Speaking to One Another - The International Raoul Wallenberg ...

The time Salih and Gavrik are working in the cinema coincides with the month of Ramadan. Gavrik“doesn’t even drink water” since his Muslim friends are fasting. Although they insist that he eat duringthe lunch break he doesn’t eat, but wraps the egged bread and takes it home like the others. Respect forlocal religious practice is one of the most distinct components of the memory of Armenians. Saying that“these were very decent people,” Salih expresses both the longing for the lost “unity” and the good qualitiesthat are associated with Armenianness.There is a big difference between the past, remembered as a wedding ceremony with Armenians, Greeksand Turks and the present day. Those who are gone were crying as they left, they were afraid and “theywere such nice people.” Those who are left behind try to understand the reason for the difference betweenthe past and the present: “I asked why Tavlusun has been ruined—this village was a wonderfulvillage. ‘How did this village become like this?’ I asked, ‘Is it the gavurs’ curse, master?’ I asked Napolyon[whose nickname made reference to the fancy boots he wore]. ‘No, he said, ‘We were getting along verywell with the gavurs. The gavurs never complained about us. There were no quarrels, no conflicts. Nordid we confiscate their property.’”But Napolyon answers Salih’s question with the story of Basri Efendi who “jumps on the Greek girl,” andof his son whom he never acknowledged, but who still writes letters from Greece:“Now Napolyon says, during the War of Independence, the government gave the soldiers’ families wheatfor bread, with the papers that the village headman provided. The women went to the building wherethe government distributed wheat. Women brought their sacks and waited in line. On the day they gaveout wheat, he says, they got the wheat for free. One of them is a court clerk and the other is a recordingofficer. They are brothers-in-law. He says, ‘They choose two women from there. Just two of them.’ ‘Youlook like a nice lady, today rye will be distributed, I am in charge here, tomorrow wheat will be distributed.Now go without saying anything to anybody and come back tomorrow at nine.’ ‘Indeed there is nothingtomorrow,’ he says. ‘What could the woman do, man,’ he says, ‘her children are at home, hungry.Hungry!’ She believes him and comes the next day. Salih Baba has a horse carriage, covered you know.‘The carriage comes in the morning’, he says, ‘and takes the women: “We’re going to the warehouse togive you the wheat.” They have their own men with them. They bring them here,’ he says, ‘to the garden,you know, to the house in that garden. And they come in the afternoon, they drink raki, they booze,they play, they dance and the women are raped.’”Napolyon puts a picture of the damned next to the wedding picture in the album of the past: “They destroyedTavlusun, my boy. If Tavlusun is cursed, it’s because of them. ‘And it is our bastards who did it,’said Napolyon. The man who lived through this said it, not me. He said, ‘I didn’t hear this from someone.I’m the one who has seen this.’”51