I went to the bedroom I would share with Toros and unpacked my bag. His things filled the tallboy by the door, but he had left the dresser empty. In the top drawer I arranged my precious things: the tin cup, a small hand mirror, a set of tor-toiseshell hair combs, two pair of gloves, a hatpin, and a Bible. There was space in the closet for my dresses, and he had pushed his shoes to one side to make room for mine. Out the window, I could see a neighbor’s clothesline, with frozen white shirts swaying in the wind.
That evening we sat down to the dinner that Vartanoush had prepared. She was a terrible cook. The pilaf was dry and tasteless, the lamb and bean stew was oversalted and overcooked. Even the coffee she scalded. Toros, who had second helpings, swallowed it all down without a word. I wondered if he ate so heartily out of love for his mother or if he had lost his sense of taste.
Then we sat in the living room. I was silent as a doorknob, while mother and son caught up on six years of news. They discussed friends and neighbors who had survived the war, trading names that meant nothing to me. I watched the hands move round the clock face and started feeling nervous as it grew later. There was that big bed in our bedroom, and I knew that something would happen in it.
Now, Armenian women are very modest. And all unmarried Armenian women and girls are virgins, even the ones who are not. And I was. No adult had ever explained to me about how babies are made, but in the orphanage I had heard a few things. Then there had been occasional hints from Digin Der Stepanian and jokes from some of the women at the baths. I had a notion of what it was to be husband and wife. I studied Toros’s face, wondering how it would feel when he kissed me. I looked over at Vartanoush, who pursed her mouth and raised a skeptical eyebrow. How was it possible that she could read my mind?
Finally Toros checked his pocket watch and announced that it was time. In the hallway we parted ways. Vartanoush marched into her bedroom like a defeated general. Toros went into the bathroom. And I went into our bedroom to wait.
There was a beautiful, white silk nightdress on the bed. Toros had left it there for me. I hung my clothes and underthings over a chair in the corner and slid on the nightgown. It was so long that the fabric pooled at my feet. I undid the pins that held my hair in a coil, lay down in the bed, and spread the hair into a fan across the pillow.
The room was dark, and then the door opened. Toros shut out the wedge of light that fell in behind him. He climbed into his side of the bed. The two of us lay side by side, under the same thick blanket, listening to each other breathe. Then Toros reached out and touched my shoulder.
I remembered Berj, my beautiful street peddler. He called for me to come down from the balcony, and I went.
* * *
The next morning while Toros was still sleeping, I tiptoed out of the room. I washed and dressed in the bathroom and went into the kitchen, where Vartanoush sat at the kitchen table.
She gestured at me to sit down and poured out a cup of tea. “So, now you’re a married woman,” my mother-in-law said. She stirred her tea, clinking the spoon noisily.
I wished it were my own mother sitting across from me, or Auntie Der Stepanian. I wasn’t going to say anything to that nosy woman who didn’t wish me well. If she had her way, I’d have been sleeping in the front stairwell. So I kept my mouth shut.
She said, with hatred in her eyes, “You know the old proverb, In a house with two mistresses, the floor will never be swept.’ This house has one mistress, and you’re looking at her.”
It was a declaration of war.
Toros came into the kitchen. “Good morning, Mother. Good morning, Zabelle.” He paused briefly behind me, his fingertips resting on the back of my chair, then he sat down.
If she wanted war, there would be fighting. And a cat can’t catch mice while wearing gloves.
Toros left for the store. Vartanoush covered her hair with an old scarf to start cleaning the house. She handed me a bucket and a scrub brush and told me to wash the kitchen floor. I hadn’t so much as lifted a finger in the Der Stepanian house, and now I was to get down on my hands and knees in dirty water. But I did what was asked.
As I dragged the brush over the linoleum, I thought about my new life. If only Toros weren’t so old and serious. If only his mother weren’t hanging over us like an enormous buzzard.
Suddenly she swooped into the room. “Are you afraid to perspire? Why don’t you scrub harder? Laziness is despised by God.”
My back stiffened, and I continued making circular motions with the brush. “Yes, Mother,” I said, not even turning to look at her. “Esh,” I whispered, the sound blending with the stroke of the bristles over the floor.
Once again Vartanoush sensed my defiance. Her fury was like a windstorm approaching across the desert. She crossed the room quickly and kicked over the bucket, which splashed gray water onto my apron and skirt. Before I could say a word, she grabbed me by the scruff of the neck, as if I were a misbehaving puppy.
“Let go of me! What’s the matter with you?” I shouted.
Strength surged through my mother-in-law, and she picked me up, flinging me like a dirty rag onto the frigid back porch, slamming the door. Vartanoush slid the bolt as I yelled and banged on the door. I pulled furiously on the knob. I kicked the door. She was not going to let me in.
My wet skirt and apron clung icily to my legs. I wasn’t going to get frostbite waiting for that toad to unlock the door. The central branches of a tree close to the porch looked sturdy enough to hold my weight, and I thought the snow on the ground would break my fall if I slipped. With determination, I swung my leg over the railing. A sharp-faced squirrel scolded me from a branch above, and a boy on a bicycle called out to me in English as he pedaled by. Ignoring both of them, I gripped the railing, lowered my feet to a fork in the tree, then climbed down to the ground. Lucky for me the side door was unlocked, so I hid in the basement for a while before sneaking up the front stairs in time for lunch.
When Toros arrived at noon, Vartanoush stood at the stove, stirring the soup.
“Good day, Mother!” he addressed her in English. “Now that you are in America, you must learn to speak English,” he continued in Armenian.
“I’m too old to learn new ways. I speak Armenian, Turkish, and some Arabic. Here, you’ll have to be my interpreter.” Vartanoush poured the soup into a tureen.
“Where’s my wife?”
“Look on the porch,” Vartanoush said darkly.
“The porch?” asked Toros.
I had been listening to all this from the dining room. I materialized in the kitchen, trying not to smile. “What would I be doing out on the porch in this kind of weather?”
Vartanoush’s chin fell to her chest, and her eyebrows hit her hairline. I took the soup tureen from the stove. “Let me help you with that, Mother,” I said in my sweetest voice.
* * *
The weekend passed smoothly—housework, cooking, a streetcar ride to the church on Shawmut Avenue, dinner, and a walk along the Charles River on Sunday afternoon. With Toros around, the water’s surface was calm. I said nothing at all, except when directly questioned.
I remembered a story the woman who embroidered with Dalita and me had told us one afternoon. In the old days, in the woman’s village, there had been a custom that when a bride entered her mother-in-law’s house, the girl was not allowed to talk in the presence of the family. The length of the girl’s silence depended upon the goodwill of the mother-in-law, who would eventually grant her permission to speak. This Armenian custom was called “the bride has lost her tongue.” Only at night, in the privacy of her marriage bed, could the girl address her husband. I thought adopting this custom for a while might be useful.
In our room at night, I pressed Toros for permission to take an English class at the high school two evenings a week. I finally convinced him of the idea, and the next morning he announced to Vartanoush at breakfast that his wife would be taking English lessons. The old squirrel didn’t respond right away. Finally she said, “Toros,
it is, after all, up to you. If you don’t mind that your wife walks the streets alone after dark, there isn’t much I can say. When do these classes start?”
“Tonight,” I said. “At seven-thirty, and it’s only a ten-minute walk.”
Vartanoush shot me an acid glance. Confident that her son would be oblivious of her sarcasm, Vartanoush said, “Well, my dear, you certainly have worked everything out. Don’t you worry about leaving your husband alone all evening, without your company?”
“I’m sure, Mother, that he will be pleased to have your undivided attention for a few hours.” I looked at her sideways.
The mean bird was shocked that I had met blade with blade. Toros was lost in his newspaper. Suddenly, under the table, I felt a sharp pain in my shin. The she-goat had kicked me.
“Aah!” I gasped.
“What?” asked Toros, glancing up from his paper.
“Nothing,” Vartanoush and I chimed in unison.
“You’re going to be late, my son, unless you hurry.”
Toros laughed in protest. “Mayrig, the store is three blocks from here, and I’m the boss.” But he rose to go.
Vartanoush helped him on with his coat. As he headed down the back stairs, she closed the door and pushed up the sleeves of her sweater, ready to go after me. But with the broom in hand, I raced down the front steps and was vigorously sweeping the front walk as Vartanoush glared down at me through the window.
At supper that night I didn’t mind that Vartanoush had burned the bottom of the bulgur so the charred taste went through all the grain. I had made a trip to Woolworth’s in the afternoon, where I’d bought a lined notebook and a pencil.
I amused Toros with the story of my dealings with the clerk. “I had to say ‘pencil’ five times—I said it just as you told me—before he understood what I meant. But he was a nice person; he didn’t laugh, and helped me choose a notebook. After I walked up and down the aisles, I sat at the counter and had a soda.”
I saw the telltale flush rising up Vartanoush’s neck but her anger couldn’t touch me.
After the table was cleared, I washed the dishes in about two minutes and was into my coat and hat in thirty seconds. I paused on the landing, with my ear pressed to the kitchen door.
”Vay, vay, vay, what is this world coming to, my son?” Vartanoush clucked.
“What does this mean, Mayrig?”
“Can you imagine what your father, may the Lord keep him, would have said had I gone out alone at night? Imagine what people at the church will think.”
“She’s only going to class, Mother.”
“What does a wife need lessons for? Can’t you teach her everything she needs? Who knows what sort of riffraff will be there. Did you notice she was wearing her best dress?”
“She wants to look nice for the teacher and the other students. She’s proud.”
“And you know what the Bible says about pride.”
I ran down the steps and out of the house, away from her hateful scheming and the sound of creaking bones.
The class was thrilling. I learned how to say “My name is Zabelle Chahasbanian. What’s your name? How are you? I am fine, thank you.”
When I burst into the door an hour and a half later, my cheeks were ruddy from the brisk walk and I was bright with life.
“Well, look, Toros, here is our little wanderer come home!” the old witch said.
I pronounced in English, bowing from the waist, “Good evening, sir!” I barely looked at Vartanoush, not wanting to spoil my mood.
The next evening, after I finished with the dishes, I listened by the pantry door for more of her campaign against me.
“Son, I only say these things because I want you to be happy. If you let your wife run wild now in the first days of your marriage, what do you think will happen in a few years? She will be out at night, disgracing the family. Remember from Proverbs: ‘She is loud and stubborn; her feet abide not in her house’”
“Zabelle asked my permission to take this class. She wants to learn English so she can help me in the store.”
“I have seen these American women working in stores, and it is shameful. They belong in their homes. Your wife, Toros, your wife should be at home with your children while you are at the store. Think of the good women you know from church. Do their husbands allow them to go around at night? Are they working in stores as shopgirls, showing all their teeth to strange men?”
She paused for a few seconds, then continued, “You’ve got to put your foot down. In Proverbs, it says finding a virtuous woman is better than finding rubies. Once you have one, you’ve got to keep her that way.”
“If she worked in the store with me, I don’t think there’d be a problem. Or maybe she’ll take a job at Ohanessian’s shirt factory,” Toros said. “We could use the extra money right now.”
“Don’t they all speak Armenian at Ohanessian’s?”
I came into the room at that moment. “What about Ohanessian’s? I thought I was going to work in the market with you.
Toros grimaced. “We’ll see.”
I could feel the walls of my defenses crumbling. But I didn’t give up. When we went to bed that night, I recited all the American words I had learned and made him laugh at my funny pronunciation, which he corrected. It felt like something we could do together, learning this language. And I believed he would be able to stand up to her.
Two days later I sat at the dining-room table, bent over my notebook, printing the English alphabet. In comparison with Armenian letters, they seemed like a starched procession, all angles and straight lines, but satisfying when arrayed on the page. Then I started to copy down the days of the week and the months of the year. While I did this, Vartanoush dusted the dishes in a glassed cabinet in one corner of the room. I think it started to get on her nerves that she was working while I sat in a chair.
“Mother,” I said, “I’ll help you in a few minutes. I’m almost done.” Then I asked, “When is Toros’s birthday?”
“In August. The fifth. Why do you ask?”
“Just curious. We’re learning the months and days of the week.”
“Your own birthday, even the year, you don’ t know.” Vartanoush sounded sympathetic.
I looked up, surprised by her kindness but too engrossed to wonder about it. “It doesn’t matter,” I said.
“You should choose a day.”
“Any day?”
“Sure. You can pick a new birthday.”
I thought for a moment. “The first of April. It’s a spring day, with blue skies.”
Vartanoush sighed. “Listen, Zabelle, you’re not going anywhere tonight.”
“What do you mean? The class meets tonight.”
“No … Toros decided he doesn’t want you to take that class.”
“He didn’t say anything to me.”
“Well, he changed his mind. Of course, he still wants you to learn the language, but not in a roomful of strangers. He doesn’t like the idea of you on the street alone at night.”
“It’s only a few blocks from here. If he’s worried, he can walk with me, he can come and meet me.”
Vartanoush’s patience snapped. “You selfish girl! You think your husband should work all day to put food in your mouth, and then he should be your servant, accompanying you to class and fetching you home again? Who put such ideas in your head?”
“A walk after dinner would do him good,” I said. I heard doors slamming shut on me.
“You wretch! I should have known better than to take someone from the house of that accursed cousin of mine, with her French perfume and European notions. And you! It’s good that your mother died, rather than see you behave so disrespectfully!” Vartanoush moved close to me, slicing the air in front of my face with her hand.
“Don’t you speak the name of my mother!” I shouted, jumping up from the chair, knocking it over. My mother was an angel—she had stopped eating after the baby died so there would be more food for me. Vartanoush was spiteful
and selfish, not fit to wipe the shoes of my mother.
This retort was too much for Vartanoush, and she slapped me across the face. When I instinctively put my arms around my head, the old woman beat me on the arms, the shoulders, the back. “Don’t you ever,” she said between blows, “don’t you ever speak to me in that tone of voice again! It must be the devil who puts such evil in your heart!”
I tore myself away and ran to the bedroom I shared with Toros. I slammed the door behind me, turned the lock, and propped the chair under the doorknob for good measure. If the tallboy hadn’t been so heavy, I would have pushed that in front of the door as well. I knew I would learn English one way or another, and I would fill my notebook with English words. I’d have a whole page set aside just for bad names to call my mother-in-law. I was furious that Toros had sided with his mother and didn’t have the nerve to tell me himself.
My mother-in-law was like some kind of a horrible dev from one of the stories my grandmother had told me when I was a child. Always at the end of those tales, the dev had been vanquished, drowned in a well or sealed with a boulder into a dark cavern. Was I going to be stuck with Vartanoush forever?
At dinner that night Vartanoush and I would not look at each other. Toros glanced uneasily back and forth between us. My eyes were red from crying, and Vartanoush’s glittered with barely controlled fury. Toros knew his mother had informed me of their decision, but he was such a coward that he couldn’t even bring up the canceled lessons.
The three of us ate in silence, the sounds of the forks against the plates interrupted only by requests from Toros for the salt or the butter. The rest of the evening dragged by in sullen silence. Toros read the newspaper, his mother wrote a letter to her priest in Istanbul, and I darned socks with stabs of the needle.
Zabelle Page 5