A Place Far Away

by Vahan Zanoyan

  “She’s too different from her sisters,” she’d tell her husband. “At her age, her sisters had already started taking an interest in their looks. They spent time in front of the mirror; they wanted to be pretty, to be noticed. Lara has no sense of it at all. All she wants to do is go out and roll in the mud…”

  Her father would try to calm her down. “It will all come to her too, Silva. Don’t worry so much. She’ll get there, maybe a bit later than the others, but she’ll get there.”

  “The others would kill to have her looks,” the mother would go on. “And yet she doesn’t have a clue! She should have been a boy; she’s our first son, not Avo…”

  Each in their own way had established a special bond with Lara. Her mother, because she worried more about her than any of her other children. However, in spite of her anxieties, she harbored a bit of relief that Lara’s unconventional ways might in fact someday have a liberating effect on her. Good looks were not always a good omen; they could lead to misery as easily as to happiness. But maybe a strong personality would help even out the odds; at least that’s what Silva Galian hoped. Her father’s bond was different. He saw in her a part of himself and his murky past; given his troubled and disjointed family history, that link mattered. Of course Lara was not aware of any of it at the time. All would later be revealed to her gradually through remembrances.

  Her father died when she was sixteen, just one month before her saga started. He fell off a cliff in the highlands, some say while cutting wood, others say while checking out a forestation project—the story is not clear. But his death was so sudden and unexpected that it devastated Lara. Her prolonged, happy childhood ended as abruptly as her father’s life.

  She has heard that there are many other girls from her country, over a hundred by some accounts, in jails in Dubai for the same offense, but there is only one in her cell, Susannah, whom she met the first day she landed. She is older, maybe in her thirties; it is hard to tell. There are signs of fatigue in her eyes, and the first lines of narrow wrinkles have started to appear around the corners of her eyes and mouth. When they first met, Lara remembers thinking that Susannah looked Persian. She too has large, dark eyes, and when she looked closely at her face she thought that each part taken alone looked very Armenian, but the face as a whole looked Persian. It surprised Lara that she noticed these things. None of it really mattered, and before she left her village she would not even have noticed such similarities, let alone analyzed them. But since then she has become more observant. They are not close friends, but have helped each other a few times, even though their first interaction was not easy.

  “So how did you end up here?” Susannah had asked, looking her over from head to toe, amazed at her youth and beauty.

  “They forced me,” Lara had answered.

  “You mean you did not want to come?”

  “Of course not.”

  “Where else would you rather be, girl?”

  Lara had hesitated at first, not knowing where such conversations could lead to, nor seeing much point in them in the first place. But then she had said, “Home. Our village.”

  Susannah had laughed out loud.

  “So, you miss home, eh? What did you have at home in your village? Your doting mama? Is that what you miss, you sweet little girl?”

  Lara did not understand how Susannah could show such disdain toward a mother’s love or memory, but kept quiet. She did not know Susannah’s story, and did not necessarily want to know. So she just withdrew into herself.

  “Listen, girl,” Susannah had said, “let me tell you something. I applied for this job! I wanted to come. I worked hard for six months in the godforsaken backstreets of Antalya just so they would bring me to Dubai. Do you understand that? The sooner you get it through your head that this is who we are, this is what we do, the better for you!” And when Susannah had seen the stubborn hesitation in Lara’s eyes, she’d snapped at her—“Well, have you done anything else? Have you been anything else, in your long, illustrious life, Ms. beauty queen?”

  Eventually Lara had begun to like Susannah. She means well, she had thought, even in her apparent hostility. They had gone out with groups of clients a few times together, and learned to watch out for each other.

  Now they live in the same apartment complex near the St. George hotel in Dubai. Most of the time they go to their clients’ hotels or apartments, but once in a while they bring them to their place. Usually it is a single client, spending anywhere from fifteen minutes to an hour with them, and sometimes overnight. Occasionally, a group of two or three go to parties, sometimes with ten or more men. That is when things can get tough, because the men are inevitably drunk, and they try to outdo each other. Their typical clients are Pakistani, Iranian and Arab men, but rarely locals. Europeans and Americans appear on the scene also, though not as frequently. They are warned to steer clear of local men, because there is no recourse against them. That does not limit their client base very much since most of the population of Dubai is expatriates anyway.

  Everyone knows that Lara does not fit in. The others in the group are all in their late twenties and thirties and none of them stands out physically. Lara clearly has not been brought to Dubai to do fifteen minutes with a Pakistani for twenty-five dollars. The plan is to have her become dedicated to one of the local princes. Someone has to notice her and ask for her exclusive contract; almost like a marriage, albeit a temporary one. They can get a lot more for her if she gets noticed and is sought after, and Ayvazian is aiming high. He wants two hundred and fifty thousand dollars for her contract for three years. Pretty steep, but then again Lara is unique. And he knows they’ll negotiate the price down, regardless of where he starts. He has quietly put out the word, and two “recruiters” are already in discussions with him.

  The other women in the cell are a mixed bunch. There are a few Russians, with whom Lara can communicate if she chooses to, but, aside from a rudimentary knowledge of the Russian language, she has nothing in common with them, so she keeps her distance. The Russians stand out, as they have fairer skin than the rest, blonde hair, and are very thin. There are two black women from Somalia, who pretty much keep to themselves. They are the most conservatively dressed in the bunch with blouses and pants that do not reveal much, and they apply relatively modest makeup. There’s a young Moroccan girl, possibly Lara’s age, beautiful, but, in contrast to Lara, is jovial, talking to anyone who will listen and giggling non-stop at her own crude sexual jokes. The top several buttons of her white shirt are unbuttoned, revealing a skimpy red bra that can barely hold her breasts. There are others from Morocco, who keep to themselves and try to ignore their flamboyant compatriot. They are somewhat older and have been down this road before. There is nothing to celebrate in this cell. They will either be worth the efforts of a resourceful and willing sponsor, who will rescue them at the cost of gaining rights to their bodies and souls, or they will stay here until they’re deported back to Morocco.

  Lara sits at the far corner of the cell on a foam cushion on the floor, staring at the wings of a dead, dried up wasp stuck to the dirty wall. It looks like it has been there for years, which doesn’t say much for how well the cell is cleaned. She has her hand in the pocket of her jacket, holding a small ring. It is a thin, simple gold band, which her thumb is rubbing in a slow circular motion. She has her hair in a ponytail, has buttoned up her white blouse, and has thrown her large, square headscarf over her lap, to cover herself a bit more than what her black miniskirt can manage. There is no breeze in the cell, but the delicate wings seem to be moving, vibrating. Is it the breath of the twelve women? Is it her breath? Can she still cause movement somewhere, even in a dead insect? The dead wasp’s shivering wings seem to be signaling, almost waving to her. They are so thin, delicate and transparent that it’s hard to believe that they once gave the wasp flight. These are organs of flight. Lara remembers the wasps in her village, how alive and active they used to be, especially in late fall, when they would buzz, rush, dash
around non-stop. She remembers how her younger brothers once had to destroy a wasp nest under the overhang of the roof of their village house. They wrapped an old rag in a lump at the end of a long stick, doused it in kerosene, lit it, and pushed it against the nest. Lara even remembers how impatiently they had to wait until mid afternoon for the winds to subside, otherwise it would be impossible to direct the flame precisely to the target. The nest caught fire in an instant, burnt violently for a minute, then crumbled. Most of the wasps perished. Some caught fire as they tried to fly away from the nest and went ablaze like sparks jumping out of a fire, glowing for a few seconds, and then dying. The wings ignited first. Light, flammable organs of flight. And Lara remembers how mad the few that survived had become, and how one brother was stung so badly that his face remained swollen for days. Lara, barely twelve at the time, remembers feeling happy for the survivors and their revenge. So now she feels the wings of the dead wasp are talking to her in this cell. There is an old bond here that no one else can possibly understand.

  But her village and the old wasp’s nest are far from where she is now. Saralandj, she utters aloud, and almost instantly regrets the slip. Saralandj. Her village, way out in the outskirts of Aparan, a historic town in Armenia where an ancient battle had once been fought, and won. A village so primitive that life means only hardship for the adults, and only children can remember it fondly. Lara remembers it fondly. Children do not dwell on the ordinary harshness of life, even as they suffer through it. Saralandj. That is where her grandparents and father returned after their senseless exile to Siberia ended, after Joseph Stalin finally died. They were “forgiven,” like so many others who managed to survive the ordeal. But that is the story of another long ordeal, which, as the elders tell, her great-aunt Araxi Dadik did not survive.

  Allllaaaaaahu Akbar, Allaaaahu Akbar, Allahu Akbar… The call to prayer snaps her out of her reverie. It comes suddenly, five times a day, and is very loud especially here in jail. There must be a mosque somewhere on the premises. The high pitched, spirited voice of the Muazzin fills the air. Lara remembers how shocked she was when she first heard it; it almost sounded like the wail of sirens, but then she heard the melodic nuances of different calls, and started enjoying the azan. …La Ilaaaaha Illa Allaaaah… The voice grows louder and more animated as the azan progresses. Some of the girls make faces and cover their ears. But Lara finds the chant soothing, almost like a lullaby.

  Neither Lara nor any of her cellmates know what to expect next. They sit in the cell, accept their meals at precise intervals, and wait. They’re served rice, beans, sometimes a piece of meat or chicken, on old, discolored aluminum plates, heavily dented from years of use. All the guards are women, in police uniforms with headscarves topped by police caps, and all look alike. Chubby, covered from head to toe except for their faces, even though they are not in the company of men. They are tough and kind at the same time. It is hard to tell the difference sometimes. Lara thinks it would be impossible for them to adopt one style that fit all the inmates. She sees a disguised compassion hidden behind their stern and firm manners, or maybe she just wants to see it, she is not always sure. But at least they are women. That is a consolation for her, regardless of how they act. Men have not treated her kindly.

  Four days have passed since the arrest, which had not been a classic raid as one sees in the movies. Nor had it involved being caught in the act, either soliciting or being solicited, with evidence and witnesses. Her “agent,” a portly Armenian woman named Ano, had gathered a group of them one afternoon, some of whom she had not met before, and told them that their protection was no longer active, and that they had to go to jail for a while. That was all. Ano had done her best not to make too much of it, even though her face was more somber than usual, and her thick black eyebrows seemed more stern and unyielding.

  Most of them had been either too dumbfounded or too accustomed to the scene to react. “Do not be concerned,” Ano had said. “We’ll get you out eventually. We always do. And you won’t be in any danger while in jail.”

  “Maybe this is how things are done in Dubai,” Susannah had told her later, “but I can tell you this is unusual. Many things get arranged in our business, but I have never seen a bust being arranged like this, almost in a civilized, orderly way. At times like this, anywhere else, usually the ‘agent’ just disappears and leaves us at the mercy of the police. Here, she left us at the mercy of the police herself, without disappearing. Maybe her big bosses did not pay the police enough, or maybe someone higher up complained. Maybe one of your own customers was the son of some royalty here, who got angry with us for the naughty things his kid was being exposed to. Who knows?”

  It has been four days and there is no news from Madame Ano, except to tell the girls to hang in there a while longer while she tries to work something out. They have taken their names and fingerprinted them. Their passports have been provided to the police by Madame Ano herself. After almost three months in Dubai, with an average of fifteen client visitors a day, Lara and the other girls had started taking their “protection” for granted. And now they sit here very conscious of the fact that each idle day in jail is costing them dearly.

  Five prayers. Three meals. Not much else. Fourth day. Lara writes in her tiny spiral-bound green notebook. Then her hand goes back into her pocket in search of the ring.

  II

  Although Lara landed in Dubai only several months ago, her saga started much earlier than that. Even she does not yet know all the details. It is only later, much later, that she finally puts all the pieces together and solves the puzzle, to the extent that such puzzles can ever be fully solved. But the simple fact that triggers everything else is that her beauty did not go unnoticed, not only among friends and relatives, but also through the eyes of organized crime. Sergey Ayvazian is a name that she will get to know a lot better in time, because that is where it all begins.

  Ayvazian’s men notice her playing in the streets of Aparan, the closest town to Saralandj, where she is visiting her aunt. She is wearing rags, barefoot, hair unkempt, and barely sixteen. Although she is taller than normal for her age, she is full of childish enthusiasm in everything she does. It is very clear to the men that she is a potential gem in their trade.

  Ayvazian at first refuses to consider her. Her case is too complicated. She lives at home with both parents and has relatives in Saralandj and Aparan. This is not the profile he favors. He likes the girls in orphanages and boarding schools; handling them is much simpler, with no strings attached. And the orphanages of Armenia are full these days, with many war casualties, refugees from Azerbaijan, and homes broken due to severe poverty. Fathers leave for Russia looking for employment and never return. The economic conditions in the villages and small towns of Armenia are catastrophic, creating perfect hunting conditions for the traffickers. So why bother with this girl, with all the complications?

  Then they show him a few pictures. Close-ups of her face, taken with a powerful telephoto lens, reveal such a captivating youthful beauty that even a hardened oligarch like Ayvazian is moved. There is one masterful photograph where she is jumping rope, her skirt flying up in the air, her hair scattered, her laughter roaring and bursting out of the photograph, where she looks like a nascent goddess ascending toward heaven. Ayvazian takes that picture from the file and keeps it in his wallet. He is keenly aware that his business needs a major boost; all recruits in the past year have been low-earning mediocrities in terms of age and beauty.

  They check out the Galian family. Eight children. The father is a postal employee in Aparan, earning around $25 per month. They have some livestock in the village of Saralandj, although they have sold most of their stock in the past decade in order to survive. From around one hundred head of sheep and fifteen cows in the early nineties, they are down to five sheep and one cow. They cannot possibly feed eight children with what they have. In the spring and summer they gather wild greens from the meadows and mountainsides, which they either dry or pickle for
winter consumption. They do the same with summer vegetables from their garden—tomatoes, eggplant, green beans, turnips, cabbage, peppers, cucumbers, cracked wheat and corn. They pickle and preserve whatever they can. They also stock up cheese made from sheep’s milk. But they cannot feed eight children year round; there is no doubt that there are hungry nights in the Galian household, especially toward the end of winter.

  Ayvazian notes with some interest that the Galians are not local to Aparan. They settled here after their return from Siberia because his aunt was married here; besides, as recent immigrants, they had no place else to settle. Galian has a reputation as a hard working, honest man. But he also is different from the rest of the villagers; regardless of whether the differences are good or bad, that tends to create a distance between him and his neighbors. The villagers say that he reads to his children, something that mothers and older sisters may do from time to time in Saralandj, but not fathers. But Galian is known to gather his children on holidays, especially religious holidays, and definitely on Memorial days—Merelots, which usually fall on the Monday following a religious holiday—and read to them. Even more unusual is that he reads to them not only the classics of Armenian literature, like Toumanian, but also the Bible.

  “The Bible?” asks Ayvazian’s man of the villager telling the story.

  “I’ve seen it myself,” says the villager. “It is an old, torn book. Leather covers. Certainly not published here. It is not even in our Armenian. It is the book of an Aghpar”—which is the slang word literally meaning “brother,” referring to the thousands of Armenian survivors of the Turkish genocide who returned to Armenia in the mid-forties. The “aghpars” like to refer to themselves as “Hairenadarts,” literally meaning “one who returned to the fatherland.” Either way, it was a word with heavy connotations among the locals, who resented the inflow of immigrants from abroad with whom they had to share scarce food supplies during the Stalin years.