Love a feisty heroine? Soldiers murder her mother. They force her from the family home in my #historical #novel Angel of Aleppo.
Not only diving deeply into the reality of #genocide, #war, #cruelty and #refugees, it also explores what it takes to find the strength to #survive.
Anoush must endure a death march through unforgiving desert, as Armenian refugees perish about her, some of the million-plus whose blood forever stains the hands of the Ottoman Turks and the souls of their descendants.
Courageously keeping her small group of neighbourhood women together, Anoush endures the brutish guards driving a massive column of women, children, and old men south from Anatolia through Aleppo to the Mesopotamian desert. She learns to nurse against all odds in a city overflowing with diseased and starving refugees. She becomes the Angel of Aleppo.
In the years that follow, can she find the will to be the woman her mama raised her to be? Can she summon the strength to care?
From Anatolia to Aleppo and beyond, through the outrages and injustices of the 1915 Armenian Genocide, Angel of Aleppo is about losing everything but the healing power of love.
Love a feisty heroine? Soldiers murder her mother. They force her from the family home in my #historical #novel Angel of Aleppo.
Not only diving deeply into the reality of #genocide, #war, #cruelty and #refugees, it also explores what it takes to find the strength to #survive.
Anoush must endure a death march through unforgiving desert, as Armenian refugees perish about her, some of the million-plus whose blood forever stains the hands of the Ottoman Turks and the souls of their descendants.
Courageously keeping her small group of neighbourhood women together, Anoush endures the brutish guards driving a massive column of women, children, and old men south from Anatolia through Aleppo to the Mesopotamian desert. She learns to nurse against all odds in a city overflowing with diseased and starving refugees. She becomes the Angel of Aleppo.
In the years that follow, can she find the will to be the woman her mama raised her to be? Can she summon the strength to care?
From Anatolia to Aleppo and beyond, through the outrages and injustices of the 1915 Armenian Genocide, Angel of Aleppo is about losing everything but the healing power of love.
Prologue
War Memorial, North Terrace
Adelaide, South Australia
April 24, 1965
Faith is a short word; one syllable, a tiny droplet that speaks a mighty sermon about spirit and character, courage and forbearance, belief transcending defeat. Faith is a sense of one’s destiny. It lives at the core of being, an underpinning definition of spirituality, a fundamental power. Faith is optimistic, kind, patient, forgiving, tolerant—a healing balm. When the soul is bloodied with pain and tainted by anger, faith washes it clean.
Faith clears the troubled mind. It raises up the wounded heart. It is the cornerstone of the grounded, the compass that steers those in peril safely home, a window open to hope, a bottomless wellspring for love. Where there is faith and hope, there is love. What hardened heart denies love?
Faith’s light can lift the darkest soul. Faith's fire can warm the coldest heart. Faith, it is said, can move mountains.
Is fifty years of maintaining faith long enough?
As Adelaide opens for business, I am an unremarkable face in a crowd, a little white-haired woman in black, crossing North Terrace at King William Street. The people about me fall away as I turn and head past the statue of the mounted soldier, then Government House towards the South Australian War Memorial.
As I have for the past twelve years on this day, I approach the grey-white marble memorial to soldiers who fell in fields bloodied by artillery, bombs, machine-guns, and desperate hand-to-hand combat. I gaze up at the Spirit of Duty angel. This celestial sergeant-major, frozen in stone, beckons three innocents to set down their tools and do their duty, to take up arms and kill the enemies who threaten everything sacred to the men in suits who talk each day with the supreme commanding officer above.
It has been a half century since the Anzac landing on the beaches of Gallipoli, a milestone for the people in this land. For me, it is a half century of a life disrupted, an ancient homeland denied. Sorrow wells again, and with it, questions.
Does God send his angels to gather armies to kill each other?
Does God take sides in war?
The 1915 invasion of Turkey gave the governing Young Turks a smokescreen to hide behind as they started to murder the entire Armenian race.
Did God think it a normal act of war when Talaat Pasha ordered the eviction of more than a million Armenians from their homes in Anatolia?
Did no one see the signpost for Hitler’s Holocaust?
Here, in the balmy peace of this southern city of Adelaide, not many remember the stories about Tseghaspanutzyun in Australian newspapers after the Great War - the mass slaughter of Armenians in Anatolia and the Mesopotamian desert. The mass slaughter the Turks will not talk about.
Reverend Cresswell’s words about faith on my wedding day nearly four decades ago ring in my head again, like the bells of St Peter’s Cathedral.
But is faith, alone, enough?
I glance down the names of the fallen on the Memorial’s campaign plaques and sink to one knee. Gazing upward, I make the sign of the cross, place a single white rose below the celestial sergeant-major, and bow my head.
‘Thomas... even your name is not here,’ I whisper. ‘There is no memory of you.’ I place my right hand over my heart. ‘Only here.’
I rise, not so easily as in my younger days, and regard the Spirit of Duty.
Does God speak through this angel?
No divine light shines from the blank stone eyes. I scan the emptiness beyond the stone angel, seeking hope’s open window.
Inchu, Astwats?
An elderly man crosses North Terrace through a break in the traffic, and approaches. He wears a faded charcoal pin-striped jacket with matching trousers, a white shirt with a black tie, and black shoes.
He stops and regards me, his lined face registering something between surprise and curiosity. ‘Oh. I speak...’ I glance upward.
The man nods in acknowledgement. ‘Ah. Understand.’ His words in English are like mine—flat, clipped, and as my friend Pam might have said, with a rhythm as old as time.
He nods again. ‘Your eyes… so blue. Like the ocean.’
Other men would say that to me, in another life. ‘Yes, like the ocean.’
‘Beautiful memorial,’ he says. His features bend into something like a smile. ‘I come to see. Men tell me. Sacred place.’
‘Yes. For Australians, sacred.’
‘Australians... brave soldiers.’
‘Yes, brave.’
‘You know Australian soldiers?’
‘My husband.’ I cross myself. ‘I come here every year on this day.’
‘Oh... He pass away in war?’
‘No... I did not know him till after war.’
The man’s dark brown eyes go somewhere else. He nods. ‘He fight... Gallipoli?’
‘Yes. And France. And Egypt.’
The man nods again. Darkness clouds his eyes. ‘You come here each year, this day? The day before Anzac Day?’
‘Yes.’
‘Australian soldier at Gallipoli very brave.’
‘You were there?’
‘No. I hear stories... later.’
‘Oh. My husband did not like to talk of war. Many times, he woke up at night.’
The old man exhales. ‘I was soldier. You see... many bad things. Not for… woman.’
‘I wanted him to tell me. I wanted him to tell me the bad things.’
‘Soldiers not… like to do that... must keep bad memories inside.’
‘Why?’ Sudden passion flares in me. ‘It was... like a sickness in my husband. I begged him, ‘Please, talk to me... maybe help your pain.’ But he would not.’
‘War is pain,’ the old man says. It sits behind his eyes. ‘No good comes from this pain. War is not for woman. Is for soldier.’
A bus thunders past, spewing black exhaust smoke.
I remember how my Thomas would always hold the pain inside as well. ‘You, soldier,’ I say. ‘I have seen many bad things, also. I wanted to share my pain with my husband... maybe help him. Women also suffer in war. Women see many bad things in war!’
‘But women not in fighting.’ He nods, as if that is it.
I meet his gaze. ‘My husband was a good man, but he had no peace inside. I had no peace. I wanted him to tell me so he could release it, so he could be free. I begged him but he would not, and... then he passed away.’
‘Soldier cannot tell woman, not even wife, about war. It is too much.’
‘You have wife?’
‘No.’
‘Man without wife big expert on women.’
He has the grace to offer a thin smile. ‘War is not for woman,’ he repeats.
Something makes me speak again. ‘Australia has women who work with men.’
The old man stands motionless, regarding the Spirit of Duty, his jaw working. ‘Your husband let you work, after babies?’
My insides stab at me. ‘No babies.’
‘So sorry. You seem healthy woman, sure to have many fine sons.’
I look down. ‘You do not know me.’
‘That is bad for your husband.’
‘Is worse for me!’
‘So sorry. Of course, bad for you too.’
I sniff. ‘Like most men, think about man first.’
The man’s face colours. He produces a bus timetable from his battered bag. ‘I must catch bus to Outer Harbour,’ he says. ‘Past Port Adelaide. My ship sails tonight. SS Marra. Only calling in port to get supplies.’
‘You are a sailor,’ I suggest, ‘to sail away from pain?’
He hesitates, eyes elsewhere. ‘You not… know me.’
‘You can tell me,’ I insist. ‘I want to talk about pain. My pain is terrible, like my husband’s. Maybe more terrible.’
‘You are not soldier!’
I clench both fists and raise my voice. ‘At least you can fight. You have a chance.’
‘You do not know when a bullet will find you!’
‘There is worse, when you see the gun and you have no gun.’
He sighs. ‘There is loud noise. On and on, I remember. 1914. 1915. Ardahan, Sarikamish, big guns. Boom! Boom! They go on inside you, long after.’
‘My husband had that.’
‘You see your friends all around. They die. Somehow you live. Nothing worse.’
I challenge him. ‘What if you are a daughter and you see your mother shot?’
‘Orders. Soldiers have orders!’
‘Soldiers have orders to kill women?’
‘Bad things happen in war. Very bad. Bad orders. Bad things.’
I pace around like a strutting general, then point a finger of accusation. ‘Talaat’s soldiers made war on women and children! And Kemal’s soldiers!’
‘There were bad orders,’ he insists, sweating. ‘I say that now.’
I turn back on him. ‘You were a soldier of Kemal?’
The old man takes a deep breath. ‘I was soldier of Talaat… of Kemal.’
‘Murderers!’ I spit on the footpath. ‘Criminals!’ I look up at the angel again. ‘Inchu, Astwats?’
His eyes cloud over. ‘You speak to your God, but does he answer you?’
Fire burns me inside. ‘Your Kemal wanted to finish my people, after your Enver, your Talaat with their murderers started the job. You were with them?’
‘You are woman, not understand war.’
‘I understand war against women and children very well.’
‘That was not war. There were troubles for us.’
‘Oh? What about 1919? Or you do not remember, Mister Soldier-who-must-obey-orders? War is finished. Turkish soldiers still make war on women and children. Still raping, stealing, selling young girls, children, babies—in Aleppo.’
‘You were in Aleppo?’
‘Yes, in 1916. I was a nurse, worked with many sick people. Also, Deir-es-Zor. Many people sick because of your Talaat, your Enver. Many dead because your people pushed them from their homes.’
The old man goes pale beneath his tan. ‘But you are still alive.’
‘Yes, but they took my—everything.’ A tear slides down my cheek. Then another.
‘Everything? What else could they take?’
‘Everything! And when they are not taking everything, they rape and kill!’
‘Not all Ottoman soldiers rape and kill!’
I pace again. Memories of strutting officers crowd my mind. The hateful face of a long-gone tormentor comes. I shake it off. ‘You were in some different Ottoman army, maybe?’ My words hang in the air. ‘Ottoman army where soldiers are polite, kind, ask permission before they rape and kill?’
‘Many troubles for us. War not finished. Problem with British. Problem with French.’
I throw my arms in the air. ‘Problem is your soldier memory is not so good, maybe. You lost the war, 1918.’
‘Kemal kept our land, our people together after that.’
‘Kemal kept you in war on women and children!’
‘No!’
‘Then why spend fifty years running away? Why are you here in Adelaide, from dirty tramp steamer, instead of smoking sheesha in a nice Istanbul cafe?’
‘All right. Please. It was long ago. You are upset.’
‘I am upset for fifty years!’
‘You want peace? You must give up anger.’
‘Easy for you to say!’ I shout at him. ‘How can I give up anger when so much bad has happened? How can I give up anger when I cannot forget?’
‘With anger there is no peace.’
My next words feel like hot coals spitting forth like lava from a volcano. ‘When I was in Aleppo, I met dying woman from Sivas. She told me Sivas had three hundred thousand people before war. Now just a couple thousand. No children. Where did they go? Hm? Where did one hundred thousand children of Sivas go? All in summer holiday camp maybe? Nothing to do with brave Mussulman soldiers letting them die in desert with no water, or sell young girls into harems?’
‘I did not see this. I did not do this.’
‘You say order is order, make country great again, Kemal great man. I say to you, YOU are killer. YOU kill women. YOU kill children...’
‘No!’ The old man stares at me, his eyes pleading.
‘I curse you!’
‘No, please.’
I draw myself up and stretch out my pointing finger again. ‘I curse you! BABY KILLER!’
‘No,’ he weeps. ‘I did not do that.’
‘You cannot hide from my curse.’
We stand face to face. A magpie in a nearby tree warbles. A bus thunders past, spewing black exhaust. People on North Terrace walk by.
The Spirit of Duty still beckons to the three youngsters. Do Your Duty.
The old man retreats behind the Memorial. I sink to my knees on the pavement.
Salt stings my eyes as I speak the words out loud. ‘I am cursed... since Marash.’
A book that starts with a Hitler quote is bound to be gripping, right? This one definitely was. Angel of Aleppo by Jon Cocks is a page-turner that tells the story of an Armenian woman in Australia who encounters a man while she is having a moment of remembrance for her husband. An argument that erupts between them takes the story back to the early 1900s when a young girl’s life was reduced to blood and ashes by the Turkish who waged war on her people. In great detail, Anoush chronicles the atrocities suffered by women and children at the hands of soldiers claiming to simply be following orders.
This book demonstrates, in a harrowing and haunting manner, the fact that women and children are participants in war. They have no choice but to engage in something they never signed up for. In illustrating this, Cocks gets into graphic detail with the gore and violence of the events that unfold which can be a bit much for many readers but it is necessary in proving the point being made. Using multi-perspective narration helped deepen the impact of the stories and clarify why some people feel the way they do. This was an incredibly eye-opening read of a lesser known portion of history that contextualises some dynamics that have been seen in the years that followed what happened between the Armenians and Turks.
The only thing to fault about this book is the author’s tendency to tell more than show, which was a bit disruptive to the reading experience because this is an engrossing read. Other than that, there is just warning of the described gruesome violence and religious references (mostly Christian) that might not be palatable to some readers. Readers who enjoy historical fiction will most likely be unable to put this one down.