Orhan's Inheritance (24 page)

The American missionaries politely sip their tea, not knowing that hiding in the shadows is someone who can hear and understand the insults they lob at Turkish soldiers in hushed English whispers. At night, she presses her ear to the curtained wall of their chambers, drinking in the sounds of their English words. They speak and pray. They liken what is happening in Anatolia to hell. This almost makes her laugh. What do they know of hell? Hell is to witness all this and still soak the cracked wheat in water, to empty the chamber pots of fools and murderers. She wants to scream at them, Your mighty god is a joke, but to do this she would have to give up her silence. And that she will never do.

CHAPTER 26

Altar of Contrition

EARLY EVERY MORNING,
Ahmet goes to the well to fetch water. He leaves well before the cock crows, before the women of the village trickle down from the valley. When he comes to Seda’s little room to fetch the water pails, he makes a point of waking her with his noise.

“This is women’s work,” he complains.

Seda does not rise or respond. She does not tell him how the well beckons to her, how when she wakens in the middle of the night, cursing the breath that enters her lungs, it is the well’s promise of solace that soothes her. How she regularly imagines slipping out of her room, bare feet on wet grass, past the orchard, climbing the low stone wall and falling into the depth of water until it fills her lungs. She tells him none of this.

She turns to the cooking, instead. Beneath the cauldron, flames lick the weathered cast iron, heating the water until it scalds the cabbage leaves, releasing a putrid smell. Pungent. Not like burning flesh. No, not like that. Seda lifts the wooden spoon and places the boiled cabbage leaves, piled one on top of the other, in one corner of the tray. She lifts one, with her fingers, letting the steam prick her fingertips. The hot leaf, its translucent skin the color of rain, gives her the gift of pain, of feeling. She flattens the leaf, then places her burned fingertips in the cool mixture of the filling, but it offers her no pleasure.

There is always plenty to eat here. Fatma’s bey makes sure of it. And though Seda spends almost all her time in this little room that is half oven, she eats little or nothing. She sees no reason to sustain this body, prolong this life.

Sometimes the baby still visits her. She cradles him, soft and pink, inside her arms. But when she opens her mouth to sing him a lullaby, nothing comes out. Her mouth is no longer a portal. Nothing but breath comes out and very little goes in.

A few morsels slide down her throat but only when Fatma insists upon watching.

“Don’t you dare bring that back up,” she says, waving a stout finger in her face. “There are people starving everywhere.”

I know. I know. I know.

The third winter of her visit has come and gone. They say the war will soon come to an end. And yet she has hardly enough on her bones to distinguish her as female. The head scarf is the only thing that gives her away. Not that it is necessary. She is almost always hidden. A ghost vanishing into the stone walls and hidden chambers of the ancient inn. Her body receding, her voice gone.

Hairig, I would give all my teeth and fingernails to see you again. It would be a small price.

And he does come. Not in her sleep, like she would prefer, but while she is awake, chopping the parsley or beating the wool. He whispers in her left ear. Always the left. But instead of solace, he brings her more worry for he speaks in the foreign tongue of the dead.

What are you saying? Please, please, tell me what you are saying. Say it in Armenian, Hairig. I would do anything to hear it in Armenian.

On more than one occasion, Fatma has witnessed her silent begging. “Do not spend your time with ghosts. Trust me, I know what I’m talking about.” But what does she know? The closest thing she’s come to a man like Hairig is her bey, that patron saint of whores and sinners.

Nabi Bey, who thinks she’s a poor Kurd, pays no attention to her. She is like the mule in the stable, the pail in the well, a useful thing to be tolerated. He forgets she is there. Or so she thinks.

She is standing at the table, adding onions to the pot, on the day he enters her little room. His smell, a mixture of pistachios and cured meat, fills the air between them. The stuffed cabbage leaves lay steaming on the tray. He looks around at her world before leaning against the table and picking up the tin cup she uses for measuring. He turns it around in his hand, studying it like it’s a rare thing, before putting it down. He picks up one of her rolled cabbage leaves, blows on it at length, before placing it into his mouth. He does this slowly, his eyes pinned to her face.

Seda pours barley into the pot with the onions and, turning her back to him, takes it to the fire. He will think it rude, disrespectful, but she cannot stand him looking at her. She stirs the barley until it turns into mush. Fatma will be unhappy. Seda can hear the rustling of his pants as he shifts his weight. She knows those pants. The dark fabric of an Ottoman soldier’s uniform. Only Nabi Bey’s pants are not torn or crumpled, not stained with sweat or blood. They are always clean, always pressed, a severe line of demarcation running down the front of both his legs. Who put them there so dutifully? Not Fatma, but some other woman. Someone he calls wife. Someone who’s borne him three daughters and no sons.

“Turn around,” he says. And she obeys.

“How long have you lived here?” he asks.

Seda lifts her right hand and shows him three fingers. One for each year.

“You live because I allow it,” he says finally. “Remember that.”

Seda stays right where she is, bracing herself for him to approach, remembering that other time, when Bedros stood above her exposed body, holding a giant rock. But within seconds she hears the door slam shut and he is gone.

Fatma enters soon after that. In her hand, she carries two nails and a metal latch.

“Give me your rolling pin,” she says, and Seda obeys.

Fatma pounds the nails into the door and wall, creating a makeshift lock from the inside.

“Use it every day. In the morning and at night. Whenever possible.”

Seda furrows her brow, demanding further explanation.

“Nabi Bey thinks you should start earning your keep.” Fatma’s eyes glide over Seda’s body.

Seda understands. She places the blade of a knife at her wrist.

“Don’t be dramatic. I didn’t save your life to offer you up like a platter of cheese.”

Why did you save my life? Am I an offering on your altar of contrition?

“I told him you were diseased. God knows you look it. But you’ll have to be more careful. I don’t know how I’m going to protect you.”

It is true that Fatma is protecting her, but it is also true that, in her own way, Fatma loves her bey. Seda has seen the way she sniffs at his collar when serving him his soup. The way she insists the sheets stay unwashed after one of his visits.

“I don’t suppose you have any people left,” Fatma says.

Seda shakes her head no. Everyone is dead and gone. Hairig’s older brother may be somewhere in Constantinople, selling his textiles, cloth that was once meant for Mairig’s trip to Paris. But that was a long time ago, an entire dream ago. Besides, what would she tell him if she found him? Where would she begin accounting for all the dead? No, better to remain here, slowly disappearing.

“I have enough troubles of my own,” Fatma says, handing Seda the rolling pin and collapsing onto the floor cushion. She is always tired lately, and her breasts are more swollen than usual. She has taken to wearing a flowing robe of brown wool that wraps around her thickening middle.

Seda feels a pang of worry. She takes two steps toward Fatma and, kneeling, gently places a hand on her stomach. Fatma looks straight into her eyes and sighs.

“At least there is no danger of you telling anyone,” she says and then, “It is the bey’s doing. I am sure of it.” She brushes the hair away from Seda’s forehead. “He doesn’t know. Thank God. He won’t marry me, of course. Calls me a whore. If it’s a girl, he will discard me. If it is a son, he will surely take him from me. Either way, I will be destroyed. And you along with me. The quality of gold is distinguished by flames and the quality of humans through misfortune. You and I are made of solid gold.

“He will be traveling to Sivas next month for a meeting of some sort. That will give me time to think of a plan.”

Seda gasps at the mention of her birthplace. Her hand flies to her mouth.

“What is it, child? Don’t worry. I will think of something,” she says, caressing Seda’s worried face. “For now, just keep away from him. Use the lock. Understand?”

Seda nods. That is when the thought comes to her, like a fly buzzing in her ear. The bey is going to Sivas. If she went with him, she may find Nazareth or Bedros or Kemal . . . She may yet go back to being Lucine. But the thought instantly vanishes.

“Fatma, bring me some porridge.” The bey’s voice comes booming through the thick walls of the inn. Seda shoos her thoughts away and ladles a healthy portion into a large clay bowl. She holds it before the sitting Fatma, but before handing it to her she bends her head into the steaming porridge and, keeping her eyes fixed on Fatma’s face, spits into it.

Fatma laughs her hearty laugh. And Seda is surprised at her own pleasure in hearing it. It must be hard to please others for a living, she thinks, to be a source of pleasure and hate all at once.

CHAPTER 27

Spilled Porridge

THERE ARE RUMORS
that Ahmet is an orphaned boy, another victim of the deportations, hiding behind a new Muslim name. There is a new name for survivors like Seda and Ahmet. They are now known throughout Turkey as “remnants of the sword.” Seda once heard the bey use the term when he was telling Fatma not to take in any more strays. Whatever his story, the stable boy is trapped in his own world. He rarely speaks to Seda and, then, only when it’s absolutely necessary. They have an unspoken pact to manage their miseries separately and with silence.

The boy is sick today. He refuses to fetch water or tend to the animals. He refuses to get up at all. Fatma asks Seda to tend to him, and to everything else. To do so, she will have to leave her modest room. Her hair is longer now and her body more shapely than it has ever been. She must take care to cover herself, especially on a day like today, when she is free to walk through the courtyard. In her hands, she carries a bowl of porridge, lumpy but warm, with which to comfort Ahmet. She aims to nurture the boy and cheer him up. God knows, he can do with some kindness. Seda suspects he is not sick at all, but weary. Of life and of death.

The air is stiff. It bites her exposed ankles. Her bare feet grip the packed earth. Cool and moist, the sensation is foreign to her. It’s as if her feet still remember that other time, of lace-trimmed stockings and suede shoes.

Ahmet is lying on the floor, huddled near the solitary bundle of hay that awaits any visiting horses. Seda would give up a day’s bread ration to see a horse in the stable. Ahmet’s head rests in the crook of his elbow, facing the back wall. His eyes bore into the stonework the way old fortune-tellers stare into coffee grounds. Seda stands above him in her familiar silence. If she had words, she would use them now to console him. Whatever it is, it’s in the past, she would say. Forget it.

She lays the bowl of porridge at his feet, hoping the gods of memory will leave him alone. Ahmet doesn’t look away from the spot on his wall. He stretches a bent knee and gives the bowl a good stiff kick. The porridge spills out of the bowl, splaying across the hay and part of the wall. Annoyed, Seda places her hands on her hips and stomps her foot, only to be ignored by Ahmet. She may be a mute maidservant, but he is only a stable boy. How dare he? She turns quickly to fetch the broom and some water but collides face-first into a body. There is no mistake about it, her nose is pressed up against the ironed uniform on Nabi Bey’s chest. The smell of pistachios and cured meat coats her face like a shroud. Despite the eye-watering odor, Seda stands perfectly still, holding her breath.

The bey grips her arms, pins them to her sides, and throws her down. Seda’s head lands in the warm porridge, somewhere between Ahmet’s curled body and the wall he faces. She looks up at the boy in alarm, but his eyes continue to decipher something in the stone wall. He doesn’t say a thing. Nor does the bey, whose hands move quickly. He lifts her apron, followed by her skirt. He pants a strange pant and through it Seda is transported to that other time. She waits for Bedros and his large rock, for the bey to slump down onto the ground the way the gendarme did, a gaping hole in his skull. But there is no Bedros and no rock, only the strange scent of pistachios and garlic, the sound of panting and the urgency of a pair of probing hands. Seda turns her head and bites her lip. The bey rams himself into her. A scalding steel spoon scraping what little is left inside. He scrapes once, then twice more. And it is over before she can remember to scream.

The bey stands before her, buckling his belt.

Seda presses her thighs together and places a protective hand in between her legs. She is like the porridge on the floor, only dirtier. There is a sensation that the bey has forgotten his spoon inside her. Like maybe it is still lodged there, where it might sit and fester, where Fatma might see it and feel betrayed.

Nabi Bey bends down, offering his hand, and without thinking, Seda takes it. He helps her up. Then, as if in retrospect, he glares at the spilled porridge at his feet. He nudges Ahmet in the calves with the front of his boot. “Clean this up,” he says before leaving.

So, it is simple as that. Spilled porridge, a push, a shove, a steel rod penetrating her middle, and the necessity to clean it all up, to move on. Seda is lowering the back of her bloodstained dress with her trembling hands, while Ahmet fetches the broom and rag in silence. As for the filth and shame left inside Seda, that Ahmet ignores.

CHAPTER 28

Ghosts