Anyush (25 page)

‘With respect, Captain, this is Abdul-Khan’s doing.’

‘You don’t understand. I know he did this.’

‘You said it yourself,
bayim
: Abdul-Khan answers to no man.’

‘I can’t do it, Ahmet. I can’t do this.’

‘You have no choice.’

‘I have to get to Trebizond. I have to find Anyush.’

‘Forget about her.’

‘How can I forget her when she’s going to be my wife? Am I supposed to march her to her death or present her as a gift to the Shota?’

The lieutenant looked away from him, up along the alley to where the dome of the mosque gleamed like a half-moon above the streets below. The figure of the muezzin was just visible on the balcony, preparing to sing the words of the Tekbir.

‘
Bayim
,’ the lieutenant said, ‘this evacuation will go ahead with or without you. If you don’t carry out the order, Ozhan will, and you know what will happen to the girl then. She would not last beyond the borders of the village. You call her your wife and perhaps she is that to you, but if there’s any hope of her surviving, and it is only a faint hope, it is with you leading that convoy.’

Anyush

A
nyush made her way to the washing-pool. Nothing had been laundered for two weeks since she was forbidden by Husik to go out alone, but she couldn’t bear being imprisoned in the house any longer. Her life should have been easier with Kazbek gone but it was as if he never left. He was there in the breath that lifted the hairs on her neck and the shadows that followed her from room to room. He watched from his chair in the corner and settled with the heat and dust blowing in under the door. She wasn’t the only one haunted by him. Husik was drinking heavily and staying up nights, reciting poems for his father or singing love songs to his wife until he passed out at the table. Other times, he forced Anyush to her knees, shouting drunkenly the badly remembered words of his father’s prayers. Piece by piece, a little more with each passing day, Husik took on his father’s shape. He wore his father’s clothes and squeezed his feet into the old man’s shoes. Dressed in this way, he would disappear into the wood and go missing for days – long days Anyush spent alone with Kazbek’s ghost and the threat of what lay in the wood beyond.

She walked on, keeping to the shade beneath the trees. On her hip, curled up amongst the clothes in the basket, Lale lay asleep. Every few
steps she stopped to listen. She knew why the gendarmes hadn’t bothered the Tashjians and understood also that this protection was gone. There seemed to be more and more of them, making impossible demands and imposing new taxes on Armenian families. Turkish neighbours, the Hisars and many others Anyush had known all her life, turned away. They locked themselves behind a wall of fear so that they saw nothing and heard nothing and pulled their children indoors so they would hear nothing either. It felt as if the ties that bound her to Trebizond had already been cut. The cups on the shelf, the distant sea, the unyielding earth in the potato drills had all turned faithless against her.

Lale stirred in her sleep, her little mouth widening into a smile.

‘Please God look after Lale,’ Anyush prayed. ‘Please God look after us all.’

When she looked up again, Jahan was standing on the path before her.

Jahan

A
nyush had changed. Something was gone from her, an innocence perhaps, and yet she was more beautiful than Jahan remembered. He would have liked to take her in his arms, to press his lips against hers, but something in her face prevented him.

‘How are you, Anyush? You are well?’

‘Yes,’ she said, putting the basket of laundry at her feet.

‘And your mother and grandmother, they are in good health?’

‘They are well also.’

‘I’ve thought of you often, Anyush. I’ve been to the church on the cliff–’

‘You’ve been away a long time, Jahan.’

The wind shook the leaves, throwing them for an instant into shade. She shivered and hugged her arms around her.

‘Are you cold?’

‘No.’

Nothing about this moment was as Jahan had imagined it. Many times he had rehearsed what he would say but now he couldn’t find the words. The wind veered around to the east, bringing with it the acrid smell of burning. Behind the wood in the direction of the village, Jahan could
see dense black smoke rising into the blue sky. ‘Trebizond has changed.’

‘Everything has changed, Jahan. This is not the place you knew.’

There was a wariness about her. She seemed distant and guarded with him.

‘I passed Dr Stewart in the village. With his friend … the Kurd.’

‘Mahmoud Agha.’

‘Yes. The hospital is still running then?’

‘It is.’

‘Good. That’s good.’

A small sound like an animal’s cry came from somewhere near them and Anyush’s eyes flicked to the basket at her feet. It was moving slightly and a baby’s hand waved for an instant above it. A bar of sunlight glanced off the gold ring on Anyush’s finger.

‘You … you’re married?’

‘Yes.’

‘When?’

‘Does it matter?’

The infant began to cry lustily.

‘The child is yours?’

‘Yes.’

Jahan looked at her, his face stiff as stone.

‘Why did you come back, Jahan?’

‘I’ve been ordered to come. The Black Sea coast is vulnerable and people are being moved to the interior.’

‘People?’

‘Armenians.’

‘I’m Armenian, Jahan. Do you mean to take me?’

‘It’s for your own good. For security reasons.’

‘Security?’ A bitter little laugh. ‘What about my Turkish neighbours? Are they not a threat to your security?’

‘I can offer you my protection,’ he said stiffly. ‘No harm will come to you.’

She shook away the words as though they were insects biting at her ears. Bending down, she picked up the basket at her feet.

‘My child,’ she said, holding it out to him, ‘will you offer her your protection too? And my husband?’

When he didn’t answer, she turned to leave.

‘Anyush … Anyush wait! If you won’t come with me, go east. Take the coast road to Batum. Leave immediately. Today.’

They stood for a moment as if something could still be reclaimed between them. She turned her head and the sun caught the weave of her plait hanging below her scarf. It touched the blade of her shoulder where it pressed against the thin fabric of her blouse. Jahan closed his eyes, and when he opened them again she had gone.

Anyush

L
ale had fallen asleep by the time Anyush reached the house, and she put her in the cool room at the back. In the bedroom she emptied one drawer after another and crammed the contents into a sack. In the kitchen she opened doors and cupboards, throwing objects at random onto the table. The pair of silver serving spoons Gohar had given her as a wedding present, still wrapped in their blue cloth. A gourd of water filled from the barrel. A side of salted pork wrapped in muslin. A knife. Bread. Some rice. A fistful of Gohar’s seeds. A shaving blade that had belonged to her father. A lock of Lale’s hair. Every inch of the table was covered as tears dripped onto the growing pile.

The soldier she had met under the trees was not Jahan. He was a stranger, an instrument of the Government and an officious Turk. Wiping her eyes, she went to the door of Kazbek’s bedroom and opened it. It was dark and close and still smelled strongly of him. The outlines of the bed, table and chair were barely visible in the light creeping around the shutter slats. She pushed up the iron bar, sending motes of dust drifting in the sunlight to the floor. Old blackened ash spilled from the small fireplace, but otherwise everything was neat and tidy. Her stomach rose at the smell of him, stronger here than anywhere else. Facing the door, the
huge oak headboard rose like a gravestone halfway up the wall. She had noticed on the few occasions he told her to clean the room that the bed was sometimes moved slightly to one side, enough to leave scrape marks on the wooden floor. She pushed the side rails with both hands but the bed wouldn’t move. The headboard was too heavy. Crouching down, she put her back to it and pushed again. This time it moved a couple of inches. She tried once more and the wooden feet scraped along the floor. It was enough to allow her crawl in behind it. On her knees she looked at the wall. The wooden planks were fixed with pairs of nails and seemed even and undisturbed. Only the plank behind the top of the headboard showed any sign of wear and it was fixed solidly to the wall. She must have been mistaken. She had been so sure. With her fingertips she felt along the bottom of the wall where the shingles met the floor. Something scratchy touched her skin and she recoiled. She felt for it again and pulled it out into the light. Horsehair. Used to fill the gap between the inside and outside walls. It had to be coming from somewhere. Running her hand along the bottom slat, she stopped suddenly. She could feel a thumb-sized hollow on the underside of the last board. It came away easily and, in the space behind, she found what she had been looking for. A leather drawstring pouch containing Kazbek’s blood money.

‘What are you doing?’

Anyush jumped.

‘I told you never to come in here.’

‘Husik … you frightened me.’

‘Where did you get that? Give it to me.’ He snatched the pouch from her hand. ‘So this is where he kept it! I should have asked you sooner.’ He looked around at his father’s room. ‘Close those shutters.’

Anyush dropped the bar across the slats, plunging the room into darkness.

‘We have to leave, Husik,’ she said, following him outside. ‘All of us.’

He pulled out a chair and sat at the table. His eyes roamed over the pile
in front of him and settled on the side of pork. Picking it up, he unwound it slowly from its muslin wrapping. With his skinning knife, he began to carve off paper-thin slices.

‘People are being taken from their homes, Husik. Armenians. We have to leave. If we can get to Batum we can stay with Gohar’s relatives. We’ll be safe there.’

He chewed slowly, his eyes moving over her in the way they did when he surprised her in the bedroom or the stable or the wood.

‘You have to listen to me … we don’t have much time. I heard from … from a soldier that they’re evacuating Armenians in the village. We have to leave, Husik. Now.’

‘Would that be the soldier you whored for in the old church by any chance?’ The floor timbers groaned as he sat back in his chair. ‘You really thought I didn’t know? About you and the Turk-man? There’s nothing I don’t know about you, Anyushi.’ He speared some meat onto the tip of his knife and offered it to her. ‘No? It’s good,’ he said, eating it himself. ‘Sit down, you look pale.’

She gripped the back of the chair nearest her.

‘I was probably there every time you fucked him. I even know the sounds you made. Only someone very stupid would take on another man’s whore and his child, but it pays to be stupid sometimes, Anyush. I got what I wanted in the end. I got you.’

He pushed the pork away, wiping his hands across his thighs. ‘You never make those noises with me, Anyush. Maybe we should try now, eh?’

He stood up and came towards her. ‘What do you say? See if you’ll scream for me.’

‘Please, Husik,’ she said, placing a hand against his chest. ‘I know what you must think of me but–’

He laughed and the baby whimpered somewhere in the back room.

‘We have to leave, Husik. There’s no time for this now.’

‘Where were you really going, Anyush? Running off with your captain?’

‘No! It isn’t like that.’

‘Really? What’s this on the table then? And this?’ With a sweep of the knife, he tipped the leather pouch onto the floor. ‘What’s he ever done for you, Anyush, aside from putting a child in your belly and running away? He was never there for you. Never protected you the way I have.’ The marks on her neck had almost disappeared, and Husik traced their faint outline with his finger. ‘I know what my father tried to do. He was a dangerous man, Anyush. Greedy. He wanted you for himself; I’ve always known that. He killed my mother when I was seven. Beat her so badly I didn’t recognise her. Kicked her in the belly until she lost the child she was carrying and locked me in the room with her so I couldn’t go for help. The same room where you so cleverly found his money. I sat in a corner and watched my mother die. He told everyone she bled to death when she lost the baby, but she died because of him. Not you though. He was never going to touch you, Anyushi.’

‘No,’ she said, backing away.

‘You should thank me for all those things I did to him. Didn’t you dream of doing them yourself?’

‘No, Husik … not your own father–’

‘He killed my mother!’ Husik roared, plunging the knife into the table. ‘He deserved to die. He would have killed you too.’

‘No–’

‘Don’t walk away from me.’ He grabbed her by the arm and pulled her towards him. ‘You’re mine, Anyush. Understand?’

The trapdoor to the potato cellar was just inside the front door, and he dragged her over to it, pulling the iron ring and opening it wide.

‘No, Husik, please! Not in there I beg you.’

‘In you go, Anyushi-bai. Plenty of time to think in there.’

‘Husik … no!’

He dragged her over to the opening and kicked the back of her knees so that her legs folded beneath her. With a final push, she fell into the hole. The potatoes were stacked almost to the opening and the drop wasn’t far, but she landed on her ribs and rolled down towards the dried mud floor. Over her head Husik’s face grinned down at her. ‘Say some poetry, Anyush. Helps pass the time.’

The trapdoor slammed shut, sealing her into the darkness with the dust and potato mould. Panic took hold. She scrabbled up the mound, slipping and clawing her way to where a frame of light backlit the trapdoor. But the potatoes rolled from under her and she lost her footing, tumbling helplessly onto the mud below.

‘Husik!’ Her voice was no more than a whisper. She couldn’t catch her breath. Rolling onto her knees, she tried to fill her lungs but the air seemed too heavy and her heart beat like a bird’s. She was going to suffocate. Locked in under the ground while her child called out above. Lale. She held the image in her mind. Behind her, she could pick out tiny slits in the dark, vents cut into the underside of the porch steps to prevent potato rot. She crawled on her belly towards them and pushed her face against the slices of air.

‘Husik!’ she shouted. ‘Let me out, Husik. Please.’

Above her, the sound of distant laughter. With an effort, she steadied her breathing and crawled again to the top of the potato mound until her head was just under the trapdoor. Digging in her feet for purchase, she raised her hands until they were flat on the underside of the hatch. She pushed upwards and the door gave slightly before falling heavily shut. Again she pushed hard and this time the door lifted so that shafts of light poured into the hole blinding her.

‘Oh no you don’t!’

Husik stamped the trapdoor shut again, sending shock waves down her arms.

‘Husik, please,’ she sobbed. ‘Lale needs me.’

A shadow moved over the frame of light and she heard a chair being scraped across the boards. It creaked on the trapdoor when he sat on it. ‘No place like home, Anyush.’

Showers of dust fell onto her face as he thumped his feet in time to a song. She pressed her hands over her ears.

‘How are you doing in there, Anyushi?’ he asked after a while. ‘You’ve gone very quiet. One of the things I always liked about you, your quietness.’

His words were coming thick and slow and she realised he was drunk. After a while he fell silent. Something like an empty bottle rolled across the wooden floor and came to a stop. Shifting position to ease the stiffness in her limbs, Anyush fell into a waking doze.

Loud knocking woke her with a start. She was confused. How long she had been shut in? The chair over her head creaked as Husik got up to open the door. A single gunshot rang out, then a thud as something heavy fell across the trapdoor. Warm drops dripped onto her shoulder and face.

‘Looks like this one had planned on going somewhere,’ a voice said.

‘Not any more,’ a second voice laughed. ‘Look what I found. The bastard was throwing his money around.’

‘Piece of shit like his father. Take those spoons. And the meat. Check if anyone’s hiding in the back.’

Don’t cry, Lale. Please please don’t cry.

‘Bedroom’s in a mess. Someone left in a hurry.’

‘What’s at the back?’

‘Cool room probably.’

‘Take the food.’

Dear God, dear God, dear God …

‘On second thoughts, forget about it. It won’t last in this heat. Come on. We’re finished here.’

The footsteps moved over her head and went outside. She stayed huddled in a ball under the floor as minutes went by, hours maybe. She lost
track of time. She could feel Husik’s blood caking on her skin. Then into the dark, tugging gently at her consciousness, came the sound of Lale’s lonely cry.

She had the weight of Husik and the door to contend with and neiither would budge. Again and again she tried, slipping helplessly down the potatoes each time. Husik’s body blocked the light so completely that she was becoming disorientated. She focused on the slits of air at the base of the mound, lighting her prison like candles in the dark. Lale’s crying was more urgent now, loud enough for anyone passing outside to hear. She crawled to the space under the trapdoor once more and dug her feet to the ankles in the potatoes. Taking a deep breath, she pushed and kept pushing. The trapdoor lifted enough for Husik to roll a little to one side and give her room to squeeze her head and chest out. With the remaining strength left to her, she pushed her husband’s body off the hatch and pulled herself clear. Dizzy and disorientated, she sat on the floor for a moment, her energy spent. Husik lay beside her, his mouth open and a blank look on his face. Her dead husband. The man who knew she had deceived him and wanted her anyway. Leaning across, she touched his cheek. It was already cold. She wanted to feel something for him. Sorrow or gratitude. Pity even, but she was numb. She felt nothing only a great emptiness and a wish to be gone.