Is There Blood on My Hands?

An Armenian girl is running for her life. 

The screams of mothers staring at death on their doorstep become the village dirge. Fathers set their tears free as they hold onto their bleeding daughters. She only has to lift her head slightly to see the hill decorated with Armenian heads and limbs. 

She runs as far as her legs will carry her until her ears meet the voice of someone behind her. 

“Koşmayı bırak!” 

It is not her language. It does not sing like her mother’s songs or hum like her father’s car motor. It sounds rough and demanding like the voices of those who burned her brother. It sounds like her death is catching up to her. And so she runs. 

Second by second the sounds of hooves get closer and her heart beats louder. The voice shouts again and this time her feet lift off the ground and into the arms of a man. Her head is quickly pushed under his coat and held hidden behind his arm. He commands the horse and holds tightly to the small girl concealed against his chest. She hears his rapid heartbeat and feels her own pulse quicken. She cannot run or fight. She cannot remember how to scream or cry. In that moment she sees nothing and knows even less. She has lost everything but her name. And so she recites it like a poem, over and over.

Anna, Anna, Anna. Աննա, Աննա, Աննա.

_

A lifetime later the coat is taken off her and her eyes are reintroduced to light. Her feet are placed back on the ground as the man fixes his coat and stands tall over her. She notices the badge he wears and looks around. She is in the house of a Turkish general.

He takes a step forward, she takes a step back. 

“You cannot say you are Armenian.” He pleads with his eyes. "Do you understand me? No one can know.

You must speak our language. You must eat our food, wear our clothes.”

 

He takes off his coat and puts it over her shoulders. He crouches down in front of her and holds her hands.

“Today you are a Turk. You must always be a Turk.”

Somewhere in Turkey a young Armenian girl was adopted by a Turkish general. Somewhere in Turkey she grew up and met a boy. Together they had a son who bore both halves of history on his shoulders. He echoed the story of his mother and balanced the sins of his father’s people. With one of his hands stained with blood and the other hand stained with survival, he painted the history of his people to everyone he met.

Today, an Armenian girl hears the tale and stares at her hands. She looks closely to understand which stains she wears.