Dreams of Bread and Fire (22 page)

“No, not contaminated, interconnected. It’s a system for circulating money and power, keeping it in the hands of the rich and the powerful.”

“What good does that kind of insight do you?” she asked.

“ You have to see it before you can try to take it apart,” he told her.

As they walked back toward Ani’s place, Van took Ani’s hand in his and she felt his vision seeping into her consciousness. She didn’t resist.

The
clochard
passed out on the sidewalk gripping a dark bottle was connected to the well-heeled couple with distaste marked on their faces as they stepped over his legs. The woman’s gold and diamond bracelet was a circle of dollars around her wrist, a circle that had been wrested from grime-covered miners who had dug up the metal and the gems. A tired retail clerk peered longingly into the glowing window of a closed boutique. The elegant clothes in the display had been sewn by immigrant workers who leaned over their machines until their backs ached. Other rich people passed, their faces repulsive with self-satisfaction.

Ani withdrew her hand from Van’s hold, momentarily breaking the telepathic link.

“Do you see the world this way all the time?” she asked.

He touched her temple with his forefinger. “Ani, what you see is all yours.”

She was in no mood for the palace’s servant quarters.

“Come on,” she said, abruptly turning on the sidewalk and catching his hand. She pulled Van behind her.

“Where are we going?” he asked.

“Your place.”

As Ani helped rearrange the furniture so they could lie down for the night she almost regretted her choice. She had forgotten how small the place was. If discomfort was virtue, Van’s room earned him a crown in heaven. At least, though, it wasn’t squalid. Poverty was one thing and filth was another. If Van didn’t get paid for his work at
ARAA
, it was no wonder he lived in this whitewashed closet. But he must have some source of income.

She had wondered about Asa’s money as well. The year between his college graduation and starting law school he hadn’t held a job of any kind. When he was a student Ani assumed that his parents were bankrolling him, but while he was just hanging around, she thought they might expect him to support himself. He treated her to dinners out and rented cars for weekends away. He flew to visit friends in Denver. He never seemed short of cash for the best weed or single-malt scotch and was generous with his friends.

At one point Ani had said, It makes me nervous seeing money going out and none coming in.

He laughed. Just because you don’t see it doesn’t mean it isn’t coming in.

What does that mean? Are you dealing drugs or something?

I have a trust fund, Ani.

Money that made money so he didn’t have to. She should have suspected something of the sort, but since she had never before been close to anyone wealthy, it wouldn’t have occurred to her. She had been torn between wishing she had been so provided for and thinking that there was something sordid and wrong about it.

Van Ardavanian, however, didn’t have a trust fund. His father was a washing machine repairman. But she knew if she started quizzing Van about his finances, a mask would come down over his features, leaving her forlorn. She would wait for him to speak. Better to spread a cotton sheet over the yellow foam mattresses and lie down beside him under the cracked pane of his single window.

a traveler’s departure lies in his own hands,
his return in the hands of God

Van seemed edgy when he arrived at her place the following Friday. In the middle of a conversation he fixed his eyes on a spot in the air to the left of her, his brow furrowed. When she asked him if he was okay he shook himself like a wet dog and dredged up half a smile.

“Got a few things on my mind,” he said.

“Anything you want to talk about?”

He shook his head. “Not now.”

On Saturday she dragged him off to the Porte de Clignancourt flea market, where she bought plastic neon Eiffel Tower earrings for Elena and an embroidered apron for Grandma. She found nothing for her mother and Baba, but there was still time. Her departure was twenty days away. Van hadn’t said another word about flying home with her, and somehow she couldn’t bring up the topic herself.

Ani felt the unasked questions floating between them like fishhooks when they had sex that night. A certain level of mystery and uncertainty was sexy, but it had been pushed to the point where alienation had taken over for her. Van was so preoccupied that Ani didn’t think he noticed anything amiss, but she watched the proceedings with skepticism. The mechanics of the sex act seemed rather absurd. She fell into a restless sleep where she was a small figure wandering a vast plain of dreams.

As the morning’s white light poured in the windows Ani noticed the dark hollows around Van’s eyes. He hadn’t slept well himself. She offered to give him a back rub and began to work the stringy and tense muscles in his neck. He groaned as she pushed her thumbs into his shoulder muscles.

“Is that too hard?” she asked.

“No. No. That’s great.”

When she got hungry, she threw on some clothes and dashed around the corner to the
boulangerie
for some croissants. By the time she got back, Van had showered and dressed. He sat on the couch, his face set with grim determination.

“Ani, come sit down.”

She did as he asked.

“We need to talk,” he said.

She waited.

“Before I tell you, I need something from you,” he said.

“What?”

“I need you to swear you won’t repeat anything I say.”

Ani asked, “I can’t tell anyone? Ever?”

“That’s right,” he said gruffly. “Can you do that?”

“Keeping secrets is hard for someone who talks as much as I do, Van. You know, if I didn’t love you, I wouldn’t even bother trying. Okay. I won’t repeat a word.” There, she had said it. She had told him that she loved him.

He took a deep breath, bowing his head and running his hand through his hair. “Okay. This is the condensed version. I’m part of an underground army committed to armed resistance against the Turkish government. I can’t tell you the particulars.”

“Army?” Ani asked.

“Army,” he said.

“Like with guns and grenades and tanks?”

He laughed grimly. “No tanks as yet. But no harm in thinking big.”

“That explains the passport.”

“Yes.”

“And you don’t actually work at
ARAA
?”

“No.”

“Okay,” Ani said. She wondered if she was supposed to be shocked, because she felt oddly calm, as though she had suspected as much all along. “Anything else you want to tell me?”

“I have one more operation to carry out. If things go as planned, I’ll fly back to the States in a few weeks.”

The implication was that his trip might coincide with hers. “For a visit?”

“Maybe longer. I’ll have to see. I love you, Ani. But I’m not sure what’s next for me.”

There. Now he had said it too, but rather than pounce on the pronouncement, however qualified, she would stick to the topic at hand. “What kind of operation?”

“I can’t give you the details. I’ve told you more than I wanted to. But I thought I owed you some kind of an explanation. I don’t like lying to you.”

“Well, that’s good to hear. It would be hopeless if you enjoyed deceiving me,” she said sarcastically. “When does this operation take place?”

“I’m leaving tonight.”

“Do you have a gun in that bag?” she asked, pointing to his pack.

“No.”

“So is it in the locked cabinet in your room?”

“At the moment.”

“Have you ever killed anyone?”

He shrugged. “In Beirut.”

She was afraid to ask whom he had killed and how. Last year Baba had read an article to her—Grandma was nowhere around at that moment—from the local paper about an Armenian group that blew up a Turkish-owned gift shop in Cambridge. She wasn’t particularly intrigued by the news, but Ani had noticed that there wasn’t a trace of disapproval in her grandfather’s tone, which she had found strange at the time. She wondered if this had been the work of Van’s group.

“What’s the name of your organization?” she asked.

“I don’t want to tell you that now,” he said tersely.

She asked, “Are you planning to kill someone?”

“No, Ani. I’m not planning to kill anyone. Just for your information, I don’t believe in targeting innocent civilians. The goal is to publicize the Armenian cause and to inspire young Armenians to join us. We have to choose our targets carefully.”

“Only guilty civilians?” Ani asked.

“Enough, Ani,” he admonished.

“What’s the long-term goal, Van?”

“Combat in the hills of the historic homeland.”

The whole thing was surreal. The boy she had grown up with—the boy who had shown her how to whistle through an acorn cap—was dreaming of combat in the hills of Anatolia. Although it was obvious he was more than dreaming. She imagined there must be a training camp with target practice and lessons in tactics. How many people were in this army? Who was its leader? What was their philosophy? The only clandestine organization she had any experience with was Terrapin, the secret senior society with its ridiculous green union suits.

“Are there women in your group?” Ani asked.

“There are some women.”

“Do they have guns?”

“Ani, no more questions,” he said.

“What are you planning to do, Van?”

His face muscles tightened. “That’s it, Ani. No more.”

“Oh my God, this is completely insane.” She squeezed her skull with her hands. “I can’t believe this conversation. What planet are you on, Van?”

“Same planet, Ani, just an alternate reality,” he replied.

When they made love that afternoon it was like a desperate farewell in a wartime melodrama. She wished she could lock the door and throw the key out the window into the garden, keeping him with her where he would be safe. She heard police sirens and imagined men lined up against a stone wall and shot. All around Paris there were plaques commemorating Resistance fighters who were executed by the Nazis. On the subways there were special seats reserved for
mutilés de guerre.
Those mutilated by war.

“Van, can’t somebody else go?” she asked.

“Don’t, Ani.” He placed two fingers across her lips. “Don’t make me regret telling you. I’ll come here the first night that I can. It could be as early as Tuesday. Remember that I love you.”

After he left, each minute had a thousand tiny feet and the hours stretched like a desert highway. The sun dragged itself into the sky, and soon thereafter Ani went downstairs.

Sydney asked, “What’s the matter with you, Ani? You’re not listening to me.”

“Sorry, Syd. What did you say?”

“I said would you please pass me the maple syrup.”

Ani complied.

“Thank you,” Sydney said.

Ani glanced at the clock. It was 7:45
A.M.
How was she going to make it through another forty hours?

Sydney sighed in exasperation. “I said, Thank you, Ani. Now you’re supposed to say, You’re welcome.”

Ani jumped up from the table and asked with false cheer, “So what do you want for lunch today?”

Tuesday crawled by on hands and knees until it was 10
P.M.
Ani sat at her table staring at the orange phone in front of her, willing it to ring. And then it rang.

“Ani? Your friend told me to call.” It was Hratch. His voice was low and full of grit, and his English heavily accented.

“Is he hurt?” she asked.

“No. There were two witnesses, so he had to leave. He said next week go to American Express and look for a letter.”

“How can I get in touch with him?” Ani asked, but Hratch had already hung up.

Ani never fell asleep that night.

Just after dawn she dressed and slipped down to the palace apartment. She waited on the fawn-colored couch in the Bartons’ living room as light gradually took over the garden. Finally she heard the newspaper drop to the mat outside the front door.

After pulling in the
Herald Tribune,
she scanned its columns for something she hoped she wouldn’t find. But there it was on page three—a four-sentence news item.

B
RUSSELS
, May 24—In the early hours of the morning two bombs exploded in front of the Turkish Embassy’s Information Office and a nearby Turkish-owned travel agency. The travel agency’s director was wounded in the attack. In a phone call made several hours later, the Armenian Secret Army for the Liberation of Armenia (
ASALA
) claimed credit for the bombing.
ASALA
, a leftist terrorist group with ties to the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (
PFLP
), was responsible for the September 1981 takeover of the Turkish Consulate General in Paris.