The Doves of Ohanavank (27 page)

I sit on a bench facing the afternoon sun. Someone has scattered breadcrumbs on the lawn and the sparrows are having a feast. Where will Ahmed and I meet? Maybe here, in the park? Will he be considerate enough not to ask me to go to his room? What if he does? Should I wear the ring he gave me? How should I dress when I first see him?

Edik is right, I am overthinking this.

I call him. He has reached the village of Areni, which is famous for its grapes and wine. They’ve discovered a six thousand year old winery in a cave near there, so folks here have been at this for a while, Edik says laughing.

“I bet you can’t guess where Anna works,” I say.

“You told me in some store selling women’s clothes, right?”

“Kind of, yes, but whose store?”

“Someone I know?”

“Madame Carla, as she is known by the store manager.”

“You don’t say… How did you find out?”

“She walked in when I was visiting Anna. She did not see me. But she was eying Anna. I think that was the first time she’s seen Anna. But she knew the store manager.”

“We must be able to use this,” says Edik, “but I cannot think now, not in the car. Let’s talk later. Have you warned Anna?”

“Yes, and I’m seeing her later this evening. Safe journey, Edik jan.”

It takes my mind less than a second to return to Ahmed. This is going to be awkward, no matter how calmly I consider his visit. We were lovers,
I keep telling myself. We had intimate moments. True, I reject the context in which it all happened, but how can I reject everything that happened? I’m like a painter who wants to burn the canvas on which he has painted, but keep the painting itself. And then I realize how off track I am with this line of thinking. I have not painted the painting, I do not understand it, so what part of that painting do I really want to keep?

I remember thinking a lot about ‘context’ in Dubai. The grounds of Ahmed’s compound were so immaculate, the lawns were so perfectly manicured, palm trees and bougainvillea scattered around with such harmony, that the whole place had a sense of fantasy, and if I allowed myself to forget who I was and how I got there, I’d begin to think I was in some fairy tale. That’s when I realized that I could not think of what I did out of the context of the place. What I do depends on where I am, I used to tell myself. But does
who
I am depend on where I am also? I used to imagine that the compound was like a chessboard, and I was the queen on that board. What would I be worth
off
the board? So my worth depends on the context too. Off the board, out of the game, the queen is worthless.

If Edik could hear my thoughts right now, he’d ask me again if I’m really only eighteen. But I did not read these thoughts in a book. I did not start to think of these things because some professor gave a lecture about them at the University. These are things I lived through. It has nothing to do with age, Edik jan, nor with what you and others sometimes call maturity. I was entirely immature when I was sixteen—much more than other sixteen year olds in Saralandj or anywhere else. I knew nothing about life. Then Papa died. Then I was abducted and raped and became a prostitute. In a few weeks I had seen more than most women in my village would see in a lifetime. No one is mature or immature by nature. Experience either makes you mature or it doesn’t.

Anna’s my age, but I can play the role of older sister for her. We go to a café on Toumanian Street. I talk to her about the risks that she faces. I also warn her again about Carla. Then I tell her that someone I knew when I was overseas will be visiting for a few days, and I’ll probably be busy with him. Her jaw drops and her eyes open wide with surprise. She did not know that I had lived overseas for a while. She has not met anyone who has
been
overseas.

Chapter Twenty-Four

H
ov Samoyan is nervous. He looks at the man facing him and can feel, deep in his bones, that he is way out of his league. The man is much better dressed than he could ever afford, better groomed, with his thick, black hair slicked back and his face clean shaven. He is so relaxed, so at ease with himself, that he exudes a level of confidence and self-control Hov has never known. This man acts like he owns the world, and he probably does.

Yuri has arrived in a black Mercedes SUV with a driver, a muscular man with a clean-shaven head, the typical look of most bodyguards who also serve as drivers for oligarchs. He has waited for the driver to open the back door for him, then stepped out and walked casually to their rendezvous, a small roadside café at the entrance of the city of Stepanavan, with the bodyguard keeping a watchful eye on him and his surroundings.

Hov wonders why they chose to approach him and how they managed to find him. He’s not sure if he is being noticed by his superiors, and wonders how he will explain meeting this man. He knows nothing about Yuri, and yet Yuri seems to know a lot about him.

“I think you’ll want to see us,” the voice on the phone had told him a day earlier. “We already know where you work, where you live, and we know how your wife left you and why.”

“What do you want?” is all he could say.

“Let’s meet and discuss,” said the voice. “You have nothing to lose.”

Now Hov looks at Yuri, awestruck, and wonders if he was the one who called to arrange the meeting.

“I’ll start with answering some of the questions in your mind,” says Yuri. He removes his sunglasses and stares at Hov, who has said nothing yet. They have not even greeted each other, or shaken hands. “It was one of your coworkers who told us about you,” continues Yuri. “It did not take much, by the way, just around a hundred dollars, and he told us everything.”

Hov wants a cigarette, but does not dare light one, for fear of Yuri noticing his hands shake. He turns toward the bodyguard, who is sitting at the next table, watching them. The bodyguard does not move; he just stares at him.

“I hear you,” says Hov, and waits.

“So the first point is that you cannot trust anyone where you currently work. And you cannot even trust what they’re saying about you to the big boss.”

“I have no problem with the big boss,” snaps Hov, and regrets the lapse immediately. Yuri just smiles. He takes a cigarette and offers Hov one, who accepts gladly. Yuri lights them both.

“You have no reason to be nervous,” says Yuri, keeping his smile. “They are not watching you here. And we know the boss is impressed by the way you tried to make your wife work for you. By the way, I am too.”

Hov takes a deep drag and just stares at Yuri. He will not make reckless comments again.

“At any rate,” continues Yuri, “you cannot trust your co-workers. It took us less than an hour to find out everything that we know about you. And the boss may be happy with you now, but that can change fast, depending on how you do and what they tell him about you.”

Yuri waits for a minute, to see if there is any reaction. Hov remains silent.

“The second point I want to make is that you can do a lot better than this. Not only are the people you work for untrustworthy, they are also incompetent. The business they are trying to get into is above their heads. Your boss knows how to import wheat and flour and pigs. He knows nothing about the business of people and prostitution. He has no network and no contacts. He is endangering not only himself, but also everyone who works for him, including you.”

Hov realizes, for the first time, that he may be at the brink of a new opportunity. Yuri is not here to threaten him, but to offer him something. He lights another cigarette from his own pack, and offers one to Yuri. Yuri declines, but the offer signifies a change in Hov’s attitude.

“Before we go any further,” says Hov, “maybe you should tell me a little about yourself and what you do.”

“We’re not there yet,” says Yuri curtly. “You’ll learn what you need to know when the time comes.” Yuri would never admit it, but he has learned a few tactics from Carla. That would have been Carla’s retort: never let an underling feel that they can control the agenda. Keep them on their toes and dependent.

Hov shrugs, partly to hide his embarrassment.

“What I want you to do is continue working where you are, but for me. You continue to take your salary from your boss. In addition, I will pay you double what you’re making now. So you’ll triple your salary as of this afternoon. You report to me every move they make. That is all. Your boss will lose this business soon, and then you’ll have a job with us if you don’t screw this up. Otherwise, you’ll be in the street again, like most of your co-workers.” Yuri turns toward the bodyguard, who walks over and gives him an envelope.

“There’s 200,000 dram in here.” Yuri pushes the envelope toward Hov. “I know you make half that per month.”

“How do I know you’re not a bigger risk than you say my boss is?” asks Hov, but his eyes linger on the envelope.

“You don’t,” says Yuri. “Until a few minutes ago you did not know your friends had sold you out. Nor did you know that your boss is venturing into something he knows nothing about. Now you want to know the risk I represent?”

“I want to know that I’m not jumping from the frying pan into the fire,” says Hov.

“You’re not.” Yuri looks and sounds bored. “Your boss has three different operations in Lori. You and your co-workers are supposed to run things here in the Stepanavan area, but so far you have not recruited a single girl, and he is getting impatient. You have a list of six candidates that you are following,” says Yuri, staring at his surprised face. Hov nods. “Don’t be surprised that I know that. I want you to find out everything about the operation and report to me. Your team will manage to catch some of those girls soon. Some will join easily and start working. Others will have to be persuaded. You will tell me every detail, especially where they get sent, who handles them, who collects and how much. Everything.”

Hov takes the envelope and slips it in his inside coat pocket.

“Good,” says Yuri. “Aside from the money there is a name and a phone number in the envelope. You call that number and talk only to the person named there. No one else.”

Hov nods, and waits.

“He won’t last more than a month or two,” says Yuri. “Then we hire you directly. Any questions about what you need to do?”

He shakes his head.

“One more thing before I leave. Do you have a picture of your wife?”

Hov looks surprised. That is the last thing he’d expect Yuri to ask.

“Your friends say you’re obsessed with her but have not been able to find her. Is that true?”

He nods.

“Do you have a picture?” he asks again.

Hov takes out an old black-and-white photograph from his wallet. It is a crumpled passport-size picture of a girl with long black hair and thick-rimmed eyeglasses. Thick eyebrows are visible from behind the rims.

“How old is this thing?”

“More than two years. Before we got married. She looks different now.”

“How different?”

“Her eyebrows are thinner. She changed her glasses too, even though she used the old ones also once in a while.”

“That’s it?”

“As far as I know.”

“What’s her full name?”

“Anna Arturi Hakobian.”

“I don’t promise anything,” says Yuri, “but I’ll see what I can do to find her for you.”

Hov is still surprised by this part of the conversation.

“Why?” he asks.

Yuri shrugs. “Why not?” He stands up. “I’ll wait for your calls. Can I take the picture for a while?”

“Keep it,” says Hov and stands up as well.

What neither man knows is that Anna looks quite different now. Her hair is cut very short and she does not wear glasses in public. She puts them on only when she has to read or look at something closely. She used a different last name in her job application at the store and with her landlady, neither of whom have bothered to check for an identification card. The store pays her meager salary in cash, and she pays her rent in cash. The only thing that could give her away based on the photograph is her eyes, if one bothers to look closely, past the eyeglasses and the eyebrows.

Yuri is happy with his work of the past week. He has managed to bribe several of LeFreak’s men, both in Lori and Ashtarak. He has exposed many of the weaknesses in his human trafficking operations, and has found increasing evidence that LeFreak has been trying to enter into Ayvazian’s domain for a long time. He is convinced that there is a general lack of confidence and morale among LeFreak’s men, at least among those employed in the trafficking side of the business. Otherwise it would have been a lot more difficult to get information, and it would have cost a lot more. He has used the tactic of gaining personal information on employees from co-workers, and using it to recruit new informers masterfully.

He reports to Carla the success he had with Hov and shows her Anna’s photograph. Carla looks at it closely for a minute and hands it back to him.

“I hope she looks better than that now,” she says coldly. “Girls her age will end up showing up in one of my stores sooner or later,” she adds as an afterthought. “Put a copy of the picture in all my stores. You never know.”

The next day Yuri takes a copy of Anna’s picture to each of Carla’s three stores. “Let me know if she comes here,” he tells the managers. “Her full
name is written in the back of the photo. If she walks in here, find an excuse to get her address and phone number. Call me immediately.”

Lucy, at the store off Abovian, looks at it briefly and puts it on the table in the back room. “Will do,” she says.

Chapter Twenty-Five

I
walk into the hotel lobby with trepidation. I would have preferred to meet in a café or a park. But at least he did not ask me to meet him in his room. We’re meeting in the lobby bar. I am deliberately underdressed. A pair of jeans, one of my favorite turtleneck sweaters and a light grey jacket. I wear flat shoes and minimal makeup. My hair is tied back in a ponytail.

But I am wearing his ring, next to Araxi Dadik’s. I probably make a bigger deal of that than he would; he might not even remember that he gave me the ring and asked me to always wear it.