Like Water on Stone (7 page)

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Authors: Dana Walrath

BOOK: Like Water on Stone
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Sosi
Last fall we stoned the vineyard,
our twenty-
baran
vineyard,
twenty lines of vines
safe from winter cold,
covered with earth,
sprinkled with stones,
as if to mark a grave.
I pull aside the stones
and dig into the soft earth
to find the rough brown vines.
Slight swells,
red buds
dot their skin.
I bring them
into the April light
that warms my face
but cannot reach
our leaders,
who sit in prison cells.
They search our home
for guns again.
This time they smash
the porcelain pots
from Abder village
that Palewan
gave to Mama.
Shahen
Sunday services shrink, not in length.
Each week, we are fewer.
The censer still swings back and forth.
Holy Fathers and deacons
still chant every word
in this church built on the ground
where the angels came
with the alphabet
so we could write to God.
But when Father Manoog
gets to reading scriptures,
the “blessed peacemakers” are gone.
Instead he reads of war,
“nation rising against nation,
and kingdom against kingdom,”
and I think of Papa,
who says there is no them,
no other nations,
no other kingdoms,
and I know he is wrong.
Seventy men
from Havav village
now sit in Palu prison
with leaders from the town.
Some families leave or hide,
goodbye whispers
part of church.
I pray to Papa,
not to God,
to let us go, too.
He’s the one
who dreams of peace,
that friendships
will protect us.
It’s his eyes, not mine,
that must open
before the soldiers
come again.
A tangle of men outside the church
waits for Father Manoog in the bright light.
Baron
Arkalian steps forward,
Beirut bound, his family at his heels.
Vahan, his eldest,
looks toward the women
waiting under walnut trees,
their barely budding branches
spread like black veins
against the blue sky.
Only one of them
stares back
at the men:
Sosi,
her body
newly curved.
I try to catch her eye
to make her stop.
But she sees only Vahan.
His father asks for
more than farewell blessings.
He wants us all to leave.
He knows the time.
Sosi takes a step toward them.
But Mama’s hands
catch both her shoulders,
turning Sosi, like a wheel,
back toward home.
Before Father Manoog can speak,
Papa says,
“Bedros, you are mistaken.
This sacred earth has been ours
for generations. Turks here,
they know this.
They know us.
This will protect us.”
But Father Manoog makes
the sign of the cross
over
baron
Bedros,
his wife, and his children.
Vahan’s head is now bowed low.
“Go in peace,” he tells them.
“May peace be with you on your journey.”
Father Manoog makes the sign of the cross
over the crowd
closing in around him.
Papa stands back,
his neck hard,
like rocks and a chain.
But his voice booms
back into the crowd,
“If we leave these mountains,
they will never be ours again.
We must trust our friends.
The voice of the people is louder
than the boom of a cannon.”
Sosi
Mama’s hands dig into my shoulders
as she pushes me toward home.
“Shame on you, Sosi,”
she says with each step.
He’ll come back,
I know it.
He’ll come back
to find me.
When the trouble passes,
he’ll come back home.
Let them think he left me
like a sack of wheat.
But I know the truth.
He’ll come back
to find me.
I will never leave.
“Shame on you, Sosi.
Shame on you,” she says
as we step through the door to our home.
She pushes me right to loom.
“I should not have let you keep that poem.
It gave you an empty promise.
Fathers decide all in this life.
This you must know.
Now give it to me.
We will turn it to ash.”
Mama pushes
the top of the loom
into the wall.
Its base rises enough
for my fingertips to grasp
the folded paper.
I don’t have to read it again.
I know the words by heart.
I know each curve
of Vahan’s hand.
Mama takes it and touches
paper to ember.
Smoke rises toward the black pot
suspended above the fire,
dolma
made with last year’s grape leaves
simmering inside it.
I squeeze the red wool
deep in my pocket.
Mariam
When all of us
have gone to bed,
Papa and Mama
fight and fight.
I put
one ear
on Sosi’s
shoulder,
my fist
inside
the other.
Sosi says,
“
Os, os, os
,
it’s all right.
All right.
All right.”
Sosi
Mama says that fathers decide all.
But each night she makes her case with Papa.
If soldiers come again,
Papa’s friends can do nothing.
She says Papa mistakes
maqam
s of music
for bonds among men.
She says Mustafa Bey Injeli
cannot even control his wife.
Mama says, imagine, him a butcher,
the one with the sharpest knives in town,
and he cannot stop his wife?
It’s true.
Already old Fatima wears kerchiefs
edged in lace, like Anahid’s,
with the pattern of a new bride
now almost a mother.
Fatima stole them
from boarded-shut homes.
She struts proud like a girl rooster.
Her husband feels shame.
Papa says carpets
fray at the edges,
not at the center,
where the weave is tight.
It’s true
about carpets.
It takes a knife
to cut the center.
I squeeze
the red wool
deep
inside
my pocket.
Then I stroke
Mariam’s
soft black curls
till she finds
the depth of sleep.
The sound of water
hitting stone
echoes through
the night.
Sleep, come to me.
Vahan, come to me.
I’ll meet you
in my dreams.
Anoush koonuh
,
sweet sleep,
please come.
Ardziv
Each day the young ones
walk to the vines by the river,
the vines that face to the east
to catch the rising sun.
Shahen carries the staves.
Sosi carries string
and a pruning knife.
Mariam picks May flowers.
Shahen leaves the staves
and crosses the bridge
for his lessons.
Sosi prunes the vines
so one strong shoot remains,
which she ties to the stave
so the grapes will hang down.
Mariam picks May flowers.
Shahen
Papa says we are safe.
We have lived with Kurds and Turks
for generations.
Papa says we are safe.
Some families packed everything and went east
for refuge in higher mountains.
Papa says mountains hold dangers of their own.
Some families head to Constantinople
to catch boats to America or France.
Papa says they are fools. The Balkan front
will just trap them in Constantinople.
Some head south to live with the Arabs.
Papa says there are too many risks.
The Ottomans rule most Arab lands too.
Pogroms will not come to Palu.
Papa says we are brave.
Other Armenians act like prisoners,
losing honor inside their own homes.
Papa tells me other boys dress as girls.
I picture them, the Kacherian boys,
in dresses over trousers,
scarves wrapped round their heads.
I wonder
were their ears pierced too?
I ask him, “When can I go to America?”
Like water flowing through stones in the stream,
his answer shifts to find a new path.
“After the trouble passes,”
Papa tells me.
Palu will be safe.
Sosi
Soldiers come with guns
straight to the mill room door.
They shout until the grinding stops
and Papa, Misak, and Kevorg come out.
Soldiers point and poke with their guns.
They take my brothers,
Kevorg and Misak,
their hands tied together,
Shahen safe at school.
They pull Mama from my brothers,
Kevorg and Misak,
their hands tied together.
Mariam stays away
with her stick, watching,
as they take our brothers,
hands tied.
Papa tries to stop them.
But they tie their hands,
Misak and Kevorg.
They point and poke with their guns.
They say it’s for their safety,
for all the young men,
all the ones with bristles.
They would have taken Vahan
for his safety, too.
But he’s gone,
thanks be to God.
I know he’ll come back.
They tied their hands
and they point and poke their guns
at Kevorg and Misak, taken
with their hands tied.
Baron
Kaban
comes to our home.
He stands beside Papa
in his Muslim prayer shawl.
He tells them
Papa’s honest,
not a revolutionary.
He tells them
our family has
three daughters
and two sons at home.
But we are two daughters,
only two.
Anahid is not with us.
Only two.
Baron
Mustafa arrives.
He says the same.
Soldiers believe them.
Why would Muslims
lie for
gavour
s?
Kevorg and Misak,
taken,
my two brothers,
their hands tied.
Mustafa and Kaban
leave when the soldiers do.
It would seem wrong
for them to stay with us.
Mama holds me and Mariam close.
We pray for Shahen,
safe at school,
Kevorg and Misak taken.
We pray the Turkish soldiers
didn’t go there first.
They point and poke with their guns
but they do not shoot.
The next hours, we stay on the roof,
watching for Shahen.
We almost don’t breathe.
Our eyes on the path,
Papa pacing.
Kevorg and Misak taken,
their hands tied,
imagining Shahen home.
Mariam’s silent.
Her eyes on the path.
Scratching the roof with her stick,
imagining Shahen home.
Mama makes me hem a new kerchief.
She makes me embroider its edges
with the pattern of an unwed girl.
My eyes stick to the path,
imagining Shahen home,
Vahan home.
Papa pacing.
Kevorg and Misak taken.
With each stitch
the needle stabs
my fingertip.
Blood spots stain
the white cloth red,
like the forbidden wool
deep in my pocket
that I cut
from the carpet
because the bird
looked dead.
Misak and Kevorg taken.
Mama sews too, her hands
like a hummingbird’s wings,
taking in one of her dresses.
Their hands tied.
Our eyes stick to the path,
imagining Shahen home.
Papa pacing.
Kevorg and Misak taken, hands tied.
We are ready when Shahen comes,
not down the path’s center
but behind one tree to another,
not taken,
almost silent,
till his sounds and steps
burst open
when he sees Mama
running
with a small bundle of her work
clutched to her side,
Papa two steps behind her.
I hold Mariam tight.
I keep watch from the roof.
They smother him with kisses.
They pull him inside.
My eyes on the empty path.
Flapping clothes surround us,
hanging in weak gray light.
Kevorg and Misak taken,
hands tied together.
Inside my parents speak
and speak
and dress him.
At dusk
they introduce him
to us,
our sister.
Shahandukht.

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