An hour later, Mairig emerges from her cocoon, trembling fingers picking at the cross at her neck. “Don’t go,” she tells him, but Hairig is already kissing each child on the forehead. He is dressed in his finest three-piece suit, his brushed fez sitting at an angle on his head. He whispers something into Bedros’s ear but says nothing else. Nothing about the dyeing of the wool in his absence, nothing about provisions, nothing about future plans, nothing to his daughters or his dumbstruck wife.
At daybreak, Mairig is still sitting at the oak table with a bowl of lamb stew warmed up thrice over. When she finally notices her daughters standing at the doorway, she rises. Walking past them, she says, “Don’t cut Bedros’s hair. Promise me.”
CHAPTER 9
Under the Mulberry Tree
THE NEXT MORNING, Mairig’s headache disappears, along with her evening robe. The cream-colored Easter frock she dons makes her look like a china doll meant for preening. But Mairig wears it to prepare the oxcart.
“I want everything ready for when your father gets back,” she says, her voice cheery.
The Armenian families of Karod are all preparing their oxcarts for what the authorities call relocation. They push the rumors of mass graves along the routes out of their heads and prepare for survival. The Melkonian wagon is nicer than all the others, with a proper door that swings outward, tiny mustard-colored tassels hanging from the window openings, and a brown velvet cushion in the front for Firat, the Turkish coachman Mairig manages to hire. She pulls a wire frame along the back, over which Anush places a blue comforter for privacy and to keep out the wind. They lay two wool mattresses in the bed of the wagon for warmth. Over these, they place a steamer rug with soapstone, a hot-water bottle, and enough food for a few days. Everything else must fit in the foot-and-a-half space between Firat and the wagon. The suitcases and provisions are piled one on top of the other until they form a wall between the coachman and his wares. Lucine places a sack of dried figs in the back, wondering how long the makeshift cushions in this springless wagon will serve as a source of comfort.
The memory of Kemal’s hand on Lucine’s cheek presses itself upon her again and again. Each time she pushes it away, it surfaces back up pounding at her chest.
“That’s enough,” Mairig says finally. “The rest we can do when your father gets back.” Lucine does not ask her when exactly that will be.
“Now get your things ready for the bath,” Mairig adds.
“Do I have to go?” asks Lucine. “I don’t want to walk all the way across town just to sit in the bathhouse with all those giggling naked girls and women.”
“No one will be giggling,” says Mairig.
“Is it safe to be walking about freely across town?” Lucine asks, appealing to Mairig’s fears.
“Don’t be ridiculous,” says Mairig. “It is Wednesday, our bath day. There is no law against bathing. We may be on the road for days.”
Mairig and the girls make their way down a wide, unpaved road that winds through the Armenian quarter past the two-story houses, the great domed church, narrowing at every turn, so that by the time Mairig and the girls approach the market, it is only as wide as a single cart.
Lucine tries not to dwell on the gawking villagers. Mairig lifts the hem of her cream-colored dress and walks before her daughters with her back straight. No one dares to approach her, although the cobbler’s apprentice sneers as they pass by. Lucine pretends not to hear the word gavur, infidel, slip past his lips. She tries to keep her head down as she follows Mairig. She adjusts the linen bundle carrying the necessities of their bath on her shoulder. For the first time ever, Lucine longs for a head scarf. The bonnets that shield them from the blazing midday sun do nothing for the suspicious glares of their Muslim neighbors. They scream “Christian” to anyone who looks their way.
“Why are we walking toward the market?” says Anush.
“I have to see the midwife before we go,” Mairig answers.
“What for?” asks Lucine.
“I need her to keep something safe for me,” says Mairig.
“Why not give it to the reverend’s wife?” asks Anush.
“Because Iola is Greek and not Armenian,” Mairig explains, exasperated. “What’s more, she is a midwife. No one will dare touch a hair on her head if they know what’s good for their wives and daughters.”
“Why not give it to Miss Graffam?” asks Lucine.
“Because the school is too far. We cannot risk it,” says Mairig.
The market is a porous borderland between the Christians and the rest of Sivas. Here all kinds of different people trade goods and words. They forge acquaintances, rivalries, and sometimes friendships. Yet it is not the kind of place for the likes of Mairig, who has always relied on a servant to do her shopping.