The Doves of Ohanavank

by Vahan Zanoyan

  Edik nods slowly. He knows the syndrome well.

  Avo and I have been quiet. He’s listened without showing much emotion, his face serious, his body and hands still. His only nervous movements have been chain smoking, giving me apologetic looks every time he lights a new cigarette. But we’re outdoors, and I don’t want to make a big deal of it.

  “Now tell me about the prices of pork and pig feed,” says Avo.

  Vartiter cracks the door open and Edik turns around.

  “Ha, Vart is everything ready?” he asks.

  “It’s ready. Can I bring the food before it gets cold?”

  “Yes,” says Edik. “Let’s take a short break.”

  I get up to help Vartiter carry the trays out. She has three different stews, rice, roasted chicken, steamed trout, grilled potatoes and onions, and several salads. It is an impressive spread and what makes it more amazing is that she managed all this alone, and timed everything so it is ready in the right sequence.

  “Agassi must have been here helping you,” I joke.

  “That will be the day!” she laughs. “If he had been here, I wouldn’t be able to finish anything!” Her laugh flows like one of the clear, bubbling creeks of Vardahovit, and her smile is so warm that I want to give her a hug.

  “Here, Lara jan, take this tray with the salads. I’ll carry the one with the stews.” She doesn’t trust me not to spill the stews, and I don’t blame her.

  The table is set in about ten minutes. Edik, as usual, gets up and helps as we bring the trays from the kitchen. Avo and Gagik don’t even notice.

  Edik brings two bottles of wine, one red and one white, and a bottle of vodka for Avo and Gagik.

  “These are not for now,” he says. We’ll have one glass each to start the meal, but drinking won’t start till after we’re done hearing Gagik.”

  No one objects. We toast once, and start eating, but Avo is impatient.

  “Let’s talk while we eat. Gago jan, prices of pork and feed.”

  “Okay, LeFreak has been planning a total takeover of the pork business for a while. Last winter, his men quietly bought most of the supplies of chaff. His warehouses are full. Today, no matter where you buy your chaff, you are buying it from him. He supplies all the suppliers, and he sets the price.”

  “But he has doubled the prices and people are talking about more price hikes,” says Avo. “At these prices, isn’t it cheaper to import, say, from Iran?”

  “Sure it is, but if you try, your shipment will be stopped by customs at the border, and, as with wheat, you’ll be either asked to pay a fortune in import duties, or you will be faced with such incredible bureaucratic delays that your chaff will be useless by the time you get it out.”

  Avo lights another cigarette, and is clearly having more trouble controlling his anger.

  “Of course he is not interested in wheat chaff. He is doing this to push the pig farmers out of business. By the time chaff is produced again in late fall, he would have already succeeded in his goal. Then he’ll be the only buyer of chaff in the market, because he’ll be the only one raising pigs.

  “Let’s move to the collapse in the price of pork. He has imported ten thousand head from Georgia, with another five thousand on its way from the Ukraine. He has paid virtually no import tax. One of my sources says that he may even have used funds from the Ministry of Agriculture that were supposed to provide financial assistance to small farmers. I haven’t been able to confirm that yet, but it wouldn’t surprise me.”

  It is already past two-thirty in the afternoon and the sun has moved. Edik gets up and adjusts the umbrellas. We’ve all had something to eat, but our appetite has not been that great.

  “I think we get the picture,” says Edik. “But I cannot continue this without another glass of wine and a cigar.”

  Everyone is ready for another drink. Edik pours the glasses—white wine for him and me, vodka for Avo and Gagik—and raises his glass.

  “We have overcome bigger challenges,” he says. “Compared with the crimes of Ayvazian, this looks like petty theft to me. We can deal with this guy.”

  Avo downs his vodka and refills his glass.

  “We cannot deal with LeFreak the way we dealt with Ayvazian,” he says.

  “Of course not,” jumps in Gagik, eyes shining. “No two fights can have the same battle plan. We are on new ground here with new players. But there is an important part of the puzzle that involves Lara, and we have not even talked about it yet.”

  “What does LeFreak have to do with Lara?” says Avo so sternly that I begin to worry. His protective instincts toward me are profound. Nothing is off limits for Avo if my safety is at stake.

  “Slow down, Avo jan,” says Gagik. “This is important. LeFreak is the most powerful contender for Ayvazian’s business. Apparently trading in wheat and pigs is not enough for him; he wants to trade in people now.”

  I see how Gagik gets Edik’s attention with his last assertion. He has cut his cigar and is in the middle of lighting it. He stops, and looks at Gagik with a seriousness that gives me chills. It is amazing how many different personas can exist in one man, and they make their presence known only when something triggers a reaction. The triggers are neither loud nor necessarily obvious. I’ve seen this is Gagik, who could transform from Gagik to Khev Gago in a second, I’ve seen it in Ahmed, and I’ve seen it in Edik, which, in some ways is the most shocking, because normally he appears to be the most stable of the bunch. But, at the mention of trading in people, Edik’s face turns into that of killer.

  “Tell me,” he says. That must be a phrase he’s picked up on his trip, because I don’t remember him using it this frequently before. The cigar is now lit, and a cloud of smoke rises over his forehead like a halo.

  “Ayvazian operated through a number of cells. Often these cells did not know about each other. He’d have a few henchmen in each, who kidnapped, beat, raped, drugged, and sold the girls for him. The largest operation was in Yerevan, but he had at least fifteen other cells around the country, in addition to his operations in Moscow, and the main connections in Istanbul, Dubai and the Ukraine. He loved to operate near the orphanages. Only his nephew Viktor knew about every cell, but even he did not know every detail of the operations.”

  “Gago, where does LeFreak fit into this?” asks Edik.

  “I’m getting there, don’t rush. These details are important. Most of Ayvazian’s men—whether salaried employees or paid on-demand informants—in our region now work for LeFreak. But he has no permanent cell there. As far as I could make out, LeFreak has taken over three different Ayvazian cells and is actually running them himself. Two are in Lori, up north, and one in Kotayk, near Yerevan.”

  Edik interrupts again, but this time addresses me, not Gagik.

  “Isn’t Anna from a village in Lori?” he asks.

  “Yes,” I say, “and her husband too.”

  “Sorry, Gago, please continue,” says Edik.

  “Who’s Anna?” asks Gagik, distracted.

  “Never mind for now, Gago, sorry, please continue. We’ll get to Anna before the end of the day.”

  “As I was saying, these three cells are now operating like before, but working for LeFreak instead of Ayvazian. LeFreak wants eventually to take over everything, even Moscow. The problem is, like Ayvazian’s own men, he does not know where everything is.”

  Gagik has a habit of letting out a long, low-pitched whistle every time he hears something shocking or interesting. Now Edik takes a break from his cigar and does exactly the same. Avo looks both annoyed and confused. He probably does not want the conversation to digress from the pig farm, but at the same time anything involving me is important to him. Besides, he wants to have another drink, but custom requires that we all drink together, after a toast. The sun has moved further west, and the shade of the umbrella slides and the rays fall on my face. I blink and instinctively raise my hand to shield my eyes. Edik gets up and moves both umbrellas, even though the sun is not as hot as it was
a couple of hours ago. I cannot help but notice that as soon as the sun hits my face, Edik’s eyes light up, and he stares at me. That is another noteworthy moment. His last transformation was from Edik to a killer. But what is this one, which lasted no more than a second? I’ve seen it before, when I’ve smiled at him a bit more warmly than usual, or when I’ve said something profoundly simple and true. I’ve seen that same look in Ahmed’s eyes too, during his more tender and loving moments. And I shudder when I make the association.

  “Here is my last little bit of intelligence,” says Gagik. “The person running things at the Ayvazian household is his daughter, Carla. She’s around thirty, totally ignored by everyone until now, and she is Yuri’s boss. She has also recruited almost all of Ayvazian’s former henchmen from Vayots Dzor, Ayvazian’s home region, and where we have the pleasure of sitting right now.” Gagik is animated. “So, we have Carla who has reclaimed everything in Vayots Dzor, and LeFreak who has conquered cells in Lori and Kotayk, and they probably don’t even know about each other. Isn’t that absolutely fascinating?!”

  “It sure is,” says Edik puffing on his cigar. “But if they themselves don’t know about each other, how come you do? Sorry to ask, but you know I have to.”

  “I’ll get to that in a second,” says Gagik. “But first, listen to this.” His eyes sparkle more brightly and he can barely sit. “Carla is a nymphomaniac.” He stops and looks at me for a second. “Forgive me, Lara jan. I forgot myself for a minute.”

  “Gago, please go on.” I say forcefully. “Either I’m part of this meeting or I’m not. If I am, no need to hold back anything on my account.”

  “Okay, sorry again,” says Gagik sheepishly, but the fire immediately returns to his eyes. “She is addicted to sex. She is sleeping with everyone who worked for her father. My source tells me it is her way of taking revenge on her dad, who kept her away from his business. This is ‘showing him,’ he says. But I am not sure about that. If that is not her real character, revenge won’t just bring it out.”

  Avo, who as far as I know is still a virgin, is shifting uncomfortably in his chair. His refuge is another cigarette. Edik looks serious, but I know he is suppressing a smile, probably more at Gagik’s way of telling the story than at the story itself. And there I am, thinking what it would be like to use men as sex objects, if that is what Carla is into. Why would any woman even bother?

  “Now, my dear table-mates,” says Gagik, lifting his glass, a moment that Avo has been waiting for, “let me tell you how I know all this. Edik jan, you’ve been gone for three weeks, right? Give or take a day. What do you think I’ve been doing in those three weeks? While you were out revisiting your decadent European past, I was here pulling in every favor, contacting every potential source who may owe me something from the old days, spending hours on that computer, trying to connect the dots. I’ve learned something from you, my friend; all that one needs to do is to bother, to look, to ask. And of course be old enough to have some meaningful connections,” and Gago smiles a devious smile. “The rest is easier than anyone may imagine.”

  Saro walks in, and we all get up to greet him. The embraces are long and warm. He is a friend and a comrade and he knows everything about the events of last fall in Sevajayr.

  Chapter Eighteen

  “You’d be surprised how easy it actually is for a chapter in your life to end, and for a new one to open. The old can die without the earth shaking, and the new can open without even a whimper. Only you can keep the past alive, Lara. Your past does not have a life of its own, so it can continue to haunt you only if you yourself allow it to.”

  “That’s easy for you to say.” She stops walking for a minute to admire the view from the eastern edge of the property, the valley below, the steep rise of the mountain on the opposite side and the creek gushing some five hundred meters in the ravine below. “You move from country to country, from assignment to assignment, one thing ends, the other starts. That’s how it is for you. But my past can and does stay alive on its own; it follows me, like my shadow.”

  Laurian stops to face her.

  “LeFreak is after Ayvazian’s business. So are Yuri and Carla. They really are not after you. I admit, your past happens to have a role—a small one, considering the scale of his operation. But we can handle the LeFreaks and Yuris of this world. You have to handle the past.”

  “And Ahmed Al Barmaka? If he shows up here wanting to see me, no strings attached, isn’t that part of my past that appears without my permission?” She did not intend to sound so angry.

  “If you want the relevance of your past relationship with Al Barmaka to be over, kill it. Kill it right now, right here,” and Laurian waves his arm at the panoramic scenery surrounding them. “The minute you decide the past will no longer affect the present, it won’t. Then, if you want to see him again, see him again, but not the way it was before. A new chapter with him can only open if you’ve already pulled the plug on the old one. But if you haven’t, the new chapter will have far too much interference from the old. It will fight you, it will resist, it will make your life a misery.”

  They walk in silence for a while. Laurian makes a compelling point, but Lara is not at all convinced that what he says is true. Just kill the past in your head, and it dies. That’s all? Are there really men with that much inner strength, that much will? Is that even humanly possible? Are we even supposed to be able to control our minds and emotions to that extent?

  “There is one important point I don’t want you to misunderstand,” says Laurian. “I am not talking about denial. If you try to deny your past, you’re fooling yourself. Besides, a past denied does not die. I am not talking about forgetting it, either. You cannot forget everything. I am talking about looking the past straight in the eye, acknowledging that it happened, confronting it, and then banishing it to a quarantine from which it can no longer have any active role in your life. That’s what I mean by ‘killing it.’ Do you see the difference between that and denial or forgetting?”

  Lara nods. That seems even less plausible to her. They pass by the poplar forest and Laurian proudly declares, “Four hundred trees last year, six hundred more this year! A thousand poplar trees fully-grown, twenty-five meters high. Imagine this place then!” Lara is amazed at how quickly the deep thinker of a minute ago is transformed into an overexcited child.

  Lara asks, “Aren’t they too close together?”

  “Not at all,” says Laurian. “These trees grow thin and tall. The branches will end up touching each other when they mature, but that is the idea. It will be dark in this little forest in the middle of day!” Lara’s mind momentarily goes to the pine and spruce forests of Saralandj.

  “I’d like to see it then,” she says.

  “You will. Let’s walk until we reach the end of the plateau. There is a little surprise there for you. On the way back, I’ll show you the fruit orchard.”

  They walk slowly, because the land is rugged, full of rocks, uneven, and covered by thick grass. There are rosehip bushes and wild apple, pear and plum trees everywhere.

  “Only the bears enjoy the fruit of these trees,” says Laurian. “That’s another sight I want you to see. I’ll get you back here in the fall when the wild fruits are ripe, and we can keep watch for the bears one night.”

  “You’re kidding, right?”

  “Of course not, Lara. I’ve seen them with my own eyes. We’ll choose a night when there is a full moon, so we can really see them. They’re magnificent animals.”

  “It’s not dangerous?”

  “It can be, if you do something stupid like scaring them or threatening a mother bear’s cubs. But if we sit quietly at a good distance and watch, they just ignore us.”

  They reach the end of the western edge and turn to cross the width of the property. It is narrow here at the tip, and widens gradually toward the house.

  “There’s your surprise,” says Laurian, pointing at a large teak bench right at the edge of the cliff. Lara is surprised.
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  “You’re crazy!” she laughs. “How on earth did you manage to bring that thing all the way here? I could barely walk here!”

  “Let’s go sit,” says Laurian. “This bench has a past that I do not want to erase.”

  They sit and remain silent for a long time. The view is unbelievable. Rivers, boundless valleys winding through intertwined mountain chains, vast plateaus and meadows and a remote mountain range spread right in front of them, as far as the eye can see, disappearing into a thin mist on the far horizon.

  “I call this the ‘point of truth and redemption,’” Laurian breaks the silence. “You know what Avo said when I first brought him here?”

  “What?” whispers Lara, still awestruck.

  “He said your father used to read the Bible to you when you were kids. He said there was a story he remembered where the devil leads Jesus to a mountaintop to tempt him, and offers him dominion over everything that his eyes could see. Avo said that mountaintop must have been a place just like this.”

  “I can certainly see that.” Lara is still whispering, as if in the presence of something that should not be disturbed.

  “But that is not the past I referred to,” continues Laurian. “We were sitting right here when you made your first phone call to Avo. Remember, when he told you he was in Vayots Dzor, and you were so worried about what he was doing here, and why he wasn’t home taking care of your mother?”

  “Yes,” but Laurian can barely hear her.

  “We were sitting right here,” he repeats.