Lucine bites her lower lip to keep from speaking. With Mairig in bed and Uncle Nazareth gone, there is no one to reason with Hairig. “Uncle Nazareth would tell us to leave,” she says finally.
“Your uncle is not here and we have seen where his ideas got him,” says Hairig. “I’m afraid your lessons at the American school will have to be postponed. I will send a note to Miss Graffam.”
“No.” It’s out before she can retract it, but the idea of giving up her lessons and waiting indoors for the gendarmes to come back is too much. “Miss Graffam will help us. We can go to France or England. Mairig speaks French and my English is improving,” Lucine begs, but Hairig’s eyes are still focused on the thick mud of his coffee cup.
“Men and women of God do not represent their governments, Lucine,” he says.
“I’m not staying in this house and hiding,” Lucine says. “For what? What exactly are we waiting for anyway? We should try to find Uncle Nazareth. We could leave now, before it’s too late.”
“Lucine, be quiet.” It is Anush, the keeper of all things pretty and fair and normal.
“No, I will not be quiet. And what do you know? You’ve got your nose so far into your dowry chest, you can’t see what is happening right in front of you.”
“That’s not true!”
“It is true, Anush. Why do you think Father Sahag was killed like a dog in the street? Or Professor Fenjian was running in the streets stark naked a few nights ago? Huh?”
On New Year’s Day, Father Sahag, the thirty-eight-year-old vicar, was driving toward his home town, in Sivas Province, when he was murdered by Halil Bey and his cete forces, men who only weeks ago were incarcerated criminals. There was no time to dwell on this or any other event because within days the authorities began their “interrogations.” Professor Fenjian, the mathematician from Roger’s College, returned from the questioning naked, except for a black sock strategically placed on his genitals, blowing in the breeze. Soon families all over Sivas were grieving the loss of their young men, conscripted into the army, arrested under suspicion, or simply gone missing.
“Stop it!” Anush screams.
“Enough!” Hairig pounds his fist on the table, tipping the delicate Parisian cup and startling the baby who’s still waiting for milk.
Lucine propels herself away from the table. She hurries in the direction of the stable where Uncle Nazareth’s horse awaits.
CHAPTER 7
Red River
KEMAL MOVES SLOWLY, careful not to wake anyone. At eighteen, he is tall and lanky for an Anatolian and therefore moves cautiously, almost apologetically through the world. He does not fold his bedding and store it in the low compartments of the sedir, as he usually does. Instead he looks around the solitary room and tries to absorb this rare moment of peace in the house. His grandmother lies sleeping on her straw mat in the left corner of the room, her broad back turned to the rest of the house. Wrapped in a shawl woven by her own hand, she lies at the foot of a mighty wooden loom. Bundles of yarn form a rainbow at the very top and strands of turquoise and saffron-colored wool weave in and out of one another, cascading at her chapped feet. She placed her bedding in this spot a few weeks ago, soon after the arrival of Emineh, his father’s new wife. Emineh lies in the opposite corner, on the right side of the house, where the family stores its foodstuffs. She huddles behind a small collection of flour sacks and bulgur barrels, carefully arranged to protect herself from his grandmother’s wrath.
His father sleeps in the center of the room where a seven-foot post holds the ceiling up. His wooden leg is propped nearby, at a safe distance from the tonir, the sunken circular oven around which they eat all their meals. In more peaceful days, when his mother had been alive, they would crowd around its glowing embers, cracking seeds and telling stories before falling asleep.