Authors: Martine Madden
Anyush (8 page)
A
nyush didn’t want to dance. The pairing was the part of the day she had been dreading and had hoped to avoid. But when the duduk player stepped forward and announced the tamzara, Sosi pulled her onto the dancing ground after her. A hiss of excitement rippled through the crowd. For the tamzara unmarried men and women could mix and this was what Husik Tashjian had been waiting for. On one side, Anyush stood with Sosi, Havat and the other single girls, and, on the other, Vardan lined up with the two Stewart boys, Bedros from the hospital and Husik.
‘Stop frowning, Anyush,’ Sosi whispered. ‘It’ll be fun.’
Bedros smiled shyly at Anyush, and the trapper glowered at the young doctor. Anyush ignored them both.
‘Really, Sosi… I don’t want to.’
Gripping her friend by the hand, Sosi held her on one side and Havat on the other. The opening notes of the dance were played, and Husik made to push up the line opposite Anyush, but somebody else got there first.
‘You’ll have to teach me,’ the captain said. ‘And I must warn you my dancing is a little rusty.’
Anyush’s mouth fell open and everybody grew silent. The musicians
stopped playing and Meraijan gripped the arms of his chair. Parzik’s face was frozen, and some of the women blessed themselves. Anyush stood in the line, her gaze fixed rigidly ahead. The wedding cloths flapped in the breeze and the seabirds wheeled closer to the food. Finally, Arshen Nalbandian took matters into his own hands. He put the duduk to his mouth and began to play again. As the strains of the tamzara drifted across the square, the dancers took up their positions. The music had a heavy, circular rhythm, repeating over and over as the dancers linked arms. To each beat they bent their knees and then straightened, leaned forward and then straightened again while stamping their feet and turning on their heels. The soldier’s arm gripped Anyush’s, but she refused to catch his eye. Nobody looked at anybody else, and only the captain seemed unaware of the atmosphere he had created. He fooled around and danced like a donkey as though he was completely alone. Whenever the others leaned forward, he leaned back, and as the entire line bent their knees he straightened his. Havat giggled as he tried to turn and bumped into Sosi and stood on the toes of the dancers opposite him. People began to smile. His dancing, if anything, was getting worse. They laughed as he pulled this way and that, throwing everybody out of line and deliberately making a fool of himself. After what seemed like an age, the music stopped and the dance came to an end. The captain bowed, Anyush nodded curtly, and they walked to opposite sides of the square as the musicians tuned up for the next dance.
It was to be performed by the village girls but Anyush would not take part. She had retreated to the shade with her grandmother to recover from her ordeal. The dance had only begun when the gendarmes made their move. The square was suddenly full of them, walking quickly towards the wedding party. They descended, guns drawn, on the table where the bride and groom and other family members were sitting. The leader of the group, a short, ginger-haired man, singled out Vardan’s father.
‘Mislav Aykanian … by the authority of the Empire and the Committee of Union and Progress you are under arrest for treason.’
Two gendarmes moved either side of the old man and lifted him bodily from the chair.
‘What? Wait … what are you doing?’ Vardan pushed past his bride to where his father was being dragged from the table. ‘That’s my father … he hasn’t done anything.’
‘He’s guilty of treason,’ the gendarme said.
‘Treason? No!’
‘Rifles, bayonets and two rounds of ammunition were found on his farm.’
‘We have no rifles. This is a mistake. My father owns nothing except hay forks and shovels. He’s never held a rifle in his life.’
‘Stand back or I’ll arrest you too.’
The old man hung limply between the hands that held him, his eyes wide with fear.
‘Take me,’ Vardan said. ‘Arrest me. It’s my farm too.’
The ginger-haired gendarme moved his face close to Vardan’s.
‘You have a job to finish on the police barracks. But don’t worry, when the time is right we’ll come looking.’
They marched away, half dragging the old man as Vardan ran after them.
‘He’s innocent. Where are you taking him? He’s innocent I swear!’
Dr Stewart caught Vardan by the arm.
‘There’s nothing you can do right now. Let me talk to them. We’ll find out where they have taken him and decide what to do from there.’
The square was eerily quiet. Anyush looked at Parzik. She was standing behind her husband, her face white with shock. Vardan had slumped into a chair, his head in his hands, weeping. Everything was in disarray. People looked helplessly at each other, not knowing what to do. Dr Stewart
whispered something to his wife and then followed the gendarmes along the street. On the opposite side of the square, a laneway led down to the river and Anyush saw the captain and his lieutenant disappearing into it. Without thinking, she ran after them.
‘
Efendim
!’ she called. ‘Captain Orfalea!’
Both men turned around. The alley was dark and rank and not the place for a girl to be alone with Turkish soldiers.
‘
Efendim
, may I speak with you?’
‘Go on ahead,’ the captain said to the lieutenant. ‘I’ll follow.’
‘It’s old man Aykanian,’ Anyush said, struggling to find the right words. ‘The groom’s father … they’ve arrested him.’
‘Yes, I was watching.’
‘They won’t say where they’re bringing him, but it must be somewhere outside the village. It would mean a lot to … to Vardan and the family if you could find out where they have taken him.’
‘I can’t interfere with local policing.’
‘You have authority,
efendim
. More than any Armenian.’
‘We have no influence over the gendarmes. They are completely independent of us.’
‘You are someone they would respect,
bayim
.’
He shook his head and sighed. ‘We do occasionally hear things but I can’t promise you anything. I’ll keep my ears open. It’s the best I can do.’
‘Thank you,
efendim
. I am in your debt.’
‘Somehow I doubt that. Meet me in the ruined church in two days. Same time as before.’
She nodded and ran back to the square, hoping nobody had realised she was gone.
Diary of Dr Charles Stewart
Mushar
Trebizond
April 27th, 1915
I went to see the Vali in Trebizond today. It is Bairam, the Muslim feast day, so there is a better chance of catching him in a favourable mood. The gendarmes who arrested Mislav on the day of the wedding would give me no information about the old man, only that he was to be tried for treason, which leaves me no option but to appeal to the governor himself.
Since our first meeting that day on the quayside at Trebizond, the Vali and I have become friends. I have been summoned to the mansion at all hours of the day and night to tend to his bad teeth and, as I come through the walled garden, I hear him bellowing like a bull and cursing the giaour who takes so long to arrive. When he sees me at the gate, he becomes meek as a lamb, opening his mouth wide and begging me to pull out the rotten tooth. Once it is extracted and oil of clove administered, I am usually invited to join him for supper or breakfast, or whichever meal he feels he is at the lack of.
Despite outward appearances, the Vali is intelligent and well educated, a man who generally deals fairly with his subjects but can be capricious and ill-tempered. Remaining in his fickle favour is crucial to the smooth running of the hospital and is one of the reasons I am willing to ride for three hours in the middle of the night to look into his mouth. The Vali pays handsomely but also in kind. Disputes with the gendarmes are settled, permits come through relatively quickly and many other favours are granted to me. It takes only a discreet word and the problem magically disappears. The Vali is my lucky card, my ace to trump the many frustrations of living in the Empire. So I rode to Trebizond in an optimistic mood.
I arrived just as the cannon-fire announced that
namaz
, the morning prayers,
were over and the Vali was ready to receive. In the great hall, I was ushered past the crowd waiting for an audience and brought to the Vali’s private quarters. He was seated at a low table finishing his morning meal.
‘Stippet, my friend,’ he said. ‘
Selamın Aleyküm
.’
‘
Aleyküm Selam
.’
‘Did I send for you? I did not think I sent for you. My new tooth is good. See.’
We discussed his new denture, which I had fitted on my last visit, before I mentioned that I was looking for a favour. He wagged his finger at me. ‘Stippet, you are looking to build again.’
I told him I had come about another matter and described the events of Vardan’s wedding day. At first, I thought I was imagining it, but then I realised there was a subtle but definite dimming in the brilliance of the Vali’s smile. ‘Aykanian is old and feeble,’ I said, begging for clemency, ‘just an ordinary farmer.’
But the Vali didn’t appear to be listening. He was playing with the ring on his hand, as though he had never noticed it there before. ‘If the gendarmes found rifles in his barn, then why should I think he is innocent?’ he asked.
‘Because I can vouch for him.’
‘Your word means much in Trebizond, my friend, but there are favours even I cannot grant.’
In all my time in the Empire I had never been refused before, so I decided to try a change of tactics. I told the Vali I knew he had the ear of the Sultan and wondered if there was another avenue of appeal I could pursue?
He regarded me coldly, then rearranged his expression into one of sorrowful regret. ‘Stippet, my friend, in certain cases where the Jendarma and the army are concerned I cannot interfere. Their orders come directly from Constantinople. Not from the Sultan but from the CUP. Now if this man was a Turk or caught stealing chickens perhaps I could do more.’
I should have guessed that the old Armenian question was at the bottom of this. The smallest whiff of sedition and Aykanian will be in real trouble. Of course, I
have no way of knowing what the old man and his son are really involved in. The villagers are tribal and who knows where their allegiance lies?
The Vali pushed back his chair and his servant opened the door behind him.
‘Come back, my friend, when you are building your new wing.’
A
nyush arrived long before the captain. Sitting inside the ruin, she had shelter from the wind and a view of the entire beach. In the days since the wedding nothing had been heard about old man Aykanian, and Parzik and Vardan were distraught. Dr Stewart and Meraijan Assadourian had approached the gendarmes for news of the old man’s whereabouts but had been told nothing. Nobody seemed to have anything to say about Mislav Aykanian.
Deep in thought, Anyush hadn’t noticed the captain standing in the doorway. At the sight of him her mouth went dry.
‘I have news,’ he said, coming inside. ‘But not what you’d like to hear.’
In the dim light of the old ruin, Anyush felt cornered, cut off from the brightness outside. The ruin was too remote and she wished she had not gone so far in.
‘They’ve taken him to Trebizond. To the city jail. It seems someone has spoken against him.’
‘An informer?’
‘Someone from the village. The gendarmes were acting on a tip-off. They were told to look for rifles and ammunition, and they found them under the floor of the hay barn.’
‘The only weapon Aykanian possesses is a sharp tongue.’
‘Well, it has made him enemies.’
‘No one in the village would betray him. Someone must have put those rifles there.’
‘What about his son … the groom? Who’s to say he’s not working for the Russians?’
‘Vardan only works at the shine on his boots.’
The captain laughed, the sound unnaturally loud in the circular space. He leaned against the wall, catching her glance towards the doorway.
‘So the groom’s a peacock then?’
‘He’s a farmer.’
‘The perfect cover.’
‘It wasn’t Vardan. He didn’t put rifles in the barn.’
In the silence that followed, the captain’s eyes never left Anyush’s face. They took liberties, those eyes, and she felt vulnerable and afraid. How had she thought it was safe to come here? To be alone with a Turkish officer? Deciding to bolt for the door, she took a quick step towards it.
‘Not so fast!’ He blocked her with his arm. ‘How do you know my name?’
‘You were talking to the lieutenant,’ she said. ‘I overheard you. He called you Captain Orfalea.’
‘Jahan. My name is Jahan.’
The sun had dipped in the sky, and there was now very little light inside the church. Only the soldier’s outline was visible in the halo of light behind him.
‘You haven’t been to the beach,’ he said. ‘I haven’t seen you there.’
‘Am I being watched?’
‘Of course not, but I was concerned. That I had made life difficult for you.’
‘No more difficult than dancing with a Turkish soldier.’
He threw back his head and laughed. ‘That
did
make you squirm but it was worth it to see the look on your face.’
‘In our village everything follows tradition, captain. There is no tradition I know of where soldiers flirt with village girls in full view of the elders. Especially one who dances as badly as you do.’
He smiled apologetically. ‘Mademoiselle … Anyush … if I ever have the honour of dancing with you again, I promise you will see a noticeable improvement.’
He dropped his arm and let her pass outside.