It was her sister Anahit who broke the news to Tsovinar. The younger woman simply stood in the doorway and listened to the sound of birds, accompanying the morning insects, in a chaotic sort of sonata. That fire between her legs flared up and for a moment grief and pleasure were one and the same.
When she was done speaking Anahit went inside and left Tsovinar to stare out at the trees and hills and purple mist melting into heat. Why? Why in this one moment was she so turned on? She wanted to bite her lip. She wanted to taste the salt of her own blood, a blood that had wandered ages before out of the mountains near the city of Van. She wanted to strip off her dress, run to the great oak tree in their yard and grind against its rough bark until her clit bled.
She wanted to feel something — anything — at that moment.
Her husband had been a Kurd, a small man who carried a large pistol everywhere he went. He was dead now, of course, he must be dead by now and so was her beloved boy, her delight, her Hayk.
There was something inside her, some dark rage, that hungered for — what? violence? Something had been building up inside Tsovinar. Perhaps it was never making peace with her husband's disappearance, for there was no body to cry over, nothing to bury and mourn.
And now it was happening all over again. And now Hayk, who had just filled her ass to its stretching point the night before, whose cum she could still taste, whose cum she would never taste again, Hayk was gone.
"Yes, Hudaverdi is in town right now," Anahit said, gravely.
"Is he?" Tsovinar muttered to herself.
"Sister, you can't go into Erzurum right now. Stay here until Hudaverdi calms down."
"Stay?" echoed the other. "Stay while Hayk's body lies in the middle of the street?"
"No, it has been taken back to his family's hut. But Hudaverdi has the law of the Empire behind him. All that will happen is I will lose my beloved sister just like you lost your ..." and here her voice trailed away.
"Exactly," Tsovinar whispered and walked into the house.
"The Young Turks have a fever that's rampant through in the whole Empire these days, sister. This man simply wants to kill Armenians — men, women, children, grandparents — they don't care. If he meets you he'll try to shoot you."
There it was, stirring inside her, that bursting flood of blood and panic and desire — a wind of purifying fire — first shaking her soul and then sinking away to leave her strangely chilled.
"Lord Christ knows there is no reason for him to shoot poor Hayk-jan. But what's that to do with any of these shootings and hangings these days? Do the Young Turks ever need a reason to shoot us?" Her sister went on, "Hudaverdi is here and just angry enough to want to kill. There's a lot of local folk whose ambition is to make a reputation for their Osmanli masters. They talk about how they'll answer the Armenian Question for them. They make threats about ordering the wild Kurdish horsemen in here to clear us all out. They laugh at our elders and brag about how they are above the law. But not this time. No more
'Kurd der vourar.'"
There is a Turkish proverb about a Kurd who goes to buy a new sword. On the way home he spies an Armenian walking along the road and decides to see how sharp his sword really is so he swipes at the man's head. The Armenian raises his cane in self-defense and the sword shatters. The Kurd drags the Armenian into court and the judge angrily asks the accused, "why did you raise your cane? Didn't you know it was a Kurd who was striking you?" and orders the man to pay for a new sword for the Kurd. Thus,
"Kurd der vourar"
— it is a Kurd that is striking you — became both the motive and exoneration over many a murder.
Both of the women were silent, thinking about what Tsovinar had just said, contemplating its significance.
"If the Ottoman Empire is ever going to recover from this fool war Enver Pasha and all the rest have got us into then the Armenians will have a bright future once again," Anahit finally said, breaking the silence. "But if you go seeking to avenge Hayk, if you kill that man, you're ruined. The Young Turks won't even pause to kill one more woman. This eye for an eye business you speak of doesn't work with them when one of the dead are their own. If you resist arrest they'll kill you. If you submit to arrest, they will rape you then you and the you will be hung."
"I'll never hang," Tsovinar muttered darkly.
"No, I don't think you would," came the reply. "But sister, I'm afraid of your temper – it will get you in trouble. Your husband went out into the mountains to help fight Kurdish raiding parties, his own people. He never came back. After all of this I do not want to bury you in the same plot of earth as Hayk."
Tsovinar went over to her little bed sitting in the corner and dragged an old, rusty trunk out from under and into the open.
"Sister," Anahit continued, "I remember how you were before Hayk started spending time with you, moody and angry and your temper was full of wild talk. I can understand that. You had all the reasons in the world to be angry – but now you're cold and quiet, like you are lost in thought and I don't like the light in your eye."
From inside the box Tsovinar lifted up one of the few things her husband had unwittingly left for her: his pistol and its gun belt. The gun was a Russian-made, ugly thing called a Nagant. Seven-shot, heavy, with the cold, dull polish showing how often it had once been used.
There were a number of notches filed in the leather of the gun belt. Tsovinar had intended to bury it along with his body but since nothing had been returned the gun had been left in the trunk, hidden under her folded traveling robes.
"How are you going to carry that thing?" Anahit inquired.
"Like everyone else does, I think, in my hand and now I guess I'll go and let Hudaverdi find me."
"You know all around these mountains," Anahit began. "After you meet Hudaverdi hurry back home. I'll have your traveling robes ready and a bag packed for you."
With that Tsovinar turned on her heel and walked out of the house. The air was full of the fragrance of blossoms and the melody of birds. Tsovinar wondered presently if she shared her sister's opinion as to the results of a meeting between herself and Hudaverdi. She had no fear of the man, but a vague fear of her own nature, of the same fear her sister spoke of, of that burning force within her. Was it violence that excited her? Was it sorrow? Of all the times she ever felt that itch between her legs, why was she aroused now? Perhaps this willingness to let herself go forward with this act was her body's way of telling her soul that this was good and this voice, this spirit from deep within, was telling her body that she wanted this man's lifeblood now just as much as she had wanted her young lover's cum only the day before?
Outside in the road a neighbor woman stood talking to a friend in a wagon. They turned and began to speak to Tsovinar but fell silent. She heard their words but did not reply. They looked at the shawl wrapped around her head, the outlandish gun hanging at her hip, the expression on her face as she began to stride down the road toward Erzurum and hurriedly crossed themselves on that sunny day.
Erzurum was a small town but important in that unsettled part of the Empire for it was the only trading-center in several hundred miles of lawless mountains. On the main street there were perhaps fifty buildings, some brick, some wood, mostly made from the pink mountain rock,
tuf,
and by far the most prosperous of these were the scattering of cafes. It was in these that the older men, those not already conscripted into the Young Turk's army, met and smoked and brooded in their handlebar mustaches and fezzes. The taboo against gambling had been lifted, though the possession of alcohol was still a punishable crime in that part of the world. Most of the men of Erzurum preferred opium over spirits in any event.
From the dirt road Tsovinar turned onto the main street. It was a wide thoroughfare lined with stalls of merchants, wayward children and wooden carts of various kinds. Tsovinar's eye ranged up and down, taking it all in at a glance, particularly the townfolk moving leisurely up and down the street on this hot day. Not a soldier was in sight. She relaxed slightly and by the time she reached the cafe of Ozlum Bey she was walking slowly. Several people spoke to her, for everyone knew why Tsovinar the Widow was in town and she felt them turn to look stare at her after she passed. She paused at the door of Ozlum's, took a sharp survey of the interior, then stepped inside.
The cafe was large and cool, full of men and low conversation and hashish smoke. Ozlum Bey, who was behind the bar, straightened up when he saw her, then, without speaking, he bent over to rinse one of the tiny cups he served his sludge-like coffee in. The voices ceased upon her entrance. Though women were not technically barred from entering such an establishment it was rare, especially an unchaperoned woman and more than one face began to scowl at the intrusion into their own little world until they saw who it was and then they simply stared in amazement. These men knew Hudaverdi was looking for trouble, they probably had heard his boasts of killing an Armenian brat who happened to walk in front of him. But what did she intend to do? Several of the local men exchanged glances and returned to their low talk and pipes. Ozlum Bey stood with his big chapped hands out upon the table. He was a tall, raw-boned Turk with a long mustache waxed to sharp points.
"Bonjour,
Madam Tsovinar," was his greeting. He always attempted to use as much French as he could with this strange Armenian woman who had taken a Kurd for a husband so many years ago, for he knew she had once lived in Paris and was fond of her but now he averted his gaze and stared at the cup in his hand.
"Barev,"
she replied, slowly, speaking a greeting in her own ancient language. "Tell me, Ozlum Bey, I hear there's a man in town I should find."
"You might, Madam Tsovinar," replied Ozlum. "A friend came in here a couple of hours ago saying that such a man had gone crazy in the heat."
"Anybody with him?"
"Husein and Karaca and a little farmhand my friend had never seen before. They were coaxing him to leave town right before he shot Izmirlian's son."
Tsovinar did not say anything for a moment. Her eyes were hidden in the shadow of the shawl and to the man behind the counter she suddenly looked terribly grotesque and alien. Perhaps it was this, or perhaps simply because she was a member of that despised and lowly caste — the
Dhimmi,
