Zabelle

by Nancy Kricorian

  “Zabelle, don’t make big eyes. She hasn’t hit me in months. And Peter brings me a new dress whenever she does. What about your mother-in-law? Now that’s a mean-looking weasel. And how old’s your husband, anyway?”

  “Almost forty. He’s like an old man—he never wants to go out.”

  “And I thought my husband was over-the-hill. Peter is thirty-five. We’re too young to be stuck with such old goats.”

  “Toros is a good man,” I said. “And his mother does a lot of the housework.” I didn’t mention that she still did most of the cooking and that the food tasted like shoe leather.

  “You’re so soft, Zabelle. If I hadn’t found food for us, you would have starved. ‘Oh no, Arsinee, I can’t beg for money! Oh, Arsinee, I can’t eat that!’ I made you do it. I had to be jarbig for the three of us.”

  “If I hadn’t said no, we’d have been eating boiled bits of rag.”

  “And would it have killed you?”

  “No, but eating that lard the woman threw in the alley almost did.”

  “So I made one mistake. But if it weren’t for me, you would have been another pile of bones rotting in the sun.”

  I didn’t say anything.

  “You, me, and Sarkis, we did okay,” she said.

  “What happened to Sarkis?” I asked.

  “When I left for America, he was still with the uncle in Mersin. He’s in Cairo now. I got a letter last month. What about you? What happened after we left?”

  I told her about the Aziz, the Der Stepanians, and Vartanoush Chahasbanian’s bringing me to Boston. She explained how Peter Manoogian came to Mersin, where his family was from, to find a wife.

  “His mother told him to go to the old country, to find an old country girl. There were orphans every place, all you had to do was choose. He took one look at me in my uncle’s café, and decided I was the one for him. It’s a good thing his parents were already in America, because his bulldog of a mother would never have approved. She thinks a daughter-in-law should be a kitchen maid, silent as a cooking pot. You can imagine how well she likes my talk.”

  I laughed. “At least in my case, Vartanoush could blame only herself.”

  “Listen,” proposed Arsinee, “let’s not talk about the past anymore. We have our lives here. We have our babies. What’s done is done.”

  “I still think about the deportations. I have terrible dreams. But I never say anything.”

  “Let’s make a pact not to talk about it until we’re toothless grandmothers. Then if we want to, we can babble, weep into our aprons, and drive our daughters-in-law crazy.”

  * * *

  Vartanoush didn’t care for Arsinee, and Arsinee’s mother-in-law liked me less. It was hard for us to see each other as often as we wanted. At that time there was no phone at our house, so I had to go down to the store to call Arsinee.

  Every couple of weeks Arsinee and Henry came over for an afternoon. We sat in the garden, where the zinnias, petunias, and pansies were in bloom. Toros’s tomato plants were two feet high. Henry and Moses turned up the marble stepping-stones in the lawn to play with the bugs underneath. This kept them occupied for hours. Arsinee wore fine dresses with stockings. So she sat in the wicker chair, telling jokes while I pulled weeds from the beds.

  “Let’s take the streetcar to Boston,” Arsinee said.

  “What for?”

  “To go to the cinema.” Arsinee grinned and lifted one eyebrow. “When I was in town with Peter, I saw a poster for a moving picture we could see.”

  “We can’t go to the cinema!” Toros would bluster and rage if he found out. He would forbid me to see Arsinee—he thought she was a bad influence already. Vartanoush would cluck her tongue for weeks.

  “The picture is made by an Armenian. Rouben Mamoulian. How bad could it be?”

  “He’s probably not a Christian.”

  “What do you think, he’s a Mohammedan?”

  “No,” I said doubtfully. “But, I don’t have the money.”

  “It’s not so expensive, and I’ll pay.”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Have you ever been inside a cinema?” Arsinee already knew the answer.

  “No.” I turned the idea over like a coin in my hand. It was exciting. But like a schoolgirl, I was afraid we’d get caught.

  “I can tell you want to.”

  “But Toros…”

  “He doesn’t have to know. Do you want to go to your grave without having been?”

  “What will we say?”

  “We’ll say we’re going into Boston on the streetcar to buy some …”

  “To get some thread, and a zipper,” I said. “It’s true, you know. I do need a zipper, thread, and buttons for the dress I’m making. We wouldn’t have to lie. We could say we were going to the Windsor Button Shop.”

  “Or to Filene’s Bargain Basement. We’ll take in a Friday matinee.”

  My life was a dull gray dress, and Arsinee arrived bringing rhinestone buttons and a black velvet collar. Who could resist her?

  The first thing we did in Boston was buy a zipper, a card of royal blue buttons, and two spools of matching thread. Then we went to the movie theater, with its big marquee and tall bright posters. On one of the posters, a young girl, dressed modestly in white, stood torn between her burlesque queen mother and a handsome, respectable young man. The mother was half-naked. I tipped my head to one side and looked at Arsinee.

  “Directed by Rouben Mamoulian.” Arsinee pointed.

  “Arsinee,” I hissed, “look at the way that woman is dressed.” I was afraid someone from the church would be passing by and spot us.

  “You’ve never seen a nightgown?”

  “I wouldn’t exactly call that a nightgown,” I responded. I pointed my eyes in the direction of the theater entrance, where a steady stream of men flowed in. “I’ve counted two women going in, and they were with men.”

  “Are you telling me that we came all the way here, that I bought these”—here Arsinee brandished two tickets—”and you’re afraid to go in because some odar men are in there?”

  I didn’t say anything.

  “Well, I’m going, with or without you.” Arsinee marched forward.

  “You can’t go in there alone!” I hurried behind her through the bright lobby into the darkened theater. A newsreel flickered on the screen as we stumbled down the aisle. Big as life, Al Capone, surrounded by his bodyguards, waved at me. He was mobbed by cheering fans who clamored for autographs. The gangster was a movie star.

  We slid into seats, Arsinee on the aisle and me next to her. Suddenly I was seized with panic. We were in a dark room surrounded by strange men. My husband would never believe it of me. My mother-in-law would curse me. The police were going to arrest us. God was going to strike me down in my seat.

  I said to Arsinee, “It’s dark in here. I have a bad feeling. Why does it have to be so dark?”

  “What’s the matter with you? Once in your life will you be brave? Are you going to go through your life whining and wringing your hands? You should be happy to be alive. You should be pleased to see new things.”

  A man behind us leaned forward, tapping me on the shoulder, which caused both of us to jump. He said in English, “Excuse me, girls, would you mind piping down so I can hear the newsreel?”

  Arsinee glared at him, and we turned toward the screen. A long column of bedraggled men waited for dinner in a breadline. Some of them stared into the audience, their eyes vacant or filled with shame. The camera scrolled past park benches, where men and even women wrapped in newspapers and rags lay sleeping. We had passed scenes like that on the street. On the screen they were glamorous and tragic, instead of threadbare and dirty.

  “Meanwhile, in Hollywood,” the narrator blared. A party: bare-shouldered women, with jewels, danced with tall thin men in tuxedoes and sleek dark heads. They laughed at unheard jokes and winked at the audience.

  I muttered under my breath, “Wicked, wicked ways.”

 
; Arsinee whispered loudly,”You sound like your mother-in-law. Next you’ll be twitching your nose, and wagging your head. Then your face will harden into stone, and they’ll bury you in that garden you love so much.”

  The man behind us sighed loudly.

  The feature came on the screen. The mother’s clothes were skimpy, her work was degrading, and her husband was a nasty man. But she had a good heart all the same. She adored her beautiful, innocent daughter and wanted to make sure the girl had a comfortable life. Who could blame her?

  By the middle of the film I could have wrung out my handkerchief. Even hardheaded Arsinee was sniffling beside me. How could the mother let her evil husband force the lovely daughter into the burlesque theater? The poor girl danced on the stage in her underwear. She and her mother needed money, and the mother wasn’t young anymore. Would the daughter’s rich boyfriend find out? Could he save the girl, or would he abandon her to her fate?

  Suddenly a lewd white face appeared in front of me. It was as if someone had dowsed me with a bucket of cold water, rousing me from a vivid dream. A clean-shaven man with red hair and beady eyes seated directly in front of us had turned around in his seat. He winked at me with a sneer. Arsinee, still absorbed in the film, didn’t notice what was going on. I tried to ignore him, but then he whispered something at me. The words were unclear, but the tone was foul and insulting.

  I elbowed Arsinee, who said, “What’s the matter with you?”

  “That man …”

  “What man?” Arsinee reluctantly pulled her gaze from the screen and saw the leering man. Just then he vaulted over the seat and sat down next to me. I leaped up. Arsinee jumped out of her seat, and the two of us scurried out of the theater. As we reached the exit, Arsinee glanced back and saw that the man was following us.

  We raced out into the street. I stumbled into an apple peddler on the sidewalk, upturning his crate of fruit, which rolled around my feet. The peddler cursed, but before I could apologize, Arsinee had grabbed my hand and started to run. The red-haired dev was after us like a hound. I lost my hat, and my hair flew in all directions. We darted through the pedestrians and gained a safe distance from the man. He had slowed his pace but was still coming.

  Arsinee stopped abruptly. She was furious. “That redheaded odar, some stupid esh, isn’t going to scare me. I’ll stick him with my hatpin, and kick him in the shins.”

  I pleaded, “Don’t do that! Look, he’s still coming.” A streetcar stopped on the curb in front of us, and I dragged Arsinee inside. The man reached the corner just as the doors snapped shut. He laughed and waved as the streetcar pulled away.

  We collapsed into seats.

  “Look, look what happened because we sinned. I told you something bad was going to happen.” I started crying.

  “Oh, my God, what a baby you are. If you’re going to be like this, I’m getting off right now. Is it our fault that some crazy odar chases us out of the theater? I’m so mad. Now we’ll never know the end of the story. If I ever see that man again, I’ll kick him in the pants. We should have called the police, that’s what we should have done. We should have told the theater manager. But no, we run like two headless hens. It’s enough to make me ill.” She slumped back in the seat.

  We sat in silence for a few minutes. I peered into the torn paper sack in my lap. The buttons and the zipper were gone. One spool of blue thread remained. I gazed out the window at an unfamiliar street. I asked, “Do we know where this streetcar is going?”

  We ended up in Newton Corner, where we had to catch another streetcar to Watertown. It took us an extra hour to get home. Arsinee helped fix my hair and spent the rest of the time haranguing me. She didn’t want Toros to know what happened.

  “Do you want to be banished from each other? Do you want my mother-in-law to chase me around the house with the rug beater? Be reasonable, Zabelle. What happened wasn’t our fault. And besides, we’ll never do it again. That was it, the one and only trip to the moving pictures.”

  By the time we parted at the Walnut Street stop, I had decided not to tell. But walking up the front stairs, I started to feel miserable again.

  “So, stranger, funny to see you here,” Vartanoush remarked sarcastically. “Did you fall into the Charles River? Where’s your hat?”

  I burst into tears and dropped into a chair at the kitchen table, with my face in my hands.

  ”Yavrum, what’s the matter? Did something happen?” she asked.

  At this sign of sympathy from my mother-in-law, a wave of guilt crashed over me. I cried harder.

  “Toros! Toros! Aman im! Something’s the matter with Zabelle!”

  Toros entered the kitchen carrying Moses, who started whimpering when he saw me. Toros put the child down, and Moses ran to me. I gathered him into my lap. Toros laid a hand on my shoulder.

  “What happened? Tell me, Zabelle,” he said firmly.

  The pause between his question and my answer was a few seconds. In that time, the afternoon played in fast motion on the screen in my head. They would never understand. I had to be loyal to Arsinee.

  I looked up through bleary eyes and said, “I lost the buttons I bought, but I still have the thread. Then we got on the wrong streetcar and ended up in Brookline, and we could only get a streetcar to Newton Corner. Arsinee twisted her ankle getting down the steps, so she couldn’t walk very well. We waited for the longest time for a streetcar to Watertown Square, and then another one up Mount Auburn Street. We spent the whole day traveling, and I don’t even have the buttons for my dress.”

  Vartanoush said, “Well, it’s nothing to be so upset about.”

  “I guess you’re right,” I said, forcing a smile.

  The words had spilled out of me as though thread were unwinding from a spool speeding across the floor. And they believed me.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  Other Lives

  (WORCESTER, 1937)

  Children are like seeds: the amount of water and sun and type of soil can influence how tall or broad a plant becomes, but the shape of leaf and color of petal is determined before the sprout breaks through the earth. When Moses was seven, our second son was born, and Toros called him Jack, a tough American name that suited our boy. From the minute he could crawl, Jack headed for trouble like a homing pigeon. Electrical outlets and butter knives were his toys of choice. When he was eleven months old, and on the verge of walking, I gave birth to a daughter whom we named Joy. In daylight hours, she was a placid baby, happily playing with a set of measuring spoons, but every night her stubborn wails dragged me from my bed. Some nights, she screamed as though her crib were a vat of boiling oil.

  Between caring for the two babies, I barely had an hour’s rest. With cracked and chapped hands, I spent hours of my day changing, rinsing, and wringing diapers. Gone were the long conversations Moses and I had shared while puttering around the garden. With Jack and Joy to compare him to, I realized what an easy child Moses had been.

  Good Friday morning, in a rare moment of peace, Arsinee and I drank coffee at the dining-room table, while our children played in the living room. The baby was down for a nap. Arsinee’s second child, Dahlia, had wrapped herself in a shawl and stood on the hassock, pretending to be the goddess of love and beauty.

  “Bow down before your queen!” she commanded Henry and Moses.

  Seated on the rug, the boys were making paper airplanes out of newspaper. They ignored Dahlia. She climbed down and sashayed off to the bathroom. Arsinee and I laughed into our cuffs.

  “It’s a good thing Vartanoush isn’t here,” I said. “Pagan goddesses aren’t her cup of tea.”

  “Where is she?” asked Arsinee.

  “She and Toros went to get gas for the car. After lunch, we drive to Worcester.”

  “You won’t be in church?”

  “We’re visiting Toros’s friend the clock fixer from Adana. I’ve never met him before. Toros says the church in Worcester is nice.”

  Arsinee asked, “Where’s Jack?”

&
nbsp; “Under the table.” I lifted the lace tablecloth and peered in. No Jack. I ran to the living room, and there he was, tearing strips of wallpaper from behind the couch. Kneeling down, I squeezed Jack’s jaw open and extracted a wadded mass of paper.

  “No, no, no!” I said to Jack, lifting him up.

  He shook his head back and forth, then gave me his most charming smile.

  “Moses,” I said, “did you see what your brother was doing?”

  “Sorry, Ma. I thought he was with you,” Moses replied.

  When Toros and Vartanoush arrived home, he presented me with two sacks of half-rotten fruit and vegetables, as he often did at week’s end. But I had no patience for it that day. The suitcase wasn’t packed, and the shredded blanket Jack required at bedtime was missing. I was too busy to deal with this rubbish Toros brought home from the store.

  When I pointed out that most of it was beyond salvage, Toros said, “In the old country, we ate cats and dogs, we were so hungry. This food is good enough for Roosevelt.” I imagined shouting, “Then why don’t you give it to Roosevelt’s wife?” Instead I hefted the bags to the back porch for sorting, where I tossed most of it into the forsythia bushes.

  Before we left, I called Arsinee on the telephone, our new luxury, to tell her good-bye. Out in the driveway, Toros leaned on the car horn.

  “It’s not like he’s dragging you to prison,” Arsinee said.

  “How would you like to be cooped up in a box on wheels with three whining children and Vartanoush singing bits of the Divine Liturgy?”

  Vartanoush sat beside Toros in the front seat, humming “Christ Is Risen” off-key. The motor rumbled, and a noisy draft of cold air shot in the windows. Toros insisted on what he called “fresh air,” but I was freezing. I had a scarf over my hair, a coat buttoned to the neck, and a blanket over my lap. The children were bundled in their winter coats.

  The baby snuggled on one side of my lap, and Moses was curled up asleep with his head on my other leg. Jack was hunkered down in the deep floor well, playing with blocks. Jack handed Joy a block, and she immediately put it in her mouth. He demanded that she return it, but the baby refused.