“What for?” he asks.
“I want to see if the coins will jingle when you walk.”
“I’m not going anywhere,” he says. “I’m not leaving Hairig to rot in that prison.”
“We don’t have a choice, little brother. And we are not letting him rot,” she says, trying to soften her voice, making it sweet like milk and honey in a warm cup of tea, the way Mairig does when she’s persuading Hairig of something.
“Who will bring them their food? Who will visit them and bring them news?” Bedros’s lower lip starts to quiver.
Lucine moves to embrace him, but he shrugs her away, not wanting to be held like a child anymore. She reaches over and squeezes his hand instead.
“Iola and Demi will make sure they are fed. And the American missionaries will bring them news when they can,” she says.
Leaving his father in the hands of the sinister Greek midwife and her half-witted son fails to comfort him, but the idea of the American missionary seems to make him feel better about leaving.
Five days later, they have all run out of things to do. The oxcart in the courtyard sags in the middle where bags of bulgur and dried fruit bear down on its axles. Lucine’s heart sags too, sitting low in her rib cage, as if it has bags piled on top of it. She is playing marbles on the kitchen floor with Bedros, trying to forget the weight on her chest, when Mairig walks in. She holds up some of Lucine’s old play clothes and tells Bedros to strip naked. Knowing her fragile state, Bedros obeys but keeps his eyes on her face, silently demanding an explanation. She says nothing as she tightens a head scarf around his head, disappears. When she’s gone and his transformation is complete, he bursts into tears.
“Hairig said I am the man of the house now,” he cries.
“You are,” Lucine whispers.
“Then why am I in a dress?”
CHAPTER 11
Infidels
THE SUN IS long gone, but the July heat circles the air, drifts through the house, and channels itself somewhere in Kemal’s groin. He shifts his weight on the floor cushion and tries to pull his mind away from Lucine. For days, he can think of nothing else. Last week he sent her a drawing and the thought of her receiving it makes the heat in the room even more unbearable. He is seated near his father, in front of the tonir where they almost always eat their meals. The smell of garlic and fried eggplant fills the room, making his mouth water and teasing the yearning out from his loins. His grandmother is hunched over the sunken oven, pouring imam bayïldï into a large common bowl. It is Kemal’s favorite dish, more for its colors than its taste. The dark purple eggplants stuffed with parchment-colored onions, garlic, and bloodred tomatoes. His grandmother and Emineh, who were bickering over the recipe, have been relegated to opposite corners of the room where they sit now, sulking.
“You know what imam bayïldï is named for?” his father asks. He has been in a jovial mood since their visit to the Melkonian house.
“It means ‘the imam fainted,’” Kemal says.
“Yes, yes, but do you know why he fainted?” his father asks, wiping his mustache with the back of his hand. His eyes dance with anticipation.
“No,” says Kemal.
“Let me tell you.” His father leans in as if to reveal a big secret. “Legend tells of a mighty and powerful imam, who swooned with pleasure at the flavor when his wife presented the dish.” He nods his head as if to illustrate the truth of the story. “Although,” he continues, pausing for effect, “others say he fainted at the cost of the ingredients. You see my boy”—he laughs, slapping Kemal’s back—“everything comes back to women and money.”
Kemal hears a low tsk-tsk sound from his grandmother, a rare thing he recognizes as her secret laugh.
“Do you understand what I’m telling you, Kemal?” his father asks.
Kemal nods, wishing the conversation a speedy end, thinking of his sketchbook where he can retreat into a world of his own making and dream all he wants of Lucine.
“You think I’m blind, son?” he asks, shoving a handful of eggplant into his mouth.
“What?” Kemal asks.
“I said, do you think I’m blind? I see the way you look at her. The way you ran after her that morning.”
“Hagop Effendi is my employer. He asked me to fetch her,” Kemal says, his voice raising an octave.
“Don’t be stupid, Kemal,” his father continues. “The time is ripe for the taking of an Armenian bride. You’re lucky I am a modern man, not a religious zealot like our imam, may Allah bless his soul. Her uncle is gone and her father will soon disappear too. You can offer her protection and a good life. We already know almost everything about the business. And what we don’t know, like where they get all that damn wool, and the formulas for the dye, we can learn from her.”
“Wait, what do you mean, ‘her father will soon disappear?’” Kemal asks.
“He’s been arrested. Their days are numbered, boy. They are infidels, Kemal, which means not only are they not Ottoman, they are morally inferior. I shouldn’t have to explain all this to you.”
“I don’t understand,” says Kemal.
“Think of the silkworms. To gather their silk, we must boil the cocoons whole. Before they grow wings and fly off or multiply, you see?”
Kemal gives him a blank stare.
“We are at war and these infidel dogs have been rebelling for years,” his father continues. “Always complaining about their rights. And when they’re not rebelling they are pulling the rug from under our feet.”
“What rug?” asks Kemal.
“By Allah, you’re incredibly stupid for such a smart boy,” his father says, exasperated. “What good is all your learning if you don’t know what is happening under your nose?
“Look at the Armenian moneylenders, for example. They buy all the gold in the district and pocket the difference between the actual exchange and what we think is the current value. Sometimes they even loan it to us for higher rates.”
“What does this have to do with the Melkonians?” Kemal asks.
“Nothing. Everything. The important thing is that we are Osmanli, Ottomans. When the Melkonians are gone, it will be our duty to continue where they left off. Who better to take over the kilim business than us? Just answer me this: do you want to be glued to that wooden loom for the rest of your life, reaping thirty, forty paras for a shawl or kilim?”
“No,” Kemal answers him honestly.
“The Melkonians and their like will be gone soon. Driven out or worse. And there is nothing you or I can do about it. Except maybe to step into their shoes, continue the family business, so to speak.”
At the word worse, a sulfurous pit forms at the bottom of Kemal’s stomach and he closes his mouth to keep the eggplants from making a second, unwanted appearance.
“But where will they go?” he manages to ask, thinking of Nazareth.
“Who knows? Somewhere in the interior, where they won’t be as much trouble. Now, do you want her as a bride or not?” His father swipes the common bowl, now empty of all its contents, with the last of his bread. Soaking up the sauces, he adds, “That sister of hers is a fine catch too, with all her bows and ribbons. Who knows, maybe we can have a double wedding, eh? With the expansion of the business, I could afford a second wife!”
From her corner of the room, Emineh lets out a small shriek and storms out.
“I don’t need your help. I will talk to her myself,” Kemal manages to say.
His father looks up at him with suspicion. “That’s not how it’s done, you know that,” he says. Kemal can see the plotting in his father’s face as it breaks into a smile. “Suit yourself,” he says, “but remember you need me. Young men are being conscripted into the army every day. You’ll need someone to protect her when you’re gone.”
“I’m not joining any army,” says Kemal.
“It isn’t a choice, boy. The sultan has declared this a holy war, a jihad.” His father places a palm on each knee and puffs his chest out in triumph.
“You’ll go when they say you’ll go,” he says.
CHAPTER 12
Kismet
IT IS SEVERAL hours before the rooster’s crow, and one hour since Mairig’s moans were silenced by exhaustion. Anush hoists the sleeping Aram onto her hip and lifts a white brick of cheese out of brine water. Lucine notices how thin Aram’s once-chubby thighs look and hopes it is a sign of growth and not neglect.
“What do you suppose the governor meant when he said he would take us?” Anush asks.
Lucine rises from her seat and scoops the baby out of Anush’s arms. Aram digs his knees into Lucine’s chest and nestles his head into her neck without waking.
“You know what he meant,” Lucine says.
“Yes, but then why the both of us? Would you be his wife too or just a servant?”
“I don’t know.” Trying to hide her agitation, Lucine bends over and with her free hand prepares the tonir for their daily bread.
“I can’t imagine being married to him. Rotting teeth, old as a goat, and a Muslim to boot. I’d rather die,” Anush says.
“Well, you might have to,” Lucine says.
Anush looks down at the brine water but stops fussing with it. She bows her head, seasoning the cheese with her tears. “I’m sorry,” Lucine whispers. “I didn’t mean that. Everything will be all right, you’ll see.” She is stroking Anush’s back when Bedros enters the room, his ill-fitting dress dyed crimson.
“What in God’s name have you been doing?” asks Lucine.
“Nothing. Just trying to help,” Bedros answers.
“Help with what?”
“The dyeing.”
Lucine takes in his thin frame, burdened by all the loss and sorrow of the last few weeks, and she is too sad to be cross with him.
“Come here,” she says. “What happened to your face?” A tear-shaped piece of singed skin glows red and purple, just under his existing scar.
“The ladle was hot,” Bedros says.
“Does it hurt?”
Bedros shrugs.
“How many times do we have to tell you to stay away from the dyeing tools?” Lucine asks, dabbing his skin with her handkerchief. “It was good of you to try and help with the dyeing, but that is a man’s job.”
“I am the man now. Hairig said so. Besides, Kemal and Demi have been helping me.”
“Kemal? What do you mean he’s been helping you?”
“He came a few minutes ago. He wanted to talk to you, but I told him to get to work, which is what Hairig would have done.”
“Where is he now?” Lucine asks.
“Working in the courtyard.”
Lucine puts the baby back in Anush’s arms and heads out. Despite the darkness, she can see the two men in the back corner of the courtyard. Kemal is hard at work pulling wet wool out of one of the cauldrons. Demi the half-wit holds the wooden stirring spoon and stares at a spot on the floor in front of him. Bedros’s haphazard dyeing of the wool has obviously upset Demi, whose obsession with Hairig’s dyeing started at an early age.
“We use two cups of vinegar for a pound of wool. Two cups,” Demi says, holding two fingers in the air.
“Hello, Demi,” Lucine says, not daring to look at Kemal.
“There are five hundred and seventeen threads of green silk,” Demi responds. “That’s twenty-two pounds. That’s forty-four cups of vinegar,” he says.
Kemal stops what he is doing and looks up at her. “Hello,” he says.
“Five hundred and seventeen,” Demi repeats, visibly upset.
“Bedros has hurt his face,” she says, holding up her handkerchief as proof. “You shouldn’t let him use the tools.”
“That boy is a tyrant,” Kemal says. “You should have seen him trying to stir the wool.”
“What are you doing here?” she says. “The sun isn’t even up yet.”
“Six cups of vinegar isn’t enough,” Demi says, wringing the wooden spoon like a wet cloth.
“I came to talk to you,” he says, lowering his voice. He rests his hands on the cauldron.
Lucine’s heart begins to race.
“Only six cups. Only six,” exclaims Demi.
“Sometimes I envy the silkworm,” Kemal says, resting his elbows on either side of a cauldron.
“You envy the silkworm?” she asks, disappointed.
“I know it sounds funny, but think of it,” he says, staring into the cauldron. “Wool starts out growing on the back of some poor sheep. It’s the same thing, just displaced and altered. But silk is different. It comes from the boiled cocoons of silkworms. We clean and dye the murky cream-colored thread and weave it into the fabric of some magnificent kilim.”
“Not all kilims are magnificent,” says Lucine.
“Every kilim has an admirer,” he says, fixing his eyes on her.
“But not all cocoons are boiled. Some silkworms become moths,” says Lucine.
“That’s just it. Neither, the moth nor the cocoon, has any of the properties of the silkworm. The worm stops existing all together. Either way, it transforms into something entirely different,” he says, with triumph in his voice.
“So you don’t envy the silkworm for its beauty,” she says. “You envy its ability to transform.”
“Yes. Transformation can be just as powerful as beauty,” says Kemal.
“Did you get the book?” he asks.
Lucine nods.
“And the drawing?” he asks.
“Yes,” she manages, trying not to look at him.
“And?” Kemal says.
“Thank you,” she says, finally meeting his stare. “But . . .”
“But what?”
“The picture looks nothing like me,” she says.
“Nonsense,” he says.
“My hair is not that thick and long. And my mouth . . . well, you’ve drawn it so it’s slightly open like a fish’s,” Lucine says.
“It’s how I see you now,” he says, eyes burning.
“Like a hairy fish?” she teases.
“Like a woman.”
“Demi,” Lucine says, peeling her eyes away from Kemal. “Go and ask Anush for a piece of fresh baked bread.”
“We need thirty-eight more cups of vinegar.”
“You’re right, but Kemal will take care of it,” Lucine says, gently prying the wooden spoon from Demi’s hand.
Lucine waits until Demi is gone before turning back to Kemal.
“I don’t know what to say to you,” she says.
“I have more to say to you,” Kemal says, stepping toward her. “Since I started to sketch you, I can sketch nothing else.”
“You’ve been sketching me?”
Kemal nods. “I see everything differently. Everything. You’ve taken my eyes, my vision, captive.”
Lucine stares into the objects of her thievery. Kemal’s eyes are two large chestnuts, rich dark brown shells hiding something more tender and sweet inside.
She feels the warmth from his breath, but the euphoria is immediately replaced with a sense of guilt and foreboding. Didn’t Hairig say to stay away from him? A sin against God.
“We are being deported,” she says.
“I know. I came to warn you.”
“It’s too late. Hairig has been arrested,” she says.
Kemal’s face darkens at the news. “When?” he asks.
“Yesterday.”
“Sometimes I wonder if our kismet is like this wool. If God is arbitrarily dyeing it one color or the other.”
Before she can ask him what he means, the sliver of silence between them is suddenly filled with the sound of shuffling feet. Kemal grabs Lucine’s arm and pulls her low behind the courtyard wall.
“Who is it?” she whispers.
Kemal puts his finger to his lips. Hiding behind the climbing grape leaves, Lucine can make out a group of forty or fifty men. Arranged in a single-file line, with their hands bound in front of them, they walk with their heads bent low. The only protest comes from their feet, which they drag
across the dirt path leading out of the village. The procession moves silently before the front gate. Lucine tries hard to make out their faces in the dark. Stepan the sheepherder and his young son, Gevork the apothecary, even Arzrouni the blacksmith, who has a very good relationship with the governor, are all shuffling along in silence. No one asks any questions. No one resists. They wear the shroud of being Christian and Armenian. Or maybe they are in disbelief.
At the very end of the procession, a man wearing a red fez suddenly falls to his knees. That’s when she sees them: two gendarmes wielding bayonets. One picks up the fallen man by the elbow and tells him to keep moving. When the man stumbles to his feet, he turns toward the house. Lucine lets out a tiny gasp and Kemal quickly cups a hand over her mouth. Hairig’s eyes are wet with grief, but he manages to keep moving. The line of men is all but gone when Lucine dares to speak again.
“Come on,” she says, gathering her skirt.
“Where?” asks Kemal.
“Let’s go,” she says.
“Are you crazy?”
“They have my father.”
“You’ll get killed,” Kemal says.
“Then you go,” she says, pulling his hand to her cheek. “Please, for me.” She knows he will not refuse.
Kemal moves quickly, trailing the men at a safe distance and staying low to the shadowed ground. Lucine slides down to the ground and presses her forehead to the earth.
A sin against God. Hairig’s words come back to haunt her now. She disobeyed her fathers, both in heaven and here on earth. Her prayers come hard and fast. They pour out of her mouth and stream out of her eyes.
“Der voghormia. Der voghormia. Lord forgive me,” she repeats over and over again, the way she has heard it repeated in the liturgy every Sunday since her birth.
SHE IS STILL there, with her forehead pressed firmly to the cool earth, when the rooster finally begins to crow and Kemal returns. He walks toward her, placing one foot before the other as if the ground beneath him is the back of a giant sorceress he doesn’t wish to wake. Lucine searches his face for answers but finds a bright red scratch instead. Kemal stands dumb and mute, clutching his apron with both hands.
Orhan's Inheritance Page 9
