The dead body of the elder sister of the girl who had been beaten to death, the one who had been carried away when she defied Hadji Ghafour, was hanging by its feet from a rope attached to the window-sill. The girl’s arms had been tied behind her back and now hung away from her body. Her hair was hanging from her swaying head. A bandage, still tied over her mouth, had muffled her screams.
One of the girls with me, Lusaper, who had cried all night, fell to her knees and became hysterical. The slave lifted her and tried to make her look again. When he saw she was half mad he carried her to a couch at the other side of the room and two little negro slave girls immediately began to comfort her. Other women crowded around her, too. The slave left us then, as did the woman servant who had been with us.
The women of the haremlik seemed to want to be very kind. The Turkish women were older than the apostate women. Hadji Ghafour’s two wives were not among them, as their apartments were elsewhere, and I do not know what the relationship of the other women to him was, whether as concubines or relatives. Nearly all the younger women were Armenian girls who had been stolen. They were very sorry for us.
Food was brought in this chamber, and we ate together. Already I had made up my mind to be as brave as I could and to hope and pray that I might be delivered from that house.
All the Armenian girls in the haremlik had at one time passed through just such experiences as had been ours the night before in the presence of Hadji Ghafour. There were eight of them, and all had apostasized with the hope of saving relatives, only to be taken to Hadji Ghafour’s house upon their arrival at Geulik. Only one of them knew what had become of her family. This one had seen her mother killed and her sister taken by the Kurds on the road from Malatia.
Four days I remained in the haremlik without being summoned by Hadji Ghafour. On the third day one of the other of the “new” girls came back to us in the morning, quiet and ashamed, with her eyes downcast. That same day the harem slaves took away her plain entareh and gave her a richly embroidered dress. Such was the sign of her having been “betrothed.”
We were not allowed outside the haremlik. Each night we were compelled to say the Mohammedan prayers. I learned to say them aloud and translate them in my mind into the words of Christian prayers. The head servant of the haremlik, an elderly Turkish woman, who was as kind to us as she could be, took occasion every day to warn us that if we wished to live and be happy we must be pleasing to Hadji Ghafour. Other women told us of girls who had come into the harem, never to appear again after their “betrothal” to the master. When these things were spoken of we could not help thinking of the body we saw hanging from the window across the court—that was Hadji Ghafour’s way of teaching us to be submissive.
We were not put in the dark, windowless room again. Once one of Hadji Ghafour’s wives came into the harem to see us. She was middle-aged, and from Bagdad. She once had been very beautiful, I think, but seemed to be cruel and without affection. She had us brought before her and questioned each one of us about our experiences in the deportations. She seemed to want to trap us into admissions that we had not truly become Mohammedans.
Among the Armenian girls in the harem was one who came from Perri, a village between my own city and Harpout. During the nights she told me of the massacres in her village, and how the Turks had spared her because she accepted Islam, until they reached Malatia. There she had been stolen, taken first to the home of a bey and then sent with other Armenian girls to Geulik. She, too, had been taken straight to the house of Hadji Ghafour. She had gone through with her “betrothal,” and had found some favor in the eyes of the Turk.
This little girl was Arousiag Vartessarian, whose father, Ohannes, had owned much land. She had been educated at Constantinople. In Constantinople she learned of the American, Mr. Cleveland Dodge, of New York, who has done so much for education in Turkey. Since I have come to America I have learned that this same Mr. Cleveland Dodge is the best friend the Armenians have in all the world.