Zabelle Read online

In the orphanage, as a girl’s body changed and she wasn’t a child anymore, she moved from the middle room to the upper room. We watched each other carefully for telltale signs and tried to guess who would be the next among us to make the move. Finally the day came that I carried my bedding up the stairs. I was proud that I was no longer a child but frightened about what would happen.

  The only place to go from the upper room was out into the world—as a servant, an apprentice, or a wife to a poor man, because no one else would marry a penniless orphan. A couple of times a week, someone came to the place looking for a worker or a wife. I would take one look at the man, curl myself into an awkward shape, and edge to the back of the line. Some other girl would be chosen and march off with a tailor or baker, never to be seen again. Then there would be discussion among the older girls about whether the life a girl had gone to was likely to be terrible or not.

  One day a man came looking for a household servant. His clothes were fine, and he carried a walking stick with a gold handle. He seemed like a nice man, so I jostled my way to the front. I stood straight and held my face like a flower turned to the sun. He walked down the line, speaking with each girl in turn.

  “What’s your name?” he asked me.

  “Neriman,” I answered. I had nothing clever to say, so I looked directly at him before lowering my eyes.

  “Neriman,” he repeated.

  By then years had gone by since Arsinee left, and no word from her had come. I didn’t know if she and Sarkis had made it to Mersin. I never really believed Arsinee would be able to send for me. Who would want another orphan, and one that wasn’t a blood relation? I went with no regrets with Aziz Effendi to be a kitchen maid in his house.

  Luck was with me again, because the Aziz were kind people. They had two other girls working in the house. Emine, the girl who looked after the children, had a wonderful voice for singing, and the children loved her. She and I got along well. Sarmin, the girl who cleaned the house, was dull witted and jealous. Sometimes she snuck into the kitchen and added wood to the flames so the pots boiled over. I had to watch her from the corners of my eyes.

  Ummahan, the old cook, was half-blind and toothless. She rattled the copper pots, banged the bowls, and grumbled as she cooked, but she was kind to me. The first time I was alone in the pantry at the Aziz house, I stuffed myself with plump golden figs. My stomach gurgled and swelled like a drum. I was sick the next day, but no one said anything.

  By the end of four weeks in that household, I was no longer a scrawny chicken. During the next months Ummahan taught me enough that I was able to take over the preparation of meals. She sat in the back courtyard, snoozing in the sun, and the kitchen was mine.

  It was the custom for the women of the household to go together to the baths for the entire day. Emine, Sarmin, and I accompanied our mistress, while the children stayed at home with Ummahan. Washing was only a small part of what went on at the baths—we also brought sewing and embroidery. I packed a lunch basket for our midday meal. The mistress would gossip with her cousins and friends.

  One particular bath day, after I had been with the Aziz for most of a year, I met someone who would alter my life once again. When we reached the hammam, we exchanged our clothes for big white linen wrappers, resting our belongings on low-lying benches along one corner of the bathing hall. I dipped my feet in a channel of warm water that passed through the tiled floor and sat on a stool near one of the fountains in the middle of the room. We scrubbed and wrung out our washcloths in water basins. The room filled with steam, and voices echoed off the tiled walls.

  Soon it was so hot, sweat ran down my forehead in little rivers, stinging my eyes with salt. The damp air burned my nostrils. When I asked the mistress for permission to move to the anteroom, she agreed. In the cooling room, I sat on a cushioned bench with my eyes closed and my head resting on the tiled wall. Behind my eyelids, I saw my mother pouring a basin of water over my head at the baths in Hadjin. I was a small child with long hair down my back. There was laughter; someone was singing. I heard a woman’s voice speaking in Armenian and felt pressure on my arm.

  When I opened my eyes, a strange woman with gold bracelets ringing her bare arms asked me something in Armenian. I stared at her in silence. Her dark eyes were fringed with long lashes. She had a prominent nose, a well-cut mouth, and a thick braid over her shoulder, with short tendrils of hair curling at her temples. I saw my face reflected in the woman’s eyes: an oval framed by dark hair, my eyes shining black.

  The woman asked in Turkish, “My dear, are you Armenian?”

  I said, “No. I’m Turkish.”

  The woman took hold of my right forearm and turned it up. A blue cross, with the date 1914 at one end, proved that I had lied. I was very young when my parents had taken me to Jerusalem on a pilgrimage. A man just outside the walls of the Armenian monastery had given me and my mother the same tattoos. There was another tattoo—the head of John the Baptist surrounded by a garden fence—on my other arm.

  “Dear,” the woman whispered, “I am Armenian. Yes hay em. And I want to help you.”

  “Hanumy the people I serve treat me well.” My heart was like a rabbit caught in human hands. I saw Sarmin in the doorway, staring at us. I raised my eyebrows at her, and she scurried out. I was sure she was running to tattle.

  The Armenian woman said quietly, “There are many children like you who have been taken into Turkish homes. What is your name?”

  “My Turkish name is Neriman, but my parents called me Zabelle.” Yes hay em, I thought. The words echoed up through a deep well.

  “Zabelle, I know of several Armenian families who are taking in orphans like you. Tell me the name of your master and the street on which you live, and we will save you.”

  For a minute I thought about lying. If I told her the truth, I might fall into worse circumstances. I looked at the tattoos on my arms again. I whispered the address to the woman and ran back to the other room.

  I joined Emine, and after taking the comb from her, I began untangling her wet hair. I saw Sarmin whispering to Hava Hanum. Their heads were so close, they almost touched.

  “Neriman,” called Hava Hanum. “Come here.”

  I went to my mistress. Sarmin smirked at me. I would have pinched her if she had been within reach.

  “Neriman, were you speaking to a strange woman in the cooling room?”

  “No, Hanum.”

  “Are you sure, dear? Sarmin said she saw you.”

  “No, Hanum. I spoke with no one.”

  I don’t think the mistress believed me, because she insisted we pack up without taking lunch. We hurried to the changing rooms and swept out of the bath.

  When I prepared the evening meal, I was so nervous that I had to remind myself what I was cooking. Would the woman from the bath send people to save me? Where would they take me?

  When Sarmin came into the room to fetch a broom, she said, “Neriman, the sweat on your lip is about to drop into the food.”

  “If you’re not careful, traitor,” I said, the knife heavy in my hand, “your nose might fall in.” I leaned toward Sarmin, grasping her sleeve, but she wrested her arm away and ran out of the kitchen.

  I carved the innards out of eggplants, tomatoes, and green peppers for dolma. The blade slipped close to my fingers several times. Soon the kitchen filled with the smells of simmering vegetables, onions, lamb, and cracked wheat. I made ghadayif for dessert, because it was the Effendi’s favorite.

  When the mistress peered into the kitchen, I pretended not to see her. I chopped walnuts, the knife giving a satisfying whack as it bit into the board. I wondered how long it would take the Armenian woman to send someone for me.

  * * *

  “Yes, my girl, you have learned well. This food will give us all long life and good health.” Aziz Effendi was full of praise for my cooking.

  I went back to the kitchen to eat with Emine and Sarmin. I did a good imitation of the master, rubbing my belly and burping while I talked,
until all three of us were laughing so hard, we could barely breathe. I decided to forgive Sarmin, because I’d never have to see her again.

  When we went to bed that night, Sarmin fell asleep immediately. Emine and I stayed awake whispering for a while.

  “What happened at the bath?” Emine asked.

  “Sarmin made up some story that upset the mistress,” I said.

  It was too bad I couldn’t tell her the truth. I liked Emine. I closed my eyes and saw the letters of my real name.

  “Neriman, are you asleep?” she asked.

  I didn’t answer.

  Under the bright sun, I walked in the desert, my feet wrapped in sand-filled rags. In my tin cup I carried water for my mother, who lay sick in the tent. I marched and marched, but the sand seemed to stretch and grow under my feet, until the tent was a small black dot on the horizon.

  “Neriman! Wake up.” Emine jostled me out of sleep. “It’s time to get up. Go make breakfast.” She ran out, heading for the children’s rooms upstairs.

  Sunlight streamed in the high window, making a patch on the end of my pallet on the floor. I flung off the blanket and lay staring at the ceiling. For the midday meal we needed tomatoes and olives from the market. And I should remind Hanum about coal for the stove. Maybe the Armenians weren’t coming after all.

  Later in the day I was in the upstairs hall, putting away the clean kitchen linens. I heard a loud knock at the front door. I felt as though I had been caught stealing the master’s coins, and I wanted to climb into the cupboard and hide. Aziz Effendi opened the door, but from the top of the stairs I couldn’t see who had knocked or hear what was being said.

  “Neriman! Neriman, come here,” my master called.

  I went slowly down the stairs. In the entrance hall there was a bearded priest dressed in black robes and a black peaked hood, standing before the master. The priest was old, but just behind him were three tall young priests.

  “Girl,” Aziz Effendi said kindly, “these men say you are Armenian. If you are, they are here to bring you back to your people.”

  The old man came toward me and put his hand on my shoulder. He asked me in Armenian, “Aghchig, mayr, hayr unis?”

  This is my language, I thought, and these are my people. He was asking if I had a mother and a father, and I answered truthfully in Armenian, “Voch.” I stared at my slippers; unable to look at either Aziz Effendi or the old man.

  “What is your name, child?” he asked.

  In Armenian I answered, “My name is Zabelle.”

  The priest smiled and nodded to his companions. He said to the master in Turkish, “So, this lamb is one of ours, and with your permission, Effendi, we will take her with us now.”

  “Go to your room and pack your things, Neriman. Say good-bye to Hanum and the children,” Aziz Effendi said. “We will miss this girl,” he told the Armenians. “She is a fine cook.”

  I tied up my few clothes in a shawl. In a cloth bag I put my hairpins, comb, and the tin cup, which had come with me from Hadjin. I looked at my pale face in a small hand mirror the mistress had given me, then slid the mirror into the bag. Like a cat, I was about to leap from one life to another, trusting only my instincts, with very little idea of where I would land.

  As I stepped out into the street, the old priest took my hand.

  “Zabelle, my child, we’ll go back to the church for tonight. Digin Der Stepanian, the woman you met at the bath yesterday, may take you in. First thing tomorrow, we will see the magistrate, who decides if we were right to take you as one of our flock.” He spoke to me in Turkish, for he understood without asking that I remembered very little Armenian.

  We walked down the dark cobbled street, with the priest’s men on either side. I had to trot to keep up with them. When I turned back to look at the Aziz house, I saw a group of men following closely behind. I glanced over my shoulder again, and now there were even more men at our heels. Night had fallen, and I couldn’t make out the faces. A few lanterns cast long dark shadows on the buildings we passed. I bowed my head, and tears started running down my face as I hurried along next to the priest.

  He stopped and looked into my face. “My dear girl, there’s no need to be afraid. Those are Armenian men who joined us on our way when they found out we were going to save an Armenian girl. You are safe now with your people.”

  When we arrived, the priest gestured that I should enter through a wooden gate into the courtyard. We went into the priests’ quarters, where an old serving woman dressed in black named Digin Takouhi took charge of me. The priest told her to speak to me in Turkish. She showed me to a small room near the kitchen.

  The priest was the Patriarch of Constantinople, she told me. It was because he was the leader of all Armenians in the region that the Aziz had let me go.

  “You are lucky, aghchigs, because there are many Armenian girls who were stolen away—some of them were made wives to Kurds, some of them worse, and I can’t use the words for what happened to our virgins during the deportations. Not to mention the thousands of martyrs lost in the desert, your own parents among them. The Turks massacred our people.” The old woman shook her head and glanced up at the ceiling.

  “Why, O Lord, do you test your people so mightily? For which of our sins is all this pain?”

  I was sitting on the mat, unbraiding my hair, while she talked. Her words fell around me like rain on dry, hard ground. It was the first time I had heard anyone describe what had happened to us, and I didn’t know how to think about it.

  “We lost too many to count, but tonight we took back one of our lambs, and we thank God for each one returned to the fold. Good night, dear. May the Lord watch over your sleep.”

  After Digin Takouhi had shuffled down the hall, I put out the light and dropped immediately to sleep.

  I walked across the desert toward the tent, carrying the tin cup filled with water for my sick mother. The sun was hot and bright. The sand shifted under my feet, but I struggled on. As I neared the tent, I called, “Mayrig!” There was no response. When I tried to run, my feet sank even deeper into the sand, but finally I reached the tent and flung open its flap. My mother was gone. I fell to my knees, tore back the blanket, and plunged my hands into the sand. I pulled up bone after bone: leg bones, arm bones, ribs, and finally a skull with rubies for eyes.

  I sat up in bed. My hands trembled as I tied back my damp hair with a rag. I lay down and shut my eyes against the dark. Softly in Armenian, I began to recite begats from Genesis. The verses came back to me, rising from somewhere inside my body. Now these are the generations of the sons of Noah, Shem, Ham, and Japheth: and unto them were sons born after the flood.…

  When I couldn’t remember any more names from the Bible, I said the other names I remembered, the names of the lost.

  In the morning I helped Digin Takouhi prepare breakfast for the Patriarch and the other priests. When Digin went to serve them, I swept the kitchen floor. The old woman shuffled into the room, carrying an empty tray.

  “Well, dear,” she said, “it seems you are going to see the judge this afternoon, and tomorrow morning the Der Stepanians are coming to take you home. Baron Der Stepanian was here already this morning, speaking with His Holiness. You are fortunate to be going to that house; they are good people.”

  Again I had jumped and managed to land on my feet.

  “Do they have children?” I asked.

  “Three children—two boys and a girl. The girl is about your age.

  “And servants?” I wondered what my position would be.

  “Yes. But you’ll be like one of the family until you’ve grown a bit and they find you a husband. If they can’t find you one, you may go back to being a cook, but not, praise God, for the Turks.”

  “A kitchen is a kitchen.” I smiled, and at that Digin Takouhi laughed.

  “Well, dear, some kitchens are Christian,” she said.

  * * *

  When I left with the Patriarch and his men to go see the judge, I wore a new
dress, new stockings, and beautiful leather shoes that had been sent by the Der Stepanians. The dress was blue cotton with a black stripe, and the lace-up shoes were black. It was a sunny day, but not too hot, and as we walked through the open markets, I was happy. In my pocket were three coins that the Patriarch had given me.

  As we entered the building that led to the judge’s chamber, the Patriarch said to me, “Listen, my child, the judge is going to determine if you are Armenian or not. Since you don’t speak much Armenian—which would be proof enough—he’s going to ask you some questions, but it shouldn’t take more than a few minutes.”

  The judge told me to come up to the desk behind which he was sitting. “So, what is your name, child?”

  “Do you want to know my Armenian name or my Turkish name?” I asked in Turkish. It occurred to me that I could offer to write Zabelle in Armenian. Or I could roll up my sleeves and show him the tattoos.

  He laughed. “Never mind, my dear, neither. I can tell by your eyes that you are Armenian.” After a few respectful words to the Patriarch, he sent us out.

  When we were in the street again, the Patriarch put his hand on my shoulder and said, “Now, my dear, you must relearn your language.” Out of his pocket he pulled an Armenian Bible, which he handed to me. “Start with the beginning,” he said.

  * * *

  I dreamed of the desert that night. Dusk had fallen, and I carried my tin cup filled with water across the sand. When I reached the black tent, my mother was gone, but there was a baby asleep on a carpet, I picked up the baby and offered it some water. The baby’s eyes were large and dark and filled with sadness. When the infant began to cry, I carried it out of the tent. In the night sky, a chipped moon appeared through passing clouds. With the baby on my hip, I began the long walk toward the lights of a distant town.

  CHAPTER THREE

  The Balcony

  (CONSTANTINOPLE, 1924-1926)

  When I arrived at the Der Stepanians’ home, I thought I had walked into the sultan’s palace or the castle of the king of France. A crystal chandelier lit up the entrance hall, where an enormous tapestry of animals in a forest hung along the wall. There were deep red-and-burgundy Persian carpets over every inch of the floor. A servant gave me a pair of embroidered velvet slippers, and my shoes were whisked away to be cleaned.