The Water Diviner (19 page)

Dressed in a loose black cassock and the cylindrical hat peculiar to the Eastern Orthodox Church, a Greek priest stands like a charred tree trunk on the hillside. Beside him is a novice holding a gold cross on a staff and swinging a censer that creaks back and forth, feeble plumes of incense smoke puffing from its perforated brass dome.

Connor breathes in the pungent aroma that has an oddly narcotic affect. He stands in front of a small group of Anzacs, led by Hilton and Tucker, who have gathered around two newly dug graves. Out of respect the men wear their tunics and slouch hats, some decorated with the emu plume of the Light Horse Brigade. They stand quietly, glancing up occasionally from their boots to the two white crosses and back again.

As the sun warms their backs and they listen, uncomprehending, to the Greek liturgy, the solemnity of the occasion hits the Australian soldiers. It’s easy to lose sight of the human scale of their endeavours on this lonely and grim peninsula. All day they labour in the dirt, exhuming the remains of fellow soldiers; classifying, crating and carting the dead. But they have never buried someone they knew, or stood by the grave of a dead man with someone who loved him most in all the world. They have never looked upon the deep, grey lines of grief carved in those faces. This man, who has travelled halfway across the world to find his sons, is barely distinguishable from their own fathers; it could be their body lying in the damp soil; it could be their father standing with hat in hand, mouth quivering, wiping tears from his eyes with the back of a rough hand.

This is a day they will never forget; not when they depart this shore and return to loving families in their great Southern Land; not when they age and watch grandchildren grow to adulthood. Today, they really understand why they are here, and they are honoured.

The priest chants through his long black beard as he blesses the ground by dipping a sprig of rosemary into a bowl of water and flicking it over the freshly turned soil.

Greeks and Turks have lived together on this coastline for centuries: Christians and Muslims worshipping side by side, fishing from the same seas, scratching the same soil, speaking the same languages. Constantinople has been in Ottoman hands since 1453 but the Greeks still think of it as part of Greece. Half the city’s population is Hellenic. They tell and retell the stories of Alexander cutting the Gordion Knot and Agamemnon and Odysseus sacking Troy as if they were modern history.

Of all Turkey’s neighbours, the Greeks know better than any what it is like to stand by as an Empire slowly slips through fat fingers. They have watched the weeds grow between the pavers in Athens, the womb of democracy becoming a political backwater. Greece has become a subject taught in universities, not a living, breathing culture. But the hope that this Aegean coast may be Greek again burns in their hearts like the embers that glow in the censer.

The priest comes to an abrupt stop, gives Connor a solemn nod and hands him a sprig of rosemary as he moves away. Before today Connor had never heard of the Eastern Orthodox Church. He’s not sure that it matters which calendar you use, or whether you believe in the Immaculate Conception. The minutiae of religious dogma are obscure to him. He certainly can’t imagine what bearing these trivial details can have on someone’s relationship with God. Although Connor knows not a word of Greek or Latin, he is certain that God would speak them both. Connor’s God – the God of the Mallee – is an Old Testament deity, a god of the desert. He is combative, vindictive and casual with life. He is a god for the times, when the principles of turning the other cheek and loving thy neighbour have fallen from favour.

Hilton crosses himself and then motions to his men to withdraw. They leave Connor standing between his two boys. Only now with everyone gone can he bring himself to read the words painted on the crosses: ‘Pte H.K. Connor #718, 7th Batt. A.I.F. Aged 19 years 11 months, RIP.’ ‘Pte E.R. Connor #719, 7th Batt. A.I.F. Aged 18 years 4 months, RIP.’

Connor pulls the familiar blue-covered
The Arabian Nights
from his jacket and sits cross-legged between the mounds. Breathing deeply, he begins to read.

His voice cracks as he realises the word ‘home’ no longer means anything for him. He steels himself, determined to finish his personal liturgy.

Connor closes the book, wipes his eyes with the heel of his hand and sits. Even when the sun falls, bleeding over the horizon, Connor stays with his eyes fixed on the graves. In all likelihood he will never return to Gallipoli. This may be the last time he ever spends by his sons’ side. So he stares with an intensity that burns the graves into his mind’s eye: the freshly painted white crosses, the neat lettering, the shell casings sticking out of the turned soil. A stereoscopic image to take home with him. He knows the decision to bury the boys here is the right one for them, but the thought of leaving them here makes him feel as if he is losing them once again, forever.

He shuts his eyes and places the palms of his hands on the cool soil.

‘I found our boys, Lizzie. They’re safe now.’

But there’s no escaping the horrible reality that Art is still lost. Connor opens his eyes and gazes over the darkening sea.

‘I will find Art,’ he pledges. ‘I’ll find him for you.’

J
emal marches through the Anzac camp. The grave robbers – his nickname for them – are just stirring. The cook has the fire stoked and water is coming to the boil. A blackened pot of porridge hangs on a tripod above the flames. Jemal will be giving the thick sludge a wide berth today. He has just come from Chanak and has fresh
simit
s under his arm.

As he approaches Hasan’s tent he hears the low rhythmic rumble of the final
salawat
prayer. He pictures Hasan standing in the half-light. He will turn to look over his right shoulder at the angel recording all his good deeds, then over his left at the angel transcribing the bad ones. Jemal opens the paper under his arm, takes a bite out of a
simit
and waits. He laughs to himself. The angel on Jemal’s left would have run out of ink last night.

‘Bring those in here. Don’t think I can’t smell them,’ comes Hasan’s voice from inside.

Jemal steps inside as Hasan rolls up his prayer rug, sits on his bed and begins to pull on his boots. He motions Jemal to a stool.

‘Here is your telegraph,’ says Jemal as he hands Hasan a sheet of paper. ‘One whole day I wasted standing in line, drinking shit coffee.’

‘And one whole night too,’ adds Hasan knowingly. ‘I understand there is a brothel near the post office.’

‘So I hear.’

Jemal’s mood becomes serious.

‘The Greeks have taken Smyrna. I heard in town. The British sat in their ships and watched them do as they please. We have to do something. People are waiting for you to show your hand.’

‘What hand is that? I don’t have one. It is the British who hold all the cards. They will decide how much of our country we ultimately keep.’

Hasan turns his attention to the telegram. The discussion is at an end. A frustrated Jemal watches his commander and friend scan the telegram, and cannot contain himself.

‘Why do you care about this farmer?’ he blurts out. ‘He wants to kill you.’

Hasan is up and out the door of his tent before Jemal finishes. The Turkish commander strides through the camp and makes a beeline for a tent on the far side – the tent with a sentry at the door.

Connor is preparing to leave. A photograph lies on his open case, but it is not the portrait of his three sons. A young Orhan smiles at him from the sepia print. His handsome father, already mourning what he has not yet lost. And Ayshe with her delicate features and luxuriant dark hair looks wistful but still breathtakingly beautiful. After a war that claimed millions of lives, Connor wonders how many photos like this one there are scattered across the world; mute records of families irreparably shattered, pictures that will be torn up in despair, fingered until they fall apart or lost in drawers to fade. How many boys like Orhan will have no grave to visit, just a photo like this one to cry over?

He hears the sound of boots scraping the ground outside and quickly pushes the photo into Art’s diary and shuts the case. Hasan appears in the doorway and Connor immediately takes a step back.

‘Please forgive my intrusion, Mr Connor.’

‘Yes, what?’ Connor is defensive, unsure why the Turk has appeared in his tent, and is expecting the worst.

‘What is the name of your eldest son?’

‘Connor. The same as mine.’ He is annoyed.

‘We have no family name in Turkey,’ explains Hasan carefully. ‘What is his first name?’

‘His
Christian
name is Arthur,’ says Connor.

Hasan ignores the implied slight. He has seen more than his fair share of religious and cultural persecution in his thirty years as a soldier; certainly far too much to be bothered by such a distinction.

‘And how do you spell this?’ he asks.

‘A–R–T–H–U–R. Arthur.’

Hasan follows the spelling, comparing it with something written on the paper he is holding in his hands. He looks up, a disappointed look on his face.

‘I am sorry I have troubled you. I thought . . . Please travel with God.’

Hasan turns to leave and Connor stops him.

‘I am sorry,’ he says stiffly. ‘For my outburst yesterday.’

‘There is a Persian saying,’ Hasan says, ‘which translates as, “May you outlive your children.” It sounds like a blessing, but it is the worst curse one can place on the head of a man. You would not even wish it upon your enemy.’

Hasan pushes the flap aside, but before he can clear the tent Connor asks, ‘Why did you ask about Arthur?’

Looking uncomfortable, Hasan holds up the telegram, which contains a list in Ottoman Arabic. He explains, ‘I had this list sent from Constantinople. There is a name here that is your family name. But the first name – the Christian name – it is another man. I am sorry. I did not mean to raise your hopes.’

‘What is this list? What other man?’ Connor must know.

‘There are three initials. None of them ‘A’ for Arthur. They are R – F – R.’

‘R – F – R . . .’ Connor plays with the sounds.
Surely not. It’s too much to hope for.

‘Ar – F – ar. Ar – Far! That’s it. Arthur! That’s him! It
has
to be him!’ he exclaims. ‘That’s his name. Tell me – what is this list?’

There is a long, considered pause as Hasan looks directly at Connor and chooses his words very carefully. ‘If this
is
your son . . .
If
. . . then we took him prisoner. He did not die here.’

The news hits Connor like an uppercut to the solar plexus. He gasps, scarcely audible, ‘Oh God. What?’

‘He left Çanakkale alive.’

Connor is so overcome he cannot speak. Hasan pushes through the doorway, leaving the father to contemplate the possibilities alone. Connor steadies himself against the tent pole, his reality turned upside down in a heartbeat.

T
he trill and wail of a
ney
flute penetrates every corner of the Troya, vying with the forlorn sounds from the strings of the
kemençe
and
oud
. A group of earnest musicians is perched on worn, bentwood chairs arranged on the small bandstand in the corner of the salon. They wear brocade, embroidered vests, sashes round their waists shot through with gold thread, and red fezzes on their heads, the tassels swinging in time with the music.

Ayshe and Natalia have scrubbed every corner of the room and aired and washed the old lace drapes until they are closer to white than they have been for many years. It has been a very long time since the hotel has hosted such a large gathering. The sound of the music and chatter streams out to the darkening street through open windows and a balmy, soft breeze enters the room, carrying with it the smell of pollen and the sweet scent of Judas Tree blossoms.