I was the one sleeping in beds rated by stars, not outside on the hard ground under the constellations. And I was a well-fed thirty-six-year-old traveling by car and train, not on foot as Stepan did. Only halfway into my nine-hundred-mile journey, and I was already weary. Ever since I could remember, I had heard the dramatic tales from my mother: how my grandfather wandered for years in the desert of what is now Syria how he, Stepan Miskjian, staggered a week with two cups of water, trying to escape from the Turks who were trying to kill him, for the crime of being Armenian. I had spent too long getting there, a day of flying to Istanbul, two weeks of traveling overland through Turkey, six months of planning, and a lifetime of family stories, all leading me to this corridor once part of the Ottoman Empire. Could I hike across these heights as my grandfather did? In this condition? Somewhere beyond this point, he had suffered the most. It was all my body wanted I could never wash enough down my sore throat. Now dehydrated and dizzy from repeatedly throwing up, I took another swig from my plastic water bottle. I’d been healthy there, too, but had fallen sick later that night.
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The place couldn’t be more different than where we had been the afternoon before: relaxing high above the clouds in Turkey’s last Armenian village, Vakïflï Köyü, a serene oasis of stone homes and tall trees that perfectly followed the sweet serenade of the Kilis bathhouse. I was keeping an eye out for Jemal, but my gaze kept returning to the surrounding mountains, parched and imposing, the color of dirt and not much else. They roared on, advanced a few feet, then went off again, while pedestrians zigzagged through without fear. On the asphalt, massive cargo trucks leaving Turkey idled. In the swell of heat and exhaust on this August Friday, I felt like collapsing. I glanced at my security blanket, my gray cell phone approximately ten in the morning, and no missed calls. In another fifty yards, I’d face the uniformed guards, and I had to get my story straight. Only fifteen minutes had passed since Jemal had dropped me off to park the van, but it seemed he’d been gone too long. I was nervous, jumpy at every horn blare. Momentarily blinded, I averted my eyes and turned toward the forbidding checkpoint out of Reyhanlï, Turkey. A thousand reflections scissored off the windshields, mirrors, and hubcaps on vehicles that packed the road like an old junkyard.
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Excerpted from "THE HUNDRED-YEAR WALK: An Armenian Odyssey"Īt the busy border crossing into Syria, the sun beat down onto the stream of cars that twisted out of view.