The Candidate

by Zareh Vorpouni

  It’s true. I was carefree when I was alone. People can deny themselves this or that. It’s not the same when you’re dealing with somebody else. The slightest movement can often uproot everything and leave a big, gaping hole in its wake. This is why I hate Minas. Yes, I hate him. How should I put this? Hate is not quite the right word. What I feel is something similar, but not hatred. In any case, it was from the expression on his face that I learned to recognize shame. I don’t understand why I hide my work at Les Halles from him, why I play hide and seek with him. Yes, it’s nothing if not shame. He must be stupid not to get it. But why? We could have gone and worked together, but I kept it from him. It wasn’t just that. Now my shame is even heavier and it has caused me to feel disgusted by Les Halles. I was so ashamed last night! It was because of him that I walked right past Les Halles. I wasn’t thinking straight. I walked and walked and passed right by my usual turn. It was because of him that I felt shame seeing the wife of that man dressed up like an admiral. I was embarrassed beyond words. Heat rose to my cheeks. That bitch! Today, too, I feel disgusted by everything. Everything? No, just by myself. The glory of her breasts expanded before my eyes and from the height of her indifference, she made it clear that you were nothing—a worm. Finally someone understands! Nothing else existed but the glory of her half-naked breasts, as though they were calling out, “To deserve these, you have to be at least an admiral.” But behind them, beyond them, beyond them, there was Fatma. I hate Minas. He was so happy when he came to the café with renewed energy, soothed, brave, rejuvenated after a good night’s sleep. He was only missing a cup of coffee for his bliss to be complete. When I told him, “No, we’re leaving,” he seemed to lift his hand and give me a resounding slap across the face. I can still feel the sting of that slap on my cheek. We left the café unaware of each other. It was as if we weren’t together. Hey, we’ve reached Luxembourg! What for? Who told us to go? But we went. We’re in the park at the most crowded time of day. The place is jam-packed. I wish there were a corner to sleep in at least. I’m tired. The roots of my eyelashes are burning. I figure we’re here because no one can think in a crowd. You must be alone to think. And I’m alone. Minas is so far from me. My brain is twisting like a screw, uncontrollably. It’s twisting. I’m like a crippled man who, forgetting his handicap, or not even realizing he has one, considers himself an equal, until the day when, forced to flee from danger, everybody runs and he’s left behind in the middle of the square, his bad leg failing to save him. The world suddenly goes black. I am that cripple. Minas conspires against me with his silence. It’s nothing else. Silence is the distance that separates us and I can’t run after him. I’m crippled. Strange—that’s how it feels to see his brain ruminating. His head is a shop window and through it I can see his brain ruminating. Here his mouth took on a different shape. He’s going to say something. Speak, Minas, speak. I’m going crazy. There’s a slight twitch in my lips. Perhaps it’s a thought looking for words. Lips preparing for a kiss assume a similar position to carry out their function, like a soldier attaching a bayonet to his rifle before a charge. He opened his mouth slightly, very slightly, almost in repentance, only to close it again. The poor thing was being tortured terribly. Look at his tense lips. It seems like he’s about to bite them. I have to help.

  “What are you thinking about with your head hung like that?”

  “Nothing,” he said.

  They were sitting on a stone bench in front of the Grand Bassin. They were lucky to have found a place to sit amid the crowd. There were chairs, but you had to pay for them. It’s wonderful to sit under the sun, basking in its warmth and not thinking, or letting your thoughts wander into the distance like worker bees moving from flower to flower. But Minas was on edge. He was thinking. Let him try to hide his thoughts all he wants, but they began to show in the quivering at the edges of his mouth, opening like a split pomegranate.

  “Let’s go get the bag from the hotel later.”

  Vahakn answered with a monologue. The words buzzed around Minas’s ears like a gnat. He worked to grasp their meaning from within his daydream. Stubbornly and slowly, the words crossed into the realm of understanding. He was looking at Vahakn with wide eyes when he screamed, “No!”

  “Oh yes! What did you think? That I would have let you in on it and have you betray us like an amateur?”

  “So you mean . . .”

  “You wouldn’t have had the chance to take it with you. They would have kept the bag, but who cares? It was only filled with paper and sand.”

  “Would they have arrested me?”

  “No, they’re not as stupid as you think. The police are of no use to them. They would have just taken your identity papers and kept them until we paid up.”

  Minas was stunned as Vahakn broke into riotous laughter. His exuberance instantly scattered the heavy silence between the two friends. Satisfied with himself, Vahakn opened his arms, extended them, shrugged his shoulders, gave a long yawn, and said, “To the one who doesn’t love this life . . .”

  And he immediately added, “Let’s go to the Billard and write a letter to Arakel. Do you know Arakel? The tailor on Rue Descartes? ‘Dear Arakel, we’re leaving on unexpected business. Your bag was left at the hotel. Forgive us for not having time to bring it back to you. Please show them the enclosed note to get your bag. It’s right near you: Hôtel Claude Bernard,’ etc. On to the next one. Your French is good. Write, ‘Monsieur le concierge, please be so kind as to return the bag in room number thirty to the gentleman with this note and request payment from him . . .’”

  The sun had left the park, but there was still a sweetness in the air. The sky had grown white. As the evening drew closer, the white turned to a pale blue. Minas’s hand stopped moving across the paper.

  “Look,” he said, pointing at the two cups of coffee. “What are we going to do about these?”

  “God is with us. We’ll figure something out.”

  Minas kept writing. He finished the first letter and began writing the next one. “Monsieur le concierge . . .”

  “Did you used to catch sparrows when you were little?”

  “I don’t remember,” Minas said.

  “I used to love to. I started when I was five. I had an uncle who liked to play like a kid. We used to catch birds together. We would clear the snow in the garden, enough room for a small circle, where we would put a mesh. Held up by a stick, the mesh had an opening on one side. We would tie a string to the stick, and when a sparrow hopped inside, we would pull the string from the window above, where we used to spend our days. The mesh would fall and the poor sparrow would be trapped. Then I would slowly put my hand inside to catch the bird. I could tell which sparrows, nibbling on breadcrumbs, would be trapped. There were nimble ones that used to jerk their heads and come and go with crumbs in their beaks. Then there were the slow, hesitant, fearful, suspicious ones. They deliberated far too long and faltered. You would think, look, they’re about to go inside the mesh, but no, one hop and they’re back out. By the time they made a decision, they were trapped. They would definitely make a decision. They are hungry in the winter with snow everywhere. Don’t you get it? Not a single worm in the trees. They have no choice but to go in, but by the time they figure it out, the mesh has already fallen over them.”

  At that moment, Vahakn noticed a pair of feet on the sidewalk, a pair of feet among an untold number of others that were walking straight ahead. This particular pair knew where they were going, or their master did, at least. Vahakn didn’t move; he was in position, his gaze fixed, afraid even to blink.

  “It’s happening,” he said.

  “What?”

  “Here’s the one who will pay for our coffee.”

  Back on the sidewalk, the pair of feet paced up and down the boulevard, but not toward Vahakn. His gaze was glued to them as he beckoned, “Come here, come down here, dreams. Come down here, sweet dreams.” He mesmerized them, enchanted them. He knew the expression of their master: one corner of hi
s lips raised, one eye open and the other closed. He no longer felt the need to look at the feet. It couldn’t be any other way. He hopped like a hesitant sparrow, jumping more confidently into the mesh, the toes of his shoes turned toward Vahakn. They started walking.

  “Excuse me, is someone sitting here?” he asked with extreme politeness, sitting down.

  Minas was overwhelmed. He barely heard Vahakn’s comment. “Didn’t I tell you this was going to happen?” Vahakn said, utterly confident and pleased. Minas didn’t know if he should introduce the newcomer.

  From the next table, he pricked up his ears and straightened his tie. He looked at the man out of the corner of his eye. He looked handsome in his black coat and white shirt.

  Minas overcame his confusion to introduce him.

  “Are you Armenian, too?” he asked Vahakn. “I had the honor of meeting Minas effendi.” Turning to Minas, he said, “You see, I haven’t forgotten your name.” Turning back to Vahakn, “It’s nice to meet you. I love Armenians. Back in Istanbul, I had friends who were Armenian.”

  He spoke with his delicate torso leaning over the table. He drew his head toward Vahakn and noticed the reluctant beginning of a sweet smile appear on his face.

  Minas left the second letter for later. He put away the paper, envelope, and pen. The mutual affection that seemed to be created spontaneously promised a long conversation, especially since Vahakn never forgot his intentions.

  “Forgive me,” he began. “Monsieur . . .”

  “Ziya,” he said.

  “Forgive me, Ziya effendi. We aren’t students. We have to get up early for work tomorrow morning. We’ll see each other again.”

  Vahakn stood up and gestured for the waiter, but Ziya grabbed his hand.

  “Let me get it. I would be offended otherwise.”

  At last the manuscript is finished. True, there are still dozens of pages of notes strewn across the table, but they don’t have any direct bearing on the story. After shuffling through the pile of papers, I can see that an impulsive choice has already been made. I don’t mean to say that the notes that have been left out are unimportant, just that including them would have burdened the reading and Vahakn’s portrayal wouldn’t have become any more interesting. The notes are mostly about Vahakn’s antics, which are described in enough detail here. But I need to add the following, which, at the moment, is imposing a fierce sense of compassion in me. But it’s better to quote from notes written in the heat of the moment.

  We were walking down Boul’Mich. We had reached the corner of Rue des Écoles in front of the bank. I stop short. On the sidewalk, someone, breaking through the crowd, comes toward us happy and smiling, as if he’d recognized an old friend. But there is something broken in his smile, which is moving like a mechanical spring. He is clutching a pamphlet in the hand he extends to us. His forehead is strained by the effort it took to extend his hand. His big eyes seem to be about to burst out of their sockets. He has a beard that hasn’t be touched by a razor in at least eight days. His whole body exuded supplication, contorting his face like a mute unable to speak.

  But finally he spoke: “In order to save the nation!”

  Only then did I recognize his voice and called out, “Hey, it’s Mr. Bentham!”

  The crowd streamed along the boulevard and jostled us where we were standing. The man’s hairy cheeks attempted a smile, but failed. The smile couldn’t spread from his muscles to his eyes to form a real one. It stayed on his cheeks like a dying light.

  “He didn’t recognize you,” I said painfully, turning to Vahakn.

  “Do you know our Sarkis? He writes poems and sells them.”

  “He’s from our school. One day, our philosophy teacher was lecturing on Bentham. At the end of class, Sarkis raised his hand.”

  “‘In your opinion,’ he began. ‘Mr. Bentham . . .’ but couldn’t keep going. Hearing the ‘Mr. Bentham,’ the whole class broke into laughter. Since then, the name Mr. Bentham stuck.”

  As I was explaining, we’d walked away without realizing it. By the time I turned around, Sarkis’s face had vanished into the crowd.

  Until now, my work has been eased by the pile of old notes and Vahakn’s letter. Now I’m facing serious problems. They have absorbed me so much that I’ve been completely cut off from reality. In its place has emerged another reality. My effort to overcome the difficulties plunges me incessantly into that other reality, the one in which everyone else’s life becomes secondary, like a reality spinning behind a shop window, alien to me, irrelevant. When I pass through the streets, and especially when I’m in my room, they seem entirely different to me. They are the streets of my new reality, the new reality of my room where others have no place, no access, and where I work alone, constantly surrendering to a strange search, where I am the lord and master—its absolute ruler and its absolute slave.

  Once again, I start running to the Jardin du Luxembourg right after work. Apkar himself and Arshalouys with her letters are at my disposal. They follow my orders. But Nicole? Nicole, who has been on the margins of my heart and mind since the day I cried in Hortense’s lap, had suddenly—I don’t know how—slipped inside the boundaries of the new reality. She wasn’t with the others behind the shop window. On my visits to the park, where I tried to give Nicole a sense of her responsibility to the new reality that she had become a part of, I found that my old, smoldering feelings had reignited. I am truly scared of her. She’s so unapproachable and elusive, and still so ethereal, that I don’t understand what her function can be in this vast world that I call mine. I went to the movies in the afternoon, more to arrange my thoughts than to pass the time. I was hoping to think in the dark theater, but the news segment showed a report on summer collections at the major fashion houses. Nicole suddenly appeared on the screen. In a hall full of spectators, she paraded down the catwalk with dainty, tantalizing steps as light as a bird. Her arms hung from her shoulders in a way that made it seem like she had relinquished her body to draw the audience’s attention to her clothes. Another twirl as she struck a new pose, then another, always with a slight, airy thrust of the hips, which, from one moment to the next, transformed her into a dancing dream. The dream didn’t last long. Turning her back to the crowd, she was about to disappear backstage when the graceful expression on her face, which the audience no longer needed, suddenly hardened. Her eyelashes quickly fell over her eyes. I was so mesmerized by her that it surprised me to see the moment her fake smile waned and her eyebrows descended like clouds chased by the wind. It sent shivers down my spine. It was as though something ominous had happened to me and only me. “Where are you?” she asked, her gaze sinking into my eyes. “Where have you been all this time?”

  Despite the sting of her reproach, it was the same reproach that once weakened my attempts to get close to her during our chance encounters in the park. I left the theater abruptly with an indescribable sense of joy, because through her unexpected appearance on the screen, Nicole had not only entered these pages once again, having been away for a while after losing to Hortense, but there was no doubt that she had just made a date with me beyond the shop window. Holding my breath, I ran straight to the Jardin du Luxembourg with the trembling heart of a lover rushing to his first tryst.

  In the morning, he met Apkar at the entrance of the Métro Saint-Denis. Rain was falling on the city. The sky was so gloomy and low that it seemed to touch the rooftops. Fog rose heavily from the sidewalk, waiting for the sun before evaporating into the air.

  Apkar did not immediately cross to the opposite side of the street as he normally did. He walked straight ahead, hunched over, his chin to his chest and his left foot dragging behind him with extraordinary torment like a loose limb. Sometimes he moved his arms, lifting his head at the same time to stare straight at an invisible yet stubborn opponent.