"That doesn't make sense," Armanoush insisted.
"Perhaps it doesn't. But in all honesty, someone like me can never be past-oriented…. You know why?" Asya asked after a long pause. "Not because I find my past poignant or that I don't care. It's because I don't know anything about it. I think it's better to have the knowledge of past events than not to know anything at all."
An expression of puzzlement passed over Armanoush's face. "But you also said you didn't want to know your past. Now you sound different."
"I do?" Asya asked. "Well, let's put it this way, I have conflicting voices inside me with respect to this issue." She gave her companion a glance full of mischief but then her voice became more serious. "All I know about my past is that something wasn't right, and I can't attain that information. For me history starts today, you see? There is no continuity in time. You can't feel attached to ancestors if you can't even trace your own father. Maybe I will never be able to learn my father's name. If I keep thinking about it, I'll go nuts. So I say to myself, why do you want to unearth the secrets? Don't you see that the past is a vicious circle? It is a loop. It sucks us in and makes us run like a hamster on a wheel. Then we start to repeat ourselves, again and again."
As they walked up and down on the undulating streets, every neighborhood looked so different that Armanoush began to think Istanbul was an urban maze, cities within a city. She wondered if James Baldwin had felt the same way when he was here.
At three o'clock in the afternoon, exhausted and hungry, they entered a restaurant, which Asya said was a must, since it was here that one could find the best chicken doper in town. They each got a doper and a large glass of frothy yogurt drink.
"I have to confess," Armanoush muttered after a lull. "Istanbul is a bit different from what I expected. It's more modern and less conservative than I feared.""Well, you should tell that to my Auntie Cevriye sometime. She'd be thrilled. She'll give me a medallion for having represented my country so well!"
They laughed together for the first time since they'd met. "There's a place I want to take you to sometime," Asya said. "It
is this little cafe where we regularly meet. Cafe Kundera." "Really? He's one of my favorite authors!" Armanoush ex
claimed in delight. "Why is it called that?"
"Well, that's an endless debate. Actually, every day we develop
a new theory."
On the way back to the konak, Armanoush grabbed Asya's hand and squeezed it as she said, "You remind me of a friend of mine."
For a while she looked at Asya like she knew something but couldn't tell. But then she remarked, "I have never seen anyone so perceptive and so… so empathetic be so stringent and so… so confrontational at the same time. Except one person! You remind me of my most unusual friend: Baron Baghdassarian. You two are so alike in many ways, you could well be soul mates."
"Oh yeah?" Asya asked, the name intriguing her. "What is it? Tell me why you're laughing."
"I'm sorry, I couldn't help laughing at the twist of fate," Armanoush said. "It's just that among all my acquaintances Baron Baghdassarian happens to be the most-most anti-Turk!
That night when all the Kazanci women had gone to sleep, Armanoush slipped out of her bed in pajamas, turned on the frail desk lamp, and doing her very best not to make any noise, turned on her laptop. Never before had she realized how distressingly noisy it could be to get online. She dialed the telephone number, found the network node, and typed in her password to log on to Cafe Constantinopolis.
Where have U been? We were so sick worried! 'How R U?
Questions began to come in from everyone.
I'm okay, wrote Madame My-Exiled-Soul. But I've not been able to find grandma's house. In its place there is an ugly modern building. It's gone. No traces left behind… There are no traces, no records, no reminiscences of the Armenian family who lived in that building at the beginning of the century.
I am so sorry dear, Lady Peacock/Siramark wrote. When R U coming back?
I'll stay till the end of the week, Madame My-Exiled-Soul replied. It is quite an adventure here. The city is beautiful. It resembles San Francisco in some ways, the hilly streets, the constant fog and sea breeze, and the bohemian faces in places least expected. It is an urban maze here. More than one single city, it is like cities within a city. By the way, the cuisine is fantastic. Every Armenian would be in heaven here.
Armanoush halted, realizing in panic what she had just written. I mean, in terms of food, she added quickly.
Yo Madame My-Exiled-Soul, you were our war reporter and now you sound like a Turk! You have not been Turkified, have you? It was AntiKhavurma.
Armanoush took a deep breath.
The opposite. I have never felt more Armenian in my life. You see, for me to fully experience my Armenianness, I had to come to Turkey and meet the Turks.
— The family I am living with is quite interesting, a bit crazy but perhaps all families are. But there is something surreal here. Irrationality is part of the everyday rationale. I feel like I am in a Gabriel Garcia Marquez novel. One of the sisters is a tattoo artist; another sister is a clairvoyant; one other is a national history teacher; and the fourth is an eccentric wallflower, or a full-time cuckoo, as Asya would say.
Who is Asya? Lady Peacock/Siramark typed instantly.
She is the daughter of the household. A young woman with four mothers and no father. Quite a character-full of rage, satire, and wit. She'd make a good Dostoyevski character.
Armanoush wondered where on earth Baron Baghdassarian was.
Madame My-Exiled-Soul, have you talked about the genocide with anyone? Miserable-Coexistence wanted to know.
Yes, several times, but it is so difficult. The women in the house listened to my family's history with sincere interest and sorrow but that is as far as they could get. The past is another country for the Turks.
If even the women stop there, I cannot possibly be hopeful about their men…. the Daughter of Sappho cut in.
Actually, I haven't yet found the chance to talk to any Turkish men, Madame My-Exiled-Soul wrote back, only just now realizing this. But one of these days Asya will take me to this cafe where they meet regularly. There I will get to know at least some men, I guess.
Be careful if you drink with them. Alcohol brings out the worst in people, you know. That was Alex the Stoic.
I don't think Asya drinks. They're Muslims! But she sure smokes like a chimney.
Lady Peacock/Siramark wrote, In Armenia people smoke a lot too. I revisited Yerevan recently. Cigarettes are killing the nation.
Armanoush fidgeted in her chair.Where was he? Why wasn't he writing? Was he angry or cross at her? Had he been thinking about her at all?… She would have gone on torturing herself with questions, if it hadn't been for the next line that appeared on the shimmering screen.
Tell us, Madame My-Exiled-Soul, since you have been to Turkey, have you pondered the Janissary's Paradox?
It was him! Him! Him! Armanoush reread the two lines, after which she typed: Yes, I have. But then she didn't know what else to write. As if he had sensed her hesitation, Baron Baghdassarian continued.
It's very nice of you to get along with that family so well. And I believe you when you say they are good-hearted people, interesting in their own way. But don't you see? You are their friend only insofar as you deny your own identity. That's how it has been with the Turks all through history.
Armanoush pursed her lips, saddened. At the other end of the room, Asya tossed and turned in her bed, in the throes of what looked like a nightmare, and murmured something incomprehensible.Whatever she was saying, she repeated it many times.
All we Armenians ask for is the recognition of our loss and pain, which is the most fundamental requirement for genuine human relationships to flourish. This is what we say to the Turks: Look, we are mourning, we have been mourning for almost a century now, because we lost our loved ones, we were driven out of our homes, banished from our land; we were treated like animals and butchered like sheep. We have been denied even a decent death. Even the pain inflicted on our grandparents is not as agonizing as the systematic denial that followed.