The Doves of Ohanavank (10 page)

I know the time has come to call him regarding both Anna and Anastasia, but I’ve been putting it off. I find it difficult to ask for help, even for someone else, even though I know Edik would be absolutely delighted. It is as if once you ask and he comes through, you have in a way confirmed a relationship, which, for some reason, scares me. After what Edik,
Khev Gago
, Avo and I went through only six months ago in Sevajayr, you’d think I’d be over that fear, at least with them, but I am not. The fact is, I did not ask for that day; they just appeared and saved my life, at the cost of having blood on their hands. But I did
not
ask. Maybe that’s why, dramatic as that day was, it still does not count as a favor.

Avo helps me end my hesitation. He calls on a Thursday afternoon, all excited, and insists that I come to Saralandj the first chance I get.

“
Kurig jan
,” he says—how I love to hear those words from him.
Dear little sister
, words that take me back to the pre-secrets Lara—“We had one delivery already! Eight little piglets, you have to see them. Eight, imagine! They look like little pink rats, attached to their mother, eyes shut, suckling for dear life. It is amazing.” He is almost out of breath. I have not seen Avo this animated, except when he is angry, for a long time. This too is a voice from the pre-secrets days. He sees the farm as a venture that is one hundred percent his own, his contribution to our family, not something left over from Papa or our grandfather. Everything else in Saralandj, from the fruit trees to the sheep, even to the household furniture, is from the past.

“Avo, that is great,” I say, even though I have no particular interest in seeing the little piglets. “I have class tomorrow, but will try to get there on Saturday. Is that okay?”

“Sure. Just come. This will be great. If all goes well with the other nineteen about to give birth, I probably will be able to return Edik’s money in full this fall.”

That’s something even I can get excited about. Knowing Edik, he probably wrote off the loan in his mind the minute he made it. But paying him back is a huge obligation for us.

“Edik would be interested to hear the news too, you should give him a call,” I say, thinking this would be the perfect opportunity for me to talk to Edik.

“Bring him with you,” he says with excitement. “Maybe he can drive and pick you up.”

I’m glad my going to Saralandj with Edik is now Avo’s idea.

I catch Edik at a bad time when I call. He sounds rushed and distracted.

“Lara jan, so good to hear from you. Can you hold for just a minute?”

“Sure, but if this is not a good time, I can call later.”

“No, no, it is fine. One minute.” I hear the slightly muffled noise of his hand covering the phone; his voice is still vaguely audible, and it sounds like he’s giving instructions to someone.

“Sorry about that,” he says, his voice calmer. “Sometimes I have to explain things over and over to Agassi. I’ll have to leave Armenia for a few weeks, and there’s too much that needs to be done here. Anyway, how are you?”

“I’m fine,” I say, beginning to wonder if I should forget the whole thing; he sounds like he has enough on his hands. “If I had known you are so swamped, I wouldn’t have called.”

“Absolutely no problem. I don’t leave till the end of next week. There’s plenty of time to plan everything. What’s new with you? How can I help?” He sounds so eager and so genuine, that I decide to stick with the plan.

“Edik jan,” I say, hesitation still lingering in my voice, “I’m calling to see if I can see you on Saturday, and if we can drive to Saralandj together. But as I said, if you’re too busy, it is not important.”

“Lara,” he says with a chuckle, “I’ve been waiting six months for this call! Of course I’m not too busy. I can be in Yerevan before noon on Saturday. We can have a quick lunch, and then drive to Saralandj. Would that work?”

“That would be perfect, thank you so much.”

“But tell me, what’s the occasion?” Of course I knew that he wouldn’t be able to wait to find out what’s behind my request.

“Avo wants us there,” I say, happy to have the pretext. “One of the mama pigs delivered, and I have not heard him so excited for a long time. And there are a couple of other things I’d like to talk to you about. So I thought the drive up there will give us a chance to talk.”

“In that case I have a better plan,” he says, and I can feel the impatience in his voice. “I will come down to Yerevan tomorrow night. Let’s have dinner together—much better for a good chat than a rushed lunch and a drive. That way, we can leave earlier Saturday morning and have more time in Saralandj too.”

“Edik, are you sure?”

“Absolutely. I’ll call you when I reach my hotel. Most probably I’ll pick you up around eight.”

“That’s fine, Edik. And once again, thank you.”

I’ve had a lot of time to think about how I’ll approach Edik, what I’ll say about Anna, Anastasia, about Avo, and even about the nature of secrets, and in what order. I have it all clear in my mind, from the first hello to the
last good night, and for once I feel like I can finally turn a corner by taking Edik into my confidence, but at my own pace and in my own way.

I dress conservatively. A pair of navy blue pants, beige turtleneck sweater and my light coat. I wear no makeup at all, and tie my hair up in a ponytail. After being ordered for eighteen months to be seductive at all times, I’ve developed a distaste for any attempt to appear attractive.

He picks me up a little before eight, and drives to one of his favorite restaurants on Toumanian Street. Until we get to the restaurant and are seated, all he talks about is what he is up to in Vardahovit—the new trees that will be planted in a few weeks: poplars, fruit trees, weeping willows and weeping birch, which he has recently discovered and fallen in love with. “There are forests of it in Russia,” he says. “They are even more graceful than weeping willows.” Then he shifts to the irrigation system he is working on, both for the village and for his estate. I find it fascinating to hear Edik talk like a farmer, as if at that moment he neither knows nor cares about anything else.

I should have known that it is impossible to stick to a script when talking to Edik. When it comes to conversations, he can be a force of nature, connecting dots at lightening speed and charting new courses for every train of thought, until the original script disintegrates and even I forget what my plan was.

When we sit down and we order, he shocks me with his opening line.

“There is an American writer,” he says, leaning over the table and looking very serious. “He wrote a book,
You Can’t Go Home Again
. Have you heard about it?”

“No.” I say, but the title hits home. Is this about me also, like the poems?

“I don’t know if it ever was translated into Armenian, but it’s worth checking,” he says casually. “I think you’ll find it interesting.”

“What’s it about?” I ask, wondering what happened to my script and how I can get the conversation back on track, but at the same time I’m intrigued by the title of the book.

“The specific story may not interest you. It is about a writer who leaves his hometown and writes a book about it, and makes everyone in the town angry at him, so much so that he cannot go back. But the real message is that no one can go back to his childhood, to his former way of life, even to his family, once he leaves and sees the world.”

“And you think I should read the book because that is what I am struggling with?” I sound a little curter than I mean to be. I was prepared to bare a little of my soul to Edik tonight, but not like this, not with the coming home issues, which cannot be discussed without getting into the secrets.

“Well, of course you are,” he says so casually that I relax a little. “Aren’t you?” He is talking as if we’re discussing the weather. Could it be that I am making much more of this than it is?

“Look,” he says when I do not answer. “It is the most natural thing in the world. I’ve felt it more than once, because I’ve had more than one home that I could never go back to. Everyone feels it when they move from a small place to a larger place.”

“There’s a lot more to it than that.” He sees my annoyance.

“Are you upset that I brought that up?” He sounds surprised.

“Your American writer could never understand my issues,” I say seriously, meaning every word. “It is not just a matter of going back to a small place or a former lifestyle. It is also about where you’ve been, and what you’ve done. This writer character of yours, did he leave his town voluntarily?”

“Yes.” Now Edik is totally focused on me.

“And he did what he wanted to do after he left, right? He decided to write a book, that was his choice, right?”

“Right.”

“So how on earth is this similar?”

“It is not those details that are similar, just the impossibility of going back.”

“No,” I say, realizing that I have taken control of the conversation, even though none of this was in my original script. “That is not similar either, not at all. As I said, there’s a lot more to it than that.”

“Tell me.” And he waits, staring at me, still, focused.

“It
does
matter whether one leaves home voluntarily or not. It matters even more whether one does what one chooses to do while away. And it does matter that one is free to decide when to attempt a return. Either way, it may still be impossible to come back, but the process and the pain are entirely different.”

“Tell me,” he says, still focused.

“If I had been free to decide when to return, I would have been home the same night I left. The
same
night. I could easily have ‘gone home again’ if I had had that choice.”

He is still silent, intently watching me. This is the most that I have ever told him. I feel that he is keeping still so as not to frighten me, like a birdwatcher careful not to scare away the bird he’s watching. He has broken loose a wave of emotions, he knows it, and so do I. Deep inside, I do want to talk to him; it feels good to tell someone all this. It feels good to have someone hear and understand you, someone so intent on listening to your words that he does not move, he just waits.

The waitress brings the wine and opens the bottle. While he tastes, a waiter brings the salad and the Italian cold-cut appetizers. She pours the wine. He lifts his glass.

“This is good, I think you’ll like it.” We touch glasses and take a sip. The wine is good; it is a dark red Italian wine.

“Tell me more,” he says.

“Edik jan,” I say after a while, my voice calmer. “I called you with the intention of talking about a few things. You have been a very good friend, and I appreciate everything that you’ve done for my family and me. But this is not how I wanted to start the conversation. You took me by surprise with your story about the American writer.”

“I’m sorry, Lara. But I’m glad that we’ve finally started talking. Aren’t you?”

“I am.” He’s right. It is a relief. His expression is warm, gentle and attentive, as if he’s trying to listen to me even when I say nothing. The notorious third ear is on full alert. I realize that I’m annoyed not because we’re talking, but because the conversation did not go as I had planned it. I know how childish that is.

“If this is not how you wanted to have the conversation, then tell me how.” He passes me the appetizer plate. “So far, you’ve known me as a talker,” he smiles, “but I can also be a great listener.”

I don’t recognize the meats on the platter. One cut looks like
yershig
, our sausage; I take a piece on my plate and leave it there. Then I take another sip of wine.

“I wanted to start with the story of my friend Anna.” Then I tell Anna’s story as he serves more meats and salad on my plate. I tell him everything, at least everything that I consider important. I see a dark cloud gather in his eyes as I tell about her husband selling her and her father’s response. But he does not interrupt. The cloud thickens when I describe her constant fear. I tell him about our conversation in the café, about how I thought of him
when I helped Anna think of a way out. And then I tell him I want to ask for his help in getting Anna a divorce.

Edik listens patiently throughout. He does not eat, just drinks wine and refills his glass. They’ve brought the main course, and we have barely touched the salad and appetizers. We’re supposed to share the main courses also, one pasta dish and one chef’s special sea bass baked with herbs and spices.

“Let’s eat,” he says, beginning to rearrange the dishes. Then he lifts his glass, toasts me.

“Eat. I process this type of information differently than most people. I don’t like to react as the story unfolds. Let it settle in my mind first.”

We eat in silence, probably looking like a couple that has just had a fight. Once in a while he looks at me, as if to re-hear parts of the story from my face, and fills our glasses again.

“There is one risk,” he says finally. “I think it is well worth taking, but it is a risk your friend Anna should know about before we start divorce proceedings.” That is the first thing he says about Anna’s story. Knowing Edik, I was expecting a torrent of questions first.