Olive Senior - PEN International

WORDS ... ESTHER HEBOYAN 29
there? What’s wrong with you?’
The son poured the tea, nicely brewed as in the old country, and served a plate
of kurabiye he had purchased at the Armenian grocery by the Métro Cadet. He put
on his mother’s favourite song by Safiye Ayla, Kâtibim. His mother began humming
along:
Üsküdar’a gider iken aldı da bir ya˘gmur … Kâtibimin setresi uzun, ete˘gi çamur …
Kâtip uykudan uyanmis, gözleri mahmur … Kâtip benim ben kâtibin, el ne
karsır …
Casting a glance at her own wedding picture on the wall, she sighed. Once so
young, now so old. ‘So, my son, are you or are you not going to show me that bride
of yours?’
That evening, as Nazar sat down to write what he thought to be a love letter
to Aghavni of Constantinople, he had no idea that she would never respond. As far
as he was concerned, all was set. A man wished for a wife; a single woman, young
or old, when solicited, had to fulfil that wish.
Because stories meander this way and that, Aghavni Tchamitchyan’s story,
too, took a new turn. The girl in Istanbul had been secretly dating a man, a Turk of
Greek and Italian origin with some Albanian blood running in his veins too. This,
Nazar Nazarian did not know. At the time, nobody knew.
Only I, the storyteller, knew. Having examined all those picture brides, I could
guess in whose eyes, whether cheerful or melancholy, simmered the story of love.
Suppressed love, unrequited love, betrayed love all drew my empathy. Love at
first sight, love against all odds, love spanning a lifetime all triggered my absolute
admiration. I became all those picture brides. I was in Athens, Rome, Chicago,
Toronto, I was everywhere. I found names on the back of the snapshots. Shakeh
and Mihran, Beyrouth, 1953. Parantzem and Berdjo, Marseilles, 1937. Ani and Roupen,
New York, 1961. For the anonymous, I invented names, which I had stored in my
exiled mind: Talin, Alin, Vartoohi. I also invented stories – life stories, love stories
(which do, incidentally, coincide with life stories), picture stories (remnants of
childhood stories, no doubt) …
This being one of those stories.
When somehow the story has to wind to its climax, when the dough must be
kneaded (to borrow lonesome Nazar’s favourite expression), there is but one option
left: knead it, and bake it into any shape you want. Why not a heart shape, of all
things? It is a heart-shaped picture that had started it all.
The Turkish pretender, a brown-haired, blue-eyed heartbreaker of a man, had
come by every evening for a week and bought several singles, among which
was The Beatles’ latest hit, Michelle, and on a Saturday afternoon, after browsing
through the à la franga collection with a connoisseur’s gusto, had left a paper heart
on the square counter. On the other side, a scribble: Tomorrow, meet me aboard the
2.15pm vapur to Büyük Ada.
When tomorrow came, a falsehood – an outing long due with her best friends
– allowed Aghavni to skip a Sunday at home. Cheeks, limbs and heart aflame,
like a heroine out of Katherine Mansfield’s or Edith Wharton’s stories of love in
picturesque settings that Aghavni, of course, had never heard of in those days, the