‘Don’t forget to pay Mr Shato back,’ his father reminded him.
‘I’ll be leaving for Armenia soon,’ Arek told him.
‘I sent my story to an Armenian daily in New York,’ Kamer said with a smile.
‘I’ll miss you terribly,’ Bebo confided in a murmur.
‘I wish you weren’t leaving, but I know you have to,’ Aram managed to utter.
Tomas didn’t hear any of them. He recalled for a fraction of a second their friend Haig’s departure for Paris. It had already been two years.
Tomas was ready to pass through the gate when Muguet, the magazine’s part-time literary consultant, rushed in all excited with a thousand excuses for being late, holding a box of marzipan as a going away present.
‘How could you leave without kissing me?’ She threw her arms around him. ‘I shouldn’t have given my OK to the story,’ she said apologetically. ‘I’ll blame myself and miss you forever.’
‘I’d have published it anyway,’ Tomas grinned. ‘Don’t feel guilty.’
From the vast picture window overlooking the tarmac strip Tomas’s parents watched the long white fuselage of the Pan American carrier with sinking hearts.
‘Well,’ his father said to his mother, ‘the years have gone by too quickly.’
She turned around to kiss her son once more before leaving but Tomas had already gone.
*
It was a cloudless November morning. The plane made an emergency landing in Geneva because, with the help of two flight attendants and a doctor who happened to be on board, a young Turkish woman had given birth on the plane. She went into labour hardly an hour after take-off. The high altitude, the woman’s anxiety, and her lifelong wish to give birth to her first child outside the Turkish borders accelerated the arrival of her baby boy. She named him Icarus.
The plane arrived in Prestwick three hours late.
That same evening Tomas boarded a four-engine propeller-driven carrier to cross the Atlantic. It was a nine-hour flight, with a short stop in Newfoundland. Then they would proceed over Labrador and Quebec City to their final destination.
The captain announced the weather in Montreal: 28°F. Tomas took his notepad from his briefcase and scribbled:
The cold caught me unawares that winter in Quebec. Autumn was too short to enjoy. For months on end winter cast its savage spell, diffusing sub-zero temperatures over an arctic fantasia. The province was caught up in political wrangling between distinguished politicians and churchmen. Montreal, though, is a curious place; it makes a deep impression on one’s memory; the edges of its pavements are frozen sharp. The mind works overtime to keep itself from freezing ...
The plane touched down at Dorval Airport at 5:30 PM.
27
Tomas followed the crowd to the immigration counters and got in line.
North America had become an obsession for him ever since Anya’s departure. And now he was almost there, waiting to be admitted. He gazed at the advertisements on the walls: ten-foot tall posters in English and French. There were no announcements, no edicts to compel him to speak Turkish or the language of the country. Everything seemed so still. He felt like he was the only one moving. But he wasn’t moving. As he waited in the queue he heard a man and a woman with a five- or six-year-old boy standing a few feet behind him speaking Armenian.
‘I told you,’ the woman was saying, ‘I told you a million times that we should have chosen Toronto instead of Montreal.’
‘What’s the difference?’
Tomas turned and looked at them. Their faces looked familiar.
The woman continued, ‘Who do we know in this godforsaken place? What do we know about this city except for the Dionne quintuplets.’
‘They’re not from Montreal; they’re from Ontario.’
‘Ontario. Whatever. I don’t even know where that is. At least there’s Albert and Nazeli in Toronto. They say it’s nice there.’
‘Please, Irma, we’ve just arrived. Don’t start.’
Suddenly the little boy decided to run to an empty luggage cart left idle a few feet away. He pushed the cart and jumped.
His mother shouted in Armenian, ‘Come back here, Garo. You see that man over there?’ pointing at an officer in a red tunic and a stetson hat, ‘He’s a policeman, and he’s watching you. He’s getting angry. He’ll come and take you away.’
It was the second Mountie Tomas had seen in his life. The first was Nelson Eddie in a film called Rose-Marie.
The boy didn’t even hear what his mother was saying. He was too busy pushing the cart towards a wooden bench where two elderly women were sitting. The mother dashed over and dragged him back. Tomas couldn’t resist going over to greet them.
‘We saw you at Prestwick and I asked my wife if she recognized you, but she said she didn’t.’
The husband told his wife that he had seen his picture in one of the Turkish papers. They had read all about Daktilo Sabri’s assassination and the review, New Signatures.
Tomas changed the subject. He told him he was visiting Montreal.
‘Oh, I’m sorry. I’m Daniel Selian, and this is my wife, Irma. But tell me, how did you get out of the country? Sorry. It’s none of my business, but I’m glad you’re here. I’m really happy for you,’ and with that he patted Tomas lightly on the shoulder. ‘We’ve come as landed immigrants. I’ve already got a job in an engineering company.’
‘That’s very nice,’ Tomas said.
The wife, who was an attractive woman with big black eyes and black hair, a little on the chubby side, let out a sigh. ‘I’m so happy to have met you.’
‘Me too.’
The husband took an appointment calendar from his inside pocket, wrote down the address of the boarding house where they were staying, and handed it to Tomas. ‘Come and see us; we’d be delighted. I’m really glad to have met you after reading all about you.’
The wife asked for Tomas’s address.
‘I don’t have one yet. I’ll let you know when I visit you.’
Tomas approached the desk, behind which stood a miniature immigration officer with an amiable face. She smiled. Tomas handed her his passport and ticket.
‘Do you speak French or English?’
‘Both.’
She continued in French. It didn’t exactly correspond to the French Tomas had studied in Istanbul – peculiar Quebecois French.
‘If you don’t mind, I prefer English.’
‘I know, I know, you don’t understand good French,’ she replied in perfect English and put on another comely smile. ‘May I know the purpose of your visit?’
‘Tourism.’
‘What made you come to Montreal?’
‘My reading, my curiosity.’
She looked at him, not exactly satisfied. ‘Are you on an assignment?’
‘No, not really. Why?’
‘I’m asking you. Are you or aren’t you?’
‘I told you, I’m not.’
‘No, you said “Not really”.’
‘Then no, I’m not.’
‘Are you married?’
‘No, I’m not.’
‘What’s your profession?’
‘Translator. What’s this all about?’
‘Just routine.’
‘A rather strange routine.’ She was beginning to get on his nerves.
‘Do you plan to apply for a permanent visa while you’re in Canada?’
‘No, I don’t.’
‘Where will you be staying?’
‘I’ll go to a hotel.’
She reached for the telephone in front of her and dialled a number. A brief conversation in French ensued. Tomas grasped only three or four words: addresse, hôtel, écriture, and a fourth one, which sounded like an elongated oui.
Another Mountie appeared, collected Tomas’s passport from the immigration officer and asked him to follow him.
Many unpleasant thoughts crossed Tomas’s mind before they stopped at an open office door. Had the Turkish authorities called ahead fr
om Istanbul to have him arrested? Had Shato pulled a fast one on him? Was there something wrong with his passport, or with the visa, or with the ticket? No, it couldn’t be; he had bought a return ticket to prove that he was a visitor and would be returning to Turkey.
Three men sat behind three government oak desks. Tomas sat near the first desk. Behind it was a bald, bespectacled, pale-looking French-Canadian civil servant. Another French-Canadian functionary, thin and bald, occupied the second desk. And the third was a robust, moustachioed Irishman with blue eyes and thick bushy eyebrows. All three looked to be in their forties.
The first man asked Tomas his profession in English. Tomas avoided mentioning his short career as editor of New Signatures.
The second man asked him if he intended applying for a permanent visa while he was in Canada.
Tomas assured him emphatically that that was not his intention.
The man insisted, ‘If somebody offered you an interesting job with a good salary would you be tempted to stay?’
‘It depends,’ Tomas said.
‘On what?’
‘On the offer. If they offer to make me Prime Minister I won’t refuse.’
The three of them laughed and the atmosphere relaxed a little.
‘Well, Mr Prime Minister,’ the third man continued in an exaggerated Irish accent, ‘We can tell from your name that you’re Armenian. We’re also aware of the treatment of the Armenians in Turkey and the recent measures against Turkish minorities. Lately, several Armenians have arrived in Canada as visitors and almost all of them have applied for permanent status through employers who insist that they can’t find qualified Canadians to fill the posts.’
‘You don’t have to worry then,’ Tomas said. ‘Canada has always produced excellent prime ministers and there will always be excellent Canadians to fill the post. So my presence won’t be a threat to anyone ...’
‘Let’s be serious for a minute,’ the first man interrupted. ‘Tell us where you’ll be staying and we’ll stamp your passport and let you in.’
‘I’ll be staying in a hotel, and I plan to travel in Canada.’
‘All right,’ the Irishman said. ‘That’ll be all.’ He stamped Tomas’s passport and gave him a three-month extension. It was a brief routine interview for the three immigration officers but for Tomas it felt longer than the entire trip.
The Armenian couple with their little boy were waiting to go in as Tomas walked out. He picked up his suitcases and joined the long line waiting to go through customs.
His mind started drifting to places he had never been: New York, Chicago, Los Angeles ... He imagined a Montreal with sleighs, with troikas. He recalled the old count’s troika, with Dimmler and his party, in War and Peace, which he had read not too long ago. He could hear the squeaking of its runners and the clanging of its deep-toned bell as it started forward.
Should he call Baltimore immediately? Would she be in her room? She would be studying, he thought. He should call her later. He suddenly felt upset. The couple behind him urged him forward and he turned to glare at them.
‘Excusez-nous,’ they mumbled, equally displeased.
How could he excuse himself for not having replied to her letters?
He wasn’t good enough for Anya. He had no job. He hadn’t been very honest either: he had swindled Shato, stolen his money and betrayed his trust – and he had treated Anya badly.
The line moved slowly. It was getting hot. The couple behind nudged him again. The customs officer was talking to him. He moved quickly, taking a few seconds to bring himself back to reality.
‘Excusez-moi.’
‘Do you have anything to declare?’ the officer asked, first in French and then in English.
Tomas felt like saying, ‘Yes, I have opium, heroin and a huge cargo of memories, along with a second story by Daktilo Sabri.’ Instead he answered rather calmly, ‘Non, rien du tout, Monsieur.’
And he left the immigration and customs area and entered Canada.
*
The waiting area was so crowded and smoky that it was hard to find the hospitality desk. People were hugging and kissing, just as they had done in his lonesome reveries. He took out a cigarette and lit it. The fact that he knew nobody in this new city except for two distant family friends intensified his feeling of loneliness. At last he spotted the hospitality desk and pushed his cart towards it, bumping into somebody as he did so.
‘I’m so sorry,’ he said.
‘You’d better be,’ the young woman shouted.
His heart leapt. That voice! His eyes filled with tears.
‘You got here just in time,’ she said, showing him the stopwatch. ‘I wouldn’t have waited forever.’
Notes
1 A province and city in Turkey, present-day Erzincan.
2 A central Anatolian province in Turkey. Literally ‘black opium ramparts’ in Turkish.
3 The Armenian church in this town contains a memorial to the victims of the genocide and is an important centre of commemoration, especially on 24 April.
4 Named after the Turkish novelist Halide Edip Adιvar’s (1884–1964) novel Sinekli Bakkal (The Fly-blown Grocer, rough translation).
5 Despite its recognition by many international organizations and governments, the Turkish government still does not acknowledge the Ottoman genocide of the Armenians in 1915.
6 Following the war with Greece in 1922, Kemal was awarded the title ‘Gazi’ (victorious) by the Assembly for his successful routing of the Greek forces.
7 The lines are from Hovhannes Tumanian’s (1869–1923) poem ‘My Song’ in Anthology of Armenian Poetry, Diana Der Hovanessian and Marzbed Margossian, trans. & eds. (New York, 1978).
8 ‘Epigrams’ by Yeghishé Charents. See Hovanessian, 216.
9 Kirkpinar Greased-Oil Wrestling: the oldest wrestling festival in the world; it has been held continuously since 1357 in Rumelia, Turkey.
10 The riots were provoked by the demands of the majority Greek population of Cyprus for political union with mainland Greece. This issue provided a convenient basis to intensify the latent hostility against Istanbul’s Greek minority. The political purpose of the riots was to demonstrate unequivocally the seriousness of the Turkish claims over Cyprus.
The Turkish conspiracy to detonate an explosive on 5–6 September at the Turkish consulate (and birthplace of Mustafa Kemal Atatürk) in Salonika was the propaganda spark that lit the fire on the day of the pogrom. Almost six years later, during the Adnan Mendres trials, it was discovered that the consulate bomb fuse was sent from Turkey to Salonika on 3 September, three days before the pogrom.
See Speros Vryonis, The Mechanism of Catastrophe: The Turkish Pogrom of September 6–7, 1955 and the Destruction of the Greek Community of Istanbul, New York: Greekworks.com, 2005. See also John Phillips, ‘The Tragicomedy of Cyprus’, Harper’s Magazine (June 1956), 43–52; also Aziz Nesin, Salkιm Salkιm Asιlacak Adamlar (Clusters of men to be hanged), Istanbul, 1996.
11 Nazιm Hikmet (1902–63), Turkish poet, playwright, novelist and memoirist
12 An insurgency led by Sheikh Saïd of the Nakshbendi Order of the Dervishes in the Kurdish southeast had broken out, intent on restoring the Caliphate. Mustafa Kemal Pasha responded by evoking an emergency law and reinstating Ismet Pasha as prime minister, and swiftly crushed the rebellion. The sheikh was condemned and hanged along with more than forty rebels; newspapers were closed down, journalists arrested and the Republican People’s Party outlawed.
13 The Dersim massacres (1937–8) were the result of the most important Kurdish rebellion. The army and the air force suppressed the uprising, killing thousands of Kurds, including women and children. The events represent one of the blackest pages in the history of the Republic of Turkey, gracefully passed over in silence.
14 The massacres of the Greek and Christian populations of Smyrna (Izmir) in 1922. Following the mass slaughter the Turkish forces set fire to the city and totally destroyed it.
15 Zahrad (Zareh Yald�
�zcιyan, 1924–2007) was an Armenian poet born in Istanbul. He introduced one of the most original phases in modern Armenian poetry in the 1940s.
16 A Turkish province and city perched atop a high mountain on the northern rim of the Syrian Desert.
Glossary
Note: The origins of the words shown in parentheses are not necessarily etymological. Except for place names, the Turkish words are spelled somewhat phonetically to reflect the original pronunciation.
aksor – exile (Armenian)
aktar – herbalist and dealer in small wares (Turkish)
ata – father; a popular nickname for Atatürk (Turkish)
Avedis – an Armenian masculine name; literally it means ‘good tidings’ (Armenian)
Barba – from a term of address barbas, indicating either respect for an older man of friendly familiarity, from Italian barba ‘uncle’, or man with a beard (Greek)
baron – mister (Armenian)
bonjouk – bead (Turkish)
bouboulig – a made-up Armenian word for a child’s penis
bulgur – cracked-wheat (Turkish)
chart – massacre (Armenian)
chiroz – thin pieces of salted and dried mackerel (Turkish)
chorbaji – literally, a soup-maker; metaphorically, the fount of employees’ livelihood (Turkish)
chörek – special Armenian buns prepared at Easter time (Armenian and Turkish)
Christos anesti – Christ has risen (Greek)
daktilo – typist and typewriter (Turkish)
digin, diguine – madame, Mrs (Armenian)
dolmoush – shared taxi or minibus; literally, full up (Turkish)
drum powder and shadow of minaret – davul tozu and minare gölgesi, Turkish expressions for quack medicine
faljι – fortune-teller (Turkish)
garçonnière – bachelor’s flat (French)
giaour – a term applied to non-believers (non-Muslims), especially Christians (Turkish)
haji –A Muslim who has made a pilgrimage to Mecca or a Christian who has made one to Jerusalem (Turkish)
halva or helva – a sweet prepared from sesame oil, with many varieties (Turkish)
The Lamppost Diary Page 20
