“You need a Turkish name,” she says. “From now on you will answer to Seda. It means ‘echo,’ so that you may find your voice again.”
Lucine chews the pair of unfamiliar syllables in between her teeth and in the space between the roof of her mouth and the tip of her tongue. The name, like her silence, is comforting. It allows her to disappear from a world where children die and mothers lose their minds, where the sun continues to climb the sky and the rooster’s screech still grates against morning sleep. And for this and only this, she is most grateful. Everything else, from the head scarf to the breath going in and out of her lungs, is unwanted. All these she would gladly give back, but the name is different. The name she keeps, along with her silence.
She follows Fatma into the moonlit night. They walk out of the orchard that housed the shed, and past a field, then into a courtyard. A boy, only a few years older than Bedros, is lying on the floor with nothing but a yorgan to keep him warm.
“That is Ahmet,” says Fatma. “He takes care of the animals of our guests.” The boy looks at her without turning his head. His eyes are dull like an old man’s.
The khan is a dark building made of stone and timber. Fatma walks around the main entrance and leads her to a small room in the back of the building.
“This is where you will spend your days, ” she says, opening the little door. The lilt in her accent reveals that she is Kurdish. “Through that door is the main chamber, where the men eat their meals and drink their raki. You must never go into that room. They can’t know you are here. I’m risking my life by keeping you here. Understand?”
Seda understands. They are the soldiers, the ones who mix suffering with sport. The Kurdish woman could be hanged for helping her. The room is no bigger than a closet. A tonir, just like Mairig’s, sits at the center of the floor, except its open mouth threatens to swallow her whole. There is a small wooden table and a single chair facing a paneless window that looks more like a hole than a proper opening. Under the table is a wooden crate. It holds two knives, a ladle, four pots of varying sizes, and clay jars of pickled cabbage. Sacks of wheat, rice, and bulgur lean against the remaining three walls. A wooden ladder rests against an opening in the ceiling.
“Up there is my room,” says Fatma. “At night, when a soldier is visiting, you stay away. In the morning, when he’s gone, I’ll knock on the opening four times. You can come up then and clean or put away the bedding. The bedding has to be cleaned every few days. You will also be in charge of the meals. Ahmet and I will serve them, but you must prepare them.
“Can you cook?” Fatma asks.
Lucine has never cooked a meal all by herself. She has shelled peas, dried figs, and salted meat but doesn’t know what comes before or after any of these steps. These things were relegated to the servant, Ayse, and sometimes to Anush and Mairig and to all the other women whom she has loved and lost. But Lucine remembers that she is Seda now and nods her head yes.
In the days and weeks that follow, Seda follows Fatma closely, does what she is told. She cleans. She cooks. She delouses yorgans. She waits for death to visit her in the night. All the while Aram’s wailing rings in her ears. The sight of his flailing arms, Anush’s waist cinched by a uniformed arm, Bedros lying prostrate on the grass, and Mairig with her crumpled Bible pages, all these she sees in the daily wash and at the bottom of the barley soup.
Twice a week, she climbs up the stairs to the three little rooms on the second floor but only after Fatma gives her the signal. These are the rooms where Fatma entertains the gendarmes and her bey and where a wandering traveler will stay for more than one night.
Soldiers, merchants, and the occasional missionary travel through these walls without ever seeing her. She is a spirit—a ghost—soundless and practically invisible. Existing only in the in-between spaces—between daylight and darkness, in the narrow wall between the main mess hall and the inner chambers. And though they cannot see her, she sees them.