Nobody's Child Read Online Free Page B

to her father’s face and closed his eyes, then she did the same with her uncle.
    She could see the skin of water still fastened around her mother’s waist, so Mariam reached in and unfastened it. With the water, she would be able to perform a more complete burial observance.
    She ripped off a strip of cloth from the already ripped veil and saturated it with water. She dabbed her parents’ and uncle’s faces and hands and feet with the wet cloth in a ritual cleansing, and then anointed the brows and hands and feet with oil in the sign of the cross. She had her mother’s last veil left, and so she lovingly draped it across the corpses.
    Mariam had a feeling like being out of her own body and watching down as this strangely calm girl-woman went through the motions. She was beyond emotion, and in some ways she felt that she was beyond death. There was only one thing she could think of at the moment, and that was to give her family the traditionalArmenian burial they would have wanted. A shiver went through her as she dropped pebbles onto the veil. For a moment she thought she heard her mother’s voice saying, “Look after your brother and sister.”
    She said one last silent prayer, then left the cave.
    Her eyes took awhile to adjust when she was finally out of the cave again, and the first thing she saw was the strained looks on the faces of her brother and sister. She nodded grimly to them. “They’re dead,” she said. “But they are in heaven now.” Is there a heaven? she wondered. Wherever they were, it was better than this.
    Onnig and Marta enveloped her in their arms. The children huddled together in their grief, and soon they fell into an exhausted sleep.
    Mariam heard dogs howling in her sleep and woke up with a start. She looked around her and saw that it was still broad daylight and very hot. Onnig was soundlessly asleep, but Marta was whimpering. Mariam gently shook her sister’s shoulder until she opened her eyes.
    â€œWe should cover the mouth of the cave,” said Mariam. She didn’t want to say out loud what her fears were — that wild dogs would tear apart the flesh of their dead family. The thought was too gruesome to share.
    Marta looked at her older sister and nodded. “Yes,” she said.
    In a frenzy of energy, the sisters gathered stones and twigs and piled them up at the mouth of the cave. Marta fashioned a crucifix from two straight sticks, then leaned it against the front of the cave. Mariam placed a lit candle in front of it. Then they roused Onnig, and the three children prayed.

C HAPTER T WO
    M ariam was jolted awake by a hand placed on her shoulder. She clutched Onnig, who was asleep in her lap, and squinted her eyes open. It was Kevork. He was with an odd-looking white-haired woman.
    Mariam sat up. She was confused that Kevork was alive, and she was confused by this strange companion of his. “We were at your house but we couldn’t find you …”
    â€œI know,” said Kevork. “I saw you.”
    Onnig opened his eyes to the sound of the familiar voice. When he saw Kevork, he tumbled out of his sister’s lap and ran to him. “Where have you been?” Onnig asked.
    Kevork sat down on the ground and took Onnig in his arms. He nuzzled his nose into Onnig’s downy hair and thought of Arsho. “It will be fine,” said Kevork, rocking the child gently. “You’re safe. Thank God.”
    Kevork felt comfort in the closeness of the child, but it also sharpened his sense of loss. His mind suddenlyfilled with the memory of Mariam when she had stepped into his house the day before. He had watched her from his hiding place in the rafters, his heart pounding with fear. When he first heard her footsteps, he thought the Turks had come back.
    It had been more than the sound of footsteps that had sent him up to the rafters in the first place. His mother had just put stew on to simmer, and the