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I
do not remember how many days our decimated caravan
marched southward toward the Euphrates River. Day by
day the men contingent of the caravan got smaller
and smaller. Under pretext of not killing them if
they would hand over liras and gold coins, men would
be milked by the gendarmes of what little money they
had. Then they would be killed anyway.
Days wore on. We marched
through mountain roads and valleys. Those who could
not keep up were put out of their misery. Always
bodies were found strewn by the wayside. The caravan
was getting smaller each day. At one place, my
little grandmother, like Jeremiah incarnate, loudly
cursed the Turkish government for their inhumanity,
pointing to us children she asked, "What is the
fault of children to be subjected to such
suffering." It was too much for a gendarme to bear,
he pulled out his dagger and plunged it into my
grandmother's back. The more he plunged his dagger,
the more my beloved Nana asked for heaven's curses
on him and his kind. Unable to silence her with
repeated dagger thrusts, the gendarme mercifully
pumped some bullets into her and ended her life.
First my uncle, now my grandmother were left
unmourned and unburied by the wayside.
We moved on.
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