.
“I don’t need to sleep on it,” says Seda.
“I think you should leave now,” Betty says, grabbing the documents from Seda’s lap. “Visiting hours are over.”
Orhan rises to his full height, still staring into the orderly’s dark eyes. “You don’t understand,” he says.
“All the same, visiting hours are over,” she says, handing him his documents. “You’re gonna have to come back tomorrow.”
Seda, still holding the pen, stares at the documents in the young man’s hands. Without removing his eyes from the orderly, Orhan bends his lanky frame down to Seda’s ear.
“Ak gün ağartır, kara gün karartır.” It is a Turkish proverb spoken in the tongue of her forgotten past. A white day sheds light; a dark day sheds darkness.
“The days are white now, Mrs. Melkonian,” he says in English. “I’ll see you tomorrow.” And she swears she can see the thin white sheet that hangs between her past and his future go flapping in the wind.
Before Seda can say another word, he is gone and Betty is pushing her chair again.
“How dare you?”
“How dare I what?” says Betty, casually.
“You know what!”
“I’m only looking out for you, Ms. Seda.”
“I don’t need you to look out for me. I’m perfectly capable of looking out for myself.”
“Is that right?” asks Betty.
“Yes, that’s right.”
“I seen this TV show last week, where some con man romanced this widow and swindled her out of her savings.”
“Did I look like I was being romanced to you?”
“You know what I mean.”
“No, I don’t know what you mean.”
“All the same, you should tell Ms. Ani about whatever this is.”
“This has nothing to do with Ani.” Seda can feel her face burning and her voice rising. “What I tell and don’t tell my niece is none of your business.”
“Whatever,” says Betty, stopping in front of Seda’s doorway.
“No, not whatever. You are an orderly,” Seda says, pointing her finger. “Your job is to bring me my food and pills. Bathe me. Not to give me legal advice.”
“Is that so?”
“That’s so. When I need help, I’ll ask for it. Otherwise, leave me alone.”
“Fine,” says Betty, closing the door behind her.
Good, let her leave, Seda thinks. A closed door is a rare blessing around here. Tomorrow. All this will be over tomorrow. The young man will come back and get what he needs, then go back to Turkey before Ani or anyone else notices him.
It’s as if Kemal put every painful memory in the shape of that ancient house, wrapped it like a Christmas present, and forced his grandson to deliver the gift. Well, she would return that thing right back to where it came from.
PART II
1915
CHAPTER 6
Normal
LUCINE WAKES UP as she always does, to the slow rhythmic sounds of Anush’s ivory comb. The gentle scrape and pull is her own private rooster call. She opens her eyes to the thousands of tiny particles that dance in the light from their only window. They dodge and duck and swirl around to the music of her older sister’s comb.
Anush is seated in her usual place, before the oval mirror. She wears an emerald silk dress with gold filament at the neck and wrists, an Easter present from their parents. Her black hair cascades across her shoulders, a dark, wide cloak of vanity.
“Will you help me with the braid?” Anush asks.
Ordinarily Lucine would groan and refuse, but now that the world is changed, she cannot bring herself to decline. She slips into her own dress, which is cinched at the waist and mercifully nothing like the emerald silk of her sister’s.
“Sit down. It’s easier that way,” Lucine says.
She parts and weaves the three ropes of Anush’s hair, over, under, and in between, until a long tight snake winds its way beyond her sister’s shoulders and down to the back of her chair. In the village, where most women cover their heads, Anush’s exaggerated locks are considered indecent or Western, depending on whom you ask. Today, together with the rich green fabric of her dress, Anush’s illustrious mane seems even more out of place, like an unsuppressed laugh during the liturgy.
When the braiding is done, Lucine remains standing behind her sister. The blue haze of the morning has burned off. In this new light, Anush’s rosy complexion stands in stark contrast to Lucine’s own tawny skin. They are an unlikely pair. Anush, the elder, pressed and tamed and trusting, sweet like her name professes. Anush of the many ribbons and even more suitors.
“Now you sit. Let me do your hair,” says Anush.
“What for?” asks Lucine, pulling her unruly locks into a tight bun.
“To look pretty, silly,” she says, rising from the chair.
“I don’t want to look pretty,” Lucine says.
“Why not?”
Because it’s stupid to worry about one’s hair when the world is turning inside out. “I just don’t,” she says.
“You’re fifteen. You need to start taking an interest in your appearance,” Anush says. “Besides, it’s Wednesday.”
Lucine starts at the news. Wednesday already? Has it really been one week since Uncle Nazareth was taken away?
“Wednesday,” Anush repeats by way of explanation. “Our bath day.” She places a hand on Lucine’s shoulder
and ushers her into the chair before the mirror.
Lucine’s heart sinks at the thought of the hushed whispers of the community bathhouse, the thought of village women arching their eyebrows as they relay Nazareth’s plight to one another.
“Don’t worry, Mairig says we aren’t going today,” Anush reassures her. “But I thought we should make an effort anyway. Cheer things up a bit.” Then, changing the subject, “You’re really very pretty, you know. I will never forgive you for inheriting Grandmother’s green eyes.”
“Are you sure we are not going to the hamam?” Lucine asks.
“Yes, of course I’m sure. Now sit down. We will just pull the sides back,” Anush continues, pulling Lucine’s unruly curls away from her face and fixing a small pin at the base of her skull. “There, a compromise. This way you look properly reserved from the front and free from the back.”
“How stupid. Who’s going to look at me from the back?”
“Oh, I know someone who is always looking at your back.” Anush smiles at Lucine’s reflection.
“Who?” Lucine can feel her face reddening.
“Oh come now, Lucine. Don’t tell me you haven’t noticed Kemal lurking behind you on our walks to school.”
There was a time, long ago when Lucine had not yet given up sucking her thumb, that Kemal, the Turkish boy whose father works for Hairig, was her closest friend. Though he was a few years older, Lucine used to tease him profusely, getting a keen sort of pleasure from beating him in a race and pulling at his ears. But she must have offended him somehow, because he hardly ever spoke to her anymore, preferring the company of her charismatic uncle. Whenever she tried to engage him in conversation, Kemal would either look away or turn bright red.
“We all walk together. If he’s looking at anyone, it’s probably you,” she says.
“Nonsense. Every time you cross the courtyard, he drops the wool or spills the dye.”
“That’s ridiculous. Besides, he doesn’t count,” Lucine says. “He’s like an extension of Uncle Nazareth.” She regrets the words as soon as she speaks them. The mention of their uncle’s name hangs in the now stagnant air like a sorrowful melody. He is gone, and there are no more practical jokes and no more laughter. There is no one to spread the balm of frivolity over their all-too-serious lives.
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