Orhan's Inheritance

by Aline Ohanesian

Seda finally opens her eyes, places a hand on Ani’s arm and squeezes.

  “Hi,” Ani whispers, smiling.

  Seda takes in her niece’s frizzy black bob, kohl-rimmed eyes and dark clothing. “Why do you always dress like you’re in mourning?” says Seda.

  “Tell me a story?” Ani says, ignoring her.

  Seda clicks her tongue. “No more stories,” she says.

  “Oh come on. Why not?”

  “Not in the mood,” says Seda.

  Ani starts stroking Seda’s hair. “Remember when I was little, I used to sneak into your bed at night and warm my cold feet between your thighs?” she asks. “You used to tell me the craziest stories. Like the one about Aghavni Hanim who played with her breasts so much as a girl that they had grown a meter long each.”

  Seda smiles. “They grew so long that she had to toss each breast over a shoulder so they wouldn’t knock into her knees,” she says.

  Ani giggles at the memory. “What was the point of that story?” she asks. “It’s ridiculous.”

  “It was supposed to prevent masturbation,” she says, struggling to sit up in bed.

  “Oh my God,” says Ani, laughing. “Are you serious?”

  Seda shrugs.

  “Why not tell a vagina story then?” she asks.

  Seda gives Ani a stern look. “We don’t talk about things like that. It’s shameful.”

  “What else don’t we talk about?” Ani asks, the humor in her voice gone.

  Seda looks away, not knowing what to say. She has left so much unsaid.

  “What’s going on?” asks Ani. “Betty tells me you had a visitor yesterday.”

  Seda searches for an entry point to the story of her life, a life compartmentalized and safely tucked away, a life that should not have been uncovered in this way. Damn Kemal.

  “Betty says a lot of things,” she says.

  “Is he from the Armenian Herald? They’re doing a story about the survivors again. If you’re going to talk to anyone, it better be me.”

  “Who’s talking?”

  “Not you,” says Ani.

  “That’s right. Not me,” says Seda, pulling the blanket back.

  “But you’re coming to the exhibit, right?”

  “It’s down the hall. I couldn’t avoid it if I tried,” says Seda. This exhibit is just another venue for what Ani and her generation like to call baykar, the struggle. Her niece had a bullhorn pressed to her lips as early as age three. Seda still has the VHS tape somewhere of Ani’s first fifteen seconds of fame, courtesy of a KTLA news reporter who was covering that year’s protest in front of the Turkish consulate.

  “Why would you want to avoid it?” Ani asks.

  “Aman, I’m tired of the past. I was there, remember? Once was enough.”

  “No, I don’t remember. Because that’s the one story you won’t tell me.”

  “Your father told that story enough for the both of us,” she says.

  “But I want to hear your version,” says Ani. “Maybe if you told me about what happened to you and Dad, I would stop harping about the past.”

  “You wouldn’t stop. Besides, I don’t remember.”

  “You don’t remember,” says Ani, her face full of skepticism.

  “Old age,” says Seda. “Now get out of my bed so I can start my day.”

  “Got a busy schedule, have you?” Ani teases.

  “Very funny.”

  “I’ll be down the hall, if you change your mind,” she says from the doorway.

  “If I had a mind left, I’d think about changing it,” says Seda.

  Alone again in her room, Seda manages to put her slippers on and lower herself onto the wheelchair. She moves her chair to the window. There was a time, not long ago, when she could have walked up to the glass. You can tell a lot about a person from his walk.

  The Orhan fellow has a good walk. He is tall and lean like Kemal, but he walks differently in the world. His footsteps are more sure and his shoulders more hunched. Perhaps he gets that from his father. She wouldn’t know. She left when the boy was only a small child, a halfling perpetually clinging to the hem of her skirt.

  On that last morning with Mustafa, Seda woke him with her usual tenderness. His name was chosen because it meant one who has ancestral blood, an accurate description and one that would counter another word they feared would one day describe him: bastard. The boy reached for Seda, his plump fingers deftly searching for morning milk. She pulled away from him and produced a small tin cup filled with goat’s milk.

  “Anne,” the child begged. “Mamma.”

  “No, my lion, Anne’s milk is all gone,” she told him, holding the tin cup to his lips. “This is Zazu’s milk.” Zazu was the boy’s favorite goat. Seda had milked her early that morning and added a drop of honey to the cup. “It’s warm and sweet,” she reassured him.

  She watched as the boy eyed the cup with suspicion before placing his lips on the vessel’s edge and extended his sparrow’s tongue toward the warm milk. She took a deep breath then, knowing the boy would eat and grow, even after she had gone. He and Fatma didn’t need her anymore.

  THE SOUND OF SHOES squeaking announces Betty’s presence at her door. “Still crabby?” she asks.

  “Always,” says Seda. “I thought I told you to stay out of it.”

  “I did,” says Betty.

  “Then why is Ani asking about my visitor?”

  “There’s a log out front. You know that. She asked me if I’d seen him, is all. You all right?” Betty asks.

  “When are you going to stop asking me that?” asks Seda.

  “When you’re dead,” Betty says, smiling.

  “More incentive to stop breathing,” says Seda.

  “Hush now. You got handsome young men whispering sweet nothings in your ear. If that’s not a reason to live, I don’t know what is. What does he want from you anyway?”

  “Answers, I guess,” says Seda.

  “You got plenty of those,” Betty says, laughing. “You gonna give him some answers Miss Seda?”

  “Not if I can help it,” Seda says.

  “Well, either way, do me a favor. Think long and hard before signing any papers.”

  CHAPTER 16

  Memory’s Garden

  ON THE DRIVE to the Ararat Home, the sun seems artificial, big and bright but without the kind of heat one would expect. Like everything else here, it surprises Orhan with its banality. This isn’t what he expected from Hollywood, or the land of the heathen, as his father calls it. Only the palm trees zipping past his window smack of blasphemy. They don’t bow their heads humbly to the sky the way most trees do. They protrude straight up, as if the landscape itself were giving Allah the finger.

  Orhan puts the cigarette to his lips and fills his lungs up completely. Seda’s reluctance to speak haunted Orhan throughout the night. It’s clear she wants to be rid of him as quickly as possible. Getting her to reveal her connection to Dede will be tricky.

  Sitting on the leather seat next to him is his satchel with the Leica, his old portfolio, and Dede’s sketchbook inside it. The images of Turkey may loosen the old woman’s tongue, and the camera would help him blend in with all the other visiting loved ones.

  The Ararat Home entrance hall is just as it was the day before, except the receptionist doesn’t look up to greet him. She pushes a clipboard for him to sign before letting him pass. Orhan walks down the hall, taking in the craft projects that litter the walls. Construction paper, glitter, and glue all competing to create the illusion of still-active lives. Resident stragglers roam around aimlessly. Mrs. Vartanian appears in the hallway. She’s wearing the same dull brown house dress as yesterday, but the doll is swaddled in a pretty pink blanket. Though she can’t cover much distance with her slippered feet, she shows off her impressive spitting range by launching some at Orhan’s shoes. She says some words in Armenian before turning her back to him. He stands there feeling like a little boy who knows he’s in trouble but isn’t sure why. An old man balan
cing on a silver-tipped cane stands witness to his humiliation. He glares at Orhan as if pondering some accusation.

  The orderly from the day before walks by, pushing a tray of breakfast foods down the hall. Orhan speeds up so he can walk with her.

  “Hallo,” he says.

  “You’re back,” she says, not stopping for him.

  “Yes,” says Orhan, hurrying to fall in step with her. “Is Mrs. Melkonian always so quiet?” he asks.

  “Quiet? Ms. Seda? No sir, but she’s definitely been more cranky since she got that letter.” She cocks one eyebrow at him.

  Orhan’s letter was as polite as could be, under the circumstances. “You have any advice for me?” he asks, ignoring her accusatory glance.

  “Not really. She’ll talk to you when she’s ready, I guess. She does like being in the garden, though. She plants flowers when she feels like it. But stay away from the fountain. She hates that thing. Can’t stand running water.”

  “No running water,” he says. “I will remember that.”

  “You going over there now?”

  “Yes, that is why I am here.”

  “Well, you may wanna wait. She’s in there with Ms. Ani right now.” The orderly stops her tray and looks triumphantly at him.

  “Ani,” Orhan repeats.

  “Her niece. Visits every Wednesday. Good thing too,” says the orderly. “She’ll wanna know about them papers.” She looks as if she’s just cornered him in a chess game.

  “Does Ms. Melkonian have any other family?” he asks before he can stop himself.

  “No, just Ani. Sometimes her former students will visit.”

  “Was she a teacher?”

  “Um-hm,” says Betty. “Taught Armenian-language classes at one of them Armenian schools in the valley.”

  “No children then,” says Orhan.

  “Ms. Seda’s never been married, if that’s what you mean. Ain’t got no children. Don’t matter cause Ani pays close attention,” she says. “And so do I, so you watch yourself, you hear?”

  Orhan nods to himself. He’s pretty sure the overweight orderly has just threatened him. He isn’t here to hurt anyone and doesn’t feel the need to defend himself.

  “Ani’s been organizing a commemorative event here at the home,” the orderly continues, sounding like she’s describing the advanced weaponry of an opposing army. “They say the governor’s gonna come,” she says.

  “A what event?” he asks.

  “Commemorative. It means to remember,” explains Betty. “Everybody here has a story about what happened in the old country,” says Betty.

  “It doesn’t look like they need any help remembering it,” Orhan says, eyeing the corkboard behind the orderly. It’s cluttered with black-and-white photographs of Anatolian cities and ancient family portraits. A map at the center of all this highlights deportation routes in bright red.

  “Most folks here are genocide survivors,” Betty informs him.

  “Bad things happen in wartime,” he says. He’s no extremist. In fact, he’s the first to admit the many shortcomings of Turkish democracy, but he still can’t help feeling insulted by these accusations of mass murder.

  “From what I gather, these aren’t just war stories,” says Betty.

  “That’s not what I’ve heard,” says Orhan, though the truth is he hasn’t really heard much about the Armenians of Turkey. They are a lost footnote in the story of how the republic was established.

  “I don’t know about all that,” says Betty. “All I know is Ani’s putting together an art exhibit. Paintings, photographs, that sort of thing. Some of our residents will be presenting. She’s trying to get some political people to hear them stories.”

  Orhan nods politely, silently wondering if this niece who collects stories and images would also be interested in collecting houses.

  “Well, good luck, Mr. . . . ?”

  “Orhan.”

  “Orhan,” she repeats after him, only it sounds strange in her mouth, more like “Orren.”

  “One question,” says Orhan. “What does Mrs.Vartanian say exactly, when she points to me?”

  “Do I look Armenian to you?”

  “Right,” he says, feeling stupid. Orhan quickens his pace.

  The door to room 1203 is shut. Someone has taped a bright red flyer just under the peephole:

  Bearing Witness: An Art Exhibit for National Genocide Remembrance Day

  Special Guest: Governor George Deukmejian

  Orhan fixates on the word genocide. Massacres abound in his country’s history, as they do in any nation’s history. But genocide is a different accusation altogether. Why do they insist on using this word? No one would argue that a great many Christians were slaughtered in the empire during the First World War, but to claim that the Turkish government was responsible for the extermination of an entire race is something else entirely.

  Orhan hears a voice through the closed door, speaking in a language he presumes to be Armenian. He presses himself against the wall, feeling somewhat like a prowler. When the voice stops, he strains himself to hear a response from Seda. Instead he is confronted by a high-pitched laugh.

  Moments later, a woman with olive skin and frizzy jet-black hair walks out of Seda Melkonian’s room. Her dark kohl-rimmed eyes are the only strong feature; everything from her forehead to her cheeks and lips appear blurry, and her features remind him of a collection of cushions. The confluence of dark features is exaggerated by her even blacker clothing, such that Orhan is reminded of the professional wailers at Dede’s funeral. It is hard to believe that the sharp laugh he heard earlier came from her.

  The niece, who looks to be in her fifties, digs in her purse, locates a bevy of keys, and heads toward the exit. She walks with hurried steps toward the dining room. Orhan stands there a long while, following her with his gaze, wondering if she already knows about the inheritance. God knows how this Ani woman, who clings to her people’s grief, who dwells in loss and mourning—embodies it even—will react to the news. She’ll get a lawyer, that’s for sure. She might even tell the governor of California, for all he knows.

  When he enters her room, Seda is seated in a wheelchair near a window facing the garden. He can see only the back of her head, damp, he assumes, from a morning bath. She is wearing the same dark blue cardigan, this time with a canary-colored silk scarf at her neck. The pale cream walls of the room are made yellow by the fluorescent lighting. And this saddens him; there are few things worse than bad lighting. Her single bed is pushed up against a wall. Next to it is a chest of drawers whose surface is almost entirely covered in a beige needlepoint, reminding him of the doilies of Karod. An old framed photo of the niece is displayed prominently in the center. In it she is much younger, wearing a blue cap and gown and holding a diploma. A golden sash draped across her chest hints of special honors. Above the chest of drawers is a generic landscape scene framed in dark wood. The only other furniture in the room is a tall bookcase whose shelves are crammed with books, both vertically and horizontally until there isn’t an unoccupied inch. He is about to approach the bookcase to take a glimpse at the titles, when Seda turns her wheelchair around and faces him.

  “Good morning,” he says.

  The old woman clears her throat but remains silent.

  “I hope you don’t mind me visiting so early in the day,” he says, speaking into the silence that still hangs between them. “I was here earlier, but you had a visitor. I didn’t want to interrupt.”

  “My niece,” she says.

  “Does she know about the will?” The question, out before he can restrain himself, embarrasses him. The fact that he asks it while still standing is somehow even more embarrassing.

  Seda shakes her head. “No,” she says.

  “It’s so sunny here,” he says, trying to change the subject. “Back home, it is raining. I live in Istanbul now, but I was in Berlin for several years. September can be a very cold month, not like here,” he says, settling into a chair next to her. />
  The old woman’s eyes follow him into the chair. Orhan knows she wants to be rid of him, but he goes on anyway. “I moved to Germany in 1981. I had some trouble in Turkey.” It’s more than he’s told his closest friends in Istanbul about that time. And he wonders why he finds it so easy to allude to it here, in front of this woman. “Anyway,” he continues, “I moved back home a few years ago and have lived in Istanbul ever since.” The one-sided conversation makes him feel silly, reminding him of a chatty blind date he once had. Now this old woman knows more about him than all his friends in Istanbul put together.

  “I wish you would talk to me,” he says suddenly.

  “There’s nothing to say,” she says, turning away from him.

  Orhan follows her gaze back out the window where a bright bougainvillea bush is the star of the show. Its pink flowers are so vibrant they seem artificial, like the California sun. The composition reminds him of a photograph he once took.

  “I’m not such a bastard, you know,” he says.

  “I never said you were a bastard,” she says. “You’re a businessman, aren’t you?”

  “I am,” he says.

  “Businessmen care about results. They don’t ask why.”

  He pauses, not knowing what to say to that. He starts reaching for the legal papers he’s brought for her to sign and glimpses his portfolio in the satchel.

  “I was a photographer once,” he says on impulse. There is something unconvincing in the way he says the words, like he is trying to make them true.

  “Oh?” she says, not sounding the least bit interested.

  “I was exiled.” It is a simple declaration, consisting of just three relatively simple words, but Orhan feels as though he’s just given birth to a hairy mammal through his mouth. I was exiled. How many times had he tried and failed to say those words to Hülya?

  Orhan was only nineteen when he photographed a group of Kurdish villagers in traditional dress. It was the sharp contrast of colors and textures that interested him. He had no idea that the stout bearded fellow standing in the back corner of the frame was a notorious insurgent. How could he know that a group of Kurdish villagers in traditional dress would be so offensive to the Turkish state?