Gilgamesh Read online

  Nevart sat up. ‘I won’t let you have it, Hagop.’ Her tears dripped onto the red silk.

  ‘I am leaving her all the rest,’ Hagop said to Edith. He waved his hand at the bolts of cloth piled up against the wall. ‘But this silk my father gave to my mother when they married. And before that my grandfather to his wife. They say that when it came into the hands of my great-great-grandfather it had cost a human life. It is our luck. It must always stay in the family.’

  ‘I am your wife,’ Nevart sobbed. ‘Have you forgotten?’

  But Hagop leaned down and took the slender bolt from her. She screamed as if he were tearing away a limb. Why this silk? Edith thought, for there were other more opulent silks in the Essayan family inheritance. And why was Hagop so stubborn, he who never seemed to care for anything? But as he tucked the silk into his bag she glimpsed its sheen, raw, rippling, blood-coloured, like a beating heart.

  He picked up his bag, saluted them all, and left.

  It was only afterwards, after she and Tati had persuaded Nevart to drink some brandy, and to sleep, that Edith realised that Hagop, her friend and protector, had left her with no clue as to Aram’s fate, and no advice for the future.

  ‘Oh my God, Ee-dit, look how late it is! And I look like an old woman.’ Nevart’s cheeks were red from crying, her voice hoarse, but she was business-like as if she had decided to recover from sorrow. ‘Of course my husband would decide to leave me on a day when I must perform. Oh yes, himself to the very end! Ee-dit, tea, pleez, and my curl papers. Let me tell you, this will make a good story for the comrades this evening.’

  Nevart spent more and more time at the hotel. She had been given a room there for herself so she did not have to come back to the apartment at night. Then she stayed there even on the days when she was not performing. The hotel room was heated, there was also hot water, and a concierge gave her some help. She came back one day in a long black suit like a riding habit, a black beret stuck impossibly low on the side of her head. Her driver loaded up the limousine with bolts of silk. ‘I have a friendly seamstress at the hotel,’ she said with a wink to Edith. At least she did not speak in English when the driver was in the room. She seemed in very good spirits. Her hair was luxuriously curly, her cheeks were powdered white. ‘I am quite the belle chanteuse these days,’ she said, looking round for possessions to shove into her bag. ‘A frrree woman. With a piano. I can practise all day if I want.’ She had Edith carry her in to Tati, to kiss her on the cheek. She made a last face at Jim. ‘You’ll have to find someone else to hate now, little one,’ she said.

  ‘Look after my things for me, Ee-dit,’ she murmured as the driver came up the corridor. ‘You never know when I’ll be back.’

  It seemed that Nevart’s comic turns, when she sat on a table and sang and told humorous stories of her life, of her student days, of her marriage, of life in a wheelchair and the deprivations of war, had become quite famous. Edith heard this from Nelly Gasparian, who came to visit Tati. Nelly’s friend worked at the hotel. Nevart had admirers. There were parties till dawn. There were many jokes about her. Nelly shook her head. Nevart sent no word (and no roubles) and she did not come back.

  By the end of January a hundred thousand German soldiers were captured at Stalingrad. The German forces were withdrawing from the Caucasus. But in February there was a massive German counterblow in the Ukraine. Nobody knew what the spring thaws would bring.

  In the evenings it was so cold that Edith and Tati went to bed when Jim did. The room was pitch black, the city so quiet you could hear the wind whistling down Sakian Street. It was as if all Yerevan had gone into hibernation.

  One night Tati whispered ‘Edith.’ Edith tip-toed over to her. She could just make out Tati’s finger raised, pointing at the door. She could see nothing but the faintest shadow moving in the dark grey strip beneath it, perhaps no more than the movement of dust in the draughts of the corridor.

  ‘A betrayer,’ Tati whispered.

  Edith ran to the door, her hands shaking as she unlocked it. By the time she opened it the corridor was empty.

  ‘Who was it, Tati?’

  ‘Hagop.’

  ‘Hagop?’

  The old woman nodded.

  ‘Were you dreaming?’

  ‘Perhaps.’ Tati lay back on the pillow. ‘I saw him waiting at our door. Poor tortured soul.’

  Without Nevart, Edith had more time for Jim. She discovered that in all the time she had been attending to Nevart, Jim had learnt to look out for himself. Now that he’d turned five, he had his own way of doing things, his own strict routines. As summer came he woke before her, dressed himself and let himself out of the apartment. She followed him one day. She saw him take a drink from the tap in the courtyard, holding his legs apart so the water did not splash his shoes. He was very proud of his shoes, they had once belonged to Nora Gasparian. He chased a cat briefly and tried a roll over the stair railing as the older kids did, but he was a clumsy child and he fell. Nora came out and he ran to her. Edith saw that he had been waiting for Nora. How splen-did she must look to him, her face rosy from cold water, her bright black eyes, her definitive black fringe. Jim’s hair was bed-tossed, springing up in a cocky crown. Nora reached into her school bag, brought out a piece of bread smeared with red jam, held it from him until he said Merci. And then—oh, shameless Jim—he snatched it and gobbled it down. Nora wiped away the crumbs on his face. They clasped hands and set off across Sakian Street to the park, bright with green leaves now, where all the children met on their way to school.

  Edith watched them from Tati’s balcony. While Nora stood talking in a circle with her friends he waited, scuffling a little at a distance. When they all moved off together, Nora ran to him and said goodbye. Jim was left to the empty park and the long day’s wait until she came home again. He sat looking into the bushes for a while as if someone else might appear. He crossed Sakian Street purposefully, a tiny solitary Armenian. He had a characteristic walk, for such a little boy, solid and rolling. What was he thinking? She was suddenly curious about what Jim thought of all the things that had happened to them.

  Winter again and one cold day Nelly Gasparian, holding Nora’s hand, knocked on the door with the news. Nevart was dead. She had fallen from the window of her room in the hotel. Nelly’s face, normally clear and pretty, twisted up as she spoke. Nora and Jim shrank down on the pallet, listening to every word. Nelly spoke in a hoarse whisper. Her friend at the hotel said nobody knew how it happened. They did not know if she had jumped or was pushed. Somebody had heard her singing wildly at five in the morning. The Russians weren’t saying anything. Nelly sighed. Her friend said Nevart drank too much and talked too much and took many risks. She thought she had more power than she really had. Already her clothes and jewellery had been pilfered. The funeral was tomorrow. She, Nelly would try to go. There was no time to gather her old friends from the conservatorium, if any were still alive. Poor Nevart had no family. And who knew where Hagop was?

  On the afternoon of Nevart’s funeral Edith took Jim for a long walk. Tati had advised her not to go the funeral, there would be Russians in attendance, there would be informers. Funerals were notorious for arrests, she said. The day was very cold, far too cold for Tati to go herself, although Nelly had offered to help her. She would write a poem instead. These days Tati spent most of her time in bed, writing down a word now and then in her book. In the quiet after Nevart’s death, her mind seemed very clear. Edith brought tea for her before she left, and bread spread with a little of Nevart’s honey. Every object once owned by Nevart, her cup, her curlers, her cluttered room, now seemed to speak of a doom which they should have foreseen.

  ‘You have kept me alive, Edith,’ Tati said. ‘You and Jim. Hokvov yev marmenov. Body and soul.’

  Edith and Jim, buttoned up, their scarves across their faces, paused at the door.

  ‘But alive for what?’ Tati went on, as if to herself. ‘For death? For one more poem? The poem, at last?’ She chuckled, wheezing
, and waved her hand. ‘Goodbye. Hadjo! Good luck.’

  It was a place they often walked to, a wasteland high up over the river. It was just a few blocks away from Sakian Street and yet it was empty as a field, a stretch of rocky earth where no one went. There was a vista of the other side of the river gorge, barren and vast as a quarry, and, in the distance, a row of factory chimneys lined up along the horizon. In summer red poppies grew here and you could stretch out in the sun. She thought for a moment of Manouk’s club, the only place she had been warm. Now the cold ate her hands, bit her cheeks, made her nose run. Far above, birds wheeled under a thick, blind sky. On the earth everything crouched, huddled, covered up. The whole world was filled with absence, seemed fearful, unconsoled.

  Where was Jim? She turned to see him running towards a car, a battered black Russian tourer, which was bumping to a stop at the far end of the wasteland. Edith shouted, set off running after him, stride after stride, forcing her frozen legs. Jim reached the car and stood looking up at its blank curtained windows. The back door opened. Jim climbed inside. The door closed. The engine started up.

  Edith reached the car and grabbed the handle of the door as it opened, knocking her back. There was Hagop, leaning over Jim. ‘Get in quickly,’ Hagop said. The car started moving. There was something familiar about the back of the driver’s head.

  ‘It is time for you to leave.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘There is no longer anyone to protect you.’

  ‘But I don’t have my passport or my money or anything.’

  ‘Here is your passport.’ He took it out from inside his jacket and handed it to her.

  ‘How did you get it?’

  ‘I went to the apartment. After the funeral, but you had already left. Tati told me where you would be.’

  ‘Who will look after Tati?’

  ‘Edith, your first duty is to Jim.’

  ‘Are we in danger?’

  ‘Let’s just say you are no longer useful.’

  ‘Aram?’

  ‘Edith, Aram is dead. You and Jim must live.’

  ‘Where did he die? When?’

  Hagop shook his head. ‘In the Ukraine. At the front. I knew about his death on the night I took you to the club.’

  Edith, staring ahead, saw there was a ruby in the gold ring on the driver’s hand. ‘Manouk!’ she said.

  The driver turned his head for a moment and smiled. He was thick necked, slick-haired like Manouk, but much younger.

  ‘This is Ashot,’ Hagop said. ‘Manouk’s cousin. He is making a business trip for Manouk. He has kindly agreed to take you to the border.’

  ‘Are you coming?’

  ‘No. I cannot.’

  ‘How was the funeral?’

  ‘As you would expect.’ He looked the other way.

  ‘Where are we going?’

  ‘To a town called Djulfa. At the Persian border. You will be taken care of.’

  It was nearly dark. They were on the outskirts of the city. Hagop called out to Ashot. The car slowed. Hagop ruffled Jim’s hair and eased him off his knee. He picked up Edith’s hand and kissed it, the only time he had ever touched her.

  ‘Hadjo, Edith.’ She saw his smile, his sad broken teeth. He had a ruined face. Why had she never thought of that? She clasped his hand and kissed it back.

  They drove through the night. There was a rug on the back seat which Ashot said they should pull over themselves. They should keep low, he said. They slept. At some point Edith woke because they had stopped. She saw the red ends of cigarettes in the darkness. She stayed lying down. Ashot got back into the car, smelling of petrol. They were driving through a town of ghostly white buildings. ‘Nakhchevan,’ Ashot said. The stars were very bright. There was the outline of a ruined mosque by the side of the road. She saw the gleam of Ashot’s ring as he lit a cigarette.

  When next she woke, Ashot was shaking her by the shoulder. ‘Djulfa.’ It was dawn, they had stopped in the main street of a little town, lined with low white houses. Ashot handed her a piece of bread and offered a flask of vodka. Dreamily she and Jim tore at the bread, looking at the pink haze of the sky, and some chickens scratching at the roadside. Ashot stood smoking, leaning on the bonnet of the car. He looked at his watch, threw his cigarette away, and opened Edith’s door. He bowed, beckoned them out. He pointed down the end of the road. There was a gatehouse, and beyond it a bridge. ‘The river Araxes,’ Ashot said. ‘On the other side is Persia. You have your passport? It is time you went.’

  Edith took Jim’s hand. A cold wind was blowing off the river valley. She buttoned up Jim’s coat. She looked at Ashot.

  ‘Soon you will be warm,’ Ashot said, nodding and smiling a little.

  ‘Merci,’ Edith said. She was too tired to do anything but trust him. Trust Hagop, trust Manouk. There was nothing else left. They set off down the road. After a hundred yards or so Jim pulled away to piss, expertly, in the gutter. A ragged little brother and sister watched from a doorway. Edith looked back up the road. Ashot waved, encouraging them.

  Two guards took her passport and conferred together. There was a page of stamps in her passport that Edith had never seen, and a cache of roubles. They put the roubles aside in a business-like way, stamped the passport, handed it back to her. They lifted a bar and nodded at her. Jim and Edith set out, high over the swiftly flowing river. Edith turned. Ashot and the car had disappeared. In the far distance was the black wall of the Caucasus. She turned back. Ahead were the light red mountains of Persia. Already the wind blowing in her face seemed warmer. ‘I haven’t even got a hairbrush,’ she thought. Jim’s head was down, he was muttering. He was counting his footsteps, in Armenian, the way Nora had taught him.

  This was how Leopold saw them, coming across the bridge.

  ORPHANAGE

  ‘Why did you come?’

  ‘Because I was needed.’

  Nobody ever engulfed her like this. He was a country she’d come home to. She would remember it all her life, the relief she felt when she saw the familiar bulk of his figure. She stepped back to take in what had changed. He was wearing desert khakis and an officer’s peaked hat. The fine skin on his face and neck was stained warm brown as an onion. There was something taut around his eyes and mouth: he was wartime sombre. He spoke to the Persian guards and she saw he was used to authority. He was a thirty-year-old man.

  Though even in uniform his trousers seemed about to fall down.

  ‘This is Jim.’

  ‘Hello, Jim. They want you to show them your passport, by the way.’

  ‘Leopold, Aram—’

  ‘I know. I know. Come on, there’s a car waiting. Do you like jeeps, Jim?’

  ‘He doesn’t speak much English, I’m afraid.’

  She stood at the window of the hotel, smoking a cigarette. The roofs of the houses along the street were flat-topped, their frondy gardens waving inside high mud walls. There was enough light left to make out distant pastel mountains. The muezzins of Tabriz had just called the faithful to prayer. The air was warm and clear.

  They had all bathed, and eaten in the market, kebabs and rice, oranges and pears. The markets were bigger and as plentiful as a garden compared to the shouka in Yerevan. She had bought some clothes, a pair of loose black cotton trousers and an embroidered blouse which she tied at the waist. Also a hairbrush with which she’d brushed and rolled up her hair. It had taken five years for it to grow back to its old length.

  Leopold had given her news of the war. The Blitz. The house in London had survived. Irina had refused to leave. The Italian campaign. The Burma campaign. The deportation of the Jews.

  She crossed her arms and drew on her cigarette.

  ‘You haven’t said it yet.’

  Leopold was showing Jim the journey they were about to make on a map spread across the bed. They were both sprawled on their stomachs. He spoke to Jim as if he understood everything he said. They would go through Persia, across Iraq, into Syria. He knew of a place, an orphanage in Aleppo
where Jim and Edith could stay. And in Syria there were Australian troops. There would be a chance of repatriation. Jim nodded.

  Leopold looked up at Edith. ‘Said what?’

  ‘You should have stayed in Australia.’

  He looked more like his old self. He was wearing an army issue undershirt and baggy Arab pants. His uniform and hat were shoved into his kitbag. He was now officially on leave, he had two weeks and the loan of a jeep. Already he’d driven hundreds of miles from his post in Baghdad. Did he think she was a selfish little fool?

  But his eyes were mild, benevolent. ‘Haven’t you always wanted to see the desert, Edith?’ was all he said.

  She threw her cigarette into the street.

  They slept in the same bed, Jim between them. From now on, for the purposes of safety and Arab propriety, they would travel as a family, Leopold said. How soundly they slept to the soft rumble of his snores. Why did she wake thinking of Nunderup? He smelled as he did when he and Aram first arrived, the sweetish eastern smell. Jim, eyes open, lay very still so Leopold would stay sleeping beside him. Birds were calling in the walled gardens.

  Across Iraq they followed the course of the mighty Euphrates. They rattled their way across the deserts of ancient Mesopotamia into Syria. The flaps were down on the side of the jeep but still the dust covered them. They wrapped their heads in squares of cloth they’d bought in a market. Jim stood behind the front seats with his head between them, a miniature sheik. He copied everything that Leopold did. Edith was proud of his stoicism. She turned to smile at him. At last, with Leopold, she could show her pride in Jim.

  Leopold told them about the cities that lay buried beneath this landscape, Uruk, Larsa, Ur, Babylon. A dozen civilisations had been born and died here before Christ, each with its own gods and laws, stories and beliefs. All lost beneath the sands of the desert. He would have liked to take them to see his old dig, but there was no time for sightseeing. They were into their sixth day of his leave.