The Hunger

by Marsha Forchuk Skrypuch

  And then Marta remembered more. Just the evening before, she, Mariam, and Kevork had stolen away from the orphanage under the cover of darkness and had travelled on foot through the streets of Marash until they reached the house of Marta and Mariam’s grandmother. It was empty, a broken front door creaking on a windless night. Marta could only hope that they had abandoned their home before the soldiers had arrived.

  “Sit down, Marta, it’s time to cut your hair.” Kevork had pulled a pair of scissors from a wooden box at the foot of his bed.

  Marta’s hands flew up to her head. “Why do you have to cut my hair?”

  “What’s the matter with you?” Kevork asked wearily. “We’ve been through this all before. If you want to have the soldiers think you’re a boy, you’ve got to get rid of all that hair.”

  Marta gulped in dismay. It was apparent that this had been discussed before and she, or whomever she used to be, had agreed. She sat down on the bed beside Kevork, and watched as chunks of her glorious dark hair fell in a pile on the bed.

  “You’re next,” said Kevork, looking at Mariam.

  But Mariam was staring at her sister in alarm.

  “No,” she said. “I’ll take my chances as a girl.”

  Marta looked at her sister and was about to say something, but bit her tongue. Mariam would make a singularly poor boy. Her curves were already too pronounced, and she was far too delicate. Marta was thankful for her heavier build and manly height.

  “The coins, Kevork. Would you like me to sew them into your clothing?” Mariam drew a needle and thread from a small pocket in her blouse.

  “I think we should each take three,” said Kevork. “That way, if we get separated, we’ll each have something to live on.”

  “Fine,” said Mariam. And with quick fingers, she deftly stitched three coins each in the seams of their outfits. As she sewed the coins into her own hems, something clattered from her waistband and fell to the floor.

  Marta darted over to her sister and picked up the object. It was a tiny, glittering sickle. At the sight of it, Marta remembered. This had been her mother’s sickle. A tiny custom-made sickle, sharp as a razor, yet small enough for a delicate woman to handle. She remembered a scene from six years ago—the last time she had seen it in her mother’s hands. Marta, her brother, and sister had travelled from Marash on foot all the way to the barley fields surrounding Adana. This was an annual journey and a sure source of cash for the impoverished family. There were still several weeks of the harvest left, and her parents had been in a good mood, anticipating what they could buy when the harvest was done and they returned to their home in Marash.

  Parantzim, their mother, had sent the children off to play. And when the children came back to the barley fields hours later, there was only silence. And a bloodstained sickle.

  Marta ran her index finger over the sharp inner blade and watched in fascination as a bead of her own blood appeared.

  “You’ll hurt yourself,” said Mariam brusquely, reaching out to her sister and delicately removed the sickle from Marta’s grasp. Mariam tucked the treasured object into the back of her belt and then said, “So are we ready?”

  “We’d better be,” replied Kevork. “The soldiers will be here in minutes.”

  The three grabbed their bedrolls and headed out to the central courtyard of the orphanage complex.

  They were among the last of the orphans to collect in the courtyard. Marta looked around her, and was both surprised and not surprised, when she recognized individual children who had gathered in rows, sitting upon their bedrolls. Paris, a little girl with mischievous eyes and buck teeth smiled broadly as she saw Marta approach. Marta instinctively reached down and lightly patted the girl’s shoulder as she walked by.

  Altogether, there were about two hundred children sitting patiently for orders. Marta noticed a small group of adults off to one side, their own bedrolls piled in a heap. An animated discussion was taking place, and Marta strained to hear the words.

  She recognized Joseflne Younger, the German missionary who supervised both the boys’ orphanage, Beitshalom, and the girls’, Bethel. The woman’s greying blonde hair was usually upswept in a tight bun, but today the bun was in disarray. Even her steel glasses were askew. She was talking animatedly to Anna, Kevork’s aunt.

  With Anna and Miss Younger was Mr. Karellian, the boys’ trade teacher, and Tante Maria, the elderly laundress. These three were the only Armenian adults in the complex, and as the voices drifted closer to Marta, she could hear that Miss Younger was arguing furiously with the others, trying to convince them to leave while they still had the chance.

  “If we leave,” replied Tante Maria in a firm voice.

  “They may take their anger out on you. Or on the children.” The other two nodded in agreement.

  Just then, the massive gates of the orphanage complex creaked open and a strikingly handsome Turk on a white stallion sauntered in, followed by soldiers on foot.

  This was the infamous Mahmoud Sayyid, the Captain in charge of the Young Turk army in the city of Marash, and the only son of the wealthy Cherif Mahmoud.

  He reined his horse inches from Miss Younger’s face, then glanced disdainfully at her and her trembling companions. “This cannot be all of your adult Armenians,” he said, cracking his whip towards the sorry group.

  The rows of children just metres away were so fearful that not a single child took a breath.

  “The records show that you have more than a dozen Armenians on staff.”

  “You are mistaken,” replied Miss Younger.

  Captain Sayyid dismounted, handing the reins to one of the soldiers. He strutted past the small group of adults and walked over to where the rows of children sat in silence.

  He stopped in front of Kevork and stared down at the young man as he sat quietly on his bedroll. Crooking his finger, he beckoned Kevork to stand up. Kevork blushed, then obliged. Even with hunched shoulders, Kevork stood a full head taller than the Captain.

  Mahmoud Sayyid flashed an angry look at Miss Younger. “This is no child,” he declared. And then with a motion of his finger, he directed Kevork to join the adults.

  “He’s only fifteen,” said Miss Younger.

  “I don’t believe you,” replied the Captain.

  Next, he stepped in front of Marta. Her heart was pounding so wildly in her chest that she was sure he could hear it. Would he suspect that she was a girl?

  As he did with Kevork, he beckoned her to stand. And like Kevork, she should have towered over the Turk, but she took her chances and crouched slightly, making them the same height. “This one is more man than boy,” shouted the Captain. “What tricks are you playing on me, woman?”

  “That.... boy ....” she stumbled, “that boy is only thirteen. He’s no risk to you.”

  “Don’t tell me my business,” replied Mahmoud Sayyid in a quiet angry voice. “If these are children, then you’re feeding them too well.” He gestured to Marta to stand with Kevork and the adults.

  When he stepped in front of Mariam, a smile broke on his face. Brushing the side of her cheek lightly with his hand, he turned to Miss Younger and said, “Where have you been hiding this one?”

  Miss Younger’s face flushed brightly in alarm, but she remained silent.

  He grabbed Mariam’s hand and roughly pulled her toward him. “You’ll come with me,” he said.

  She pulled her hand away from his and stepped back. “I will not go.”

  His smile turned cold as he listened to her declaration. Without uttering a word, he drew a pistol from his belt and shot Paris, the little girl with the mischievous eyes. Blood splattered from the wound in her neck as she fell back into the arms of the girl sitting behind her. A frightened hush descended upon the courtyard. Miss Younger stepped forward, intending to help the injured girl, but the Captain pointed his pistol menacingly in her direction and said, “Stay where you are, or you will be next.”

  Paris died before their eyes, but the children surrou
nding her maintained their grim silence. They watched as the Captain inspected the rest of the children and designated about a dozen in all as “adults.”

  Mariam stood trembling at the Captain’s side as she watched him decide the fate of people she loved. She dared not say a word to him when he was done, but the question remained in her eyes.

  “They will die, but you will live,” he said. Then he turned to Miss Younger, “I will be back for these adult Armenians at dawn tomorrow.” Then he shook his finger at her, “Don’t try to trick me, or you’ll regret it.”

  With that, he pushed Mariam onto his horse, then mounted in front of her, and with the soldiers following on foot, he left the compound.

  As soon as he was beyond the gates, Miss Younger rushed to the bloodied body that had been Paris. Miss Younger gently picked it up and carried it away.

  Deportation

  Most everyone had left the central courtyard—the “adults” to tie up the last details of their lives, the children to run off their pent-up energy. Not a few followed Miss Younger.

  Marta remained in the courtyard, as did Kevork. Now that they were alone, he clasped her hand in his. “Whatever happens,” he said. “We will be together.”

  Hand in hand, they walked to the spot where the Captain’s horse had stood. “Do you think Mariam will get out of this alive?” Marta asked Kevork, kicking the dirt with the tip of her boot, as if by hiding the impressions of the horse’s hooves, she could change her sister’s fate.

  “Mariam’s more resilient than she looks,” replied Kevork.

  That night, as Marta lay in her dormitory bed, her mind jumbled in confusion with all that had happened. Where was her little brother, Onnig? And what about her grandmother? She now also recalled an aunt and cousins. They too had been staying with her grandmother. Had they all been killed, or were they among the first of the Armenians to be exiled from Marash? And Marta was sick with fear over the fate of her sister, Mariam. Should she have insisted that Mariam dress up as a boy, like she had herself? Would Mariam be safer with the Captain, or on the deportation march? These problems spun through Marta’s head until the early hours of the morning when she finally fell into an exhausted sleep.

  At seven a.m. sharp, Turkish soldiers on horses arrived at the orphanage gates. Each carried a whip. The officer in charge was again Captain Mahmoud Sayyid, who jumped off his horse and looked at the handful of doomed Armenians, each of whom carried their worldly possessions on their backs.

  Marta, Kevork and Miss Younger stood nervously beside a wagon, packed to the brim, with a donkey ready to pull it.

  “What’s in the wagon?” asked Captain Mahmoud Sayyid, strutting in front of them.

  “I am sending extra supplies,” said Miss Younger.

  “That won’t be necessary,” he said

  “... But...” started Miss Younger.

  “Leave it here!”

  At this point Mr. Muller, one of the German missionaries, approached Miss Younger and the Captain and asked if he could speak to him “man to man.” Miss Younger walked away in frustration. Marta watched the conversation with curiosity and noticed the sunlight gleam on several Turkish gold pounds as they passed from Mr. Midler’s hands to the Captain’s hands. Then the officer walked away, ignoring the wagon.

  The handful of deportees from the orphanage were escorted out the gates with the sobs of anguished teachers and orphans at their backs. By the time they got to the centre of Marash, they were joined by thousands of others.

  With the hot sun beating down, the column of deportees slowly snaked its way out the gates of Marash and in the direction of the desert. Marta, in her boy’s outfit, kept close to Kevork, and the two of them made an effort to stay towards the end of the column, amidst a cluster of men. Mr. Karellian and Aunt Anna were with them too, but Tante Maria had somehow disappeared from sight. Marta prayed that she had been spirited away by Miss Younger. Marta also prayed for Miriam’s survival.

  Just in front of them hobbled elderly women and men, and when someone had trouble continuing on, the able-bodied men would take turns assisting them. There was also a cluster of adolescent girls who had somehow been designated as “adults” and sent on this exile. The men tried their best to protect them from the bands of Turkish youths who jeered from the side of the road. Marta saw the humiliation in the faces of the taunted girls and she was grateful not to be one of them.

  Soldiers rode up and down the long column with whips that cut at the heels of stragglers, but the pace was tortuously slow, nonetheless. By nightfall, the deportees were only a mile outside the eastern gates of Marash. The soldiers let their prisoners prepare food and settle down to sleep under the stars.

  Since they had so recently departed, the stores of food were still plentiful. Marta and Kevork were each issued a small loaf of bread drizzled with olive oil, a few ounces of hard cheese, and a flask of water.

  Marta marvelled at the oily bread and was amazed at how hungry the sight of it made her feel. She took a huge bite and relished in the sensation of olive oil dripping down her chin. She ate every last crumb of bread and every bit of cheese with a vague sense of triumph. The Turks may wish us to die, she thought, but I’m not about to co-operate.

  The next morning, one of the women complained that her legs hurt and she couldn’t walk. Aunt Anna tried to pull the woman to her feet, but she just sat back down on the ground, refusing to budge. A soldier who couldn’t have been any more than seventeen was passing by. “Get that woman on her feet!” he screamed. Anna looked up at him. “You’re Armenian,” she said. “What are you doing fighting with the Turks?” The young soldier paled.

  Just then, Captain Mahmoud Sayyid came riding by. He looked at Anna, and then at the woman.

  “I’ll get her to move for you,” he said, flicking the whip across the woman’s face. The other deportees hurried by the scene, averting their eyes. The woman who had been whipped slumped down onto the roadside. With quiet dignity, she looked into the eyes of her tormentor. “Kill me now, if you must,” she challenged.

  Anna tried to pull her to her feet, but she refused to move. Another soldier passed by. He surveyed the scene, then casually took out his gun and shot the woman in the chest. She fell back, dead.

  The other deportees who were still forming the column close by, turned their heads away and walked on. Anna, who was spattered with the woman’s blood, had slumped down to the ground in a faint. The Armenian soldier got off his horse, picked her up, and hoisted her across his saddle like a sack. The body of the woman was left where it was a warning to all who would be tardy.

  Each day of marching was like the last. Every day, a few more people would refuse to go further, and they were either left at the side of the road to fend for themselves in the wilderness, or they were shot.

  Marta, still dressed as a boy, was thankful that she blended in. Aside from her, there were a few other girls dressed as boys, and Anna, whose strange paleness repelled the soldiers. All of the other females left in the column were children and grandmothers.

  As the days wore on, the column of deportees inched closer to the heat of the desert. Each day, the stores of food became scarcer, as did the water. Marta was grateful for the Turkish gold pounds sewn into her clothing. She traded one of the coins for a leather pouch filled with raisins and a flask of water. She supplemented her daily ration of a stale piece of mouldy bread and a cup of water with her own life-saving supply of nourishment.

  Anna and Mr. Karellian walked at the end of the column, keeping their eyes open for stray children. Once, while the group was resting at the end of a gruelling day, a Turkish woman came by, inspecting the children, looking for a suitable boy. She spotted a relatively healthy four-year-old and squatted by his side.

  “Would you like to be my son?” she asked, handing the boy a cup of water. He drank it greedily. Anna walked over to the woman. “You Turks belong in hell,” she said. The woman looked up sadly. She paused, looked back at the little boy and said, “I can
’t change the world, but I can save a little boy.”

  The child wanted to go with the woman, so Anna shrugged her shoulders and called after him, “Go! But always remember: you are Armenian.”

  One day, the gendarmes ordered the deportees to divide into two groups. One was for all the married people, the other, all the single. Questions buzzed up and down the column. What would be better? To be married or single?

  “Maybe they’re going to make sure all the married couples will be deported with each other,” suggested Marta hopefully. “We should pretend to be married.”

  “Or maybe they’re going to kill all the married couples,” Kevork countered.

  All around them, people were frantically looking for “husbands” and “wives” so that they could go stand in the married group.

  “Marta,” Kevork said. “Let us not make a mockery of our love. We should stand with the singles group.”

  Marta was not happy with this suggestion, but she didn’t argue. The group of married people was about triple the size of the singles group. Anna and Mr. Karellian, who could have easily posed as a couple, were also standing in the singles group.

  The gendarmes came over and ordered the married group to march over a huge sand dune to the left, and the singles were ordered to keep marching along the road to the right. Moments later, Marta heard muffled screams. All in the married group were bludgeoned with hatchets and clubs. No need to waste bullets.

  As the days passed, the sun beat down and the air was unbearably hot. Water and food were scarce. The bedraggled column of deportees was being marched into the heart of the desert.

  Daily rations no longer existed. Marta watched as one woman in her group resorted to eating tufts of grass that grew in patches all over the desert. She watched with despair, when later the same day, the woman curled into a ball of agony and died from the toxic effects of the grass. There was no food to be had, and no food to be bought.