Olive Senior - PEN International

WORDS ... ESTHER HEBOYAN 27
disentangling him from family, home and decency.
Now and then, an Armenian youth posing as a lover of à la franga music
walked in, faking a purchase of Adamo’s ‘Tombe la neige’ or Cliff Richard’s ‘Living
Doll’. But somehow Aghavni knew the 45-rpms were most likely destined for a
sibling or cousin. She could also tell the young men had been dispatched there
by a conspiring trio that included her dutiful mother, her just-as-dutiful godmother
and a despicable matchmaker fattened on gold, dolmas and lies. The most
disheartening fact: those young Armenian men, dashing and well-intentioned
though they might be, would unrepentantly enjoy nothing but à la turka music
unto their grave. And she, Aghavni Tchamitchyan, who truly craved the mellow
foreign sounds and undecipherable lyrics of unreachable rockers and crooners,
would forever be denigrated by a houseful of in-laws and perhaps be banished
to the back room to listen to Elvis purr and pulse on a second-hand Grundig:
Are you lonesome tonight?/Do you miss me tonight?/Are you sorry we drifted apart?
Aghavni cried her heart out when her Elvis, the one and only, her prince, her
pasha, to whom she had secretly vowed infinite, fecund love, took for a spouse a
certain Priscilla Beaulieu, who smiled from every newspaper and magazine cover.
The caption invariably read: ‘The King has found his Queen.’ Elvis’s bride looked like
a queen, all right. On all the pictures – without exception. Whether photographed
full-face or in profile, that Priscilla looked as though she were made of silver and
pearl, so pretty in her lush white gown and rippling raven hair adorned with an
ethereal bridal veil.
Aghavni wept for days. At first, she devoted herself to cutting out the
newspaper clippings and the black-and-white pictures while she wept. Then
she wept while gazing at the pictures and reading the articles. For two months,
she stayed in her bedroom above the tiny record shop, shedding tears, blowing
her nose into an unattractive feature, listening to Elvis’s amorous voice for
hours on end.
‘What’s wrong with you?’ yelled her parents, taking turns. They flailed their
arms and shook their heads, but mostly tss-tssed as Oriental parents are wont
to do.
To make matters worse, moreover, they now had to run the shop themselves,
and to explain their daughter’s illness to all who would listen. ‘What’s wrong with
her?’ they asked each other again, once acquaintances and customers were out
of sight.
As Aghavni Tchamitchyan chewed on her misery, sudden hope materialised for
Nazar Nazarian of Paris. There, in that world-famous capital city, in his very wallet,
trilled the most promising picture bride of all time. Somehow, the destiny of this
one lonely soul had to merge with that of another.
This is when I came into the picture to write this story of this black-and-white
bride coveted by lonesome Nazar. I went through three family albums to find my
picture bride, the kind whose life story is either totally lost to younger generations
or dealt out in bits and pieces. This one, with the wry smile? No one could
remember, as though she happened to be an unwanted guest at her own wedding.
That one, wearing the tiara? That must be, let me think, that must be chubby
Artin’s eldest daughter, what was her name, by the way? Oh, look at this one, a
legend in her time, a true nightingale, and such grace. And wasn’t that one called