Mariam, Eastern Turkey, 1915

Baba drove the carriage at speed, guiding the dapple-grey Arabian through a labyrinth of cobbled streets. The carriage juddered as it struck jagged stones, barbed vibrations stealing up through my backbone. On the street, merchants advertised their wares in a throaty hum or sucked on water pipes in the entrances of open-fronted stores brimming with spices, homespun silks, leather goods, copper pans and aphrodisiacs. There was no hint of danger on the street, no warning of the calamity to come.

The silvery crow of a distant cock rang out over red-tiled rooftops, over domes and minarets and the snowcapped summit that dwarfed the city. Scarfed women in cotton shawls chatted beneath stone lintels. A stray dog suckled her young. The morning air was scented with the ancient odour of incense, burnt sugar and the fruity smoke of shishas. A row of silver charms, inlaid with blue enamel, hung from a doorway; amulets just like the one I always carried in my pocket to protect me from the evil eye.

It felt good to be out of the house, immersed in the hubbub of the market. Our world was a dangerous place, my father warned, and he was not alone in voicing his fears. Dire predictions resounded in every Armenian backyard and coffee house.

The carriage overtook mules transporting kindling and baskets loaded with melons, pumpkins and burgundy figs. Flies hovered at the window of the carriage, straying from the skinny carcass hanging from the butcher's awning. A bell tinkled in the near distance and Baba stopped to let the pastry man cross, his wooden cart laden with diamonds of paklava in gleaming pastry coats.

I shouted over the murmur of the market. 'Baba, stop. I want a pastry.' The salivating scent of syrup and rose water wafted through the carriage.

Baba clicked his tongue, setting the dapple-grey in motion. The pastry seller's rhythmic call of pa-kla-vaaaa faded while a man's angry rhetoric echoed through the street. A crowd had gathered up ahead. People shifted to let the buggy pass into the heart of a drama. The Armenian baker, Kalfayan, stood outside his shop, before the city's Turkish commandant and several police officers, shouting at the top of his voice, his jowly face quivering with rage.

'I've done nothing wrong ... the allegations are false ... I did not poison the bread for the barracks.'

The trays in the window of his shop had been upturned and an array of dimpled loaves littered the street.

Kalfayan stepped forward, his hands clenched. The commandant raised his baton and struck him on the temple. Kalfayan's eyes bulged in surprise. A second vicious blow knocked him off his feet and he fell, like an axed tree. I heard his skull crack on the ground, like the crunch of dry eucalyptus pods underfoot. Screams permeated the carriage. The baker lay completely still while the street closed in about him, people flapping like chickens rushing at their feed. I saw my father appear in this scene. My doctor-father down on his knees, taking the baker's pulse, turning his head, his fingers in the baker's mouth dislodging his tongue. Seconds later, Kalfayan spluttered back to life and the police pulled him to his feet. The next thing I knew, the buggy was pulling away, the horse's powerful feet pounding the cobbles.

Katerina, England, 1985

Mum stands at the fireplace fingering cards that line the mantle, purple poppies, tulips and angels in abundance. Your mother was a wonderful woman and will be deeply missed. She reads out other sentiments in the same vein, stock phrases that pluck at heartstrings, words meant to bolster. I watch her face run a gamut of emotions as she pores over more personal messages. Mariam was a gem, generous to a fault. A wonderful cook who performed culinary alchemy with a shoulder of lamb and smoked paprika. A nurse for fifty years, Gran had plenty of friends who crammed the church of St Joseph and trailed out of the door. I picture her now, hair silver-streaked, prominent cheekbones, eyes a river green that mirrored my own, shining in her olive-skinned face; inscrutable eyes that impelled a second glance.

I search for words of comfort, wonder how it feels to lose a mother, how long time takes to heal. A month has passed since Gran died and Mum is on a downward slide, her hair lank and unwashed, spirits tethered to the recent past. To say they were close is an understatement. They were more like sisters. I was the third cog in the wheel, joining them for coffee every Tuesday, sharing Sunday lunch at Gran's place where the humble roast was embellished with continental delights, enhanced with garlic, cumin and cinnamon. We were three of a kind, uncannily similar in appearance, cut from the same cloth. At family gatherings we looked like moths dropped into a cluster of cabbage whites. Mum's Asia Minor genes overrode Dad's fair hair and blue eyes when I was conceived.

'I've got something to show you,' Mum says, leading the way upstairs to her bedroom where she lifts a cardboard storage box onto the bed. 'I found this in your grandmother's wardrobe. I thought we could go through it together.'

We sit side by side, resting against the headboard, Gran's treasure trove poised between us. Mum starts delving through a pile of brown envelopes, emptying them of snapshots, mostly of me: cabbage-patch Katerina in Mum's arms; scrawny kid with knobbly knees and pigtails, riding Dad's shoulders; schoolgirl with braces and a gap-tooth grin; graduate in mortar board and vampire cape; Katerina sitting at the news desk of The Echo eating a mid-morning doughnut, poised to write her next story. Katerina jan, Gran used to call me, her dearest, love and pain melding in her eyes speaking of everyone she had lost.

One of the envelopes contains a familiar black and white photo scuffed and torn down the middle, a picture of Gran's mother, Gadarine, my namesake. She is lustre-haired and beautiful, wearing a white lace dress with embroidered collar. She was sixteen on her wedding day and in the picture she gazes demurely into the distance. All that remains of the groom is a dismembered hand looped through the arm of his young bride. A copy of the original stood on Gran's mantle, another hangs on the wall of Mum's house. It's the only photo we have of Gran's family, the only tangible evidence of those who came before us. She rarely talked about her kin, as if she had taken a vow of silence, an abstinence of speech that spoke volumes. The only one she mentioned with an irrepressible smile was Gabriel, her brother. She named my mother, Gaby, after him and whenever I sneaked more than my fair share of pudding she used to say, you're just like Gabriel.

Mum shuffles through the photos, shaking her head. 'What a shame there isn't a picture of your grandmother on her wedding day. When I was a child, I used to have recurrent dreams about Mum's dress – always the same one, drawn in at the waist with a band of pearl beading.'

Gran said the photographer never turned up on her wedding day and there was no handy friend with a camera on standby.

Mum fishes in the box, pulls out a leather bound notebook and flicks through the yellow-tinged pages.

'I remember seeing Mum write in this book but God only knows what it says. It's all in Armenian.'

She hands over the book and I leaf through an ornamental script, scrawled in fountain pen, navy ink smudged in places, lined sheets thick with lettering that looks like a cross...