Once, when she was in her twenties, Ani fell in love with a Ukrainian boy named Roger. “His parents survived the Holocaust. He understands us,” she told Bedros.
“He understands nothing,” Bedros had shouted. “He shares his horror with the world, and the world gasps and apologizes. And what about us?” Bedros was right. The Armenians bore their loss alone. They tucked it away, like something precious, in every syllable of language taught in Saturday schools, and in the smell of dishes, and in the lament of songs. In the breath of children.
“Marry him and you finish what the Turks started,” Bedros told her.
It is hard to believe that was over twenty-five years ago. They never heard much about her love life after that. If she had one, she kept it to herself. Fifty and still single, she teaches Armenian-language classes, when she’s not devoting herself to her people’s painful past. Seda should have said something back then, in the days of Roger.
Seda finally opens her eyes, places a hand on Ani’s arm and squeezes.
“Hi,” Ani whispers, smiling.
Seda takes in her niece’s frizzy black bob, kohl-rimmed eyes and dark clothing. “Why do you always dress like you’re in mourning?” says Seda.
“Tell me a story?” Ani says, ignoring her.
Seda clicks her tongue. “No more stories,” she says.
“Oh come on. Why not?”
“Not in the mood,” says Seda.
Ani starts stroking Seda’s hair. “Remember when I was little, I used to sneak into your bed at night and warm my cold feet between your thighs?” she asks. “You used to tell me the craziest stories. Like the one about Aghavni Hanim who played with her breasts so much as a girl that they had grown a meter long each.”
Seda smiles. “They grew so long that she had to toss each breast over a shoulder so they wouldn’t knock into her knees,” she says.
Ani giggles at the memory. “What was the point of that story?” she asks. “It’s ridiculous.”
“It was supposed to prevent masturbation,” she says, struggling to sit up in bed.
“Oh my God,” says Ani, laughing. “Are you serious?”
Seda shrugs.
“Why not tell a vagina story then?” she asks.
Seda gives Ani a stern look. “We don’t talk about things like that. It’s shameful.”
“What else don’t we talk about?” Ani asks, the humor in her voice gone.
Seda looks away, not knowing what to say. She has left so much unsaid.
“What’s going on?” asks Ani. “Betty tells me you had a visitor yesterday.”
Seda searches for an entry point to the story of her life, a life compartmentalized and safely tucked away, a life that should not have been uncovered in this way. Damn Kemal.
“Betty says a lot of things,” she says.
“Is he from the Armenian Herald? They’re doing a story about the survivors again. If you’re going to talk to anyone, it better be me.”
“Who’s talking?”
“Not you,” says Ani.
“That’s right. Not me,” says Seda, pulling the blanket back.
“But you’re coming to the exhibit, right?”
“It’s down the hall. I couldn’t avoid it if I tried,” says Seda. This exhibit is just another venue for what Ani and her generation like to call baykar, the struggle. Her niece had a bullhorn pressed to her lips as early as age three. Seda still has the VHS tape somewhere of Ani’s first fifteen seconds of fame, courtesy of a KTLA news reporter who was covering that year’s protest in front of the Turkish consulate.
“Why would you want to avoid it?” Ani asks.
“Aman, I’m tired of the past. I was there, remember? Once was enough.”
“No, I don’t remember. Because that’s the one story you won’t tell me.”
“Your father told that story enough for the both of us,” she says.
“But I want to hear your version,” says Ani. “Maybe if you told me about what happened to you and Dad, I would stop harping about the past.”
“You wouldn’t stop. Besides, I don’t remember.”
“You don’t remember,” says Ani, her face full of skepticism.
“Old age,” says Seda. “Now get out of my bed so I can start my day.”
“Got a busy schedule, have you?” Ani teases.
“Very funny.”
“I’ll be down the hall, if you change your mind,” she says from the doorway.
“If I had a mind left, I’d think about changing it,” says Seda.
Alone again in her room, Seda manages to put her slippers on and lower herself onto the wheelchair. She moves her chair to the window. There was a time, not long ago, when she could have walked up to the glass. You can tell a lot about a person from his walk.