It is rightfully said that “Beauty is the eyes of the beholder”. So is perception. That may be why Philip Zakarian remains the beloved spokesman of the orphans of the Armenian Genocide. The attached is my translation of one of his orphaned generation stories that is posted in the website, the family has created in his memory. The site is PhilipZakarian.com. I thought it would make a fitting story as we leave the year 2023 behind and move on. Vahe H. Apelian. Հայերէն բնագիրը կցուած է։ (https://philipzakarian.com/post/hador1-22/)
On a quiet evening in June, three of us classmates were preparing the next day's lessons in our hut. Suddenly a commotion started in the camp. Old and young, men and women were running through the streets of the camp; all of them in the same direction. Many of them had pails, or buckets in their hands. Everyone was noticeably alarmed and in haste.
- What is happening? Where are you heading? We asked those who were hurrying away.
- The camp is on fire, they told us, the big camp.
We also started running along with them. The streets were full of people. The residents of the camps nearby, old and young, were all running. There was a strange urge to get there as soon as possible. The buckets were hitting each other. The legs would get tangled and the some people would fall, they would roll around, got up and continue running. Old women would take a few steps, then stop, catch their breath and resume running a few more steps. There were people also carrying pails full of water. That short passage to the big camp had turned into an endless road. Far away, smoke covered the sky and a thick cloud weighed down on the nearby neighborhoods. The atmosphere was filled with the smell of burning bricks and boards. The closer they got to the big camp; the more people quickened their steps. The smoke was getting thicker and thicker and the crackling of the fire became audible.
We stopped on a large field in front of the big camp. Thousands of people were gathered and watching the fire. Hundreds of huts were already on fire, and every second, a dozen more huts started burning. The dry boards of the huts ignited in two seconds. A ball of fire would rise into the air and after a few seconds, subsided. The hot air picked up burning pieces and funneled them around in the air and started new fires in other neighborhoods. Hundreds of houses in the camp, spread over both sides of the railway, were condemned to burn. The flames, with an amazing speed, appeared in all directions, plates full of stone ignited, swelled and exploded, raining fire on the surrounding houses. The wind overwhelmed the firefighters.
There was no room left to move on the field we were standing on. An innumerable and diverse group of curious people had filled up the field. The inhabitants of the big camp, who had managed to save their household goods from the fire, had piled them and stood next to them watching the fire with a casual expression as if they were not the ones whose houses were burning. They looked like as if they were simple spectators. There was no one crying, or cursing, or slapping legs wailing. Reconciled to their fate, there was no shortage of laughers either. The natives, from time to time, took their eyes off the fire and looked wondering at the people standing next the household goods they had saved from the fire. The next day, they would become homeless again, and a new struggle would begin to create their lives anew from nothing. How could they be so nonchalant, so courageous to watch the collapse of their homes? The crackling of the flames could be heard everywhere, but people seemed to be under a mysterious influence and spoke in whispers. "The Turks," the man standing next to me said to his friend, "have made this people indestructible, they are neither afraid of suffering nor of death, and when someone was not afraid of suffering, he would not succumb. You will see, tomorrow they will build even more beautiful dwellings."
The flames gradually subsided. Not a single hut was left standing on the vast field, except for the huts around the electric company. There, the firefighters had performed their duty valiantly.
The scene after the fire was more shocking than the loss. The people of the big camp stood still watching the distorted blackened pieces of tin that covered the whole field.
The strangers began to leave slowly. Among them were government ministers, high-ranking government officials, the representative of the great governor, consuls and countless reporters.
Not a single Armenian left the field. When the Armenians were left alone, they looked at each other in silence and then gradually they approached each other, shook each other’s hands, and the entire population of the big camp was hosted in the huts of the other camps and in the Armenian houses in the city.
A few hours later, complete desolation reigned over the field, only half-burnt wet boards still smoldered.
The big camp was dead.
The next morning, the Armenians read the editorial about the fire in the most popular French newspaper of the city, L'ORIENT, with the following headline:
“THIS WONDERFUL PEOPLE”
Philip Zakarian
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| Massis Araratian theming Philip Zakarian and his popular book of stories titled "The Orphan Built a House" |
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