Seda nods. “Your aunt saved my life. Gave me strength when I had none.”
“My God,” says Orhan. Suddenly, this strange woman’s connection to his life is less tenuous. He understood all along that Seda was a part of his Dede’s past but had not expected that his aunt had saved her life. Then again, there are hundreds of people and their descendants who can claim the same about his auntie Fatma. In another time or place, there might be monuments constructed in her likeness.
“She ran a small inn in Malatya. Helping an Armenian was punishable by death in those days, but she took me in.”
“She is a good woman,” he says simply. “I’m sorry, but I still don’t understand how this all relates to my grandfather.”
She withdraws her hand from his. “There is still so much to tell,” she says. “And I am doing a bad job of telling it.”
“No, you are doing great,” says Orhan, hoping she does not retreat back into her silence.
She nods at this, saying, “I suppose I could begin the way all ancient Armenian tales begin: Gar oo chegar . . . There was and there was not. You see, like all of life, a story is and is not.”
And this is how she begins her tale, with her and Dede playing as children underneath the mulberry tree, its dark berries raining down upon their unsuspecting heads.
AT FIRST, SEDA’S words spew out of her mouth in fits and spurts, reminding Orhan of a clogged faucet that suddenly starts working. But before long, the sentences come pouring out in a steady never-ending flow until she is interrupted by an uncontrollable fit of coughing.
“I’ll get you some more water,” he says, grabbing the empty pitcher. Seda concedes by nodding her head midcough.
Pitcher in hand, Orhan finds his way to the nearest water fountain. When he’s filled the container, he does not walk directly toward Seda’s room, but meanders in the hallways, trying to process everything she’s told him. Lost in thought, he almost passes an open doorway from which Mrs. Vartanian’s head is poking out.
She startles him and Orhan blushes just a little, thinking how the bent old woman sometimes scares him.
“Psst . . . psst . . .” she hisses, her hand beckoning him.
He takes a few measured steps toward her.
“Please, effendi, Mr. Gendarme, sir,” she addresses him in Turkish, her voice reverential, devoid of its usual spite. Her breath is sour and smells of medicine.
“I am no gendarme,” he tells her. “My name is Orhan.”
Her eyes are pinned to his face but have a far away look about them.
Mrs.Vartanian nods. “I am marching to Aleppo,” she says, turning her slippered feet toward the corridor that leads to the garden.
“What are you still doing here?” Betty’s voice comes from behind him.
Orhan turns to find her walking toward him.
“I don’t know who you think you are, letting little old ladies fall. What you talking to Mrs. Vartanian about anyway?”
“She thinks she’s on some sort of death march.”
“I know what she thinks, Mr. Orren. Haven’t you wreaked enough havoc?” She takes one more look at him and smiles. “I’m assuming you’re on your way out. It’s way too late for you to be up in here.”
“Yes,” Orhan lies. “But I’ll be back tomorrow.”
“Well, all right,” she says, her eyes studying his face. “You get anything out of Ms. Seda?” she asks.
Orhan nods.
“Really? Well, I’ll be damned! What she say?”
“Many things.”
“Anything that niece of hers would wanna hear?”
“Yes, I think so,” says Orhan.
Betty nods with approval. “I have to clock out,” she says. “You see yourself out now, you hear?” She turns down the empty hallway.
When Orhan returns to Seda’s room, she is sitting up in her bed.
“Feeling better?” he asks, placing the pitcher on the bedside table.
“Evet, yes,” she says, but her eyes have retreated further into their sockets.
“That is good,” says Orhan. He pauses, preparing himself to ask her about Dede’s will.
“There is still much to tell,” she says, grasping the bed rail to prop herself up.
“Where I come from, everything is more or less covered up or left unsaid,” Orhan says, thinking of Auntie Fatma’s doilies. “Have you told any of this to your niece?”
“What do you know about my niece?”
“Nothing. Only that she is very interested in the past.”
“She is already drowning in the past. They all are,” says Seda. “She has too much past in her veins and you have none. I’m just evening things out.”
“So you’re not going to tell her any of this?”
“What I do and don’t tell her is my business.”
“No one would judge you for what happened.”
“You don’t understand,” says Seda. “It isn’t just what happened with Aram. It’s Kemal I don’t want to explain.”