Under Indifferent Skies

Torment

1

Patras, Greece, 1937

«My love, I’m away», whispered Seròp to his wife.

Satèn turned in the bed with a soft sigh. The oil lamp burning on the table lit up her eyes, and, as always, Seròp was spellbound by their color; amber, golden and transparent, unlike anything he had ever seen.

«I’ll get up now», she murmured, as if fearing, though they were alone, she might wake someone.

«No, no, go on sleeping», said her husband lovingly, caringly. It was the dead of night, and he wanted Satèn to rest another little while, but she, already seated on the edge of the bed, was rummaging for her slippers.

Satèn was young, even though she did not know precisely how old she was. According to the stories she had been told, she supposed she was born in the spring of 1919, three years before the Smyrna catastrophe, when a dreadful fire lit on purpose by the Young Turks had destroyed that beautiful city on the Turkish coast. On that same day of hell fire and smoke, little Satèn had lost her entire family and was left alone in the world. That is why nobody would tell exactly when she was born.

«I’ll give you some fresh bread, Lussià-dudù brought it», said the woman, putting on a worn-out dressing gown and tying it gently at the waist. She was tall and slender, her bearing proud, her hair raven-black with a blueish sheen. Seròp was always awestruck when he looked at his wife and told himself over and over again that God had blessed him, undeserving as he was, by giving her to him. He lowered his eyes and they came to rest on her taut swollen belly which grew bigger and bigger every day: Satèn was pregnant.

«You eat it, you’re the one who needs to grow strong», he urged, his head bent. Satèn’s pregnancy filled him with pride yet it worried him too. Seròp was poor, like all the Armenian refugees in that camp, and the idea of a child — in these conditions — held his stomach in a vise and robbed him of his sleep.

A bed, a table and a chair could barely fit into the room where they lived. On the rare occasions when the couple ate together one of them had to sit on the bed. They had no wardrobe so they hung their clothes on a line stretched between two of the walls. Beside the door, below a tiny window which opened upward, high in the wall close to the ceiling, stood a tin sink which drained into a large basin. Satèn, like all the other women in the camp, had to empty it in the yard, several times a day. Above the sink, was a small metal tank, with a miniscule tap. Satèn used to fill it with water from the village pumps. On the front of it you could read the Greek word kalmera, good morning, surrounded by a garland of flowers, and whenever Satèn used it, her eyes would fall inevitably on the greeting and this used to cheer her up a bit. Nearby, lined on a wooden shelf that Seròp had nailed to the wall, were their dishes and two pots, one small, the other slightly bigger. On the floor, to the left of the sink, on a pile of bricks stood a kerosene stove, which required a certain skill and lots of patience to get it working, so much so, that Seròp often wondered how his wife managed to cook such tasty meals in a modest, pokey kitchen like this.

«Here you are», she said to him putting the bundle he was to take with him to the factory on the table. It contained bread, olives and goat’s cheese. She moved about with some difficulty, slightly out of breath.

«Promise me you’ll go back to bed», her husband pleaded gently: Satèn had had one miscarriage already.

The young woman smiled, revealing her two front teeth with the gap between them; Seròp had fallen in love with her when he had noticed that intriguing little flaw and how her pink tongue moved behind that split as she spoke. «I want to help you sew the uppers of those slippers», she announced.

He shook his head. «You’ve plenty to do as it is. Tidy up, wash, cook and all the rest».

«It’s no trouble to me. I want to give you a hand; the more you make, the more you earn», she replied, firmly.

Since he had been told that the family was growing, Seròp had decided to get a second job. He was still young and strong and in no way afraid to work hard. Like the majority of the men in the camp, he worked at the Marangopoulos textile factory, but to boost his meagre wages, he had decided to put his skill as a slipper maker to good use. He had learnt the trade from his father Toròs-agà, who, in Adabazàr, in Turkey, had owned one of the fanciest shoemaker’s shops in the city, the famous Altìm Cicèk, the Golden Flower. In his spare time, between one shift at the factory and another, Seròp would sew beautiful soft slippers in felt, like the ones his father, God rest his soul, used to make. He was convinced he would be able to sell them and get a good price for them too. For that reason, he had bought a sewing machine at the Aghià Varvàra Sunday market; a bit of a wreck, really, but he had patiently taken it asunder and put it all back together again until it was in working order.

«Heed to what I say, remember you’re not supposed to lift weights», he warned, recalling the miscarriage she had had.

The sewing machine was under the bed and more than once he had come home to find it on the table, with Satèn sewing uppers in an impeccable fashion, like the excellent apprentice that she had become.

«You get it out then before you leave, what are you waiting for?» she answered, bursting out laughing.

Seròp thought himself the luckiest man in the world.

He left the house and hurried through the rows of hovels, all like his own, comprising the camp where he had been living now for fifteen years.

The Armenians had arrived in Greece from Turkey, at the end of 1922, like thousands of other refugees, on board ships belonging to the French, English and Italian allies who had saved them from certain death, in the disastrous aftermath of the Greco-Turkish war. They had landed on the Aegean islands, many had reached Athens, others the country’s larger cities. They had come to Patras by boat and train, wearily carrying with them the few belongings they had salvaged from their memlekèt, mother country. Seròp was only twelve at the time, but he never forgot his father’s reaction when they first got off at Patras railway station. «This is a fine city, my son», he had said softly as he stared at the sea and the greening hills, «but no place will ever be like our dear Adabazàr. You’re young, you’ll get used to it, but my life ends here», he had concluded bitterly.

The municipal authorities had assembled them all in a clearing near the Cathedral of Saint Andrew, patron saint of Patras. Here, there were some dragomans — interpreters — who did their best to communicate with these poor souls. They had to be registered — names, dates of birth, places of origin — but, above all, it was their human dignity, torn from them so brutally, which needed to be restored to them. Alongside these, there were several officials from the Red Cross and other humanitarian associations, who invited the refugees to fill in forms so they could help them find relatives they had lost sight of during their flight. Toròs-agà, Seròp’s father, had asked his son to see if they could trace his beloved niece Miriam, his dead sister’s daughter, who had been studying at the time in the American College in Istanbul, but of whom they had heard no more after the breakout of hostilities.

After that, they had been transferred to an abandoned, derelict factory, the govoush, the oubliette as they soon baptized it: a squalid place, but the only one available in a similar emergency. Greece was a poor country and the war with Turkey — which had ended so catastrophically — had brought it to its knees. There was a continuous influx of Greeks to the home country as they fled Smyrna, Eastern Thrace and Pontos, all areas they had been forced to leave when the war was over. If the Armenians were hosted, this was because of the Greeks’ genuine sense of hospitality and to the undeniable bond existing between the two peoples.

The armènides, as they were called here, had rolled up their sleeves and set down to work at once. Each man had set a claim on a small part of the factory, not only inside the building but also outside in the yard, and with sheets of metal, wood and bricks made of mud, had done his utmost to create a place of his own. Every day they had only one goal in mind: to survive. To get by, it was necessary to learn a new language, find a job, take care of the ailing and, worse still, look after those suffering from that incurable malady called homesickness. Every so often, someone would wake up in the dead of night, howling in Turkish: «Bèn memlekèt ghidiorùm! I’m going back to the homeland!»

It certainly sounded bizarre to hear them call homeland the very Country that had persecuted and tortured them.

As the years went by, the refugees adapted to their new situation: the children grew up, many of the young people married and several children were born in this new fatherland. The Red Cross worked miracles, reuniting many families or, at least, tracing countless of those believed to be lost. Toròs-agà was overjoyed when he was told that his sister’s child, Miriam, was thriving and living on the other side of the ocean, in Los Angeles. Miriam submerged them with letters, each one entreating them to move to the States. She was going to marry a very influential American diplomat, so, it would be very easy to get them visas and documents so they could emigrate.

«Let me pay you back, at least in part, for your generosity, dear uncle. Had it not been for you, I wouldn’t have been allowed even ‘to walk in the quad’ of that prestigious Istanbul college», she had insisted in one of her letters, alluding to the economic support she had received from Toròs-agà over the years. But he, then an old man, had always refused her invitation.

«May God bless you and endow you with great happiness, dear niece», he used to answer, «but if the Lord has chosen to separate us, we must bow to His will», he would add.

It was the old people, actually, who suffered the pain of exile and the diaspora most: many were unable to bear the sudden loss of everything they had created in a lifetime. Toròs-agà was one of these. Barely a year after his arrival in Patras, the night before he died, he had called Seròp to his deathbed and, clasping his hand as hard as he could, had murmured: «Son, I have lived out the years the good Lord has seen fit to grant me. I have no regrets, only one: I’m sorry I had to bring you up all alone, without your mother».

On hearing these words, Seròp had grown distraught. That thorny issue had been addressed by the two of them only once before, when Seròp, still a child, arriving home from school one day in floods of tears had burst out, «They all say my mother was a whore, why have you always hidden this from me?» Toròs-agà had struck him hard in the face saying, «Don’t you ever call your mother that again!» Having reprimanded him soundly, he had then gone up to his room, closed the door and failed to come down to dinner.

But that night, before he breathed his last, Toròs-agà had felt the need to reveal the family secret which had weighed on his conscience for so long.

«Your mother», he began, «was the most beautiful woman in Adabazàr…»

«Papa, I beg you…» said Seròp in an attempt to silence him.

But he had waved his lean hand in the air, a sign that he did not want to be interrupted.

«She was not only the most beautiful, but also the most sought after. Maybe only the angelic hosts could have rivalled the light in her eyes, her sprightly step, her stupendous body. And God had made a gift of her to me. I worked day and night in my workshop, to make more and more money. It’s true I had to think of your aunt Miriam’s college fees, the shop’s rent and pay for the upkeep of the beautiful home where we lived. But I had grown excessively greedy, insatiable. How stupid of me! Stupid and blind. And so, I lost her», he continued. «She was very young, much younger than me, and you’d just been born. I used to come home late and there she’d be, waiting for me; looking her very best for my sake, enticing me with delicious dishes, caressing me and I, idiot that I was, paid no heed to her. She used to plead with me, wanted me to love her, wanted us to spend more time together; but I made a burnt offering of her love on the altar of Mammon…»

«But you used to come back home exhausted, papa!» Seròp said, trying to justify him although he blushed for shame.

«No, that’s not true, I was the only one to blame!» the old man exclaimed, shaking his head. «Then, one evening I came home, and she was gone. You were sleeping peacefully in your cradle, but she was gone. She’d left everything behind her, taken nothing for herself, disappeared just like that. I never saw her ever again». Then he paused and gazed at his son, his eyes full of wisdom. «You’re old enough now, you might even get married soon», he had continued, «therefore, if I’m no longer around, remember to love your wife, look after her, cherish her as if she were the most precious, delicate flower in the world.»

At this point Toròs-agà just wept and Seròp bent down to dry his tears.

«You were always asking me what she was called…»

Seròp stiffened. For years he had asked his father to tell him her name, the only thing about her he would be able to keep in his memory. But Toròs-agà had never wanted to tell him, lest he himself collapse as he pronounced it.

«Siranush, Sweet Love», he had whispered in his son’s ear, his last dying words.

When the girls in the camp reached the marriageable age, the ciopcatàn, matchmakers, got down to business. They visited the homes of potential suitors, and, sitting down to a cup of coffee or a glass of fruit compote, they began weaving their webs. They would advance bizarre claims and make the most outrageous predictions: «She has the fingers of a fairy, everything she touches turns to gold», or, «Her teeth are so white she’ll surely bear male children» or, again, «She was born on a Saturday, so, the man who marries her will be blessed by fortune», and similar nonsense, all aimed at enthralling the listeners, making them believe their future bride or daughter-in-law was truly rare and precious.

But no ciopcatàn had ever taken it upon herself to act on Satèn’s behalf although she was old enough to marry. When the girl walked across the camp, on her way to the water pumps, the jar balanced on her shoulder, the men just could not take their eyes off her. They would admire her shapely thighs, her full breasts, her amber eyes, nudging each other, making comments in hushed tones, blushing even, but none of them had ever plucked up the courage to approach her. And certainly not because she was an orphan without a large dowry. After all, upon her arrival in Patras, Satèn had been adopted by Rosacùr, an elderly childless refugee, who had brought her up and educated her. Rosacùr, a language teacher, was the oriòrt, the school mistress appointed by the community. In a little room behind the church of Aghià Varvàra, furnished by the refugees with a few tables and chairs, one of the walls painted black to act as a blackboard, had been set up the tebròz, the first school for the Armenians of Patras. It was a primary school where you could learn to read Armenian, Greek and English and Rosacùr was in charge of it.

«I’ll leave you my burmà», she used to tell Satèn as she made the row of gold bracelets she wore on her arm jingle, «they’ll do as your dowry», she would add to cheer the girl up.

Rosacùr did not believe that marriage was the only pathway to a woman’s happiness, there were several more, but she did not want her daughter to be unhappy.

«Look, there are sixteen of them», she would insist, counting them, «you know what that means, don’t you? You’ll be married before you’re sixteen». But that birthday was only a few months away, and no man had asked for the girl’s hand so far.

The gossips said she was «strange», that deep inside her something ugly and evil lurked. This because Satèn, especially when she was a child, would wake up sometimes in the middle of the night screaming, thrashing and tossing in her bed as if in the throes of an epileptic fit. Those who had seen her in that state, and many had, as the camp was so promiscuous, used to describe her spine-chilling screeches, like those of pigs being dragged to the slaughterhouse and the horrified expression that appeared on her face, as if she had seen the devil.

«Yazìk, what a pity, such a beautiful girl. It’s better that God deprive your body rather than your soul of health», they would remark knowingly, whenever they discussed her. «No fault of hers, these illnesses are passed down from mother to child!» And with a verdict like this, what mother would choose Satèn as a bride for her son?

«Get up, child, we’re going to the doctor’s», said Rosacùr after one of these crises. It was time to find a cure.

«No, grandma, there’s no need», Satèn had replied. It was the first time she had spoken immediately after one of her attacks. She had usually remained speechless at length before succeeding to formulate a coherent sentence again. «I’ll get better on my own», she had explained, decided and determined.

«And how will you do that?» the incredulous Rosacùr had asked with a sigh.

«All I have to do is not heed the ghosts, I’ll free my mind of the images that torment me.»

Rosacùr had taken her hand and kissed it tenderly.

«What are you talking about, my love?»

Satèn was snuggling in her arms, trembling like a frightened puppy. «I’m burning, grandma, burning all over. I’m surrounded by flames, big red tongues trying to devour me. I try to escape, but I can’t, so I scream, I cry and then I wake up …»

The woman listened with a lump in her throat because she realized that Satèn’s soul had been deeply wounded. She supposed it was due to a traumatic, painful experience she had undergone in early childhood.

That Wednesday, the 13th of September 1922, little Satèn was in the garden of a house in the Ermenì mehelé, the wealthy Armenian district on the slopes of the lush Smyrna hills. She had just finished having lunch with her mother, her nursemaid and her brother, who was only a little older than herself. As the weather was still warm they ate in the open, under a gazebo from where they could enjoy a spectacular view of the port. She knew that her mother was about to bring her up to her room, read her a story before putting her to bed for her afternoon nap. Papa was still at work, in the famous jeweler’s shop near the port he had inherited from his grandfather and would not be back home before dusk.

All of a sudden, the blue sky went black and a bitter, dense burning cloud crashed down on the entire area. Her mother and nursemaid were petrified. Satèn always remembered her hand being held tightly, herself and her brother, standing there frozen for what seemed like ages, her mother undecided what to do, where to go. The house was ablaze, devoured by fire, the flames, like gigantic infernal tongues, spewing from the windows and doors. Then, there had been a deafening blast, something had exploded. The garden was filled with a thick, dark, suffocating cloud. Everyone was coughing; mamma, her brother, the nursemaid, and herself.

«I can’t see.» she had whimpered lost in the smoke.

A cornice had collapsed, and immediately after it the pillars of the lovely nineteenth-century hallway caved in. Her mother had heaved a ghastly rattling sigh and her grasp had fallen limp.

«Mayrìg, where are you?» The child had cried as she groped around, her eyes shut, her feet tripping over pieces of masonry.

«Where’s my little sister? Come here!» she had heard Hampìg, her brother, call.

«Where are you?» she had barely managed to ask when a second explosion sent bricks, tiles and chunks of wood hurtling all over the place. «Hampìg!» she had shouted in despair, but no answer came and none ever would.

At this point, she recalled bursting into floods of tears, sobbing with terror. The garden was on fire: the fan-like palm trees, the red roses, the white agapanthus; the plants were all alight like torches at the mercy of the greedy blaze. Then, when from the thousand-branched pine tree the cones began falling like red-hot grenades, Satèn had managed to escape through the gate and run into the street where she found herself surrounded by a throng of people from the neighborhood, now one gigantic pyre. All around shouts and laments, every now and then a gunshot. They were all running downhill, towards the port, the sea, and little Satèn followed the flow, coughing and spluttering, her eyes all watery because of the smoke; as she fled, she kept stumbling over the things cluttering the road, sometimes over dead bodies, even.

«Give me your hand, little girl», said a distinguished-looking man at one point. At least that is what she thought he said, because he spoke a language she did not understand, but she guessed what he meant because his arms were reaching out to her.

«Your mamma, your papa?» he had asked, but she had just shaken her head and continued to cry.

Her hand held firmly in the stranger’s, she had arrived down at the port, where a crushing, shouting, frantic crowd was assembling. Many people’s faces were so black that their features could not be made out, yet their horror, bewilderment and despair could be read in every eye as they fled the flames which advanced threateningly, fanned by an easterly wind. The ships in the port were blowing their sirens, and the sound rang out through the air with an excruciating shrill, like some heart-rending mournful chant. Satèn had glanced hopefully in the direction of her father’s jeweler’s shop, but the fire had devoured that too already. Just then, someone had pushed her roughly and she had found herself sprawling on the ground, having been separated from the stranger. Summoning up all her meagre strength, she had managed to avoid being trampled on and crawl through the crowd which pushed its way in the direction of the water and the ships, their flags flying on the masts. There were lifeboats and kayaks, but they could never have held the swarms of people thronging the piers, waving their arms wildly, all shouting the same desperate plea in a variety of languages, «Help us, for the love of God, we’re burning alive!»

When the tongues of fire began to lick her body, Satèn, yielding to pure instinct, had thrown herself into the blue water of the bay, doing her best to stay afloat as papa had shown her when teaching her to swim. But as soon as she realized that his strong fond arms were not there to support her, she felt herself being dragged down, her throat choking with the saltwater that prevented her from breathing.

This is what must have happened to Little Red Riding Hood when the big bad wolf gobbled her up, she reckoned as she surrendered to her fate.

The first time Seròp had spoken to Satèn it had been to provide her with some information. He was returning home from his morning shift at the factory. His head was a muddle, his body one big ache, his shoulders bent after hours of pressing the reed on the loom.

«Excuse me, fellow countryman», she had addressed him, recurring to the formula they all used in the community, «do you know, by any chance, if they hire women where you work?»

Seròp had raised his eyes to look at the girl he considered the most beautiful in the whole camp. She was only fifteen, but her body had nothing to envy the voluptuous curves of an older woman. She was sweeping the little yard where, on fine days, she sat out in front of the house with Rosacùr, enjoying a breath of fresh air.

«Why don’t you ask me?» butted in the interfering Noemi, known as Fitìl, the Fuse, because her slurs and tittle-tattle regularly sparked off furious rows among those living in the camp. She was a nasty spinster who lived in the shack facing Satèn’s. She had no job, so she sponged on her neighbors who would give her a bowl of soup or a bite of stew. In exchange, she used to offer to tell them their fortunes. She claimed being a palm reader endowed with extraordinary powers. «Let me see your hand», she would insist, more out of inquisitiveness than anything else and driven by a morbid craving for other people’s business, surely not by any special talent. She knew everything about everybody, but relayed the information she gleaned in a distorted, slanderous manner. She sat all day outside her hovel, on a stool, chewing heaps of sunflower seed which she ably cracked open with her teeth before spitting the hulls on the ground.

«Because you don’t work in the factory», Satèn had retorted promptly.

Seròp had felt awfully uncomfortable. He had glanced at the two women, proffering them a timid conciliatory grin, red as a beetroot with embarrassment.

His appearance was not great; he was wearing a short-sleeved smock, his bare muscular arms, out of proportion with his extremely lean body, his over-loose trousers making him look really skinny; his face long and gaunt, his hair — kept combed back — a reddish golden hue, his skin milk white. He was often referred to as the «blond» to distinguish him from the other men in the camp, most of whom had dark hair and swarthy complexions. Although he was not yet twenty-five, he bore the signs of the hard life that had been his lot till then. After his father’s death, he had lived all alone in a remote corner of the camp near the community latrines. Most of his peers were already married and had children, but he seemed destined to remain a bachelor.

«I’m sorry, Satèn-cùr, sister Satèn», he had answered at last, avoiding the amber eyes that held him in their gaze. «But mine is not women’s work, it requires too much strength. Maybe you should look for something at the packing department», he had suggested.

«But I am strong», she had replied, her tongue flipping behind the gap in her front teeth. Then she had straightened her shoulders to prove she was as tall as him.

«Excuse me, but why not marry him? Look at those arms? He can go out to work for you and you can stay at home», Fit’ll had taunted spitting out yet another hull.

«B-but what are you s-saying, N-n-oemì-cùr?» Seròp, had stammered, overcome with shyness and embarrassment.

«Don’t tell me you don’t like her?» Fitìl had teased.

«Stop it!» Satèn had exclaimed, brandishing the broom she still held in her hands.

Fit’ll had burst out laughing. «Just listen to her! That one’s a real erìk zezò-gh, a husband-beater», she had yelled, turning to Seròp, in full view of the inquisitive neighbors, who had all come out to relish the scene.

Seròp had felt the ground give way beneath his feet.

But only a few months later, accompanied by Lussià-dudù, his next-door neighbor, he was sitting in Rosacùr’s place, sipping coffee and, stammering as usual, asking for Satèn’s hand.

Marangopoulos, where Seròp worked, was Patras’s most prestigious textile firm. Rumor had it that the owner’s huge fortune was the fruit of a bizarre stroke of luck. In 1912, a merchant ship full of costly French cloth had sunk in the port. None of the town’s merchants was prepared to risk buying the cargo, fearing it might be damaged, rotted by the saltwater. The only businessman who had dared make an offer and negotiate, acquiring the lot for a song, had been the young Marangopoulos. Then he had simply washed the material carefully and sold it afterwards at an enormous profit, making enough money to set up his first small textile factory.

Thanks to his business acumen, his firm determination, his curiosity and the will to innovate, he became successful by leaps and bounds. In 1925, he had visited a cloth-making factory near Bologna and, impressed by the invention of the use of the «flying shuttle», a device used to speed up the slower traditional system, he had ordered thirty or so of these machines.

«Just think of labor, only one worker per loom, that will make productivity soar», he had said to his son, who, although still a child, always accompanied his father on his business trips.

The machinery had been shipped from Ancona and after three days sailing across the Adriatic, had reached the port of Patras.

The factory comprised three big sheds made of mudbricks, arranged around a yard, at the center of which stood a century-old olive tree with a huge trunk and an immense verdant crown. During their breaks, the workers would sit out here in the open, under its majestic silver-green foliage which scintillated splendidly, filtering the sunbeams.

To enter the place, the workers had to pass through an iron gateway, under the watchful gaze of the custodian, who, seated in his little hut, jotted down their names and respective shifts. The majority of them were Armenian refugees, because, it was rumored, Marangopoulos had a particular preference for that persecuted people, so akin to his own. The factory never stopped, but, night and day, it spun its prized table and bed linen, celebrated throughout the Country. The ceaseless noise of the reeds as they drummed on the looms could be heard clearly outside, at a distance of several yards from the building. At the end of each shift, that din continued to resonate inside the workers’ heads as they made their way home and well after that.

As time went by, however, the Marangopoulos company lost the luster and fame it had enjoyed for decades. A new, fully-fledged textile plant had been built only a few kilometers from the port: the Peraica-Patraica. Two large firms had merged, giving rise to the Country’s largest and most modern textile industry. Avant-garde looms had been imported from England with the blessing and the enormous financial backing of the National Bank of Greece. Compared to it, the Marangopoulos factory seemed outdated, obsolete.

«Hard times!» Marangopoulos had admitted, speaking at the end of a meeting of workers where he too was present.

Little Sahàk was running, panting, scudding like a hare across the green fields on the outskirts of the city. Every now and then he stopped to catch his breath and study his route. It was not far, but he needed to fly.

«Listen carefully to what I ask you, …run», Satèn had recommended, «run as quickly as you can, down to the factory and fetch my husband.» The woman at the door was barely able to stand.

When he arrived at the factory gate, the boy, gasping, turned to the custodian, «I have to speak to Seròp Gazarian; it’s really urgent!»

Seròp came out into the yard and saw Sahak sitting under the olive tree. The boy sprang to his feet at once and ran straight over to him. «Baron Seròp, it’s your wife, she’s not well…» he shouted so his voice could be heard above the noise of the machinery.

«She’s not well?»

«No.» And he stretched his arms in a circle, miming a belly. He would never have dreamed, out of shyness and respect, to speak explicitly of a birth or of a woman’s birth pangs.

Seròp rushed towards the gate, but before he left, the custodian made him take off the white gloves he always wore to avoid soiling the snow-white cloth he wove.

As he drew back the heavy curtain that acted as a door to their home, he found Satèn crouching on the bed, holding her belly and moaning with pain.

«My love…» he said bending over her.

Satèn was naked, wrapped only in a sheet. It was nearly November, but that autumn was particularly mild. The young woman forced a smile.

«I sent for you because I’m in great pain», she murmured stroking her husband’s face. She was wearing the gold bracelets which had belonged to Rosacùr, who had died suddenly only a few months previously. After that, Satèn had never taken those burmà off again.

«I’ll call Lussià-dudù? Do you think it’s time?» asked Seròp lowering his eyes to her belly which seemed to be on the point of bursting open. Then he saw the sewing machine on the table, uppers strewn all over the place, even on the ground.

«Why did you insist on working on your own? I asked you not to!»

Satèn groaned and collapsed onto the bed. Seròp noticed that the sheet was smeared with a yellowish fluid, hot and damp to the touch. He straightened up, unable to hide his fear.

«I’ll be back at once», he said, as he rushed out the door.

His heart throbbing in his temples, his vision blurred, he turned right and hurried away. This camp, the place where he had grown up, where he had lived practically the whole of his life, now seemed cold and hostile. He ran past the boys, including Sahàk, kicking a ball of wool, he saluted old Legos lost in his armchair smoking his hookah; he avoided looking in the direction of Fit’ll who was about to rise to her feet, a sunflower seed between her teeth, all ready to quiz him.

Finally, he started running, head down, staring at his boots, the same ones he had worn for years and which he had begun to patch. «You’re soon to be a father», said a voice in his head, feeble at first before it spiraled loudly becoming a roar. He felt as if he were trapped in a tangled skein of contrasting emotions. The prospect of having a child had always pleased him, but now that it was about to be born, fear was beginning to prevail, and he doubted he would be up to the challenge.

At times he asked himself whether he had married for love, or for what he had thought love might be. He had been extremely hesitant about proposing to the beautiful Satèn, wondering whether Rosacùr would ever give her to someone like him, a poor, uneducated man, an untimely orphan, without either prospects or a future. He had been dumbfounded when the woman had risen to congratulate him and Lussià-dudù, the neighbor who had accompanied him.

They were married a few months later in the church of Aghià-Varvàra in the Armenian rite, celebrated by the parish priest of Surp Hagòp, who had come especially for the occasion from the large Armenian community of Piraeus. Seròp had bought a pair of rings in red gold with the dollars Miriam had sent from the States and inside he had them engraved with two letters and a date: S-S 1935.

Rosacùr had been right: Satèn was not yet sixteen.

«Why did you marry me?» she had asked him on their wedding night as she lay by his side, naked, just after they had finished making love.

«Because it was written in my kismèt, my destiny.»

Satèn was displeased: it was clear she would have preferred hearing something else.

«But also because», Seròp had continued, «in my eyes you’ve always been the most beautiful of women, the most tenacious and intelligent too; I’d often thought of you, but I was afraid you wouldn’t even look at me.»

Satèn had laughed so hard that her breasts shook. A drop of blood had stained the sheet, undeniable proof of her virginity.

«And I thought you’d done it to shut Fitìl’s mouth up!»

«No.»

«And the rumors about me?»

«We all have some failing or other. But I’ve never paid much heed to what others say», he had lied.

Satèn had fondled his shoulder. Then, in turn, he had asked: «And you, why did you accept?»

«Because I feel for the child that is in you, which moves me so deeply. I want to embrace you as if I were your mother, hug you tight, console you, telling you that everything will be all right», she had whispered fixing him with her hypnotic, amber eyes. «Besides, I wanted a family.»

Seròp was amazed at how profound and sensitive she was, though she was ten years his junior.

«Don’t wash the sheet. Hang it outside, in full view», he said shortly afterwards as he rose from the bed.

«Lussià-dudù!» he shouted outside a rusty tin shack.

Gasping for breath, he was nauseated by the pong of the latrines mingled with the aroma of frying food wafting in the air. He knew that smell only too well: Lussià-dudù was surely cooking. He approached the little window and peeked inside. «Lussià-dudù», he called again. The woman stood only a few meters away, fork in hand. «Ah, my son, I was just frying some meatballs, I didn’t hear you coming because of the sizzling pan…» she excused herself as she turned the little stove off. She leaned out of the window and read the fear in Seròp’s eyes. «But, can it be her time already?» she asked him, incredulous.

He nodded.

«Please, oh, please, let’s hurry», he entreated her, anxiously passing his fingers through his hair.

No one could guess just how old Lussià-dudù was. When asked how old she was, she always said sixty. She was tall and stout, with a round face and protruding eyes, like people who have problems with their thyroid. She had landed here with all the other refugees in ‘22, fleeing from Erzerum, in Anatolia. And when Seròp had been orphaned, she had helped him overcome that awful period. They lived in neighboring shacks, so Lussià-dudù used to cook for him too, wash his things, keep him company and, when he was ill, cure him with medicinal herbs whose properties she knew well. They said she had been a nurse in the old country, besides being the lover of a famous surgeon who had never married her, however. She had learnt a lot about medicine from him but, above all, she was an excellent midwife, and, in the camp, her strong capable hands had helped bring most of the children born there into the world. «So much for the Turks!» she would exult after every delivery, referring to the ferocity with which they had massacred her people. Then, having examined the infant, she used to give it a sound slap on the buttocks to make it cry, obliging it to fill its tiny lungs with air.

The first breath of life.

«Push, my child, breathe deep and push…»

Lussià-dudù had placed two cushions under Satèn’s thighs and covered her groin with a sheet. She believed no husband should ever see that part of his wife’s body dilated by childbirth.

«How are you feeling, my love?» Seròp asked. With one hand he caressed her face, flushed with heat and distorted by pain; in his other, he held a piece of cloth which he dipped into a basin of cold water to bathe her forehead, murmuring soothing, loving words to her.

«Megà Asdvàtz, God forgive me, but I’ve never seen a belly as big as this one», the midwife muttered to herself as she massaged Satèn’s abdomen, from top to bottom.

«Push, now!» she ordered. She clenched her teeth as she put her fingers between the woman’s thighs. Satèn groaned and gasped with pain. «Seròp, help her to bend, now…»

Finally, covered in blood and mucus, the child’s head made its timid appearance.

«Here it is!» the midwife exulted.

«Where?» asked Seròp, totally confused.

«You tend to her», Lussià-dudù said, shaking him. «It’s a fine little boy, by God!» she exclaimed pulling the rest of the body out.

When Seròp laid his eyes on the baby for the first time, his heart skipped a beat. It was the tiny, kicking, mewling creature the midwife was holding up and slapping to make him breathe; his face was purple, his eyes closed, his teeny mouth toothless. A tuft of copper hair was pasted across his forehead. He was covered in blood and still tied to his mother by the umbilical cord. That’s my son, he thought, making a great effort to hold back his tears.

«I want to see him too», demanded Satèn, impatiently. She smiled as she tried to lift herself up, but a lacerating pain made her drop back down immediately. She freed herself from Seròp’s arms and began to scream and thrash about, bent back by the pain in her belly.

«Keep her still, hurry!» the woman ordered Seròp.

This was