“This room gives me the creeps,” Van said.
“Okay,” Ani said. “We can eat in the kitchen if the décor bothers you that much.”
“It’s not a question of aesthetics, Ani.”
“I know, I know. It’s a question of ethics.”
They set the everyday dishes on the table in the long narrow kitchen. The room was large by Parisian standards, but it was the smallest in the apartment. Ani opened a bottle she had filched from the Bartons’ wine cellar. As she went to pour some into Van’s glass he covered it with his hand.
“Not even a little wine on Christmas day?” she asked.
He shook his head. “Since when do you drink?”
She shrugged. “A glass of wine on a festive occasion seems okay to me. What are you, a teetotaler like my grandparents?”
“All right,” he said. “I won’t be dogmatic. Give me a splash so we can make a toast to old friends.”
“I thought we were cousins,” Ani said.
He raised his glass. “Friends, cousins, compatriots.”
Ani had once asked her grandmother how she and Van were related.
Grandma had answered in Armenian. His grandmother Sophie is Sourpouhi Nahabedian. My family name was Nahabedian. Sourpig’s husband’s father and my father were first cousins.
The blood tie was remote. It occurred to Ani that only an Armenian would think of Van as her cousin.
This conversation had taken place in the Ardavanians’ crowded living room. It had been Van’s high school graduation party. Ani roosted next to her grandmother on the couch while Baba sat in a corner with Van’s grandfather, Vahram. The two old men leaned their heads together like conspirators.
In the car on the way home Baba said fondly of Vahram Ardavanian, That guy is a hard-boiled egg. Still a Hunchak.
What’s a Hunchak? Ani had asked.
Baba said, There are three main Armenian political parties: Dashnak, Hunchak, and Ramgavar. The Hunchaks are Communists. The Dashnaks go to Saint Stephen’s Church and the Ramgavars go to Saint James.
Ani asked, Where do the Hunchaks go?
Straight to hell, Baba said.
When he had stopped chuckling at his own joke, Baba continued. Van’s family goes to the First Armenian Church. They’re poghokagan, but not so Protestant as your grandmother.
What are we? Ani queried.
Chezokh, he replied.
What’s that?
I vote Democrat and your grandmother votes Party of God.
Grandma had swatted at him with her handbag. God’s listening to you, Mr. Smart Pants, she had said.
“You want some tea?” Ani asked, beginning to clear the plates from the table.
“Sure,” Van replied.
As Ani filled the teakettle from the tap, Van asked, “So who was the boyfriend?”
“Asa Willard: mountaineer and pothead. He dumped me for someone more exotic.”
“Sounds bad,” Van said.
“Yeah, well. In upbeat moments I comfort myself with the fact that I’ll never have to listen to the Grateful Dead again.”
Van laughed.
“You have a girlfriend?” Ani asked. She wanted him to say no.
“Had one in Beirut. Maro. She died about a year ago.” Elbow on the table, he put his chin in his hand and frowned at the floor tiles.
Ani envisioned an Armenian girl with long raven hair lying in the road as a dented black car sped away. Blood pooled on the pavement as people crowded around her lifeless body. That was how Ani’s father had died. But this girl Maro, whom Van had loved, had her own story.
Into Van’s long silence Ani cast the question. “How did she die?”
“Sniper. She was standing by the window in her parents’ apartment. A bullet through the head.”
Ani blocked this image from her mind’s eye. She didn’t want to see it.
“I’m sorry,” she said, regretting the pale blandness of her remark.
“She died for nothing,” Van said bitterly, placing emphasis on the final word.
Nothing, Ani repeated silently.
“There are things you would die for?” she asked.
His eyes met hers like a shot. “Yes. What about you?”
She looked away from his fierce gaze. “I don’t know.”
During Ani’s freshman year, her European history professor had asked each student in the discussion section whether he—there were only two girls in the group—would have gone to the barricades during the French revolution of 1848. Ani, who had been called on first, had said no. She was suffering from mono at the time so the idea of walking up the block was overwhelming, let alone heaving paving stones at firing loyalist troops. Much to her chagrin, everyone else in the class had earnestly answered yes. Ani looked around and was unable to imagine the white boys at the table joining any kind of insurrection other than a cafeteria food fight.
“You want some more tea?” Ani asked.
“No, thanks,” Van said, glancing at his watch. “I’ve got to head out. I’m staying at a friend’s place in Ivry until I find something in town.”
As Van was leaving, there was an awkward moment at the door. Should they shake hands? Should they exchange quatre bises? Should they hug? Ani couldn’t decide what gesture was appropriate and Van wasn’t helping. He seemed to have curled in on himself like one of those potato bugs that Ani used to find under the marble stepping-stones in the back garden. She wrote her phone number on a scrap of paper, and he said something vague about getting in touch after he had settled in.
Ani went to her empty room. She missed her family. At home her mother was probably gathering up the shredded wrapping paper while her grandfather leaned back in the armchair digesting his meal. Grandma would be at the kitchen sink, her yellow rubber gloves plunging through the soap bubbles while she hummed “Amazing Grace.” Ani dialed the number on her orange telephone. There was no answer in the downstairs apartment so she called Auntie Alice and Uncle Paul’s place.
When Auntie Alice answered, the receiver was handed all around. Ani’s cousin Mike and his wife had produced the first great-grandchild, whose wail could be made out in the background. Grandma couldn’t hear anything so Ani had to shout into the phone. Her mother sounded distracted, but Ani couldn’t tell if it was just the long-distance connection and the din in the apartment. Every member of the family wished Ani a merry Christmas and asked about the weather in Paris. Overcast and seasonably cold with light flurries.
She forgot to mention Van.
a big house, a big nest of pain
An old Judy Garland record was playing on the stereo when Ani arrived at the party. Odile, dressed in a vintage black gabardine suit, dragged Ani through the crowded front room toward her boyfriend, Pierre.
“Finally we meet,” Pierre said. “Odile has been telling me about you.”
“I hope she’s been saying nice things,” Ani said.
“Of course, only magnificent things,” Odile said.
After Pierre went to change the record and Odile drifted off to attend to other guests, Ani searched the front room for familiar faces. For a moment she was sure she would spend the next hour haunting the edges of the party, eating finger food and sizing up the other misfits who were nervously moving around the perimeter of the room. With relief she spotted a cluster of Sondage groupies near the window. One of the women recognized Ani and waved for her to join them. Ani gave silent thanks as their conversation eddied around her.
After a while she dropped onto the couch to duck the haze of smoke. A narrow-faced guy with wire-rimmed glasses settled beside her, his wineglass in hand.
“Un boum comme ça, c’est épuisant, quand même.” He sighed, running his fingers through dark curly hair.
Ani answered in French. “Total
ly.”
“But you’re from Toulouse?” he asked.
“Toulouse? Why do you think that?”
“The accent, of course.”
“Thanks for the kindness. I’m American.”
“What’s your name?”
“Ani Silver.”
“I am Jacques Stein.” He shook Ani’s hand. “With a name like Silver I suppose you’re Jewish, which explains why you don’t look American.”
“I’m half Jewish, half Armenian.”
“Do you feel twice blessed or doubly cursed?” he asked.
Ani said, “I feel American.”
He gave a curt nod. “It’s certainly simpler that way.”
This sounded vaguely dismissive to Ani. “Is that bad?”
He shrugged and grimaced, simultaneously tipping his head to one side and turning a palm up. “You’re fortunate you have the choice.”
“And you don’t?”
“Can one forget who one is for an hour with a name like Stein in a country like this? Open your eyes, Mademoiselle Silver.” He drank deeply from his glass.
After a pause he said, “You will excuse me. I’m tired and must go home before I get into an even blacker humor. It was a pleasure to have met you.”
Ani watched him retreat across the room and make his apologies to Odile at the door.
Open your eyes, Ani Silver. It felt like a biblical injunction. Ani thought of the black leather Bible she had been given by her Sunday school teacher. The Bible had provoked a fight between her mother and grandmother about Armenian school.
Most of the Armenian kids that Ani knew attended Armenian school part-time. Lucy Sevanian went to Saint James Church on Monday and Wednesday afternoons. Van Ardavanian attended Saturday school. Grandma pleaded with Ani, but when the girl saw the hard look on her mother’s face, she said no.
Why should she go, Ma? Why? Violet asked. What does she need it for?
Because it’s her language, Grandma said in Armenian.
Her language is English, Violet replied. She’s American.
She’s Armenian, Mariam responded in Armenian.
She’s half Armenian, half.
While they argued over her head, Ani imagined a black dotted line drawn down the middle of her face that ran down her torso. Her right arm and right leg were on the Armenian side. Grandma had her right arm, Mom had the left arm, and they were jerking her back and forth across the boundary between Armenia and America.
You don’t care, Grandma scolded in English. You don’t teach you daughter nothing. You vent to New York to smoke cigarettes vith beatnuts—
Beatniks, Ma, beatniks. And I wasn’t hanging around with beatniks. I was in college.
Grandma said bitterly, You drop out college to marry that herya.
Ani’s mother went pale. He’s dead. Isn’t that enough for you? she yelled. She ran to her bedroom and slammed the door.
Grandma sank into her armchair and put her face in her hands. Bidi mernim, bidi mernim, she moaned. I’m dying.
Ani didn’t think her grandmother was dying; at least it didn’t appear that way. She stood wondering whether to pat her grandmother’s back or to search out her mother, paralyzed by the fear that both of them hated her. She was, after all, the source of the trouble. At that moment Ani was relieved to hear Baba entering the front door.
What’s all the yelling? Baba asked. I could hear you down the block.
Without a word, Grandma went to her bedroom and slammed the door.
They got into a big fight, Ani explained. Baba, what does herya mean?
He looked at the girl knowingly. Your grandmother’s tongue is a razor, eh? Herya means Jew, honey.
What’s a Jew? Ani asked.
The Jews are God’s chosen people. Like the Armenians, they were chosen for a lot of suffering.
Are they Christians?
They have their own religion.
Do they believe in Jesus?
He sighed. Not in the way you mean, yavrum. But Jesus was a Jew. Listen, why don’t you go out in the yard and play for a while.
On the swing, Ani pumped harder and harder until one side of the swing set lifted from the ground at the top of each arc. Silver must be a Jewish name, she thought. Her grandmother referred to non-Armenians by nationality: the O’Malleys were known simply as “the Irish,” the Narbonis were “the Italians,” and the Pappases were “the Greeks.” Grandma rarely pronounced a surname, unless it was Topalian, Hagopian, or Bardazbanian.
At school, even though the kids never talked about it, everyone knew who belonged to which ethnic group. In school and at recess, kids could play with anyone, but after-school socializing was often organized along national lines. Ani was counted as an Armenian.
Ani slowed her swing. Was she American or Armenian? But now there was an added quandary: the left side of her body was American and Jewish. Would Jesus have to squeeze into the right side of her small heart? What about Ani’s father, the herya? Were there different sections in heaven for Jews and Christians? Did Jews go to heaven?
In her grandmother’s bedroom behind the armchair hung a bright picture of Jesus knocking at a heavy wooden door framed by ivy, and under the picture, in Gothic script, were printed the words:
Behold, I stand at the door, and knock: if any man hear my voice, and open the door, I will come in to him, and will sup with him, and he with me. Rev. 3:20
Whenever Ani had looked at this picture she envisioned her father standing on the other side of the door, about to open it for Jesus. Her father’s face as he was in life had faded from memory, so the black-and-white photo Ani kept on the shelf in her room was the father she imagined. It was this monochrome David Silver, with black hair, gray eyes, and a fixed smile, who greeted God’s son.
Pastor Duke’s wife was Ani’s Sunday school teacher. Mrs. Duke, a pretty, bird-thin woman with prematurely white hair, told the kids about her conversion.
One night, when I was nine years old, children, I was lying in my bed praying for forgiveness and asking Jesus to enter my heart when I heard Jesus’ voice. He said, Rebecca, I will wash away your sins, and I will never forsake you. The next morning, children, when I opened my eyes, the world was changed by my love for Jesus and His love for me. Outside my window the grass was greener, the flowers brighter, and the birdsong sweeter. This happiness can be yours, children. God loves you and wants you at His side.
The pastor’s wife instructed them to bow their heads and ask Jesus into their hearts. Ani imagined her heart was a fist and she had to loosen the fingers so Jesus, as small as a slip of soap, could take up residence. She made a chapel with her hands and squeezed her eyes closed to silently issue the invitation.
Ani stopped breathing for a moment to listen for Jesus’ answer but she didn’t hear anything except for Charles Hairabedian, who was sitting next to her, cracking his knuckles. She looked around, hoping that the basement Sunday school would be gleaming with Christ’s light, but it appeared just the same. The blackboard partitions around them were covered with chalk dust. The graying dropped ceiling had yellow watermarks on it from when the pipes had leaked.
Ani glanced around the crowded Parisian apartment. One minute that dusky childhood was around her like a cloak and the next she was transported back to the present. Here she was in France, thousands of miles away from anything she could call home. She saw herself from above, a tiny speck on the face of the planet.
Odile alighted on the couch next to Ani. “I hope Jacques didn’t bother you.”
“He says he can never forget for one minute who he is in this country,” Ani reported.
“Oh, he’s a paranoiac like most Jews. But when he isn’t grumbling he can be quite droll,” Odile replied.
Ani lifted her eyebrows slightly. Obviously, Odile thought o
f Ani as an American.
“Here,” Odile said, pushing a plastic champagne flute into Ani’s hand. “It’s only minutes until the New Year.”
walk with the Devil but don’t let go of his tail
“In Connecticut we had Pop-Tarts for breakfast.” Sydney wrinkled her nose. “Lots of frozen dinners and SpaghettiOs.”
“Your dad was eating SpaghettiOs?” Ani asked. She slid a stack of pancakes onto Sydney’s plate.
“They went out for dinner. Kyle and I ate food that wasn’t fit for no dog.”
Ani said, “I missed you too, Syd.”
“What did you do for Christmas?” Sydney asked.
“An old friend came by. You want a cheese sandwich or peanut butter and jelly for lunch?”
“Cheese. Boy or girl?”
“I’ve known him since I was five.”
“A boyfriend?”
“No.”
“Mommy said to be nice because your boyfriend dumped you. You should send him a stink bomb. Kyle showed me how. We have all the ingredients.”
“I’m not into revenge, Syd.”
A stink bomb didn’t seem like a bad idea to Ani, although her own fantasies ran toward letter bombs. It made her sick, thinking about Asa’s exciting post-Ani life. Only that morning she had dreamed that Asa had insisted on showing her photos of him and May on the beach. He was red-eyed stoned. She woke feeling like a dishrag that had been laundered until it was threadbare.
At least with Sydney and Tacey back Ani had a reason for getting up in the morning. Then seminars at Jussieu resumed, and dance classes provided more distraction. Odile and Ani were choreographing a piece that came out of their improvisation sessions. One afternoon Ani met Michael at the Pompidou Center to watch four hours of ethnographic films. She fabricated an excuse for why she couldn’t go to his place to play backgammon.
When Ani had given up hope of hearing from him, Van finally called. They made plans to go to the movies later in the week. Ani selected an old comedy and they met outside the cinema. In the darkened theater clear black-and-white frames rolled over the screen, dialogue played out crisp as newly minted bills, and Ani laughed until tears slid down her face. She was still smiling when they emerged onto the street.
Dreams of Bread and Fire Page 8