Bone Ash Sky
This story is for the survivors and those who haven’t lived to tell the tale.
Also for my sister, Annette Livas, 1965–2010.
The historic circumstances in this novel are real. Many of the characters are not. This is a work of fiction, and liberties have been taken with some dates, events and places.
The author does not seek to blame, defame or offend any race, creed or culture for their beliefs or their past and present actions.
There are no villains in this story – and no heroes either.
K.V.C., Sydney, 2013
Everything is in process of creation and destruction.
There is no here or hereafter;
everything is a single moment.
Bedreddin, 15th-century Islamic mystic
CONTENTS
LARNACA, CYPRUS – BEIRUT, LEBANON, 1995
LAKE VAN, TURKISH ARMENIA, 1905–1915
LAKE VAN, TURKISH ARMENIA, 1915
BEIRUT & DER EZ ZOR, 1925–1946
LARNACA, CYPRUS â
BEIRUT, LEBANON, 1995
M
y back and legs and head hurt as if I've been travelling non-stop for days, and Dilek laughs every time I complain.
âToughen up, white girl.'
âWho are you to talk?' I shoot back. âThis is the first time you've been home in fifteen years.'
She laughs again, slaps me on the shoulder, making me wince. We're at the port, waiting for the ferry. It's uncomfortable with both of us sitting on my backpack; my arse bones ache, and she keeps shoving me every time I wriggle.
This week in Cyprus has been full of bus journeys, dawn starts, nights spent on the kilim couches of Dilek's countless relations. She and I are tight, or used to be at school; my being Armenian and she TurkishâCypriot seemed to bring us closer together. Even now, we understand each other's contradictions. We don't need to probe. She puts her thin brown arm tight around my waist.
âAnoush. Do you really have to go?'
I look at her; we're sitting so close I can see the way her mascara clumps on the ends of her lashes, the black down on her upper lip, just like mine.
âYes, I really have to go. But I'm scared.'
âIs it safe? I mean, you're not going to get there and find a bunch of crazies sitting around a table with guns?'
âOh, come on. The tribunal's run by the UN and the Lebanese government.'
âYeah, that's what I said. A bunch of crazies.'
I don't give her a laugh. She cocks her head, holds me away from her with both hands on my upper arms, the way a mother would.
âSee you back home soon, yeah? Don't stay in Lebanon too long on your own.'
I smile, brush off her concerns.
âThank your relatives again for me.
Tessekur ederim.
Is that how you say it?'
It strikes me as wrong even as I open my mouth. That I speak so readily the language of the people who killed my ancestors. Yet Dilek's aunts, uncles and cousins have been warm, overly hospitable. My own uncles are dead, my aunts lost to Turks or Kurds or Bedouin, cousins unborn. My father, mother, grandparents, all gone. Dilek didn't tell her family that I'm Armenian. I'm not myself anymore. On the plane from Boston my life freeze-framed, then sped up. Beneath me, countries and cities blurred into countless dawns, floating, incomprehensible, until there was only white.
I close my eyes, let my head rest against the window. Condensation drips down like tears. This Cypriot boat, the
Solphryne
, plying the same LarnacaâBeirut route for how many decades with its grimy seats and diesel aroma, a tired saloon with an espresso machine only used for the hot water it dispenses. Greek coffee and rusks, thin oblongs of dry bread wrapped in shiny blue paper. I've been on board five hours. My
Lonely Planet
said three and a half. An hour spent docked in Larnaca, among the shouting and swearing of Greek sailors, not understanding what the problem was. When the ferry finally started moving, its slow shudders made me think of a sick animal.
I'm afraid to go out on deck, where I can discern the red glow of cigarettes against the blackness that comes just before dawn. Too many men: Cypriot, Turkish, Lebanese, Greek. No tourists, except me. Though I don't really think of myself as a tourist. The smell of salted pistachios and sunflower seeds, crunching and breathing, snores. An old woman near the door mumbles to herself, never letting up. The man next to me rolls his eyes. Too many bodies. Passive, drowsing over muted TV screens, inhaling the same air.
Is this how it felt during the massacres? No modern tragedy, no large sacrifices. Only an ignoble irritation for the smells and sounds of other people, nothing so strong as disgust. Out the window, scattered stars look like a child's drawing: lopsided, full of possibility. Then why do I feel such dread? I make a line with my finger on the cold glass. It was at the port in Cyprus, with Dilek. That's when my dread began. Or was it in Boston, before I came? If I'm honest, it's always been with me, since I was born.
Approaching the place of my birth by boat makes me feel as if I'm going somewhere else entirely. Maybe I am. I've come the roundabout way from Cyprus, but that's how I tend to do things. I approach a problem from an angle, tricking myself into thinking I'm not really tackling it at all. The trick now is to convince myself that my father wasn't all that bad. There were massacres in the Palestinian camps in Lebanon's civil war. Three thousand civilians dead. Growing up, my family taught me not to believe it. Now I'm not so sure. Selim, my father, who was second-in-command in a Christian militia, is implicated in the killings. The tribunal aims to try the three key perpetrators â Ariel Sharon, Elie Hobeika, and my father â in absentia and nail them for good. I hope they don't nail him, and I'd rather not be there to watch â but it's like a car crash: I have to slow down, stick my neck out and see the blood for myself. Selim Pakradounian is long dead, but I'm here â wisely or not â to try to absolve him of blame, and myself of guilt. Fat chance.