Speaking to One Another - The International Raoul Wallenberg ...

him, as much as I could... now I see that the others, whom I was to pay the money, they do not come overanymore. Now I am asking them, how I shall give them their money, these people keep silent. As far asI understood later, they made a lot of fuss there, on why they allowed us to go there. Then an old militaryperson brought me to the car, gave me my documents and said: “it is late, you should be careful”, sothis is how I came back, I didn’t even pay them. We came, entered the gorge. It was a huge gorge, steep,it was dark already and wild animals were running in front of us – a hare, a fox, these kinds of things,their eyes were glistening in the dark... Sometime later I see that the road is blocked, searchlights, floodlightswere set, pointing at us, and so they stopped us in the middle of the gorge. Again, Mhair startedtelling at my side “Damn it! Too bad, too bad”. I asked him “what is happening?” ... then suddenly theyopened both our rear doors, two soldiers sat in the car, with automatic guns in their hands and, as faras I understood, they ordered him to drive. They brought us, brought us, we reached Motki. We came,reached Motki, and climbed some high place... But I was absolutely calm, absolutely no tension... as if everythingwas normal... I remember having told Mhair not to fear, if these were soldiers, if they ask questions,he should give them all true answers. If they were the crowd, they could push us to a wall somewhere,tell “look, these are Armenian spies, they came here, we caught them, they refused to obey, so wewere forced to put it across.” (pauses for five seconds). So, they hoisted us, took us upstairs, it was nightthere already; they were playing backgammon, drinking tea, doing that kind of thing. They accompaniedus, took us somewhere. Two people were sitting there. They put me next to one of them, him – nextto the other one. That other one was speaking Turkish, and mine was speaking English to me. He spokeEnglish very well; my English could never be compared to his. He asked me “who are you? What are youdoing here, in this area? What kind of scientific conference was it? What did you talk about at the conference?”I said, the conference was very specialized, and he said “never mind, tell it”. So, I told him.Then he asked “what were your people doing here?” I said, “They were living here, their home was here,they lived here”. He asked “who left?” I said, “my father with his mother only, the rest did not leave.” Heasked, “what were they doing here?” I answered, “my father was a kid”. “Then, what was his mother doing?”I said, “what did the peasants do in the villages in the beginning of the century?” Then, finally, hesaid “Do you know that in the beginning of the century Armenians joined Russians here, they were fightingagainst Turks together”. ... I said, “I know everything”. He said, “do you also know about the eventsin Bitlis?” I said “yes, of course, I know about all the events”. “OK, he said, you can go”. They accompaniedus, we sat in the car, and we went... So, we arrived in Moush. Before coming I planned that at least,I would visit the Sultan St. Karapet in Moush, so that I would stand on that land too... Yes, later, when wecame, it was around morning already, Mhair’s wife was waiting for us. So we came, then, (pauses) – “OK,I said, well, I am leaving, I’ll be leaving in the morning... I am not going to visit any more places”. I waspacking up ... there were many presents in my suitcase. I remembered that, before coming here, when Iwas walking near the Vernisage in Yerevan, one of my friends brought a whole stack of beads, necklaces,rosaries and that kind of things, he brought them to me and said “listen, when you go to your village,give these to the people, one-by-one, when you go there, do not ask anything, just give everyone a presentand go”. I forgot these all, they were in my suitcase. I took them out, gave them to Mhair’s wife, andcognacs, I gave them to Mhair. Then Mhair’s wife went, brought a sweater and a shawl, she said, takethis... her husband was translating... she said “this is for your Khanum, take it, give it to your Khanum164