Read Online Orhan's Inheritance by Aline Ohanesian - Free Book Online Page A

ideas and opinions freely. Now the thought of seeing his friend Nazareth or catching a glimpse of the lovely sisters makes him feel lighter on his feet. Ignoring the morning call to prayer, the father and son make their way out of the valley.
    “These women are driving me mad, Kemal,” his father says.
    “I know, Baba.”
    “Your grandmother doesn’t understand a thing. But you do, don’t you, boy?”
    Kemal nods.
    “You know why I’ve brought Emineh. She is a good weaver and young . . . young enough to bear more children. Soon you’ll have brothers and sisters. Won’t that be nice?”
    When they’re not arguing, Emineh and his grandmother are in charge of weaving the kilims, the small prayer rugs Mr. Melkonian exports throughout Turkey, England, and Persia. His grandmother is the sole master of the massive loom, where large rugs worth far more than a kilim are woven. She sits before her altar of wool from sunup until sundown, her hands moving feverishly, tying up to three knots per second. Sometimes her hands are so fast that even Kemal’s keen eyes cannot make out their movements.
    “Is that why we’re going to Hagop Effendi’s? To get more wool?” Kemal asks.
    “We were supposed to get more wool days ago. He’s probably noticed an increase in our productivity since Emineh arrived. Maybe he will be forced to offer us more for each piece. That kilim your grandmother wove last month was easily worth forty para s.”
    Kemal remembers the piece, a geometric pattern, lush with six different shades of green. “It was lovely,” he says.
    His father stops his mule and looks down at his only child. “Get your mind out of the clouds, boy. Pay less attention to the colors and more to the coins. Do you want to work for an Armenian dog for the rest of your life?”
    “No,” Kemal whispers, although he would like nothing more than to spend his life working alongside the Melkonians. He spends the rest of the journey imagining himself in the bosom of that boisterous clan. Racing on horseback against Nazareth, the lace and ribbons of the lovely Anush, the refined elegance of Mrs. Melkonian, and finally the sharp wit of the clever Lucine, in whose company he grows quiet and light-headed. God knows he has been very careful, trying hard not to stare at her or be alone in her presence.
    A web of narrow streets, worn by centuries of use, leads to the ancient Armenian churches and monasteries, some of which date back to the Crusades. Beyond them is the town’s center, encompassing the market square, city hall, and other government buildings. There is an invisible border that separates the Muslims from the Christians, the Turks and Kurds from the Armenians and Greeks. Kemal and his father cross this border, leaving behind the orchards and vineyards of the lower valley and climbing toward the fertile wheat and barley fields of the upper plateau.
    The remainder of the journey is a silent one, except for the sound of the Kizil Irmak, the Red River, whose water is stained crimson by the clay hills it passes on its way to the Black Sea. Kemal fixes his eyes on the horizon, toward the village of Karod, where the Melkonians live.
    Despite the morning fog, Kemal can see the house clearly. Cut stones, each a different shade of gray, are stacked one upon the other. The upper two stories are timber frame filled with sun-dried bricks and plastered with lime, and the roof is capped with tile. His father describes it as “offensive,” and most of the Turkish villagers agree with him. It isn’t the size of the house that they find so distasteful, nor its location, perched high above the hill, overlooking all of Sivas, but its occupants that they cannot tolerate. Prudence demands that Christians in Anatolia show a certain amount of modesty, and the villagers agree that Hagop Melkonian has trouble keeping his head down.
    Inside, the massive courtyard has lost its usual ordered rhythm. Seventeen copper cauldrons stand in their circular