Book 178: Cyprus (English) – The Spice Box Letters (Eve MAKIS)

I looked out into the airy distance, trying to summon good memories but only stabbing thoughts would come: Mariam’s body turned to bone, scattered fragments of meta-carpals and phalanges buried like fallen twigs beneath a pelt of earth. I tried to conjure a living version of my sister, a beautiful ghost with glowing olive skin. The sea was a blue canvas in flux. I stared hard at the evolving shapes and by sheer force of will, Mariam rose like salt spray in a dress of white foam, her dark hair fanning out as she leapt up and twirled, before melting into the ocean. She came at my bidding and left of her own volition, as fleetingly as many other ghosts that lurked on the periphery of my consciousness.

From one divided island country loved by tourists to another, in a much more tragic and currently insoluble situation. The independent country is ruled by the Greek community, the north by the Turks (as a result of the 1974 Turkish invasion, to forestall a feared union with Greece). But it is the beautiful island where Aphrodite landed in a spume of foam.

Katerina inherits a beautiful spice box from her grandmother Mariam, holding a diary and letters. From them, she learns about the Armenian genocide of 1915 and what Mariam went through. While some Turks (and Kurds) were cruel, others were kind – some Turks rescued Mariam’s brother Gabriel from a pile (he becomes very prickly). When the Turkish Cypriot militia takes over his suburb, Gabriel becomes a refugee for the second time.

Chasing up the story takes Katerina across Cyprus and to the US. Cyprus has a large Armenian community, and author Makis too comes from an Armenian family.

Tragically, intermarriage, which should be wonderful, is considered by some Armenians as ‘white genocide’ because it causes the loss of their culture (a real possibility when such a huge proportion of the Armenian community is in exile). Parents are faced with a dilemma – should they be be liberal with their children, or preserve their culture and language?

This novel has lovely descriptions of people and places and some beautiful writing. Despite the serious topic, there is some delicious humour – I especially loved Gabriel’s encounter with the snake! I suspect, too, that the author loves cooking!

Makis, Eve, The Spice Box Letters, Dingwall, Scotland, Sandstone Press, 2015, ISBN 978-1-910124-08-6

Book 152: Armenia (English) – Three Apples Fell from Heaven (Micheline Aharonian MARCOM)

Why is it we are unable to mark the moments, except in hindsight, of inauspicious endings? Can you remember the last time you carried your father’s slippers to him? You didn’t know it was the last time, how could it have been in your mind? And so you don’t have the image of your father receiving the brown woolen slippers from your quiet hands. Your guilt composes a song; it pervades the pores of your skin and dips into every cell of your body. It reverberates inside you. You should have known when you took Baba his slippers for the last time. Your should have kneeled and kissed his hand. You should have stopped and made an etching in your mind, not run to check on the simmering fava beans.

It’s dangerous buying books online. This one was my choice for Armenia, but what I was sent was Three Apples Fell from Heaven: a collection of Armenian folk and fairy tales, retold by Mischa Kudian. Mind you, this was also very interesting, and from it I learned why every Armenian book has the same title (or so it seems to me; I’ve just now finished Three Apples Fell from the Sky by Narine Abgaryan, a beautiful novel of rural life; and there is at least one more called Three Apples Fell from Heaven, this one by O. Sheohmelian). Basically, an Armenian storyteller finishes with the lines “and three apples fell from heaven: one for the storyteller, one for the listener, and one for the eavesdropper”. Anyway, I’ve ruled out short stories for present purposes, and the bookseller tried again and sent me Marcom’s novel, so I didn’t need the laws of three.

Marcom’s is a historical novel covering the years 1915-17 when the actions of the Ottoman government, deliberate or otherwise, led to the deaths of more than a million Armenians living in that territory. According to the blurb on the back cover this was the twentieth century’s first genocide, though some may beg to differ (to take one example, the German campaign against the Herero and Namaqua peoples in South West Africa, modern Namibia?) Be that as it may, the outcome was an unmitigated tragedy for the Armenians, whose survivors lost their homes in eastern Turkey, the greater part of their territory (modern independent Armenia is the remainder of a small part that was under the USSR).

Armenia is one of the oldest Christian nations. During the First World War, The Ottoman government expelled its Armenians in forced marches which resulted in their deaths. (And it’s worth noting that a lot of the cruelty was carried out by Kurds attacking the convoys – and saving some – as this novel shows). The Kurds themselves also continue to suffer in their relations with the Turkish government. The Armenian families were told that their menfolk were being sent to labour camps, rather than being murdered. Some of the women were forced to become Muslim wives.

Some of the Turks rescued Armenian children. On the other hand, the government was not above selling stolen goods (there are numerous parallels with the Holocaust…)

We follow the lives of a cast of characters with their differing experiences. It sometimes took a while to catch up with which of the characters was featuring in a particular chapter – I wish Marcom had started each chapter with the character’s name as with some of the other books I’ve read lately.

On the whole though, and despite some confusion on my part, this poetic novel is fantastic. I finished it feeling I really need to read more about what happened to the Armenians during WWI to try to find out the truth (or truths…)

Micheline Aharonian MARCOM (1968 – ), Three Apples Fell from Heaven, NY, Riverhead, 2001, ISBN 1-57322-915-6

The other books mentioned are:

Three Apples Fell from Heaven: a collection of Armenian folk and fairy tales, retold by Mischa KUDIAN, Hart-Davis, 1969, ISBN 9780246639608

Narine ABGARYAN, Three Apples Fell from the Sky, translated from Russian by Lisa C. Hayden, London, Oneworld, 2020, ISBN 978-1-78607-730-1 (originally published in Russian as С неба упали три яблока, 2015)