When he walked into the Algiers Coffeehouse and she saw his handsome face she knew she was lost. Twenty minutes later she agreed to go home with him. She fell into his arms as soon as they made it back to his family’s conveniently empty house.
The next day he came to Watertown, where they sat chastely on the living room couch. At his behest Ani had taught Asa a few words of Armenian so he could win over her grandmother.
Medz mairig, inchbes es? Asa asked. His accent was atrocious.
Lav em, lav em, char dghah, Grandma said, breaking into a smile. Toun inchbes es?
Kesh chem, he replied. Not bad at all.
Ani was invited to the Willards’ New Year’s Eve party. Asa introduced her as his girlfriend to his pals from prep school and to his parents’ well-heeled friends. Asa, his sister Lizzie, and some of the younger set put on coats and fled into the winter garden to get stoned. Ani ended up at the kitchen table talking with the caterer and the student waiters, who hustled in and out with trays of canapés.
When Peggy discovered Ani she pulled her aside. We’re all so happy that you can be here with us, Ani. Asa loves you very much. She stared at Ani meaningfully. Then Peggy led Ani by the hand back to the party.
In the New Year she returned to school, and even though Ani told Asa she wouldn’t stop seeing Will he moved in with her and Elena. At night Ani trudged down the snowy hill to the apartment where Asa was waiting. He cooked supper. He read her poems. He gave her a massage.
When she arrived at her office in the morning there was a note on the floor just inside the door:
Nelly,
I may go bald from tugging on my hair and tossing
against the white pillow that still smells of you.
Please come back to the Argosy and sail
with me under the prayerful sighs of the poets.
The moon is a laughing fool and the stars broken
shards of a jam jar in my hands when you are not.
Love, Will
Minutes later Will knocked on her door, and they had sex on the leather armchair in her office.
After a month Asa said, I can’t take any more of this shit, Ani. It’s me or him. And she understood. She called Will and told him to meet her at the Inn.
Ani and Will left the Inn and walked across campus. They passed the library and headed toward the pond, where snow along the roadsides gleamed under tall streetlights. Beyond the pines there was a sheet of mist hanging over the frozen water. Ani and Will moved through fog onto the snow-covered golf course. In the slow dark Will reached for Ani’s hand, but she withdrew it, shoving it into her jacket pocket.
I can’t do this anymore. Ani’s voice was muffled and sad.
It’s King Asa, isn’t it? He’s been bullying you. Damn him, Nelly. He doesn’t deserve you.
I’m tired, Captain. I can’t get any work done. You should be seeing other people.
Now that you mention it, I’ve taken a liking to this girl. Name’s Sissy.
A long hatpin of jealousy shot through Ani. Sissy? she asked.
Will eyed her slyly from under a lock of fallen hair. Freshman, he said. Blond. Awful cute. He flicked the hair out of his face.
Ani said, Okay, so I’m jealous. But that doesn’t change anything. I can’t sleep with you anymore.
The thing is, Nelly, Will said, I love that black mane of yours. I love the soft skin right here. . . . He leaned in close, running his finger under her chin and down her neck.
She almost relaxed into his caress, but then she remembered. Stop it, Will, she admonished.
He leaned forward and tried to kiss her.
I said stop it. There was steel in her tone and she pushed him firmly with the heel of her hand.
Goodbye, Nelly. Will turned from her, walking deeper into the fog toward the woods that ran the edge of the golf course. Ani watched as he vanished into the night.
He slid a final note under the door:
Oh Nelly,
When Eugene heard about us he said, William
that was a beautiful girl you had there, won’t
find another quite like Nelly. But then there’s
a lot of fillies in the pasture. Damn all this talk
of animals is what I say. Damn your ersatz
boyfriend. If love had any sense it would shoot
itself in the head and bleed in the goddamn snow.
Remember me, Nelly, and don’t much mind
the girl you see on my arm; she knows nothing
about how I am always your Captain Will.
Will and Sissy hadn’t lasted past spring, but then he had a new girlfriend, a redhead. And a month after graduation Ani had gone to Seattle with Asa.
“Played me like a yo-yo,” Ani repeated bitterly. It was late afternoon, she hadn’t eaten since breakfast, and she was still in her nightgown. She savagely brushed her hair and jerked on some clothes. Little Sydney was waiting.
a long tongue makes for a short life
Ani found Sydney in the bathtub arguing with her dolls. Tacey called to Ani from her bedroom, where she was applying magenta lipstick at her dresser.
Glancing at Ani in the mirror, Tacey asked, “What’s the matter with you? You have big circles around your eyes. You look like a raccoon.”
“Asa dumped me,” Ani blurted out. She hadn’t meant to discuss her misery with Tacey, but she had no one else in whom to confide.
Tacey raised her plucked eyebrows in the mirror. She blotted the lipstick with a tissue and wiped a fleck of pink from her tooth. “From what you told me, you’re better off without him, aren’t you? You’re a beautiful girl, Ani. And you’re in Paris. What would you say if we got you a telephone up there? I mean, how else are you going to arrange dates?”
Dating? What a dismal prospect. But Ani liked the idea of a telephone.
“Okay,” Ani said.
“I’ll call the phone company tomorrow. They have them in all colors. We’ll order you something cheerful, like yellow or orange. Listen, could you get Sydney out of the tub? I’m late. John’s waiting for me at the office.”
At bedtime Sydney said, “Tell me a story. About when you were a kid. But no dead animals.”
“Okay. No dead animals.” Ani pondered a few seconds. “Right. Once upon a time there was a girl named Dana Grimaldi—”
Sydney protested. “No. It’s supposed to be a story about you. A true story.”
Ani explained. “This is a true story about me, and there are no dead animals, but it starts with a girl named Dana Grimaldi, in my hometown. Dana was a thick, bearish girl with brown curly hair. She had small eyes and crooked teeth. Her nostrils flared like a bull’s when she was angry. She used to pick fights in the school parking lot, and a big crowd of kids would stand around in a circle chanting ‘Fight, fight, fight, fight!’ Every few months she would find someone new to bully. In sixth grade she picked an Armenian girl from Beirut named Pearlene Gosdanian. She hated Pearlene.”
“Why did she hate her?” Sydney asked.
“Dana hated her because Pearlene wore a flowered shirt with plaid pants. She hated her because Pearlene spoke English with an accent and because she came from a foreign country. She hated Pearlene because she didn’t like the sound of her name. So Dana waited for Pearlene outside at the end of the school day. Dana walked up to Pearlene and shoved her back and said, ‘So, DP, what do you have to say for yourself, you Armo rugbeater, you stinking camel driver.’”
“What’s a deepee?” Sydney queried.
“Displaced person. A refugee. Fresh off the boat from the old country. Pearlene Gosdanian was no pushover—she was scrappy. She wasn’t going to take that kind of talk from anybody. But Dana just hauled back and punched her right in the nose. When Pearlene saw the blood on her hands she ran. My friend Lucy Sevanian and I chased after her to make sure she w
as okay, but Pearlene turned on us, spitting. She yelled all kinds of curses at us in Turkish.”
“Is that the end of the story?” Sydney asked.
“No,” said Ani. “A few years later, when we were in junior high, Dana went after a girl named Manoushag Ovsanian. Usually Dana found someone almost as tough as she was, but this Manoushag was small and timid. Fresh off the boat. Manoushag backed up toward the school fire escape when Dana came at her. I was standing to one side of the fire escape with my friend Lucy. We were halfway between Manoushag and Dana. Without thinking, I stuck out my foot and tripped Dana. She smacked down on the pavement and jumped up, bellowing, ‘Who did that?’
“She turned back to Manoushag. I thought she might kill the girl, she was so mad. So I said, ‘Leave her alone, Dana. She’s half your size.’ And then I ran. The crossing guard yelled at me to stop, but I ran and I ran until I slammed the front door behind me at home.”
“Then what happened?” Sydney asked anxiously.
“Then Dana told everyone at school she was going to kill me. She said she was going to grab me by the hair—I had very long hair at the time—and swing me over her head and throw me up against the school’s brick wall.”
Sydney inhaled sharply.
Ani continued. “I was so scared I didn’t know what to do. My grandfather wanted to give me boxing lessons. My mother wanted to call the principal. My grandmother prayed to God. The next day I scuttled along the halls like a small green crab. I sneaked out of school by the side entrance. I made it halfway across the field before she spotted me. Then she came charging at me with her head down. A pack of kids followed at her heels. They wanted to see the fight.
“I stopped running and turned around to face her. I mean, she wasn’t going to give me any peace until she got her revenge. So I stood there waiting and she barreled into me. The breath was knocked out of me as I hit the ground. I was lying in the grass staring up at a circle of faces, feeling Dana’s sneaker kicking into my leg. Then I saw Van.”
“He helped you bury Mr. Babbit?”
“The very same. Dana said to him, ‘You know this sack of shit?’” Ani paused. She had been excising the curse words as she went along, but this one slipped out. “And Van said, ‘She’s my cousin.’ He grasped my hand and pulled me to my feet. He plucked a leaf out of my hair. So Van, Dana, and I walked over to the bench to talk it out. She wanted an apology. I said I was sorry, although I didn’t really mean it. As soon as it was out of my mouth, I silently prayed for God to forgive me for lying.”
“Then what happened?”
“Van told us to shake hands.” As she said the words Ani felt Dana’s hot, meaty palm against hers.
“What happened after that?”
“Then Van walked me home. The end. Now it’s time for you to go to sleep.” Ani turned out the light.
“Can you sing to me?” Sydney asked.
This little light of mine, I’m gonna let it shine,
This little light of mine, I’m gonna let it shine,
Let it shine, let it shine, let it shine. . . .
As Ani sang, she heard Grandma’s voice in her ear.
Akh babum, Ani, vhy are you so sad, aghchig? Forget about him. Peh! Spit from you mouth.
Baba would agree with Grandma. He said, What does the donkey know of the almond, anoushig?
Ani could see her mother’s melancholy face. I’m so sorry, sweetie.
And Elena Torino? What would she say? You should have dumped that drug-addled white boy before he dumped you.
Asa wasn’t drug-addled. He was a pothead. Okay, she admitted to Elena’s specter, he also dropped acid from time to time, snorted coke, and tossed back flaming shots of whisky. He sometimes made vodka blender drinks for breakfast.
In August, Ani herself had done half a tab of acid at a Grateful Dead concert in Seattle. The place was like a Renaissance carnival, complete with troubadours, jugglers, and dancers. Vendors hawked everything from bootleg tapes to quaaludes. Ani and Asa ran into someone they knew from school, a sweet guy named Barry who had dropped out to follow the Dead.
Doe-eyed Barry wore loose bright clothes and a rainbow band around his forehead. He was painting faces and selling LSD. When Asa and Ani joined him on his blanket, Barry painted a chain of red roses down one side of Ani’s face.
Barry told them, Last year when I was out at Red Rocks for a show, this storm blew up just at the right moment in “The Wheel.” Man, it was intense. Lightning splitting the sky. Then when the song was over the storm went on by. It was amazing. The boys can control the weather. It’s like the crack in the cosmic egg, I’m telling you, man. They’re trying to put Band-Aids on the abyss.
Asa attempted to pay Barry for the flowers, but Barry wouldn’t take the money.
Sell me a blotter then, Asa said.
You need two? Barry asked.
Asa gestured at Ani. This woman gets drunk on half a glass of wine. One is enough.
After they walked away, Ani commented, The poor guy’s brain has turned into steamed cauliflower.
What about it, Ani? Half a blotter? Asa asked.
Do you think this is a good place? Ani asked.
Where better than a Grateful Dead concert? Half the audience is tripping.
So Ani put the tiny slip of paper on her tongue and they entered the Coliseum. By the time they found their seats, Ani couldn’t make any sense of the music, which was loud and discordant. She gazed at colored beams of light playing above the stage. She stared at the people around her as they clapped their hands. Their bodies swayed and their mouths opened, sending out shiny bubbles that drifted toward the high roof.
Asa asked, Are you okay?
Ani nodded yes.
You’re all right? he asked again.
She nodded.
Can you talk?
She shook her head.
Try to say something, Asa ordered.
There were words in her head, but Ani couldn’t seem to transfer them to her tongue. It was as though the connection between brain and vocal cords had been severed. Ani wondered if she would ever speak again. She’d have to carry note cards and a pen to communicate with people. Or she’d have to get a horn like Harpo Marx. She could wear a curly wig and an oversized man’s suit.
Asa said anxiously, Don’t flip out on me, okay?
Ani had forgotten about Asa. There he was with his diamond eyes, white teeth, and that smooth flawless skin. Under the gold lion on his black T-shirt beat a fickle heart.
Suddenly Ani felt the need for the toilet. Pushing past the people in their row, she ran up the aisle to the circular gallery. She approached the railing and peered down at the long drop to the stadium’s ground floor. Glancing up she noticed several uniformed police officers eyeing her warily. Ani backed away and turned toward the LADIES sign.
The white-tiled bathroom was filled with lovely girls who undulated like undersea plants. Ani surveyed the room, selecting the ones she thought Asa would like best: the slim long-haired ones with fine features. After using the toilet she stood before the washbasin running her hands under cold water and staring at herself in the mirror.
A stranger to herself, she considered the black hair done with tiny braids, the chain of roses painted along her cheek, and the long line of her neck. In seventh grade social studies a boy—an Armenian boy from Beirut named Arsen—was handing out paper for a quiz. He leaned down and said, You have a beautiful neck. It was probably the nicest thing any boy had ever said to her, up to and including Asa Willard. Except for Will. Will Jeffers and Arsen Arslanian knew how to talk to a girl.
She shut off the tap and wandered into the corridor, where tie-dyed figures were leaping and cavorting under the benevolent watch of the cops. Asa materialized at her side.
Jesus Christ, Ani. You scared the shit out of
me. Where were you?
She pointed at the rest room.
You still can’t talk?
She shook her head.
Come on, you. Asa laid hold of Ani’s arm and towed her back to their seats.
The music went on and on. But Ani’s mind was a many-petaled flower. She remembered lying under the lilac bushes with her cheek on the soft emerald moss that grew on the shady side of the house. Perfumed French lilacs bloomed near the front walk in early spring. In their bedroom Violet was spraying cologne on her wrists. Baba played his harmonica while Grandma pinned laundry to the line on the porch. Held up by a wire hanger, the clothespin bag was one of Ani’s childhood dresses with the hem sewn shut. Ani wanted to hide in her grandmother’s apron pocket.
When the concert ended, Ani and Asa joined a throng of people streaming over glittering sidewalks. Asa raised his arm to hail a cab.
Let’s walk, Ani said.
It’s about five miles, Ani. I don’t think you’re in any condition to walk. Hey, you’re talking!
Then she couldn’t stop talking. The words poured out of her in a torrent. By the time she finished a sentence her mind raced to another thought entirely, her tongue barely able to keep up with the flow.
Wouldn’t it be incredible if the president and all the senators were tripping on acid? It would toss them out of the narrow boxes they’re trapped in, Ani said to Asa.
Ani, that’s not an original idea, Asa replied.
Who cares about original? I’m part of humanity.
When they got home, Ani lay in the big bed gazing at the oval streetlight just outside their window. An ersatz moon, as Captain Will would have said. Whoa, Nelly, what are you doing there, girl? Ani closed her eyes and watched Day-Glo geometric patterns swirling behind her eyelids while Asa moved on top of her. Miles of starless space stretched between their bodies. She fell asleep and dreamed that she was being chased inside an enormous pink snail’s shell by clowns in polka-dotted suits and black-clad soldiers with bayonets.
Ani sat in Sydney’s darkened room while the little girl slept. She heard the front door open and went downstairs.
Dreams of Bread and Fire Page 5
