“I’ll call you grandmother,” says Orhan.
“It doesn’t matter, I tell you,” her voice rises with the reprimand. “Mother. Grandmother. Genocide. Deportations. Seda, Lucine. None of it matters. There is only what is, what happened. The words come much later, corrupting everything with meaning. Call me what you want, but love me, Orhan. Because that’s the only thing that matters.”
But love is a word, thinks Orhan before hanging up. Love is a goddamn word. And which ones we use does matter.
CHAPTER 34
The Photographer
ORHAN WALKS AROUND in a haze of melancholy, carrying his arsenal of images through the empty halls of the nursing home. When he peeks into her room, Seda is in a deep slumber, as if the outpouring Orhan witnessed was her last on earth.
The Leica’s strap lays flat across his chest like a loving arm, the familiar weight swinging at his middle, comforting him. It is late in the evening and there are few residents shuffling along. Vapors of chlorine and lemons emanate from the shiny linoleum. Orhan finds himself looking for Mrs.Vartanian, but there is no one to spit at his shoes.
The door to the dining room is shut, but the murmur of voices comes through anyway. Someone has placed a freestanding sign at the entrance: BEARING WITNESS: AN EXHIBIT ABOUT MEMORY AND IDENTITY. Orhan presses his face to the glass-paneled door. The room has been completely rearranged. The chairs and tables have disappeared, along with the stale air of decay. Large black-and-white photographs line the white walls. Each panel features the face and torso of an elderly person set against a black background.
Orhan is relieved to step inside this space awash in images. He approaches a photograph whose subject he recognizes. Mrs. Vartanian’s face is displayed as a black-and-white landscape. The horizontal lines that drift across her forehead move from the dark side of the frame toward a light source. The bags under her eyes sag in deep U-shaped crescents, reaching past her drooping nose. A thin-veined hand covers her unseen mouth. Orhan notices that each knuckle is tattooed with a symbol of some sort.
“Haunting, aren’t they?” someone says.
Orhan starts and steps back to find Ani staring at Mrs. Vartanian’s image. Seda’s niece is dressed in black again, her dark eyes and hair mimicking the backdrop of the photographs.
“Yes,” he says.
“The exhibit won’t be open until tomorrow, but you’re welcome to look.” She glances at the camera swinging from his neck. “Are you a photographer?” she asks.
“No, just a visitor,” says Orhan turning back to the photograph.
“She’s actually a resident here,” says Ani, pointing at the image of Mrs. Vartanian.
“What are those symbols on her knuckles?” he asks.
“Tattoos. Many of the deportees were branded by the Arab and Bedouin tribes that abducted them,” she explains. “I’m Ani Melkonian, by the way.” She extends her hand.
“Nice to meet you,” he says, shaking her hand. “Orren,” he says, pronouncing it the way Betty the orderly had. It’s a small deception, but it lodges itself in his throat like a fish gone bad. “Is this your project?” He gestures toward the wall.
“I’m not an artist, if that’s what you mean.” she says. “But I organized the show.”
“It’s very intense,” he says.
“Yeah, nobody does sorrow like the Armenians. Besides, art is always intense when it’s transformative. Only kind of art worth pursuing.”
Orhan turns away from the photograph to look at her. Something in the way she’s looking at the photograph reminds him of his youth. “Are you saying all art should be political?” asks Orhan.
“I’m saying art can change things.”
“So there is no value in a still life,” he says smiling.
“With the world as fucked up as it is, why would anyone choose the still life?”
Because it’s a thing of beauty. “Because he feels like using the color red?” he ventures out loud.
“I guess I just prefer intense,” she says. “Have you seen a film crew, by any chance?” she asks, finally turning to face him again. “The documentary guys are supposed to be here by now.” She looks down at the clipboard in her arms. “Two guys. One old. One young, hopefully carrying a large camera?”
“No, sorry,” says Orhan.
She sighs and looks up at him again. “I’m trying to pair each photograph with an oral history.”
Why ruin the images with words? thinks Orhan.
“The idea is to document the voices of the surviving eyewitnesses.”
“Eyewitnesses,” Orhan repeats.
She looks at him as if he’s stupid. “To the genocide,” she says.
A young man with a headset pokes his head through the dining-room door. “Ani, we need those mikes,” he says.
“Okay, I’m on it.” She fishes through her purse and produces a ring of keys.
“And bring the blue binders if you can,” he adds before disappearing behind the door again.
“I have to go to my car,” she says to Orhan.
“Need help?” he asks.