Like Water on Stone Read online

  This is a work of fiction. All incidents and dialogue, and all characters with the exception of some well-known historical and public figures, are products of the author’s imagination and are not to be construed as real. Where real-life historical or public figures appear, the situations, incidents, and dialogues concerning those persons are fictional and are not intended to depict actual events or to change the fictional nature of the work. In all other respects, any resemblance to persons living or dead is entirely coincidental.

  Text copyright © 2014 by Dana Walrath

  Jacket type copyright © 2014 by Sasha Prood

  Jacket photograph © 2014 Shutterstock

  Interior art © Shutterstock

  Map illustration copyright © 2014 by Joe LeMonnier

  All rights reserved. Published in the United States by Delacorte Press, an imprint of Random House Children’s Books, a division of Random House LLC, a Penguin Random House Company, New York.

  Delacorte Press is a registered trademark and the colophon is a trademark of Random House LLC.

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  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Walrath, Dana.

  Like water on stone / Dana Walrath. — First edition.

  pages cm

  Summary: Inspired by a true story, this relates the tale of siblings Sosi, Shahen, and Mariam who survive the Armenian genocide of 1915 by escaping from Turkey alone over the mountains.

  ISBN 978-0-385-74397-6 (hc)—ISBN 978-0-385-37329-6 (ebook)

  ISBN 978-0-375-99142-4 (glb)

  1. Armenian massacres, 1915–1923—Juvenile fiction. [1. Novels in verse. 2. Armenian massacres, 1915–1923—Fiction. 3. Brothers and sisters—Fiction. 4. Genocide—Fiction. 5. Armenians—Turkey—Fiction. 6. Turkey—History—Ottoman Empire, 1288–1918—Fiction.] I. Title.

  PZ7.5.W22Lik 2014

  [Fic]—dc23

  2013026323

  Book design by Heather Kelly

  Random House Children’s Books supports the First Amendment and celebrates the right to read.

  v3.1

  To the survivors, to those who fell,

  and to those who cross divides to prevent genocide

  Where the needle passes, the thread passes also.

  —Armenian proverb

  Contents

  Cover

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Dedication

  Epigraph

  Cast of Characters

  Map

  I: Palu, 1914

  II: Massacre, 1915

  III: Journey, Summer 1915

  IV: 1919

  Author’s Note

  Acknowledgments

  Glossary

  Resources

  About the Author

  Cast of Characters

  Ardziv (Ar-DZIV): An eagle

  Donabedian (Doh-na-BED-ee-ahn) Family: Armenian family of millers in Palu, Western Armenia, 1914

  Papa

  Mama

  Anahid (AH-nah-heed): daughter, age nineteen, married to Kaban’s son, Asan

  Misak (MEE-sock): son, age seventeen, works in the family mill with Papa

  Kevorg (KEH-vorg): son, age fifteen, works in the family mill with Papa

  Shahen (SHA-hen): son, age thirteen, twin to Sosi, studies with Father Manoog

  Sosi (SOH-see): daughter, age thirteen, twin to Shahen

  Mariam (MAH-ree-ahm): daughter, age five

  Keri (KEH-ree): Mama’s brother, lives in New York City

  Their Community: Turks (Muslims), Kurds (Muslims), Armenians (Christians)

  Bedros Arkalian (BED-ros ar-KAL-ee-on): clock maker, Armenian

  Vahan (VA-han): Bedros’s son, age sixteen; apprentice to his father

  Father Manoog (MAH-noog): Armenian priest and teacher

  Mustafa Bey Injeli (moo-STAH-fah bay IN-jel-ee): Papa’s friend, a Turk

  Fatima (FAH-ti-mah): Mustafa’s wife

  Kaban Ocalan (KA-bahn OH-jah-lan): Papa’s friend, a Kurd; father-in-law to Anahid

  Palewan (PAH-le-wahn): Kaban’s wife

  Asan (AH-sahn): son of Kaban and Palewan, age twenty-one; husband of Anahid

  Please note that borders were changing rapidly during this time.

  Ardziv

  Three young ones,

  one black pot,

  a single quill,

  and a tuft of red wool

  are enough to start

  a new life

  in a new land.

  I know this is true

  because I saw it.

  We track our quills

  when they fall.

  Always.

  With eagle eyes

  we can see

  from the sky

  who picks one up

  from the ground,

  or rescues it

  from the crook

  of a bent branch,

  the quill’s mottled color

  blending in

  with the peeling bark.

  It was the girl

  who picked up my quill.

  She and her mother

  worked side by side,

  plucking frothy white

  beetle bodies

  from leaf and stalk.

  They crushed them

  between fingertips

  and used this insect blood

  to turn their carpet fibers

  the richest red.

  Clever.

  When my feather dropped,

  the girl, the older one, Sosi,

  almost full grown,

  her body budding,

  stirred from her work.

  The little one, Mariam,

  napped on a carpet beside her.

  Sosi, named for plane trees

  that stand tall on this land.

  Her short, quick inhale as she saw it

  tugged the air around me.

  She wiped her red-tipped fingers

  on her apron before reaching up.

  “Look, Mama, a new mizrap for Papa.”

  A nine-beat song

  pulsed through my wings.

  A musician?

  What luck!

  If my quill could pull laments

  from the strings of an oud,

  I thought, then

  my heart might heal.

  “That quill is for your brother,”

  the mother said.

  “It’s time that Shahen

  learned to play.”

  A young musician?

  More luck.

  Far beyond this beetled field,

  where river cut through mountain,

  a curly-headed, big-eyed boy

  shivered when she spoke.

  Shahen.

  Sons hear as eagles see.

  Fast green water flowed

  along the distant bank.

  An arc of giant stones

  rose from the riverbed,

  bending the current’s

  forward force.

  Water seeped back

  behind these stones,

  forming a still pool

  for Shahen,

  his face reflected in the water,

  so delicate,

  like Sosi’s.

  His thumb and fingers

  curled round

  a flat, smooth stone.

  He bent his hand

  tight toward his arm.

  One fierce flick of his wrist

  sent the stone to water.

  It skipped nine times

  like the beat of a song.

  Ripples spread

  through the top of the pool,r />
  then sank

  into its surface.

  Then, to no one,

  to the air,

  perhaps to me,

  Shahen said,

  “No one plays oud in America.”

  My musician, what luck!

  Shahen

  Come on, lucky stone.

  Give me seven.

  Not nine, not eight.

  One for each of them,

  none for me.

  Papa,

  Mama,

  Kevorg,

  Misak,

  Anahid, Sosi, Mariam,

  Me.

  Eight? It can’t be eight.

  Not the eight arches

  of the Palu bridge.

  I can’t be stuck here

  with a fool for a father.

  In a land ruled by Muslims,

  priests just baaaah like sheep.

  My fate isn’t here, sitting in church,

  learning of what was, not of what could be.

  My fate isn’t here, grinding wheat into flour.

  That’s enough for my brothers,

  big dolts with no dreams.

  Come on, stone. You’re the lucky one.

  Papa,

  Mama,

  Kevorg,

  Misak,

  Anahid, Sosi, Mariam,

  Me.

  Pah! Stupid eight.

  Stupid, like Papa,

  who keeps his head in song.

  If he stopped playing the oud,

  if he looked instead of listened,

  if he stopped thinking we are all the same,

  that Christians, like us, could ever be free

  deep inside an empire

  ruled by Muslim Ottoman Turks,

  then he would know.

  From the Balkans

  to the Caucasus

  and down both sides

  of Arabia, they rule.

  But other empires

  close them in:

  Austrian, Russian,

  Persian, and British

  meet them at each edge.

  They have no place for us,

  not in their hearts.

  Papa should know this.

  He was alive in 1895,

  when Sultan Hamid

  first gave the orders to kill us,

  not me.

  He knows we pay

  double taxes

  and cannot vote.

  He knows Turks call us

  gavour, infidel.

  Now it will be even worse.

  Armenian families will shun us

  because Anahid’s groom is a Kurd.

  What sort of Armenian father

  blesses a love match

  with a Muslim

  for his first-born girl?

  So what if she didn’t

  have to convert?

  It’s Kurdish beys

  who take the tithe.

  If he opened his eyes,

  if he stopped thinking

  of the world as a song,

  with disparate parts

  always blending,

  he would know

  that my keri, my uncle, is right.

  All the way

  from New York,

  Mama’s brother

  knows the truth.

  We should marry

  our own.

  If I go to New York

  to live with my keri,

  my face will be bristled at last,

  no longer the little one,

  the little brother,

  twin to a girl,

  with a fool for a father.

  There I’ll grow tall.

  The bristles will come.

  I’ll live in a tower

  that touches the sky.

  Come on, pink stone,

  perfect, smooth, and flat.

  Cut me out.

  Make it seven.

  Stone spins and cuts the surface.

  Papa, big spray;

  Mama, less;

  Kevorg, closer;

  Misak, smaller;

  Anahid, Sosi, Mariam.

  Stone sinks into water.

  I will do it with care.

  As the proverb says:

  Measure seven times.

  Cut once.

  That’s how I will do it.

  I’m going to America.

  Mariam

  Feet up.

  Feet down.

  Heels hit house.

  Feet up.

  Feet down.

  Shahen,

  come home.

  Time to play the bird game.

  Time to play the bird game.

  Feet up.

  Feet down.

  I sit.

  I wait.

  Feet up.

  Feet down.

  He’s here!

  Shahen’s on the ground,

  his arms spread wide.

  “Time to play the bird game?”

  “Yes,” he tells me.

  He always says yes.

  My wings pull back.

  Meg, yergoo, yerek,

  one, two, three,

  flap, flap, flap.

  I fly.

  My heart goes first,

  down

  down

  down

  from the roof

  into Shahen’s arms.

  He catches me.

  He holds me high.

  He spins me

  round and round

  like the mill wheel.

  I fly above.

  I am his little dove.

  Shahen

  Fly, little bird.

  Fly over hills.

  Fly straight through the straits to the sea.

  She giggles. We spin.

  Her curls catch the wind.

  My fingertips press to her ribs,

  to help me remember her laugh

  and the smell of the mint by the stream

  and Sosi, on tiptoes,

  stringing the loom with strong cotton cords,

  tying tight knots at its base,

  Mama rolling rice into grape leaves,

  packing them snug

  into the black pot to simmer,

  my father and brothers dusted with flour,

  their faces white like clowns

  when the mill work is done.

  From New York,

  I will be able to see across oceans,

  past pashas in Topkapi Palace

  and drum-capped Ottoman soldiers,

  their Muslim guns pointed toward our land,

  through a maze of Turks and Kurds,

  with Anahid among them,

  to my family here in Palu.

  I land Mariam

  back on the roof’s edge.

  Her tiny feet kick.

  She leans out again,

  leading with her breastbone.

  Meg, yergoo, yerek.

  Ardziv

  Built low to the ground,

  this roof was safe,

  even for those without wings.

  The mill house roofs ran up the slope

  like stepping-stones,

  each roof set for its own tasks:

  carpet making, laundry,

  cooking, feasting, music.

  Stone steps set tight

  into outside walls

  led up to all the rooftops.

  That night, on the roof,

  the father used my quill

  to pull sweet sounds

  from the strings of his oud,

  its bulging belly nestled between his arms,

  so like a young human mother

  making room for a coming child.

  Eggs in nests are far more simple.

  His soaring sound pulled me from the sky,

  like gravity must for those who can’t fly.

  I lighted on a branch near their roof.

  The father stopped playing.

  Beside him, Shahen lay on his back,

  staring past me and the t
reetops.

  The father reached down.

  He touched Shahen’s forehead

  with my quill and said,

  “This fine new mizrap, this gift from an eagle,

  the noblest of birds, is a sign, Shahen.

  It’s time for me to teach you.”

  With the pluck of a young one aching to leave the nest

  the imp rolled to his side and replied,

  “No one plays oud in America, Papa.”

  “A good Armenian carries the music of home

  close to his heart, wherever he is, son.”

  “You mean I’m going?”

  I tipped my head under mantle of wing

  lest they hear me whistle.

  We eagles sing no soothing songs.

  Our throats can only whistle.

  Instead, we hunt them down,

  take them from others.

  I craved soothing song that summer.

  I had lost my mate and hatchlings

  and war was in the air.

  Hate makes jagged spikes of light,

  and blame can crack the sky.

  As pierced with wounds

  from sharp white teeth,

  the Ottoman air had ruptured.

  Massacres would come again

  as the drum-capped rulers

  spread their hate.

  I confess. I had my own hate

  for the drum caps that summer.

  I kept it

  like an egg in a nest,

  warming it,

  feeding it once it hatched,

  so it grew ever stronger,

  the drum caps’ hate

  like food for mine.

  Before the time of humans,

  we eagles had no need for hate.

  We do not feign to own the land.

  We keep it safe around our nests

  from hawk and falcon

  so that our young can fledge.

  And to hunt is to fight,

  is to kill, I know.

  But its purpose is pure.

  How else could we feed our young?

  That long-gone night,

  I stopped my distant flights

  across this land of seas.

  Instead, each day,

  I flew over their mill,

  built into a small stream

  that fed the eastern branch

  of the mighty Euphrates River,

  hoping for snatches of music.

  Sosi

  Mama teaches me how

  to bargain for fabrics.

  First, fingertips feel

  texture and weight,

  face and voice silent.

  Never take first price.

  See what the Turks have to offer,

  but buy Armenian cloth if you can.

  Never show which one you love.

  Go to see each merchant’s wares.

  Compare and think and breathe in spices:

  hot bite of cayenne,

  fenugreek for basturma,

  warm, strong taste of earthy cumin,