Read Like Water on Stone Online
Authors: Dana Walrath
Like Water on Stone (9 page)
Ardziv
In the sky I circled,
head turning on neck,
eyes on young ones
running
soldiers
village
mountain
Mama
Papa
Anahid, big with child,
Palewan,
her mate’s mother,
pushing her
toward a chest
in front of the house,
all of it
in my sight
as I circled,
talons ready to swoop
and attack
for the young one’s sake.
Palewan said to Anahid,
“Snakes in this village
will tell them who you are.
But if soldiers come
they will not find you.
I promise.”
She kissed the top of her head.
She kissed her belly, filled with child.
She covered her with blankets.
She closed the lid.
Children
running,
shots,
screams,
Mama,
Papa.
The peal of bells stopped.
The smoke and smell of burning meat
filled the air.
On the hilltop,
behind the big rock,
Shahen covered his sisters
with branches.
He stepped out
to hilltop’s edge
to see the valley
spread below him,
standing still as stone.
I circled.
Circled.
Shahen
I had to see.
From here
Papa always showed us the whole valley,
both sides:
the bridge
with its eight arches,
the green Euphrates
winding through the middle.
Smoke rises from our house.
Also from the Kacherians’
the Manuelians’
the Bagramians’
the Atamians’
the Garjians’
the Papazians’
the Evazians’
the Takoushjians’
the church
everything
Armenian
in smoke.
A new smoke plume curls toward the sky,
down the river.
The Garabedians’.
The soldiers are moving to the east.
I climb onto Papa’s stone,
the one he lay on after a meal
every time we came here.
I feel him in the stone.
I make every part of my back body touch the stone.
Inside my head I hear Papa telling me
again,
Palu will be safe.
I curl and crush my bones
into the stone.
Palu was not safe.
Another plume of smoke
farther up stream:
the Ishkanians’
this time.
On the path I see them
bathed in bright white light.
Papa, Mama,
carefree,
carrying two baskets,
the mats,
Papa’s
oud
.
oud
.
They sit right in front of the stone
where we ate together,
always
singing,
laughing.
Papa plucks his
oud
oud
with an eagle’s quill.
Mama spreads a feast on the ground in front of me.
Lahmajoon
,
,
dolma
,
,
madzoon
.
.
Mama peels a peach,
then says,
“Shahen will be a good
keri
keri
to his sisters’ children.”
Our eyes meet.
She becomes a new smoke plume
to the east,
my bones cold
like a naked baby on that stone.
“South,” Papa says
before he disappears.
“At night,” I tell the empty space.
I know how to help us.
Night will be safe.
Ardziv
As soldiers swarmed the village,
Mustafa pushed Fatima
behind the garden wall
into a pen with the goats
waiting to be butchered.
He tied her hands and feet,
talking to his god as he worked.
“Allah, forgive me for tying my wife’s hands and feet.
Allah, forgive me for putting a cloth in her mouth.
Allah, forgive me for barricading the door,
with Fatima behind it.
Allah, forgive me.”
He knew their deaths would stick to Fatima’s soul
like a burr to silk trousers,
tearing the fabric with every step.
He knew Fatima would have said too much.
She would have told the soldiers
of the place the young ones ran to.
She would have told about Anahid,
and the chest would be opened.
Columns of smoke rose through the valley and met me in the sky,
Armenian homes burned,
some with families trapped inside.
The fields below the bridge
filled with soldiers
and Armenians,
their bodies
and heads
severed.
Again Mustafa said it:
“Allah, forgive me,
forgive me.
Forgive us all.”
Sosi
I wake to a stink:
branches over us
Mariam
slippery
smelly
Shahen
not here.
A searing ache
in the back of my throat
spreads
to every edge of my body.
I remember the morning.
Through branches
I see our land,
no one else here.
Mariam moves,
tries to cry.
I cover her mouth
tight and hard.
She listens to my hand.
We wait for Shahen.
Ardziv
The drum-capped soldiers
came to Kaban’s.
He faced them
in his prayer shawl,
his brother, there from
Abder village, beside him.
Palewan sat on blankets
blocking the chest.
She smashed cumin seeds
with her pestle,
trapping them between
two hard surfaces.
The heads of the drum caps
stayed whole.
They questioned Kaban.
He sweated.
His hands shook.
But he looked them
in the eye,
never glancing
at his wife,
or at the chest
that sat behind her.
And they left.
Kaban ran to the chest,
opened the lid.
Anahid lay ashen and limp,
belly swollen with child.
They pulled her out.
They washed her,
dressed her in fresh clothes.
They removed her cross
from its necklace chain.
Palewan said,
“Go to Abder village now.
Kaban’s brother will hide you there.”
A month’s supply
of pungent cumin
could not cover
the stench of people
burning
in their homes.
Mariam
Sosi hurts me.
My mouth.
It was the soldiers.
Mama.
Mama.
Mama.
Ardziv
Fatima crouched
in the corner,
hair wild,
wrists rubbed raw.
Mustafa set a pot of water beside her
and loosened the kerchief at her teeth.
“Is it over?” she asked
through the cloth as it slacked.
She lifted knotted ropes
round her hands
toward his face,
like a child presenting
a tangled boot lace.
But when their eyes met
she knew
it was not.
Not then.
Not yet.
Not ever.
She dropped her hands.
She opened her mouth to speak.
But he filled it
with a ladleful of water.
She gulped it down,
and the next one
and the next.
She gulped
each ladleful of water
as he poured it
into her,
one after another
without a beat in between,
until the pot was empty
and he knotted the kerchief again.
Shahen
Sosi
Sosi’s fingers
dig into my arm,
her other hand tight
on Mariam’s mouth.
Mariam better be
quiet if she ever
wants to see
Mama again.
I pet Mariam’s head,
whispering,
“Os, os, os,”
like Mama did.
I let go
of her mouth
when she quiets.
Sosi’s knuckles
are white
from grabbing
me so hard.
Shahen opens
my fingers
and I shake.
I leave one hand
on Sosi’s,
the other
on Mariam’s
soft curls.
Shahen says
night
will protect us.
I tell them
we’ll stay here,
hidden,
till night,
then follow
the water
along the skeleton
of the earth
to the south.
I tell them
Mama and Papa
will find us there.
I feel Mama
beside me
breathing
in my ear.
I know
it is a lie.
“Look
in your pockets.
See the
dolma
dolma
in the pot?
Feel the seams.”
“Nuts
“Nuts
bastegh
halva
coins
basturma
Mama.”
/
Mama.”
Ardziv
Mustafa met Kaban
by the river
at sundown.
They found their bodies.
They washed them of blood.
It was worse for the wife.
Good they brought a cloth
to cover her.
Him, Papa,
the one I promised,
they slashed his throat,
the gash so deep
his skull hung on
by ragged bands of muscle only.
They each took one,
one body,
Mustafa him,
Kaban her.
She was wrapped in a cloth,
her clothes all gone,
her breasts severed,
her womb removed.
They carried them to Kaban’s garden
to wash them,
to make them pure
for the grave,
Mustafa him,
Palewan her.
Kaban dug the grave.
As Palewan washed her she said,
“Thank you, Allah,
for sparing our grandchild.
Thank you, Allah,
for sparing Anahid.
Thank you, Allah,
for taking her from here
so she never had to see
what soldiers did to her mother.”
Palewan washed her,
cleaned her,
made her pure for the shroud.
Under the smell of blood
rose the unmistakable smell
of man between her legs.
She washed this from her, too.
Rising moonlight
slanted through trees.
Shovel scraped
earth and rock.
They wrapped them
in simple shrouds.
They laid them together,
placing stones
in the shape of a cross
on top of them.
They covered the stones
with earth.
They transplanted mint
into earth
so no one would see
what lay below.
They buried Anahid’s cross
separately,
inside a small ceramic bowl
from Abder,
with a fitted lid,
a very shallow grave
that they could find again.
Together they prayed for a time
when it would be safe
for the coming child to know
his mother was Armenian.
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