Birds Without Wings Page 34

  “Hamidiye! God and the saints help us! Hamidiye!”

  “Don’t tell the girls. We don’t want to alarm them.”

  “Husband, we can’t go with them. We’d be better off in a pit of serpents. We should run away now, whilst there’s time.”

  “Where could we go? They’ve got a document promising to protect us.” Levon did not believe in his own words, but he tried to comfort her: “It’s signed by the governor.”

  “Who would protect us now? Everyone calls us traitors. No one wants us any more!”

  “Calm yourself, Gadar, calm yourself.”

  “How can I be calm? What about the girls? What about the girls? Tell me that!”

  Levon knew in his heart that she was right, and could think of no convincing reply. “I’m going out for a while,” he said. “You and the girls carry on getting ready.”

  He took a flask of oil and a small cup from the kitchen, left the house and made his way up the hillside, through the maquis and past the Lycian tombs where the Dog eked out his anchoritic life. At the tomb of the saint he knelt down and prayed sincerely for protection, and then he poured the oil through the small hole in the top of the lid. He knelt once more and collected the oil from the hole underneath, whence it now made its leisurely exit, having passed over the holy bones. He anointed his own brow with a little oil, and then made his way home to do likewise to his wife and daughters. The oil that was left he sealed in its flask, and placed in his sash.

  The family was wealthy by most people’s standards, but did not in truth have a great many valuables, and once these were collected together, they sat in their selamlik wondering what to say and do next. After a little while Gadar left the room silently and went out through the door into the street.

  She made her way through the lifeless alleyways down to the aga’s konak, knocked on the haremlik door, slipped off her shoes and went in. She found Leyla Hanim lounging on a divan with Pamuk on her lap, alternately polishing her fingernails and eating pistachio nuts.

  “Leyla Hanim,” she said, kneeling before her, “please save us.”

  Leyla was astonished and a little amused, having heard nothing of the day’s alarms. “Save you? From what? When did I start being worth praying to?”

  “They’ve sent Hamidiye to take us all away. Please ask Rustem Bey to save us.”

  “But, Gadar Hanim, what are Hamidiye? Some kind of soldier?”

  “Our families came here all the way from Van thirty years ago, just to get away from people like them. They’re tribesmen, horsemen, Kurds. They’re savages, and they hate us.”

  “I’ve never heard of them,” said Leyla, who thought that things could not really be so bad.

  “They’re not from here. Why should you have heard of them? Please ask Rustem Bey to save us.”

  Leyla Hanim made a small gesture of helplessness. “He’s not here. He went to Telmessos, and he’s expected back sometime tomorrow.”

  “When, though, when?”

  “I don’t know. Really, I don’t know.”

  Gadar put her hands to her face and began to wail, “Oh God, Oh God, Oh God! My girls, my poor girls!” Leyla Hanim knelt down on the floor and put her arms around her to comfort her. This felt very strange to Gadar. Like everyone else in the town her opinion of Leyla Hanim had always been that she was merely a whore, albeit the whore of the aga, and it did not feel quite right to be embraced by her. Nonetheless, Leyla’s body was soft and motherly, and she smelled of warm perfumes and rosewater, and Gadar allowed herself to weep in Leyla’s arms for a while. When finally she stood up, she dried her eyes with the back of her hand, and said, “My last hope is gone. God be with you, Leyla Hanim.”

  “And with you,” said Leyla, who by now was feeling tearful herself. Gadar raised her right hand a little and let it fall. “All we wanted,” she said, “was to live in peace and earn an honest living. Everything was very good.”

  Impulsively, Leyla removed a gold bracelet from her wrist and presented it to Gadar. “Take and sell it,” she said. “I won’t miss it. I have others.”

  “Thank you, Leyla Hanim. I take it in God’s name, out of necessity, and I am truly sorry,” said Gadar.

  “Sorry? Sorry for what?”

  “For all the things that have been said about you.” With this she turned and left, leaving Leyla’s ears burning with shame and indignation, even though she knew that Gadar had meant no offence. She took up her oud and played on it until her equable mood returned.

  It so happened that Rustem Bey did return just before the column of the dispossessed took the fork that led southward. It was mid-afternoon, it was stultifyingly hot, and the walkers had had no food or water since dawn. Three old people who had been unable to continue had already been bludgeoned to death with rifle butts in order to save on bullets, and anyone with good footwear had had it taken from them and installed on the feet of their escorts. The stones were excruciatingly hot, and people’s soles were burned and bleeding. The women of the column had set up a continuous low moaning and keening, and the men blinked against the sweat in their eyes, muttered prayers to the ever empty sky and longed for it all to be over. Most had already been beaten at least once, and within half an hour’s march had been forced to hand over the valuables that they had been told to bring with them.

  Rustem Bey heard the eerie moaning from some considerable distance, and was astonished when finally his horse brought him up to the column. He was even more astonished when he recognised the faces of people who had been notable in the town only the day before. He could scarcely credit how abject they had become in such a short time.

  Rustem Bey realised immediately what had happened. He had heard about the deportations, and in principle was not at all sympathetic to the victims. He had been as outraged as everyone else by the treachery and perfidy of these citizens who had turned against the Sultan, deserted the army and then attacked it from behind. He had found himself scowling at every Armenian he passed in the street, resenting them suddenly for the first time in his life. However, he was intelligent enough to know that none of these particular Armenians had ever been near the front, and none of them had ever attacked anyone, from behind or otherwise. Indeed, Levon Krikorian had been stalwart in the event of each of his few illnesses, advising the aga on remedies that had often worked.

  As his horse drew up to the stationary column, Rustem Bey became aware of a forest of hands raised up to him in supplication. He looked down at all those agonised faces, and heard their desperate, inarticulate cries for help. He was confused and paralysed for an instant, but then he spurred his horse over to the sergeant who was obviously in charge and summoned up his courage. Assuming a lordly air of great importance, which was, after all, merely the reflection of a reality, he asked very directly, “By whose authority do you take these people?”

  The sergeant, intimidated and surprised, dug into his sash and produced the firman. “By the authority of the governor, efendi,” he replied. Rustem Bey took the document and pretended to read it. The elaborate official calligraphy and fantastically convoluted wording would have made it all but unreadable even to the literate, among whose number Rustem Bey did not in fact find himself. Nonetheless, the governor’s official seal was very familiar to him, and he knew that the document was a valid one. Silently, he handed it back to the sergeant.

  A woman took hold of his leg and looked up at him, pleading, “Save us, save us, Rustem Beyefendi, for the love of God save us.”

  “The order is from the governor,” said the aga. “I can’t do anything about it. Otherwise, by God’s will, I would save you.” He looked down at that small sea of upturned and hopeless faces, and shook his head sadly. “These are evil times,” he said. “Satan is abroad in the world.”

  He looked around at the ruffianly and narrow faces of the Hamidiye, and was suddenly surprised when he noticed that, ludicrously, they were all draped with expensive women’s jewellery. He addressed them directly. “I know the governor,” he infor
med them. “If these people are mistreated, you will all be shot. Each one of your turbans will be without a head, each one of your horses will be without a rider, and each one of your bodies will rot on the surface of the earth without a shroud. I shall obtain a fatwa and each one of your souls shall be locked out of paradise for ever.”

  The tribesmen were genuinely cowed by this impressive threat, and there was a moment’s silence during which it became clear why the column had been stationary when he had drawn up to it. From behind a clump of trees nearby came suddenly the sound of screaming. Now Levon Krikorian clasped his leg, and cried, “My girls, my girls! My girls, efendi, my girls!”

  Rustem Bey kicked the sides of his horse, and rapidly circled the trees, at the other side of which he found a party of five cavalrymen, who, having thrown the girls to the ground, were tearing gleefully at the clothes of all three of Levon’s daughters, preparatory to a rape in which, no doubt, all the troops had been hoping to take their turn. The girls were struggling hysterically, and had managed to begin screaming because they had somehow loosened the gags from their mouths.

  Feeling that he had no choice, or as if he had been taken over by some valiant spirit that was not his own, Rustem Bey took his silver-handled pistol from his sash, drew near, and declared loudly, “In the name of the Sultan Padishah, terror of the world!”

  Surprised and a little bewildered, the tribesmen stopped and looked up at him, and the girls remained dishevelled on the ground, staring at him with huge and desperate eyes.

  “In the name of the Sultan,” repeated Rustem Bey.

  There was a long silence, during which Rustem Bey assessed the degree of stupidity of the rapists, and they in their turn assessed his importance. It was very clear that he was not only rich and distinguished, but a man of great authority. His boots shone, his breeches were of fine cloth, his sash was of red silk, his fez was beautifully brushed and his fine moustache was waxed. His pistol sparkled in the afternoon sun, as did the handle and sheath of his yataghan, and he rode a fine and spirited bay horse that made their own mounts seem paltry by comparison. Every one of the troopers had the same thought, namely that here would be a gentleman well worth robbing. None of them felt quite daring enough, however, especially as Rustem Bey held his revolver in his right hand, which rested on his horse’s neck, and was quite casually pointing in their direction.

  Rustem Bey assessed their degree of stupidity as quite high, and he told them, “You can’t have these women. They are already taken.”

  “Taken, efendi?” said one of the men.

  “Yes. It was all arranged, and they have been removed by mistake. As they are mine, I have come to take them back.” He looked at the girls and silently begged them to say nothing.

  The troopers exchanged glances, unsure what to make of this.

  “One of them is to be my wife, and the other two have been betrothed to my brothers,” said Rustem Bey firmly.

  “Three brothers with infidel wives?” said another of the troopers. “All sisters?”

  “They will become Muslim when they marry,” asserted Rustem Bey.

  “This one is only about ten,” said the first man, indicating Sossy. “How can she be married?”

  “If she is old enough to rape, she is old enough to marry,” replied Rustem Bey. “You were about to rape my betrothed wife and the betrothed wives of my brothers.” He raised his pistol a little and said, “You must know the penalty for rape. And I am well acquainted with the governor. You should be grateful that I have saved you from this crime and the punishment that would have followed from it.”

  The troopers calculated that Rustem Bey very probably did know the governor, and very probably could have them stoned to death. Besides, their sadistic sexual ardour had cooled completely thanks to the appearance of the aga and the ensuing confrontation. Rustem Bey looked at their faces, realised that he had won, and said imperiously, “Go back to your comrades.” He told the girls, “Stay here until I come back.”

  He rode back to the column, accompanied by the perplexed and baulked troopers, and looked for Levon’s face in the crowd, beckoning to him to come over. He leaned down from his horse and said softly, “I have saved your daughters. But I can’t save you all.”

  “Keep them safe, Rustem Beyefendi,” begged Levon tearfully, taking his hand and kissing it.

  “I promise you by my honour,” said Rustem Bey.

  The aga trudged into town that evening, exhausted and dusty, still shaking a little, and still disbelievingly impressed by his own bluster. He was also still upset by having found on the road the corpses of the old folk who had been battered to death, and whom he had known since boyhood. The three miserable young girls sat in a row astride his equally exhausted horse, as they had rapidly become unable to walk. The girls he consigned to the haremlik, and the horse he tended to himself, since the remains of all of his grooms had long since begun to dissolve beneath the dank earth of the Russian front.

  After she had nobly forced herself to overcome her initial jealousy and her suspicions of Rustem Bey’s motives, Leyla Hanim washed the young sisters and gave them perfume and new clothes. She persuaded them to eat a little food, and played the oud, sitting with them, and singing sad half-remembered Greek lullabies whilst they shook with fright and clung to each other late into the night.

  CHAPTER 54

  Olives

  Nermin began to wonder if now it was more probable that her sons would never return. Over the next few days the feeling of unease grew so great that finally she decided to go and see her friend.

  She found Polyxeni outside the back of her house, breaking up twigs for use in her brazier. Nermin felt ashamed to be asking for something directly, and Polyxeni perceived her confusion. Nermin was fiddling with a pot that she held in her hands, rotating it, and putting her fingers inside it, not knowing where to look with her eyes. Polyxeni knew straight away what Nermin wanted, because of the pot, but she teased her friend a little anyway. She said, “You know you can say what you want! Come on, what is it?”

  “Oh, Polyxeni,” exclaimed Nermin at last, “Polyxeni, I’ve finished the last of the lucky olives you gave me, and I ate one every day, as you said, and everything felt good, but now I’ve eaten the last one, and I worry that now my luck will run out, and my sons won’t return. I am sorry to ask, normally I would never ask, but do you have any left? Without them I don’t feel lucky any more. And I brought Iskander’s pot back, just as you asked.”

  Polyxeni laughed. “Is that all?” She took the pot and went inside and filled it. When she came back out she gave the pot to Nermin, and said, “I haven’t heard from Mehmetçik since they took all the Christian boys for the labour battalions.”

  Nermin looked at her tearfully. “Will you have enough lucky olives for both of us?”

  “Pray for a good harvest,” said Polyxeni.

  The two women embraced before Nermin left. On the way home she ate one lucky olive for each day that she had missed.

  CHAPTER 55

  Mustafa Kemal (12)

  Enver Pasha, young, respectable, handsome, dashing, nephew-in-law to the Sultan, sets off on an egregiously Napoleonic misadventure. Mustafa Kemal has already turned down the command of one of Enver’s madder schemes, to send three regiments through Persia to India, in order to raise a rebellion among the Muslims there. Enver has sent someone to Afghanistan as well, who is quite nonplussed about how to raise the people in revolt, and eventually returns home, having distributed much gold to Afghan warlords who then mysteriously disappear.

  Now Enver wishes to attack Russia. He has long dreamed of expanding the empire to the east, a dream that he will never relinquish, and which will be the main reason for the loss of the war, and he also wants an immediate offensive in the south.

  General Liman von Sanders tells him that the eastern campaign is a very bad idea, that the armed forces need a long period of training, reequipping and consolidation, but Enver puts himself in command of the expedition,
and blithely departs across the Caucasus Mountains in the direction of Russia. The Allahuekber range is three thousand metres high, the temperature is -26°, the snow is in places six metres deep, and it snows all the time. Most of the soldiers freeze to death, the remnant is defeated by the Russians at Sarikamiş, and the 10,000 who manage to return are all but wiped out by typhus. It is a disaster of almost unimaginable proportions.

  In the south, an army of 18,000 is led across Sinai, and the Suez Canal is assaulted. Six hundred manage to get across it, but they are repelled by the British. The Muslims of Egypt do not rebel against their colonial masters, and the master plan necessarily fails. The army returns to Palestine, its roll-call now numbering three thousand fewer. The British vigorously set about reinforcing the defences along the Suez Canal, and put it permanently beyond attack.

  When Mustafa Kemal sees Enver in Istanbul, he finds him pale and shaken. Enver is vague about Kemal’s appointment, and advises him to enquire at the offices of the general staff, who, embarrassingly, do not seem to have heard either of Mustafa Kemal or of the 19th Division to whose command he has been appointed. Finally the confusion is sorted out, and he departs for Maydos, on the Gallipoli peninsula. Maydos is a charming little harbour town, and there are many wealthy Greeks there who live in big and airy houses. There are also a great many craftsmen jewellers. After the war, after the Greeks have gone, the little town will be renamed Eceabat. It will sport several statues of Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, and the optimistic locals will never cease their sanguine excavations in search of the jewels and money that the Greeks are supposed to have cached in gardens, walls and cellars.

  Now, however, Mustafa Kemal has with him the 57th Regiment, which is undermanned, ill-trained and ill-equipped. His troops will have to endure heavy bombardment, and resist many incursions by small Allied landing parties who are intent upon destroying the defences. The 72nd and 77th Regiments arrive, but they are not the units that Mustafa Kemal expected. They are mainly Arabs, many are opposed to the war, and they have not been trained. Mustafa Kemal stiffly requests proper Turkish troops, and is refused.