Am f responsible for my father's crime? A Girl Named Turk asked.
You are responsible for recognizing your father's crime, AntiKhavurma replied.
Asya seemed confused by the bluntness of the statement, briefly irritated but also intrigued.Within the glow radiating from the computer, her face was pale and still. She had always tried to distance her past as far as possible from the future she hoped to attain. In the hope that, whatever the memories of times past entailed, no matter how dark or depressing, the past would not consume her. The truth is, as much as she hated to admit it, she knew the past did live within the present.
All my life I wanted to be pastless. Being a bastard is less about having no father than having no past… and now here you are asking me to own the past and apologize for a mythical father!
There came no answer, but Asya didn't seem to be waiting for one. She kept typing as if her fingers acted on their own, as if she were navigating with eyes closed.
Yet, perhaps it is exactly my being without a past that will eventually help me to sympathize with your attachment to history. I can recognize the significance of continuity in human memory. I can do that… and I do apologize for all the sufferings my ancestors have caused your ancestors.
Anti-Khavurma wasn't content. It really doesn't mean much if you apologize to us, he cut in. Apologize aloud in front of the Turkish state.
Oh come on! all of a sudden Armanoush had pulled the keyboard toward her and wrote, unable to resist the temptation to interject. It's Madame My-Exiled-Soul, here. What is that gonna do other than get her into trouble?"
She has to go thru that trouble if she is sincere! Anti-Khavurma blew up.
But before anyone could respond to that came a most unexpected comment.
Well, the truth is, dear Madame My-Exiled-Soul and dear A Girl Named Turk… some among the Armenians in the diaspora would never want the Turks to recognize the genocide. If they do so, they'll pull the rug out from under our feet and take the strongest bond that unites us. Just like the Turks have been in the habit of denying their wrongdoing, the Armenians have been in the habit of savoring the cocoon of victimhood. Apparently, there are some old habits that need to be changed on both sides.
It was Baron Baghdassarian.
"They still aren't sleeping," Auntie Feride paced left and right outside the girls' room. "Is there something wrong?"
The older women had gone to sleep, and so had Auntie Cevriye, as a disciplined teacher. Auntie Zeliha had passed out on the couch.
"Why don't you go to sleep, sister, and let me guard their door to make sure they are all right." Auntie Banu squeezed her sister's shoulder. Now and then, whenever her illness escalated, Auntie Feride panicked about the possible harm that might come from anyone or anything in the outside world.
"Let me take the night shift," Auntie Banu smiled. "You go to bed and sleep. Don't forget that your mind is a stranger at nights. Don't talk to strangers."
"Yes." Auntie Feride nodded, and for a moment she seemed like a little girl stirred by a tale. Now visibly relaxed, she shuffled toward her room.
As soon as they had logged off Armanoush checked her watch. It was time to give her mother a call. This week she had called her every day at the same time, and each time Rose had scolded her for not calling more often. Trying not to be distressed about this unvarying pattern, she dialed the number and waited for her mom to pick up.
"Amy!!!" Rose's voice escalated into a shriek. "Honey, is it you?"
"Yes, Mom. How are you doing?"
"How am I doing? How am I doing?!" Rose repeated, now sounding bewildered and her voice muffled. "I need to hang up now, but you promise, you promise me, you will call me back in ten… no, no, ten isn't enough, in fifteen minutes exactly. I need to hang up and collect my thoughts now and then I will wait for your call. Promise me, promise me," Rose echoed hysterically.
"Okay, Mom, I promise," Armanoush stammered. "Mom, are you all right? What's happening?" But Rose had already gone.
Stunned, pale, and desolately holding the phone, Armanoush looked at Asya. "My mother asked me to call back later instead of asking me why I hadn't called before. It's so unlike her. This is so not her."
"Please relax." Asya shifted in her bed, popping her head up from under the blanket. "Maybe she was driving or something and couldn't talk on the phone."
But Armanoush shook her head, a fretful shadow crossing her face. "Oh God, there's something wrong. Something's very wrong."
Her eyes swollen from crying, her nose miserably red, Rose reached out for a paper towel as she broke into tears. She always bought the same paper towels from the same store: strong, absorbent Sparkle. The company produced these in different styles and Rose's favorite was called My Destination. Printed on the towels were pictures of seashells, fish, and boats, all in blue, and among them swam the following words: I CAN'T CHANGE THE DIRECTION OF THE WIND, BUT I CAN ADJUST MY SAILS TO ALWAYS REACH MY DESTINATION.
Rose liked this slogan. Besides, the azure tint of the printed images perfectly matched the color of the tiles in her kitchen, the part of the house she was particularly proud of. Despite her initial fondness, once they had purchased the house, Rose had lost no time in remodeling the kitchen, adding pull-out shelves, placing a thirtysix-bottle lacquered-top wine rack in the corner-though neither she nor Mustafa were drinkers-and decorating the entire room with oak swivel stools. Now as she felt a surge of panic, it was onto one of those stools that she dropped her body.
"Oh my God, we've got fifteen minutes. What are we gonna tell her? We've only got fifteen minutes to decide," she cried to Mustafa.
"Rose, darling, will you please calm down," Mustafa said as he rose from his chair. He didn't like the stools and instead kept two solid-wood honey pine dining chairs in the kitchen, one for him and the other for him too. He approached his wife and held her hand, in the hope of laying her worries to rest. "You will be calm, very calm, you understand? And you will calmly ask her where she is right now. This is the first thing you need to ask her, OK?"
"What if she doesn't tell me?" Rose said.
"She will. You ask her nicely, she'll tell you nicely." Mustafa
spoke slowly. "But no scolding. You need to keep your cool. Here,
have some water."
Rose took the glass with trembling hands. "Is that possible? My little girl has lied to me! How stupid of me to trust her. All this time I think she's in San Francisco with her grandma and then it turns out she's lied to everyone… and now her grandma… oh, God, how am I gonna tell her?"
The day before when they were both in the kitchen, she making pancakes, he reading the Arizona Daily Star, the phone rang. Rose picked up the phone with the spatula in her hand. The call was from San Francisco. Her ex-husband, Barsam Tchakhmakhchian, was on the line.
How many years had they spent without exchanging a word? After their divorce they had been forced to communicate often concerning their baby girl. But then, as Armanoush had grown up, their talks had become rare and then ceased entirely. Of their brief marriage, only two things remained: mutual resentment and a daughter.
"I am sorry to disturb you, Rose," Barsam said with a smooth yet drained voice. "But it is an emergency. I need to talk to my daughter."
"Our daughter," Rose corrected tartly, and as soon as the words
had come out of her mouth she instantly regretted her bitterness. "Rose, please, I need to give Armanoush some bad news. Will
you please call her to the phone? She is not answering her cell
phone. I had to call her here."
"Wait… wait-isn't she there?" "What do you mean?"
"Isn't she there in San Francisco with you?" Rose's lips quiv