Nobody's Child (11 page)

She regarded each of them individually with a smile, and then her eyes rested on Anna. “I've heard many good things about you, Miss Adomian.”

Mariam was impressed by the fact that the missionary didn't react to Anna's unusual appearance.

“My name is Josefine Younger,” said the woman, extending her hand to Anna. “Let us get these children settled, and then you and I shall talk over a cup of tea and we can decide what your role at the orphanage will be.”

Mariam and Marta were given a place together in a long room with sleeping cots for a dozen or more girls. Kevork's place was in a building on the boys' side of the orphanage complex.

As the days and the weeks and the years flew by, Mariam came to cherish the comforting routine at the orphanage. In the beginning, she was a student, but as time rolled by, she stepped more and more into the role of a teacher. There seemed to be a never-ending trickle of Armenian orphans arriving each week, but nothing prepared her for 1915.

April 1915

I
n the shadowy darkness of the early morning, Mariam turned her head on her pillow and looked over at her sister, who was still fast asleep in the cot beside her. Marta's profile still had the softness of childhood, and her brow was untroubled. How Mariam would have loved to be able to keep that brow untroubled, but the rumours she'd been hearing lately let her know that Marta would be growing up all too soon.

Mariam sat up and rubbed the sleep out of her eyes, then threw off the bedcovers. She had to get up earlier than the others in her dorm room today, because it was her turn to prepare the bread-baking pit. It was too dark for her to see the row of cots, but the regular breathing and occasional mid-dream murmur told her that everyone else was still asleep. Not wanting to wake them, she didn't light a lantern. Instead, she got up and
felt her way to the pitcher of water and basin that sat on a table at the far end of the room. She splashed her face with water, more to wake herself than for hygiene, then felt her way back to her cot. She straightened out the bedding, then slipped off her thin cotton nightgown and stuffed it under her pillow. Standing naked in the room of sleeping girls, Mariam looked down at her body, her eyes adjusting to the dim light. Unlike Marta, Mariam was no longer a child. Her breasts were full and her waist was slim. She had seen how men looked at her when she walked by and it embarrassed her.

Better to be childlike. Especially in these uncertain times.

She sighed.

Mariam opened up the wooden chest at the foot of her bed and took out her clothing. She quickly stepped into her orphanage-issue knee-length underwear, and then she took a long piece of thin cotton and wrapped it tightly around her breasts to minimize their curves. Then she pulled an undershirt over her head and drew on her long-sleeved white shirt. Before putting on her ankle-length grey skirt, she grabbed a pair of socks from the chest. These socks had been knitted by her aunt Ovsanna at the widows' charity. Shortly after she, Marta, Kevork, and Anna had come to live at the orphanage, the Vartabed had arranged for Ovsanna to earn some money by working for a few hours a day at a knitting mill making socks. The enterprise was run by the Armenian churches in Marash, and the socks were donated to the orphanage, but also sold in the bazaar.

Once she was fully dressed, Mariam reached underneath her bed and pulled out boots. Hers were in much better repair than her sister's, whose latest growth spurt had caused her toes to split the seams. Mariam had stopped growing two years earlier when she was fourteen, and so her boots were not too terribly abused.

She gave one last look at her sleeping sister, then headed out. The sun was just peeking over the mountain in the distance when Mariam stepped out onto the street. The air was fresh and cool, and she could hear the creaking of oxcarts and the howling of dogs beyond the orphanage walls. Marash was just starting to wake up.

Mariam pushed open the door to the kitchen and grabbed matches from the shelf, then stepped through the back door to where the covered baking pit was. The pit was enclosed in a little wooden shed with a tin roof. Mariam reached into the kindling bin at the side of the shed and drew out some dried grapevines. She stepped inside, then breathed in deeply the sweet smell of smoke and yeast that was a constant in the shed, even in the cold stillness of the morning.

The pit itself was about three feet deep and had a stone bottom and smooth stone sides. She threw the dried grapevines into the bottom of the pit and then lit them with a match. Once there was a good blaze, she threw on some thin sticks of wood, waited until they were burning steadily, and then added some sturdier ones. Her face got red with the heat, and she smiled with satisfaction as the flames settled into a lower, steadier glow. Now she had about an hour to wait until the wood turned to glowing embers.

She stepped back into the kitchen.

“Good morning, Mariam.”

She caught her breath in surprise. Standing in the doorway was Rustem Bey, a full head taller than she was, but not much older. He wore a cream-coloured silk turban on his head, but was dressed in a European-style brown suit. He had burlap sacks of raisins and flour on the floor in front of him.

“Since when have you taken to being a delivery boy?” she asked.

“How else would I get to see you?” He smiled.

Mariam felt her face go hot with embarrassment. Rustem Bey was born to wealth, and unlike the rest of his family, he was known for his tolerant views about Armenians. He had personally ensured that his father continue to supply food to the orphanage even after others had refused to do so. But Mariam found it confusing that he paid so much attention to her.

“Thank you for bringing the supplies,” she said. And then she hurried out to check on the tonir.

Kevork was still fast asleep in his dormitory at Beitshalom, the boys' orphanage at the other end of the missionary compound. He didn't even begin to waken until the Mairig rang the morning bell. He had tossed and turned most of the night, trying to get to sleep, and then he finally drifted off just as the first rays of dawn lit the room.

He turned his face, then felt the cold dampness of his pillow. In a flash, the sadness of the evening before came back to him.

Kevork was the most senior shoemaking apprentice, and so Mr. Karellian had taken to leaving him alone in the workshop once lessons were over. In addition to a personal project Kevork had been working on, he was responsible for putting away all the supplies and turning off the lights at the end of the day. Kevork enjoyed his hour or so of solitude in the workshop each day, but last night his solitude had been disturbed by a knock on the door.

It was Josefine Younger, looking just a bit greyer around the temples than she had six years earlier when Kevork had arrived. Today, instead of her usual pleasant smile, her brow was creased with worry.

Classes were over, but Kevork had stayed late in order to assist the first-year apprentice with the re-soling of an old shoe. The shoe in question was covering a wooden last, or shoe form, on a stand, and the apprentice had already partially loosened the original lacing with rubbing alcohol.

When Kevork saw Miss Younger's expression, he turned to the boy and said, “You can go now. When you come in tomorrow, start back at this shoe, but be careful with the lacing.”

The boy nodded, then scampered out.

Kevork stood up to greet her.

“Please,” he said. “Come in.” He pulled out a work stool from under the wooden bench and set it in front of her. “Please sit down.”

Miss Younger stayed standing. “A letter came for you,” she said. “Perhaps you should sit.” She reached into her pocket and drew out a yellowed envelope of cheap paper.

Kevork reached out and took it with apprehension. From time to time, others at the orphanage had received letters, too, but he could not remember a single time when a letter bore happy news.

It felt heavier than just paper. He looked at the handwriting and frowned. It wasn't familiar. The back was sealed with red wax. He broke the seal and reached inside.

There was a handful of gold coins and two sheets of paper. He unfolded the first one and read:

Dear Kevork,

I have thought of you often in these last years, and every time I was in your village, I would stop by your old house to see if your father had come back so I could tell him where you were. I found out that he did come back briefly several months ago. He left these gold coins for you in care of the people who now live in your home. They entrusted them to me to give to you.

Apparently, he had been arrested and jailed as a revolutionary by the Turkish government. No sooner did he get back to his home village than he was taken again. This time, he was drafted into the Turkish army.

The enclosed letter arrived at your old house recently, and the people who now live there had it sent to me.

I am sorry to be the bearer of this bad news, but I realize that you need to know the fate of your father.

Your friend in Allah,

Abdul Hassan

Kevork opened the second sheet of paper with trembling hands. It was an official-looking letter from the Turkish army. It was dated March 2, 1915, and stated that his father had died of “heart failure” while on duty. He crumpled the paper up and threw it on the ground with anger and sadness.

Josefine Younger reached down and picked up the paper. She folded it smooth and then read for herself. “Heart failure,” she said. “Yet another.”

Kevork raised his eyes to hers. “What do you mean?”

“Rumour has it that all the Armenians drafted into the Turkish army were executed.”

“But it says ‘heart failure,'” said Kevork.

“As do all the other letters,” replied Miss Younger. “I suppose they're correct. Execution does cause heart failure.”

She set the crumpled letter down on the workbench, then stepped over to Kevork. Even though he was a head taller than she was, she gave him a motherly hug. “I am so sorry for your loss.”

Kevork hugged her tightly and swallowed back his tears.

The bell rang again, jolting Kevork out of his memories. The sun had risen further, and now his dormitory
room was fully visible. Kevork moved his head left and right and saw that he was the only one still in his cot. All of the other boys had dressed and made their beds and were at breakfast. Kevork reached under his pillow and felt the edges of the papers with his fingertips. So it wasn't all just a terrible nightmare: his father really was dead. He reached in further and touched the envelope, in which he'd wrapped the gold coins. He drew the envelope out and dumped the contents onto his palm. Nine gold coins. This was the sum total of his family now.

He closed his palm around the gold and held it to his heart. His father was dead, but Kevork was comforted by the fact that his father had tried to come back to find him. He hadn't been abandoned after all. As he lay there alone in the dormitory room with a fistful of gold resting on his heart, Kevork first said a prayer for the soul of his father, and then he made a pledge. “I will live in a way that would make my father proud.”

Then he wiped the remnants of tears from his face and sat up to start a new day.

Aunt Anna's white hair was pulled back into a bun and the sleeves of her white shirt were rolled up above her elbows. She was kneading a huge round of golden dough by the time Mariam walked back into the kitchen.

“I saw Rustem Bey leave just as I was coming in,” said Anna.

Anna had aged hardly at all in the last six years. In fact, if anything, she seemed to have gotten younger. The constant frown of worry that lined her face after
the Adana massacre had softened, and she had gained some weight, making her pallid skin look healthier.

“I don't know what to make of him,” said Mariam. “I'm surprised that his father lets him speak to me so much.” Mariam washed her hands, then grabbed an apron from a peg and tied it around her waist.

“In fact,” said Anna, giving Mariam a meaningful look, “I wouldn't be surprised if Rustem Bey had his father pay a visit to your grandmother.” She gave the round of dough she was working on one last punch on the flour-covered table, then said to Mariam, “This batch is ready to shape.”

Mariam looked at Anna in shock. There was only one reason that Rustem's father would pay a visit to her family, and that would be to ask for her hand in marriage. Both Turks and Armenians followed this tradition of arranged marriage.

The two worked side by side in friendly silence, each considering weightier things. They divided the dough into balls, then rolled each ball out flat and thin. The flat circles of dough were doused with flour, then stacked in a mound on a large wooden platter.

“You can't be serious,” said Mariam. “Anahid Baji would never make me marry a Turk.”

Anna looked up from the dough she was working on and met Mariam's eyes. “Your grandmother would do whatever she felt was in your best interests.”

“I can't imagine it would be that,” replied Mariam, flushing in anger.

She took a bowl of water then stepped outside to check on the baking pit, glad to get away from Anna
and the conversation for the moment. The heat from the pit made her flush even deeper as she stuck her head through the opening of the shed and looked down at the glowing red coals. She dipped her fingers into the water then flicked it onto the hot stone sides. It sizzled in an instant. The baking pit was ready.

She walked back into the kitchen.

Anna looked at her with a flash of frustration in her eyes. “Do you not understand what is happening?” she asked.

“What do you mean?” asked Mariam.

“The Turkish government is rounding up all the Armenians and deporting them. If you married Rustem, you would be safe. And you would be in a position to protect your family.”