The Legacy of Lost Things

by Aida Zilelian

  Faris stood frozen, contemplating whether to duck into his car or go over to her. Instead, he followed her into the supermarket. He watched as she took a small grocery basket from a stack and slowly paced down the produce aisle. When she bent over to pull several clear plastic bags from one of the reams, he finally saw her face. The dark eyes, long thick eyelashes, and perfectly drawn lips almost caused him to forget to stay out of sight. He felt the warm perspiration on his brow slide down to the sides of his face. He imagined returning to his car and driving home, trying to shake himself free from the image of Tamar in her white sundress. Gripped by the panic of not knowing when or if he would ever see her again, he continued watching her and followed from a distance.

  Tamar turned and walked away from the produce section and down one of the aisles, and Faris waited, hoping again, to find the gumption to leave. The supermarket was hushed and quiet like a library, and in the small, narrow aisle stood Tamar closely inspecting the label of a cereal box. As he peeked in to look at her, an older woman walked by and glared at him. He smiled nervously, aware of how oddly he was behaving and hoping he didn’t raise the attention of other customers.

  When he saw that her back was fully turned to him, he quickened his steps, and before she completely walked away, he said, “Tamar.” Not a question, but a statement. As if he were professing a fact. Tamar. He wanted to reach out and take her hair in his hands.

  “Yes?” And when she turned and saw him, the questioning expression dissolved into one of awe.

  “Faris.”

  The two stood awkwardly, unable to speak. “I saw you,” he said, “and wanted to say hi.”

  “Hi,” she said. “What are you doing here?”

  “Buying lemons,” he said, holding up the bag that he had already paid for and walked out with, and aware that she may now quickly realize he had been following her.

  She smiled. “Lemons.”

  “Yes,” he said. “To take home.”

  He held back from finishing the sentence with, … for Sarine.

  After getting married, Faris had always wondered if the news had reached Tamar. Much like her, Sarine also came from a traditional Armenian family. Her family had been acquainted with the Satamians as well as Faris’s parents back when they had all lived in Beirut. However, even with the obvious cultural discrepancy, Sarine’s parents had acquiesced and allowed Faris to marry their daughter, despite the quick and sudden nature of their courtship.

  “Can I walk out with you?” he asked, stalling for time. In the back of his mind, he invented a lie for when he came home late to Sarine. He would say he had bumped into a coworker from his last job, a blabbermouth who made it impossible to leave a conversation.

  “I just have a few more things to buy,” she said, “but it’s not important.” She placed her half-filled basket on the floor and they walked out.

  They stood in the parking lot avoiding each other’s gaze. “Do you want to sit in my car?” he asked. “It’s so hot out.” His temples were burning and his nerves had made his mouth dry.

  “Where is it?” she asked.

  Faris felt the familiar tinge of guilt as he opened the car door for her. They had spent years hiding away covertly, trying to protect their secret. As they became older they became less fearful, almost wanting to be seen in the hopes that eventually her family would come to accept him as a part of her life. Now he also had himself to protect. The chance of being seen with Tamar by anyone he knew was improbable. Regardless, he could not take the chance. By default, he was now regarded as a member of the Armenian community by his marriage to Sarine, and whether it was genuine or just for show, they seemed to accept him without much resistance. Faris was also aware that like any other community, news traveled, especially when it was met with disapproval.

  “How have you been?” he asked, relieved to be sitting in his car, enclosed and less vulnerable.

  “Okay,” she said. Tamar sat in the passenger seat staring ahead as if they were on a drive somewhere. “How are you?”

  The question was so simple, yet felt almost accusatory. It was inevitable that she know about his life. “I’m married,” he said, “… as I’m sure you know.”

  “I do,” she said. “My sister told me. Right after me and Levon.”

  “Yes,” he said. “Do you have children?”

  Tamar let out a snort. She faced him and studied him narrowly as if she felt he was testing her. It was a look unfamiliar to him.

  “I think we both know that you would have heard if I had children,” she said. “I’ve only been married for just over a year. I know that’s plenty of time, but still. Not yet.”

  He sensed an anger from her he couldn’t grasp, and before he could scramble through his mind for another question, she asked, “Why? Do you have children?”

  “No,” he said, and paused. “But we will. In another five months or so.” Now it was his turn to look away.

  An eerie silence settled between them. He hadn’t bothered turning on the car, and without the air conditioner running or the windows open, the heat had crept in and Faris felt his t-shirt sticking to his back.

  “Congratulations,” she said. “I have to go.” She flung the door open and walked across the parking lot before he could stop her.

  He ran out of the car without bothering to close the door behind him and caught up to her. He came behind her and grabbed her shoulders, spun her around to face him. “Why are you running like this? What did you want me to do?”

  She didn’t bother resisting. Instead, she placed her hands on the sides of his face and kissed him. The strong sun on her back, the open air of the hot summer only propelled her to kiss him harder. An inexplicable sense of freedom had seized Tamar and she welcomed the foolishness of her impulses. Faris, too shocked at first, stood lamely with his hands to his sides, and seconds later slipped his hands around her slender hips and did not let go.

  “That must be him,” Faris heard upon opening the front door. Sarine was sitting with her parents at the dining room table. Their plates were mostly empty and platters of half-eaten food sat on the table.

  “What happened?” Sarine asked, as she stood up and walked over to him. Her protruding belly made it difficult for her to move swiftly.

  “Ah,” he said, feigning annoyance. “I bumped into this guy I used to work with. He wouldn’t stop talking! I had to stand there and listen to him go on and on about the store and how it hasn’t changed and how I’m lucky to have found another job.”

  As he spoke, he was unsure of how convincing he sounded. He could not tell if Sarine’s parents were looking at him oddly because they didn’t believe him or because they were annoyed that he was late.

  “Finally, I said to him, ‘Frank, I have to go. My in-laws are coming over and I may have missed dinner!’ Who knows if he believed me. Who cares. I should have known better than to say hello. So really, it’s my fault. I’m sorry I missed dinner.” He stopped himself from continuing because he realized that he was babbling.

  “Sit down,” his mother-in law said. “We’ll sit with you while you eat. It’s no matter.”

  As he ladled food onto his plate, he sensed Sarine’s eyes on him and hoped she had just been worried. He and Sarine had spoken of his relationship with Tamar only once before and he hoped it would stay that way. Before they had gotten married, she had asked Faris if he still had feelings for Tamar. “To be honest, we were mostly childhood friends,” he had said. The words felt forced coming out of his mouth, a betrayal although he wasn’t sure if he was betraying only Tamar or what they had shared. “I had continued seeing her because she made it so difficult to end things. I was hoping her parents would intervene. Good thing Levon came along. It was really the best thing for her.” Sarine had seemed contented with this explanation and had never broached the subject after.

  She sat across from him now, her face impassive. He looked at her and smiled as if to say, “I’m sorry. I hope you’re not angry.” She gave a quick, small
smile and looked away.

  After her parents left, Faris went into the kitchen and started rinsing out the coffee pot. Sarine packed the leftovers from dinner. Silently they moved about the kitchen, a quiet orchestration of avoidance. Faris was trying to unscramble the sequence of events with Tamar. It all seemed a frustrating blur. After they had kissed, he held Tamar’s hand as he had for all those years and guided her back to his car. They sat and talked. Tamar told him how Levon was interested in buying a house in the area, and they had only recently started looking. The weight of time pressed on them. He needed to get back home, as did Tamar. Levon’s paranoia had escalated after their marriage.

  “I think he saw us the night before the wedding,” Tamar said.

  “Did he say that?” Faris asked.

  “No, but I can’t think of anything that would turn him this sour. He was so happy that night, and the next morning … Even when I saw him from all the way down the aisle in church, I knew he must have seen us. I’m scared to ask him. I’d rather leave it alone.”

  “I want to see you again,” he blurted.

  “This feels like the same conversation we had that night,” Tamar said. She had long abandoned the hope of ever being with Faris again. It hadn’t occurred to her until now that she could have married him. What was the worst that could have happened compared to what she had now? She had made her parents happy, but her daily existence felt like a punishment she didn’t deserve. The long, empty hours of sitting in the apartment she and Levon lived in until he came home from work, the silent dinners she suffered through, refusing to challenge his reticence—the monotony was hellish.

  “I know,” he said, letting out a quiet sigh. He looked at the digital clock on the dashboard and calculated that Sarine’s parents had arrived almost half an hour ago. Dusk was falling, and there were only a few stray cars left in the parking lot.

  “I don’t care what this seems like,” Tamar said, and before Faris could comprehend what she was doing, Tamar had raised herself from the passenger seat, lifted the skirt of her dress, and climbed over the stick shift. Within seconds she was sitting on his lap, facing him, with her legs planted on each side. He would sometimes see teenagers doing this in their parked cars and felt amazed at their shamelessness. He had never seen a couple actually having sex, although he knew people most likely did.

  They held each other’s gaze without moving. Her weight on his hips felt light and unfamiliar. She shifted slightly and he felt the light fabric of her underwear graze over the zipper of his jeans. He wanted to push her off of him, embarrassed that he had an erection, but felt helpless against her force. All of it felt unreal to Faris. It wasn’t an hour ago that he had been on his way to the supermarket, oblivious to what he would encounter. He felt her unbutton his jeans and pull down the zipper. Instead of taking off her underwear, she shifted the fabric aside and within moments he felt the warm pulse of being inside her.

  “What are we doing?” He could barely whisper the words.

  She kissed him, moving slowly and serenely as if they had done this many times before.

  Afterward she rested her chin on his shoulder, touching his hair lightly.

  “I don’t know what we should do,” he said.

  “There is nothing to do,” she said, and finally pulled away from him and managed to plant herself back into the passenger seat.

  “I love you still,” she said and paused. “And I miss you,” she said thoughtfully, as if making sure to say everything. “And I want to be with you. But none of that can happen.”

  “This is the same conversation …” he said, hissing the words as he slammed his hands on the steering wheel.

  “It’s always going to be,” she said. “We shouldn’t see each other.”

  “And what was this?” he asked, motioning to what had just happened. “Why this?”

  “I don’t know,” she said after a moment. “I was so sick of that memory of us the last time we saw each other. Just walking around with nowhere to go, no solution to what we wanted, in circles and circles. Maybe I need to remember you in a new way,” she said.

  “It was cruel,” he muttered.

  “Was it?” she said. “What’s the difference? This way or the last way? It all ends up the same.”

  Without saying anything else, she unlocked the car door and left. This time he let her.

  Cecile

  “Goddam bitch,” she muttered after hanging up the phone. Never mind that she had to go back and find Araxi, but her mother’s comment about not being able to pull anything off by herself had darkened her mood. She wished she hadn’t called.

  After leaving the hotel parking lot she had driven five miles before getting off at a random exit and finding a diner. She sat at a booth drinking coffee and watching the sky begin to lighten. It was the first time she had been without Araxi since they had left New York. She imagined Araxi waking up and realizing that she was alone, and probably calling the front desk to find out if she had checked out. It’s what any person would do. Cecile wanted to go back, but she did not know how to explain her disappearance. She could lie and say she had gone to fill up the car with gas or that she had been looking at the car from the hotel window and thought she saw someone breaking in. But the thought of continuing where they had left off and driving aimlessly with no hope of going back home seemed impossible to fathom. That is what had propelled her to buy the calling card and call Araxi’s house. She hoped Sophie would answer the phone, and that by speaking to her she would be committing herself to bringing Araxi back home. What she hadn’t predicted was that her mother would have tried contacting Araxi’s family.

  It unnerved her. For most of her teenage years her parents had been strangely detached from her or, rather, too involved in their own lives to take notice of hers. Her father, an attorney, had always worked long hours, and her mother’s drinking had become progressively worse. Although she was given complete freedom by the time she had entered junior high, she envied her classmates who complained about having to wait for their parents to pick them up after school. During lunch at school, she would hear them grumble about how they had to endure sitting through a family dinner when they would much rather be on the phone in their bedrooms eating take-out Chinese or pizza. In contrast, Cecile would walk to the bus stop by herself and sit through the forty-five minute ride to be deposited in front of her house, when she knew her mother was home and could have easily driven to school to get her. Often her father wasn’t home in time to eat dinner, and her mother would leave out an assortment of menus alongside a twenty-dollar bill for her. It wasn’t a life she was particularly looking forward to returning to.

  Cecile got in the car and drove back to the hotel. It was early enough that she could get away with telling Araxi she had gone out to buy breakfast. She hoped Araxi was still sleeping, but as she turned onto the block that led to the hotel she saw her trudging down the block with her duffel bag slung over her shoulder.

  “Araxi!” she yelled.

  Araxi stopped walking and looked around for a moment, and once she saw it was Cecile her faced grew cold and she kept walking.

  Cecile drove up to her and gently pushed open the passenger seat door and kept following her.

  “I’m sorry. I was just mad. Please get in,” she said.

  Araxi kept walking, then stopped, and got in the car. Cecile drove toward the highway and stayed quiet, but then noticed the bruise.

  “What the hell happened to you?”

  Araxi wouldn’t speak and then she said, “You know what? Pull over. I want to get out of this fucking car.”

  Ignoring her, Cecile kept driving.

  “What the hell happened to you?” she asked again. She felt a sudden blow to the side of her head, and almost hit the car in front of her. She turned to look at Araxi. She was raising her hand to hit her again and before she could, Cecile blocked her with her free hand. “Stop!” she yelled. “Stop!”

  “You left me!” It was beyond an accusation. I
t was a shriek, as if she were terrified. “You fucking asshole!”

  “I’m sorry, I said.”

  Cecile turned on the radio and lowered the windows. She gripped the steering wheel, hoping to wring the shaking out of her hands. She tried to choke down a sob.

  “I hate you, you bitch,” she heard, like a soft, low murmur. She turned to look at Araxi. She was staring out the window dully.

  The tall buildings blurred past them as Cecile drove and the landscape turned flat again. The sharp smell of manure filled the air when they drove past a cow farm. Neither of them spoke.

  “Those guys could have raped us,” Cecile said finally. “Or worse. I was so scared, Araxi. Talking to that guy was stupid.”

  “I said I was sorry like fifty times last night,” Araxi said. The bruise on her face had grown more swollen and red. “Besides,” she said, “I got him good.”

  “What do you mean you got him good?”

  “Where do you think I got the bruise on my face? I saw him on the street this morning after I left the hotel. I don’t know what I was doing, obviously, because I started running toward him and throwing rocks. He grabbed me and punched me at one point, but eventually I got rid of him,” Araxi said. Her hands were trembling. “And I’d rather not talk about it again.”

  “Do you want to go home?” Cecile knew she was taking a chance by asking.

  “No,” Araxi said. It made Cecile wince. She wondered how she was going to navigate them back to New York.

  “Why not?” Cecile asked.

  “Because nothing is worse than going back home,” Araxi said. “I’m not going back. Why? Do you want to?”

  Cecile was caught off guard by the question. She wanted to go back, but didn’t know why. She wasn’t sure if it was because she felt that she belonged back home, that what they were doing was horribly wrong or because she could no longer shake the anxiety of feeling so displaced and lost.