Olive Senior - PEN International

32
WORDS ... ESTHER HEBOYAN
Not yet, anyway. There was some time to go before she gained any weight. She
stared all around her: hanging breasts, thighs, buttocks, bellies. Hordes of women.
Imperfect, yet resigned, and surprisingly cheerful. Aghavni stood up and walked
to an alcove to the left of the hammam. There she turned on the fountain, sank to
her knees and began punching herself, like she used to punch the çörek dough for
Easter. (That had set her elder sisters giggling.) Now she only had her eyes to cry
with, as the saying goes. So she cried, as her blood silently turned the water red.
Then she passed out.
That could have meant the end of Aghavni Tchamitchyan.
But it is not the way I want the story to end.
I have heard of women who had survived all kinds of tragic circumstances.
I personally know several who have pulled themselves from the worst trauma.
Skin-deep betrayal, beatings, rape, incest, imprisonment, torture, brain tumours,
psychosomatic eczema, typhus, joblessness, bug-infested lodgings, starvation,
drug addiction, abortion, public humiliation, political exile, the death of a child.
There is no end to those stories. Fortunately, there are always women blessed with
good luck, the kind of luck that propels them to stardom, princedom or dazzledom.
Therefore, I will give the story its glorious twist, with a Hermann Cenneto˘glu
from Manchester, England playing deus ex machina. A near-botanist in his spare
time, but mainly a florist in pursuit of happy effects, this Hermann Cenneto˘glu
spotted his ‘Magnolia-Girl’ from a distance. On a three-day visit to Istanbul, he
happened to meet Aghavni Tchamitchyan at a social gathering. It was love at first
sight.
‘You must know …’ Aghavni confessed. ‘You must know that I love Elvis Presley,
and that I am with someone else’s child.’
‘I understand,’ he answered.
‘You pry not. I blabber not. It’s best.’
‘It’s best,’ agreed the man from Manchester. ‘May I have a picture of my bride,
though? To remember you by. It will be a while before you reach England.’
‘I’d rather not, Dear,’ she replied. ‘A picture bride is the last thing I want to be.’
WiPC 50 Years, 50 Cases