Between the Two Rivers: A Story of the Armenian Genocide Page 6

  She glided and skipped, then stomped, more in game than in grief. She wailed like jackals, screeched like ostriches, exhibiting sorrow while rivers of tears flooded her face. She whirled past Romella and twirled around the oven, making sure to sidestep the basket of bread. She danced around the oven again, unaware that she had attracted the household. Deaf to the hilarity and blind to the amusement of the onlookers on the balcony, she allowed her body to express her joy.

  Pretending exhaustion, Mannig paused, then collapsed dramatically to her knees. She took exaggerated breaths. Only then did she become aware of her audience—women and children leaning along the railing and admiring her antics.

  Fearing repercussions for disturbing the peace, she dashed over to Romella, now on her feet and staring into the smiling face of the approaching Khatoon.

  “That’s amazing,” the Khatoon said, tickling Mannig’s chin. “You devil, you! Where did you learn all that? You’re a sheytahn—a clever girl. I like your Bedouin accent—it is so amusing.”

  “Do it again. Do it again.” The children from the balcony chanted.

  “Yes. Repeat everything,” the Khatoon nodded. “And I will give you a loaf of bread.”

  “Thank God your funeral imitation was not disrespectful,” Romella whispered and gestured to Mannig to comply. She piled the wood chips in a heap and drew the bread basket aside, making room for the entertainment.

  Mannig stepped forward, but hesitated at sight of so many onlookers.

  “Do it! Don’t anger the Khatoon,” Romella insisted.

  Mannig timidly paced her rhythmic movements in a circle. She felt awful in her baggy burlap dress and uncombed chestnut tresses. Her knees locked; her torso froze. Taking tiny steps, she proceeded in log-like stiffness.

  “Dance like you did earlier,” the Khatoon yelled. “With your arms … and your shrieks … yes … more gyrations ….”

  Dance? Was I really dancing? That label and the smell of freshly baked bread triggered Mannig into her monkey-like antics again. Within seconds, she improvised twitches to novel jerks, pulsating howls accompanying the rhythmic applause of her audience.

  The Khatoon caressed Mannig’s face and handed her a disc of bread. “You are very, very, devilishly amusing. I’ll give you a second loaf if you promise to come tomorrow and dance for my friends.”

  Mannig sought Romella’s nod of approval before she accepted the offering.

  “Come tomorrow,” the Khatoon repeated, “and you can eat your fill.”

  Romella led Mannig outside the courtyard. “Be sure to show up. Don’t you dare let me down,” she insisted, hugging her farewell.

  Mannig departed as the sun blinked behind the courtyard. A few minutes beyond, a cluster of hungry boys lurked at the far end of the alley. If those starvelings saw the bread, they would tear her apart. Instantly, she bent in half as if she foraged for edibles. Dikran! Where are you? I need you! To safeguard her bread, she resorted to tactics learned during the many times she had foraged for food.

  Stooping down, she pretended to poke at something by her feet then put it in her mouth, all the while sneaking the loaves inside her garb. Next came elaborate choking, noisy spitting, and grunting to make the final act more disgusting. Her show paid off. Assuming her predicament no better than theirs, the scavengers rounded the bend and left her alone.

  She cracked the discs in half and swiftly wrapped them in the folds of her burlap skirt. The crispy edges pricked her abdomen. I’ll be at the khan shortly. She scurried down the path, skipping over stones, wary of assailants.

  Approaching her baker, she slowed down to a loitering gait. The rays in the sky faded, casting thick shadows on him.

  “Hey, Maria,” he called, his version of Mannig, and stopped lowering the legs of his bread-stand for the night. “What’s this? Don’t you have chips for me today?”

  “No,” she said. “I don’t think I will collect dung anymore.”

  “What’s this? Have you become rich?”

  “No, picking kaka is hard work,” she said gazing into his eyes, seeking confirmation.

  “Ha! All work is hard,” he shook his finger.

  “My grandmother used to say, ‘Small wit, active feet,’ ” Mannig said, surprised to hear herself quoting Haji-doo’s proverb.

  “What’s this? Have you become a philosopher?” he guffawed. “You keep your new smarts to yourself. But tell Dikran to bring chips tomorrow. You hear?”

  “I will,” Mannig said, and moved on, hugging the two half loaves. One for me; one for Dikran.

  Dance. Mannig smiled. The Khatoon’s word. She also liked my performance. Why else would she have labeled her sheytahn and repeated ‘clever’ and ‘devilish’ so many times?

  7—Under Her Wings

  The following day, Mannig enthralled Romella’s khatoon and her lady friends.

  Youthful and elderly spectators joined Mannig in the center of the courtyard, imitating her and howling with laughter at their own clumsiness. The giggles, carefree faces, and silliness of the afternoon energized her all the more to perform audacious and innovative steps. Leading the circle, she danced as long as their hearts desired.

  To catch their breath every now and then, the ladies crouched on woven mats made of date-palm fronds. They sipped tea, nibbled sweet ghourabia cookies, and chatted about the girls, holding hands and following Mannig’s lead. The line circled the gurgling fountain and snaked from one end of the courtyard to the other.

  Romella cut into the chain of dancers and held Mannig’s hand. “It’s your lucky day!” she said, touching shoulder to shoulder. “One of those khatoons wants to shelter and feed you. You don’t have to sleep in the khan anymore.”

  Mannig wanted to screech with disbelief, but was short of breath. She panted, “Really?”

  “Let’s take a break.” Romella pulled her aside. She wiped Mannig’s face with her sleeve and finger-combed her hair. “Look at the khatoon in the shiny-striped tunic—she is rich and has many servants. But she wants someone small like you to do tiny chores. I promised to take you to her Qasr tomorrow.”

  Mannig held her breath. The attention Romella gave to her appearance felt more precious than her words. She imagined Mama touching her locks. The gesture was not only comforting and familial, but it was a luxury to experience one of non-essential aspects of being alive. “Will I stay with a family? Where? Can I come and see you?”

  “Of course, you can! I’m staying in this house. These people are good to me. I’m sure your khatoon will be the right person for you.”

  “Y’allah! Y’allah!” The covey of chirping females begged Mannig to return to the line and lead the dance.

  Romella belted Mannig’s baggy burlap dress with one of her own scarves. “Roots and leaves need not quell your hunger anymore, my jarbeeg-Mannig. Smartness brings luck. And you are jarbeeg. Now go and entertain them.”

  

  The next day, after telling Dikran of her good fortune, Mannig met Romella at her house. The two headed to the woman’s qasr, perched on the highest point of the city’s northern section. Built like a castle, with upper and lower domed courtyards, it surrounded an open patio flagged with white stone. I’m lucky, indeed. She glanced at Romella. She’s impressed, too.

  At the entry arcade, the door-maid greeted them in Arabic, “Salaam Aleykum,” and pointed Mannig to a tub to rinse the mud off her bare feet.

  “Speak only Arabic, here,” Romella warned, following the maid toward a tall, heavy sycamore door. “If you have anything to say to me, don’t speak Armenian. They’ll look at us with suspicion thinking we’re gossiping about them. Do you understand?”

  Mannig nodded.

  The maid pushed the door open onto a lower courtyard surrounded by a balcony. From the cast-iron railing of the gallery, black-eyed and long haired children stared at Mannig. Their gazes felt as cold as the geometrically laid stones under her feet, while the meaning of their silence was as obvious as the gurgling fountain. She marveled at the i
n-house cistern, potted poplar trees, yellow rose bushes, and orange geraniums. Is this paradise?

  The maid stopped at an ornately carved cedar door and, looking down the steps to the sunken area, sing-songed, “Y’abnayya is here.”

  The coarse Kurdish carpeted stairs pricked Mannig’s bare feet as they descended into a dim room. Turkish finely woven silk hangings of various sizes decorated the walls, and a glut of Persian rugs covered the floor. She held her breath and tightened her shoulders at the dark, weighty, chilly ambiance. How should I behave? She wanted Romella’s advice concerning appropriate decorum, but she knew she shouldn’t speak Armenian, and speaking Arabic would broadcast her ignorance.

  “Take a minder,” said the maid, pointing to paisley-cased pillows cushioning the carpet corners in riotous colors. Mannig waited for Romella before sitting down. Indeed, Haji-doo’s precept echoed in her head: “When a girl dies, the ground must approve; when alive, the public must. Sit on your legs and be civilized.”

  Mannig sank inside her baggy burlap dress. It tented her crossed legs and bodice, leaving her stick-thin arms exposed. Romella had stitched the armholes to smaller openings, and her fear of exposing her maturing breasts had vanished.

  A bulky curtain, coarsely woven with checkered designs of brown camel-down and spotted black goat-hair, divided the room in the center. The maid slid it to one side and anchored it to shiny brass rings on the wall. From the latticed windows, high up near the domed ceiling, sun rays streaked in and bounced off a golden tooth in the smiling mouth of an elderly face. I saw that glitter among the spectators in Romella’s house.

  The woman was sprawled amid the giant-sized minders, displaying the bottoms of her feet. How uncouth!

  “Let me look at Y’abnayya,” the mistress beckoned, waving wide-cuffed long sleeves—a style depicting the wearer’s scorn for labor.

  The maid pushed Mannig forward.

  She resisted the momentum several pillows away.

  “You say she’s ten or twelve?” the mistress jeered. “More like a thirty-year old creature.”

  “She is an Armeny orphan,” Romella said. “She is without a family and has suffered much.”

  “She will not suffer under my wings,” the mistress said, and waved at the maid. “Bring chai and kleecha cookies. Let’s put some life into her face.”

  The maid set the manqqala, a brazier filled with faintly glowing charcoal, by the bare feet of the mistress. She positioned the cobalt-glazed tea pot in the embers, placed the cookies and three clear glass cups on the circular copper-tray table and prepared to serve.

  “I’ll pour the chai,” the mistress said, pulling herself up and rolling her sleeve up to her elbow. She poured a glowing Ceylonese tea into the slender and handle-less glass cups.

  Mannig’s eyes riveted on the tea-serving routine.

  Unlike the beverage in a china cup in Adapazar, the crimson drink blushed in clear glasses. The mistress held a silver spoon and swirled sugar granules into each serving. The jingling of metal on glass tantalized Mannig; the smell of cloves made her mouth water; the ceremony induced a faux taste of days gone by.

  The mistress handed a saucer with a radiant glass of tea to Romella, and another to Mannig.

  The glowing warmth fulfilled all expectations.

  “This will comfort her flesh and the kleecha her stomach,” the mistress said to Romella. “Don’t fret over her. I shall see that she is well fed every day. She may even say the bread came from Allah.” She eyed Mannig with a chuckle. “What is your name Y’abnayya?”

  Bewildered in the midst of unfamiliar quarters, Mannig stayed silent, her eyes demurely cast down.

  “Your name, girl? Is your tongue as mousy as you, girl?” the mistress insisted, holding a cookie to Mannig. “Take this kleecha and speak up. So what is your name, Y’abnayya?”

  “Mannig,” she whispered, reaching for the cookie.

  “What?” The woman guffawed. Her smiling lips betrayed having already heard it correctly. “What did you say?”

  “Mannig.”

  The mistress broke into a side-splitting laughter, tears running past her golden tooth and dripping onto the quivering flesh of her neck. “I am glad I’m the only one to hear it.” She straightened up, pretending to be serious, but uttering her words between spurts of laughter. “Such a name will disgrace my son’s house. His wives live here, and my grandchildren live here. We cannot have anyone working for me named manyook.”

  “It’s Mannig, not manyook,” Mannig protested.

  “Mannig, manyook. They sound the same. That is a bad word and it refers to males; I forbid you to roam my house with such a name.”

  Mannig’s eyes pleaded.

  “I can’t understand how you Armenys survive in this town without learning proper Arabic,” the mistress sneered, “or how to articulate gender differences.”

  “She speaks good Arabic,” Romella defended Mannig. “She lived with the Bedouin before coming to Mosul. She spoke with them all the time. But she lacks knowledge of lewd words used in the streets or classy speech like yours.”

  “We use clean Arabic in this house,” the mistress said. “We will call you Y’abnayya. That means, ‘hey girl’. That’s that.” She picked up her glass of tea and signaled them to sip, also.

  I can endure a new name.

  But not the ravenous thirst for the tea. She gulped and scalded her mouth. If I spew it out, I may be discharged even before I get hired. She held the hot liquid, hoping no one noticed the tears in her eyes.

  “Mal’ooneh!” The mistress swore. “I see I have to teach her how to sip tea.” For the first time, she pulled her feet under her seat. “Watch me carefully, and you’ll never burn yourself again.” With great zest, she grabbed the rim of her glass cup with her thumb and forefinger, fanning out the other three digits. Then she held the saucer the same way and daintily poured the steaming tea into it. Between sloshing and blowing at the deep red liquid in the saucer to cool, she slurped a sip. Immediately after she replenished the saucer with more droplets.

  When Romella swallowed her final bite of kleecha and sipped the last drop of the tea, the mistress pulled colored candy from her robe pocket and gave her two handfuls. “We are settled now,” she said, signaling an end to the meeting. “I like Y’abnayya. She stays with me. You may come and see her as often as you like.”

  Romella embraced and patted Mannig. “I will visit you, soon.” She followed the maid out without glancing back.

  Mannig kept her seat, facing the mistress. With Romella gone, loneliness gripped her. Eeriness closed in, darkness drenched, and smells dulled her senses. What is my job? She remembered that the mistress intended “to take her under her wing.” But no one had spoken of her chores.

  

  Past the hours of sunset, the maid returned with a basket of cooked wheat kernels. The leafy fingers of the palm-frond basket held the tender, fluffy grains in a mound. She set it beside the manqqala of glowing coal.

  The mistress searched for her pocket amid the folds of her floral linen gown and again brought out some colored candy. She cast the sweet and sour drops of translucent yellow, green, and pink on the heap of puffy golden wheat and said, “Dip your hand and eat.” Then she reclined on her minder and, straightening her knees, once again exposed the bottoms of her feet.

  “Well, Y’abnayya,” she said, watching Mannig pick the last grain hidden in the recesses of the basket. “This is a treat just for you as long as you work for me. Did you like my son’s food earlier? You can eat a whole lot more while you live under the roof of his Qasr.”

  Mannig had joined the family for a lavish supper in a room opening into the courtyard. A white tablecloth, spread on the floor for the meal, reminded Mannig of the first time her family had gathered for a meal on the deportation route. Mama had flipped a bed sheet on the ground and explained, “We will have a picnic, like the Americans.” Did she mean like the Arabs?

  Unlike the scant nibbles on the deportation route,
the Qasr cooks displayed an array of several communal platters brimming with foodstuffs, scattered across the cloth. The smells of rosemary and sage dizzied Mannig as much as the display of heaping serving dishes dazzled her. Not even Adapazar claimed this many specialties. She crouched in a circle with fourteen other children, ages two to sixteen, boys and girls of one father and four different mothers. Supper time gathered the Qasr families who dwelt in separate compartments to eat their meal collectively.

  Emulating the others, Mannig broke off a chunk of the flat bread and dipped into the platter of roasted eggplant sloshing in a stew of tomatoes, onions, and sage. She gulped several bites until the rosemary aroma wafted from the platter of garbanzo and lamb stew. She stuffed herself until her stomach brimmed. She eyed the leftover food. Vye! Wish I could run with them to the khan for Dikran. She missed him and hoped he traded the daily dung for a bite of bread from the baker.

  Darkness trickled in and the sky domed the courtyard with a plethora of stars. The children retreated with their mothers to their own compartments on the upper veranda, and then gradually the lanterns in the rooms were blown out. The blue of the horizon deepened into a distant black, becoming as aloof as Mannig’s grasp of her worth—no one had assigned her chores or a place to sleep. Earlier a woman had scrubbed her clean and dressed her in a blue gown. While she prized the soft floral cloth caressing her skin, she insisted on keeping her burlap dress—its smell reminded her of Dikran and its tawny color, the khan. She roamed in the courtyard at will throughout the day. No one informed her of her duties or asked her to dance. Surely, the mistress wanted me to entertain the children. Of course the Qasr dwellers would join her theatrics. She wiggled her hips. They’ll want to adopt me. She assumed her performance would exhilarate everyone. But when? The deep hour of the night engulfed everything and her full stomach induced drowsiness.