“Because your grandfather says we should bother,” Levon snapped. “And because we need fighters.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Gabriel insisted, hands outstretched. Vera could feel his despair leaking into the room and willed him to be strong, instead of reasoning with these men as if they were in someone’s living room in Geneva. “We have nothing to do with an assassination attempt. You must believe me.”
Levon shrugged. “Whether you do or not, the end is the same. How many guns do you have?”
“Why?”
Levon spoke very slowly, emphasizing each word. “Because any hour now a contingent of Ottoman soldiers is going to ride into this valley and slaughter every one of you, and probably us. That’s what sending Kurdish troops has always meant.”
Vera felt the hairs on her arms rise. She had no way of knowing it was Vahid, but she could feel him approaching the valley.
“Tell him,” Apollo commanded Gabriel in Russian.
“Nine hundred rifles and pistols.”
Levon stared at him. “Were you planning an invasion?”
“To protect ourselves,” Gabriel responded gruffly.
“Why didn’t you tell us this before? You said you had only a few guns.”
Gabriel indicated Apollo. “My friend brought them over the mountains two weeks ago.”
Levon regarded Gabriel steadily. “I have no choice but to trust you, even though it sounds like lies. You’ll see that once this storm is upon us, we will require one another. There’s no other way. Ten years ago, war came to our villages. We recognize its face, and I feel its breath on my forehead again. Nine hundred guns are better than a hundred but are no guarantee of anything. There will be death.” He glanced around the room at the thin men and women in their shabby clothes huddled in nests of straw and quilts. “Fools,” he muttered. “A paradise of fools.”
He motioned to his men to leave and told Gabriel, “We’ll be back at dawn tomorrow. Have all the guns ready to load. And remember, when we use them, we protect you too. Guns piled in a storeroom protect no one.” He turned again at the door and added, “It would be much better for us all if you left. Look at you. What are you doing here anyway?”
After Levon and his entourage had gone, the hall was still. Fear had choked off everyone’s breath. That night, Vera was awake when Gabriel came and lay down behind her. She turned and placed her lips against his, and Gabriel crushed her in his arms.
The refugees began coming before dawn. Vera heard a pounding on the main gate. She and Gabriel woke the others and ran out into the courtyard. A dozen women and children crowded into the yard, some screaming and pulling their hair, others weeping. One woman held together the tatters of her dress with one hand and gripped the arm of her daughter with the other. The little girl clung to her mother’s bare leg, which Vera saw was smeared with blood and coated in mud. The women had used head scarves to bind their wounds, the bright tatted edges strangely festive against limbs streaked with dirt and blood.
“They’re from a village just up the valley,” Victor exclaimed, holding up a lamp. “I recognize the headman’s wife. They once asked me to come and look at a child who fell in the river.” He approached an old woman supported by a teenage girl at each elbow.
“Siranoush Ana,” Victor said. “What has happened?”
One of the girls at her side fixed Victor with a glare and spit at him. “This is your doing. You brought the evil eye to this valley. You brought the djinn, and now we’ll all be dead.”
“What nonsense are you spouting, girl?” Siranoush Ana panted, laboring to catch her breath. “They were Kurds.” She sat down in the dirt suddenly as if her legs had given way. Her daughters squatted beside her. “I’ll get you some water, Mama,” one said, and gave Vera a pleading look.
Vera called over two women from the commune and asked them to pass out water. She brought Siranoush Ana a cup, then listened with growing horror while one of the daughters told them what had happened. Gabriel, Apollo, and the others stood nearby, their eyes straying to the barred gate.
“They broke our neighbor’s door down,” the girl said, her voice shaking. “Baba took his gun and went outside. We locked the door, but they broke it and dragged us out. They ripped off Mama’s bracelets.” She looked toward her mother, who sat on the ground, hands clamped together in her lap, staring straight ahead. “They did other things.” The girl started to shake. Vera brought a blanket and draped it over her shoulders.
Vera found it hard to look at anyone. It was as if her own experience in the basement of Akrep had been exposed on her face for anyone to see. She kept her eyes on the tatted flowers edging the girl’s head scarf.
“Baba must be hiding. If I’d had a gun,” the girl wailed, “I could have fought them.” Vera put her arm around the girl. We’re all hiding, she thought miserably.
She saw the headman’s wife grab Gabriel’s leg as he passed and, without looking up, say in a matter-of-fact voice, “Our men are dead. They bludgeoned them in the square. I saw the dead. I know their names. You can rely on me as a witness.”
The old woman’s words made a powerful impression on Vera. She was so tired of feeling afraid. Drying her eyes, she rose to see what she could do for the other women.
At daybreak, a guard on the battlement reported the approach of Levon and his men. The gate was opened, and Levon and Taniel charged in on horseback, followed by a line of creaking carts pulled by horses. Levon jumped from his horse and strode toward Gabriel. “Well?” he said impatiently. “Where are they?”
“The women?”
“What women? Don’t waste my time. I’m here for the guns.”
“Something has happened,” Gabriel told him. “Come with me.” He led Levon, trailed by his son, into the hall where Victor, Alicia, and others were tending to the frightened women and children. When Levon saw Siranoush Ana, he let out a shout of dismay and fell to his knees beside her. “Why are you here? What has happened?”
“They’re all dead,” Siranoush Ana said quietly.
Levon grabbed the arm of one of her daughters. “Tell me.”
When she finished her account, Levon bowed his head. “May God have mercy on us.”
Taniel stood behind him. “Baba?” Vera could see he was fighting back tears.
“We’ll take care of this,” Levon promised the women in a voice raw with feeling. He went back into the courtyard and confronted Gabriel. “You see now what I meant. These Kurds aren’t soldiers, they’re bandits. They’re like locusts destroying an entire village and then moving on to the next place.” He squinted at the mountains. “If this is the first village they attacked, they must have come from the south. That means they’ll come here next. We still have time to arm the rest of the valley.”
Gabriel led him to a storeroom and pointed to the barrels. “Leave us a hundred and fifty and take the rest. There’s also ammunition.”
Vera had followed and now whispered something in Gabriel’s ear.
“Are you sure?” he asked her.
Vera could hear the reluctance in his voice and couldn’t help wondering whether he was worried about her safety or annoyed at her interference. Her chin and the tip of her nose were scraped raw from his beard. “Please,” she insisted, “it’s important.”
“My wife wants to come with you when you distribute the weapons to the villages,” he told Levon. “She wants to teach the women how to use a firearm.”
“That’s ridiculous,” Taniel snapped, stepping forward. “We can’t have a woman riding with us. It’ll slow us down. We don’t have time.”
Levon, however, appeared to think it over. “Did Siranoush Ana suggest this?” he asked Vera.
“Her daughter.”
He nodded. “They’re wise, those women. Very well. We leave as soon as these guns are loaded. It’ll take several days to reach all the villages. Pray God we have time.”
77