Dreams of Bread and Fire

by Nancy Kricorian

  Ani observed the therapist’s eyebrows rise into two peaks while the rest of her face remained impassive. “You sound angry,” the woman said evenly.

  “I’m not angry!” Ani shouted. “I’m depressed.”

  thorns are pulled out one by one

  Ani called her mother to ask for money. She needed help paying for the course of reduced-fee analysis she had agreed to with Dr. Levin, the woman to whom Ani had been referred by the health service therapist.

  Violet responded with concern. “Therapy? Four times a week? I told you that you were depressed. Can’t you just forget about that heel? You’re too good for him anyway. I don’t like the idea of you all alone in that big city when you’re feeling depressed. You’re not thinking of doing anything crazy, are you? Should I come down and get you?”

  “Mom, it’s totally normal to see a therapist in New York. It doesn’t mean you’re crazy. Elena’s seeing one. I bet half the French department is seeing somebody,” Ani assured her.

  Violet went into stage two of her response. “So this is some graduate student fad? You think I should send you my hard-earned money so you can be part of a fashion trend?”

  Ani took to the process quickly. After a few weeks of lying on the beige couch, the white room had become a mountain kingdom isolated from the rest of the world. Ani was the empress of the country and Dr. Levin its religious leader. Ani could say ­almost anything that came into her head and her secrets would not ­escape their national boundaries.

  But Ani didn’t mention the bombing in Brussels. She had thus far kept the details of Van’s political engagement extremely vague. But how was she supposed to keep her promise to him and let herself “free-associate” at the same time?

  On Sunday afternoon, Ani was alone in the apartment with her stacks of books and articles. She found herself thinking about her father, who had emerged in her therapy sessions more as an atmosphere than a person. Without quite articulating to herself what she was doing, Ani went outside, walked around the block to the building where she had lived the first four years of her life, and rang a specific buzzer.

  “Hello?” an older woman’s voice said over the intercom.

  “Hi. My name is Ani. I’m sorry to bother you. I used to live in your apartment when I was small, and I was wondering if I could come up and take a peek around.”

  Miraculously, the woman buzzed her in.

  On the third floor a white-haired woman with watery blue eyes peered out from her door. “I’m Rosemary Brennan. Why don’t you come in, dear.”

  Ani followed her down a long hall with bedrooms and a ­bathroom on the right and black and white checked tiles on the floor. She suddenly saw the wheels of a red tricycle going over the checked floor. Her red tricycle. Her dad was behind her, with his foot on the trike’s back step and his hands next to hers on the silver handlebars. There were red and white plastic streamers at the end of each handle grip.

  “Why don’t you sit down,” Mrs. Brennan said.

  “Thanks,” Ani said, taking a wing chair next to a window overlooking Morningside Park.

  Ani saw her father sitting back in a deep blue armchair blowing smoke rings out the window. He looked up at her and smiled before fading away.

  “When did you live here?” Mrs. Brennan asked. Her face was fair and narrow with deep smile lines. Her head trembled slightly as she talked.

  “We left in August of 1965,” Ani said.

  Ani stood on the sidewalk scuffing the rubber toes of her blue sneakers while Baba put the suitcases in the back of the car. It was a hot day and there were rings of sweat under the arms of Baba’s work shirt. Grandma sat on the stoop fanning herself with a section of the newspaper.

  “We moved here in October of the same year,” Mrs. Brennan said.

  “I remember the floor tiles in the hall,” Ani said.

  “Yes, we replaced them about five years ago with the same thing that was here when we arrived.”

  “My father was killed by a hit-and-run driver.”

  Ani had never seen the body, which seemed like a merciful thing to spare a child, although it left her with the impression that he had walked out the door and vanished into the cityscape.

  Mrs. Brennan said, “We heard about that from the neighbors. Six years later our son was shot on the corner of Morningside and 120th Street during a robbery. You never get over something like that, do you?”

  “How old was he?” Ani asked.

  She immediately regretted having asked the question. Would it be better or worse if Mrs. Brennan answered ten or twenty? Ten would be worse, because then the mother could never forgive herself for allowing her child outside.

  “Nineteen. The police never solved the case.”

  “I’m so sorry.”

  The words hung on the air for a moment, wan and useless.

  “Yes, well, I have another son. That’s something to be thankful for,” Mrs. Brennan said.

  Ani used the bathroom on her way out. She stood at the sink running warm water over her hands and staring in the mirror. When she shut her eyes she heard the sound of water jostling in the sink as her father splashed his face. He applied the shaving cream to his cheeks like a white mask. The razor slowly unveiled his beloved face in long narrow strips. After the water had drained there were bits of white froth and tiny hairs in the basin. Her father leaned over to offer his freshly shaved face to her. It was smooth, damp, and warm under her palm.

  In her apartment Ani lay on the lumpy couch staring through the barred window.

  My soul is weary of my life; I will leave my complaint upon myself; I will speak in the bitterness of my soul.

  Strange the lines that came echoing back up the long halls of memory. Mrs. Duke, the Sunday school teacher, had listened to the Bible verses that Ani learned by heart, putting a star on the wall chart by Ani’s name for each.

  But Ani, dear, Mrs. Duke had said, why don’t you try some New Testament verses?

  And I saw the dead, small and great, stand before God; and the books were opened: and another book was opened, which is the book of life: and the dead were judged out of those things which were written in the books, according to their works.

  That wasn’t quite what Mrs. Duke had in mind either.

  Suddenly tired, Ani closed her eyes and drifted into sleep.

  When Ani woke up, the sky was dark outside the window. She went to her desk and picked up her address book. She pulled out the telephone directory and found what she assumed was her aunt’s phone number.

  “Is this Leah Kantrowitz?” Ani asked.

  “Yes. Who is this?” the woman asked.

  “This is Ani Silver, David Silver’s daughter.”

  There was a sharp intake of breath.

  “I’m in graduate school here in the city,” Ani said.

  “You must be twenty-three?”

  “That’s right.” Ani wasn’t sure what to say next. There was a long silence.

  Leah Kantrowitz sighed loudly. “After so many years. I’m sorry. I have nothing to say to you.” She hung up the phone.

  Levin asked, “Were you disappointed?”

  “Of course I was disappointed,” Ani answered. There were tears streaming down the sides of her face into her ears. “The problem with this couch is that the water gets into your ears and then goes running down your neck.”

  Levin slid a tissue box toward Ani along the back of the couch.

  “You probably buy these things wholesale,” Ani said, pulling a couple of tissues out of the box. “Where were my grandparents from? What job did my grandfather have? Does somebody have a copy of the family tree? I can just see it, with my father’s branch amputated at the elbow.”

  “The phone call might have been a shock to her. She may need some time to think about it. You could call h
er again in a few weeks. Or you could send her a letter.”

  “Are you actually giving me practical advice?” Ani asked.

  Levin laughed. “Maybe I am. But we’ll have to talk about that next time.”

  That night Ani wandered again in a big warehouse full of dreams. She scribbled them down in her journal in the morning and brought them dutifully to the session with Levin like a cat returning home with a dead mouse dangling from its jaw.

  Ani said, “And then Van lobbed a bomb into the Willards’ house. Asa and May and Asa’s parents all ran screaming from the house as it exploded into flames. Baba was standing on the sidewalk outside, shaking his head, and he said, That crazy boy got the wrong house. The Turks live up the block.”

  Levin was silent.

  “Aren’t you going to offer an interpretation?” Ani asked. She had never given Levin the information she needed, however, to interpret Van and the bomb.

  “Do you want me to?” Levin asked.

  “Well, I mean, isn’t that your job? It seems like you don’t have anything to say about my dreams unless you can somehow figure an angle to see yourself in them.”

  “Is that what it feels like to you? That I’m only interested in myself?”

  “Lord almighty, do you always have to answer me with a ­question?”

  “You want me to give you answers?”

  “This is hopeless,” Ani said. “It’s going to take years to get anywhere at this rate. How long is this supposed to take anyway?”

  “Are you worried about how long it’s going to be?”

  Ani said, “For once, could you just answer the goddamned question?”

  “Generally, it takes between six and twelve years.”

  “I might be thirty-five and still lying here on this couch?”

  “Do you like that idea?”

  “Well, it is kind of reassuring, because I have no idea what else I’ll be doing.”

  “What do you imagine?”

  “Okay. As I see it, there are several possible scenarios. One: I’ll be an assistant professor of French literature at some New England college, married with two children, a Volvo, and periodic depressions. Two: I’ll be helping to run a lesbian commune in western Massachusetts, supporting myself by doing bodywork and selling hand-painted greeting cards. Three: I’ll be living in liberated Armenia near Mount Ararat, knitting woolen sweaters for Van and our five doe-eyed children. I’m still working on the fourth and final possibility. I’m open to suggestions, so if you have any sage advice, now would be a good time to offer it.”

  “A lesbian commune?”

  “That would be the one you picked up on, and I’m sure it has something to do with you,” Ani said sourly.

  When she arrived at her building, Ani opened the mailbox in the lobby. There was a letter from her mother, but when she opened the envelope there was another envelope inside that her mother had forwarded. It had been postmarked in Montreal six days earlier. She hurriedly pulled out a sheet of onionskin on which these words were typed:

  I was one of the birds who didn’t seek for grain on the ground,

  I would always fly, fly and avoid the snare of love.

  But my snare had been set in the sea, though about that I knew nothing.

  Every bird stood trapped by its feet, but I stood trapped, both feet and arms.

  Nahabed Kouchag

  (16th century)

  The Canadian postmark, the Armenian verses with an oblique and cryptic message from an anonymous sender: this was Van’s work. Since when had he started reading poetry? He was still in love with her. Montreal was not so far away. He might appear on her doorstep, in a day, or a week, or a month.

  better a wise sinner than a righteous fool

  “Sorry, I’m late,” Ani said, as she tossed herself onto the couch. “Listen, there’s something I’ve been wanting to tell you.”

  “Yes?” Levin prompted.

  “It’s about Van.”

  He had lied to her and then abandoned her: that was the version she had told Levin. But confiding in a shrink wasn’t like telling anybody else. Saying it out loud here would be okay. Every­thing Ani said within these four white walls stayed here, out of time and ordinary space.

  “What about Van?” Levin asked.

  “He planted a bomb outside a Turkish tourist office in Brussels,” Ani said.

  “Why?”

  “It’s an Armenian thing, you know. He’s in this underground army, or he was in this underground army, but now he’s hiding from the leader because there was a split after the bombing at Orly. I really don’t know what he’s doing now. Or what he’s going to do next. But I got a note from him yesterday. He’s in Canada.”

  “You never mentioned these details before,” Levin said.

  “I swore I wouldn’t say anything to anyone. But I figure telling you isn’t exactly like breaking the promise because you’re a shrink. If he comes back—”

  “You would want him back?” Levin interrupted.

  Ani shrugged and sighed. “Maybe I shouldn’t, but I do.”

  “It wouldn’t trouble you that he was a terrorist?” the analyst asked.

  Ani glanced at the shoes on the black ottoman. They were red leather pumps. What would a woman in red leather pumps know about revolutionary struggle?

  “Revolutionary,” Ani corrected. “One person’s terrorist is another person’s freedom fighter. When a revolutionary wins he becomes the hero and leader of his country. Look at Fidel Castro—or George Washington, for that matter. But anyway, there was this guy who was an assassin for the Dashnaks’ Operation Neme­sis in the early twenties. He hunted down and killed a couple of Young Turk bigwigs—you know, the guys who masterminded the Armenian Genocide. Then he married his sweetheart, moved to New Jersey, and became a successful businessman. I think he ran a dry cleaning store or something like that. On Sunday after church he was just the Armenian guy next door outside mowing his lawn.”

  “You think he was justified in killing?”

  “Justified in killing the men who orchestrated the deaths of over a million Armenians? They planned it. They made it happen. What do you think? I mean, it’s a bit murkier when you start shooting Turkish diplomats who weren’t even born in 1915, but these other guys were guilty of genocide. They were role models for Adolf Hitler.”

  “You think Van might become the guy next door mowing the lawn?”

  “I don’t know. Maybe I’ll get over it, but right now I still love him.”

  Ani returned to her apartment. She finished lunch and sat on the couch, the telephone resting on her knees. She willed herself to pick up the receiver and dial Leah Kantrowitz’s number. What was the worst thing that could happen? Her aunt would slam down the receiver. She had done that before. Maybe this time she would shout something horrible and insulting into the phone before hanging up. Ani would survive that as well.

  Ani’s shoulders were bunched up near her neck, as though tensed in anticipation of a blow to the head. The line rang, one, two, three times.

  The woman picked up on the fourth ring. “Hello?”

  “Hello, Mrs. Kantrowitz?”

  “Yes? Who is this?” the woman asked.

  “This is Ani Silver.” Ani winced, fearing the effect of this name.

  There was silence on the other end.

  The telephone wire ran from Ani’s ear, into the wall, out into the street, and then snaked in cables underground until it emerged in the basement of Mrs. Kantrowitz’s building, climbed to her apartment, and inched into the live handle the woman held against her ear. It was practically an act of violence and stealth. Would Mrs. Kantrowitz refuse the connection?

  “I hope you don’t mind—” Ani began.

  Mrs. Kantrowitz interrupted. “I’ve been thinking about
you since you called. You want we should meet?”

  Several hours later Ani, wearing a skirt and jacket as though dressed for a job interview, presented herself in a gilt and marble lobby on West End Avenue. The uniformed doorman with bushy eyebrows called upstairs to announce Ani’s arrival, and a taciturn elevator operator dropped her on the seventh floor.

  Ani wiped her feet on the woven straw mat outside her aunt’s door. On the right side of the doorframe there was a small wooden bar with Hebrew writing on it nailed on a diagonal. Ani pressed the cream-colored doorbell button, and the jangling bell echoed inside the apartment. She heard slow footfalls coming up the hall and then the door opened.

  Leah Kantrowitz was short and stout with straight chestnut hair that curled in at her shoulders. The eyebrows were a very different shade of brown. Mrs. Kantrowitz—“Aunt Leah” seemed a presumptuous form of address even in thought—wore a drop-waist tan dress that fell to just above her ankles.

  “Come in, come in,” Mrs. Kantrowitz said.

  As Mrs. Kantrowitz turned to lead the way into the apartment, her hair shifted in one unit. It had to be a wig.

  A lace-covered oval table and a chandelier of crystal teardrops dominated the dining room. From the west-facing windows Ani could see the avenue and a sliver of river glittering at the end of a side street. Most of one wall was covered with framed photographs spanning from turn-of-the-century black-and-white ­studio portraits to professional color photos of babies and small children who were probably Mrs. Kantrowitz’s grandchildren.

  “Why don’t you take a seat. Would you like tea or coffee?” the woman asked.

  “Just water, thanks,” Ani said.

  Mrs. Kantrowitz returned with a glass of seltzer and a plate of cookies, sitting down across from Ani, whose palms were damp and cold.

  “You have his eyes,” Mrs. K. said. “Same shade of gray. Otherwise you look like your mother. I met her once. That was all a long time ago.” She sighed heavily, her eyes clouded with the past. Finally, she twitched her head slightly, awakening to Ani’s presence. “What is it I can do for you?”