Nobody's Child

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Authors: Marsha Forchuk Skrypuch
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    â€œCan I have some?” asked Onnig, as he came over from the garden to see what Marta was doing.
    â€œYou can eat these peels,” she said, handing him the juicy chunks.
    Onnig grinned and stuffed them into his mouth.
    For the second apple, Marta held it a little bit closer. Her ribbons of peel were less fleshy, and they were a hand’s length long.
    â€œThese ones don’t taste so good,” said Onnig disapprovingly. “I’ll give them to Sevo and Tipi.”
    â€œThat’s a good idea,” said Marta.
    Sevo was grazing at the side of the house, her rope attached, but not tethered. Tipi, Abdul’s goat, was grazing a few feet away from her.
    Marta was lost in concentration with her apple peeling. By the fourth apple she was pleased with how easily she was able to peel an apple and still have something left to slice. She didn’t think she’d ever master the one long peel, though.
    As she finished peeling and coring and slicing each apple, she would place the slices in the bowl. When she was all done, she carried the bowl into the kitchen and squeezed a wedge of lemon over them, and then she carried the bowl up two flights of stairs to the roof.
    The roof was flat and made of dirt that had hardened in the sun to a smooth gloss. She sat down and spread her skirt to one side and carefully placed a single layer of apple slices in rows starting at the edge of the roof.
    While she was doing this, Marta looked over the edge to check on Onnig. He was feeding the last of the apple peels and cores to the goats and grinning ear to ear.
    She went back to her work and laid out all of the apple slices. By the time she was done, she had covered a large square patch of the roof. She stood up and stretched, proud of a job well done, then shaded her eyes from the sun and looked out into the fields. She could see the rhythmic rise and fall of the sickles in the fields, but as far as she could tell, not much progress was being made. In the spring, Abdul Hassan had hired twenty or more strong male workers. Their little group was barely making a dent.
    She looked beyond the fields towards the cave grave, but couldn’t see it from her vantage point. She willed her-selfto remember her parents’ faces, but she couldn’t. “Please God,” she whispered, “look after Mommy and Daddy and Uncle Aram.”
    Then she turned towards Marash. What would they find there? She hoped that her grandmother and aunt and cousins were still alive.
    From where she stood, she could see the old stone bridge that crossed over the Jihan River at Adana. She could also see the ancient castle in the distance. Looking at them again from this vantage point reminded her of the first time she had seen them. She had been such a child then, yet it was only a couple of months ago.
    She took one last look down to the garden, but Onnig wasn’t there. “Onnig?” she called. No answer.
    She scurried down the stairs as quickly as she could and ran out the front door of the house. “Onnig?” she called. “Where are you?”
    Her heart beating in her throat, she ran around to the back of the house. There was Onnig, with Sevo and the other goat. His hands were tangled in their ropes and they were pulling him harder than he could hold them.
    â€œHelp!” he said to his sister, a frightened look in his eyes.
    â€œWhat are you doing?” she asked, grabbing Sevo’s rope firmly in one hand. With the tension off the rope, Onnig had no troubling untangling one of his hands. Marta then steadied Tipi by holding that rope firmly so Onnig could get free.
    â€œThey wanted to go to Marash,” said Onnig. “But I didn’t know they would go so fast.”
    Marta smiled. “We’ll all be going to Marash soon, Onnig, but next time the goats want to go, tell them they’ll have to wait.”
    The evening meal was served in the common main room of the house. Amina Hanim

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