Authors: Andrew Anastasios
‘It is because we believe depicting the prophet Jesus is sacrilege, forbidden by God,’ announces Hasan from the doorway. ‘So the locals blind them.’
In the far corner a rudimentary scaffold made from timber and rope has been erected; a feeble attempt to keep the decay and disintegration at bay.
In the adjacent corner lies an animal pen made from dry branches and pilfered roofing timber. It is now disused and has collapsed haphazardly. Gusts of blustery wind blast through gaps in the wall and blow the dry dung and rotting straw in swirling eddies around the room.
In a darkened niche set into the wall, Connor spies a cluster of odd shapes. His curiosity piqued, he walks over to inspect the collection more closely. A nondescript blanket and jacket lie beside a fire hearth. A jumble of pots and pans are scattered outside the circle of blackened stones, and amongst them is a single plate and solitary fork. Connor’s heart jumps and, without thinking, he thrusts his hand into the coals in the fireplace. Cold – dead cold. Whoever built this fire is long gone.
Connor lifts his gaze to the frescos on the niche wall. Jesus stares back at him from the gloom in lively red, orange and blue hues. The religious instruction Connor was compelled to sit through in Sunday School when he was a fidgety student stands him in good stead, and he immediately recognises the figure as the resurrected Christ, showing his wounds to Thomas, who is putting his fingers inside Jesus’ bleeding side. But unlike the other figures in the frescos, this Christ has eyes. Newly painted, not particularly well-executed, bright blue eyes. Connor looks at the next panel, and the next, confirming that all the figures at this end of the church have freshly restored eyes.
‘That’s strange. Someone has fixed these. The eyes,’ he tells Hasan, and calls out again impulsively. ‘Arthur? Arthur!’
Hasan has entered the church, and takes Connor by the arm, gently leading him to the doorway. ‘Come, Joshua, he has gone. There is nobody here.’
Connor refuses to hear him, shaking Hasan off and running back into the nave. ‘No! He’s here. I’m sure of it.’ He shouts at the top of his lungs. ‘Art!’
The name reverberates off the vaulted ceiling and peters out to nothing, leaving in its wake the most godforsaken of silences. Connor drops his head. He has nothing left.
As he turns to join Hasan, a voice speaks from the rafters, so hesitant and husky that, for a moment, Connor cannot even be sure he has heard it.
‘Who are you?’
C
onnor turns as he hears the rattle of wood and peers into the shadowy recesses of the ruined building.
Hasan points to a bedraggled figure slowly descending from the scaffolding in the far corner. The major’s hand moves automatically to his holster and unclips it slowly, a reflex action born of a lifetime anticipating trouble. Connor and Hasan can scarcely make the figure out as it passes through the dust and haze, but they can see a brown beard and matted hair. He wears slippers, a pair of baggy Turkish village pants and a khaki shirt freckled with blue paint.
Connor watches the man in silence as he swings awkwardly to the floor and winces. He straightens himself, takes a shepherd’s crook in his right hand and begins walking towards them.
He says something again in Turkish, then repeats it in English. ‘Who are you?’
It takes Connor a moment to align this broken young man with the memory he holds of his son. But there is no mistaking him.
Connor emits an anguished whisper.
‘Art . . .?’
The man stares back querulously, lost in time and space.
‘Dad?’
Connor has heard the word thousands of times before but never has he yearned to hear it more than now. Never has it carried such import for him. His breath comes in staggered bursts, his eyes burn with tears.
‘Son.’
‘Are you really here?’ Arthur asks, reaching out, incredulous. He pats his father’s face with quivering fingertips as if he does not trust his eyes.
Connor presses Art’s hand onto his cheek and kisses his son’s open palm. He savours the touch and lets out a colossal sigh that emanates from the no-man’s land that resides somewhere between relief and despair.
‘It’s me all right, son.’
Art rests his head on his father’s shoulder and begins to breathe in time with the rise and fall of his dad’s broad chest. Connor wraps Art in his arms and begins to stroke his tangled hair. It is unthinkable that this friable collection of bones, held together by wilting skin, is his beloved son. Having found him, the realisation that Art has lost his youth, his life force, breaks Connor’s heart anew.
Hasan keeps a wary eye on the father and son from the church doorway, mouthing a prayer under his breath.
‘It’s time to come home, son,’ Connor whispers.
Art suddenly shakes himself free of his father and backs into a niche like a cornered animal, swinging his walking stick at his horrified father.
‘I’m not coming home. None of us are coming back. They’re dead. None of us are coming home, Dad.’ He lets a horrible, hollow sob escape. ‘You leave me. You go and leave me here.’
‘I know. I know all about it.’
Connor’s soothing tone does nothing to calm Art, who has crouched down and is frenetically stirring paint in a pot and talking under his breath. ‘You shouldn’t have come here. You must go. It’s too dangerous here. You shouldn’t have come.’
Art stops and points a stick dripping with sky-blue paint at Connor.
‘Go now!’
He turns his back on his father, dips a fine brush in the pot, and begins restoring the eyes of the Emperor Constantine, who is holding the walled city of Constantinople in his hands and offering it up to Christ.
Connor is at a loss, feeling his way blindly himself. He stands in silence, helpless. Desperate. He watches Art’s brushstrokes as the eyes of the Emperor begin to glimmer and come back to life. As Art paints he looks back over his shoulder spasmodically, seemingly unnerved by his father’s presence.
The momentary silence is ruptured by artillery fire in the distance. The walls quiver, and dust, plaster and dry pigeon droppings descend on the three men like snow, settling on their shoulders and heads. Connor looks towards Hasan, who is still standing in the doorway, his eyes gazing inscrutably at the crouching figure of Connor’s son.
The thunderclap of another shell, this time closer, jolts Hasan into action.
‘The Greeks will be here soon – they are moving quickly. Your son is right. We must go now . . .’ His voice trails off when he sees the look of resignation on Connor’s face. It is clear that the Australian will not go anywhere without his son, and that Art is not in a fit state to travel. As the Greek artillery fire creeps closer still, the two friends share a knowing look and step out into the forecourt together. Hasan places a hand on Connor’s shoulder. ‘I would not leave my son either.’
Outside the wind has turned into a rabid dog that claws at their clothes and hats. The sky is black with smoke and airborne sand that peppers their faces and hands like rock salt from a shotgun. As Connor tilts his hat into the oncoming gale he sees a long thin rope of fire unfurled along the horizon as the distant fields burn.
Hasan and Connor shelter against the churchyard wall where Hasan’s bay is hitched to a tree. Connor’s white stallion has gone. He curses himself; in his haste to find Art he left his horse untethered. Almost certainly the rumbling artillery barrages and escalating storm have spooked it.
Hasan stands by his horse. ‘Your boy just needs time.’ He says it with hope but little conviction. He and Connor have both seen too many men whose nerves are shredded by shell shock and minds ransacked by their wartime experiences. ‘Unfortunately, more time than you have now. But if you take him northeast in the direction of the Black Sea, you can find a ferry that will carry you back to Stamboul. If you travel carefully, that may give you the time you need. I must go to Ankara, I am expected there.’
Not for the first time today, Connor is lost for words. He has no idea why this Turkish major has repeatedly put himself in harm’s way to aid him. He has helped him right from the first day at Gallipoli with no explanation and no hope of anything in return.
‘How do I thank you?’ Connor asks.
‘In Turkish – it is easy. “
Teşekkürler
” will do.’
‘
Teşekkürler
, then, Hasan Bey. I didn’t deserve your help – but thank you.’
The two men shake hands. A strong bond has developed between them despite their differences and both would admit that in a short time they have become accidental friends. Connor bears a lingering shame over his attack on Hasan at Lone Pine. Hasan the Assassin holds no grudge. In his heart he knows he played his part in the deaths of the boys; if not Connor’s, then thousands like them. But it was war, so there will be no apologies. The two men are bound by blood: Henry’s, Ed’s and Jemal’s. They also recognise in each other the ability to draw hope from the depths of sorrow and wretchedness.
Hasan holds Connor’s hand and kisses him on both cheeks.
‘May God give you peace and comfort. Both of you.’
‘Goodbye, Hasan.’
Hasan unties his horse, holds it on a short rein and swings into the saddle. He sits upright and dignified, his horse champing at the bit and dancing on the spot, adjusting to the shift in weight.
The major turns to leave then pauses, remembering something. Smiling enigmatically, he leans down out of the saddle and speaks. ‘Joshua, tell your son – when he is well – tell him he still owes me a packet of cigarettes.’
Connor looks perplexed, and then suddenly realisation dawns in his eyes.
‘The moment I saw the photograph of your boys I recognised him. He is just like you – very brave and very stupid.’
Hasan laughs out loud, digs his spurs into his horse’s flanks and disappears through the compound gateway without looking back. Connor doubts he will ever see his friend again. His departure is one more in a painful succession of goodbyes, but this time the farewell is leavened by a miracle of fate that he will never quite believe and most certainly will never forget.
A succession of explosions rocks the ground beneath him and Connor is shaken back to the present. He clutches his hat and scrambles back to the church with the wind thrashing his back.
Art is still obsessing over the restoration of the eyes, unmoved by – perhaps even unaware of – the bombardment or the pending danger. He seems oblivious to his father’s return.
‘Come on, son,’ Connor urges. ‘Please, we have to leave.’
Art turns, all of a sudden friendly and engaged. Connor sees a flash of the old Art, a glimmer in his blue eyes and the hint of a smile on his sallow face.
‘How is Mum?’ he asks matter-of-factly. The two men could have been chatting over a Sunday roast, as if they had seen each other only yesterday.
Connor pauses, deliberating, unsure whether the truth about Lizzie might be too brutal an attack on Art’s obviously fragile state. It could unhinge him completely, loosen his tenuous grip on existence even further, or it might just shock him into the here and now. Connor takes a risk.
‘She is with your brothers now . . . Art, why didn’t you come home? What on earth were you thinking?’
Art is still for a moment, no sign of grief or anguish on his face for a mother he once adored. Connor can see Art reaching back in his mind for answers, dredging up questions that had long ago slipped from his consciousness. Slowly he responds, his voice devoid of emotion.
‘I forgot where it was. How could I have forgotten where home was?’
Without warning an artillery shell crashes through the forecourt wall, hurling rock, concrete and shrapnel across the yard and in through the front door. A dislodged stone the size of a football skims across the floor and slams into the timber scaffolding, shattering the uprights in an explosion of deadly splinters. Connor is desperate and grasps at anything he thinks might motivate his son.
‘We can build the farm back up – together. Edith never married. She’s still waiting for you. Come now, son. Let’s go home.’
Art stands and Connor holds out his hand, hopeful.
‘We’ll get help. We’ll get you right again.’
Art shuffles over to his father and looks into his eyes impassively. He is calm and lucid.
‘This can’t be put right, Dad. You said take good care of them, and I killed them instead. They won’t come home. They can’t. How can I?’
Art picks up his walking stick and a small, rolled-up prayer rug and heads for the doorway.
‘So you see, Dad, it is all right to leave me here. I want you to.’
He leaves Connor confounded and overwhelmed; to have come this far to find Art and to realise that he has no desire to be found is a painful twist he had never imagined.
I should have known. I should have guessed.
But now that he has held his son in his arms once again, Connor knows that he is never going to give up on him. His son is all he has left in the world. The guilt and pain that floods through his veins is almost unbearable. He hollers helplessly after Art, ‘For pity’s sake, I didn’t lift a finger to stop any of you.’
He races to the doorway and yells after Art, who limps across the courtyard into the gale. His words are lost on the wind, scattered across the hilltop like dying embers. ‘
I
killed your brothers, Art – the day I waved you all off . . . Art!’
Without warning a shell whistles overhead and crashes into the corner of the church with a deafening boom. Connor is knocked off his feet, his ears ringing and head spinning from the blast wave. Lying face down, he throws his arms over his head as debris and shrapnel hail down around him. When he surfaces from the blast the churchyard is thick with a tempest of smoke, burning cinders and plaster dust. Everything he hears is through cotton wool: mortar fire, rifles cracking and people crying out. His first thought is for his son.
W
here is he? Not now, please. Not after everything we have been through. He must be all right.
Connor struggles to his feet and runs, doubled over, to the gate, coughing and desperate for a lungful of clear air. In the distance he sees a wraith-like figure hobbling along a stone road, staying close to the walls before disappearing between two houses. Connor races to catch his son, listing like a sailor, his balance still thrown by the explosion. He reaches the two houses and discovers a narrow lane and rough stairs leading towards the fortress on the summit. Connor can see the ancient castle, jagged and crumbling, through the plumes of dark smoke billowing through the now ruined city of Afion. He can see Art’s insubstantial silhouette clambering up the stairs with determination and is immediately filled with a sense of foreboding.