Anyush by Martine Madden Read Free Book Online

better than a hamal.’
    In the village, nursing the sick was thought to bring bad luck, but, in theend, Khandut knew her daughter’s chances of making a marriage were poor and money was scarce, so she had reluctantly agreed to the training. Anyush would leave the village at the beginning of autumn for two years.
    Following the track until it joined the road, Anyush left the wood behind her. On the seaward side, the setting sun had dipped towards the ocean, and she turned to catch the last of the light on her face.
    ‘
Barev
, Anyush.’
    ‘
Barev
, Husik,’ she said, without opening her eyes.
    ‘How did you know it was me?’
    ‘Because it’s always you.’
    He walked along beside her, smelling of sweat and animal blood and newly turned earth.
    ‘I saw you at Parzik’s shordzevk last night,’ he said. ‘With the other women.’
    ‘What if I was?’
    ‘I heard the Mongol is to be allowed sew the hem of the dress.’
    ‘You seem to know a lot about the wedding, Husik.’
    ‘I was there to slaughter the goat. That’s all.’
    Eznmortek usually involved slaughtering a cow, but Parzik’s mother couldn’t afford a cow and could ill afford the goat.
    ‘You stayed too late,’ he said.
    ‘That’s none of your concern.’
    ‘It’s not safe to be out alone.’
    Anyush opened her eyes and looked at him. It was the first conversation of any length they’d had in a very long time.
    ‘Of course I was safe. There were lots of us there.’
    ‘They won’t protect you. There are soldiers everywhere.’
    ‘What if there are?!’ Anyush snapped.
    Husik stared at her, his mud-coloured eyes taking in the heightened colour of her face.
    ‘Anyway,’ she said. ‘I knew you’d be around.’
    He half smiled then so that she could see the gap where he had lost a tooth after one of his traps recoiled in his face.
    ‘Will you be at the wedding?’ he asked.
    ‘Of course.’
    The entire village would be there. A celebration the like of which hadn’t been seen since before the war. Every family felt the loss of their men, but it would be an excuse to think of something other than loneliness and empty bellies. A reason to dance. Anyush shivered.
    ‘Go home, Husik,’ she said.
    Husik stood at the entrance to his father’s farm, watching until she rounded the bend.

 
    Diary of Dr Charles Stewart
     
    Mushar
     
    Trebizond
     
    April 9th, 1905
    Today is a red-letter day in the history of our village. This morning, in the presence of the townspeople and many dignitaries, including the Vali himself, we opened the doors to our new hospital. After ten months waiting for permits, and lumber, and stone, the village hospital is finally finished. People queued to see it from early in the morning and Hetty set up a table inside the main door with sweet treats for the children and rice pilaff for the adults. Many of the villagers brought gifts of their own, grape butter in little goat-hair bags, cheese and goats’ milk. The general consensus was that the hospital was most magnificent, and Doktor Stippet and his khanum had done very well. The oddest aspect of the day was my own sombre mood. I couldn’t shake the feeling that this had somehow fallen short. Paul was first to notice.
    ‘Cheer up, Charles,’ he said, my son’s legs draped around his shoulders. ‘If the wind changes and all that.’
    ‘I am perfectly cheerful.’
    ‘You look miserable.’
    ‘Apparently I always do.’
    He laughed and set Thomas down to run over to his mother.
    ‘So why the long face?’ he asked.
    I looked at the new building, a small, two-storey stone structure built around a service courtyard to the rear and divided into male and female sides. Fully finished, it is more or less as I imagined it, but only on the outside.
    ‘We ran out of money,’ I told him.
    From the fund Elias Riggs had given us, large portions were spent long before the foundation stone was laid. Bribes and permits, greedy builders and thieving workmen. By the time the