We all watched her in silence. For a few seconds she looked back at us, then began to speak in a weary voice. She spoke in a different dialect from ours, in the western Armenian of the city of Van, saying things like ‘a wee bit’ instead of ‘a little bit;’ and ‘gusto,’ in place of ‘joy.’ She said that before talking about those days of hardship, she wished to speak ‘a wee bit’ about the days of ‘gusto.’ She wished, she said, to journey with us to the past.
She spoke of her childhood home in the city of Van. In their yard there were two pomegranate trees, a few olive trees, and over in one corner, a brick oven in which her mother used to bake Lavash bread. There was also a small flowerbed where they planted marigolds. She spoke of her father, who came home every day from his cloth shop in the bazaar of Van with bags of fruit under his arms. Sometimes he brought home left-over scraps from the huge cloth-bolt rollers for Khatoun and her sister. From those scraps, their mother would make rag dolls for her two girls. Their older brother would draw faces for the dolls with a piece of charcoal. In fact, he was always drawing or painting, using whatever was at hand for his canvas. On Sundays the whole family went to the city church, which was on a wide boulevard with rows of willow trees and poplars. The girls, holding their rag dolls under one arm, walked hand in hand with their mother, weaving through the willows and poplars and counting the red fezzes of the men, some of whom would stop to exchange greetings with their father. ‘Old customers of the shop,’ Father would say. ‘God-fearing and conscientious.’ On Fridays, the sound of the muezzin could be heard from the neighborhood mosque. As the Muslim neighbors returned home from their Friday congregational prayers, Father would tell them, ‘May God accept your prayers.’ Whenever Mother made yoghurt soup, she poured some of it in clay bowls to send to her Muslim neighbors. She would decorate the surface of the soup with marigold petals. In return, the neighbors would send over baklava for her.
Mrs. Madatian took out a handkerchief from her black patent-leather purse. No one in the room was fanning any more.
Khatoun fell silent for a few moments. With bowed head, she twisted the two ends of her shawl around her hands. ‘And then came the black days. There came a day when Father returned home earlier than usual, empty-handed and distraught. He told Mother that the Armenians had closed up their shops. The soldiers had set fire to the few shops that remained open, and plundered sacks of rice and wheat from another. Father said, “We must leave.” Mother clawed at her cheeks, “We are ruined.” ’
Once again Khatoun fell silent. She drew a deep breath, slapped her knees several times with the palms of her hands, and rocked left and right, her frail body swaying. Then she shook her head and said, ‘And we were ruined.’
As I went to open my purse, Alice held out a small packet of tissues. I took a tissue and passed the packet to Nina. Mother was shaking her head back and forth and muttering, ‘God deliver us from evil.’
The only sound in the auditorium was breathing, inhaling and exhaling, and Khatoun’s weary voice. ‘The door of the house was wide open. Mother was crying, filling up the knapsacks and trunks, fastening them shut. Father was shouting, “We have no room, woman. Leave this junk behind. There is not much time. Hurry.” Mother was wailing. “Wait a wee bit. Just a wee bit.” My sister and I stood under the pomegranate trees, stupefied, clutching our rag dolls. Brother was cursing. He kicked the marigolds and spoke of revenge. We climbed on the cart, sat on top of the knapsacks and trunks, and headed off. The streets were thronged with other carts, buggies, horses, mules, and whatever else could carry a person or his belongings. It was a maelstrom of dust and wailing and cursing. The rag dolls got lost, and my sister and I cried. First for our dolls, then for Father, then for Mother, for our brother and for one another.’
The packet of tissues passed hand to hand and was soon empty.
That evening I stretched out my feet on the coffee table and leaned my head back against the sofa cushion. I twisted my hair around my finger and looked at the painting above the television. It was a watercolor of the Ejmiatsin Cathedral in Armenia. I don’t remember who had told me that the church in Abadan was modeled on Ejmiatsin. I wondered why Manya was flustered when Emile came over to us. Good thing that Alice had not seen Emile! Why did Emile tell me the program was tedious when he told Manya it was interesting? I spoke aloud to the painting: ‘Poor Khatoun.’
From behind his newspaper Artoush inquired, ‘What’s that?’
‘Poor Khatoun, her mother, her father, all those people,’ I said. ‘You should have come.’
A page turned.
I was looking at Ejmiatsin. ‘All those people, living happily side by side for all those years. What happened? For what reason? Whose fault was it?’ I was twisting a lock of hair around my finger. ‘We can’t do a thing about it except pay our futile empty respects and hold memorial gatherings. You should have come.’
Another page turned.
I said, ‘You’ll never guess who came. Mrs. Nurollahi. Alice saw her. But maybe she was mistaken.’
He folded the newspaper, played with his beard and laughed. ‘So she came after all? She asked me for the day and time of the commemoration. When she saw that I didn’t know, she went to ask some other Armenians. Shall I get the lights or will you?’
‘How come you didn’t know the day and time? Why isn’t it important to you? Why didn’t you come?’
Artoush stood there. He stroked his beard and looked at the painting of Ejmiatsin. Then he asked, ‘Do you know where Shotait is?’
When I did not reply he put his hands in his pockets and went over to the window. He looked out at the yard for a while. Then he turned around. With the point of his toe he drew a circle around one of the flowers in the design of the Persian carpet. ‘It’s not far. Right next door, about four kilometers from Abadan.’ He looked out at the yard again. ‘If you want, I’ll take you, so you can see for yourself. Ask Madatian and his wife to come, and Garnik too.’ He turned around to look at me. ‘Women and men and children and oxen and goats and sheep all live together in a hut.’ He took his hands out of his pockets and undid the band of his wristwatch. ‘We’ll have to go in the daytime, because they have no electricity in Shotait. Remember to bring water, too, because they don’t have plumbing.’ He wound up his watch. ‘We have to be careful not to shake anyone’s hand or caress the children, because we could get either tuberculosis or trachoma.’ He started walking toward the door. ‘Tell Mrs. Madatian not to bring English chocolates for the kids there, because I don’t suppose the children of Shotait have ever seen chocolate in their lives. And tell Garnik not to wear his Italian shoes because the mud and dung will come up to his ankles.’
I was staring at Ejmiatsin. Artoush reached the door, then walked back, stood right in front of me, and stared me in the face. ‘Tragedies happen every day. Not just fifty years ago, but right now. Not far away, but right here! A stone’s throw from the heart of green, safe, chic, and modern Abadan.’ He strapped his watch back on. ‘And at the same time, you are right. Poor Khatoun. Poor mankind.’
And he left the room.
22
I was making Chombur for the children’s after-school snack: breadcrumbs with cheese and ground walnuts on top. I heard the drawn-out hiss of the air brakes of the school bus in the street.
I wiped my hands on my apron, waiting for the sound of running footsteps. Hearing nothing, I went to the hallway and opened the front door. They had reached the middle of the path and Arsineh, head downcast, was crying. Armineh was carrying both their satchels in one hand. Her other hand was resting on her sister’s shoulder, and she was whispering in her ear. There was no sign of Armen.
Alarmed, I ran out to them. ‘What happened? Did you fall down? Did you have a fight with someone? Are you sick?’
Her crying intensified and in between sobs, she stammered out, ‘What did I do? I didn’t say a thing. It was the kids at school who said it. They’re the ones who laughed.’ The intense crying made her cough.
Armineh quickly confirmed, ‘Arsineh’s right, Arsineh is right.’
I washed Arsineh’s face and hands, sat her on a chair in the kitchen, made her swallow a few gulps of water and said, ‘Now tell me what happened.’
They looked at one another. Arsineh looked straight down, laced her fingers and twisted her hands. Then Armineh thrust out her chin, took several steps back, set her hand on her hip and took a stand right there in the center of the kitchen.
‘Until now, we kept quiet for Armen’s sake, and didn’t spill the beans. Today on the bus, instead of thanking us, he slapped Arsineh in the face, in front of all the kids! Now it’s time to tell you the whole story.’ Armen was in love with Emily, she explained. Emily wants to make Armen jealous by joking and laughing with other boys in school. Today, somebody wrote in big big letters above the seats on the bus: ‘Armen loves Emily, Emily loves no one.’ The kids on the bus all laughed, Armen accused Armineh and Arsineh of writing it, and smacked Arsineh in the face. Armineh took a deep breath and continued the story. ‘That night at Emily’s house, the reason Armen coughed was that...’
Arsineh said, ‘Don’t tell on him!’
Armineh said, ‘I am telling! Why shouldn’t I? That night Armen coughed because, playing Spin the Bottle, Emily made him drink a whole glass of vinegar. And she even poured a whole bunch of the chutney her grandmother made into it.’
I sank into the chair.
The idea of drinking a whole glass of vinegar with that chutney made my throat burn something awful. The twins stared at me, their jet black hair spilling out from under their color-matched headbands and their chubby cheeks all ruddy as they waited anxiously for my reaction.
What was happening? What had I been thinking? How had I not noticed? I wiped the sweat off my forehead and asked, ‘Where is Armen now?’
They shrugged their shoulders and looked at me with pouting faces.
I looked at the sweet peas, blowing in the breeze. It was near sundown and the ledge was in shadow. A bee was buzzing around one of the flowers.
Arsineh’s eyes were still red and Armineh was searching in her satchel for something. She took out a notebook and a book, and held them out to me. ‘Miss Manya gave this for you.’ It was the manuscript of the translation of Little Lord Fauntleroy with the original English text.
I told them to sit and have their snack, and went off to the living room. Back in the green leather chair, my gaze settled on the bare windows whose drapes I had washed that day. I thought of Emily. Was it really possible? Artoush had said, ‘What a sweet girl.’ I had thought, ‘How shy.’ I thought of the glass of vinegar and chutney again, and I don’t know why but it reminded me of the day Armen was born.
Artoush’s cousin had come to visit us from Tabriz with her husband. At lunch, Mother and Alice were there too. I was going back and forth between the kitchen and the dining room, and hearing snippets of conversation.
‘This is an unprecedented cold spell!’
‘It may even snow.’
‘Snow? In Abadan? Don’t be silly. We’re not in Tabriz, you know.’
‘Clarice, don’t walk so much. It’s not good for you.’
‘Are you kidding? Today she followed the gardener all around the yard and drove in the stakes for all the tomato plants.’
‘She drove in what?’
‘They drive stakes in the ground next to tomato plants to train them while they grow. They twine the branches around the stakes.’
‘People don’t grow tomatoes at home, in Tabriz.’
‘What do they ever grow at home, in Tabriz?!’
It was the first time I had planted tomatoes. Every morning, the first thing I did was go to the backyard and check on my still green and very tiny tomatoes.
That evening we went to Khorramshahr to drop off Artoush’s cousin and her husband at the train station. On the way back, near the outskirts of Abadan, my contractions started, so we headed straight to the hospital. It was the middle of the night when Armen was born. I lay awake until morning, shivering in the Oil Company hospital bed. I assumed that all my cold and shivering was a result of giving birth. But when Alice and Mother came to the hospital that morning, they were wearing their thick woolens.
‘It was freezing last night!’
‘The temperature went down below zero centigrade.’
‘It never got this cold in the past fifty years.’
‘All the plants and flowers in town are shriveled up, blackened in the frost.’
‘The tomato plants...’ I exclaimed.
Mother picked up Armen in her arms. ‘A whole city full of plants and flowers and tomatoes aren’t worth a single hair of the head of my grandson.’
Alice kissed Armen on the head with a hearty laugh. ‘What hair?’
When I got back home from the hospital I went straight to the backyard. The hard frost had shriveled all the tomato plants. I sunk to the ground and broke into tears.
‘Aren’t you ashamed to cry for a few lousy tomato plants?’ chided Mother.
Artoush slid his hands under my arms and scooped me up.
Alice said, ‘Post-partum depression.’
Mother replied, ‘What nonsense. Take the child inside; don’t let him catch cold.’
In the room we’d set up for Armen, I looked at the curtains I had embroidered with my own hands, and the colorful photos of mice and cats and rabbits we had hung on the walls. I turned down the baby blanket that Mother had knitted for the crib and laid Armen down to sleep. I wiped my tears and said, ‘My poor little baby.’
Now, leaning back in the leather chair, I wiped my tears and gazed through the window at the cloudless sky. Someone had given a glass of vinegar to ‘my poor little baby.’ It made me sad. I wished that he was not so grown up. When he was little, he only did what I wanted him to do – ate only what I wanted him to eat, went only where I wanted him to go. And now... Now someone had made him swallow a glass of vinegar, and I hadn’t even noticed. My thoughts turned to Emily. Where had she learned to do such things?
I still had the notebook in my hand. I opened it to Vazgen’s steady and legible handwriting. He always wrote with black ink. I’ll read it later, I thought. I closed the notebook, set it on the bookshelf and returned to the kitchen. Arsineh and Armineh were whispering together. When they saw me they jumped up.
‘Armen just came in and went to his room.’
‘Was it wrong for us...’
‘...to tell you?’
‘You won’t punish him, will you?’
‘You won’t punish him, will you?’
I assured them that they had done nothing wrong and that I would not punish Armen. I told them to go do their homework.
I knocked on his door. ‘It’s not locked,’ he said.
He was stretched out on the bed, arms behind his head, staring at the ceiling. I sat down beside him. Years ago I had replaced those embroidered curtains in his room. I had given away the baby crib and packed away the baby blanket in a suitcase in the storage room. What had I done with the pictures? I couldn’t remember. It had been a few years now since those pictures of the mouse, the cat, and the rabbit had given way to posters of Alain Delon, Kirk Douglas, and Burt Lancaster. Posters of Claudia Cardinale and Brigitte Bardot.
I looked at him and felt I was seeing a stranger. Until that morning, my fifteen-year-old boy had still been my poor little baby, and now...I looked at his eyelashes, still the same as when he was a child. Long and up-turned. He still had a mark near his left eye from the chicken pox, which he got when he was a year old. I was noticing it all for what seemed like the first time in fifteen years. I was trying to figure out what to say to him when he, still staring at the ceiling, came to my aid.
‘I know what I did was wrong. It was not Arsineh’s fault.’
Any other time, slapping Arsineh in the face would be reason enough to give him a good scolding and a nice long lecture, but now I only wanted him to talk about the deeper subject at hand, for me to talk to him, a
nd for us to talk together, about Emily and – it was difficult for me to voice this aloud – about being in love.
I did not know where to begin or how. I looked at the map of Iran on the wall above his bed. My eyes circled around a lake and I leaned in closer to read its name: Bakhtegan. I remembered my appointment with Mrs. Nurollahi and wondered why it was that I knew the names of all the cities on the map of Armenia without ever having seen them, and yet did not know the names of the lakes of Iran?
I tried to recall how I felt during my engagement to Artoush. It was the only time in my life I would consider myself to have been in love. I could not remember much of it. The time between our first meeting and the engagement was not long, and the marriage followed not long after that. A week after the birthday party of our mutual friend, I ran into Artoush near our house. I was surprised first, and then felt happy.
Artoush seemed to be surprised as well. ‘What an interesting coincidence!’
‘Yes, what a coincidence!’
One day, later on, we were walking down Saadi Avenue eating piroshkis we had bought at Bakery Mignon. He asked me, ‘You mean you did not realize I came around on purpose?’
Surprised again, I asked, ‘How did you know where I lived?’
With great gravity, he explained, ‘Yes, indeed, it was extremely difficult to find your address, but...’ I don’t know what he saw in my eyes that interrupted his monologue and made him laugh. ‘Well, I asked around.’ Then he put his arm around my shoulder. ‘It’s this innocence about you that I like so much.’
My eyes fixed on Lake Bakhtegan, I wondered whether it was innocence or idiocy.
Armen, still staring at the ceiling, asked, ‘Did you and Father fall in love with each other before getting married?’