Nobody's Child Read online

  Mariam came to sit beside her for a moment.

  “Even you children are stronger than I am,” said Anna. “What good am I to you?”

  “You are like a mother to us,” said Mariam. She took a corner of her veil and moistened it with her mouth, and then she carefully blotted the muddy mixture away from Anna’s eyes. Mariam felt badly for Anna. What must it be like for her to be living with this handicap? She couldn’t shed her white skin, and she couldn’t change her strange sore eyes or the way that people reacted to her. The experiences of the last few months had made Anna more bitter than the others, yet she tried to rein it in for the sake of the children.

  As Mariam considered Anna and her situation, her eyes wandered down to the sickle that Anna had been using. No wonder she was having so much difficulty. It was long and sharp, but very heavy. Mariam reached down and picked it up. It was easily twice as heavy as the precious one that she was using.

  “Would you like to use my sickle for awhile?” suggested Mariam. She didn’t really like to have her mother’s tiny sickle out of her grasp, but Anna’s need was greater than hers.

  Anna looked at Mariam with gratitude. “You would lend it to me?” she asked.

  “I don’t have to be covered up like you, so I’m cooler,” said Mariam. “Besides,” she added in her most convincing voice, “I think I might prefer a heavier one for a bit.”

  Anna grinned. Mariam tried not to chuckle at the strange sight of Anna: white teeth and pink-rimmed blue eyes shining through a mud-streaked face.

  Marta’s first day of work wasn’t as gruelling as it was for those in the fields, but it wasn’t exactly easy, either. She set Onnig to work weeding the garden as she peeled onions to add to the pot of vegetable stew that Amina Hanim had put on the roof to cook in the sun before leaving for the fields. Amina had also asked Marta to thinly slice a basket of apples and lay the slices out on the roof to dry. Marta could not do either of these tasks very efficiently. She started with the onions because chopping was easier than slicing, and she didn’t have to use such a sharp knife. Her eyes streamed with tears as she peeled away the skins, and her nose got extremely itchy while she chopped them. She couldn’t wait to finish so she could wash her hands and give her nose a good scratching.

  She decided to peel and slice the apples outside so she could keep a better eye on Onnig. He was intently digging a hole with a stick in a bare patch of the garden, but she didn’t know how long this would amuse him. She brought out a small carpet to sit on, and a wooden cutting board and a bowl for the apples. Amina Hanim had shown her which knife was the best for the apples, and it looked formidably sharp.

  She stuck her tongue out of the corner of her mouth and frowned in concentration as she tried to peel the first apple. Her mother had always made the apple peel a single long coil, but how? Marta held the knife and apple at arm’s length. She didn’t want to get it too close because she was afraid of cutting herself, but her peel came off in chunks instead of a thin ribbon. When she looked at the first peeled apple, she sighed in frustration. There was more peel and core than apple. Oh well, she would get better.

  “Can I have some?” asked Onnig, as he came over from the garden to see what Marta was doing.

  “You can eat these peels,” she said, handing him the juicy chunks.

  Onnig grinned and stuffed them into his mouth.

  For the second apple, Marta held it a little bit closer. Her ribbons of peel were less fleshy, and they were a hand’s length long.

  “These ones don’t taste so good,” said Onnig disapprovingly. “I’ll give them to Sevo and Tipi.”

  “That’s a good idea,” said Marta.

  Sevo was grazing at the side of the house, her rope attached, but not tethered. Tipi, Abdul’s goat, was grazing a few feet away from her.

  Marta was lost in concentration with her apple peeling. By the fourth apple she was pleased with how easily she was able to peel an apple and still have something left to slice. She didn’t think she’d ever master the one long peel, though.

  As she finished peeling and coring and slicing each apple, she would place the slices in the bowl. When she was all done, she carried the bowl into the kitchen and squeezed a wedge of lemon over them, and then she carried the bowl up two flights of stairs to the roof.

  The roof was flat and made of dirt that had hardened in the sun to a smooth gloss. She sat down and spread her skirt to one side and carefully placed a single layer of apple slices in rows starting at the edge of the roof.

  While she was doing this, Marta looked over the edge to check on Onnig. He was feeding the last of the apple peels and cores to the goats and grinning ear to ear.

  She went back to her work and laid out all of the apple slices. By the time she was done, she had covered a large square patch of the roof. She stood up and stretched, proud of a job well done, then shaded her eyes from the sun and looked out into the fields. She could see the rhythmic rise and fall of the sickles in the fields, but as far as she could tell, not much progress was being made. In the spring, Abdul Hassan had hired twenty or more strong male workers. Their little group was barely making a dent.

  She looked beyond the fields towards the cave grave, but couldn’t see it from her vantage point. She willed her-self to remember her parents’ faces, but she couldn’t. “Please God,” she whispered, “look after Mommy and Daddy and Uncle Aram.”

  Then she turned towards Marash. What would they find there? She hoped that her grandmother and aunt and cousins were still alive.

  From where she stood, she could see the old stone bridge that crossed over the Jihan River at Adana. She could also see the ancient castle in the distance. Looking at them again from this vantage point reminded her of the first time she had seen them. She had been such a child then, yet it was only a couple of months ago.

  She took one last look down to the garden, but Onnig wasn’t there. “Onnig?” she called. No answer.

  She scurried down the stairs as quickly as she could and ran out the front door of the house. “Onnig?” she called. “Where are you?”

  Her heart beating in her throat, she ran around to the back of the house. There was Onnig, with Sevo and the other goat. His hands were tangled in their ropes and they were pulling him harder than he could hold them.

  “Help!” he said to his sister, a frightened look in his eyes.

  “What are you doing?” she asked, grabbing Sevo’s rope firmly in one hand. With the tension off the rope, Onnig had no troubling untangling one of his hands. Marta then steadied Tipi by holding that rope firmly so Onnig could get free.

  “They wanted to go to Marash,” said Onnig. “But I didn’t know they would go so fast.”

  Marta smiled. “We’ll all be going to Marash soon, Onnig, but next time the goats want to go, tell them they’ll have to wait.”

  The evening meal was served in the common main room of the house. Amina Hanim carried the pot of stew from the roof, and Marta walked in behind her, a serious frown on her face, carrying a platter of pide. Everyone took a wedge of the bread and then dipped it, a piece at a time, into the communal pot.

  Once they had all eaten their fill, Amina Hanim and Marta took what was left back to the kitchen. Abdul Hassan leaned back on his cushion and smiled.

  “Thank you for your help today,” he said. His eyes rested briefly first on Kevork, then Mariam, and finally on Anna.

  Anna had cleaned the mud from her skin, and her pale complexion had a sore pink glow to it. There were bluish shadows under her red-rimmed eyes, but she smiled back at the Turk. “It is our pleasure to help you,” she said. “Will you be taking the threshed wheat to Marash?”

  “I will,” he said. “I was there a few weeks ago, and whatever I can bring will be sold for a good price. All over Adana, the wheat is being left unharvested.”

  Anna opened her mouth as if to reply, but then closed it again.

  “Were you going to say something?” asked Abdul Hassan.

  “No,” sa
id Anna.

  Mariam looked from one to the other. She knew what Anna was about to say: had the Armenians not been killed, there wouldn’t be this crisis now.

  “Did it ever occur to you that I might agree with what you have to say?” Abdul Hassan asked Anna, with a touch of impatience in his voice. “It was wrong for the Sultan to initiate the massacres. He has been charged with his crimes and he has been deposed.”

  Mariam’s mouth opened slightly with surprise.

  “Killing Armenians makes as much sense as Mother Turkey chopping off her right hand,” said Abdul Hassan. “We will all be paying for this for a long time.”

  Amina Hanim had come back from the kitchen and was standing in the doorway with Marta beside her. The look on her face showed that she was not comfortable with the turn in conversation. “Should I serve the coffee, Abdul-Agha?” she asked gently.

  He turned towards her and frowned, but when he noticed her expression, his annoyance softened. “Yes wife,” he said. “That would be fine.”

  After coffee and conversation on more neutral topics, it was time to go to bed.

  Amina Hanim opened one of the doors off the common room and said, “Ladies, follow me.”

  Marta looked at Mariam with a question in her eyes, and Mariam returned with a look that meant, “Do as you’re told.” The girls stepped towards the door with Anna.

  “Take me with you,” said Onnig.

  “Our haremlik is small,” said Amina Hanim to the little boy. “Can’t you sleep with Kevork and my husband in the salemlik?”

  “Why can’t we all sleep together in this room?” asked Onnig, pointing to all the cozy pillows on the floor.

  Amina Hassan smiled indulgently. The concept was entirely foreign to her. “What an interesting idea, child.” Then she looked at Kevork. “He’ll be all right with you, won’t he?”

  Kevork nodded. “He’ll be fine.”

  Mariam didn’t know what to expect when she stepped through the door to the haremlik, but it certainly wasn’t what she found. It was made up of just one plain room, and there were ledges built into the walls on all four sides. Two walls of the ledges were lined with Turkish carpets, and the other two were bare. In the middle of the room was a tonir sunk into the floor, with cushions around it.

  “It is cool enough tonight that you might want to sleep by the warmth of the tonir,” said Amina Hanim, “but if you prefer, you can sleep by the wall.”

  Mariam and Marta cuddled up together on pillows beside the tonir. Anna slept beside them, and Amina Hanim chose a spot against the wall.

  Had Kevork been able to compare, he would have realized that the salemlik was much more carefully furnished than the haremlik. Abdul Hassan had two rooms to himself. One of the rooms had an elaborate carpet on the floor with richly embroidered cushions on top. In the centre of the room was a hookah — a water pipe used to smoke tobacco — and in one corner was a prayer mat facing Mecca. Even the walls in this room were hung with beautiful Turkish carpets. It was divided from the second room by a doorway of beads. This second room of the salemlik was similar to the haremlik’s single room, although the cushions were more heavily embroidered.

  Abdul ushered Kevork and Onnig to the tonir in the main room. “This is where you shall sleep,” he said. Then he pushed aside the beaded divider and stepped into the other room.

  As Kevork settled in to sleep, he could see the silhouette of Abdul on his knees, bowing towards Mecca. The rhythmic sound of prayers drifted through the beads.

  They worked the fields for three weeks, but did not manage to harvest even a third of the wheat before it dried on the stalks.

  “Because of the decimation of so many fields, even this small yield will bring in a fair price,” said Abdul Hassan with satisfaction as they gathered together for what was supposed to be a final evening meal.

  Mariam saw him look at her with an appraising eye. What must I look like to him? she wondered. As she reached for a fig and popped it in her mouth, she saw how her arms had changed. They were now brown as a nut and faintly muscular, but they looked more womanly than girlish. She looked up and caught his eye. He returned the look with a fatherly glance of approval. She was glad they were leaving soon. She had a feeling that he would like nothing better than to marry her off to some young Turk.

  She watched as he appraised the others in her group, and she did the same, trying to imagine how they must all appear from his point of view. Kevork’s shoulders had broadened with hard work and he looked more like a little man than a boy. Mariam thought Abdul probably wouldn’t mind keeping Kevork around as a farm hand.

  When Abdul Hassan’s appraising gaze fell on Anna, Mariam was pleased to see that his face held nothing but affection and respect. Anna’s face was a painful blistered red, and her hands were cracked and callused. The issue of the Evil Eye seemed moot.

  Mariam already knew how both Abdul Hassan and his wife felt about Onnig. On more than one occasion they had mentioned that they would love to adopt him. Amina had confided in Mariam that they had lost both of their sons. One had died in infancy, and the other had died as a soldier in the Sultan’s army. Amina could no longer have children, and she had suggested to her husband that he take on a second wife, but he refused.

  Mariam also knew how they both felt about Marta. She turned to look at her now. As always, she was close to the skirts of Amina. With the veil tucked tightly over her hair and a small apron over her dress, she looked like a miniature version of a Turkish housewife. Mariam knew that Amina had come to depend on her.

  Abdul Hassan drew a purse of coins from his belt and turned to Mariam. “As promised, here is your payment.” He handed the purse to her.

  “Thank you,” said Mariam with a smile. “This will help us when we get to Marash.”

  The Turk replied, “So you are truly set on leaving?”

  “Where else would we go?”

  “Let me be frank,” said Abdul Hassan. “The Armenians in Marash fared much better than those in Adana. In fact, some Turks even hid their Armenian neighbours when the gendarmes rained down with their bayonets.”

  “That is good to know,” said Mariam.

  “However,” said Abdul Hassan, “Marash is not entirely safe. The Young Turks have grasped power from the Sultan and some say they are even more fanatical than he was.”

  “But I thought they believed in reforming Turkey,” said Mariam.

  “They do,” replied Abdul Hassan, “but not in the way you mean. They believe Turkey is for Turks, and no one else. Even now, there are rumblings against the minorities.”

  Mariam sighed in frustration. “Armenians have lived in this area for more than two thousand years. Where are they supposed to go?”

  Abdul was silent for a moment. It was as if he wanted to say something, but didn’t quite know how.

  “There is a way,” he said. “I could take you in. I would adopt the boy and maybe the girl,” he said, gesturing first at Onnig, then at Marta. “And Anna, you are welcome to stay in our home. I could find a husband for you, Mariam, and a job for Kevork.”

  “You mean we would become Turkish?” asked Mariam.

  “There are worse fates,” replied Abdul Hassan dryly.

  “We cannot change who we are,” said Mariam, “and I for one would rather die Armenian than live as a Turk.”

  A look of utter shock passed over Abdul Hassan’s face. He was silent for a moment, struggling for words. Then he said, “As you wish. But please remember that I tried to help.”

  CHAPTER SIX

  By dawn the next morning, the sturdy oxcart with huge wooden wheels was packed tightly with sacks of wheat and the meagre possessions of Anna and the children. Mariam was pleased that their provisions for the trip — dried meat, goat cheese, barley soaked in yogurt, dried apples, and raisins — had mostly been prepared by her little sister.

  The children bid Amina Hanim goodbye with teary smiles. “May Allah save you from the worst,” she said.

  There was o
nly room for two people in the cart at a time, so they rotated, with Onnig invariably sitting on someone’s lap. Sevo walked behind, her rope tethered to the frame of the cart.

  As they walked through the mighty gates of Marash, Mariam’s heart thumped with joy. It felt so good to be on safe ground. Abdul Hassan insisted on taking them directly to their grandmother’s house.

  As the oxcart creaked down the cobblestone streets, Mariam drank in the sights. The covered bazaar was bursting with colour and noise as Armenians and Turks, Kurds and Arabs, Greeks and Jews all haggled over prices as if the massacres had never happened. Mariam inhaled deeply the old familiar smells of Marash: fresh coffee, fruit, different kinds of baking bread. Below these powerful aromas there was a faint smell of something rotting.

  She felt excited, but also a bit apprehensive. Would her grandmother and aunt still be alive? She was too impatient to sit in the oxcart, so she hopped down and walked beside Abdul Hassan. Without even needing directions, he had been guiding the ox towards the Armenian section.

  “It’s down this way,” said Mariam, walking a few steps in front of Abdul. With the oxcart they couldn’t take the shortcut and had to stick to the wider roads.

  “We’re almost there,” said Mariam with a grin, darting between other travellers.

  Then, before she knew it, Mariam was standing at the street wall in front of her own house. It seemed smaller than she had remembered it, and somehow shabbier.

  The last time she had been here, the wall in front of the courtyard had been well over her head. Now she could see over top of it when she stood on tiptoes. She grinned at the familiar sight of the apricot, fig, and almond trees. She spied her own goat, Lala, whose pale yellow coat with a dark brown patch on her neck was as familiar to Mariam as the back of her own hand. She also saw Yar, her grandmother’s goat, and several chickens.

  There was an old-fashioned bell on a chain above the garden door, and Mariam pulled the rope with all her might, giggling at the sound of the familiar clang. There was no answer. She pulled it again. No answer.