THE BUYUK ZAPTIEH
“Hosh geldi, hosh geldi! welcome, welcome!” were the only words which
Takvor could distinguish in the medley of voices.
Dazed by the fall, he was still lying on the ground where the jailor
had pushed him, when a prisoner ignited a match to examine the new
arrival. His fellow prisoners, whose pale, haggard faces in the
flickering light seemed like ghosts emerging from the surrounding
darkness, gathered about him and began to ply him with questions. Why
had he come? What crime had he committed? Had he money, and would
he buy them food? The cell in which they were huddled together was
scarcely fifteen feet long and half as wide, yet in it were eighteen
men. There was not enough room for them all to lie down. A little
hole in the wall, which served as a window, was far too small for
ventilation, and the air was foul. Perceiving from Takvor’s appearance
that he was unused to hardship, and hoping perhaps to share his money,
they treated him kindly, and gave him a place beneath the window, where
the air was not quite so tainted with the stench of the room.
There was no sleep for Takvor that night. He sat in a stupor, while
rats ran along the beams of the ceiling or over the bodies of the
sleeping prisoners. At last a faint light announced the approach of
morning. The prisoners sat up one by one and scrutinized him. Among
them was an old man who had been in confinement half his life. He was
permitted to sell food to those who had money. To the less fortunate a
small loaf of black bread and a rusty tin of water were given daily.
The old man asked Takvor whether he was hungry and had money, and then
from a dark corner produced a wooden plate of beans cooked in fat, too
filthy to be eaten, for which he charged him ten piasters.
In the increasing light, Takvor could see his fellow prisoners. They
were lean and haggard, with untrimmed beards and matted hair. The
filthy rags clinging to their half-naked bodies were swarming with
vermin. Huddled in that cell were persecuted Armenians, thieves,
brigands, and murderers. A Bulgarian had been in prison there for
twenty years; ignorant of the police regulations, he had, upon the
night of his arrival, gone into the street without a lighted lantern.
With no friend to search for him, he was lost to the world, and
forgotten even by the prison authorities.
To Takvor, sick and discouraged, the morning brought little hope.
Should he fail to communicate with his father, his fate might be as
evil as that of any of his fellow prisoners. His first thought was
to find means to smuggle out a message, but he learned that he was
in a cell to which visitors were forbidden. He wondered if the big
Turk could be bribed to take a message to his father, and if his few
remaining liras would suffice. When the jailor again appeared, Takvor
was standing by the door, and he held out a gold lira. The Turk seized
it greedily and promised to obey his instructions. Encouraged by the
promise, Takvor patiently sat on the floor to await the coming of his
father. Hour after hour passed, and night came, bringing with it only
increased despair. The next morning, when the jailor’s face appeared
behind the grated window, Takvor inquired if he had sent the message.
“Give me another lira, and I will send it at once,” was the answer.
Takvor gave him not one lira, but several, keeping only a few silver
pieces to pay for food. Again he waited in vain. On the third morning
he gave the jailor his watch in return for another solemn promise; but
this promise was kept no better than the others.
Thus to Takvor the slowly passing days brought nothing but despair.
The few clothes which the jailor had left him were covered with filth.
His money was gone, and his only food was the insufficient black loaf
which the jailor threw to him. He quenched his thirst with the tepid
water of the rusty tin from which the others drank. But his hardships
were slight when compared with the sufferings of the others. The
jailor would drag some political prisoner into the passageway to be
questioned. If the answers were not sufficient, he received blows or
some more terrible punishment.
Unnerved by witnessing the tortures of others, in constant fear for his
own safety, poisoned by foul air and filthy water, and starved by the
scant prison fare, Takvor grew thin and weak. Four of the prisoners
had already died. Another poor fellow, an Armenian lad of his own age,
would soon be the fifth. To prolong his life, Takvor shared with him
his small prison loaf. One morning, when the jailor was looking through
the grated door, the groaning of a prisoner caught his attention. He
called his superior, and the pompous official, poking the boy with his
foot, was heard to mumble something about throwing him into the street,
that he might die elsewhere. Takvor awoke in the night and spoke to the
boy, but received no answer. He reached out his hand to touch him, and
found that the body was cold. A thought suddenly flashed through his
mind. Why should not he himself be released in the morning? He sat
up and listened to the heavy breathing of the prisoners. Hearing no
other sound, he exchanged his clothes for those of the dead boy, and
unwinding the cloth from the boy’s head, wrapped it about his own. Then
after dragging the body to his own place beneath the window, he lay
down where his friend had died.
In the early morning, unrecognized by his fellow prisoners, Takvor
lay groaning, when the grating of the door announced the presence of
the jailor. The big Turk, followed by half a dozen guards, seized the
Armenian prisoners, one by one, and dragged them through the long
passageway, to a fate unknown to the others. At last Takvor was seized
and dragged to the light, where he was recognized in the dead boy’s
clothing.
The jailor suspected that some attempt had been made to deceive him,
and he flew into a passion.
“Sick, are you? I’ll teach you to groan,” and he dealt Takvor a cruel
blow.
To exchange good clothes for a dead man’s rags, could deserve nothing
less than extreme punishment. The more the jailor reflected, the
greater was his anger, and he continued to administer blows until the
groans, now become real, were silenced; Takvor was unconscious. Several
hours later, when he came to, a great Kurd lifted him carefully to his
feet and conducted him to the outside wall of the prison. Still faint,
and half blinded by the light of the day, to which his eyes had so long
been unaccustomed, yet amazed at his unexpected freedom, and pondering
what evil it foreboded, he paused for a moment, and then, looking about
to convince himself that he was really free and alone save for the Kurd
who had assisted him, slowly staggered away like a drunken man. The
Kurd followed.