“Sit there,” he told Alma, then nodded to the seat I’d earlier occupied. “And you sit there, Paul.”
Danforth waited until we’d taken our seats, then he said, “So, to Anna’s story.” He looked at Alma. “This part is yours,” he told her.
She looked at me, her gaze as intense as that of Scheherazade. “My grandmother,” she began, “was born in…’
~ * ~
Erzinghan, Turkey, 1915
She would all her life recall how distinguished her father had been, the way he’d dominated the men who gathered around him. Even as a girl of five, she’d noticed his knowledge of many languages, and how the leaders of the community often came to him for counsel. He had traveled all over the world and yet had returned to the little town in which he’d been born and in which he’d married and where she expected to live out her life as his adoring daughter.
But dark news had begun to trickle in from other parts of the country: a massacre in Van, and a roundup of what her father called “notables” in Constantinople. Fear grew and deepened, and in the midst of that gathering terror, her father had met with other men like himself to plan what must be done.
The first soldiers arrived in the village on a sweltering day when the dust was made bright yellow in the sun and swirled in gusts and pools, and it was into this dust that her father walked to meet their leader.
From the darkness inside her house, Ana watched the men on horses peer down from what seemed a great height to where her father faced them, unarmed and without defense, as it had seemed to her, his hands pointing first this way and then that, so she thought he must be telling them of the many roads by which they should leave her village. But the soldiers remained in place, staring down, hands on their sabers or fingering the straps of their rifles or the handles of their pistols. A few took the moment to groom themselves, raking their fingers through jet-black hair that had no hint of curls or drawing out their luxurious mustaches to fine, glittering points.
The dust was a swirling curtain, and as the horses pawed the ground, yet more of it lifted into the air, until her father and the soldiers seemed enfolded in the arid cloud. She could still hear his voice, speaking their native tongue, but there was now in that voice something that seemed to fill her mother with terror. She quickly drew her from the window. “Come, Ana,” she said.
The grip of her mother’s hand had been tighter than she’d ever felt it, her slender bones felt like talons.
“Come,” she repeated. “Come.”
As if spiriting someone away, her mother rushed her into a back room of the house, where Ana heard nothing but the tromping of the horses as they galloped off. There was something fierce in that sound, and frightened by it, she went to the window and drew back the curtain to see that her father’s horse had departed with the others.
“Where has Father gone?” she asked her mother.
“With the soldiers,” her mother answered. “We must leave, Ana. We must leave now.”
Her mother quickly packed bread, cheese, dates, olives, and water into two large cloth bags, and with these heavy on her shoulders, they left the house.
“Walk slowly,” her mother said. “Do not cause anyone to notice.”
They walked along the dusty street, turned at the far corner, and came to a house Ana knew well. At the door her mother cautioned her to keep silent, though it was hard for her not to greet the woman who came to the door, for it was Garine, who cleaned and helped with the marketing and whose two children, a small boy and a girl somewhat older, stood at her side, fearfully clutching their mother’s skirt.
“Garine, I must leave,” Ana’s mother said to her. She lowered the bags and placed them on the threshold. “My husband has gone with the soldiers.”
“Where?” Garine asked.
“To the river,” her mother said.
“Then you must go,” Garine said darkly. Her hand reached for the small Star of David that dangled from the chain at her throat.
“Can you help me, Garine?” Ana’s mother said.
“My brother-in-law lives in Baku,” Garine said. “But he is in Aleppo now. He could meet you at the Syrian border, then take you into Azerbaijan.”
“Thank you, Garine,” Ana’s mother said.
Garine’s gaze darkened. “We will follow soon. None of us can stay here anymore.”
Ana’s mother grasped Ana’s hand, and they quickly made their way down the street. “Come,” she said. “We are going on a journey. We must go to the train station.”
“Why was Father taken away?” Ana asked her mother.
“Quiet, Ana,” her mother answered. Her eyes glanced about frantically. “Do exactly as I say.”
The streets were dark, but Ana’s mother knew them well so that they reached the railway station just as the train approached.
“Speak only Turkish,” Ana’s mother warned.
Many eyes followed them as they made their way from car to car until they reached one far at the back, where they could sit alone.
“Where are we going?” Ana asked.
Her mother never answered, merely stared out at the rocky terrain, so Ana had no idea where the train stopped, or why the soldiers entered it and ordered the passengers from the car. She knew only that these men were like the ones who’d taken her father away.
“This way,” her mother said as the soldiers approached their car. She took Ana by the hand, dragged her quickly out of her seat and toward the rear of the train, then out of it and behind a rocky embankment, where they hid in silence until the train rolled away.
The days that followed would forever blur in Ana’s mind, leaving memories of only the endless walking, the appearance of other stragglers, and the men who fell upon them. Their numbers grew into a bedraggled river that wound its way, though she did not know it then, toward the Syrian border. She would recall only that they had almost reached Aleppo when her mother spotted another gang of men moving toward them.
“Ana, hide there,” she said, and pointed to a wooden cart.
Ana did as she was told, and from her hiding place she watched the men come forward and surround her mother. She could tell that they were questioning her, and she heard her mother say that Ana was dead, that her child had died on the road and been buried in a pit. Then one of the men took her mother by the arm and led her away, the other men falling behind her, pushing her roughly forward with the butts of their rifles. She did not look back, nor give any indication that she had left Ana behind, and this, it seemed to Ana, was courage.
In the days ahead, she thought of that courage as she trudged on, continuing with the bedraggled caravan until they finally reached the border, where a guard passed them through with a desultory wave. She had only walked a few paces into Syria when the man appeared.
“Are you from Erzinghan?” he asked.
Ana nodded.
“What is your name?”
“Ana.”
“My sister said that I should watch for a curly-haired little girl,” the man said. “Garine, you know her?”