“I’m surprised you haven’t got your nose in a book.”
“I’m not allowed to go to school, remember?” Lucine holds the tiny volume low so it remains hidden under the table.
“It never stopped you before.”
“There are people disappearing out there, Anush. The priest has lost his mind, and Mairig refuses to leave her room.” And Kemal has stroked my cheek, she almost adds. “How would you have me react?”
“Well, you can stop sulking, for one thing. There’s no need to be walking around like you’ve got a noose around your neck. You’re scaring Bedros.”
“She is not.” Bedros materializes from behind a bulgur barrel. The sight of him, disheveled and dirty, makes the sisters forget their differences. It is clear that despite their best efforts, the child suffers.
“Your pants are falling off your hips,” Anush tells him.
Bedros shrugs.
“Come on.” Lucine places the volume in the pocket of her apron and puts an arm around his shoulders. “Let’s go take your pants in.”
She arranges four Easter cookies in front of him, two plain and two with walnuts, while she works on his trousers. “You need to eat more, Bedros,” she chides gently. “It will make you big and strong.”
The boy nods, his mouth full of sweet dough. “When is Mairig coming out of her room?” he asks.
“Soon. Maybe today. Tomorrow the latest,” Lucine says, dragging the needle back toward her. The truth is she has no idea when her mother will resurface.
Just then the sound of the town crier comes floating through the window, stopping her hand.
“All Armenian men between the ages of twenty and sixty must report to a town meeting. Town meeting at the square. Seven thirty tonight! The rest of you start preparing for relocation. Each family will be given one oxcart for their possessions. Take only what you need.”
He shouts at the top of his lungs, repeating the phrases over and over again, until finally he goes hoarse. Bedros, who is only ten and shouldn’t quite understand the meaning of any of this, lowers his chin to his chest. Lucine stands up without a word, dropping his trousers at her feet, and goes looking for Hairig. Surely now he will take action. She finds him standing outside their chicken coop, huddled with several other Armenian men from the village.
“We were better off under the sultan,” says Gevork the apothecary.
“Nonsense,” says Hairig. “The Young Turks have established a constitutional monarchy.”
“Don’t be naive, Hagop,” says Arzrouni the blacksmith. “They are more like a dictatorship, always preaching about expansion, about Turkey being a great land united by language and religion. Where does that leave us?”
“There is nothing we can do but show up,” says Gevork the apothecary. He is still wearing the silly white coat he ordered from England, the one meant to give him the authority of a Western doctor.
“No,” says Arzrouni. “We need to flee at once. There are men in the mountains who will help us.”
“What men?” her father interrupts.
“Murad the Brave and his men,” someone answers.
“Murad and his like are revolutionaries,” says Hairig. “Fighting the Ottoman army with a handful of guns is tantamount to mass suicide. That’s exactly why they don’t trust us. Violence only invites more violence. We need to show them we are loyal subjects of the empire.”
“Loyal subjects are not removed from their homes and deported,” says Arzrouni.
“It is only a temporary relocation,” says Hairig. “I say we go peacefully so that we can return to our homes when the war is over.”
Their hushed tones and gesturing hands remind Lucine of the few remaining chickens trapped in the coop. But it is their eyes that scare her the most. In them, she sees a paralyzing and all-consuming fear. This is what Hairig means about being like a river.
Lucine turns on her heels and walks toward the house. She takes the stairs two at a time, gaining momentum, until she swings Mairig’s bedroom door open.
“You have to get up now,” she says to the ghost of her mother, pulling the covers up and back. “They want to take Hairig.”
“Take him? Where?” asks Mairig.
“They’ve called a meeting. He will go. You know he will go. It’s time for you to get up.”
“He can’t go. What will we do without him?”
“Get up. Please, Mairig.”