The Curator of Broken Things Book 1 by Gantz Corine

Author:Gantz, Corine
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Carpenter Hill Publishing
Published: 2018-12-25T00:00:00+00:00

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Four years later, in 1918, the Great War ended, and as Uncle Moshe predicted, the Ottoman Empire, which had been on the losing side, was partitioned, cut into chunks like a cake. And while Europe got busy rebuilding itself, a new war started in the region, this time between Greece and the Turkish National Movement. Smyrna, placed under Greek control, was for the moment protected.

Albano and Hagop were sixteen years old. As if by magic, their bodies now manifested hair and muscles, and they had grown to the size of men. Hagop was taller than Albano by a head, and he had bulk. Albano was still rail thin, no matter how many Armenian pastries he clandestinely ingested. Yet it was Albano who provoked the admiration of women, whether this was something he wished for or not. Hagop used to find that endlessly funny, but now there was resentment in his voice when he said that Albano was too handsome a friend and that he was hurting his own chances with women.

Hagop didn’t know that Albano had no interest in stealing women away from him or anyone. His heart, mind, and blood were so thoroughly occupied by thoughts of Xandra it excluded thoughts of anyone else.

Now that they looked like men and had the steady income from the sale of newspapers, they no longer sat on a rock near the dock, but at the terraces of cafés. That morning, Albano and Hagop were sipping the bitter Italian espressos they had acquired a taste for as they read the headlines of newspapers. The more sensational the headlines, the better the sales for the day. Albano loved that moment in the early morning, reading the paper, sitting at a café terrace. It made him feel cosmopolitan and sophisticated, like the European men around them, or so he hoped. He looked across the pier. Smyrna was back to looking very much the same as it had before the war, with Europeans promptly returning to their commerce and interests in Asia Minor. But something in the mood had changed. The men in uniforms no longer displayed any gaiety unless they were drunk. Those who had returned from the war in one piece had come back humiliated. Their faces were hard, their eyes those of killers. The mistrust between ethnic groups was at a high, each suspecting his neighbor of being a spy, a turncoat, a coward, a fomenter, or a crook.

Hagop, who had been reading quietly across the table from Albano, let out a roar of frustration and crumpled the Turkish newspaper he was reading. “Armenians are not betraying the Empire!” he cried out. Across the terrace, men peered at him from above their opened newspapers.

“Who is betraying who?” Albano said softly, hoping that Hagop would mirror his tone.

“It says it, right here,” Hagop said, tapping the printed words violently with his finger. “It says that the Armenians plan to join the Russian forces. Lies! All lies! Just another scheme to unleash the fury of the Turks.

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