Lucine watches the turbaned gendarme nudge the old man with the butt of his rifle. The apothecary’s father is old and frail. He has endured more misery in the last few days than in all his other days combined. Still, he has his grandchild to consider. The old man picks up his pace, but this only heightens his exhaustion. He collapses onto his palms and knees, a four-legged animal wheezing and gulping in air.
The gendarme looks impatient. He too is on foot, enduring the heat and exhaustion, far away from the glory of battle, doing shepherd’s work.
“Get up.” His voice is angrier than before. He takes this opportunity to adjust the makeshift turban, unfolding and refolding it tighter around his head. This is when Lucine realizes that it is not a shirt at all but the coveted apothecary’s coat.
The old man stays down, still wheezing.
“Fine, stay then,” he says. He picks up his weapon and lodges a single bullet into the old man’s back. The sound stops everyone. The old man’s wife screams in protest. “Aman Asdvaz eem! My God.” She hobbles back toward him, but the officer on horseback gets there first.
“Mee nayeek, don’t look,” orders Mairig, but Lucine climbs out of the wagon anyway. It is the first time she has witnessed a murder. Her eyes go from the old man’s splayed body, to the assassin’s face, above which the crumpled white coat of the apothecary sits like a crown.
The officer dismounts his horse, calling the turbaned gendarme to attention. He stands erect, just like he did in his saddle, a full head taller than his subordinate.
“You idiot,” he barks. Spit flies out of his neat mustache and lands on the nose of the turbaned one. “Who told you to waste a bullet on this dog when we have so few? Next time use this,” the officer says, grabbing the gendarme’s bayonet and shoving him with it.
The old man lies facedown, staining the grass with his blood. The apothecary’s mother falls to her knees beside her husband. The officer ignores her and remounts his horse.
“Keep walking, all of you,” he shouts to the spectators.
They leave the old man face down in his open grave, his left ear and cheek pressed to the earth, listening for God’s apology.
“Where is your Christian god now?” the turbaned assassin shouts. Lucine thinks it is a good question. Not one person answers him. Not Mairig and not the missionary. Perhaps they sense what Lucine already knows, that if God is indeed anywhere, he is not here.
Farther down the road, with the memory of the old man’s murder festering like an open wound, the deportees come to a company of old women, from the town of Tokat. They say they have been without food or water for three days. Robbed of everything, their bare feet weeping pus, they beg to join the caravan from Sivas. The gendarmes agree, but only after a bribe is conferred by the butcher Berberian, who seems to be carrying more than just sausages in those sacks. But after what they have just witnessed with the old man, the group sees that the price of an Armenian life is not negotiable. The Tokat women speak of a valley nearby filled entirely with corpses and point to a flock of birds circling above. They think nothing of crouching before a pile of ox excrement and picking at the visible grains. Lucine wonders if the bread they are given is an act of charity or just a clever way of stopping their mouths.
She walks slowly, keeping her eyes lowered to the dry earth. Determined to ignore the moaning and shuffling sounds of the company, Lucine focuses on her shoes instead. They are sturdy shoes, with leather soles she knows will take her far. She can depend on them like she can depend on little else. Her eyes rest on the scuff of her right toe, where the soft brown leather is stripped, exposing a lighter, more vulnerable layer.
But the shoes, her own and everyone else’s, are a comfort. Brown, black, heeled, and flat with an occasional sturdy boot—all proceed before her. Constant, tangible and oh so reassuring, less worn than their spirits and limbs. If she keeps her vision focused on just this one article of clothing, Lucine can pretend to ignore the fear that creeps up and overwhelms her.