Anyush (14 page)

I’ve been wondering if I should perhaps not write about the events I witnessed today, as I have no wish to relive them, but what happened was of such a pitiful and barbaric nature, that it cannot be ignored.

Havat Talanian, a young mongoloid Armenian girl who lives on the outskirts of the village, went missing from her home this morning. I had dropped in to the house on a routine call to see her mother who suffers from chronic depression, only to find the woman in a highly anxious state and claiming that her younger daughter had been abducted. It is another in a long line of misfortunes for the Talanians, who are more or less destitute and depend largely on the charity of others. The older of the two Talanian girls, Sosi, told me how her sister had not come in for breakfast after going out to feed the hens and that some of their neighbours had come to help look for her. I was reasonably confident that Havat had simply wandered off and lost her way and that we would find her unharmed. We had decided to split into a number of groups when two mounted Turkish soldiers advanced on us from the coast road. I recognised Captain Orfalea and his lieutenant. The captain asked what was going on and I told him about the missing girl. The lieutenant insisted that we were an ‘unauthorised gathering’ and had to disperse immediately, but, to my surprise, the captain volunteered to help in the search. He sent the lieutenant with half our group in the direction of the village, and the rest would search the coast road. An arrangement had been made that whoever found Havat would send a runner to the second party to call off the search, but by late afternoon there was still no trace of her. Anyush had looked along the shoreline and the headland but had no luck. On the chance that the two soldiers had missed Havat earlier, the captain rode halfway to Trebizond and back but didn’t find her either. The remains of
our group walked the main pathways around the wood in the direction of the town but, despite thorough searching, the Talanian girl appeared to have vanished. As the light began to fade, we were deciding to call off the search for the night when the captain saw something moving at the edge of the wood.

‘There,’ he said, ‘among the trees.’

It took me a moment to realise what Captain Orfalea was looking at, and before I could say anything he had drawn his pistol. Anyush shouted as Husik, the trapper, emerged slowly into the dim light. The captain ordered him to stand in the road, and I told the boy to come out, that it was perfectly safe. I explained to the captain that Husik works for me and that he’s a trapper and knows these woods better than anyone. But Orfalea wouldn’t lower his pistol, and Husik’s hand remained on the knife at his hip. He was peculiarly agitated, his eyes shifting from one face to another.

‘You’re looking in the wrong place,’ he said. ‘You’ll never find her.’

I asked if he’d seen the missing girl, but he seemed more interested in Anyush. He stared at her with open hostility.

‘Husik,’ I said again, ‘if you know where the girl is then please say so.’

‘I’m not telling
him
,’ Husik said, looking at the captain.

I reasoned with the boy but he refused to say anything more. It was clear the captain thought Husik was in some way responsible for the girl’s disappearance and kept asking what he had done with her. At this point, Anyush begged the trapper to help find Havat, but he only laughed in a strangely insolent manner.

‘There’s so much I
do
know,’ he said. ‘So much I
could
say.’

‘Answer the question,’ the captain snapped. ‘What have you done with her?’

‘With
her
? What have
you
done?’

‘Enough!’ I said, stepping between them. ‘For once and for all Husik have you seen the girl or not?’

The boy half turned towards the wood, cocking his ear as though listening for something.

‘I didn’t say I saw her,’ he said. ‘I heard noises. That’s all.’

‘What kind of noises?’

‘Screaming. Like an animal in a trap. Only it wasn’t an animal.’

Anyush turned pale, and the captain was clearly sceptical, but I knew the boy wouldn’t lie to me.

‘Whereabouts?’I asked.

‘I might not remember.’

‘Please …’ Anyush begged. ‘We can’t leave her out here.’

The trapper clammed up again, and I was getting weary of the exchange. I took off my hat and wiped my brow. It was still very hot and the mosquitoes were out in force.

‘Look, Husik,’ I said finally, ‘if we don’t find Havat, she will almost certainly die. She doesn’t have the wit to survive in the wild as you do. You are the only one who can help her.’

I still wasn’t sure what he would decide, but he turned abruptly and disappeared into the trees. The captain, Anyush and I hurried to catch up with him.

Beneath the canopy the path was barely visible, but Husik’s step never faltered. Turning abruptly east, he left the track and made his way through scrub, low-hanging boughs and fallen trees. We had to move quickly not to lose sight of him, stumbling and lacerating hands and faces. Gradually the darkness seemed a little less intense and what initially appeared to be a clearing proved to be a wide pathway following a linear course through the wood. It was overgrown with moss and spindly trees reaching for the light, but it was clear that it had once been an avenue or thoroughfare of some description. Husik moved along it, following its southward course, constantly looking to right and left as though expecting company. Abruptly he came to a halt and waited for us.

‘There,’ he said pointing, ‘that’s where I heard it.’

At the end of the avenue, hemmed in by trees on all sides, was a two-storey wooden house or what had once been a house but which was now collapsing in on itself. The roof sagged so badly that broken joists and wooden roof tiles lay in a jumble on the the floor below. Only one set of shutters hung from a rusty hinge.
The glassless window frames had warped and buckled and thick ropes of ivy twined around and through them. And everywhere, from every niche and crack, greenery grew abundantly.

Anyush, the captain and I walked to where the door had once been, but Husik hung back as though this human habitation in his dominion was repugnant to him. Inside, it took my eyes some time to adjust to the darkness. The ground floor was more or less intact, and although the ceiling had crumbled in places and some of the dividing walls to the other rooms were mere wooden laths, it retained the shape and feel of a house. A rank house, which smelled of animal droppings and vegetation. Of mildew and mould and something else.

‘Cigarette ends,’ the captain said. ‘A dozen or more over here near the door. Ugh! What the Devil?!’

I turned to see him trying to shake something from the sole of his boot. He kicked it away as I looked around, unable to rid myself of the feeling that this house was overpoweringly sinister. The trees, the dark, the sickening smell of decay. And then I heard it. The first pitiful sound, weak and forlorn like a wounded animal.

‘Over there,’ the captain said, pointing to a spot near what remained of the stairs. I was closest and got there first.

‘Dear God!’

Someone moved behind me and I thrust out my arm to block their way. ‘Stay back,’ I said. ‘Don’t come any closer.’

It was Anyush, standing at my shoulder, her eyes staring and her face ghostly in the green half-light. Havat lay on her back, partially clothed but naked from the waist down and her breasts exposed. Her legs were still spread as though she was unable to move them, and one lay at an unnatural angle to the floor. The clothes beneath her hips were soaked with dark clotted blood, and pools of paler liquid congealed on her stomach, thighs and naked breasts. Her arms had been tied behind her back with one of the laces from her shoes, and her other shoe, laced tightly by her sister that morning, was still in place on her foot. She was lying in
her own excrement, the smell of faeces and urine growing stronger by the minute. Suddenly the house was filled with a terrible noise. Havat’s eyes stretched wide and terrified sounds issued from her throat. She bucked and flailed, her useless leg flapping against the floor, and a raspy, gurgling scream came from the depths of her chest. Husik was standing looking at her, but it was the captain she was staring at in terror.

‘Get out!’ I ordered him. ‘It’s your uniform. Move outside, Captain!’

But the captain was unable to look away. His eyes were staring at Havat’s face and chin which were covered with dark, black blood.

‘Allah be merciful!’ he whispered. ‘Her tongue … they cut out her tongue!’

‘Captain … outside. Now!’

He stumbled across the room and lurched towards a window. Clutching the thick wooden frame, he threw up his last meal against the rotten shingle. It was now abundantly clear what had stuck to the underside of his boot. Anyush had recovered a little and was kneeling at Havat’s side, gently stroking her matted hair. The screaming quietened to a low sobbing as Havat recognised her friend. As gently as I could, I attempted to move the damaged leg, but the girl moaned loudly in pain.

‘The hip is dislocated,’ I said. ‘They must have used terrible force.’

From my coat pocket I took the bottle of laudanum I always carry and pulled out the stopper.

‘This is for the pain,’ I said to Havat. ‘I’m going to pour a few drops into your mouth. It’s a little bitter, but it will help.’

She grimaced as the tincture hit the back of her throat, and her hand reached out for Anyush. After a few moments she became quiet.

The old door to the house was lying near the back wall and between us we managed to lift Havat onto it. Using his knife, Husik hacked two holes in the wood and lashed his rope through them, so that he and I could pull the door along the ground like a sled. Havat didn’t make a sound. Her eyes were open and fixed on Anyush as though she were afraid her angel of mercy might disappear.

Havat Talanian’s ordeal occupies everybody’s mind. People talk and talk as if they might talk it out of being. For all our sakes, I wish it were that simple.

I’ve managed to relocate Havat’s hip and it has healed reasonably well, but her psychological state is fragile. She has become incontinent and screams uncontrollably whenever she’s left alone. I haven’t told Hetty any of the more distressing details and find myself becoming more circumspect generally. Paul’s stories of death lists and Armenian pogroms has upset her. As it happened, she learned of the assault for herself because it is talked of everywhere, and everybody has an opinion as to who is responsible. The streets are deserted at night. Families lock their doors and some of the children have been taken out of school. Our own children are forbidden to wander beyond the house, giving them the perfect excuse to idle for hours indoors, but at least we know they’re safe. Hetty’s arranged for the remaining schoolchildren to be escorted to and from the schoolhouse, and she herself is accompanied by Mahmoud Agha whenever she visits her patients outside the village. I am as fearful for my own wife as anybody else and cannot understand the mind of a man who would do such a thing. Arshen Nalbandian claims he saw a group of soldiers near the wood that morning, but Captain Orfalea assured me his company had spent the day at the barracks digging latrines. Could I take the captain at his word? From his reaction when we discovered Havat, I certainly believe that if his men were responsible, he at least knew nothing about it. Which begs the question, what other soldiers were involved? It has put me in mind of the invitation we received last week.

Another high-ranking Turkish officer, Captain Ozhan, invited Hetty and I to dine at his home in Trebizond. The captain’s second wife was attending Hetty for
obstetric care in the run-up to the birth of her first child, and I had met Ozhan once or twice at the Vali’s mansion. He is a small, fair-haired man with deep pockets and big ambitions. His phaeton collected us at the outskirts of the city, along with a groom to bring our horses to his stable yard. The house was large and impressive, surrounded by a great garden containing fruit trees, vegetables and flowers. A conservatory, a pond with goldfish and even a flock of doves added a distinctly Victorian touch. Wearing a dark evening suit and stiff collar, he met us in the salon and offered me an expensive imported whiskey, although he didn’t partake himself. The older of his two wives, a shy, small woman, wearing a hijab and plain black dress, had set the table for dinner and called Hetty aside to ask if it was done properly. The younger, pregnant wife also wore a hijab but her skirt was more European in cut and a brightly coloured pair of shoes peeped out from underneath. The women got on well and Hetty spent most of her time with them, while Ozhan insisted on showing me around the estate. Most of the land had been inherited from his father, but he had enlarged it, buying the adjoining plots and tilling it for grapes, olives and hazelnuts as well as keeping cattle and sheep. On the Ozhan farm there didn’t appear to be any problem keeping livestock fed or crops watered, and farmhands were very much in evidence despite conscription for the war.

Overall, Ozhan and I got on well enough. He was educated and showed a keen interest in modern medicine, but I did not like the man. There was an arrogance about him, a casual cruelty in the manner he adopted with his servants and wives. The following day, when we made to leave, Ozhan did not hide his annoyance that we would not stay longer. He had made arrangements, he said, that he and I would hunt for partridge in the hills. I thanked him but made the excuse of pressing commitments at the hospital and we left immediately. It was Hetty who overheard him castigating his older wife with a resounding slap for failing in her duty to impress.