The Doves of Ohanavank

by Vahan Zanoyan

  Edik calls to ask if we can meet in Yerevan, and wants to have at least one meeting with Anna as well.

  “I’ve been in touch with Martirosian,” he says, “but I have not told you two anything because things were still evolving. There are some interesting surprises.”

  “I’m sure she’d love to see you again. You’ve made quite an impression on her. She’s reading Varujan, the book you gave me for my birthday.”

  “Good for her,” he laughs. “I’ll be in Yerevan tomorrow afternoon. Why don’t the three of us have dinner this time? You and Anna decide what time and let me know. Do you want to go to the Italian restaurant on Toumanian again, or somewhere else?”

  “That doesn’t matter to either of us. You decide. I’ll call you back with the time.”

  “Okay, I’ll introduce you to a new cuisine,” he says. “We’ll go to a Lebanese restaurant that just opened on Zakian Street. I hear it’s good. Text me the time so I can reserve.”

  I don’t tell him that I was introduced to Lebanese cuisine in Dubai. Some of the most elaborate breakfasts at Sumaya’s villa and the most common meals that the staff used to deliver to my villa fresh every day were Lebanese, with occasional Indian dishes thrown in for variety.

  The restaurant is small but pleasant. We sit at a quiet corner in the back. Edik asks to meet the owner, a young man called Murad, with a bushy, black mustache and thick-rimmed eyeglasses. They chat for a few minutes. Edik finds out that he comes from a suburb of Beirut called Bourj Hammoud where most residents are Armenian, and that he owned a restaurant there for over twenty-five years.

  “Now you will see the ingenuity of the Lebanese cuisine,” he says turning back to us. “Here, you can order around twenty dishes by just saying one word: Mezza. I used to surprise my Japanese guests in a Lebanese restaurant in Geneva with that. We’d go in, sit down, and I’d tell the waiter ‘mezza,’ and watch as they start bringing around a dozen cold appetizers, followed by another dozen hot appetizers. ‘When did you order all this?’ the Japanese would ask, surprised. ‘All this’ has a name, I’d say. It always broke the ice with new sources that I was trying to tap for information.”

  “Edik,” I say a bit impatiently, “Anna has a surprise for you.”

  “You do?” he turns to Anna with anticipation. “You’ll have my full attention as soon as I order something to drink. Would you ladies have some wine with me, or, since we’re here, would you like to try the traditional Lebanese drink? It is called Arak and it is kind of strong, but is excellent with this food.”

  “You decide, Edik jan.”

  He calls the owner and makes sure they have authentic Lebanese Arak, and orders half a bottle.

  “Now,” he says turning back to Anna, “tell me.”

  Anna starts reciting the first poem of Pagan Songs, “To The Statue of Beauty.” She recites it by heart, with such skill and perfect enunciation, that even I am surprised. She sounds like a professional actress performing on stage.

  Edik keeps staring at her with his mouth open.

  “Anna, that was flawless!” he says. “Just flawless. Where did you learn to recite like that? Especially Western Armenian?”

  Anna blushes and starts fidgeting with her napkin. “This is the shortest poem in the volume,” she says, as if that answers his question.

  “And one of the most beautiful! Apres! Bravo! Where is that Arak?” He turns toward the service corner, “Now we have something worth celebrating!”

  Anna is on cloud nine, and I am pleased that we pulled this off. The Arak comes. Edik mixes in water and the clear liquid turns white. “The Lebanese call this the milk of lions,” he laughs. As he pours the Arak for the three of us, they start piling dishes of appetizers on the table.

  “Here’s to the discovery of a new artistic talent!” he declares. We toast and take a sip. I can see Anna’s nose crinkle, but I like the drink. This is one thing that they never served in my villa in Dubai. We could not have any alcohol, even though my mind briefly wanders away to one night when Ahmed showed up with a bottle of champagne.

  “I have some interesting news,” says Edik, as he explains the dishes and shows us how some of them are to be eaten by hand, or scooped up by a piece of pita bread. “Do you mind if we talk while we eat?”

  “Tell us,” I say smiling at him. I like him even more than usual tonight, maybe because we succeeded in surprising and impressing him like that. It is easier to like someone when you find that you can please him with a simple, considerate gesture.

  “Your husband, Mr. Hov Samoyan, has an interesting new job,” starts Edik. “He is a security officer, has a license to carry a firearm, and works for none other than Mr. LeFreak.” He turns to me when he brings up that name. Anna is quiet, and has stopped eating.

  “Please, don’t let any of this kill your appetite. Try this salad,” he passes a plate of tabbouleh to Anna. “Now, I have to admit that a couple of weeks ago we did something naughty. I told Martirosian to put the word around that Hov’s wife is seeking a divorce and has hired a lawyer to start the paperwork, to see his reaction.” Anna’s eyes are wide open again, and she has again stopped eating. Edik passes her another plate with a nod, urging her to eat.

  “Well, his first reaction was apparently very bad,” he continues. “He got angry, and asked some of his new co-workers, all LeFreak’s henchmen, to help him find his wife.” Seeing Anna’s anxiety, he holds up his hand, signaling for her to just hear him out. “The henchmen of course do not take orders from him, nor do they use their muscle without LeFreak’s approval. So the word goes back to LeFreak that one of their new recruits has a wife problem, that she has run away to Yerevan and is about to file for divorce, and that he’s asked for their help in finding her.” Edik empties his glass of Arak, takes a bite of sujuk, and starts mixing another glass. He looks at us, staring at him expectantly.

  “Well, Mr. LeFreak wants to know the details. Why did she run away, how long ago, etc. The aides advise Hov not to lie. ‘He’ll eventually find out the truth,’ they say, ‘and if you have lied, God help you.’ So, our Hov actually confesses that he tried to make his lovely young wife work as a prostitute, and that was the main reason why she ran away.”

  “He confessed?” says Anna, her voice a bit too loud.

  “Shhh,” says Edik, putting his forefinger to his lips. “Yes indeed, he confessed. But his confession was music to Mr. LeFreak’s ears. He asked Hov to come to Yerevan to meet him in person. A great honor, you understand, for the newly hired young thug to meet the boss in person.” Edik washes down the sarcasm with another healthy swig of Arak, and takes another bite. He looks at us again, enjoying the suspense he has created.

  “In LeFreak’s eyes, Hov is up for a promotion. If someone can sell his own wife into prostitution, imagine what he can do with total strangers, helpless girls from orphanages, or anyone vulnerable enough to be either lured or forced into the business. So Hov is viewed as an asset to the future of the organization.”

  Of course, I understand precisely what Edik is talking about, but Anna does not. “What asset?” she asks. “What organization?”

  “Anna, the business that LeFreak is trying to get into is something called sex-trafficking. Have you heard of it? Do you know what it means?”

  Anna shakes her head.

  “They take young girls and sell them into prostitution. What your husband tried to do to you is actually a huge business, Anna. Hov did not know that when he tried to sell you. But it is a multi-billion dollar business. They fool, steal or convince young girls and take them and sell them. Your husband got a promotion because the boss thought he was a natural.”

  Edik notices the angst on my face and stops. Why does he have to rub it in like that? The Arak may have a role, and I think Sirarpi has a role too. She is always in the background.

  “Sorry,” he says, looking at me. “At any rate, LeFreak hears his confession one more time from his own mouth. ‘Divorce the bitch,’ he says. ‘You cannot be tied down
with that kind of baggage anyway. Divorce her and move on.’”

  Anna’s jaw drops at the ‘divorce the bitch’ bit, but there is also a glimmer of hope in her eyes.

  “His boss told him to divorce me?”

  “That is exactly what he told him.” Edik empties his glass. I have seen Edik drink two bottles of wine without any visible effect. But the few glasses of Arak seem to have made him tipsy already. “So Martirosian is finalizing the papers. He’ll have them ready for you to sign in a couple of days. Then he’ll send the papers to Hov through his own channels. Once countersigned, you’d be officially divorced from Hov Samoyan. Martirosian says it is a simple case, and you two do not even have to meet, because there are no assets to divide. He is representing in the papers that you have no claims against him, Anna. Are you okay with that?”

  “What does that mean?” she asks, and I notice how her voice is shaking.

  “It means you have no demands, no compensation requirements, nothing. You get divorced and go your own way. He owes you nothing. Martirosian says that if we want to keep this simple and make sure that you do not have to meet Hov, that is the way to go.”

  “Of course I want nothing. I just want him not to be my husband anymore… and to leave me alone.”

  “Anna, I have not met Hov, but people like that are not reliable. I do not want to mislead you with happy scenarios. He may sign the papers and still decide to come after you. Revenge, spite, pride, all factor into it. So we’ll take this a step at a time. One positive thing right now is that LeFreak is not using the resources of his organization to locate you, and he has ordered Hov to divorce you. That’s good. Let’s drink to that!”

  And he notices that his glass is empty and starts mixing himself another Arak. Anna and I are still on our first glass. The table is full, just as he said. Little has been eaten so far, and the hot appetizers are cold.

  “I’m famished,” says Edik. “I have not eaten anything since breakfast, which was at seven this morning.” And he digs in with a ravenous appetite, totally concentrated on trying everything on the table. He does not look up and does not say a word, just wolfs down plate after plate. Anna and I watch him, fascinated, wondering how he can focus like that, one hundred percent, first on telling us the news, and then on eating. I also understand why the Arak had such an effect on him, given his empty stomach. Minutes later he looks up, sees us watching him, and starts laughing.

  “Sorry, that poem Anna recited spurred my appetite,” he says. “I’m done talking, and I’m done eating for now, but I’m not done drinking. So, you ladies tell me what you’ve been up to.”

  I look at Anna and smile. “Have you memorized anything else?” I ask, knowing that she knows a few verses from various poems. She hesitates, but then recites the first verse of “To The Dead Gods.”

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Yuri feels unsettled by Carla’s uncompromising posture. He thinks the priorty should be to claim the Dubai villa first, and then focus on LeFreak.

  Carla disagrees. “LeFreak comes first,” she says. “The villa is not going anywhere.” She has assumed responsibility for securing the documents that Yuri would need in Dubai, so he has no control over the process.

  “We need the money. You want three million euros to just sit there?”

  “Let me handle the money. Has there been any delay in paying your salary?”

  Yuri does not say anything, but he is seething. There are moments like this when he resents working for a woman—and not just any woman, but one younger than him, with whom he is having sex. This clearly is not the type of boss that he’s used to. He has accepted it, because they have generally agreed on what to do, and it has felt to him more like a partnership than a boss-employee relationship. But Carla does not compromise when there is a difference of opinion. And she can be so curt as to be insulting, as in the way she just mentioned his salary, blowing away the partnership illusion in a second.

  Aside from her strong personality, Carla’s strength is access to money. She has found in her father’s papers the documents of his various bank accounts, including four different accounts in Yerevan and one in Moscow. In addition, Viktor has one account in Yerevan, one in Moscow and one in Dubai. Her mother knows about her father’s accounts, but no one knows about Viktor’s. Yuri knows nothing about any of these accounts. Carla has signatory authority over her father’s accounts, but not over Viktor’s. She plans to use the same documents that Yuri needs to transfer the villa to also get access to those bank accounts.

  But Carla is convinced that these accounts are only a small part of her father’s and Viktor’s assets. She expects that there are more real estate investments as well as cash lying around waiting to be discovered. She has already found a large briefcase in the study, which Yuri also knows nothing about. It contained a mixture of US dollars, drams and euros, close to a million dollar’s equivalent.

  The bank accounts and the cash that she has access to exceed several million dollars, which is enough for Carla at the moment. She retains eight employees on her payroll engaged in the search for her father’s assets. She has recovered some sources of income, especially in Ayvazian’s operations in Vayots Dzor. For her, chasing the villa in Dubai is far less urgent than removing a major threat right here at home. LeFreak, left unchecked, could destroy everything.

  Yuri can think of only one way to gain some control over the situation.

  “We need to be better organized to handle LeFreak,” he says. “I need a team that I can trust. I need to spend a lot more money than what my salary is costing. I need to bribe, gather information, set up cells.”

  “Then what are you waiting for?” Carla looks him in the eye. “I approve everything before you take a step. I will give you a couple of men to start with. You can trust them, they work for me,” she says, and the tone in her voice makes Yuri cringe. He takes the sarcasm to mean that she has seen through him. “You present me every expense before you incur it, and if I approve, I’ll give you what you need. You discuss with me every aspect of the strategy.” She waits a minute. “Are we clear on that, Yuri?”

  “We’re clear.” He has to play along while he thinks of ways to sideline her, which he knows will not be easy. Carla knows more than he does, controls the money, and has the personality to run the business. There can be no short cuts to gaining control. But Yuri is determined that eventually he will take over the Ayvazian businesses.

  “Good, I’ll work on getting the documents we need for Dubai. I’ve already contacted one of Papa’s lawyers. What I want you to do is learn everything about LeFreak. Everything. Start with what that girl is talking about, the operations he is supposed to have taken over in Lori, but don’t stop there. Focus on what he’s doing in Armenia first, but eventually we have to find out what that Abo character is up to, and what he and LeFreak agreed upon.”

  “When can I meet the two people you have for me?”

  “They’ll call you this afternoon.”

  “We’ll need cash to buy information,” says Yuri. “We’ll have to bribe a lot of people.”

  Carla stands up and goes to her desk. She unlocks a drawer, shuffles through a few things inside it, and returns with a stack of 20,000-dram bills, around one centimeter thick.

  “There’s two million dram in there.” She tosses the stack on the coffee table. That’s around five thousand dollars, and Yuri knows that it won’t go very far.

  “I can start with that, but you have to understand that we’ll be bribing people who are employed and probably paid well, and who know the punishment for betraying the boss. So that won’t be enough to buy the information we need.”

  “There’ll be more when you need it,” says Carla curtly again. “Just use it wisely. Let me know when you need more. And I want to know details of how much is being spent on which sources.”

  This has been a tense meeting for Yuri. Usually, after meetings like this, Carla wants sex. But Yuri is cold, and Carla does not seem to be having an easy ti
me shifting moods either. It is not even clear to Yuri that she is trying. He looks at her for a moment, to make sure, and then stands up.

  “I better get going then,” he says, taking the money from the coffee table. “I’ll expect a call from your men this afternoon.”

  With that, Yuri leaves and shuts the door behind him.

  Carla goes back to her desk and sits on her large chair, putting her feet on the desk. The framed photograph of their house in Martashen is still on the wall facing her. She either hasn’t gotten around to changing it or perhaps she has chosen not to get around to it. It is the only truly personal thing left from her father. The money and the businesses are not personal. She never thinks of her father when she spends his money. It’s all her money now. But the house, which he loved, is his. And Carla, who had no love lost for her father, wants him in this room as she takes over the business. She wants him to see everything that she does in this room. She herself has never thought of it that way, but that is what it is. That is why the only photograph that she has thought of replacing the picture of the house with has been one of her father. But maybe she subconsciously realizes that a photograph of her father would be less ‘him’ than that of the house; he hung this picture here; he loved that house.

  It is one thing if LeFreak is trying to take over the orphaned Ayvazian businesses, and an entirely different thing if he orphaned those businesses in the first place. If he had been plotting before the killings, as the Galian girl claims, then he could very well be behind the killings. Why would she make any of that up? Why would Anastasia care? How could she possibly make up the conversation that she overheard in Istanbul? Carla knows that she was in fact in Istanbul.

  Carla has enough money to buy many of LeFreak’s men. She is not so sure about her own men. Can Yuri kill? She needs killers, not just men who beat and rape the girls, to subdue them. A killer is a different animal. A killer kills without anger or emotion; a rapist has both. A killer is not intent on changing his victim’s behavior; men who beat and rape the girls are. Surely her father had some killers on his staff. Who are they? Did they die with him last fall? Was Hamo, Yuri’s brother, one of them?