A Place Far Away

by Vahan Zanoyan

  The Bible has been in the Galian family for generations, and has traveled with them through exiles from Eastern Turkey, to Egypt, to Lebanon, then Armenia, then Siberia and then back to Armenia. If the family ever owned any other valuables, they are long since lost during these forced marches and exiles, but the Bible has somehow been kept and protected over some seventy-five years.

  “Is he religious?” asks Ayvazian’s interrogator.

  “If he is, he keeps it to himself. He has never set foot in a church, even after Independence. He never talks religion to anyone. He just reads the Bible to his children.”

  The Galians’ Aghpar status is an extenuating circumstance to the girl’s otherwise inconvenient profile. It simply means that the villagers would not be as protective of the family as they would be to one of their own.

  So Ayvazian decides to approach the family directly. It was not unheard of in those difficult years that families would give up their young children for some cash up front and the promise of a better future for the child than they could provide. In fact, in the villages and small towns of Armenia this had become relatively common in the most difficult years right after Independence. “We can make an attractive offer to the parents,” Ayvazian figures. “Lara deserves a better future than she can expect to have in the streets of Saralandj.”

  Ayvazian sends his top recruiter and operator, who happens to be his nephew, to do the job. And so Viktor Ayvazian, accompanied by two of his bodyguards, finds himself in his shiny black Mercedes SUV in the muddy main street of Saralandj on a Saturday afternoon. It is a narrow unpaved road, more like an obstacle course of mounds, holes and rocks, not meant to handle any automobile, let alone a large one. The villagers stare at them from windows and the roadside, keeping their eyes on the car for a very long time, staring in trancelike bafflement. Even though the four-wheel drive vehicle can manage most mountain roads in Armenia, they have to stop the car around twenty meters from the Galian house and walk the remaining distance. The road has too many deep potholes full of muddy water to take a chance with the car.

  Lara’s mother notices them first from the kitchen window. It is not a sight one sees every day in the streets of Saralandj. Three men in fancy clothes and Italian loafers struggling up the road to get to their house. It would be comical, if only she had been in the mood to laugh. The two bodyguards have clean-shaven heads and muscular arms, but cannot hide protruding bellies that simply do not fit with the overall image. Under their coats there are bulges, which indicate weapons at their waists. The third man, Viktor, looks different; he has thick black hair combed straight back, and is dressed in grey; grey shirt, darker grey jacket with black stripes, lighter grey trousers, and darker grey, almost black loafers.

  Galian is in the back garden. He has watered the vegetable patch and dug around the six fruit trees in preparation to water them. He inspects the grafts, content with his handiwork and satisfied with the way the grafts have stuck and sprouted. He examines again the three plum grafts on one of the apricot trees, and the two peach grafts on the second. The shoots are already around fifteen centimeters long, and look healthy. The kids will have a lot of fun picking plums and peaches from the apricot trees, he thinks.

  Mrs. Galian sends one of her older daughters to the back garden to call her father. “Tell him to drop everything and rush inside,” she tells her, almost in a panic. Viktor, flanked by his two bodyguards, has finally managed to get to the house.

  And then things begin to get really awkward. The Galian house is basically two rooms. One serves as the bedroom for the eight children. The second serves as kitchen and dining room in one corner and bedroom for the parents in the other. The toilet is a shack outside at the far end of the garden with a deep hole dug into it. On bathing days, they bathe in the kitchen corner of the parents’ bedroom, sitting on a small wooden stool on the floor. So the “guests” are invited into the kitchen side. They are offered chairs from the dining table, and the Galians sit on their bed. There is a strong smell of manure in the room, because that is what they burn in the small stove in the corner of the kitchen—cow manure mixed with hay and dried in the sun in the shape of round, loaf-sized cakes. That is also the main source of heat in the winter, with the stovepipe passing through the other bedroom before going out, and thus heating both rooms. The second source of heat used to be the hundred or so sheep cuddled in the low underground hall under the main house, with the warmth from their bodies rising into the house. But now, with just a few sheep, that source of warmth is not as effective.

  The conversation with the Galians does not go as Viktor had expected. He starts by explaining to the parents that their daughter Lara has a very special gift, that he and his uncle are willing to help her reach her true potential, that she could become a very successful model of international fame. They offer to take upon themselves all the initial costs of training and schooling her for a percentage of her future earnings. Their offer also includes an immediate advance payment of $300 to the parents for the rights to become their daughter’s agents.

  Although Viktor is confident in the strength of his offer, he feels as if he is in unfamiliar territory. The surroundings are totally alien to him; and he is uncomfortably aware that some of the children are eavesdropping from behind the door. He has always felt uncomfortable not knowing who is listening to his words, even if they are children. The lack of control over this environment is so troublesome to him that he regrets holding the meeting here instead of inviting the father to one of their offices or coffee shops.

  “But she’s only sixteen,” says Lara’s mother. “How can she start something like that now?”

  Silva Galian is a tall, thin, pale woman. Viktor cannot gauge her age. He reckons she could be anywhere between forty-five, if one focused on her eyes and lips, to almost seventy, if one were to consider her pale color and the state of her wrinkled hands.

  “That’s the right age to start in this business,” replies Viktor. “In fact, some of the most famous European models have started much younger, some when they were only ten.”

  As he speaks, Viktor becomes unusually aware of his voice. How does he sound? Firm? Friendly? Sure or unsure of himself?

  The father is quiet and just stares at the visitors. He has run in from the garden, dirty, his hands and hair covered with mud and twigs, and is trying to fathom the visit, the visitors and their offer. He wipes his hands on his trousers and listens. He openly stares at Viktor’s face as he speaks, checking his slick hair, dark eyes, handsome and well groomed face with clean, silky skin. There is no doubt in his mind that the offer has to be categorically rejected. That is not what he is thinking about. He is wondering how much trouble he should expect from these thugs once he tells them no. He knows of Viktor’s uncle. Sergey Ayvazian, although a relatively secretive man, is known to him by reputation and hearsay, and there probably is more mystique and mystery surrounding him than any of the other rich oligarchs in the country. These people normally do not accept no for an answer.

  Viktor feels uncomfortable under the father’s quiet stare. He wishes the father would speak instead of the mother. But he does note that the man is quite handsome, even though time has caused a lot more wear and tear on his face and hands than his age would normally cause. He has the old, aristocratic nose of ancient Armenian nobility, wide forehead, thick curly hair, which has turned grey around his temples, and very bright and penetrating eyes. He reminds Viktor of the mythological characters that he learned about in school; he had always imagined the mythical god Vahagn to look something like Galian, except maybe with longer and crazier hair and a long curly beard. The man clearly looks out of place in so much poverty, an unfamiliar feeling for Viktor. He has never given a second thought to poor people before. They looked like they belonged where they were. But somehow he does not feel that poverty is becoming to Galian, and realizes with some discomfort that a man can come down in the world as well as move up.

  “But how can she go to Europe at such a yo
ung age?” the mother asks. “She has not even been outside Aparan, except just once when we had to go to Yerevan a few years back to greet her uncle at the airport. She is still in school. She knows nothing.”

  The mother is aware that $300 is the entire annual salary of her husband. Even if all the promises they are making about future income do not materialize, the $300 is a major factor for her. But she knows that her questions are basically to give her husband time to think and weigh the options. He will have the last say.

  “We will take care of everything,” says Viktor, answering her but looking at him. “She will first meet my uncle, and then we will get her papers in order—a passport, some other certificates—you do not have to worry about a thing. Then she will start an apprenticeship in a beauty salon in Athens, Greece, which my uncle knows. Greece is a very safe place, and we have many friends and contacts there.”

  Viktor gestures to one of the bodyguards who produces a small booklet from his coat pocket. It is a flyer of a beauty salon, portraying attractive ladies in beautiful clothes and perfect make up, looking successful, proud and happy.

  “This beauty salon is where most models in Greece are recruited from,” says Viktor as he hands her the leaflet. “While doing her apprenticeship, she will be paid a modest amount, but more than enough for her to live on. She’ll probably even have something left over to send home. By the time she is seventeen she will have her first full modeling job and an opportunity to win over the whole world!”

  The mother starts leafing through the booklet, more as a courtesy than anything else, and turns toward her husband to see if he wants to look at it; he gently shakes his head. So she stops leafing through it and hands it back to the bodyguard.

  Of course it does not matter that the story does not make much sense and that a beauty salon has nothing to do with modeling. Viktor knows that these peasants wouldn’t know any better. The important thing is the promise, the bait, the hope.

  “I don’t know,” says the mother. “I just don’t know. My Lara is still a child…”

  Samvel Galian finally stands up. “Thank you very much, Mr. Viktor,” he says. “And please thank your respectable uncle on my behalf. Your offer is indeed very kind and generous, but we simply cannot accept. As my wife said, Lara is still a child. She could not possibly face such a challenge. We do not want her to face these challenges. Thanks again for your visit and your generous offer.”

  Having said his only and final words standing up, it is obvious from his body language that he has ended the meeting and asked Viktor and his men to leave. There is an intensity in Galian’s soft and polite manners that disarms Viktor. The confident, I-always-get-my-way thug attitude melts away in this poor peasant home, where he feels as out of place as he actually is. There is no point in further talk. “As you wish,” he says, and stands up. The bodyguards stand up also.

  As Viktor and his bodyguards leave the house, Lara comes rushing in with two of her younger brothers in close pursuit, her laughter cascading and filling the whole front yard. She has a carved wooden object in her hand, apparently snatched from one of her brothers, who are chasing her into the house to retrieve it. She is bursting with life. A light summer blouse, dirty with mud and stains, some of which look like manure, does not hide her maturing body underneath and will not contain her young breasts much longer. Her feet are bare and muddy, her hair dirty, curly and all tangled up in hay and grass. But when she looks up in shock at the visitors and her charcoal-black eyes meet Viktor’s, his heart misses a beat. The late afternoon sunlight falls on her face, highlighting the black birthmark on her slender neck. To his surprise, he feels an overpowering urge to have her. This girl is not just beautiful. She is also desirable in a wild, uncontrollable way that mere physical beauty does not always inspire. As he walks back the last twenty meters to his car, there is no doubt in Viktor’s mind that they must have Lara Galian join their operation.

  Sergey Ayvazian was not surprised by the report, but he was not amused either. His first instinct was to blame his nephew for messing up the operation, but the more he thought about the story the more he became convinced that there was little Viktor could have done against a determined and principled father. The girl’s profile was wrong, as he had known from the start. But sometimes the best candidates came with the worst profiles, and he realized it was up to him to fix things.

  There were only two possible courses of action for Ayvazian. To drop the whole thing, which was what his conservative instincts were telling him, or to remove the impediments and capture the prize, which was what his basic impulses of the trade were telling him. He did not take too long to decide.

  The invitation for Lara’s father to visit Martashen, one of the larger villages in Armenia and the hometown of Ayvazian, came only a week after Viktor’s visit. It was from Sergey Ayvazian and was very cordial, but it was also clear that this was not something that could be turned down. It was delivered in person by two messengers, one of whom was one of the bodyguards with Viktor on the first visit. In the eyes of the villagers, they all looked alike. Foreign—clean and well pressed shirts, trousers with creases, shiny loafers, sunglasses. None of them belonged in Saralandj.

  “Mr. Ayvazian appreciates your decision,” the spokesman told Lara’s father. “In fact, he agrees with you, even though that may seem somewhat paradoxical given that he made the proposal to you in the first place. But in reality it is not. He is a father and has a daughter himself. So part of him clearly sees your point of view, while another part of him sees the incredible professional potential of Lara, which he feels should not go unrealized.”

  The spokesman waited for some reaction from Galian, but got nothing more than a gentle, barely noticeable nod. “At any rate,” he continued, “as you know, Mr. Ayvazian is in many different businesses, and would like to discuss with you an entirely different business proposition, having to do with animal husbandry, for which Aparan and especially Saralandj are ideally suited. Mr. Ayvazian has a plan to import cattle from Holland and Switzerland and develop a whole new breed of dairy cows in Armenia. These cows give 25-30 liters of milk a day, compared with the 5-7 liters that the local cows give. It is not only an incredible business opportunity but also will revolutionize the dairy business in the entire country. The ideal location for such a farm is Saralandj. He is impressed with your principled stand as a father and believes you would make an ideal business partner.”

  Galian listened silently and carefully, as he had done with Viktor. He tried to size up his visitors. There was no doubt in his mind that he could never do business with these people. They were from a different world. He wished to be left alone, to live quietly in his own village. As he sat there listening, he could not help recalling the words of his late father, who had told him that the ultimate human dignity was in living within one’s means. “The minute you try to go beyond your own means,” he had said, “you compromise not only your freedom, but with it also your dignity. It is better to live dignified and free in poverty, than to pretend to be something that you are not.” Words to live by thought Galian, listening to the fantastic stories about Dutch cows in Saralandj.

  But turning down two offers from Ayvazian in one week would have been too dangerous, especially when the second one did not involve his daughter. This was carefully planned by Ayvazian; this was a personal invitation for cooperation and friendship with an open and vague agenda. No reasonable rejection could possibly be explained as an objection to the proposed agenda, but could only be understood as a personal slight. That could put his whole family in danger of retribution. Martashen is in the Vayots Dzor region, around an hour-and-a-half from Yerevan. Ayvazian owned a ranch there in addition to his mansion in Yerevan. Galian would have preferred to visit him in Yerevan, which was only a forty-five minute drive from Aparan, but he did not feel he could request such conditions, especially when his visitors were providing transportation to Martashen and back.

  Galian had an eerie feeling that Sunday morning wh
en he got into the black Mercedes SUV. He had bathed and shaved, but had the same rags on as always. Very few in Saralandj had special clothes for Sundays. He was going just for the day, so there was no call for long goodbyes. But he bid farewell to his family anyway, and gave the boys instructions on what needed to be done in the garden. He kissed his daughters, and lingered a bit longer with Lara, giving her a second kiss on the forehead.

  That was the last time Galian saw his family. The news of the accident reached Saralandj late that evening. His body arrived the next evening. The details were very sketchy. They had gone to a small village in Vayots Dzor called Sevajayr, famous for its sharp peaks and ravines. Ayvazian knew the area well, because he went there often to hunt mountain goats. There is one steep meadow in particular where the goats gather almost year round. It is well protected because the place is virtually inaccessible by car or on foot. But Ayvazian would land at the top of the peak with a helicopter, and shoot the grazing goats around two to three hundred meters down into the meadow. The goats he slaughtered rolled down the steep meadow into the valley below, where his men collected them.

  The story was that the conversation turned from animal husbandry to the medicinal value of the wild plants and herbs growing all over the mountainsides in Armenia, and finally to wood. Wood is rare in Armenia. Almost all construction is done in stone, which is much more abundant. Tuff, a type of volcanic rock is by far the most abundant, and comes in many different colors—from light pink to black and many shades of red and yellow in between. Almost all of Yerevan, the capital city, is built of tuff.

  But wood was beginning to become popular in new buildings and villas, for flooring, paneling and for kitchens and patios. Imported wood was very expensive, and generally of inferior quality because it was rarely dried and processed properly. So Ayvazian was looking into investing in a wood processing plant in Dilijan, a town in Northern Armenia famous for its rich forests. And, as it turns out, Galian had worked one summer in Dilijan as a lumberjack, and knew a thing or two about cutting and treating wood. Upon hearing this Ayvazian said he was delighted; he claimed that now they had found another potential area of cooperation, and invited Galian for a drive to Sevajayr to look at some his properties where he was planning to plant trees. “One cannot build an industry on the existing forests,” he declared. “Our forests are our national wealth. But we can plant the trees we want to cultivate into wood.”