By Sempad Shahnazarian

Chapter Seven (Continued)

 “Nothing...It’s just that we are at war now. Bands are playing and thousands of people are parading on the main street.” 

  “Yes?  Is that why you went out this morning, without even having a cup of coffee. You must be starving to death, by now!”

  They locked the door and went up the stairway to the kitchen. There were empty plates sitting on the table. She placed a piece of cake in each of the plates, took a seat at the table, cast a dismal look at Sempad and said:  “You look so depressed.”  Noticing that she had forgotten to serve the coffee she got up, took the coffee pot and filled the cups with café-au-lait and sat down at the table scrutinizing him.

  “I know you’re homesick, and you can’t go home at the present time but some day, with the help of God, you will.”

  “You know what, Maria? Tomorrow morning Karekin and I are going to report to the Draft Board. We are sure we will be accepted in the officers training program and will become officers in a short time.”

   “That’s great!” She exclaimed.

  “You know how anxiously they are waiting for me at home?

  “What can we do? How can you help it? You can go home after the war is over.”

  “God knows what may become of me by then!”

  “Oh, don’t be so gloomy! Cheer up and drink your coffee.”

  After he ate the cake and drank his coffee, he followed Maria to her room where the baby had just awakened.  He played with her a little, made her smile, then laugh and she sat in her crib and began to play with her toy bunny.

  Later he went to his room sprawled out on his bed, absorbed in thoughts, and fell asleep.

  He got up early in the morning, washed his face, put on his clothes and brushed his hair. He took the brown envelope that contained his diploma and was on his way out, when Maria hurriedly came out of her bedroom.  She said: “Don’t tell me you are going out again without even having a bite of your cake.” She pulled him into the kitchen, and added, “So you’re going to go to the Draft Board, now?”

  “Yes, in a few hours I’ll be in the army. You know where the military school is?”

  “Harbiye Street,” she said.

  “That’s where I am going to be for a few months.”

  “Good luck, Sempad. I hope they will keep you around here longer than that.”

  “Thank you, Maria!” he said, and left.

  That afternoon he was already enrolled and had made new friends. They were told that in a matter of a few days that they would be wearing their uniforms. In the meantime, they could go ahead and have a good time.

  To celebrate the occasion, the five new friends decided to meet at the Café Chantant on the main street that night. After a little chatting on the school grounds, Sempad hurried home to break the news to Maria. As he opened the door, he saw her running down excitedly to meet him.

  “I’ll be around here for a while, Maria,” he exclaimed.

  “Good for you, Sempad. I’m very glad to hear that,” and holding each other’s hands warmly they ascended the stairway into the parlor and sat side by side on the couch, by the window. 

  Questions came one after another and he told her the whole story, even about their plan to visit to the Café Chantant that night. At the mention of the name of the Café Chantant, her eyes blinked instantaneously and they became misty. After a moment of silence, she spoke without looking at him.

  “I could never imagine you would ever be willing to set your foot in such a place. I wouldn’t approve of that idea at all, but what can I do?”

 “I have never been in such a place before and I don’t even know what kind of place it is, but it is too late to cancel my appointment with my new friends.” 

  They both remained silent for a while, playing with the baby.

  For one thing, I am glad that you reported to the Draft Board. They might even keep you here indefinitely, who knows?” she said, adding: “Aren’t you going to write home and tell them you are already in the army?”

  “I will! They are all going to be so disappointed. Hairig, Dad, will try to conceal his tears from them. You know what, Maria? He has great respect for you. I know the little monthly allowance I received from the Patriarchate did not cover my expenses. I appreciate it greatly.”

  “Don’t speak to me like that, Sempad. You sound very formal today with the words you are using... appreciate... thanks. I don’t want to hear them again.”

  She looked at him with moist eyes, but quickly regaining herself, reminded him of his date.

  “It’s about time for you to meet your friends, Sempad. Don’t get angry at me for the way I feel now.”

  He looked at the clock on the kitchen wall and said: “Yes, it’s about time to go.”

  “Aren’t you going to wash and powder your face to make yourself presentable for the Café Chantant people?”

   Her insinuation made him laugh.

  “You know I never powder my face. Why in the world would I do that for them, anyway? I’ll see you later,” he said, with a smile, and went down the hallway.

  The Café Chantant was a small hall with dozens of tables and chairs filling the space in front of a small platform that served as a stage. A pianist, violinist, flutist and a trumpet player together with a drummer made up the whole orchestra.  Sempad and his friends occupied a table close to the stage. They ordered wine, looked around, smiling, searching for familiar faces and waited for the program to begin.

  The hall was full of civilians as well as youths in uniform and the smell of liquor and cigarette smoke was hanging over their heads in a haze.

  They clicked the glasses and began to drink. He took his glass to his lips, barely tasted it and put it on the table, assuming the air of an experienced drinker. The entire atmosphere was completely alien to him. It was a new and interesting phase of his life. People were getting impatient for the program to begin and began thumping the floor with their feet, when suddenly the orchestra began to play the opening piece of the program.

 “Not so bad,” whispered Karekin Yeretzian.

  Then, they played a march, as if to welcome the youth in uniform to drink and have a good time.

  A young woman, delicately dressed, appeared from behind the coulisse. She walked to the front of the stage, bowed gracefully amid thunderous applause. She waited quietly until the noisy reception stopped and then began to sing an operatic piece, to the accompaniment of the piano. From the first moment on she captured the audience and in profound silence she kept singing with the most intoxicating charm and beauty. When she ended, the entire hall was drowned in thunderous applause.  Everybody stood and raised their glasses in their hands and screamed, “Bravo! Bravo!”

 “Who is she, anyhow? What’s her name? I’d like to meet her! She is just charming!” 

  The air was punctuated by these exclamations amid noise, smoke and the smell of liquor. The stage remained vacant for a while. Waitresses swarmed the floor; hurried footsteps here and there around tables; glasses jingled, cries and laughter filled the air. Suddenly a young violinist appeared on the stage, stood motionless until everything quieted down and then in deep silence he began to play a piece by Tchaikovsky. Sempad was profoundly inspired. He felt as if he were being carried away up into the sky with the clouds and stars as his companions. How appropriate the melody was to his melancholy, dreamy philosophical nature!

  After the violinist finished playing, the waitresses began their routine visits to the tables and critical opinions were heard all around.

  “How did you like it, Karekin?” asked Sempad.

  “It was Heavenly!” he answered.

  “Look at that waitress there!” exclaimed Ardashes. “Are my eyes deceiving me or is she just wearing a veil?”

  “Look at that man! He pinched her butt, and all she did was smile at him devilishly.” At this time a dancer came out onto the stage from the side entrance. There were outbursts of exclamations, as she was naked, with only a veil fluttering like a bluish haze over her nude body. She began to dance. The cleverest contortions of her body, her breezy movements and the maddening shaking of her midsection and breasts drove the spectators wild. They began to shriek and scream insanely, with some of them even jumping to their feet, planning to run onto the stage.

  “What a beauty! She’s an angel!”

  “Don’t compare her with an angel!” Shouted someone. “That’s a sacrilege!” Everybody was clapping and shrieking, “More... more... more...”

 Sempad was simply terrified. All this was new ground for him. He had physiological convulsions, of course, but his moral character stood firm before him, and he felt terrified and guilty. Under these inner pressures, he asked the forgiveness of his friends to leave and walked out with Karekin following him.

  “Except for the operatic song and the violin solo the rest was just cheap merchandise of a foul market of passion,” said Sempad.

  “I feel the same way,” said Karekin, and they parted saying “Good night.”

  It was midnight, when from a block away, Sempad saw Maria standing by the window in the glow of the electric light waiting for him. He opened the door and locked it. As he climbed the stairway she approached him, smilingly, and said: “Now, tell me everything. I couldn’t go to bed without hearing what you fellows did over there until midnight.”

  He described everything to her in detail, the Café Chantant, the orchestra, the singer, the violinist and the dancer...the last one with more realism. As he was describing the dancer, she kept looking at him intently for fear he would conceal something from her.

  “I left the hall much earlier than the rest of them, because I knew you would be sitting at the window waiting for me.“

  At this, she got up contentedly and said with a smile: “Wouldn’t you like to have a cup of coffee to offset the effect of your wild indulgence?”

  She went to the kitchen and came back with a cup of coffee. He drank it with delight, and said: “Thank you, Maria! You know what?”

  “What?”

  “This is going to be my last night here for about a month.”

  Her eyes flashed at him in surprise.

  “As of tomorrow I’ll be staying in the military school a few blocks from here. I don’t want you to worry about me. I may be able to drop in to see you and the baby, every now and then.”

  Maria listened, alarmed, without uttering a word, and he, deeply upset by the expression in her eyes, got up from the lounge, said goodnight and hurried to his room without looking at her. She stood there, petrified, with tears in her eyes.

  The following morning he reported to the sergeant-in-charge, and together with the battalion of recruits, marched to the outskirts of the city, on the heights of Kiaghed-Maneh.

  After the mobilization had been declared, thousands of men from all over the country had swarmed Constantinople as candidates for the officers training school with false certificates and diplomas from non-existing schools. This state of affairs had attracted the attention of the German General Command which was entrusted with the role of organizing the Turkish army on a sounder basis. The battalion of recruits was deployed all over the plateau, with five feet of space between one another. A sheet of paper was given to every one of them with a topic to write about. 

  A group of German and Turkish officers, mounted on horses, watched the sight. Sergeants went around telling them to write their names and their numbers on the upper right hand corner of the paper and write a composition about the topic shown on the heading, in ten minutes. 

  The topic on Sempad’s paper was, The duty of a soldier toward his country.

  Ten minutes later, all the papers were collected and turned over to the Board of Examiners.
 

  One month later, Sempad was assigned to the 26th Field Artillery Division, and was sent to Galigradia, a Greek village on the coast of the Sea of Marmara.