“Who? Raising the child of who?”
“Only Fatma can answer that.”
Orhan feels his pockets for his cigarettes before remembering he can’t smoke in the nursing home. There are no words he can manage, no words to speed this experience along so he can find out what happened to Auntie Fatma’s child.
“As you probably know, Fatma can be very convincing,” Seda continues. “She reminded me that I had taken an innocent child’s life and could now save the life of another.”
“You told him you were pregnant with his child,” Orhan says in disbelief.
“Yes,” she says. “I was so desperate to be out of that khan. To be given a new chance at life. So I wrote the letter. I don’t know if he ever received it or had it read to him. I never got a chance to find out, because three weeks after sending it my uncle Nazareth showed up at the khan. He was ragged and disguised, but I knew him right away. Nothing can explain the joy I felt when I saw him. He had come for me. After combing every village on the deportation route from Sivas to Syria, he found me.
“He thought he knew where Bedros was and this only made my heart grow even more glad. Our plan was to go to Syria, where Uncle Nazareth believed Bedros was living in an orphanage, and then on to Lebanon, where my uncle had a contact.
“It was clear that Kemal had abandoned me. Fatma could barely sustain herself after the baby was born. And here was my uncle, alive and well, with a plan. I left all of it. Fatma, Kemal, Sivas, the deportations, my life, all of it.”
“You kept the name Seda,” Orhan says.
“Yes, it was the only thing I kept from that life. I could not go back to being Lucine. Lucine died with Aram. And I never allowed myself to look back. Never. Not even when I was reunited with my brother Bedros.”
“So you did find him?” asks Orhan.
“Yes, in an orphanage in Beirut. My niece, Ani, is his daughter. But the Bedros I found was very different from the Bedros I’d known as a young girl. Instead of the boy, I found a man consumed by hate and revenge. My brother called himself a freedom fighter, but others would call him a fanatic. How could I tell him I had loved a Turk? How could I tell any of them? It was impossible. There was only one story. A story of hate. So I stayed quiet. Always quiet, even more so when I got your letter.”
Orhan takes a deep breath. His head is reeling with the past. He tries to picture Dede walking into that khan after all those years of pining away for this woman, only so she could walk away from him like it was nothing.
“So my father . . .” he says.
“Mustafa is Fatma’s child,” says Seda.
The blood drains from Orhan’s face and heads down to the bottom of his feet.
“All these years . . .” he begins, thinking about all the big and little ways Auntie Fatma spent her life loving all of them, the Türkoğlu men. And suddenly he is saddened beyond measure.
“And the father?” he says.
“Perhaps Nabi Bey. Perhaps another. I’m sorry,” says Seda. “This must be very hard for you. You thought she was your aunt.”
“I thought he was my grandfather,” he manages before staggering to his feet. “I have to go,” he says, and leaves the room.
CHAPTER 33
Decrepit Seed
ORHAN MAKES HIS way back to the sea of mauve and green that is the reception area. Sitting down, he sinks so deep into one of the couches that he swears he can suddenly feel the weight of a century’s worth of deception and longing bearing down on his shoulders. Like the crumbling Byzantine structures all over Sivas, he is being pressed, layer upon layer, by the past.
If what the old woman says is true, then he and his father are not even related to Kemal. They have no right to his fortune. He thinks about the lawyer Celik, whose name literally translates to “steel,” an element that describes the man’s iron will. His ancestors were probably sheepherders, Orhan thinks, to make himself feel better. When Atatürk declared Turkey a republic, he forced everyone to pick a last name. Strong names like Celik, meaning “steel,” and Demir, meaning “iron,” were common.
Orhan’s own last name translates to “son of a Turk.” He hopes that Dede’s lawyer, Yilmaz, lives up to the meaning of his surname: one who never gives up. Because if his father succeeds in taking over the company, there is no telling what will become of Dede’s life’s work or the family fortune. Mustafa doesn’t know the first thing about textiles or exporting, or money, for that matter. He may build a mosque or donate it all to some extreme nationalist faction full of illiterate angry men. For years, when Dede was alive and Orhan was running the business, Mustafa kissed the hand that he could not wring. Now all that could change.
The blood pumps through his body, boiling with anger. The images of Seda’s story dance around in his head. A young and vibrant auntie Fatma. His dede, an insecure boy, in love with his employer’s daughter. He feels the tears slide down his face.
Feeling suffocated, he gets back on his feet and makes his way to a pay phone tucked inside a hallway near the restrooms. Breathing deeply, he stares into the dark narrow cavity where the money should go. Though he’s used a phone his whole life, he is stupefied. With enough money, he could speak to and hear anyone. Words travel from one person in the world to another—truth and lies and inconsequential syllables, laughter and tears too. All of human expression exchanged here for a small price. Yet no person or machine is equipped to interpret these words, give them a finite meaning. No one and nothing to explain it all.
It takes nine rings for Auntie Fatma to answer the telephone. When she does, she sounds breathless from the exertion.
“Ha? What news?” she pants.
The anger swells up in his throat, so he can’t bring himself to speak.
“Hello? Are you there? Speak up, boy.”
“Auntie,” Orhan says finally. The word, a lie, sits heavily on the telephone line. It is a stone brick in a dividing wall that stretches from Sivas to California, from World War I to now. His entire world is made of one brick, one lie, one word placed carefully on top of another.
“Grandmother,” Orhan says, whispering it in her ear.
Fatma is frozen and speechless on the other end of the telephone line.
“Would you have ever told me?” he asks.
“No,” she says finally.
“Why not?” he asks.
There is another long silence followed by a heavy sigh. “Why criticize the decrepit seed of an otherwise fruitful tree? There’s no point in it,” she says.
“You can’t build something on a lie, Auntie.”
“Nonsense. It was the only seed I had. And I used it. And I’m not ashamed or regretful. I spent my days loving those who mattered to me. What else is there in life?”
Orhan cannot think of a thing.
“Not like her,” continues Auntie Fatma. “She ran from his love and it broke him apart. Even when a nail comes out, it leaves a gaping hole. Your grandfather struggled in Istanbul. He made some contacts, started a small stall, but within months he had a disagreement with his partners. He left with nothing and returned to Karod, where what was left of the family textile operation was waiting for him.”
“It was not his textile business to come back to,” says Orhan.
“What are you talking about? Of course the business was his.”
“Those cauldrons. That house. Everything we have, everything Tarik Inc. was built on, belonged to Seda once,” Orhan says.
“That’s ridiculous. Who told you that?” Auntie Fatma snaps.
“It’s the truth. Seda’s real name is Lucine Melkonian. Dede knew it.”
“Lucine? Seda is Lucine?”
“Yes.”
Auntie Fatma is silent for a long moment.
“All those times he said that name, he was talking about Seda,” she says, more to herself than to him.
“Yes.”
“What does it matter?” Auntie Fatma says suddenly. “The Hagia Sophia once belonged to the Greeks. You don’t see us ha
nding it back to them, do you?”
Orhan snorts at this. “She says you saved her life,” he says.
“Your dede should have left the past alone,” she says. After a minute, she asks, “What else does she say?”
“Many things.”
“What many things?” Auntie Fatma raises her voice.
“I don’t know. Stories about her and Dede when they were young. Stories of deportation and murder.”
“I liked it better when she didn’t speak,” says Fatma. “She never spoke, you know. Back then.”
“Well, she’s speaking now,” says Orhan.
“Forget her. Don’t waste any more of your time with her.”
“There’s more,” he says. “She’s got a niece who’s obsessed with the past. She keeps going on and on about genocide. Threatened to get a lawyer.”
“You need to call Yilmaz right away,” says Fatma. “He’ll be dealing with that lawyer of your father’s and he needs to know about this. Don’t be timid, my boy. Remember, according to our inheritance laws, all this belongs to you, not Seda. I don’t care who her father was. You know what happens when a thief steals from another thief?” she asks.
“I’m not in the mood for one of your proverbs,” Orhan says.
“God laughs. That’s what happens. God laughs.”
“You’re missing the point.” Orhan rests his forehead on the edge of the pay phone. “None of it belonged to Dede to start with.”
“It was abandoned and he knew how to run it,” she snaps at him. “Besides, he did come back for Seda. She’s the one who didn’t wait for him. She’s the one who chose to leave. Followed that half-starved uncle of hers and, of course, the ghosts of her people.”
“You lied to Dede,” he says.
“Your father was only a baby. Kemal saw him and went to him immediately. I let him believe what he wanted to believe. That the child was his, a parting gift from the woman who’d haunted him all those years.”
“And you went along with him,” Orhan says.
“Evet, yes. I offered to help him take care of what he thought was his child. I tried to get him to forget her. I did everything, everything in my power. We started something new, he and I, our own kind of family. But then, as he got older, he regressed further and further into his past. He sat in front of that withered old mulberry tree day after day, sketching till his hand cramped. He took to calling me Lucine, a name I had never heard until a few months ago. It was unbearable, let me tell you.
“He took to dyeing his damn skin the way he used to dye wool. You don’t know how many times I ran out there with a towel in my hands and a curse on my lips. And this business of putting Seda’s name in the will. For what? I’ve never seen such idiocy.”
“When you went back to Sivas with him, was there anyone there?” asks Orhan.
“Just a Greek boy named Demi. He knew all the formulas for the dyes. Why do you ask?”
“Don’t you see,” he says. “None of it belonged to Dede. And even if it did, if he wasn’t my grandfather, then I can’t inherit a thing.”
“Nobody knows that,” says Fatma.
“She knows it,” says Orhan. “And her niece will know it soon enough.”
“Nobody will believe them,” she says. “This is no time to be weak. I don’t care what you do. I’ll be dead soon, and your father will figure himself out. But this is your future we’re talking about here.”
“Don’t say that. I can’t bear it right now,” says Orhan.
“What?”
“The part about you dying.”
“There, you see. It doesn’t matter what you call me.”
“I’ll call you grandmother,” says Orhan.
“It doesn’t matter, I tell you,” her voice rises with the reprimand. “Mother. Grandmother. Genocide. Deportations. Seda, Lucine. None of it matters. There is only what is, what happened. The words come much later, corrupting everything with meaning. Call me what you want, but love me, Orhan. Because that’s the only thing that matters.”
But love is a word, thinks Orhan before hanging up. Love is a goddamn word. And which ones we use does matter.
CHAPTER 34
The Photographer
ORHAN WALKS AROUND in a haze of melancholy, carrying his arsenal of images through the empty halls of the nursing home. When he peeks into her room, Seda is in a deep slumber, as if the outpouring Orhan witnessed was her last on earth.
The Leica’s strap lays flat across his chest like a loving arm, the familiar weight swinging at his middle, comforting him. It is late in the evening and there are few residents shuffling along. Vapors of chlorine and lemons emanate from the shiny linoleum. Orhan finds himself looking for Mrs.Vartanian, but there is no one to spit at his shoes.
The door to the dining room is shut, but the murmur of voices comes through anyway. Someone has placed a freestanding sign at the entrance: BEARING WITNESS: AN EXHIBIT ABOUT MEMORY AND IDENTITY. Orhan presses his face to the glass-paneled door. The room has been completely rearranged. The chairs and tables have disappeared, along with the stale air of decay. Large black-and-white photographs line the white walls. Each panel features the face and torso of an elderly person set against a black background.
Orhan is relieved to step inside this space awash in images. He approaches a photograph whose subject he recognizes. Mrs. Vartanian’s face is displayed as a black-and-white landscape. The horizontal lines that drift across her forehead move from the dark side of the frame toward a light source. The bags under her eyes sag in deep U-shaped crescents, reaching past her drooping nose. A thin-veined hand covers her unseen mouth. Orhan notices that each knuckle is tattooed with a symbol of some sort.
“Haunting, aren’t they?” someone says.
Orhan starts and steps back to find Ani staring at Mrs. Vartanian’s image. Seda’s niece is dressed in black again, her dark eyes and hair mimicking the backdrop of the photographs.
“Yes,” he says.
“The exhibit won’t be open until tomorrow, but you’re welcome to look.” She glances at the camera swinging from his neck. “Are you a photographer?” she asks.
“No, just a visitor,” says Orhan turning back to the photograph.
“She’s actually a resident here,” says Ani, pointing at the image of Mrs. Vartanian.
“What are those symbols on her knuckles?” he asks.
“Tattoos. Many of the deportees were branded by the Arab and Bedouin tribes that abducted them,” she explains. “I’m Ani Melkonian, by the way.” She extends her hand.
“Nice to meet you,” he says, shaking her hand. “Orren,” he says, pronouncing it the way Betty the orderly had. It’s a small deception, but it lodges itself in his throat like a fish gone bad. “Is this your project?” He gestures toward the wall.
“I’m not an artist, if that’s what you mean.” she says. “But I organized the show.”
“It’s very intense,” he says.
“Yeah, nobody does sorrow like the Armenians. Besides, art is always intense when it’s transformative. Only kind of art worth pursuing.”
Orhan turns away from the photograph to look at her. Something in the way she’s looking at the photograph reminds him of his youth. “Are you saying all art should be political?” asks Orhan.
“I’m saying art can change things.”
“So there is no value in a still life,” he says smiling.
“With the world as fucked up as it is, why would anyone choose the still life?”
Because it’s a thing of beauty. “Because he feels like using the color red?” he ventures out loud.
“I guess I just prefer intense,” she says. “Have you seen a film crew, by any chance?” she asks, finally turning to face him again. “The documentary guys are supposed to be here by now.” She looks down at the clipboard in her arms. “Two guys. One old. One young, hopefully carrying a large camera?”
“No, sorry,” says Orhan.
She sighs and looks up at him again. “I’m t
rying to pair each photograph with an oral history.”
Why ruin the images with words? thinks Orhan.
“The idea is to document the voices of the surviving eyewitnesses.”
“Eyewitnesses,” Orhan repeats.
She looks at him as if he’s stupid. “To the genocide,” she says.
A young man with a headset pokes his head through the dining-room door. “Ani, we need those mikes,” he says.
“Okay, I’m on it.” She fishes through her purse and produces a ring of keys.
“And bring the blue binders if you can,” he adds before disappearing behind the door again.
“I have to go to my car,” she says to Orhan.
“Need help?” he asks.
“You don’t mind?”
“You could tell me more about the exhibit,” he says, walking alongside her.
“The photographs you saw were taken by Gerard Nova. There’ll be some oil paintings by tomorrow, as well as oral histories. It’s really about bringing our past out into the light.”
“I prefer to keep my past in the dark,” he says with a chuckle. “Under lock and key.”
“You must have an interesting past.”
He shrugs. “Not really,” he says, thinking how if you paid enough attention to your past, it would grow and grow, obscure your present as well as your future.
“Well, you can deny your past all you want, but it’s a part of you. Acknowledging it only gives you more power. Anyway, the idea is to record these stories for posterity.”
“Not sure what good that will do,” he says more to himself than to her.
“My mother nursed me with mother’s milk but also with sorrow. It flowed from her heart to her breast, into my insides where it probably still rests. She herself had ingested the same from her mother. They call it transgenerational grief now. We call it being Armenian. I had a Cuban friend claim she could spot the Armenian children at Glendale Middle School by the sorrow in their eyes. There is no cure to speak of. Of course, you could always ‘convert.’ Strange that we use that word even though it is not a religion but a nationality. But we have no nation, haven’t had one in a long time, so I guess the word works.”
Orhan's Inheritance Page 22
