The Bastard of Istanbul (16 page)

Their dishes were replicas of two expressionist paintings. Armanoush’s plate was based on a painting by Francesco Boretti titled
The Blind Whore.
As for Matt’s plate, it was inspired by one of Mark Rothko’s paintings and was aptly titled
Untitled.
So absorbed were the two in their plates that neither of them heard the waiter when he asked them if everything was all right.

The rest of the evening was nice but only as far as the word
nice
can go. The food turned out to be delicious and they quickly got used to wolfing down works of art, so much so that when their desserts arrived, Matt had no trouble in messing up the impeccably lined blueberries in
April Blues Bring May Yellows
by Peter Kitchell, and Armanoush did not even hesitate to jab her spoon into the shaky velvety custard representing Jackson Pollock’s
Shimmering Substance.
But when it came to conversing they couldn’t make half the progress they achieved in eating. Not that Armanoush did not enjoy being with Matt or did not find him attractive. But something was terribly missing, not in the sense of a detail missing from the whole, but in the sense of the whole dissolving into pieces without that missing part. Perhaps it was too much philosophical food. At any rate, Armanoush had understood her limits; she could not possibly fall in love with Matt Hassinger. After making this discovery, she stopped questioning herself, and her interest in him was replaced by sheer sympathy.

On the way back home they stopped the car and walked a little bit along Columbus Avenue, both pensive and silent. The breeze shifted then, and for a fleeting moment Armanoush caught the sharp, salty whiff of the sea, longing to be by the seaside now, aching to run away from this very moment. Once in front of the City Lights bookstore, however, she couldn’t help perking up with interest as she spotted one of her favorite books behind the window:
A Tomb for Boris Davidovich.

“Oh, have you read that book? It’s awesome!” she blurted out, and upon hearing a definite “no,” she started describing the first story of the book, and then all seven of them. Since she sincerely believed the book could not be fully grasped without mapping the bumpy terrain of Eastern European literature first, during the ensuing ten minutes that was more or less what Armanoush Tchakhmakhchian did, thus breaking the promise she had made to her mother that very morning about not uttering a word about books, at least for just the first date.

Once back in Russian Hill, in front of Grandma Shushan’s condo, they stood face to face, aware that the night was over and eager to make the ending better than the preceding evening in the only way they could think of. It was meant to be a
real
kiss, long-awaited and fantasized. Instead it turned out to be a gentle kiss, sealed with compassion on the part of Armanoush and admiration on the part of Matt, as both were miles away from feeling any passion.

“You know I meant to tell you this all night long,” Matt stammered, as if saddled with the uncomfortable truth he was about to confess. “You have this incredible smell. . . . It’s unusual and exotic. . . . Just like—”

“Like what?” Armanoush’s face went pale, as the sight of a plate of steaming
mantı
popped into her mind.

Matt Hassinger put his arm around her and whispered: “Pistachios . . . yes, you smell just like pistachios.”

At a quarter past eleven Armanoush fished out a bunch of keys to open the many locks of Grandma Shushan’s door, fearing in the meantime encountering the whole family in the living room, talking politics, drinking tea, and eating fruit, awaiting her return.

But inside it was dark and empty. Her dad and grandma had gone to sleep and everyone else had left. On the table there was a plate of two apples and two oranges, all carefully peeled and apparently left for her to eat. Armanoush grabbed one of the apples, now darkened on the outside. Her heart sank. In the eerie serenity of the night she nibbled the apple, feeling sad and tired. Soon she would have to go back to Arizona, but she wasn’t sure she could put up with her mother’s encapsulating universe. Though she liked it here in San Francisco and perhaps could take a semester off to stay with her father and Grandma Shushan, she also couldn’t help feeling that something was absent here, that a part of her identity was missing and without it she couldn’t start living her own life. The lackluster date with Matt Hassinger had only served to reinforce this feeling. Now she felt wiser, more cognizant of her situation, but saddened at the cost of this knowledge.

She kicked off her shoes and hurried to her room, taking the fruit with her. There she bundled her hair into a ponytail, stripped off the turquoise dress, and slipped into the silk pajamas she had bought in Chinatown. When she was ready, she closed the door of her room and immediately turned on the computer. It took just a few minutes to reach the only safe haven she could escape into at times like this: Café Constantinopolis.

Café Constantinopolis was a chat room, or as the regulars called it, a cybercafé, initially designed by a bunch of Greek Americans, Sephardim Americans, and Armenian Americans who, other than being New Yorkers, had one fundamental thing in common: They all were the grandchildren of families once based in Istanbul. The Web site opened with a familiar tune:
Istanbul was Constantinople/ Now it’s Istanbul, not Constantinople
. . .

With that melody appeared the silhouette of the city canopied under the flickering shades of sunset, veils upon veils of amethyst and black and yellow. In the middle of the screen there was a flashing arrow to indicate where to click to enter the chat room. You had to sign in with a password to be able to proceed further. Just like many real cafés this one was in theory open to everyone but in practice reserved for regular customers. Accordingly, although numerous off-the-cuff chatters showed up day in and day out, the core group remained more or less the same. Once you successfully signed in, the silhouette faded at the bottom and pulled apart, the way a velvet theater curtain opens before the act begins. As you entered the cybercafé, you heard bells chiming and then the same melody, only this time distant in the background.

Once inside, Armanoush disregarded the
Armeniansingles, Greek-singles, Weareallsingles
forums and clicked on
Anoush Tree
—a forum where only the regulars and those with intellectual interests met. Armanoush had discovered the group ten months ago and ever since she had been a regular member, joining the discussion on an almost daily basis. Although some members occasionally posted during the daytime, the real discussions always took place at night when the fuss of the daily routine was over. Armanoush liked to imagine this forum as a dingy, smoky bar she habitually stopped by on her way home. Just like that, Café Constantinopolis was a sanctuary where you could forgo your true, humdrum Self at the entrance, like leaving a sopping raincoat in need of drying in the vestibule.

The Anoush Tree section of Café Constantinopolis consisted of seven permanent members, five Armenians and two Greeks. They had not met in person and had never felt the need to. All of them came from different cities and had dissimilar professions and lives. All of them had nicknames. Armanoush’s nickname was Madame My-Exiled-Soul. She had chosen this name as a tribute to Zabel Yessaian, the only woman novelist the Young Turks put on their death list in 1915. Zabel was a fascinating personality. Born in Constantinople, she lived much of her life in exile. She had enjoyed a tumultuous life as a novelist and columnist. Armanoush kept a picture of her on her desk, in which Zabel broodingly peered out from under the brim of her hat at some unknown spot beyond the frame.

The others in the Anoush Tree had different nicknames for reasons unasked. Every week they would choose a specific discussion topic. Though the themes varied greatly, they all tended to revolve around their common history and culture—“common” oftentimes meaning “common enemy”: the Turks. Nothing brought people together more swiftly and strongly—though transiently and shakily— than a shared enemy.

This week the subject was “The Janissaries.” As she scanned through some of the most recent postings Armanoush was happy to see Baron Baghdassarian was online. She didn’t know much about him, other than that he was the grandchild of survivors, just like her, and resplendent with rage, unlike her. Sometimes he could be extremely harsh and skeptical. Throughout the last few months, despite the elusiveness of cyberspace or perhaps thanks to it, Armanoush had unknowingly developed a liking for him. A day would be incomplete if she couldn’t read his messages. Whatever this thing she felt for him—friendship, fondness, or sheer curiosity—Armanoush knew it was mutual.

People who believe the Ottoman rule was righteous don’t know anything about the Janissary’s Paradox. The Janissaries were Christian children captured and converted by the Ottoman state with a
chance
to climb the social ladder at the expense of despising their own people and forgetting their own past. The Janissary’s Paradox is as relevant today for every minority as it was yesterday. You the child of expatriates! You need to ask yourself this age-old question time and again: What will your position be with regards to this paradox; are you going to accept the role of the Janissary? Will you abandon your community to make peace with the Turks and let them whitewash the past so that, as they say, we can all move
forward
?

Glued to the screen, Armanoush took a bite of the remaining apple and chewed nervously. Never before had she felt such admiration for a man—other than her dad, of course, but that was different. There was something in Baron Baghdassarian that both enthralled and scared her; she wasn’t afraid of him exactly or the things he so boldly claimed—if anything, she was scared of herself. His words had a far-reaching effect, capable of digging out this other Armanoush that resided inside her but as of yet had not come out, a cryptic being in deep slumber. Somehow Baron Baghdassarian poked that creature with the spear of his words, prodding it until it woke up with a roar and came to light.

Armanoush was still running her brain over this frightening outcome when she glimpsed a long message posted by Lady Peacock/ Siramark—an Armenian American wine expert who worked for a California-based winery, frequently traveled to Yerevan, and was known for her amusingly smart comparisons between the United States and Armenia. Today, she had posted a self-scoring test that measured the degree of one’s “Armenianness.”

Having given a “yes” to every single one of the questions, Armanoush scrolled down to learn her score:

0-3 points: Sorry dude, you must be an outsider. 4-8 points: You sound like an inside-outsider. Chances are you are married to an Armenian. 9-12 points: Almost certainly you are an Armenian. 13-15 points: There’s no doubt, you are a proud Armenian.

Armanoush smiled at the screen. And in that moment she grasped what she already knew. It was as if a secret gate had been unlatched in the depths of her brain, and before her mind could accommodate the thoughts gushing in, a wave of introspection rolled over her. She had to go there. That was what she sorely needed: a journey.

Because of her fragmented childhood, she had still not been able to find a sense of continuity and identity. She had to make a journey to her past to be able to start living her own life. As the weight of this new revelation dawned on her, it also motivated her to type a message, seemingly to everyone but in particular to Baron Baghdassarian:

The Janissary’s Paradox is being torn between two clashing states of existence. On the one hand, the remnants of the past pile up—a womb of tenderness and sorrow, a sense of injustice and discrimination. On the other hand glimmers the promised future—a shelter decorated with the trimmings and trappings of success, a sense of safety like you have never had before, the comfort of joining the majority and finally being deemed normal.

Hello there Madame My-Exiled-Soul! Glad you are back. So nice to hear the poetess in you.

That was Baron Baghdassarian. Armanoush couldn’t help rereading the last part aloud:
so nice to hear the poetess in you.
She lost her train of thought but only momentarily.