"Oh yeah?" Asya finally opened her mouth, and leaned forward putting her elbows on the table. "Tell me, is it true that System of a Down hates us?"
Armanoush blinked, having no idea what she was talking about. A cursory glance was enough to make her understand that she was not alone in her bewilderment; the aunts too looked puzzled.
"It's this rock band that I like very much. The guys are Armenian and there are all these urban legends about how they hate the Turks and they wouldn't want any Turk to enjoy their music, so I was just curious." Asya shrugged, visibly discontent with giving this explanation to such an unknowledgeable bunch of people.
"I don't know anything about them." Armanoush pursed her lips. All of a sudden she felt so tiny here, weedy and vulnerable in the lonesomeness of being a stranger in a strange land. "My family was from Istanbul-I mean, my grandmother." She pointed a finger at Petite-Ma as though she needed an elderly person to better illustrate the story.
"Ask her what their family name is." Grandma Gulsum elbowed Asya, sounding like she possessed the key to a secret archive in the basement wherein the records of all the Istanbulite families, past and present, were neatly kept.
"Tchakhmakhchian," Armanoush replied when the question was translated to her. "You can call me Amy if you want but my full name is Armanoush Tchakhmakhchian."
Auntie Zeliha's face brightened as she exclaimed in recognition, "I've always found that interesting. The Turks add this suffix — ci to every possible word to generate professions. Look at our family name. It is Kazan-a. We are the "Cauldron Makers." Now I see Armenians do the same thing. "tchakmak… tchakmakhchi, tchakmakhchi-yan."
"So that's one more thing in common." Armanoush smiled. There was something in Auntie Zeliha she had liked right away. Was it the way she carried herself, with that eye-catching nose ring, the radically mini miniskirts, and the extra makeup she applied? Or was it her stare? Somehow she had a look that made one trust her to understand without being judgmental.
"Look, I have the address of the house." Armanoush fished out a piece of paper from her pocket. "My grandma Shushan was born in this house. If you could help me with the directions, I'd like to go and visit it sometime."
While Auntie Zeliha peered at the writing on the piece of paper, Asya noticed that something was bothering Auntie Feride. Casting panicky glances at the partly open balcony door, she looked agitated, like someone who had found herself facing a dangerous situation and not knowing which way to run.
Asya leaned sideways and, hunching over the steaming pilaf, muttered to her crazy aunt, "Yo, what's up?"
Auntie Feride too leaned sideways, hunched over the steaming pilaf, and then, with eccentric sparkles in her gray green eyes, she whispered, "I heard stories about Armenians coming back to their old houses to dig out the chests their grandfathers had hidden there before they ran away." She squinted her eyes and raised her voice a notch. "Gold and jewels," she gasped, and paused to give that some thought until she had affably come to an agreement with herself: "Gold and jewels!"
It took Asya a few extra seconds to grasp what her aunt might be talking about.
"You understand what I'm saying, this girl is here to track down a treasure chest," Auntie Feride added excitedly, now poring over the contents of an imaginary chest, her face brightening with the taste of adventure and the glow of rubies.
"You're damn right!" Asya exclaimed. "Didn't I tell you this? When she walked off the airplane, she was carrying a shovel and pushing a wheelbarrow instead of luggage…."
"Oh, shut up!" Auntie Feride snapped, offended. She folded her arms and leaned back.
In the meantime, having detected a far deeper reason behind Armanoush's visit, Auntie Zeliha asked, "So you came here to see your grandmother's house. But why had she left?"
Armanoush was both eager to be asked this question and reluctant to answer. Was it too early to let them know? How much of her story should she reveal? If not now, when? Why should she have to wait, anyway? She sipped her tea. In a listless, almost sapped voice she said, "They were forced to leave." But as soon as she said this, her weariness disappeared. She lifted her chin as she added, "My grandmother's father, Hovhannes Stamboulian, was a poet and a writer. He was an eminent man, who was profoundly respected in the community."
"What does she say?" Auntie Feride nudged Asya's elbow, understanding the first half of the sentence but missing the rest.
"She says her family was a prominent family in Istanbul," Asya whispered to her.
"Dedim sana altin liralar icingelmiSS olmah…. I told you she must have come here for golden coins!"
Asya rolled her eyes, less sarcastically than she had intended, before concentrating on Armanoush's story.
"They tell me he was a man of letters who liked to read and contemplate more than anything in this world. My grandmother says I remind her of him. I too like books very much," Armanoush added with a bashful smile.
Some of the listeners smiled back, and when the translation was over, all of the listeners smiled back.
"But unfortunately his name was on the list," Armanoush said tentatively.
"What list?" Auntie Cevriye wanted to know.
"The list of Armenian intellectuals to be eliminated. Political leaders, poets, writers, members of clergy…. They were two hundred and thirty-four people total."
"But why's that?" asked Auntie Banu, a question which Armanoush skipped.
"On April 24, a Saturday, at midnight, dozens of Armenian notables living in Istanbul were arrested and forcibly taken to police headquarters. All of them had dressed up properly, spick-and-span as if going to a ceremony. They were wearing immaculate collars and elegant suits. All were men of letters. They were kept in the headquarters without an explanation until finally they were deported either to Ayash or to Chankiri. The ones in the first group were in worse condition than the second. Nobody survived in Ayash. The ones taken to Chankiri were killed gradually. My grandpa was among this group. They took the train from Istanbul to Chankiri under the supervision of Turkish soldiers. They had to walk three miles from the station to the town. Until then they had been treated decently. But during the walk from the station, they were beaten with canes and pickax handles. The legendary musician Komitas went mad as a result of what he saw. Once in Chankiri they were released on one condition: They were banned from leaving the town. So they rented rooms there, living with the natives. Every day, two or three of them would be taken by the soldiers outside the town for a walk and then the soldiers would come back alone. One day the soldiers took my grandpa for a walk too."
Still smiling, Auntie Banu looked left and right, first to her sister then to her niece, to see who was going to translate all this, but to her surprise there was only perplexity on the faces of the two translators.
"Anyway, it is a long story. I won't take your time with all the details. When her father died, my grandma Shushan was three years old. There were four siblings, she being the youngest and the only girl. The family had been left without its patriarch. My grandmother's mother was a widow now. Finding it difficult to stay in Istanbul with the children, she sought refuge in her father's house, which was in Sivas. But as soon as they arrived, the deportations began. The entire family was ordered to leave their house and belongings and march with thousands of others to an unknown destination."
Armanoush studied her audience carefully, and decided to finish the story.