“I thought I had seen everything in this business,” says Ghanem, “but even I have to admit that I’ve come across a new one—the first in a very, very long time. If this case interests you, you are welcome to the entire file.”
Chapter Fifteen
“They say you cannot find a calf under an ox,” Edik tells Anna as he takes his leave. I know he likes her. His handshake is long and his voice is warm. “Finding solutions is sometimes easier than we think, if we don’t waste time looking in the wrong places.”
“Thank you, thank you very much,” says Anna. “For everything.”
Edik gives me a short kiss on the cheek, winks, and rushes out of the café. He has already paid the bill and tipped the waitress. He has a long drive to get to Vardahovit.
“Lara jan, thank you soooo much. He’s amazing. Now you have to tell me why he does it.”
“What do you mean?” I ask, even though I know what she means.
“Who in this country today will help anyone, especially a total stranger, if he does not expect something back?”
“He expects nothing back,” I say with finality.
“Then why?”
I shrug my shoulders and turn my palms up. “It’s the way he is, that’s all.”
Anna’s not convinced, but drops the subject. Edik called his lawyer friend, a certain Mr. Thomas Martirosian, while we were at the café, and explained the situation briefly. He then made an appointment for Anna to see him on Wednesday next week, at noon so it coincides with her lunch break. He told Anna not to worry about any fees, because Mr. Martirosian would do this as a favor for him. Anna accepted the explanation, but I know he will end up paying for the legal costs of Anna’s divorce.
It is a pleasant Sunday afternoon. The weather seems to have taken a break from its normal late-March madness, the wind has subsided to a light breeze, the skies have cleared after starting the day cloudy and drizzly, and the air smells fresh and full of promise. Unfortunately, Anna has to rush back to work. She’ll be late as it is.
I take a long walk, crossing Republic Square and walking up Abovian Street, left on Northern Avenue, past the Opera and then back on Toumanian Street, wandering aimlessly, looking in shop windows and watching people. Random phrases from the various conversations of the past few days ring in my ears, and once in a while a verse from one of Edik’s poetry books intervenes in the cascading thoughts. If there is a pattern to this cacophony, it is buried so deep in my subconscious that I’ll never be able to find it. And it does not matter anyway.
I arrive home by early evening and help Diqin Alice prepare supper. We eat together, with very little to say, and then I retire to my room. I read for several hours and then fall into the deepest, most restful sleep I’ve had in over two years. The thoughts, voices and flashbacks must have worn themselves out during my walk.
The week is relatively uneventful. I’ve been expecting Ahmed’s call by Thursday, before the weekend begins in Dubai. I know he spends Friday with his extended family of siblings and more than a dozen nieces and nephews. He never visited me on Fridays. Even though he is not religious and has broken many social customs, he likes going to the mosque on Fridays, just to uphold tradition, which he views in an entirely different light than social rules. Tradition, especially aspects of it that are tied to a glorious past, is worth upholding. Ahmed thinks of himself as an Arab nobleman, the heir to a period when Arab culture reached its zenith. He especially loves to imagine himself as a modern day prince descended from eighth-century Andalusia, the height of Arab culture, literature, music and science.
And then the call comes.
I see the ‘971’ country code on my phone, which is the United Arab Emirates. “Hello?” I say, aware that my voice is trembling.
“Habibty.” My dear love.
“Ahmed, is that you?” What a stupid question to ask. Who else would call me ‘habibty’?
“Leila, how are you?” Then there is a hesitation, followed by another question. “Shall I call you Leila or Lara?”
“Ahmed, I am Lara now.” I feel foolish again at the way that sounds. Then I make matters worse by adding, “I remember the days when I was Leila fondly, Ahmed.”
I want him to know that I hold no grudge against him, or against the name he gave me, and that the name ‘Leila’ is not a bad memory. But I still sound stupid.
“Habibty,” he says, and I believe he uses that word to avoid choosing between Lara and Leila, “there is so much to talk about, but none of it can be said over the phone.”
“Ahmed, I am very sorry for the way I left.” I begin, and he tries to interrupt me with something like ‘none of it matters now,’ but I am too nervous to hear exactly what, and I feel the need to finish telling him what I need to tell him, so I talk over him, drowning his words with my voice. “Ahmed, stop! Please listen to me. I was wrong. I mean, I’m sorry for treating you the way I did. I should have told you the truth.”
“Are you done?” he asks, and waits. So do I. Am I done? Is that all I want to tell him?
“Well? Are you?”
“I’m sorry,” is all I can manage to say.
“Lara,” he says, and I know he deliberately uses my real name, “stop feeling sorry for the past. You must have had your reasons. None of this would make any sense otherwise. Let’s go forward. Listen carefully, Lara. Forget everything about the past. Everything. Do you understand?”
“No, I don’t,” I whisper into the phone. And I really don’t. Forget everything?
“I want to see you again,” he says. “Just Ahmed Al Barmaka meeting Lara Galian. No intermediaries, no contracts, no deals. Just a meeting of two people.”
Just a meeting of two people? Can he really forget that he bought me from a pimp?
I wish Edik was here to tell me to stop being childish. I want to hear him say that Ahmed is not at fault for the way he met me, that he did not know me before he bought me, that he got to know me afterwards, and he’s been trying to live up to what he discovered about me since then. But that is probably even more childish. Nothing changes the fact that he bought women, even if most of them wanted to be bought by someone like him.
“I cannot come to Dubai.”
“I know. I’ll come to Yerevan. I need some time to arrange schedules, because I want to come for at least a few days.”
“Ahmed, it cannot be like it used to be.” I’m not sure myself what I mean. Do I mean, ‘visiting me in Yerevan cannot be the same as visiting me in his villa in Dubai?’ Or do I mean, ‘we cannot be lovers like we used to be?’ I don’t know what I want it to mean.
And I finally see what an incredible haven ambiguity really can provide.
“It does not have to be any specific way, Lara. I want to see you. Let’s talk face to face. It may take me a few weeks to free up the time. Or I can come for just an afternoon; I can do that earlier, if you prefer that.”
“No, Ahmed, please don’t do that. Take your time.” I create yet another ambiguity—am I saying an afternoon is too short? Take your time and come for a longer visit? Or am I saying take your time to plan, so you don’t disrupt your schedule?
“Okay then,” he says. “I’ll call again soon. And I’ll see you soon.”
Before I finish saying, “Okay, Ahmed,” he hangs up. That’s the other side of Ahmed that I remember well. He decides. He acts.
A popular saying around here is, ‘the bear knows seven songs, all seven are about honey.’ It applies to Avo these days. All he talks about are the pigs and piglets. Six more have delivered, one a litter of nine, the others some seven, some eight. The rest will deliver by the end of next week, he says. The vet has been there often, and says the newborns are healthy, and will survive, if the new mothers don’t crush them during feeding due to their inexperience.
Avo has left the responsibility of planting the garden to my sisters, who also take care of the sheep and the cows. Sago and Aram help, but they’re too young for most of the tasks. I feel guilty for not being there
to help out, but I cannot see myself making a real contribution. Before I left home over two years ago, both of my parents were alive and I had four older sisters, so I did not have any experience with tending to the animals. And a month after my Papa passed away, I was taken. So it has been my sisters and brothers who have learned to keep the house and animals in Saralandj in the past two years. Every time that I’ve tried to do something while in the village, my movements have been so awkward, clumsy and slow, that my sisters have laughed and taken over from me.
Meanwhile, Avo has agreed to sell to three different farmers from Aparan a total of fifty piglets, when they each weigh ten kilos. So it will be almost two months before he can deliver any piglets and get paid. But he will get the top price of 35,000 dram per healthy piglet. That is more money than Avo has ever earned. He has already borrowed against that future income to stock up on extra feed, because he expects feed prices to start rising a bit once all the farmers in the region start fattening their animals.
I am happy that Avo has found something positive to spend his energies on. Both Edik and Gagik have expressed concern about Avo’s anger and his drinking. I have seen it myself. But both seem to be under control when he is absorbed in his farm.
Alisia is my main source of home news and gossip. She is closest to me in age. We are also just close. She has always been the most jovial and energetic among my sisters. She tells me that Arpi is more and more withdrawn into herself, and that she reads all the time.
“She barely even talks to anyone,” she says. “Every minute that she’s not working, she’s reading. She’s finished the entire works of Teryan and Sevak, and now has started reading Raffi. She’ll read the whole collection of ten huge volumes!”
She tells me that Avo has not drunk all week, which is a major thing at the house. She also tells me that she thinks he has an eye for Ruben’s younger sister, Hermine. Alisia, who turned nineteen a few months ago, giggles like a little girl when she says this. Both Avo and Hermine are too young, but one never knows. In the village, a lot of couples get married before they are eighteen. She also tells me that she does not have any interest in meeting a man anytime soon. First, she says, we’ll marry off Sona, then Arpi, assuming she can take her nose out of the books long enough.
“Alis jan,” I say trying to laugh like her, “it doesn’t work that way. It’s not by turn, you know. It happens when it happens.”
Chapter Sixteen
The snow has disappeared even from the stubborn corners where the sun doesn’t reach. Lara’s sisters have been busy. The garden in Saralandj is fully tilled and planted. As usual, tomatoes, cucumbers, cabbage, green peppers, green beans, garlic, onions and potatoes take most of space. What little space is left is portioned off to the main herbs—parsley, mint and basil. In addition, the house is thoroughly cleaned and several large loads of laundry, including all the sheets and pillowcases, are done, ironed and put away.
Avo has been busy too. All the pigs have delivered, and the piglets already have started eating some solid food, even though they are still suckling. It will be another three weeks or so before they are weaned.
Sona and Simon have set the date of their wedding at the end of May. So in about a month she’ll leave home. But Simon, like Martha’s husband Ruben, is from the village. She won’t be going far.
Aram continues to excel at school. Laurian thinks he should be sent to a special school for gifted kids in Yerevan, but Avo is not in agreement. We need him here, he says. Gagik thinks the real reason is that he does not want to borrow more money right now.
Sago was not good at school and dropped out over a year ago, and he is not particularly interested in any work that is available for him in the village. It saddens Lara to see him like that, scattered, almost depressed, with an indifferent detachment, even on relatively happy occasions. She finds him more worrisome than Arpi. At least Arpi has her books.
Al Barmaka has not made it to Yerevan, but has called several times a week. Lara’s initial excitement about hearing from him has waned. If he really wants to see her that much, why the delay? He had said a few weeks, and it has been almost four. Why should it take four weeks to sort out his schedule and free up three or four days?
“I’ll have some interesting news for you when I come,” he had said during his last phone call. “I’m sorry I’ve been delayed. This is our busiest time. We’re finalizing first quarter accounts, and have a few important audits which require my attention.” That is more about his business than Ahmed has ever said to Lara.
“It is okay, Ahmed. Please do not go to any trouble. Take as long as you need.”
Edik is about to return from overseas. He has called a few times. He tells Lara that Thomas Martirosian is making progress on Anna’s divorce case. There should be a breakthrough in a few weeks.
In the meantime, Anastasia has convinced Yuri to let her go back to Moscow, even though she has not told them much yet. She has convinced him that it will take time for Lara to open up to her, that she’s made a lot of progress already, and that if she pushes harder, she may scare her off. She also calls Lara regularly from Moscow.
The entire country is getting ready for the May 1 holiday when Avo gets a call from one of the farmers who have agreed to buy his piglets.
“Avo jan,” he says, “I’m afraid I have some bad news. I won’t be able to buy the twenty piglets as we had agreed.”
“What’s the matter, Aram dzadza, do you need some credit, or to make payment in installments?” Avo likes Aram. He is an old family friend from Aparan, about his father’s age, who was close to his parents. That’s where the dzadza honorific, which is a Russian word meaning ‘uncle’ that seeped into the Armenian lexicon during the Soviet era, comes from.
“No, it is nothing like that,” says Aram. “To tell you the truth, I wish it was. I could have sorted out that type of problem.”
“Then what is it?” It is more Aram’s depressed tone that has Avo worried than his message.
“Have you checked the price of pork lately?”
“No,” says Avo, and realizes that Aram’s call is more serious than he had assumed.
“It’s down. It was 3,200 dram per kilo, now it’s down to 2,500 dram, and many think that it will drop to below 2,000 soon.”
“But that could be temporary,” says Avo hopefully. “Prices rose during the New Year and Christmas season. Maybe they’re now coming down a bit, before we see another rise.”
“Avo, we’re talking about a forty percent drop in a matter of weeks. No one thinks this is temporary. And it certainly is not small. It changes the entire calculation.”
Avo is quiet for a while. He fights the wave of frustration and disappointment that is rising in his chest. He does not want to accept this as a final verdict on his pig farm.
“What is causing the price decline?”
“No one knows for sure,” says Aram, “The rumor in the market is that large quantities of live pigs have been imported from somewhere. Some are talking about as much as twenty thousand head.”
“Who? How? From where?” Avo is stunned.
“No one knows for sure. But that is not the entire story. You must have noticed what has happened to the price of feed, Avo. You’re feeding more pigs than any of us.”
“I bought a lot a few weeks ago, thinking that the prices might rise when all the farmers start to buy. So no, I do not know what has happened to the price of feed more recently.”
“You were smart to buy early, but I’m afraid that won’t help you when you run out. All grades of imported feed have gone up by twenty-five percent. But the worst part is not even that. The price of chaff has gone up from 75 dram per kilo to 150 dram! When feed prices rise like this and pork prices fall by forty percent, how can we still make money at this business?”
Avo’s face turns red and his hands start to shake. He recognizes the rage. It is similar to the storm that rose in his chest when he returned home from Vardahovit last fall and found that his mother
had just died. It gathered speed and mass in a matter of seconds, first directed at fate, at some invisible force, and then, as it got so strong that he could feel it even in his eyes, Sergei Ayvazian became its target. The frenzy was then transformed into an obsession, which, even after the rage was spent, turned Avo into a cold-blooded killer.
But now Ayvazian is dead, and this time the enemy is truly invisible. Is it fate? Bad luck? The market?
“Avo, are you there?” comes Aram’s voice.
“Ha, Aram dzadza. I understand. No problem with the piglets, please don’t worry.”
Just as Avo had managed to control his anger temporarily when his mother died, because he had the burial to attend to and because his family needed him calm and sober, now too he feels he has to save his business first, which means he has to keep a cool head and figure out how to overcome this setback. That is the most immediate task. But not the most important one. By far the most important task for Avo is to identify the enemy. His wrath is aching to burst out.
Laurian lands in Yerevan in early afternoon. He is anxious to get home to Vardahovit before dark. He thinks about calling Lara and Gagik, but decides against it. He does not want to be given a reason to stay in Yerevan. He gets his car from long-term parking and heads straight out of the city.
No one, not even Laurian himself, has been able to fully understand the Vardahovit phenomenon. It is a tiny village in Vayots Dzor, one of the regions south-east of Yerevan, with around 300 inhabitants, two-and-a-half hours from Yerevan, and thirty-five kilometers from the border with Kelbajar, a region controlled by Nagorno Karabagh. The roads leading to it are in such disrepair that even the more adventurous travelers tend to avoid the place.
The Doves of Ohanavank Page 13
