The Gendarme Read online

  The deportees have thus far been spared the onset of rampant disease. I have heard rumors of other groups, farther to the south and west, where entire caravans have been struck down by fever and sickness. Cholera. Smallpox. Dysentery. It makes the dirty work of the gendarmes hazardous and even dirtier, exposing us to sicknesses of the herd. At least the soldiers fighting in the north, reinforcements for whom pass periodically in flashes of button and uniform, have opportunities for bravery and valor. Ours is a dull exercise in caretaking, more prison duty than warfare. And how ironic for a shepherd to succumb to a disease of his flock! I would much prefer death in glorious battle, matching my strength against that of my enemy. But I will do as I have been told. I must serve as a gendarme before entering the army. Advancement will present reward, and opportunity. I will be patient.

  I know why I stride my horse through the seedy circle of tents this morning—not to check on the group’s health, or to kick at new corpses, or to search for hidden contraband. I rarely tread this close to the encampment, in avoidance of disease or attack. Eyeing the squinting faces, I search for the mismatched eyes, remembering and re-remembering so that I begin almost to question whether I saw her in the night. I reach one end of the cloth piles and bodies, turn and pace its edge. I do not find her.

  A figure on horseback appears in the distance, swathed in a halo of dust. I watch as a man draws forward to one of my guards, engages, then moves in my direction. He is an officer of some type, either army or police, his back straight under his long gray coat. A bristly mustache the color of iron hides his mouth. His eyes show surprise at my youth.

  “Greetings, aǧa.” The man does not dismount.

  “Effendi.” I motion to the gendarme Tevfik to bring water.

  “How many have you here?” The man squeezes his face to glance at the throng behind me.

  “Around seven hundred.”

  The man nods and takes a gulp of the proffered water. “Any trouble?”

  I shake my head.

  “You will reach Kilis tomorrow,” the man continues. “Then another few days to Katma. You will be detained in Katma until further instructions.”

  I nod, grateful for this information. For many days I have followed a route based solely on that of the caravans before me. Originally I was told that we were headed for the coast, then the border, but further instruction has been scattered and varied. It is all unfamiliar territory, as I have never been south of Malatya. The man’s news produces a fluttering beneath my breastbone and a sigh that is almost audible. Relief floods my lungs. This long, dusty trek may soon be concluded.

  “Is there any word of the war?” I ask, my voice deep and forceful.

  The man squints again. “There is fierce fighting in the Caucasus,” he replies. “And at Çanakkale Boğazi.” He pauses. “I hear our troops are doing well.” His brow collapses in a furry line, as if to inquire why I am not fighting.

  “My cousins are in the Eighth Army Corps,” I say by way of explanation. “I was instructed to do this before I rejoin them.” I fold my arms.

  The man grins, exposing brown teeth. “My cousins, too, are in the army. We are from Adana.” He pauses, as if this should impress me. “Do you have any young women in your group? I have ridden so far.”

  A chill creeps up my shoulder blades. “But of course.” I whirl and ride back into the encampment.

  “You, and you!” I point at two different girls, careful to ensure that neither is she. Tevfik pulls them from their wailing mothers, drags them forward before the visitor. They cower, whimpering, then sobbing, their despairing relatives gathered behind me. I remain at a respectful distance, fearful of having offended with my choices, concerned that he might instead go and find what I have only just sought. But he seems pleased, motioning for the girls to follow, which they do after much looking back and prodding from Tevfik and Mustafa.

  I yell to the other gendarmes. “Prepare to move.”

  I awake in a panic, wet with perspiration. Sitting up, cold in my dampness, I take in the darkened room, the pleated curtains, the quilt-covered bed. My bedroom. Early morning. America. Home.

  “Papa, are you okay?”

  I collapse back to wet sheets.

  Violet stands before me. “You’ve been thrashing and moaning all night. Did you dream?”

  “Yes.” My voice is craggy. If I close my eyes I know I will return, to wind and sadness and hunger and cold.

  “Is it the same dream?” Violet doesn’t wait for an answer. “I meant to ask Dr. Wan about that. I’m sure it’s related to your medication, or to the tumor itself.”

  The tumor. I struggle out of bed, pulling at my pajamas. Today is what, Tuesday? There are things I must do.

  “Are you hungry? I could fix you some breakfast.”

  “No.” I wrap my robe around myself. “I have much to do today, much to do.”

  “Like what?”

  I need to go to the grocery, to see Wilfred. So I lie. “I need to get my hair cut.”

  Violet shrugs. “I’ll take you.”

  I launch my protest. I do not need her help. I do not need anything. But then I cannot drive, per Dr. Wan. I stand with my head down, my fists clenching, unclenching.

  “Do you work today?” My voice is a growl. She had insisted on staying. This pleased me at first.

  “I’m taking the day off. We’ve been through this. Get dressed and I’ll make some tea.”

  She works at an accounting firm. “Wilfred,” I say. “Should he not stay here, too?”

  “He’s got school, Papa. He knows the bus from my place. I had someone stay with him. He’ll come see you after your procedure.”

  I thrash at my clothes. Why must she shield him? Her first pregnancy, the shame she brought then—did it impact this second? Carol and I never considered keeping the first child and raising it as our own. Carol had health issues even then, the beginnings of what would later be diagnosed as Parkinson’s disease, which would progress into dementia. It would not have worked out. Still, I look now at Violet, thinking how things might have been different. She would have stayed near us—maybe married?—and been once through child rearing. She might now be a grandmother. I think about this, how experience brings maturity. I consider the possibility that I have made her this way.

  A mirror flickers, showing scars on my face. I peer out again, down the hallway at Violet. The odd thing, the thing I cannot say now, is that her presence in the house reminds me of Carol. The illness. The obligation then to my efforts, the duty. Carol was a demanding patient. I owed it to her—she had saved my life—but I grew almost bitter, to the point where I now fear disability the way others fear death. I will not be a burden. And yet here I am, undergoing this treatment, prolonging the inevitable, foisting myself on my daughter. Would my death not release her? I have lived a long time.

  “I’m worried about you, Papa.” We are at the table now. Violet toys with her teacup. “You’ve never been sick.”

  This is true, for the most part. I have been healthy, amazingly so. I cannot explain my physique. I used to swim some, but not anymore. I rode a bike for many years. Even then, people used to comment on my body. “How old are you?” they would ask. The doctors are always amazed. I quit smoking when I was fifty. I drink only tea. Perhaps this is why I have gone along with this surgery. I have a few aches and false teeth and sometimes I lose my balance, but for the most part I feel fine.

  “Do not worry,” I say to her. It is I who worry. I cannot tell her that I have enjoyed my freedom since Carol’s death. I have my little routines. My neighbor, Carl Rowe, a fellow widower, is a fine man. We see each other some days. I watch my movies. I have become used to cooking and cleaning, having done it while Carol was sick these past years. I see Violet occasionally, and Wilfred. I talk to Lissette. I am not ready to die.

  Violet leans toward me. “Listen, Papa, I know you don’t want to hear this, but I think we’re going to have to get someone in here to watch you. Either that or move you to a
facility where you can be monitored. I can’t stay here full-time.”

  I glance at her. She says this with such compassion, her lips just trembling, that I am unprepared for it, unwilling even to argue about it. Her duty, her responsibility. I have waited for it, wanted it. And yet when it comes, this sadness comes, too.

  “Papa.”

  I shuffle my feet. Her eyes are up now, the brown eyes like mine. “No facility,” I say.

  “Okay, no facility. I’ll see about getting a home health nurse.”

  I am tired. I look away.

  The home health nurse turns out to be a pudgy, redheaded fellow named Ted. He arrives with amazing swiftness, leaving me to wonder if things had been already arranged. Violet orients him to the house, then stakes him out in the guest room.

  “Is he staying the night?” I whisper, when I have her alone.

  “Of course. He’s monitoring you, remember?”

  I grunt. Ted moves to join us. He has dark eyeglasses and a tattoo of a dagger on one arm. He says he’s studying to be an emergency medical technician.

  I maneuver Violet off to one side. “How much is this costing—all of it?”

  She shrugs. “Papa. You have the money. Plus, the insurance covers part of it.”

  I grind my teeth. One of my failures has been in teaching my children about money. I came to this country with nothing. Money has thus always been so important to me. I worked as a plumber’s assistant, a plumber, a plumbing contractor, a general contractor. I made a good salary, at least at the end. I have saved. I have invested, taken risks, but I have always been frugal. My children fling money like rain.

  Violet departs to run errands, leaving me alone with this Ted. I find him a talkative sort, carrying on about baseball and popular music and things of which I have little interest. He is, however, a movie fan, and we watch Doctor Zhivago together, start to finish. I ask at its end whether he wants me to fix him lunch. He refuses, but I fix him lunch anyway—scrambled eggs and toast—which he eats like a starving man. I ask him about his tattoo, which he says he got in Panama City on a dare. It’s a Turkish dagger, he says. I laugh at this.

  Something about it makes me think of my brother Burak, rekindling a brief memory, an image of Burak running. Perhaps a dagger was involved? I play this over and over. I see him look back, see his thin-lipped smile. I wonder that these bursts of memory still come, even now. Should I have taken steps to enhance them? Others suggested—even Carol, I recall—that I return to Turkey, travel to my hometown, engage more speakers of Turkish. This never appealed to me. I was busy as a young man. I had no money. Even as I grew older I had no desire to go back. I was living my life, in America. I had a family to support. Everyone in Turkey was dead.

  From time to time my children would inquire of their heritage—my heritage. At one point Lissette even took to wearing Turkish clothes and jewelry. I never encouraged it. I wanted them to think of themselves as Americans, not immigrants. In this Carol and I agreed. I spoke no Turkish with them, nor did we associate with Turkish émigrés or their families. We ate American food, watched American TV, celebrated American holidays. I deflected all questions related to my past. I became an American citizen. I never missed my life before, perhaps because I remembered so little of it. The parts I did remember were of family and hardship, conflict and death.

  Ted washes the dishes, announces that he needs to take my blood pressure. After that, he assures me, we have time to catch High Noon before my appointment at four. He talks as he works, telling me about Macon, his hometown, of how his mother says that eating dill pickles before bed prevents dreams. I nod at this. The doorbell rings and I answer, thinking perhaps it is Violet. Instead, it is Mrs. Fleming. This is an inconvenience.

  Mrs. Fleming is a neighbor, an elderly widow (though perhaps ten years my junior). She has shown unusual attentiveness since Carol died, delivering covered dishes, dropping by unannounced. Carl says she has a thing for me. She is an attractive woman, I suppose, for her age, with an erect carriage and white teeth. Carl, who weighs 270 pounds and has diabetes and heart problems, says he wants to “do” her. She shows no interest in him.

  “Hi,” she says, showing her teeth. She wants to be invited in.

  I pull back, opening the door. We step into the living room, the room that is never used.

  “I heard about your sickness.” She has a strange way of speaking, where her s’s sound like f ’s.

  I nod. Wadesboro is a small town. I assume everyone knows everything. “Please, sit down.”

  I do not offer her a drink, for I do not wish to prolong things. She takes a seat on the couch. I sit in a chair opposite, not on the couch.

  “Are you doing okay?”

  I nod. “Yes. Okay.”

  “When is your surgery?”

  “Tomorrow.” I hear the man, Ted, in the other room, and hope he will be quiet. I do not want her to know of him.

  “Can I get you anything? I’m so worried about you.” She shifts her legs, revealing for a moment a white valley of undergarment.

  I stare, transfixed by this brief exposure, until a memory springs forth of Burak telling me about women, about life. I had vague notions about sex, notions he solidified in some detail. He told me of his explorations, of a village girl named Sena. I remember being amazed and impressed, enthralled. For a moment I hear his voice, the cadence and crack of his syllables. It is so wonderful. Burak twice in one day! Then it vanishes, leaving behind stirred, empty space.

  I find myself wrapped in long arms. Mrs. Fleming is kissing me, her mouth like a bird on my neck. Her body is pressed against mine. I see the down on her cheekbone.

  “Oh, excuse me.” Ted enters, makes a retreat. “I heard something. I didn’t know someone was here.”

  Mrs. Fleming pulls back, flustered, but not much.

  I mutter, “He is staying with me, to . . . monitor.” My breath is short.

  Mrs. Fleming appears undeterred. I put my hands on her elbows.

  “Thank you for your visit,” I say. I make my voice strong.

  She brushes at her hair, then presents a bright smile. “I’ll be praying for you.”

  “Thank you.”

  She hesitates still. I close the door. But something shifts in my body, something I have not felt for some time. Desire? I am so old for desire.

  I force Ted to take me to the grocery, the Piggly Wiggly, where Wilfred goes. They know me here, the clerks and cashiers, know that I linger, that I never buy much.

  Ted comes in also, which I do not like. I do not wish to be rushed. I take the free coffee, even though I do not drink it. We stay, but not as long as I wish. I watch the people, take note of the things they purchase: the boxes of corn flakes, the frozen food in a tray. They push double carts, mounded with pizzas, with dog food, with packaged goods. I stare at the coffee, the purples and grays on its top. The door opens and closes. Wilfred does not come.

  In the dream there are colors—so brilliant as to make daylight dull. Sound, too, even smell. I can feel things, feel the cold seep through blankets. Taste? There is halva, sucuk, food seared on a flame. I curl my tongue, lick my lips. I am alive here, anticipating.

  The last strands of dusk light the sky, coating lean clouds shades of orange and gray. The air hangs smooth and heavy, stirred by the occasional breeze tossed from the plateau below. Gendarmes poke and prod, faces down, eyes intent, separating old women who wail and curse gibberish but do nothing more. One by one the men retrieve what they seek: young, struggling females. Several of the selected weep, one yells and cries, another stands stoic and quiet. Some are barely older than children. The other guards watch from their spots at the camp perimeter, jealous, wanting, coerced by duty to forgo nightly pleasure. One perimeter guard, Izzet, had partaken one night when he believed I was asleep—his back still bears the scars of this past miscalculation.

  I find her upon the last guard’s selection. The short, heavily bearded gendarme named Mustafa emerges from a scrum of deportees pull
ing a girl by her hair. She is tall, taller than most, her dark hair cascading from beneath a man’s faded cap. She wears men’s trousers and a white blouse voluminous enough to hide any evidence of her breasts. Her head twists briefly as they near where I stand, long enough for me to recognize a jawline, a manner of movement, a hint of defiance even in captivity.

  “Let me see this one,” I demand. Mustafa hesitates before pushing her forward. She raises her head slowly, almost regally, the hair blocking her face. I reach out a finger to part it, a groom removing a veil. I pause. The mismatched eyes glare back at me, their whites now red and wild as an animal’s, large and frightened, bright and translucent. Even in the fading light there is no mistaking them, the lightness of one eye against the other, the petal of a flower against its dark center. She looks past me, as if expecting someone else, fidgeting, breaking free of Mustafa’s grasp. The wailing in the background intensifies. The older women trailing catch up.

  “I will take her,” I say.

  Mustafa growls. He is thick and strong, able to lift large loads and tote water barrels with ease. I once saw him lift a recalcitrant camel. He is older than I, maybe mid-twenties, from Pertek, near my village, an acquaintance of my cousins. I have heard he served prison time in Diyarbekır.