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Authors: Chris Bohjalian
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cognac in his goblet. Meanwhile, Silas Endicott paces back and forth before the window to the compound courtyard, deeply vexed. Tonight he is troubled by his daughter.
“She is growing too familiar with the Armenian,” he tells Ryan, his tone exasperated.
“Armen Petrosian.”
“Yes. The engineer.”
“Are you sure you won’t join me in a cognac?”
Silas pauses before the window. With his back to Ryan he says—not answering the diplomat’s question—“I have seen this tendency before in Elizabeth. Her mother and I both have.”
“And that tendency is?”
“To forget herself. To lose her bearings with men. She has a history of … of this sort of thing.”
“I rather like Armen,” Ryan tells him, savoring the way the alcohol warms the back of his throat and his chest. “He does not strike me as the type to take unfair advantage.”
“That’s not the point.”
“No?”
The American banker sighs loudly and shakes his head. Finally he turns from the window and faces Ryan. “We came here to save these exotics,” he says, enunciating each syllable slowly and with great care, “not romance them.”
N EVART PAYS ATTENTION to the immaculately dressed Turkish officer who has appeared out of nowhere and towers over the women and children in the square from atop a massive white stallion. There are gold braiding and tassels along his uniform shoulders. He has an adjutant on a smaller chestnut-colored horse just behind him. And beside the adjutant stands a Catholic nun who, Nevart estimates,is in her mid- to late fifties. She is either German or Swiss, and she has her hands clasped behind her. Her face is lost in part to the shadow cast by the horse to her right. Nevertheless, Nevart can see that her expression is stern but not unkind. And looking up at the two soldiers on horseback as if they are gods is a trio of scruffy gendarmes with rifles. The three of them seem uncharacteristically attentive—as if they aspire to be soldiers instead of mere thugs.
“Tomorrow the women will be brought to the resettlement camp to await the end of the war,” the officer is saying, his voice robust and strong, carrying across the cobblestones as if he were using a megaphone. “The older children may accompany their mothers, and the younger ones will be taken to the orphanage. Sister Irmingard tells me that some beds have opened up. I assure you, the children will be well cared for there.”
She supposes she knows what it means that beds have opened up. Those children were not reconciled with their parents, nor were they found new homes. Almost certainly they died. Is it possible they were so sickly that they, too, were put onto that nightmarish bier that rolled along the edge of the square the other night?
She tells herself that isn’t likely. This nun wouldn’t allow it. The beds are now free because the children died or have been sent to the hospital. But they were not carried away, still half-alive, on that cart.
She feels Hatoun leaning into her and knows in her heart that as terrifying and draconian as the orphanage might be, Hatoun will have a better chance of surviving there than at a resettlement camp. Nevart has heard all about the resettlement camps. Everyone has. You die there. They are desert wastelands without food or shelter or, sometimes, even water. All of these women in the square would be better off if the Turks just brought in machine guns, mounted them on tripods, and ended it all right here and now.
She worries that it will devastate Hatoun to be separated from her. It will break her own heart, too. But Nevart doesn’t believe she has a choice. She resolves that moment that when it’s time, she will send Hatoun away with the nun.
• • •
T HE DOCTOR IS a short, squat Turkish fellow with black wire spectacles that curl around his ears in great swooping Cs. He is bald but for his white moustache and the gray stubble that wraps around the sides and the back of his head like
“She is growing too familiar with the Armenian,” he tells Ryan, his tone exasperated.
“Armen Petrosian.”
“Yes. The engineer.”
“Are you sure you won’t join me in a cognac?”
Silas pauses before the window. With his back to Ryan he says—not answering the diplomat’s question—“I have seen this tendency before in Elizabeth. Her mother and I both have.”
“And that tendency is?”
“To forget herself. To lose her bearings with men. She has a history of … of this sort of thing.”
“I rather like Armen,” Ryan tells him, savoring the way the alcohol warms the back of his throat and his chest. “He does not strike me as the type to take unfair advantage.”
“That’s not the point.”
“No?”
The American banker sighs loudly and shakes his head. Finally he turns from the window and faces Ryan. “We came here to save these exotics,” he says, enunciating each syllable slowly and with great care, “not romance them.”
N EVART PAYS ATTENTION to the immaculately dressed Turkish officer who has appeared out of nowhere and towers over the women and children in the square from atop a massive white stallion. There are gold braiding and tassels along his uniform shoulders. He has an adjutant on a smaller chestnut-colored horse just behind him. And beside the adjutant stands a Catholic nun who, Nevart estimates,is in her mid- to late fifties. She is either German or Swiss, and she has her hands clasped behind her. Her face is lost in part to the shadow cast by the horse to her right. Nevertheless, Nevart can see that her expression is stern but not unkind. And looking up at the two soldiers on horseback as if they are gods is a trio of scruffy gendarmes with rifles. The three of them seem uncharacteristically attentive—as if they aspire to be soldiers instead of mere thugs.
“Tomorrow the women will be brought to the resettlement camp to await the end of the war,” the officer is saying, his voice robust and strong, carrying across the cobblestones as if he were using a megaphone. “The older children may accompany their mothers, and the younger ones will be taken to the orphanage. Sister Irmingard tells me that some beds have opened up. I assure you, the children will be well cared for there.”
She supposes she knows what it means that beds have opened up. Those children were not reconciled with their parents, nor were they found new homes. Almost certainly they died. Is it possible they were so sickly that they, too, were put onto that nightmarish bier that rolled along the edge of the square the other night?
She tells herself that isn’t likely. This nun wouldn’t allow it. The beds are now free because the children died or have been sent to the hospital. But they were not carried away, still half-alive, on that cart.
She feels Hatoun leaning into her and knows in her heart that as terrifying and draconian as the orphanage might be, Hatoun will have a better chance of surviving there than at a resettlement camp. Nevart has heard all about the resettlement camps. Everyone has. You die there. They are desert wastelands without food or shelter or, sometimes, even water. All of these women in the square would be better off if the Turks just brought in machine guns, mounted them on tripods, and ended it all right here and now.
She worries that it will devastate Hatoun to be separated from her. It will break her own heart, too. But Nevart doesn’t believe she has a choice. She resolves that moment that when it’s time, she will send Hatoun away with the nun.
• • •
T HE DOCTOR IS a short, squat Turkish fellow with black wire spectacles that curl around his ears in great swooping Cs. He is bald but for his white moustache and the gray stubble that wraps around the sides and the back of his head like
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