The Shadows of 1915

By Jerry Burger

How long is the shadow of genocide? How does it affect the offspring of the survivors? And
how do survivors and their families retain a belief in justice when atrocities go unpunished?
These questions are addressed in Jerry M. Burger’s novel, The Shadows of 1915. The story
takes place in Central California in 195

• Language: English
• Publisher: Golden Antelope Press
• Release date: Jul 15, 2019
• ISBN: 9781936135752

Jerry Burger

Jerry Burger has conducted nationally recognized research in personality and social psychology. He has published on obedience to authority, perceptions of personal control, and development of social norms. The Shadows of 1915 is his first novel, but his short stories have been published in Belleview Literary Review, Harpur Palate, Briar Cliff Review and other literary journals. His textbook, Personality, has gone through nine editions; his study, Returning Home: Reconnecting with our Childhoods (2011), explores emotional attachments people develop with childhood homes.

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Shadows_Interior_Cover

THE SHADOWS OF 1915

The Shadows of 1915

by

Jerry Burger

Copyright 2019 by Jerry Burger

Cover image of Mount Ararat courtesy of The Armenian Weekly.

Cover design by Russell Nelson.

All rights reserved. No portion of this publication may be duplicated in any way without the expressed written consent of the publisher, except in the form of brief excerpts or quotations for review purposes.

ISBN: 978-1-936135-76-9

Library of Congress Control Number: 2019943825

Published by:

Golden Antelope Press

715 E. McPherson

Kirksville, Missouri 63501

Available at:

Golden Antelope Press

715 E. McPherson

Kirksville, Missouri, 63501

Phone: [phone]

http://www.goldenantelope.com

Email: [e-mail]

CONTENTS

Acknowledgements

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Eighteen

Chapter Nineteen

Chapter Twenty

Chapter Twenty-One

Chapter Twenty-Two

Chapter Twenty-Three

Chapter Twenty-Four

Chapter Twenty-Five

Chapter Twenty-Six

Chapter Twenty-Seven

Chapter Twenty-Eight

Chapter Twenty-Nine

Chapter Thirty

Chapter Thirty-One

Chapter Thirty-Two

Chapter Thirty-Three

Chapter Thirty-Four

Chapter Thirty-Five

Chapter Thirty-Six

Chapter Thirty-Seven

Chapter Thirty-Eight

Chapter Thirty-Nine

Chapter Forty

Chapter Forty-One

Chapter Forty-Two

Chapter Forty-Three

About the Author

Acknowledgements

Telling this story benefitted from the input of dozens of people who provided invaluable feedback along the way. In particular, I thank Carter, Myra and Heather, who graciously read the entire manuscript and shared their usual helpful comments. I also acknowledge Tom Parker for helping me polish the final version of the novel and for providing the encouragement and guidance I needed to become a better writer. And thanks to Betsy and Neal for putting my words into print.

I am grateful to all the members of the Fresno Armenian community who talked with me about that community, particularly those who shared their experiences about living in Armenian Town in the 1950’s. Most importantly, I thank the late Berge Bulbulian for writing The Fresno Armenians (Word Dancer Press), a priceless resource, and for inviting me into his home one afternoon and answering my seemingly endless stream of questions. Finally, I thank the woman I never met, a survivor of 1915, who in an interview with my wife, then working as a reporter for the San Jose Mercury News, told the story of the child she lost, her little angel, which became the starting point for this novel.

Chapter One

September, 1953

Fresno, California

Mihran Saropian watched from the back seat as rows of headstones eased by and reflected again on how family overrides all other considerations when determining a person’s final resting place. His uncle’s black Cadillac moved slowly down the white gravel road, penetrating the mid-morning silence as pebbles crunched under heavy tires. Mihran read the familiar inscriptions on the stones they passed. Emerian. Hodoian. Bulbulian. It was the first and most important piece of information about each person buried in the Ararat Cemetery — the family name.

Teresa slid next to him and squeezed his arm. This really is a cemetery for Armenians only. I thought you were kidding.

It’s been here a long time, Mihran said. Probably as long as there have been Armenians in Fresno.

Since 1885, Henry said from the front seat. We come here every Sunday.

Mihran raised his hands in a what-did-I-tell-you gesture. They were the first words his uncle had spoken since they had started the ride. The other passenger in the car, Mihran’s mother, had fallen silent as soon as they entered the cemetery.

Henry pulled the car to the side of the road, and Mihran moved quickly to open the door for his mother. Summer heat radiated from the Cadillac’s shiny finish.

"Sh’norhakal em," Tarvez said, using Mihran’s extended arm to pull herself from the vehicle. The cemetery was one of the few places she spoke Armenian. She held a glass jar filled with white tea roses.

Henry rose from the driver’s seat with an audible grunt. He was a large man with round features and thinning hair he combed straight back. His moustache drooped in black and gray streaks on either side of his mouth — a variation of the moustache worn almost uniformly by the older men in the community. He opened the trunk and retrieved the bundle of gold lilies purchased from the stand just outside the front gate of the cemetery. Ohan Minasian, whose arthritic knees had kept him on his stool throughout the transaction, had sold flowers in the same location every weekend and every holiday for as long as Mihran could remember.

Henry handed the flowers and three inexpensive glass vases to Mihran before starting toward the Saropian section with Tarvez. Teresa moved to join them, but Mihran signaled with an open palm that the two of them were to wait here. A breeze from the vineyards surrounding the cemetery brought a moment of relief from the late morning heat and carried with it the sweet odor of drying fruit that permeated the valley this time of year. All around them, row after row of grapes on paper trays were slowly turning into raisins under the early September sun.

They come here every week? Teresa asked.

Just about, Mihran said. First church, then the cemetery, then, in summer, the picnic. Definitely creatures of habit.

And how often are you expected to join them?

I figure two or three times a year is about right.

Teresa released a soft groan. Does that schedule include fiancés?

Probably.

Another reason to keep things quiet.

Mihran nodded. It had been Teresa’s idea to keep their engagement, now only two weeks old, a secret. He did not understand her reservations, but he had recognized for some time that there was a tentative and guarded part to Teresa that he did not yet have access to.

They made their way to a nearby water faucet, mercifully located in the shade of an expansive oak. It was not yet noon, and their clothes were already sticking to their damp skin. Mihran filled the vases while Teresa surveyed the acres of well-kept lawn.

What’s with the fancy car? Teresa asked.

That’s just Uncle Henry. He gets a new one every year.

Always a Cadillac?

Always.

To show off?

More like making a statement.

I’m still not sure why you thought I needed to see this.

Mihran finished arranging the lilies in the vases and joined her. They watched from a distance as Henry and Tarvez lowered their heads in front of the Saropian stones. Watery pools of heat rose from a single strip of black asphalt that cut through the heart of the cemetery. The scent of newly mown grass lingered in the heavy air.

Mihran glanced to his right and was not surprised to see Eddie Hokokian standing in the middle of the Hokokian tombstones. Eddie had been crushed under a collapsing stack of fertilizer drums one week before he would have started high school. As always, he wore the blue denim overalls he was killed in. Not far away, Mihran spied Jivan Margosian. His father’s best friend and the man who taught Mihran to play blackjack. Lung cancer. And eight-year-old Ruth Ann Sarkisian, whose family had lived on K Street just behind the Saropians. Polio. Today she was skipping rope.

Do you believe in ghosts? Mihran asked.

You mean like Halloween ghosts? Teresa said. "Like boo?"

Something a little more sophisticated.

Like Marley’s ghost?

Sort of.

Spirits who come back from the afterlife? Teresa said. I can’t say I put a lot of stock in that sort of thing.

The old Armenians talk about it a lot, Mihran said. They say if the deceased is not ready to leave this world, then his soul — or part of it — stays behind.

Is that why you brought me here? Teresa asked. To tell me that my fiancé — a college student no less — sees ghosts?

Mihran shrugged. It’s part of the culture.

And where do these reluctant souls hang out?

Anywhere they want to, I guess. But you certainly could find some around here.

A rickety flatbed truck clattered past the entrance to the cemetery and slowed as it reached the edge of a neighboring vineyard. The truck, its grill orange with rust, kicked up a cloud of dust as it came to a stop. More than a dozen workers climbed out of the back. With little conversation, they placed cloth hats on their heads and moved in single-file lines down the rows. Children carrying metal pails and rolls of brown paper were included in the procession. Wooden frames the men hooked over their shoulders provided a rhythmic clicking as the workers prepared to pick the owner’s grapes.

So why don’t these ghosts just go on to heaven or wherever? Teresa asked. What are they waiting for?

The way the elders tell it, Mihran said, the spirits need to know that what they started in life is finished. They’re kind of waiting to see how things turn out. To make sure the life they lived had a purpose.

And the elders see these ghosts?

A few claim to. But most of the time it’s a cousin or a neighbor who swears they saw a dead relative wandering through an orchard or sitting at the dinner table.

Maybe the ghosts only exist in the minds of the perceivers, Teresa said. Maybe it’s the living who need to make sense of every life.

Could be, Mihran said. But would that make them any less real?

The sound of pickers dropping metal pails and arranging wooden frames trickled through the warm summer air. Mihran watched as Henry and Tarvez made their way from the Saropian section to a nearby collection of stones. It was the next step in the Sunday routine — paying respect to lost friends.

Come on. Mihran retrieved the vases of flowers. I want to make some introductions.

As always, the grass in the Saropian section was especially green and recently clipped. Each of the five flat stones surrounding the family marker had been cleared of dirt and debris, the result, Mihran knew, of his uncle leaving a little money for the grounds keepers. The family marker featured a floral border and raised letters and was among the largest and most visible in the cemetery. Henry had selected it himself. The Saropians had enough space, his uncle liked to say, for four and possibly five generations.

Mihran placed each vase in its proper location then held Teresa’s hand while the two of them stood quietly in front of the stones for a respectful minute.

Sirak and Ana Saropian. Mihran pointed to the two middle stones. My grandparents. Came over from the old country. I never met him, and she died when I was too young to remember.

He gestured toward the stone to their left. The most ornate of the group, etched with images of flowers and bold letters. Katarine. Henry’s wife. Died two years ago from breast cancer. She was 57.

Too young, Teresa said.

Mihran stepped to the grave just to the right of the family marker and paused.

Bedros Saropian, my father. Scattered images from the funeral floated through his awareness. Dark coats and umbrellas on a dismal winter day.

Teresa fell silent. As Mihran had hoped, she seemed as susceptible to the emotional call of this place as he was.

There’s one more, Mihran said.

The last stone, smaller than the others, was adorned with the tea roses Tarvez had carried that morning. Mihran waited for Teresa to read the inscription.

Vartouhi Mariam Artinian

April 12, 1915 - August 1915

Lost Angel

Uncle Henry had it made last year, Mihran said. For my mother.

Who’s Vartouhi? Teresa asked.

My sister.

Teresa raised an eyebrow.

"This is why I brought you here, Mihran said. I’ve got a story to tell you. It’s the family’s story. And if you’re going to be part of the family, it becomes your story as well."

August, 1915

The Plains of Armenia

Their feet, swollen and blistered from three days of walking, pushed forward on the dry soil, sending up clouds of dust to sting their eyes and coat their skin with reddish-brown dirt. Tarvez kept one hand over her baby’s eyes. The other held her daughter tightly to her chest despite the heat. Only her child, she reminded herself. Above all else, she must protect Vartouhi.

More than a thousand people from her vilayet had started the march. The caravan had stretched for more than a mile, slumped-shouldered women and children and a few frail men moving in step through the expansive Armenian grasslands under an immense sky. Some of the women pushed wooden carts. A few from the wealthier families used donkeys to transport their belongings. But most carried their possessions in the pockets of their overdresses and in cloth sacks strapped across their backs. Turkish gendarmes in tattered and stained uniforms rode on horseback at both ends of the procession.

The gendarmes led them away from the main roads to craggy trails marked by water-carved furrows and scattered boulders. The vast openness of the land was unfamiliar to Tarvez, who had traveled outside her village only twice in her 22 years, both trips to see relatives who lived in the higher lands to the east. The first few days the caravan had passed stands of oaks, an occasional pomegranate tree, and patches of purple rhododendrons that reminded Tarvez of the flowers outside her home. But now she could see only a few trees scattered across the horizon, and they had passed no other travelers all morning.

At mid-day, Anig Erganian, 71 years old last Christmas, dropped to her knees.

Bring water, someone called out.

She must have shade, another woman said, glancing upward. The morning clouds had given way to a penetrating sun. This is too much for an old woman.

Razmouhi Erganian cupped her mother’s elbow. "Mayr, we must continue."

But Anig only lowered her shoulders and shifted her weight until she appeared to be kneeling in prayer.

The gendarme was upon them at once. The Turk cracked his whip from atop his horse and ordered the women to continue. Razmouhi tugged on her mother’s arm, pleading with her to stand. But the old woman only lowered her chin.

I will join you later, Anig said, her eyes facing the ground. When I have had a chance to rest.

That evening, after a dinner of flat bread and salted lamb, Tarvez and her cousin Sona arranged their possessions beside a small stand of trees.

The trees will protect us from the night winds, Sona said.

Tarvez raked the dry soil with her fingers then ground the broken clumps with her knuckles until the earth was reduced to a soft powder. She removed the shawl from around her head and laid it on the prepared surface. Sona used the edge of her palm to smooth the cloth from the center outward until it resembled the bed the children slept in at home.

Tarvez laid her child on the white cotton shawl, and Sona placed her own son beside Vartouhi. Arakel had been born two weeks before Tarvez’ daughter. To thwart evil spirits, the two women had spent most of their pregnancies together. The alk, the family elders had reasoned, would not take an unborn baby as long as another woman with child was nearby. So Sona and Tarvez had worked the same chores throughout the winter and spring. The cousins often stood side-by-side while tending goats and sheep and comparing the changes in their bodies. Both godmothers had correctly predicted a boy for Sona and a girl for Tarvez. To Tarvez, it was almost as if Arakel were her own child. She had even nursed the boy for several days when Sona was bedridden with fever.

Razmouhi Erganian was among the group who shared a fire with the cousins that night. She spent much of the meal staring down the road in the direction where her mother had stopped to rest.

"Mayr will be here soon, Razmouhi said as the women prepared to sleep. She leaned against a large boulder, a location that allowed an open view of the moonlit road. I’ve saved her some supper. She will be hungry."

Tarvez and Sona positioned themselves on either side of their babies. Sona fell asleep instantly, while Tarvez pressed her nose and mouth against Vartouhi’s cheek and hummed a soft lullaby to her already-sleeping child. Tarvez was afraid to close her eyes. She survived the days by concentrating on her daughter, clinging to a belief that if she protected Vartouhi, God would protect the rest of her family and her people. But at night, when her baby was asleep and the clamor of the day faded, the thoughts she feared the most made themselves known. How much longer must they travel? What would her home look like when they returned? And what had happened to her husband? She began to doze, but her sleep was invaded by the image of a hundred Turkish soldiers roaring through her vilayet. Once again she heard the sound of shattering glass and the explosion of gunfire.

Tarvez rolled onto her back, seeking reassurance in a silent prayer. She stared into the endless sky and listened to the sounds of the night while she