to his new apartment. The rug's arrow, meant to point to Mecca,
was a lost compass, not knowing what Mecca was. Dad
hung the rug like a map on his wall. After all,
it was a piece of his past, his parents': Greeks
from Smyrna. "They had to leave with what they could carry,"
Dad would tell us in a rare indulgence of memory.
Or simply: "That was the past." But Smyrna's patterns wove
and wove into my thoughts. I needed to understand
the lands carved by victors into divisions of beef:
shank, loin, flank, round. But this was Homer's home, my
grandparents' home, rising on Ionic shafts: Ephesos,
Halicanarsos, Aphrodisias, Pergammon...Smyrna.
2) What did they know?
"Not us!" As Allies anchored near the bay,
Turkish bombs burned craters through schools, churches,
skulls. "Not us!" Soldiers gasolined fires and fires and
fires. Windows belched fountains of flame.
Children were crucified to trees. Mobs
chopped off right hands that signed the cross.
Mobs pulled priests onto the streets,
gouged out their eyes, sliced off their penises,
fed them to dogs. Nightfall, a flame-wall cremated
every house, every thing, everyone in its way, surging
with a roar! Soldiers raped, then knifed women, heaving
their corpses into the inferno. The heat grew so hellish,
ships pulled back in the quay. A black snow of burnt flesh
soared up, choking the sky. Flames spoked out like scimitars,
weaving the ash. Screams filled Allies' ears as they watched
from their ships, doing nothing. Greeks swarmed into wine-
dark waters, swimming toward refuge. When they reached
the ships, Allies hacked their arms away! Blood tornadoes
funneled from bodies, torsos torqued as agony yanked them
with invisible ropes. "Why?" froze on their lips
3) What did she know?
Twelve years later, finally the envelope!
She ripped it open, grasped the ticket to America.
Sleepless weeks aboard the steamer, her mind
must've swarmed with imagined images of her new
life. In a Harlem tenement of two little rooms
she and Mayos raised four children. The name
"Despina" carried her burden, meaning:
lady, sovereign, keeper of the home. But her home
was extinct. She called the new one "exile."
When my father was fifteen, he found her dead body,
collapsed like a pile of laundry. Doctors never knew
why. I need to understand: Did she collapse
under the weight of a mourning that couldn't be lifted?
Did rage char a hole through her, like a Smyrna
carried in her chest? Or, was she so tired she just gave up?
Dad's memory of her-handed down to me like a cameo-
becomes my own: I imagine watching him as a boy, spying
Despina through her cracked-open bedroom door: she
shakes loose her auburn waterfall of hair, brushing, brushing.
Beneath her feet the prayer rug sits, its arrow pointing home.
-Dean Kostos Notes: Following World War I, the League of Nations planned to carve up Turkey, allied with Germany during the war. Greece, with its 3,000 year history in Asia Minor, was offered Smyrna, and other regions, still largely populated by Greeks. War-weary, after 25 years of fighting various wars, King Constantine of Greece chose not to enter another one. Prime Mlinister Venizelos, however, was eager to regain territories in Asia Mlinor. England and France sought Greece's involvement, due to her proximity. Machinations toppled Constantine from his throne, putting Venizelos in power. Greece occupied the region for three years, and in agreement with the League, continued to invade toward Constantinople. An estimated 4,000 Turks were killed by Greek soldiers. All along, Greece's allies were supplying both Greece and Turkey with arms. When it became clear to the League that Greece could not win the war, they retracted support, both financial and military. Retreating toward Anatolia, Greek soldiers burnt villages along the way, to hold back the retaliating Turkish forces of Mustafa Kemal Ataturk. Turkey was rich in oil, tobacco and Western institutions the West had decided to protect, which meant shifting to a neutral stance. As a result, more than 150,000 Greek civilians were killed. 1,000,000 more became refugees during the burning of the Greek and Armenian quarters of Smyrna by the victorious Turkish forces.