The Purchased Bride by Peter Constantine

Author:Peter Constantine
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Deep Vellum Publishing

16

ON THE FEAST DAY OF Saint John the Theologian, the buyer of girls comes riding up the canyon with his four guards. Ply a needle or lift a pitchfork on the Theologian’s Day, and the saint will send hail and bolts of lightning to ruin your crops. The refugees no longer have any crops, but having been raised in fear of the Theologian, they sacrifice the lambs that the local Greek villagers from up the river had brought them as presents. They spend the morning roasting the meat on fires in the meadow beyond the chapel, and the early hours of the afternoon eating it. No transactions must take place on such a day, but Father Andreas knows that he has to receive the buyer of girls whenever he chooses to come, and his letter said that that would be today. It is early afternoon when he arrives; his head bobs above the rim of the canyon as his horse stumbles up the stony path, its hooves clacking on the stones. The refugees leave their food and line up in the sun to greet him, their faces drawn, wet, and greenish: the rich meat, to which they are no longer accustomed after months of hunger, is tearing at their insides even as they are hungry for more.

Despite the heat, the Turk’s face seems cool and rosy, that of a well-fed man, and Father Andreas notices that he bears a striking resemblance to Ahmed Djemal, the young general who is bringing change to the Empire. Ahmed Djemal’s handsome face is in every newspaper and progressive pamphlet, and there is no Ottoman citizen who does not know it. The buyer of girls has a magnificent mustache, just like General Djemal’s, and a clear, pale skin unusual in a grown man, a handsomeness that perhaps conceals a coldness and brutality. The refugees huddle by the path in front of the priest’s hut and begin shuffling forward and pushing each other like beggars outside a mosque, and Father Andreas, alarmed that the Turk might be offended by such a welcome, nervously motions them back and hurries toward him, calling out pleasant Muslim greetings: “May the peace and the blessings of Allah be upon you!”

“And upon you too,” the Turk replies, unnerved at the sight of a Greek cleric in a long black cassock running toward him uttering pious Muslim words. The priest reaches him and starts tugging at the horse’s halter to help it up the last few yards of the slope; the Turk’s guards hurry to assist him. At the wall of the chapel he elegantly dismounts. He has ridden many hours through the canyons in the heat, but there is not a bead of sweat on his forehead, or any trace of fatigue. He approaches the priest and bows in greeting, and the priest bows back.

“We ran into some brigands along the way, which is why I never travel without these men,” he tells the priest, pointing at his guards, who, despite their strong bodies and scarred, sunburned faces, seem to be boys rather than men.

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