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
