The gendarme’s boot grazes Lucine’s calf. He lifts her skirt and rips the bloomers off her backside. Exposed, prostrate, she is too shocked to cry. A bead of water or sweat from above drips down her back. Dear God. A prayer bubbles to the surface, but she bites her lip. She will not plead with him. Not with God and not with this bastard. She has never been more afraid. She closes her eyes.
He places his hands on her hips and pulls them to him. But something stops him. Lucine hears a loud thud, like the sound of an empty bucket falling in a deep well. He collapses on top of her, his heavy breathing stopped. She bears the dead weight of his head and torso to protect Aram who is trapped underneath. He slips off her back, and his body lands, like a sack of bulgur, on the ground beside her. From his slack-jawed face a pair of startled eyes stare back at her. When she looks back, Bedros is standing there, a large rock in his hand. Without dropping it, he extends his other hand out to her. It is the same little hand she’s been holding all along. She weeps but says nothing.
They walk swiftly, side by side. Lucine wraps the sleeping Aram in his blue swaddling cloth and places him on her back. Empowered by fear, arms swinging, she takes one long stride after another, still holding her brother’s hand. As they walk away from the river and toward the mountains, her eyes and ears scan the earth for predators, soldiers, villagers, anything that may come between them and survival.
CHAPTER 22
Eagle Eye
SOMETHING ABOUT THE tip of the gun embarrasses Kemal, makes him want to cover it up or stand in front of it. Perhaps it is the sharp bayonet poking out at the very end. Kemal knows he is blessed to have it. There are rumors that soldiers all over the empire are without guns. Still, if he could get rid of that bayonet at the end, he would. The other trainees lunge forward, thrusting their bayonets into imaginary abdomens. They whirl like dervishes and strike down hard on the rifle with their left hand, pretending to disembowel their victims.
Only Tekin, the burly one, does not practice. He sits nearby, his uniform straining against the bulk of his body, whittling away at what looks like a small piece of pinewood. Kemal does his own lame dance with the bayonet at a safe distance from the rest of the division before sitting down not far from Tekin. He takes Lucine’s handkerchief from his breast pocket and presses it to his nose, letting her lavender smell wash over him. It has been a constant companion, this little pale blue kerchief consecrated with his blood, a reminder of the wound that led him here. He strains his neck toward Tekin, trying to recognize the shape emerging between the man’s fingers.
“A finch,” says Tekin, his steel-gray eyes glued to the pine and blade. It’s the same blade he uses to trim his beard. He is easily a foot taller than all the rest, and much broader, so gets to do as he wants. The perpetual scowl he wears on his face contradicts the smooth, broad brow and straight nose that would otherwise render him handsome. Kemal wonders if Lucine would refuse a specimen of manhood such as Tekin, before remembering that he hasn’t got a last name either.
“For my son,” Tekin says.
Kemal nods, embarrassed of his thoughts. “Sorry. Didn’t mean to pry,” he says.
“Damn eunuch,” Tekin says.
“Pardon?” asks Kemal.
“You heard me,” he says. He stops whittling and turns his eyes to Kemal. “If you’re going to apologize every time you fart, burp, or try to kill someone, you’re just as worthless as the rest of them.” He nods to the group of men dancing with their bayonets.
Sorry, Kemal thinks. “Are you a professional soldier?” he asks.
“No, I’m a professional survivor,” says Tekin. “Now if you’ll fuck off, I’ve got some whittling to do.”
Kemal wonders how much of the man’s temperament is due to hunger. It has been almost two days since their last ration. Even then, there was only one wagon of food for the 370 trainees. Nurredin Pasha, the officer in charge of their training and transport, is constantly promising more bread, but the mess hall is more or less empty.
When he was first conscripted, Kemal had only his despair to keep him company. He imagined the army would be a haven of adventure and sport. It would pick him up like a gust of wind and throw him to the four corners of the empire. But mostly he hoped it would erase her from his memory and transform him into something new and unrecognizable. At first, it didn’t disappoint.