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  The Ghosts of Anatolia

  An Epic Journey to Forgiveness

  The Ghosts of Anatolia

  An Epic Journey to Forgiveness

  STEVEN E. WILSON

  The Ghosts of Anatolia: An Epic Journey to Foregiveness

  Copyright © 2011 by Steven E. Wilson

  All rights reserved under International and

  Pan-American Copyright Conventions.

  Published in the United States by Hailey-Grey Books

  Website: Hailey-Grey-Books.com SAN: 255-2434

  First H-G Books Edition: 2011

  Library of Congress Control Number: 2010920945

  ISBN-10: 0-9729480-3-1 ISBN-13: 978-0-9729480-3-6

  Cover photo from George Grantham Bain Collection.

  Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division

  Washington, D.C. 20540

  Book design: Janice Phelps Williams, www.janicephelps.com

  MANUFACTURED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

  The Ghosts of Anatolia is a work of fiction.

  Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is coincidental.

  Historical references and figures are used fictitiously.

  Wilson, Steven E. (Steven Eugene), 1951–

  The ghosts of Anatolia : an epic journey to forgiveness / Steven E. Wilson. --Cleveland, Ohio : H-G Books, c2011.

  p. ; cm.

  ISBN: 13-digit: 978-0-9729480-3-6 ; 10-digit: 0-9729480-3-1

  1. Turkey--History--20th century--Fiction. 2. World War, 1914-1918--Turkey--Fiction. 3. Turkey--Ethnic relations--History--Fiction. 4. Forgiveness--Fiction. I. Title.

  PS3623.I58595 G46 2011

  813.6--dc22

  2010920945

  1009

  This book is dedicated to my father, Gilford Eugene Wilson, who fought as a quartermaster on the battleship USS Mississippi during World War II at the Marshall Islands and the Battles of Leyte Gulf, where he lost his best friend to a Kamikaze attack, and witnessed the signing of the Surrender of Japan while at anchor in Tokyo Harbor near the battleship USS Missouri. He taught me to always strive to be the best at everything I do.

  PART ONE

  Turkey to Jerusalem

  CHAPTER 1

  April 1996

  Richmond Heights, Ohio

  Stooped by rheumatism, Sirak Kazerian bore all the corporal lines and creases expected of a man his age. Yet he retained a sparkle in his heavy-lidded eyes that belied the internal wounds and scars wrought by nine decades of anguish and sorrow. He still had his wits about him, too, unlike many friends who’d long since faded into the murky senile years of loneliness that often precede the grave.

  Sirak gripped a wooden cane with his gnarled fingers and rose from the table. He stepped tentatively across the dimly lit kitchen to the stove, and, lifting an old percolator, poured his cup half-full with coffee. Steadying his tremor, he inadvertently banged the pot down on the burner.

  He took a drink of the hours-old brew, and grimacing, spit it into the sink. He opened the cupboard, grabbed a coffee bag and shook it. Only a few grounds rattled at the bottom of the bag. “Damn!” he barked. He tossed the bag into a cardboard box in the corner, and re-gripping his cane, shuffled to the window.

  Sirak pushed apart the blinds and peered down the street at the mailman walking up the driveway of the fifties-vintage tract home a few doors down. He steadied himself with his cane and wobbled through the living room to the front door. Unlocking the deadbolt, he stepped outside, fished his keys out of his pocket and locked the door behind him.

  “Good morning, Doctor Kazerian,” a cheerful voice called out.

  Sirak turned on the steps. “Hello, Samuel,” he replied to the mailman. “You got anything for me besides junk?”

  Samuel fingered through a stack of letters. “An electric bill,” he offered, smiling through glasses that magnified his eyes to nearly twice their natural size.

  “Junk mail and bills….That’s all I ever get anymore.”

  “Now, now, Doc… I know that’s not true. I brought you a card from your great-grandsons just last week.”

  “Yeah, I suppose you did.”

  Samuel turned and headed up the walk. “Have a blessed day, sir,” he called back over his shoulder

  “Thanks, Sam,” Sirak called after him. “See you tomorrow.” He turned back to the door and stuffed the envelopes into the mail slot. Zipping his jacket, he hobbled down the sidewalk and across the street—his cane click-clicking with each step.

  Despite the chill in the air and painful stiffness in his knees, Sirak made his way slowly up the street to the corner and turned onto Richmond Road. Automobile traffic was light, even for a Saturday morning. He stopped in front of a large home where several workers were busy with spring cleanup.

  One of the workmen waved and walked toward him across the grass. “Hey, Doctor Kazerian, how’ya been?”

  “Much better, thank you. How about you, Rudy?”

  “We’re busier than two-peckered billy goats, Doc. What a winter, huh? Any damage to your place?”

  “I lost those saplings you planted in the backyard. The blizzard split the trunks nearly to the ground.”

  “That was one hell of a storm. Shaker Heights lost most of the new trees they planted down Shaker Boulevard. What about yours—want me to replace ’em?”

  “Why bother? Just remove the trunks when you get around to it.”

  “How ’bout the end of next week?”

  “Whenever—I don’t get outside much anymore.”

  “Will do. Where ya headed, Doc?”

  “Over to the coffee shop.”

  “D’ya wanna a ride? Martin can take you over in the truck.”

  “No thanks, Rudy,” Sirak replied. “I’m supposed to walk a block or two every day—doctor’s orders.”

  “Well, take care of yourself. I’ll see you next week.”

  Sirak nodded and limped up the street for another half-block, before heading diagonally across a parking lot toward a line of shops. He scooted through the parked cars and, taking a step onto the sidewalk, stopped dead in his tracks. He stared for several moments at two middle-aged men sitting on a bench outside a coffee shop. They were engaged in an animated conversation peppered with laughter.

  Sirak clenched his teeth with rage and charged up the walk. He lifted his cane over his head and brought it down with a resounding crack on the nearest man’s head.

  “Son-of-a-bitch!” the man howled. He dropped his coffee cup on the sidewalk, leaped to his feet and turned to face his attacker. Short and stout, with a swarthy complexion, his head was hairless, except for small patches above his ears. A trickle of blood streamed down his forehead.

  The other man jumped up from the bench and grabbed the cane. “Papa!” he shouted incredulously. “What are you doing?”

  Several other people stopped to watch. A deliveryman with a crate of milk gawked in disbelief.

  “I warned him!” Sirak bellowed vehemently. “I warned him to stay away from you. For God’s sake, Keri, he killed your brother!”

  “He did not, Papa. George had nothing...”

  “Yes, he did!” Sirak yelled breathlessly, his face red as a beet. “This bastard killed Ara, just as if he pulled the trigger himself.”

  Sirak shuffled to a bench. Gasping for air, he sat down.

  The coffee shop door opened and a young man in an apron rushed outside. “Here, sir,” he said, handing a stack of paper towels to the bloody man. “I called the police.”

  “You idiot!” the bleeding man snarled. He pressed the towels against the top of his head. “Call them back and tell them not to come. Tell them it was an accident.”

  “But, sir,” the young man protested, “h
e busted your head...”

  “Call them back, damn it! I’m alright.”

  The young man shook his head, and stepped back inside the coffee shop.

  “Let me drive you to the hospital,” Keri said. He glanced sternly at his father.

  The man checked his bleeding with a fresh towel. “No, I’m okay.”

  Keri reached out apologetically. “George, I’m sorry.”

  “It’s okay,” he replied. Holding the towel against his head, he walked to a car in the parking lot and opened the door. “Get him to a shrink,” he yelled, before ducking into the car. He revved the engine, backed the car up and squealed out of the lot.

  Keri turned back to his father and pulled him up from the bench. “Come on, Papa. I’ll drive you home.”

  “I told you to stay away from Liralian,” Sirak muttered unabashedly.

  Keri held his tongue. He led his father through the gawking spectators to the passenger’s side of his blue Toyota.

  The two men rode back to Sirak’s house in tortured silence. Keri helped his father into the house and set him in a chair in the living room.

  “Papa, listen to me. I went to the coffee shop and George happened to be there. Before today, I hadn’t seen him in years.”

  “I don’t want you anywhere near that degenerate. How can you speak to him? Ara’s blood is on his hands. And, besides that, he’s a Marxist.”

  “No, he’s not. George assured me he didn’t know what happened to Ara in Beirut. It’s been thirteen years, Papa. It’s time to let it go.”

  “He was there,” Sirak said pointedly.

  “Papa, a lot of people were in Beirut back then.”

  Sirak took a deep breath and sighed. “George Liralian knows what Ara got mixed up in. If he wanted to, he could tell us what happened. I’ll never forgive him until he tells me what he knows about the death of my son, and your brother. I expect you to respect my feelings.”

  “What does it matter, Papa? Ara is dead, and he’ll still be dead even if we somehow figure out who killed him.”

  “It matters to me,” Sirak whispered. “Look at the photograph on the wall.” He pointed at a yellowed image of two teenagers beaming with joy. Each boy was standing with one foot on the pedal of a bicycle. “Have you forgotten your brother?”

  Keri turned and peered across the room at the photo. “No, Papa, I haven’t forgotten.”

  “I remember like it was yesterday. You two were all I had left, and Ara was taken from us in the blink of an eye. I want to know why. George knows, but he’s not telling. Until he does, nobody in this family will speak to him.”

  Keri sat in a chair across from his father. Staring introspectively at the floor for several moments, he finally looked up and peered into his father’s deeply furrowed eyes. “Papa, I could hold you to that same standard.”

  Sirak’s eyes narrowed warily. “What are you saying?”

  “I’m fifty-nine years old. Fifty-nine. What’s the big secret? Why do you never talk about our family? Ara and I grew up knowing next to nothing about our mother, our aunts and uncles, or our grandparents. How many times have I asked you? A hundred? Five hundred?”

  Sirak stared back in agonizing silence, and finally looked away, muttering to himself.

  “What, Papa?” Keri persisted.

  “I said, it’s too painful.”

  “What’s too painful?”

  Sirak cupped his forehead with his hand and stared down at his feet. “Everything,” he muttered. He looked up at his son, and tears were pooling in his sorrowful eyes. “The things that happened to our family… to your grandmother.”

  “I want to know, Papa. Your grandchildren want to know, too. There’s no reason to shelter us anymore.”

  “It’s not you, Keri. I haven’t spoken a word about what happened to anyone, except Ara, in seventy years…and telling your brother was the worst mistake I ever made.”

  “Why, Papa? Why was that a mistake?”

  “Because it killed him!” Sirak snapped. “Telling your brother killed him, and now I’ll have to live with that for the rest of my life.”

  “Information about our family didn’t kill Ara, Papa. Evil killed Ara.”

  “But if I hadn’t told...”

  “No, it was not your fault,” Keri interrupted. “And now it’s time you told me, too. Neither one of us is getting any younger; I deserve to know about our family.”

  “Son, I love you so much,” Sirak whispered. “You and your children are all I have left.”

  “We love you, too, Papa, but you’ve endured this burden in silence for too long. Please, tell me—what happened?”

  Sirak inhaled deeply and exhaled through pursed lips. “God help me,” he muttered, wiping a sleeve across his eyes. He took another deep breath. “We lived on a small farm just outside of the village of Seghir, a few miles east of the great walled city, Diyarbekir, in southern Anatolia.”

  “In present-day Turkey, right?”

  “That’s right. We were poor cotton farmers eking out an existence on the land your great grandfather, Misak Kazerian, left to your grandfather, Mourad, and your great uncle, Bedros. Let’s see, in 1914 I was six years old. I know Papa was forty-six when I was born, so he and Mama would have been fifty-two and thirty-eight then.”

  “What was your mother’s name?”

  “Kristina. Her maiden name was Malekian. She was a beautiful, loving woman. I had three older brothers. Alek was twenty. I remember that because he had to report to the army that year. Stepannos was a year or two younger, and Mikael must have been about twelve. I also had two sisters. Flora would’ve been fifteen. She looked just like our mother. My younger sister, your aunt Izabella, was only four or five at that time.”

  “So there were six children in the family?”

  “Yes.” A hint of a smile came to Sirak’s lips, as long-suppressed memories came flooding back. “What a great family it was, too. We were poor, but so happy—at least until the war destroyed everything.” He shook his head pensively. “Where do I begin?”

  “Begin where you can, Papa. I want to hear what happened.”

  CHAPTER 2

  September 8, 1914

  Ten kilometers east of Diyarbekir, the Ottoman Empire

  Mourad, his trousers caked with mud, turned at the whinny of a horse. He leaned his shovel against an old stump and wiped a muddy sleeve across his brow. As he peered through the dazzling afternoon sunlight, a lone rider trotted up the path from the main road. The horse scattered a bevy of squawking chickens into the adjoining field.

  Suddenly, a broad grin broke across Mourad’s face. “Bedros!” he called out, jogging up the path. “What a surprise! It’s so good to see you. I wish we’d known you were coming.”

  “Mourad, my brother,” Bedros sighed wearily as he dismounted his horse and hugged his younger sibling. “My letter didn’t reach you? I sent it three months ago.”

  “We never got it. You’ve lost so much weight. Are you sick?”

  “I had a nasty bout of the grippe last winter. It took me months to regain my strength, but I’m much better now. How’s Mother?”

  “She’s a lot worse. Her joints are so stiff she rarely gets out of bed. Then, last spring, she began losing a lot of weight. It’s her heart. The doctor said she might not make it to winter.”

  “Thank God I came. I wish I’d brought the family, but the roads are too hazardous. The political situation is deteriorating.”

  “How is Liza?”

  “Liza is well, but she’s fretted day and night since Garo and Aren reported for the mobilization. We haven’t heard anything from them since they left home in August.”

  “God bless you both,” Mourad replied understandingly. “There’s nothing worse than not knowing what’s happening. We haven’t heard from Alek, either.”

  “Alek?” Bedros queried, his heavy black eyebrows shooting up with surprise. “He’s only nineteen.”

  “No, Brother, Alek turned twenty this summer.”
>
  “God help us,” Bedros sighed. He shook his head. “I pray our country will stay out of this insane war, but I fear the worst.”

  “How are Alis and Mairan?”

  “They’re just fine. Alis finished her nursing apprenticeship, and Mairan recently expressed an interest in becoming a teacher.”

  “Uncle Bedros!” a curly-headed young boy shrieked. He ran headlong from the house and jumped for joy.

  “Sirak, my spirited bear cub!” Bedros lifted the boy, twirled him into the air and set him on his shoulders. “You’ve gotten so big. How’s my favorite nephew?”

  “I’m fine, Uncle. You know what?”

  Bedros chuckled. “What?”

  “Papa taught me to ride the plow horse this summer. Then, last week, he let me ride my colt for the first time.”

  Bedros grinned at Mourad. “My, you really are getting big. Soon you’ll be old enough to help your papa plow the field. How old are you now?”

  “I’m six and a half. Papa, can we show Uncle Bedros how I ride?” the boy pleaded excitedly. His dark eyes sparkled with excitement.

  “Not today. Uncle Bedros has ridden a long way and he’s very tired. We can all take a ride together tomorrow. Can you stay, Bedros?”

  “Yes, of course; I’d hoped to stay a few days while I take care of business here in Diyarbekir. Would Kristina mind?”

  “What do you mean, would she mind?” Mourad scoffed. He took his brother’s reins. His horse, its flanks glistening with sweat, at first resisted his tug, but finally yielded. “Papa left this farm to both of us.”

  The two men walked across the farmyard to a ramshackle barn with its roof bowed at one end. Mourad lifted his brother’s bags down from the horse’s back and led the old mare into an empty stall. He poured water into the trough and carried feed from stores on the opposite side of the barn.

  Sirak pulled Bedros out the rear door of the barn. He led him to the corral, where two yearling colts were running free.