The Gendarme (6 page)

“Take off your clothes.”

She stands motionless. Then slowly, ever so slowly, she shakes her head.

I step forward, the gun bobbing in front of me.

“I will shoot you.”

She shakes her head again.

I edge closer still, to a point at which the rifle is only a short distance from her chest, to where she could reach and touch its smooth barrel.

“Now.” My breathing has shortened.

She does not move.

With one hand I catch hold of her blouse, ripping it down the front in a screeching surrender of fabric. The movement brings me closer to her, the rifle briefly to her side, such that if she wanted she could grab my gun hand and wrestle for the weapon, but she does not. The force of the assault does not pull her toward me. Perhaps she has anticipated the attack and steeled herself against it. She remains still, her arms at her sides, the tattered cloth sliding off her slim torso to heap on the ground below.

The moonlight falls onto her bare shoulders, thin and undeveloped like a boy’s, her small breasts with their dark, chocolate-like nipples. The oversized pants seem clownish now. The mismatched eyes shine clearly. From one angle she appears dark and sensuous, from the other cool and aloof. I find it amazing, this effect of looking at two different people. I place the rifle on the ground. I loosen my shirt, pull it over my head, searching her face for the tiniest guilty hunger, but there is nothing, no trembling lip, no piteous pleading. Just those eyes, dissecting, analyzing, as if she has seen all this before. Perhaps she has.

I unbuckle my belt. My pants drop to the ground. I bend and kiss her, my hands on her shoulders, my tongue thrust deep in her mouth. She does not reciprocate, but neither does she clamp her mouth shut or resist. Her eyes remain open, her body taut but not rigid.

I force her into a crouch, then to a prone position on the ground. I reach my fingers under her pants and pull them from her legs, careful for some reason not to rip these, exposing her lower body to the night. I stare at her for a moment, at the smooth skin and long legs, then return my face to hers.

Her mouth has shifted position. Her thin lips move. “Why?” she asks.

I hesitate. Why what? Why this act of congress, handed down from Allah himself? Why the deportation? Why her? Why me? I feel my desire starting to wither, my hesitation forming a course. I grab her breast to right myself, place my mouth back on hers, my other hand between her legs, but all to no appreciable effect. She continues to stare, the eyes now unnerving, as if they have somehow brought this on, have visualized this, have known that this word at this time would trigger this reaction. I grab her hand and direct it to my groin, a final, unsuccessful effort at resurrection. Then I roll off her, shaking, an emasculated fury building within me.

She remains prone. The mismatched eyes, so beguiling before, now gleam with bewitchment and evil, the leer of a venomous changeling. Her mouth is closed. I kick the ground with my boot.

I know then I will have to kill her, that should this episode spread through the caravan it will undermine my authority, perhaps endanger my life. I rise to my knees. Wrapping my hands around her neck, the tremble of her breath runs up through my fingers. She does not move. I press down, into tissue and cartilage. I close my eyes against the mesmerizing gaze. A series of convulsions erupt beneath me, a single, choking gasp, the sound reverberating longer than it should, louder, her voice in it, the voice that only minutes before had asked if I’d seen the ziggurats.

I hesitate. I ease my grip. Then, shaking, I release her, my hands falling free to my sides.

Her eyes widen, tears at their corners, her lungs refilling in small, quivering pants. She makes no other sound. An ember of anger springs up from my chest, a need to rectify, to address the amplifying humiliation I know will rise and suffocate me. I lift my arms back toward her. Her eyes follow the motion. She does not brace against it, or flinch, or tremble, or whimper. It occurs to me suddenly that she wants this somehow, that she knows this will happen, that she is fully and humbly prepared to die. At this place, on this hilltop, closer to the gods.

I pause again. My arms return to my sides. I lower my head to her neck, to where the rhythm of her pulse buzzes up through my nostrils.

It takes time to focus,
to recognize the suite at the oncology center, to pinpoint the music humming somewhere, the people bumping about. I am in the middle of a room yet no one seems to see me. My skin is cold. Could it be I am dead now, a corpse justly ignored? But then a nurse appears above me and asks a soft question. I lift my head.

“What happened?” I ask.

The nurse looks like Violet. She squeezes my hand. “Nothing, yet. The frame was put on, and the imaging—don’t you remember? We have to get the automatic positioning set.”

Pressure tugs at the corners of my head, coupled with a general numbness and brief, grating pain. A vague recollection sweeps over, of needles and screws, of Dr. Wan yanking my head like a bridle. I stare at a video camera up on a wall, thinking of the camera we once had. A Bell and Howell. We could not afford it. I wanted the girls to have memories, though, to see themselves. I wanted them to be happy.

The grogginess from before beckons. “Is it okay if I sleep?”

“Sure.”

I drift toward slumber. Time passes. It is night—no, a gray dawn. I am under a house, planting pipe. It is cold, the soil damp. I blow on my hands. But then I fall back to the dream, the dream that continues; the long, dusty trek. I see her eyes and their burning. I hear her gasping for air. Darkness rushes but my arms are pinned back like a fly with pinched wings. I twist, I elevate my head and its tottering frame. My voice catches.

“What is your name?” I ask.

I drape my shirt over, to cover her. To amend.

She answers in slowness, in syllables. “A-ra-xie.”

She looks away, the starlight brightening her light eye.

I stare, and wonder.

 

 

 

We return
to the caravan, she and I. She wears my shirt. We do not speak, or if we do it fails to register. I speak her name in my mind. We part as we reach the first tents, their flaps smoky in the gray dawn. I have no explanation, no plan for addressing the situation I have created. I give her a small blanket, to wrap her bruised neck.

No one sees us approach. The forward guard, Ali, sleeps with his head to one side, his mouth open to the cool morning air. The rear guard, Izzet, paces the caravan’s other side, barely visible in the dim light. Little else moves within the clumps of cloth and dust, only the rustle of a body turning over, a baby’s whimpering. A wolf growls in the distance. We rarely see wolves but often hear them, their feasting evident in the litter of other caravans. Another growls and the two join together. Still, it is surprisingly quiet. Araxie picks her way through the rubble, as nimble and slight as a ghost. She moves quickly, silently, the folds of my shirt lengthening her arms as she walks. Then she is gone, the sun up, the demands of the day back upon me.

The camp stirs to action, prodded by the guards. It is a ritual all have grown accustomed to, this shouting of the gendarmes, the groaning of the deportees, the wailing over deaths that have occurred in the night. Regulated trips to a nearby well follow, the shuffling use of a stinking latrine, the search for swallowed coins now embedded in feces. The gendarmes have begun to demand payment for services, for protection from raiding Kurds or villagers, for permission to access wells. The deportees protest but pay. Most have secreted valuables within the folds of blankets or tents or their own bodies. Usually there is a village to trade with, providing yogurt, milk, and meat for the guards, leftover scraps for the deportees. One day grows into the next, a stirring of dust and rock, sun and air. We seem to plod in an endless circle, our pathway littered with the debris of those traveling before us, the bloated, blackening bodies, the discarded tents and baggage. Heat and boredom make the guards’ tempers short. Disagreements end violently.

On average we leave five or six bodies behind each morning. Occasionally someone still alive will refuse to go on. Several days earlier a pregnant woman declined to continue, sitting and not moving, ignoring the pleas of her family. She was left behind in the middle of the road, her skirts gathered around her, eyes closed, belly exposed to the sky. When her small form had vanished behind us, one of the guards rode back. A gunshot followed. The sound sent a tremor through the deportees, an enlarged breath of despondence, such that I eyed the group for signs of trouble, but nothing transpired. It is too bad about the woman, the circumstance, the entire situation. But she is probably better off.

I hear from time to time the whispers of our inhumanity. Even the Germans, our allies, condemn the deportations—I heard one of their engineers say as much before we left from Harput. But what would they have us do? The Armenians are our enemies, allies of the Russians, who have attacked us. They rebelled in Van, attacking a military garrison and declaring independence. A book distributed by the government details anarchist publications and depots of arms and munitions. The fact that we are allowing these groups to leave the country seems more than fair. Would they have done the same for us? The Turkish people are united. Turkey is for Turks. The mixture of different peoples will lead only to strife, like a dog with two masters. Better to eliminate the issue now, avoid the inevitable subversion. Though I have played with Armenian children, worn shoes stitched by an Armenian cobbler, even been treated once by an Armenian doctor, I do not trust their race or kind. They are devious, all of them, sneaky and cunning, as prone to knife or swindle or trick you as not. Painful as it might be, separation is best for them, for us, for all concerned. And in wartime, people, even innocent people, will die.

The girl keeps popping into my mind. Reconsideration of the night’s events brings a renewed frustration. She has placed a spell on me, I am sure of it, hypnotized me with an incantation passed down through the dark of Armenian churches. In retrospect, the entire episode has a shadowy, trancelike feel, in which I observed and acted, but not of my own intent. I can see her now, her shirt torn, her small breasts exposed. I feel myself harden in response. I will reverse this humiliation, I vow. I will atone for this failure.

“Mustafa!” I shout, intent on projecting authority. “Go check the back of the line. Find out what is holding us up. Encourage any stragglers.”

Mustafa eyes me with something approaching malice, but whirls and does as I order.

I envision the ways I will reestablish myself. Night will fall and I will find her, reengage. I spit, calming as this reverie continues, my thoughts blinded by apparitions of dark hair and mismatched eyes, confusing thoughts that knead my stomach and clutch at my heart. It is as if she stands before me, her voice echoing in my ears, her mouth slurping air from my lungs in great gasps. I shiver, nearly fall from my horse, regain my bearing, straighten my back. I grope for my rifle. I wonder if I’ve been injured, or poisoned, or taken feverishly ill, but I know I have not, for beneath it all lies desire, a shaking, sentimental hunger that makes me think of the syrupy
pekmez
at the Harput confectioner’s shop. I shake my head, unsure of myself. This has not happened before.

Mustafa returns, reporting that the stragglers have been dealt with. Other questions present themselves. Where are we stopping for the night? What wells are nearby? Who will be bartering with the village? Shouldn’t those that have skimmed profits be punished, with reduced rations and new cooking duties, or perhaps increased watches? What should be done about the Kurdish women who keep attacking the caravan’s rear?

I deal with it all, firmly, tiredly, my thoughts bouncing about like a child’s worn string toy, returning in the end always to her. The afternoon drifts. We stop on a dusty plain near Kilis, in an area where other caravans have previously encamped, even though the nearest well is polluted and the stench of an old latrine smothers the camp no matter which direction the wind. Tents and bedding unfold, some gather wood for a fire. I watch this, distracted. At some point I hike up a small knoll and search for her from above, my gaze left to right and back once again. I assume she is hidden in the caravan’s middle, an area marginally safer, perhaps within the small group still harboring a few scraggly oxen and wagons. I contemplate wading in for a closer look, but such action will draw attention, attention it seems best to avoid. From this distance the deportees again appear sheeplike, the gendarmes canine in their nipping and circling. We
are
shepherds, whether they accept it or not, protecting these people, moving them for their own sake. If we were inhumane, we would have simply slaughtered them all—it would have been so much easier. The fact that some of the young and old will expire is true of any long transport.

I consider this as I gaze out over the plain to Katma, now only a few days away. We will all be better off when the journey concludes, the guards and the guarded, the ones who have made it. For me, the possibility of returning to valor is close. I will report back to the army garrison in Harput, my duty as a gendarme concluded. I think of battle and charges, and a uniform—a real uniform—a company eventually to lead. I think of order, and discipline. Eyeing the caravan, I chart its dimples and ridges, its sticks of muted color, its tents that become troops, carts artillery, poles the ends of machine guns, all as I search for a slender, familiar profile. I do not find her. I wonder why this matters so. I arch my shoulders, my chest thrust out as if ribboned. I pick my way back to the camp and its squalor.

That night they bring a man before me. A troublemaker, they say, extorting valuables from his fellow deportees. I suspect he has instead been successful in bribing one group of gendarmes at the expense of others. The fact that he even appears before me seems a testament to this, as typically they would have already shot him. Jafer and Ismail flank him, Tevfik and Mustafa stand to one side. The others look on intently.