Like Water on Stone Read online

like an animal.

  We hear Papa, near Mama.

  “No! You beasts! No!”

  We hear soldiers and screams,

  such screams.

  We hear the sounds of our own breathing,

  the sounds of our steps.

  We run harder,

  the noise of our hearts pounding,

  blocking the sounds of home.

  Footsteps, heart, and breath

  fill our ears like rush of mill water at first thaw,

  pushing up the mountain path,

  our chests burning from the push,

  in and out

  legs up and down

  our legs and hearts pounding

  pounding

  not stopping

  till the top of the highest field.

  Our ears fill with emptiness.

  We drop to the ground.

  I pull my sisters close together

  behind the giant stone.

  I find branches,

  lean them against rock

  to hide my sisters.

  I crawl in

  under branches

  beside them.

  They’re both wet

  from sweat

  and urine

  that poured from them

  while they ran

  and ran.

  We are safe.

  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.

  They sit right in front of the stone

  where we ate together,

  always

  singing,

  laughing.

  Papa plucks his 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

  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

  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.

  DAY 1

  PALU

  Sosi

  To step hurts.

  My legs shake.

  Our clothes stink.

  I can’t go.

  I can’t leave this place

  where Vahan will find me

  with Mama and Papa.

  But Shahen says,

  “No.

  Take the pot and go.

  We cannot go back.

  They told us to go.

  “In Aleppo,

  they’ll find us,

  Mama

  Papa

  Anahid

  Misak

  and Kevorg, too.

  We need to be strong.

  We need to go fast

  in the dark,

  time only for our needs.”

  We turn back to back.

  I can tell from the sound

  as his stream hits the earth

  that he stands in his skirt while we squat.

  Our streams fade

  to quiet.

  M
y ears strain

  to hear.

  Mama.

  Papa.

  Please come.

  Come soon.

  Take me back.

  I rub the wool deep in my pocket

  back and forth

  between my thumb and first finger

  till it burns.

  Rays of the moon

  light the stones on ground,

  and I know,

  and I know that

  I

  will

  not

  go

  until

  I pull

  enough rough rock

  to make the shape

  of a cross

  pointing south

  for Mama

  and Papa

  to see

  when they get here.

  Together,

  we’ll find our way back.

  Ardziv

  I left the town

  for good that night.

  Without the sun

  my sight is weak.

  And raptors need both

  speed and height.

  Yet I kept my promise.

  With weak moonbeams,

  flying close to ground,

  I tracked them as they moved.

  DAY 2

  SARYEKSAN MOUNTAIN

  Shahen

  The first night we stop many times

  for Sosi to catch her breath,

  for Sosi to unknot her cramping legs,

  for Sosi to ask me more questions,

  for me to tell her more lies.

  Like a donkey,

  I bear a balanced load,

  the pot, lid sealed tight,

  on one side,

  and Mariam,

  legs curled

  round my waist,

  on the other,

  to go far before dawn

  to Saryeksan Mountain,

  up into the cold

  away from our home.

  Our sheep never grazed here.

  We smell the spring before we see it.

  We scoop fresh water

  again and again

  into our open mouths,

  till new dawn brings back fear.

  Sun and fear.

  A maze of shepherds’ paths

  lead to this spring.

  I take us uphill

  away from the paths

  behind some rocks

  to try to steal some sleep

  until the night.

  I track the sun’s course

  across the blue sky.

  The moon stays with us

  through the morning.

  Sosi and Mariam

  sleeping, safe,

  curled into a single ball

  beside me.

  I hear voices.

  Sheep first,

  then humans.

  Let the bleats and bells hide us.

  Bleats, bells, and bodies

  will protect us

  more than Papa ever could.

  Shepherds better than soldiers.

  Bleats and bells and shaggy wool

  surround us