Yes, to whom? wonders Lucine.
“Armen Haritunian, from Kharpert,” Mairig answers, pressing the cross further into her skin.
Armen was a young suitor whose nose was so far up in the air that Uncle Nazareth took it upon himself to put laxatives in his lokma. The sounds that came out of his rear as he scurried out the door were enough to dissuade Anush from the match. The name of Armen Haritunian is always followed by peals of laughter in the family.
“I see. Well, I may be able to hide Anush and Lucine. Temporarily, of course, until things settle down.”
His words sting Lucine to the core. She tightens her grip on Bedros’s branch, wishing it were made of steel. Mairig must be shocked at the offer too, because she drops the tray of pastries she is about to serve. Bits of flakey dough and sugared walnuts scatter across the rug. Aram squeals with delight on her hip.
Mairig’s eyes trace the path where her pastries have fallen. After a long silence, she shakes her head. “I’m sorry,” she says. “It’s a generous offer. I know aiding an Armenian is punishable by death and I thank you, but I don’t think I can bear to leave anyone behind.”
The governor nods, tucks his worry beads into his sleeve, and rises.
“I will look after your property until you return. Until then, may Allah be with you.”
FOR SOMEONE WHO doesn’t want to leave, Mairig moves in a frenzy. She goes from room to room, fussing over their things. She puts things inside the oxcart, then takes them out again. She has Anush and Lucine sew secret pouches into their clothing where they tuck lira, coins, and jewelry. Everything else, they will leave behind. All their treasures—the Oriental rug with red silk, the silver trays that were part of Mairig’s dowry, and the dozens of books that made up the library—will be abandoned. Bedros’s job is to bury some of these in the courtyard.
Mairig tucks the deed to the house inside one of Hairig’s history books and asks Bedros to bury it separately. Lucine helps Bedros pick a spot in a deep but small hole under the mulberry tree where their father likes to sit. She wonders if Hairig will ever read under that tree again and if anything will ever be as it once was.
All this preparing feels useful until Lucine remembers what they’re preparing for. She thinks of the chicken women wringing their hands, and the panicked look on the men’s faces when they were called to the so-called meeting. She is still pondering this point when Mairig calls everyone into the sitting room. She kneels before them, holding on to Bedros’s hand.
“Listen carefully,” she says. “God willing, we will be back in a few short weeks, but life is unpredictable. We may not return again for a long while. I want each of you to take one thing that will remind you of this place, this house, and our lives here. It should be a small thing. Something you can hide. Something nobody can take away from you.”
For herself, Mairig takes her New Testament, the one she reads from every morning, the one that can sometimes give her strength and get her out of her dark moods. Anush runs to her dowry chest, where she and Mairig have been collecting rare silks, tablecloths, silver trays, and jewels. She returns holding a small brooch with a large red stone the size of a pea in the center. It isn’t the most valuable one she owns, but it belonged to their grandmother and so it is a good choice.
Lucine stands before what is left of their library, its shelves stripped of books deemed revolutionary or nationalistic. The gaps between the volumes like missing teeth. Hairig’s collection punched in the mouth. Silenced. Even the poetry books are missing. Somehow Varoujan’s collection with “The Longing Letter” remains exactly where Hairig left it a few days ago. Lucine quickly leafs through the trapped words before slipping Kemal’s drawing between the pages and sliding it under her clothing.
As for Bedros, he knows exactly what to take. Weeks ago, when the gendarmes barged into the house looking for weapons and other “revolutionary materials,” Mairig was beside herself trying to produce anything that would fit that description. In the end, she gave them Uncle Nazareth’s dagger, all the kitchen knives, and Hairig’s copy of The Broken Lute by Tevfik Fikret. She intended to include Bedros’s slingshot for good measure, but he wailed and screamed until she relented. Victorious, he has been sleeping with the slingshot under his pillow ever since.
Lucine spots it tucked at the cradle of his back.
She holds out a pair of pants carefully lined with pockets of gold. “Try these on, will you?”
“What for?” he asks.
“I want to see if the coins will jingle when you walk.”
“I’m not going anywhere,” he says. “I’m not leaving Hairig to rot in that prison.”