The Doves of Ohanavank (29 page)

“Let’s try your famous cognac then. I’ve heard it is good.”

Ahmed focuses on the various dishes for a minute, asking me what each one is. I think he’s making small talk because he does not want to be interrupted in the middle of something more serious when the waiter returns with the cognac. I feel like lightening the mood too, so, a bit more jovially than I usually talk to him, I describe the various local cheeses, the Armenian
kamadz matsun
, which is similar to the Lebanese
labne
we used to have for breakfast in Dubai, the famous Armenian
basturma
, which he knows about from the Middle East, the traditional large plate of
ganachi
, which includes six or seven fresh green herbs, then I pass to the various salads, and I get more animated as I go, happy to explain to him something from my life…then I notice that he is staring at me, not at the dishes that I’m pointing to.

“Are you listening to what I’m saying or to me?” I ask laughing.

“You remember!” He is moved. He fights another impulse to touch me. “I love listening to you,” he says.

I ignore his comment. The waiter returns, serves the cognac and leaves.

“Where were we?” he asks, taking a sip of his cognac. “This is strong. I’ve had this after dinner, not with dinner. Are you sure they drink this with dinner?”

“I’m sure, but you don’t have to. Do you want something else?” and I hold up the little button that summons the waiter.

“No, no, this is fine,” he says. “Where were we?”

“We were talking about building something on a crime, and how that was not the same as good coming out of a setback.”

“That’s what
you
were saying,” he says with a devious smile. “But it is okay, let’s talk about that. Lara, regardless of how we met, we’re not strangers, right? We had something together, and it was not just one night or a day or two, but three months. So, for old times’ sake, please just say it, exactly as you feel it.”

Is this the moment when I acknowledge and confront the past? I have a direct invitation from the only representative of the past that matters.

“Say it as I feel it,” I repeat, having decided to take the plunge. “Here are the facts, Ahmed. You bought me as a prostitute. I was basically your property. Sorry,” I say when I notice him cringe, “but that is the truth. Even if I had chosen that… Umm… let’s call it a profession, even if I had chosen that life, I was still captive in your beautiful villa. A bird in a golden cage still dreams of the wilderness, we say here. I was such a bird. Now, imagine
that I did
not
choose the profession in the first place, and I did
not
want to be bought and sold, and I did
not
want to be anyone’s possession. I had to go through those motions, for fear of my life, for the safety of my family and because of the absolute lack of alternatives. Until I escaped. Imagine all
that
, Ahmed, and tell me you don’t understand what is bothering me.”

I’m not a drinker, and I have never understood when someone says they
need
a drink. Edik says that often, and as much as I respect him, I don’t understand why he would need a drink. Avo needs a drink most of the time. But now, for the first time, I feel I need a drink. It’s not that I’d like to have one, not that I want one, but I actually need one. I take a large sip of my cognac, and bite into a cucumber. I am so worked up that I don’t notice the pained look on Ahmed’s face at first. I take another sip, and then look at him, and my heart breaks into pieces.

If one could paint remorse, it would be a painting of his face right now. Deep, pure, true remorse, undiluted, seeking no exoneration, just overflowing from his eyes. The question that I had asked Edik starts to resonate in my ears. Is Ahmed a good man or a bad man? Neither, he said. I wonder if he’d give the same answer if he saw his face right now. I finish my cognac, and feel my head getting lighter. I’ve learned from Avo and Edik that one needs to eat while drinking. So I start eating to avoid getting drunk. And perhaps to avoid looking at him again. I could not bear to see the pain in his eyes.

He does not say any of the things that I thought he’d say—how he never treated me like a prostitute, how he never thought of me like one, how I gave him so much happiness. Those statements would all be true. But he does not utter them. He is not here to justify anything. He hurts for me, and for himself. That does not change the facts, but it does change my perception of him. Right now, I think he is a good man.

“If I could rewind the clock,” he whispers, “I would, and I’d start all over again. Don’t ask me how I’d restart, because I don’t know. All I know is that I wouldn’t want you to suffer like that. You were always different from the rest, Lara. Truly special. That’s why I’m here. But I never understood why you were different, until now. This is a revelation for me.”

“So here we are,” I say with some sympathy, but I know I have not rid myself of the sarcasm, “trying to save a good thing that came out of a bad situation. What is the good in this, Ahmed? What is it that you came here to save? To reclaim?”

“I told you already that I came here to understand why it had to end,” he says, and for the first time I sense frustration and even a bit of resentment in his voice. “Who said anything about reclaiming anything?”

“And now you understand?” My voice is gentler.

“I understand why you ran away,” he says. The way he ends the sentence implies that he does not understand anything else, including why it all had to end, but he does not say it. Ahmed has probably never been this vulnerable, so he is not familiar with the feeling. He does not know how to cope with it. I even get the impression that he may be regretting making the trip to see me. I don’t know what he was expecting to find out, but I know this has caught him by surprise.

“Thank you. Thank you for understanding why I ran away. It has been bothering me that I betrayed your trust.”

“Well,” he says displaying a characteristic abrupt change in mood, “I still think something good came out of your appalling situation. I met you.” He is serious but no longer sad. His expression is no longer remorseful. Then he laughs. “I hope you think meeting me was a good thing also, but I will not ask you that now. Now, I want to focus on getting some sustenance.” He refills my glass and we toast. My first impulse is to tell him about the painter’s dilemma of wanting to burn the canvas while saving the painting, but I change my mind. It’s time to drop the heavy conversation.

We eat and focus on small talk. He tells me about Manoj’s research on Armenia, how he was impressed with the development potential, and why he chose this area for us to have dinner. He says Manoj thinks it is worth looking into building a hotel here that caters to tourists from the Middle East. He talks about other business ideas, we ring the bell for the main course and he orders some red wine after all. “The cognac is good,” he says, “but we’ll have some more after dinner.” The only wine they have is the house wine, and it comes in a clay pitcher. Edik wouldn’t have liked it, I know, but Ahmed drinks it and says it is good.

Then, totally out of the blue, “So how’s your Arabic?” he asks. He had hired one of the most prominent tutors in Dubai to give me private lessons. Sumaya had to be present at every session, because I could not be in the company of another man alone. I was beginning to get good at it. I would surprise and amuse Sumaya with occasional Arabic phrases. She would laugh at my accent, and once in a while correct me.

“
A’atazer
,
ya
Ahmed,” I apologize, “but I haven’t kept it up. I have neither the time nor the tutor here.” He laughs, happy that at least the apology was spoken in Arabic.

“You said you had news,” I say. “You said you had come to discuss a few things, and now didn’t know how to proceed.”

“Yes, I do have something to talk to you about. But first, tell me how did these people, Ayvazian and his nephew, die?” He asks the question so suddenly that I panic for a minute, and he notices.

“Sorry,” I say, recovering my composure, “you took me by surprise. People say there was a clash of some sort between oligarchs. Six people died in one afternoon, far from here, in Ayvazian’s region. The nephew and a bodyguard died in a car crash. Two bodyguards shot each other. And Ayvazian and another bodyguard fell off a cliff. I do not know any other details. Why is that important?”

“According to your entry papers in Dubai, you are a married woman. You were married to some Viktor Ara… wait a minute,” he says, pulling a piece of paper from his shirt pocket, “here it is, A.ra.kel.ian. I’m not sure if I’m pronouncing that right.” I had not given the marriage another thought after Viktor announced it to me in Moscow. “And although you just turned eighteen, your papers in Dubai say you are over twenty-three.”

“They manufactured those papers.” I stare at him, surprised that he is bringing all that up. “A fake passport and marriage papers. Viktor Arakelian is Viktor Ayvazian. I don’t know why he had two passports.”

“Because he was deported from Dubai and returned under a different name. We know they are the same person.”

“Ahmed, I have to ask again, why is all of this important?” I am wondering if I can get into legal trouble for lying about my age or having a fake passport.

“Because you may be the legal heir of a three million euro villa in Dubai,” he says smiling. “You may be a rich woman, and you didn’t even know it!” Now he’s smiling broadly. “I told you I wouldn’t come all the way here to give you bad news, didn’t I?”

“I still don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“It is complicated,” he says, “but we have ways of un-complicating things in Dubai. Here is the story as I understand it: the real Viktor bought a villa in Dubai more than four years ago and paid cash. Then the fake Viktor married the fake Lara.” He sees the confusion on my face and smiles.
“Bear with me,” he says, “it gets better. Then Viktor dies. In death, we’re all the same, and the fake and real Viktors die together. Apparently, Viktor has no immediate heirs—no wife, no children, no parents. So his uncle’s family sends someone claiming the villa for the ‘legal’ heirs. But they do not know that Viktor was married. By Dubai law, the wife inherits, not the uncle’s family. As I said, it is complicated, because we have to transfer the asset from the real Viktor to the fake Viktor by simply showing that they are the same, and then the fake Lara will inherit the villa, and pass it on to the real Lara, because we know they are the same person also. Of course, none of this could be done if the Dubai authorities did not want to uncomplicate things. And I’m telling you that they do want to uncomplicate things.”

“I don’t want to have anything to do with Viktor’s villa.” My head is spinning, and not just from the cognac.

“Lara, don’t be silly!” He snaps. “You’re being childish.”

“What am I going to do with a villa in Dubai?” I ask, matching his annoyance.

“I repeat,” he says, showing his frustration, “the villa is worth three million euros. I can sell it for you and give you the money. Are you going to ask me now what you’re going to do with three million euros?”

I look at him for a long moment. I know he’s seeing right through me. The temptation, the struggle. But he does not understand the half of it. Am I supposed to snatch a prized asset right out of Carla’s hands? Satisfying as that may be, it would be impossible to keep it a secret.

“Ahmed, you don’t know how this country works,” I say calmly. “The appearance of three million euros, through this process of uncomplicating the complications, could spell my death warrant and possibly the death warrant of most of my family. What you uncomplicate in Dubai will be re-complicated here.”

“There is also a simpler way,” he says brushing away my concern. “We have legal justification to confiscate the property on the grounds that it was acquired to launder money. I can still divert the proceeds to you, without raising anyone’s suspicions.”

“Why?” I ask, looking him in the eye.

“I came here to offer this to you because I thought, as the wife of the deceased, fake or real doesn’t matter, you are entitled to have it. Then I heard the truth about your story, and the wife angle lost its luster. But now
I feel even more strongly than before, because this would, in a very small way, compensate for what they have put you through. So you tell me, why not?”

“There are many more answers to the ‘why not’ question than to the ‘why’ question. Both practical and ethical, not to mention legal. Let’s drop this subject for now, Ahmed, please. It has already given me a huge headache.”

“The subject is dropped,” he says with a charming smile. “I’m here for at least two more days, possibly longer. Think about it, and we’ll talk again.”

The only person I know who will understand the predicament presented by this news is Edik. I’ll have to talk this over with him.

“There is a lot that I want to see here,” he says. “Let’s plan the next two days. I understand that there are some rare Arabic manuscripts in your…wait,” and he reaches for the piece of paper in his pocket again, “let me see if I can say this,
ma de na ta ran
… did I say it right?”

“Perfect!” I say, clapping happily. “Much better than I pronounce Arabic words!”

“So that’s one visit. The Art Gallery is supposed to be good too, that’s another visit. Manoj says a visit to the Genocide memorial,” he checks his piece of paper again, “
Tzi tzer na ka bert
, whoa! Is a must. So that’s another visit. We can do these three tomorrow, then the next day we get out of Yerevan. There is so much to see, you’ll have to help me select.”

It is late. We decide to leave. Before calling the others, he stands up and takes my hand, pulling me gently to my feet. He holds me for a few minutes, and then lets go. I put my arms lightly around his waist, but I do not give him a real hug.

“Regardless of everything,” he says, “I am happy I know you.”

I tell Armen, Manoj’s driver, my address. They drive and we follow them. When we reach my building, I insist that he not come out of the car.

“Good night, Ahmed,” I say. “Thank you for this evening. And by the way, I am happy to know you too.”