Nobody's Child (6 page)

Anna smiled.

A
s they stepped inside the steamy stone entranceway of the bathhouse and waited for the attendant to appear, Mariam looked around her nervously. “Are you sure we will be accepted?” she asked Kevork.

This was the first time they had attempted to go to the public bath since the massacre. It was located just outside the Turkish part of the village, in a neutral area, and was the one place where Armenians and Turks would mingle freely on a regular basis.

“This is the only public bath,” replied Kevork. “Where else could we go?”

Mariam was dressed in a loose tunic and trousers, and she held Anoush's towel tightly to her chest, as if for protection. Marta was dressed similarly, and she also had an Adomian towel, as did Kevork, but they would have to rent ones for Onnig and Anna. She didn't need a full lira for the baths and towel rentals, so she had brought a handful of
piasters
— penny coins.

Just then, the bath attendant stepped through the entranceway. She was a hugely obese woman with a bun of greying hair hennaed red. The two large towels she was wrapped in gave her a semblance of modesty, but her massive arms were bare, and so were her calves. On her feet were
pattens
— a type of sandal on platforms used in bathhouses to keep the feet away from dirty, sudsy water. Her pudgy fingertips were pink and wrinkled from the vigorous scrubbings she'd been giving her clients all day.

“Good morning, Sophie Hanum,” said Kevork, bowing his head slightly.

“Good morning, dear,” she said, smiling at Kevork, then regarding the other people in his group.

“Why are you coming on women's day?”

Kevork usually came to the bathhouse with his father on Thursdays, but some nine-year-old boys still came on Tuesdays with their mothers. It was a borderline age to be let into the women's baths. “My father is away right now,” said Kevork with a tremble in his voice. What Armenian in the village wasn't coming to the bathhouse with a changed family circumstance?

Sophie Hanum frowned and thought a moment. “There is no doubt you need a bath,” she said, wrinkling her nose. She looked at the rest of the people in the group, and her eyes rested on Onnig. “Very well,” she said. “You can go in. You'll be good company for the little one.”

Kevork sighed with relief. He didn't want to go all alone on men's bath day. Mariam handed Sophie the fee for the baths and the extra towels and they walked in.

They were each led to separate rooms where they removed all of their clothing, then they were sudsed and soaped and shampooed and rinsed by bath attendants until their skin was pink and their hair shone clean. They met back up in the common area, where there was a huge pool of steamy water.

The bathhouse was a sociable place, and people gathered there for gossip as much as for cleanliness. Many people walked around completely naked, while others were loosely covered with silk wrap-arounds. It was bad form to be too bundled up in a bathhouse because it made others ill at ease. Without their clothes on, the children looked no different than the Turks. Even though everyone knew who they were, they were accepted without hostility. Even Anna was treated with courteous disregard.

Young children screamed and splashed, while their mothers and grandmothers looked on fondly. Onnig grinned for the first time in days and pulled Marta and Kevork into the warm water with him.

Stepping into the warm water brought back so many happy memories for Kevork, but it also reminded him of everything he had lost. When Kevork still came to the baths with his mother, he would meet up with Taline and his other friends. Sometimes, Taline would bring an air-filled sheep's bladder with her, and they would float on it together to the middle of the pool. But when he looked through the steamy dampness now, he didn't recognize a single playmate. It also felt very odd coming to this place without either his mother or his father. As the water swirled around him, Kevork felt like he was washing away his past.

Mariam's reaction was quite different from Kevork's. She was used to going to the baths in Marash with family members and she missed them dearly, but this unfamiliar bath did not evoke memories.

It confused her to watch the reaction on the women's faces when she walked in naked to the pool area. She knew the Turkish custom of women sizing up other women in the baths for the men in their families, but she didn't consider herself a woman yet. It also surprised her that they were sizing her up so intently, when she was just an Armenian.

Turkish men never got a chance to see what prospective brides looked like under the veil, and many stories circulated about rich men being tricked into marrying the ugly sister. The fact that women bathed together naked gave them a certain power over their men. First wives would try to ensure that their husband did not take on a second wife who was threateningly beautiful, and mothers tried to ensure the opposite.

Mariam blushed with embarrassment at the envious whispers and glances she was receiving. Mariam turned and looked at Anna. She was shocked to see bitterness on the woman's face, a mixture of anxiety and disapproval. That upset Mariam. After all, what had she done?

A
s the weeks wore on, the survivors fell into a comforting routine. Anna, the only adult, was the nominal head of the household, but her ability to help the children was limited. While the Turks left her unmolested, they also left her unhired. There was no opportunity for her to earn money and look after the children she had become responsible for. All they had to live on was Mariam's purse of coins. With each succeeding week, the purse got lighter, and there was no means of refilling it.

Most of the surviving Armenians gradually moved out of the village and Turkish families took over the Armenian section. There were no children for Onnig, Marta, and Kevork to play with. So their house became a refuge and a prison. Each night, Mariam counted her piasters and liras, and each night she tried to estimate how much longer their money would last.

Once, when they were in the bathhouse, Mariam overheard a conversation between two Turkish women:

“The Sultan has been deposed.” The woman who said this was young and pregnant, and she was sitting at the edge of the warm water pool with her feet dangling over the side. She had a towel loosely thrown over her shoulders, but otherwise, she was naked. She looked down at her friend, who was neck deep in the pool.

“He has?” exclaimed her companion in surprise. “By whom?”

“The Young Turks,” replied the pregnant woman. “They're going to be putting the Sultan on trial.”

Mariam's heart soared at this tidbit of information. Her parents had been supporters of the Young Turks when they briefly came to power in 1908. The Sultan's counter-revolution had been a shock to all. The Young Turk government had been promising freedom and democracy — even to non-Muslims. For the first time in weeks, Mariam felt like grinning.

As fall approached, there was a chill in the air, so Mariam lit the tonir before covering it with the sleeping carpet. Once they were all snuggled up under the carpet and ready for the usual evening of storytelling, Mariam announced, “It is time for us to leave the village.”

Kevork had just settled into the warm carpet, but the announcement brought him up short. “Where would we go?”

“Home,” said Mariam. “We have family in Marash.” Kevork didn't want to say it out loud, but he wondered whether her grandmother and aunt were still alive. Didn't the massacres happen there, too?

Mariam saw the look of pain on his face. “There is no way of knowing without going there,” she said. Mariam
knew what Kevork's real concern was: if they left, how would his parents find him? But they had waited long enough. “Besides,” she continued, “with the Sultan deposed, it has to be safer for Armenians.”

“We have money, a roof over our heads, and a supply of eggs and goat's milk,” said Kevork. “It could be worse.”

“We must get back to our family,” said Mariam. “And once winter approaches, we'll have trouble travelling.”

Kevork brushed his hand softly against the blue veil cover of his pillow. “I can't leave.”

Mariam was silent. If there were a chance that her parents were alive, she'd be acting the same way.

Anna propped herself up on one elbow and looked at her nephew. “If your mother is alive,” she said, “she is no longer the mother you knew. Put her out of your mind.”

Kevork's face blushed bright red. “Don't say things about my mother. She was taken. She couldn't help it.”

“The fact is,” replied Anna, “that she ran off with a Turk.” Anna had never been particularly fond of her beautiful sister-in-law.

Kevork swallowed back tears. The last thing he wanted was for his aunt to see how sorrowful he was at her statement. Armenian women who were taken by Turks had a moral duty to kill themselves. And she'd had a knife in her hand …

The scene flashed in his head again: the Turk had knocked the knife away. His mother couldn't kill herself. Was she alive? Did she wish she were dead? Honour or no, Kevork was glad there was still a chance that his mother was alive.

Mariam looked from Kevork to Anna. This was an ongoing discussion between the two. “It is not up to you to judge,” she said to Anna. “You have never been in that situation.”

Anna flinched.

“If either your mother or father is alive,” continued Mariam, “they'll come here. You can leave them a note.”

“How?” asked Kevork. “As soon as we leave, this house will be taken over by Turks.”

“We can only hope that the new owners will pass on your message.” Not a perfect solution, but what was?

The next few days were spent preparing food and packing.

Anna slaughtered the chickens, and they ate well for those last few days. Sevo would travel with them.

For Kevork, leaving the village was like closing a door on unfinished business. With sadness in his heart, he removed his mother's veil from the piece of carpet he had been using as a pillow and rolled it into a blue rope. He tied it around his waist like a belt. Then he went up into the rafters and searched through the items his mother had stored there. He found a pure white kite in the shape of a bird that his father had made him. How many days had he stood on the roof with his father as they threw the kite into the air and watched as it caught in the wind? He would have loved to take the kite with him, but he knew it wasn't practical, so he ran his finger against the wooden frame in a tribute of farewell, then set it aside.

He found a wool vest that his father would wear during the cold winter months when he travelled,
selling Anoush's carpets. Kevork tried it on. It was way too long, reaching down to his knees, but he kept it on anyway, for memory as much as warmth. There was also a stack of swaddling cloth that had been used both for Kevork, when he was a baby, and for Arsho. He took a single length of it and held it to his face, breathing deeply. Who would look after Arsho's grave? He folded the cloth and tucked it into his blue belt.

Mariam's prized possession was her mother's small sickle. She sharpened it before the journey, then wrapped it in a cloth and stuck it in her belt. Marta had her doll, Bibi, and Onnig had become so attached to Arsho's small pillow that they decided to take it with them.

Mariam watched Anna go through the house one last time, but she realized that there was nothing of sentimental value for Anna to take with her. What must have her life been like before? wondered Mariam. She and her siblings had lost their parents, and Kevork had lost everything.

What was it that Anna had lost? She watched the woman coldly turn her back on the house, and then watched as her eyes lit up when Kevork and Marta and Onnig appeared. It seemed to Mariam that while the others had lost their loved ones, Anna had gained the only family she had ever known.

Anna and Mariam each wore rucksacks, and Kevork carried Onnig on his back. Marta, her doll on one hip, was in charge of Sevo, whom she led on a rope. Even Sevo had a job. Strapped across her back were several skins of water and Onnig's pillow.

As the little group walked down the main street and out through the village gates one last time, Mariam was struck with how much had changed in her life, yet how the world around them didn't seem to care. An outsider who walked through this village now wouldn't see anything amiss. What was once a thriving Armenian district was thriving once more. Gathered around the well were women with yashmaks covering their faces, gossiping while their husbands played dama under a tree. A barefooted boy darted past, nearly colliding into Mariam, as he chased one of his friends as they played “Turks and Armenians.” It looked just the same as in April, except these people were all Turkish.

As they walked past what used to be the church, Mariam put her hand to her chest and gasped. She smelled the sharp scent of charring meat and her mind was filled with the grotesque images of the burning church. She realized with a start that her nose wasn't fooling her.

In the midst of the rubble of the church, a man had set up a barbecue and was selling freshly grilled lamb on a stick. He smirked when he saw the Armenians pass.

“Let's go quickly,” said Mariam. The sooner they were out of this place, the better.

They went up to the cave grave one last time to pay their respects.

“I won't go,” said Onnig stubbornly. He threw his wildflower bouquet down on the ground, then walked over to where Sevo was standing and put his arms around her neck.

“You don't have to,” said Mariam. “Stay here with Kevork and Anna. We'll be back in a minute.” She picked up the wildflower bouquet from the ground, then kissed her brother on the forehead. “I'll put this on their grave for you.”