By Sempad Shahnazarian

Chapter Ten 

arly in the morning, the gendarmes shouted: “Get up! Get up! It’s time to march..." They got up, falteringly, and all stood in line forming two columns. They began to move horizontally along the mountainside then curved down to the plain that extended as far as Adana.

  The wooded panorama of the Amanos Mountains was beautiful. The valleys were dark under the morning mist. The sky was clear blue and the air on the plateau was cool, pure and refreshing. All of a sudden, they smelled a terrible stench. The gendarmes began cracking their whips over their heads and shouted: “Faster! Faster!” The smell was horrible. They walked as fast as they could to get away from that polluted area. As they went down the slope it began to get warmer. A feeling of thirst began to grip everybody. After about an hour’s march down the mountainside they all exclaimed wildly...

  “The river! The river!” 

 A moment later, they reached the bank of the stream. The gendarmes were good enough to let them wash their faces and get refreshed for a while before they resumed their walk.

   Sempad had a sore throat and fever. He could hardly keep up with the others. Beto kept encouraging him by saying: “In a half-hour we will reach our konak, resting place, and stay there overnight. Keep up! Don’t forget you are a Moushetzi.”

  “It’s easy to talk,” mumbled Sempad.

  “Come on, what’s the matter with you?”

  “It’s my throat. I can’t swallow my saliva without torture.”

  “Let me see. Open your mouth!” said Beto.

  When he looked in Sempad noticed an expression of alarm on Beto’s face.

  “Your tonsils are badly infected...but don’t worry,” said Beto. “If I only had a couple of green figs...”

  Before sundown, they arrived at a small farm with little stables and barns spread around. They were told that they would stay there overnight. They all stretched out on the ground and went to sleep without having anything to eat.

  In the middle of the night, Sempad woke up from his agonizing sleep by Beto’s shouting and cursing.

  “What kinds of creatures are you, anyway? How cruel you are! The poor boy is sick! Can’t you understand? He is burning with fever! Can’t you all understand?”

  “Tell him to shut up, we can’t sleep here with his continual groaning!” 

  “He can’t help it. He’s sick. He has a high fever and his throat is full of pus...”

 It was a turbulent night.

  In the morning, on their way to Amanos Mountain which was close to Ayran, Beto noticed a farmer, sitting by the side of the trail with a basket full of figs next to him. He went over, hurriedly, and bought a handful of them and came back with a smile on his face. He took a green fig and gave it to Sempad. 

  “Chew it up and swallow it!” he said.

  He put it in his mouth, chewed it and swallowed it. Beto gave him several more to chew and swallow.

  Several hours later he asked Sempad if he felt any better.

  “I don’t know...it doesn’t seem to be bothering me as much as before!”

  “Open your mouth,” Beto said. After looking into it he said, “you should be all right now! The pus bag has already burst and it is draining...” 

  After a couple of hours, he really did feel much better,. The tonsils were completely drained of their impurities. By the time they reached the top of the mountain his throat didn’t bother him at all.

  Several hovels could be seen among the rocks and trees, where they stopped, on the plateau. A little stream ran down the cliff, cold and clear, which offered them a delightful moment of rest and relaxation. The panorama covered the Musa Dagh area, the distant horizon of Aleppo, the valley of Islahie and the crisscrossing chain of the Taurus Mountains that extended as far as Marash, Zeitoun and beyond.

  Three girls, of high school age, came out of the hovels and cautiously approached the prisoners. One of them said to Sempad, being surprisingly sure that he was Armenian, “Parev, akhbarig! Hello, brother!”

  “Parev, kourig! Hello, sister!” he answered.

  “Are you all Armenians, here?”

  “We are all different nationalities.” answered Sempad.

  “We are Armenians from Adapazar. We have been living here for ten months! Curse the day! She began to cry. Another girl came to her aid and continued where she had stopped. “There were over one hundred of us. Old men, women and children on our way to...nobody knew where. After marching for three weeks under the gendarmes’ whips, we were attacked by a swarm of Turkish cavalrymen in the Adana area. They robbed us of everything we had. They killed over a dozen of us and wrested us from the arms of our parents, after having killed them. They dragged us away while we were crying and screaming and calling out for God’s help!  ...Here we are now...” She was wiping the tears out of her eyes and then a moment later, somewhat controlling her emotions, she asked Sempad where he was from. 

 “Moush,” he answered.

  The girls looked at one another, with surprise, then all exclaimed in unison! “Moush?” One of the girls, then continued: “There was a girl from Moush who had been living with us not very long ago. She was about our age...” The girl stammered and could not continue.

  “What was her name?” asked Sempad, excitedly.

  “Her name was Satenik” she answered, with tears in her eyes.

  “She was born in Khas-Kiugh.”

  Sempad felt as if a shell had exploded in his head and he began to shake.

  She continued: “She used to always talk about her brother who was going to school in Constantinople. She also talked about her three brothers who were in the United States. Her mother and father had been killed and the village, in which they lived, was wiped out of existence by the Turkish and Kurdish mobs, under the direction of the gendarmes. The captain, by the name of Ahmed, abducted her and brought her out here and was living in one of these hovels. He now lives in Eks as a captain of the Gendarmerie.

  They lived here for months until she gave birth to a baby...Oh God, how she suffered during her pregnancy!  She tried everything to abort the baby, in vain.”

  Satenik used to say, “I won’t be able to stand the sight of it...when it’s born...that lump of filth...nothing but filth...Every time I feel it moving inside me it blackens my vision. I feel as if a poisonous, thorny plant were growing within me...and I nourished the seed of the criminal with my own blood...the loathsome killer of my parents and others.”

  “She used to tell me about all of her emotions and convictions. After the baby was born, she boiled a kettle full of water and placed the baby in it then left a note on the bed which said: “Enjoy your soup! I am gone!”

  We heard later on that she had met an Armenian guerrilla from Sassoun who was a very close friend of her brother and that she had been taken to Armenia.”

  Sempad’s heart was in turmoil during the girl’s narration.

  The guards suddenly called out: “Time’s up...let’s move on!”

  Sempad took some money out of his pocket and gave it to the girl, saying tearfully: “Thank you, kourig, sister, thank you very much!”
  “Good luck, akhbarig, brother! Good luck!”

  Most of the prisoners were barefoot. Some of them only had fragments of shoes. They walked down the mountainside, over pebbles and thorns. The way they walked even made the gendarmes feel sorry for them. They kept encouraging them, saying: “Keep up! Don’t give up! A doctor will take care of you when we get to the station, down below.”

  They arrived at the Islahieh railroad line at the foot of the mountain at about noon. They reclined on the ground with their bare feet resting on their heels, in a single line along the wall of a barn awaiting the expected medical inspection.

“Here comes the doctor!” someone exclaimed. All eyes turned in his direction. All they saw was a man who looked more like a janitor with a brush and a pail full of something in his hand. They all began to laugh.  Nobody could believe he was the doctor. The way he walked made one think he was very tired and disgusted with his occupation. As he got closer, he changed his look and assumed an air of authority.

  “Quiet!” he said and walked slowly down the line inspecting the bloody feet. After the necessary inspection, he immediately began to stir the carbolic acid solution with the brush then began smearing it all over the blistered and bloody parts of the feet that were standing at attention before him. The minute he touched the acid to the bleeding sores, they screamed, cursed and convulsed in pain. All the while, he conscientiously went on with the elaborate treatment. When he finished, he walked away with a grave look on his face.

  While the patients rolled on the ground uncontrollably, suffering from their terribly burning soles, the guards shouted: “Time’s up, let’s move on!”

  “We can’t walk in this condition.” someone cried.

  “Oh, yes you can!” shouted one of the guards, cracking the whip over their heads.

  A couple of miles from the station, at the outskirts of Meydan Ekbez, they came upon a bare, flat, desolate field.

  “Look! Look over there, Sempad.” said Beto. On the wayside, there stood a human skull with its shadowy orbits staring into space. Farther on, fragments of skeletons were strewn about...legs, arms, ribs. They kept moving silently, through the valley then up to a plateau where a dilapidated depot stood. They were prohibited from entering it.

  At sundown, Sempad walked down to a little swampy area nearby. He came across an extremely terrible sight. He saw a mother’s skeleton sitting in the mud with her back against a clump of bushes. Her long brown hair was hanging down onto her shoulder blades and a skeleton of a baby girl was in her arms, dried and bleached, with golden colored hair swinging in the breeze. Close by, there was a skeleton of a little boy, stuck in the mud...

  He stayed there for a long time contemplating the horrible scene. Suddenly, a guard hollered: “Hey, you! Why are you standing there? Come here where you belong!” He came and sat on the grass by Beto with that tragic picture, forever, etched in his mind.

    It was a cold night, with the stars blinking in the clear sky. They laid themselves down like a herd of sheep huddled together to keep from freezing, and fell asleep, while packs of coyotes wailed in the distance.

  In the morning, they woke up to bright sunshine and craved breakfast. The sergeant picked out two husky fellows and walked them down the hill. A short time later they returned. Both fellows were bent down under the weight of their huge sacks, full of something. One of the gendarmes spread a blanket out on the ground and unloaded the contents of the sacks onto it. What a sight! Two mounds of Bulgur wheat pilaf stood ceremoniously in the center of the blanket. The sergeant ordered the prisoners to get in line and began to give each one of them their portion, a handful of pilaf. No bowls...no plates...no spoons...All they had were two wide-open hands waiting for the food. The two who had carried the sacks of food were given the privilege of cleaning up the scraps of pilaf left in the sacks, in addition to their shares.

  Beto and Sempad were exchanging thoughts about what was in store for them. At the same time, they were listening to the conversation between two Turks about the fighting in Musa Dagh, not very far from where they were. On overhearing this, the two Moushetzis looked over the wooded area where their people were fighting and dying honorably, as they did in Van, Moush, Sassoun, Shabin Kara Hissar and elsewhere.

  “The train will be here in about an hour.” said the sergeant. “Some lucky ones might get to go aboard the train if they prove to be sick.”

  Sempad made up his mind that he was going to be one of those sick ones. He began to prepare himself for the medical examination. He took a dirty shirt out of his bag and wrapped up one foot, displaying a horrible sight.  With another piece of rag he covered one side of his face leaving only one eye peeping out of this terrible looking bandage as though he were suffering an unbearable toothache.

  Beto began to laugh when he looked at Sempad.

  “What is all that for?” he asked.

  “I am going to be one of those fortunate ones traveling on the train.”

  “Don’t make me laugh! I can be one of them without even going to the trouble of decorating myself in such a melodramatic way.”

  “We’ll see!” said Sempad, smiling, imagining himself going on the train while Beto would be trudging along the roads.

  A short time later the doctor came back. The prisoners were all put in a single line. They were to pass in front of the doctor to be examined. One after the other he began to pull out the sick ones. Sempad was standing in the line next to Beto who clasped his hands in front of the doctor as if he were a saint, or the Crucifix...pleading:  “Please, doctor!  Help me! Do something for me...I am dying...” With repugnance and indignation, the doctor pushed him away from the patients and put him with the others.

  It was now Sempad’s turn. He looked as though he was so preoccupied with his illness and suffering that he didn’t even realize that he was limping past the doctor. He suddenly felt the doctor’s grip on his arm, showing him the way to the patients, saying tenderly: “To this side, son...”

  He nearly burst out laughing when he noticed Beto looking at him, shocked and enraged. “How did you do it?” he murmured. Soon after the examination was over, the healthier ones began to move on to their destination, Aleppo. The patients were left sitting on the ground, waiting for the train.

  At two o’clock, a train whistle was heard in the distance.

  “It’s coming!” they all exclaimed and clambered to their feet.

  “Hey, where are you going?”

  “The train is coming,” they all said in unison.

  “Oh, that!” said the guard smiling. “That’s just a whistle.”

  They sat back on the ground disappointed. The wind kept on blowing, making them shiver. The sky was crystal blue and a grayish blue mist began to float over the mountains.

  He remembered his conversation with the unfortunate girls on the plateau of Amanos Mountain. They seemed to be so proud of Satenik’s stand and they themselves seemed to have the same disposition when they exclaimed: “Good for Satenik...Bravo!”

  What a wonderful and valiant girl she grew to be, he thought...How I would like to meet that Captain Ahmed!  How proud Sempad was of his little sister! He, then, began thinking about Dikranouhie who was born in Adapazar, where these girls were born. He was in deep thought when a whistle alerted everybody.

  “This is it, for sure!” they exclaimed, stirring to their feet. The guard, again told them not to let the whistle fool them. It was just a whistle! I will call you when the train comes.

  “If we are sentenced to die, just shoot us and get it over.” shouted  one of the prisoners, who really was sick.

  “God Almighty!” murmured another.

  “What God? There is no God in Heaven!”

  “If there is, he must be cruel!”

  It was dark now with the stars blinking cheerfully in the sky. A whistle blew loud and clear. Nobody moved.  They kept sitting motionless. The sergeant appeared with a sly smile on his face and said: “Boys! There will be no train coming...Just get up and get ready to move on. You are going to have a long walk tonight...brace up! Get going!”

  “My God!” exclaimed Sempad, disgustedly. “Waiting here for a train all day and then trounced by a deceitful maneuver...” 

  They began to march on in silence and sorrow, as if it were a funeral procession.

  Coyotes began to wail in the distance. They sounded like children’s cries... Shots were continually heard from the heights of Musa Dagh...Thoughts were constantly surging within him. Thoughts about Ahmed, who had burned an entire village with the people in it. He had killed his father, mother, brother and had contaminated his little sister...

  They walked all night and in the morning they stopped at an old barn, at the foot of the hill, where the balance of their group had been resting all night.

  Beto was standing to one side, laughing sarcastically!

  “How relaxed you look, Sempad! I am so glad...How wonderful it is to travel on a train! Isn’t it?”

  “Yes it is! It’s wonderful!” Then changing his mood, he muttered: “What a trick...what a dirty trick!”

  A little distance from the barn, on higher ground, he saw a group of people walking back and forth mournfully. Old men, women and children, pale and emaciated, with their eyes sunk deep in their orbits looked at him with glassy expressions when he approached them.

  Here and there, on the hillside, some women were busy digging graves with sticks and pieces of slate to bury their dead who were sprawled out on the ground near them, waiting. They had no shovels or picks.

  There were about ten freshly dug graves there. Some already had been dug deep enough to contain two little girls.

  An old man, a mere walking skeleton, stared at him a long moment then asked: “Are you Armenian?” 

  “Yes!” he answered.

  “Where were you born?”

  “In Moush.”

  “That’s a long way from here. I haven’t met many Moushetzis on our way here...only a few of them. In our caravan, you could come across people from different parts of the country but not from Moush...very seldom.  Most of them had been trapped in their homes and burned and the others had escaped to the mountains and had fought there, heroically. The other day we heard that the fighting is still going on, waiting for the Fedayis who are serving in the Russian army. When we left our hometown there were about one hundred families. That is more than four hundred old men, women and children. I say old men, only because the youth had been taken into the army. We have been on the road for three months. We have been attacked several times by bandits organized by the government. They went away with our boys and girls after killing many of us. There were twenty in my family when we left. There are five of us left.”
  While the old man was narrating his tragic story, Sempad watched some women sitting by a number of fresh graves, silent and motionless...no sobbing, no crying, no murmuring... They were just contemplating a dark and bottomless abyss with their hearts torn to pieces...

  “Are they all Armenians?” he asked the man, pointing to the people crowded near the barn. “No! There are many Greeks, Jews and even Turks.”

  “Where are you heading?” the man asked Sempad.

  “We have no idea. We have been sentenced to death but we don’t know why they didn’t put us in front of the firing squad immediately. How long have you been here?”
 

  The guard suddenly hollered: “Time’s up!”

  Sempad shook their hands and returned to his group.