The Candidate

by Zareh Vorpouni

  Minas caught up to him at the corner of Rue Cler and gently put his hand on Apkar’s shoulder. Apkar jumped as if he had been stung by a bee, but smiled kindly when he saw Minas.

  “Oh, it’s you.”

  “What’s going on?” Minas asked. “You look upset again.”

  Apkar didn’t answer right away. They passed to the other side of the street without a word and walked side by side in silence. Suddenly Apkar seemed as though he were about to burst into flames. He stopped on the sidewalk, which seemed to shrink him. He was forced to lean on his bad leg to stay upright. Now taller than Apkar by a head, Minas looked down at him expectantly, but Apkar didn’t say a word out of respect for his friend’s silence. Minas kept quiet, but not without a kind of anguish that melded compassion with affection. Even though he felt a powerful need to empty his heart, the jumbled words swarming around his head didn’t obey him.

  They were at work when he finally exploded.

  “Slaves, ha!” he said. “I wish he were alive to see what slaves can do.”

  Their eyes met and Minas saw a smile begin to shine on Apkar’s grieved, rebellious, and rough face, reminding him of summer at dawn. Minas had never seen anything as beautiful as that smile. Sometimes, when Apkar’s face was at its ugliest, a smile would suddenly spread across it like an extraordinary narcissus living in the filthiest of waters. Not even Nicole’s smile was as beautiful on the day that it exploded in resounding laughter underneath a grove of trees in the park, bringing fiery clouds to the sky.

  Encouraged by Minas’s disarmed, enchanted gaze, Apkar raised his fists. He was about to open his mouth when Minas whispered in his ear:

  “Be quiet! They might hear you.”

  It was simple. Minas understood where his friend’s frenetic excitement came from. He had been in the same overexcited state last year. The day before the first of May, he was already sensing what was to come the next day, which would put an end to the farce of this world.

  Dear Monsieur Minas,

  Forgive me for my delay in responding to your letter. Thank you for your brotherly advice. But this storm will not pass. I cannot reconcile myself with what happened. Why did Vahakn do this to me? Why did he leave me alone like this? Lancet is a very small town. There were a lot of Armenians here at one time, but almost all of them left for the big cities once their work visas expired. Many went to Lyon or Grenoble. They said there was no way to make money for them here. We thought about leaving, too. Vahakn left, promising me that we would move to Marseille, Lyon, or Paris as soon as he found work. Every day I came up with big, big plans in my little brain. Big dreams. It’s an unbearable life, Minas, the life of a laborer. We hadn’t been prepared for a life like this. Why am I telling you these things? Forgive me. Please forgive me, Minas. I have no one here to whom I can empty my heart. What should I do? Where should I go? I feel that I can’t even stay here. I must escape this place. Memories of Vahakn are at every turn. But how? How will I escape?

  How many times have I written this letter only to tear it up! I know I’m bothering you, but this will be the last time. I thank you for your sensitive, brotherly letters.

  I beg you not to forget your sister,

  Arshalouys

  Sweat beaded on Minas’s forehead. Somebody had gripped him by the neck and started strangling him.

  “What do I care? Who am I to give advice about someone else’s business when I can’t even handle my own issues?” he screamed all of a sudden.

  He felt fingers slowly tighten around his neck and tried through a flurry of words to save himself from who knew what kind of danger. “What do I care?” he repeated. “Let’s say I give some advice and she’s grateful for it. Look at this situation!” But he couldn’t resist. The hopeless whisper of the letter wound around his heart, became his master, and picked him like a flower. He took a piece of paper out of a drawer and hastily, illegibly, and without any hesitation wrote “Get married” and signed it. Then, without putting it in an envelope, he tore up the letter. The tearing of the paper became the whisper of an aching heart, warming his body, and Minas weakened with the tenderness of compassion. He couldn’t bring himself to behave like that desperate woman. He decided never to write to her again. After all, he didn’t owe her anything. What did they want from him? But what would Vahakn think, the same Vahakn who supported him by working at Les Halles? If he knew how badly his only friend was treating his devastated widow . . . Of course there wasn’t an assumption that he would support her. All she wanted from him was a few words of comfort, words that would span the expanse between them. Suddenly that distance became a lament and the lament transcended space, where he felt he could now talk face to face and whisper words of empathy. He could even see her eyes already, wide open and gazing at him from behind a curtain of grateful tears. Yes, he could see them now. His head was leaning not on Arshalouys’s shoulder, but on the table in front of which he was seated in his tiny room on this side of the expanse. But he saw in the pained eyes staring at him more sadness, recalling what Apkar had said about Vahakn’s white wedding. He took another sheet of paper out of the drawer, laid it on the desk, and started to write. But he felt, however, as though he were following orders like a man sentenced to death and forced to sign a confession.

  Dear Madame Arshalouys,

  Your letter has truly moved me. But what can I do? What can I say? If I were able to do something about it, believe me, I would spare no effort. But I beg you, get married. I see it as the only way to ease your pain.

  Minas Yerazian

  This time, he emerged victorious and reveled in the feeling of victory. With one word and one stroke, he had, almost unexpectedly, wiped the cellar of his inner illusions clean. He finally felt the satisfaction of a man who had done his duty. He looked at the letter, which was already in the envelope with a stamp. It was already out of reach, waiting for the first hours of the morning to take its fateful course.

  He stood up. He paced the length of his room, whistling and glancing at the envelope now and then, contented and satisfied by his triumph over himself and his vulnerabilities. It was the first time that Minas felt something akin to self-respect, but like after all triumphs, a penchant for arrogance slowly settled in his numb heart. The more he thought of Arshalouys and the blow his letter would deal her, the more he saw the parallel between her and a singing bird in a tree, whose chirping would be buried in sad silence in a split second, cut short by a bullet.

  With one word, Minas had cut Arshalouys’s song short. He had left her without a song. As he paced the room, he stopped suddenly in front of the envelope waiting for morning on his desk, jumped into bed, and buried himself in it, recreating the silence that forms after a bird has stopped chirping. He covered his ears with the blanket and fell asleep without shutting off the light.

  The rain stopped at around two o’clock. Following the relatively beautiful days of March, April had disappointed Parisians in need of sun. The moment the sun appeared, people filled the parks, turning their faces toward it with their eyes shut as if in prayer. And yet here was May, beginning with a downpour. By the time he reached the corner of Boulevard Saint-Denis and Boulevard de Sébastopol, the rain had stopped. Only once in a while would a shower run through the streets like a mob. In the sky, the warm, luminous sun would suddenly appear between the gaps in the black clouds, descending on the city and laughing along the length of the sidewalks like a mischievous prankster. It was in that kind of moment that voices seemed to say, “They’re coming! They’re coming!”

  From the depths of Boulevard Saint-Martin approached a dark throng. The mass of people at the four corners of the intersection moved into place and took position, forming a square with an open center like a circus ring. Anxious to see the conflict about to happen, everyone’s eyes were directed more toward the empty space than the approaching crowd of workers. It wasn’t only the onlookers who took position. On the nearby streets, a mass of police units had lined up at the entrance of the boulevard, bar
ricading strategic points that the march would have to pass in order to reach the Place de la Concorde, the Chambre des Deputés, and the Champs Elysées. This was the traditional May Day route: from the Bastille toward the rich neighborhoods. Boulevard de Sébastopol was the only street open, with no access to any of the ones on the right side—Rue Réaumur, Rue Étienne Marcel, etc.—up to Châtelet and Hôtel de Ville. Its sole purpose was to push the throng back and shatter the collective strength of the workers, who would continue to carry on the fight in smaller groups, here and there, like the rear guard of a retreating army.

  Suddenly “L’Internationale” erupted. The procession was already in sight and spread wave after wave—decisive, immeasurable, and impatient. The entire length of Boulevard Saint-Martin was filled with people, like the cork in the neck of a champagne bottle, slowly edging upward to explode with a pop. And that’s what happened by the thousands and tens of thousands. The tail of the march had barely left Place de la Bastille when the front reached the intersection and the hopeful refrain of the battle cry rose along with the growing din of stomping feet, followed by “La Jeune Garde” and “La Carmagnole,” at once jumbled and united, in harmony, as if it were the song itself that would open the street for the procession to pass, unhindered and victorious. But then came the first clash. The chants and the crowd now become a mob in front of Boulevard Saint-Denis and collided with the police. They started elbowing, then escalated to punching. They shifted positions. In the tussle between the police and the workers, a torrent of merciless blows poured down from all directions. Cobblestones were thrown into the air, shattering store windows and cracking skulls. They ran, chased them, and launched a counterattack. Minas watched in horror as a white baton rose in the air and landed on a head. Blood poured out and stained the cobblestone street. The fighting lasted for an hour. The procession from the Bastille had kept going, splintering and breaking off in the square, extending down Boulevard de Sébastopol, creating a number of separate pockets of resistance, while other groups still managed to penetrate the big boulevards, still pursued by police, fleeing and fighting back, until the firemen finally arrived. From the fire trucks parked at the end of the four boulevards, a rush of water shot into the crowd and made the battle unequal and impossible to win, even though the torrent often blindly fell on their very own men. Then they started to retreat. As the crowd in the intersection thinned, Minas saw Apkar. Wild and foaming at the mouth, he dragged his bad leg behind him as he threw punches left and right until he found himself face to face with a policeman. The policeman lifted his baton, but in that moment, a boy—his eyes breathing fire—stepped in front of Apkar and, tilting his head to the side, bore the blow aimed at Apkar’s head on his own shoulder. At that moment, another policeman struck Apkar over the head and threw him onto the sidewalk. Minas saw all this from across the street, but it was impossible to cut through the twenty-some meters separating him from Apkar, who was lying right on the corner of Rue Boulanger. The water hoses and swinging batons on one side and the flying cobblestones on the other made crossing that stretch not only dangerous, but impossible. He needed to wait until the crowd dispersed, but suddenly it occurred to him that since the police would come to collect the wounded, he might be able to take Apkar away. The police interrogation would confirm his identity as a foreigner and he would be treated even more harshly. They could even deport him. What would happen to Apkar then? That idea left Minas unsettled. He ran left and right to no avail. He went to the Porte Saint-Denis, passing under the arch, skirting the police, and made it to the opposite sidewalk. The fighting was fierce there too. He veered through the thick crowd. Slipping by with difficulty and trying to avoid the clashes, he made his way through Faubourg Saint-Denis and then on to Rue de l’Échiquier, where he cut across Boulevard de Strasbourg behind the firemen and finally reached his friend, who was still on the sidewalk in front of the Théâtre de la Renaissance. He quickly pulled him up, put Apkar’s arms around his neck and, propping him up, carefully retraced his steps out of the conflict zone, even though the police were still chasing small groups of demonstrators who had infiltrated the forbidden zone down the side streets.

  On Rue de l’Échiquier, Apkar hung from Minas’s neck. Minas thought his friend had lost all his strength, but Apkar lifted his head off of Minas’s shoulder, turned back, and yelled, “Vazken! Where’s Vazken?”

  There were police cars on the side streets as well as on Rue de l’Échiquier. The cars were already filled with the arrested and the wounded. Minas walked faster. They could be stopped and interrogated. Unfortunately no store, café, or pharmacy was open. Blood continued to flow from Apkar’s nose and the wound on his head, though not nearly as heavily as before. The entire neighborhood looked like it was at war. It was impossible to find a taxi, at least near Opéra. There was no other way. The hotel was the closest place. They hadn’t said anything to each other yet. Apkar didn’t struggle and let Minas do what he thought was best, but as they approached the Hotel of Silence, he put up some resistance. He leaned against the wall and refused to go any farther. Minas paused for a moment too. He took a breath and then put his arm around Apkar’s waist and started walking in silence. In the same moment, a voice called out from behind them. Minas turned around and saw the boy who had thrown himself in front of the policeman to protect Apkar from the baton.

  “Are you both all right?” Apkar asked, once the boy and another one his age caught up to them.

  “He’s just a little kid,” the boy said, looking at Minas. “He’s not one of us, but we’re friends from the orphanage. We go everywhere together.” And turning to Apkar, he added, “I’m fine. I’ve got a trick. As soon as I see the beating coming, I turn myself into stone and stiffen my body, so I don’t feel it when I’m hit.”

  “Is that right?” said Apkar. “How can someone stiffen their head?”

  The boy, whom Apkar had called Vazken before, took off his hat to show him the shirt he had stuffed inside.

  “It can soften a blow to the head too,” he said and added cheerfully, “We fought well today. Didn’t we, Kegham?”

  Noticing a group of demonstrators running away from the police, the two boys went to join them.

  In the kitchen, Hortense took care of Apkar herself. She washed the wound with hydrogen peroxide, rubbed it with iodine, and wrapped a clean bandage tightly around his head, making him look like a mullah. Apkar and Minas broke into laughter. Hortense stared at them in bewilderment, not understanding why they were laughing, and rushed to lift Apkar’s arms up against the wall to stop the bleeding from his nose.

  “We went to watch the procession,” Minas started to say.

  “Right, right,” Hortense said skeptically, not letting him finish. “What difference does it make?”

  May was about to end. It had barely begun before the days passed in rapid succession. Things of beauty tend to be short-lived. Sunrise, sunset, and look, the day has entered the heart of the night from which a new sunrise and sunset will be born. Winter is endless, gloomy and wet—long, snowy hours that strive to become a day, but only manage to be endless stretches of time. The nights were dark and the days were filled with work, continuous work without an end in sight, where night and day remained indistinguishable in the presence of the city’s almost perpetually burning lights. In this vast gloom, only working hours create a kind of movement that renders the passage of time perceptible.

  There was, however, another reason. If time can be understood through the changes generated by its evolution, the trees grow bare and once again grow green leaves that turn into pale scraps that fall to the ground. Night follows day like a dog follows its owner. Nails grow. Hair whitens, falls out, or needs to be cut. It wasn’t the same for Minas. For Minas, the quick course of May was purely psychological. Since the day he signed the letter to Arshalouys, he had put an end to his anguish. Time had made a giant leap. History had been emptied of its contents and there was nothing left to happen. During the period when he noticed and
recorded the sequence of events, it was in that state of anticipation that time passed with heavy steps. The waiting was what gave time a gauge. After waiting a few days—in reality, he was waiting without really waiting—for Arshalouys’s reply, he at last came to the conclusion that she had discerned the hidden meaning in his letter, namely his rejection. Let’s remember that he wrote “Get married.” Yes, it was because of those words that she had fallen silent, perhaps into a half-dead state. It could be said that the Arshalouys issue had been taken care of, at least he thought so, considering that he now finally enjoyed a serenity that at times troubled his heart, which had grown accustomed to unease.

  Ever since May Day, Apkar buried himself in a self-imposed silence. There was so much silence around Minas!

  In the early days, Minas was scared. He thought Apkar’s injury might have impaired his speech. Minas often insisted on a medical exam, but Apkar didn’t understand what Minas was saying. A quick, faint ripple appeared underneath the skin on his face before fading away. Neither his mysterious smile nor his concentration at work could dispel Minas’s concern. He kept an eye on Apkar, who didn’t show the slightest glimmer of verbal life. If it was a grudge he was holding, Minas couldn’t explain it. He never did him any harm. He had never even thought about it. On the contrary, he had treated him with brotherly concern and compassion. That day, he had saved him from imminent danger and tended to his wounds. We could even say that he hadn’t hesitated to put himself in harm’s way. It was in these thoughts that an idea came to him. No, that kind of thing was impossible, however strange the human mind could be. So he drove those thoughts away and looked for another solution, but again his concern came to stand in front of him. Was it possible that he had turned into the target of Apkar’s hatred after having seen him being beaten? He knew, he understood Apkar’s childhood, which had been a constant string of beatings and insults. From this perspective, Minas empathized with Apkar’s rebelliousness. He fought heroically to turn the world into an ideal, so that children would never see the face of beatings or deprivation. Could it be that Minas didn’t show the extent of his admiration, or that Apkar didn’t notice it and thought less of him? After that, Minas resolved to express his admiration more often and to raise Apkar onto the pedestal of his admiration to help him overcome dejection and feel encouraged and valued. He thought this idea could help cut through Apkar’s vengeance, but he quickly decided against it because—who knows?—maybe Apkar needs that feeling, maybe it feeds and nurtures a rebelliousness fueled by hatred. So that was it. Now he remembered that when he rushed to Apkar in front of the Théâtre de la Renaissance, Apkar immediately turned his head away and didn’t look at him once during their escape. Maybe he was embarrassed. It must have been shame—shame of having been seen degraded—that instantly transformed into hatred and added to his inner capacity for rebellion. People don’t like their morals to be laid bare. Of course, it’s one thing to talk about them and quite another to have them be seen. In the first case, degradation told as part of a story sounds like an exploit. However, the more we feel pity, the more admiration there is in our compassion. To tell a story is not to expose, but to dress it in another way. The second case is not the same. This is true exposure: seeing with the eyes—and not with the imagination, as he did the first time—the ugliness of someone around you, because degradation is ugliness. Minas saw it before his very eyes when Apkar was beaten on May Day. Slowly but surely, Minas was convinced that it could be the only reason for Apkar’s silence. The fact that a friend had seen him during the beating must have been intolerable, even though the beating was followed by an honorable act. Apkar had left home to batter, break, and lay things to waste, but there he was cruelly defeated and trampled, as he had once been by his father, an authority figure indistinguishable from the one he saw that day. So on the day of the beating, as he lay sprawled on the sidewalk with a head wound, he was the same boy he had told Minas about. How could Apkar reconcile himself with the feeling that had now left him unable to talk? Minas couldn’t reconcile himself with that fact. He chased it from his mind and returned, perhaps for his own sanity, to his original suspicion that it was the result of beatings to the head that Apkar had lost the power of speech. And so he confirmed his conviction for himself and settled into it to stop thinking about other possibilities, which not only didn’t correspond to the truth, but also drove him to despair, whereas the illness theory filled his heart with such feelings of exaltation that he saw something beautiful in Apkar’s fight. He should do the impossible to help his friend regain his words. It lasted like this for a while with Minas using every opportunity to convince Apkar to take his suggestion and see a doctor. Apkar would always refuse outright, until the day when, lifting his arms out of the soapy water in the sink, he finally said with utter calm: “Did you hear? They’ve taken him away.”