A Place Far Away

by Vahan Zanoyan

  He read a verse that touched him most deeply:

  to have the hope of disappearing into the night

  and to surrender to the whims of a narrow trail

  to cast aside like a scab all boredom and gluttony

  and to wrap the sick soul in peaceful harmony…

  To have the hope of disappearing into the night…He thought what that might have meant to the romantic young poet, and wondered what it could have meant to some of Ayvazian’s victims. There were many rumors of Ayvazian’s enemies disappearing into the night, none of which were proven. Medzarents, who died from a severe infection caused by dagger wounds inflicted on him by Turkish hooligans in Istanbul, had not written a single bitter or angry poem. He saw nothing but beauty in the world. He celebrated life and nature most of all. Disappearing into the night meant liberation for him, not captivity. But are people disappearing into the night here in these deserted homes of Sevajayr and Vardahovit?

  “Ayvazian, what are you up to in my region?” Laurian asked into the moonlit night.

  The next morning Laurian woke up earlier than usual and, although he had not had a very restful night, felt full of energy. As he washed and shaved, he took a long look in the mirror, as if challenging what he felt he needed to do. That morning, the bags under his dark brown eyes appeared to him as signs of wisdom, not fatigue, and the graying hair on his temples reinforced that sense. The rest of his hair had very little grey, but was thinning. Laurian generally did not care about such in-mirror inspections, but sometimes he liked to stare into his own eyes when he was trying to confirm something to himself.

  He took his customary walk around the southern part of his property. The land was a long strip of flat farmland surrounded on three sides by four-hundred-meter cliffs. It was a fortress of sorts, with rivers flowing in the valleys on both sides. He loved to walk by one side of the property and return from the other. At the tip, one could see the two rivers merge. A truly spectacular feast for the eyes, of valleys, mountains, rivers and meadows that would take one’s breath away, especially in certain months of spring when they were colored by brilliant wild flowers.

  Laurian has adopted the village Vardahovit, and cares deeply about what happens in these parts. He helps the villagers whenever he can; fixing torn tin roofs, arranging funding for an irrigation project, campaigning hard to get the roads repaired, and helping them complete the construction of a simple community hall in the village square. He likes Mayor Saro. Saro was instrumental in gathering and combining the parcels from the twelve villagers and providing him with one piece of land.

  After returning from his walk, he called Saro again. “Let’s go drive around a bit,” he said.

  Saro arrived with gifts for Laurian’s two young nieces who live in the United States. He knew how much Laurian doted on the girls, the children of his only living sister. He removed the gifts from a bag and showed them to Laurian.

  “This was woven by my daughter,” he explained, handing him a colorful wool purse with a long shoulder strap. It had beautiful colors, mostly apricot and blue, with thin stripes of dark red.

  “And this,” he said proudly, “was made by my nephew. Look at it carefully,” he told Laurian, handing him a carved wooden duck. Laurian inspected it. He barely noticed a very thin line, almost like a crack in the wood, on the side. Then he realized that there was a smaller duck inside, nestled so seamlessly within the outer one that it was almost impossible to notice.

  “Thank you so much, Saro,” he said, truly impressed by the handiwork of both gifts. “The girls will love these.”

  “I know you like sending them gifts from Armenia,” said Saro happily. “So I assumed you’d be even happier to send them gifts from Vardahovit.”

  “You’re right. I’ll ship these as soon as I get down to Yerevan. Thanks again. I know the girls will love them.”

  Laurian then asked Saro to drive by the houses that Ayvazian had bought. Vardahovit village was only two kilometers from his house, and that stretch of the road, although very old, was in relatively good condition. The deserted house was at the far end of the village, past the new community center, right at the edge of a cliff overlooking a sharp drop of around eight-hundred meters into the river below. They circled halfway around it and turned back; they could not check the back of the house by car, as there was no room to drive between it and the cliff. There was nothing suspicious from the outside. The windows were closed and curtains drawn. The door seemed to be locked. There were no cars outside, probably suggesting that none of the bodyguards were present, but they could have been dropped off there. At Saro’s insistence, they did not get out of the car, nor knock on the door. Laurian wanted to at first, but Saro convinced him that it would alert them prematurely, and that it was better to let them think that no one was concerned with their presence until they learned a bit more.

  Then they drove to Sevajayr. That was a much harder ride, as there was more severe damage to the old stone road. The surface was entirely worn away, and only the stone foundation remained, which was in disrepair as well. Sevajayr is a tiny village, with just a handful of families, and it has many more deserted homes than Vardahovit. Saro thought that Ayvazian had bought at least two, and they drove by them. There was a SUV parked in front of one of the houses. Like the house in Vardahovit, the windows and doors were closed, and they had no way to see inside. They watched from a distance for a while, but no one came out or went in.

  Back at Laurian’s house, Saro started to worry. He sensed that Laurian was not going to let go of Ayvazian’s presence in Sevajayr. Laurian was not a citizen of Armenia. He came and went. He could easily start something that he wouldn’t be able to finish, something that Saro would have to sort out later. The thugs would not go after Laurian, given the complications of harming a foreign citizen, but they could easily go after Saro.

  It was past noon and they sat on the back terrace this time, because the sun was too strong in the front. Vartiter brought coffee. Laurian was serious and deep in thought.

  “Saro jan,” he said more deliberately than he normally talked, “this is our village, right?”

  Saro did not like either the question or the tone, but went along with it. “Right, Edik jan, of course it is our village.”

  Laurian always had high regard for the Mayor. He had come to know him to be honest, hard-working, and devoted to the interests of the village. This was unusual in the post-Soviet social structures, and needed to be appreciated and supported, in Laurian’s opinion. Saro had had many opportunities to ask for personal favors from Laurian, but never did. The only issues that he brought to him concerned the welfare of the villagers—an irrigation system for the village, torn roofs, roads in desperate need of repair. In a country where almost everyone Laurian’s age was born and educated in the Soviet Union and had to adapt to a total collapse of practically everything they knew, and almost everyone younger had known nothing but transition (depending on his mood, he’d sometimes call it chaos or rationalized chaos), one was often at a loss how to even define a reliable person, let alone actually find one. So when one did find one, it would not be right to put him at risk in his own fluid, unsettled system, or so Laurian believed.

  “Look, Saro, I know it is more dangerous for you to be involved in this than me, but believe me, it is also far more dangerous for you and your family if we let this go on without knowing what they are up to.”

  Saro was quiet. Laurian understood his concern and decided to come straight to the point.

  “Saro, listen. I realize I don’t live here permanently, and you and your family are here year round. I know you have a lot more at stake than I do and you may be a much more direct target of Ayvazian’s actions than I’ll ever be. But think about this: If what he is doing here, right in the middle of our village, is something bad, something illegal, something criminal even, and we know nothing about it, does that make you feel any safer than trying to find out?”

  Saro thought about it for a minute. The na
tural inclination in the post-Soviet system was to leave those in authority alone. It was a culture left over from seventy years of Soviet rule. The individual had no value, everyone was dispensable for the general good, and authority figures could never be challenged without serious and often fatal consequences. One could only accept reality, especially when supported by power, and no matter how unjust, could not fight it. The Western, activist approach of not adapting to a difficult situation had virtually no place in this psyche.

  “No, it does not make me feel safer,” he said finally. “More than you I want all this removed from the village. But what can we hope to do? What exactly are you proposing?”

  “Well, we cannot develop any plan of action without knowing what they are doing. And I agree with you that we need to be very careful. I will follow your advice just as I did earlier in the car. We will not go knocking on doors and asking questions. We will let them think this place has nothing but a bunch of scared and ignorant peasants. That is what they believe anyway; otherwise they would not have come here. Fine so far?”

  “So far, yes,” said Saro, noticeably relieved that he was not facing a reckless reform-minded foreigner who would come in with guns blazing and leave the locals to clean up his mess. And Laurian could easily be like that. He had seen him in his more indignant moments, when he was so fed up with the corruption in the country that he would go on a rampage about everyone in authority. That always was a source of concern, even though Saro agreed with every word he said.

  “We need to organize a stakeout. A constant twenty-four hour watch. Monitor every movement in those houses. I am sure eventually we’ll get a clue. They will slip up at some point.”

  Such a plan seemed borderline harmless to Saro, on the condition it was done with utmost care.

  Vartiter approached from the guardhouse with a trayful of grilled chicken, cheese, sausages, cut-up tomatoes and cucumbers, scallions, pickles and bread.

  “Can we take Agassi into our confidence?” whispered Laurian while Vartiter was still out of earshot.

  “I think we can. He and his family can help with this.”

  Vartiter approached them with a broad smile, and Laurian stood up and took the tray from her. He knew that that was a “foreign move,” as local men would never consider helping a woman with something that is deemed to be her job. But Laurian did not care.

  “Thanks so much, Vartiter,” he said—another sign of him being an outsider, as one never thanks someone for something that is expected of them anyway, especially a woman serving lunch. “Where is Agassi?”

  “Down in the lower orchard watering the new fruit trees,” she said. “He should be almost done by now. He’s been at it since this morning.”

  “Vart-jan, ask him to join us.”

  Vartiter stepped inside to bring another plate for her husband. “Bring the oghi too,” said Laurian. Agassi not only understood things better but also remembered them much better with a glass or two of vodka in him.

  “Okay,” laughed Vartiter, “but you know you won’t get much work out of him for the rest of the day if he starts on your oghi now.”

  Vartiter set the table and left.

  “We need to form a reliable group,” said Laurian to Saro, who was becoming both excited and afraid of what they were about to do. “Like a committee.” The old Soviet mentality understood committees better than anyone. “We need twenty-four hour surveillance without raising any suspicion.”

  “That’s key,” said Saro. “No suspicion. Otherwise the whole village will pay dearly, I assure you. Every move should be seen as normal and routine.”

  “Absolutely,” Laurian agreed.

  “And, Edik jan, you have to stay behind the scenes. Involvement by you would raise the most suspicion of all. You play the role of the foreigner, who comes to enjoy his dacha here once in a while, and has no idea how the locals live…” Saro noticed the sharp look in Laurian’s eyes. “Sorry,” he said, “a thousand pardons, Edik jan, but you know what I am saying, right?”

  “I know,” smiled Laurian. “I’ll play the dumb foreigner role. Do not worry about that.”

  They spent over two hours with Agassi planning the operation. Vartiter popped in a few times to refresh the table. If she was curious about what the men were talking about, she did not show it. She’d hear it all from Agassi later. They identified six individuals who would monitor the three homes, with the one in Sevajayr that had the car in front getting the full twenty-four hour treatment, and the others would be watched on a lighter schedule. Agassi’s family would be heavily involved. His two sons, one of whom lived in Vardahovit, and the other, who worked at the small hydroelectric power plant near Sevajayr, were well positioned. Three children were added to the list. Children would be very good for the task, as the bodyguards rarely took them seriously, and they could naturally be anywhere and everywhere playing in the villages. There was another reliable man from Shatin, which was far from the surveillance targets, but Saro and Laurian would arrange for him to get a temporary job in Sevajayr working the beehives. The villager closest to one of the houses in Sevajayr had over seventy-five beehives, and surely would need some help gathering the honey.

  Rules and instructions were drafted. How to watch without being seen, make everything look natural, do not get too close, always keep the lights off. Laurian had two pairs of binoculars, which he donated to the operation. But he was much more uncomfortable donating his camera; a Nikon D-90, with 18X zoom and a special nighttime photography feature; it would be very useful. But, if detected, it would look totally out of place in the hands of any of the villagers in Sevajayr.

  “My grandson Hayk is the best photographer in the whole area,” said Agassi proudly. He can hide in the beekeeper’s barn in the upper loft and try to take pictures from the tiny window. No one will notice a thing.”

  “Isn’t Hayk in school?” asked Laurian. “This may take a few days, maybe longer. Can he skip classes for that long?”

  “We’ll get permission, don’t worry. Hayk is very smart. He’ll make up for the missed classes in no time.”

  “He has to stay way inside,” said Laurian, allowing his concern to show on his face. Hayk is only fifteen. He is a smart kid, very alert and always very respectful when talking to Laurian, but fifteen nonetheless. “This is a delicate task,” he said. “There is a light on the camera that will show even from a distance. He cannot hold it out the window, or even at the window. He has to do the best he can by staying at least a meter inside. And he needs to learn some basic features of the camera. Are you sure he can handle this?”

  “You show him everything, Edik jan, and he’ll follow your instructions to the letter. I know my Hayk well.”

  After the details were worked out, they planned various meetings with each of the recruits, and Agassi left them. Saro also stood up to leave, but Laurian signaled him to sit down.

  “I have some business to tend to in Ashtarak,” he said. “That is just thirty minutes from Aparan and Saralandj. I want to go visit the family of the Saralandj man.”

  “Edik jan, that was more than eight months ago. What connection could it have with this?”

  “It happened here, and it happened with Ayvazian. What more connection do we need?” asked Laurian. “We should talk to the family. It can do no harm. Will you come with me?”

  Saro was reluctant, but accepted. If nothing else he could make sure Laurian did not do anything rash.

  “Okay, then. We’ll leave in the morning around nine and we’ll be back by evening,” said Laurian, and Saro left.

  It was late afternoon. There were still a few hours before sunset, but the sun was already low and not uncomfortable. Laurian moved to the front terrace, where the scenery was the most spectacular in early evening. He sank in one of the teak lounge chairs, put his feet up on the coffee table, and fired up a Romeo & Julietta Churchill cigar. He could make it last for about two hours, time that he would need to think through everything that had happened since his a
rrival twenty-four hours earlier.

  The evening was unfolding in spectacular fashion on the horizon. There were more shades of colors in the sky and on the mountainsides than one would have thought existed. A thousand shades of green, a thousand shades of red and orange, a thousand shades of white, he thought in awe. The sun itself seemed so touched by the sky in which it was sailing, that it appeared to be acting bashfully, unwilling to shine too brightly so as not to disturb the symphony of colors. Nature is paying its eternal tribute to Medzarents, thought Laurian. He must have been looking at a sky like this when he wrote:

  Joyful are the apricot lights of the sweetly escaping night

  Golden strings wrapped around the velvety fog of incense

  Blue ribbons, rainbows, floating sounds, mystique rose

  Candles that calmly melt into their own teardrops of light …

  Yes, he must have seen just this… And now nature is giving it all back, in honor of his memory. Years ago, he had tried to translate Medzarents to a British colleague, but eventually given up.

  “The most difficult thing in the world to translate is poetry,” he had declared, “especially when one understands it.”

  Vartiter appeared again from the guardhouse.

  “Mi ban sarkem utes, ha? May I fix something for you to eat?”