The Thief Who Couldn't Sleep Read Online Free PDF Page B

the few to survive, but her words indicated that Kitty had been right: "I was young then, and pretty. And the Turks are animals. I was ravished. Can you believe this, to look at me now, that men would want to have me that way? And not just one man, no. But I was not killed. Everyone else in my family was killed, but I escaped. I was with a group of Greeks and an old Armenian man. We fled the city. We were on the roads for days. The old Armenian man died. It is funny, I cannot remember his name. We were crowded together aboard a ship. Then we were here, New York, America."
    "And the gold?"
    "Gone. The Turks must have it."
    "Did they find it?"
    "Not then, no. But they must have it now. It was years ago. And no Armenian went back for it. I was the only one of my family to live, and only the people of my family knew of the gold. So no Armenian found it, and so the Turks must have gotten it all."
    Later Kitty said, "Damn you, why did you have to go and talk Armenian with her? I couldn't understand three words out of a hundred. If you think it's a picnic to sit listening to two people talk for hours and not catch a word—"
    "She's a wonderful woman."
    "She is, isn't she? You seemed interested in her story. Were you?"
    "Very much."
    "I'm glad. How on earth did you learn to speak the language, Evan? No, don't tell me. I don't even want to know. It made her whole day, though. She cornered me on the way out. Did you hear what she asked me?"
    "No."
    "She wanted to know if I was pregnant."
    "Are you?"
    "God, I hope not. I told her I wasn't, and she said I should get pregnant right away so that we would be married."
    "She said that?"
    "That's not all. She said you have a better chance to get pregnant if you keep your knees way up and stay that way as long as you can. She's a dirty old lady."
    "She's grand."
    "You're a dirty old man. Are you coming to the New Life tonight?"
    "Around midnight."
    "Good."
    I took the subway back to my apartment and sat down at my typewriter and wrote up everything I could recall of Kitty's grandmother's story. I read through what I had written, then roamed the apartment, pulling books from the shelves, checking articles in various pamphlets and magazines. A broadside of the League for the Restoration of Cilician Armenia alluded to the confiscation of the wealth of the Armenians of Smyrna. But I could find no reference to the cache in Balikesir. Nothing at all.
    A few days later the League was meeting on Attorney Street on the Lower East Side. The League meets once a month, and I go when I can. Sometimes a guest speaker discusses conditions in the Armenian Soviet Socialist Republic. Other times reports will be read from branches in other cities, other countries. Much of the time is devoted to general socializing, discussions of the rug business, gossip. As far as I know, I'm the only member who isn't Armenian. At the meeting I looked up Nezor Kalichikian, who knows everyone and everything and who, I knew, had lived in Smyrna. We drank coffee and played a game of chess which he won, as usual. I asked him about the gold of Smyrna.
    "The Armenian treasure of Smyrna," he said solemnly. "What do you want to know about it?"
    "What happened to it?"
    He spread his small hands expressively. "What happened to everything? The Turks got it, of course. Since they could not rape it or eat it or kill it or burn it, they probably spent it. They couldn't have kept it long. They managed to rid themselves of the Armenians and the Greeks and the Jews, the only three groups in Turkey who had the slightest idea how to manage money. Yes; I know of the Armenian treasure. Are you really interested in this, Evan?"
    "Yes."
    "Any particular reason?"
    "Some research I'm doing."
    "Always research. Yes." He sipped his coffee. "The Armenians pooled their wealth, you know. It was all kept in gold. One did not keep money in paper bills in those days. Not real money, not one's savings. Always gold. The money was pooled and tucked away for