Zabelle

A Novel

Nancy Kricorian

• Publisher: Grove Press
• Year: 2018
• Print ISBN: 9780802143808
• eBook ISBN: 9781555848064
• Topic: Literature
• Subtopic: Literature General
• Index: Literature

An Armenian immigrant's journey from the author of Dreams of Bread and Fire. "Haunting and convincing . . . There's a fairy-tale quality to the prose" (Joyce Carol Oates , The New Yorker).
 
Zabelle begins in a suburb of Boston with the quiet death of Zabelle Chahasbanian, an elderly widow and grandmother whose history remains vastly unknown to her family. But as the story shifts back in time to Zabelle's childhood in the waning days of Ottoman Turkey, where she survives the 1915 Armenian genocide and near starvation in the Syrian desert, an unforgettable character begins to emerge. Zabelle's journey encompasses years in an Istanbul orphanage, a fortuitous adoption by a rich Armenian family, and an arranged marriage to an Armenian grocer who brings her to America where the often comic interactions and battles she wages are forever colored by shadows from the long-lost world of her past.
 
"Kricorian is able to transform oral history into her own distinctive, accomplished prose. As in Toni Morrison's work, the act of simple remembering is not enough; Zabelle, like Morrison's best work, is a lovely and artful piece." — Time Out New York

CHAPTER SIX

Ways of the Wicked

(BOSTON, 1931)

The first weeks after Moses was born, everything was pared away, leaving only me and the baby. I slept when he slept, losing track of whether it was day or night. I knew he was hungry before he cried, because the milk let down, spreading wet circles on my dressing gown. My clothes smelled of sour milk and spit-up, my hair was always coming undone, and there were purple circles around my eyes. But I didn’t care. Holding his tiny foot in my palm while he gazed up at me was my greatest pleasure.

Mewing kitten, squealing piglet, bleating kid, a barnyard nursery in the bassinet next to our bed. When he cried, he opened his throat and let out ear-splitting yowls. Poor Toros, who worked long hours at the market, groaned and shifted in the bed, pulling a pillow over his head. Soon I moved Moses into his room across the hall, where the two of us slept on a single bed. Sometimes, in the blur between wake and sleep, drunk with the warmth, softness, and sweet smell of the baby, I felt myself cradled in my mother’s arms.

Eventually Moses slept in his crib and I returned to the double bed I shared with Toros. Sometimes my husband and I stood together, admiring our sleeping baby, who, to us, was the most beautiful boy in the world. For a few moments, this singular child was a wooden bridge linking two banks of a river.

Other things changed as well. I no longer felt that Vartanoush was perched on our headboard like a glassy-eyed crow. She found room in her flinty heart for little Moses. She bathed him in the kitchen sink, not complaining when he splashed water on her dress. She took him into her lap and whispered into his ear. Vartanoush and I were never friends, but Moses softened the air between us.

Soon the boy was walking, then chasing the neighbor’s cat up and down the yard, calling, “Gadu, gadu.” He followed me around the garden and the house, watching everything I did with big eyes. He was neat and precise, even as a toddler, insisting on changing his clothes if they were the least bit soiled. My little old man, I called him.

One Sunday when we rode the streetcar to the Armenian church on Shawmut Avenue in Boston, Moses, who was almost three, sat in my lap, looking out the window. I saw myself in the glass, holding a solemn, fair-haired child. Toros was next to me in his Sunday best, his black-clad mother across from us. This is my family, I said to myself.

We arrived early, which was the Chahasbanian way, and so had our choice of pews. Toros liked to be a little more than halfway back, on the left side and on the aisle. Minutes after we were seated, Moses and Vartanoush closed their eyes and slept through the liturgy and the prayers.

Toward the end of the service, out of the corner of my eye I noticed a woman across the aisle, waving to me. I turned to look at her. She had a heart-shaped face, framed by black hair under an emerald hat. Gesturing toward the door, she mouthed, “Outside.” She wanted me to join her in the vestibule. Without thinking, I followed her up the aisle and out of the sanctuary.

“Zabelle, honey, don’t you recognize me?” the woman asked.

Before my eyes flashed Arsinee and Sarkis waving goodbye to me on the day they left the orphanage. Then Arsinee giving Sarkis water from my tin cup. Our three sets of dirty feet in the sand. Black tents.

When I opened my eyes, my head was in Arsinee’s lap as she fanned me with a lace-edged handkerchief.

“I don’t know how you got along without me,” Arsinee said.

“I don’t either,” I said.

She wiped the tears from my eyes with her handkerchief.

“How long has it been?” she asked.

“A hundred years,” I said. “The last time I saw you, you were as thin as a stick, with a head full of lice.”

“Those were the days,” Arsinee said with a sigh. And we both laughed.

The doors opened as the service ended, and we scrambled to our feet. We were swept along in a sea of people out into the sunny street. Toros, Moses, and Vartanoush made their way to us through the buzzing crowd. I introduced them to Arsinee, except I didn’t know her last name.

“Manoogian,” she said. “And here comes my husband.”

“Manoogian,” Toros muttered under his breath. “First time he’s been to church in years.”

“Chahasbanian! How’s business?” said Arsinee’s husband. He was about the same age as Toros. Handsome, tall, with a fine suit and a mustache that curled neatly at the corners of his mouth. The thin old man at his elbow looked like a ghostly version of his son, all gray and shadows.

My husband shrugged. “People have to eat. How about you?”

“People need clothes on their backs,” Manoogian replied.

I could tell the men didn’t like each other. They were two dogs, circling each other with bared teeth and bristling hair.

Arsinee’s mother-in-law was round and squat like a tree stump, with dark hair on her arms and small mean eyes. She had Arsinee’s baby with her. Henry, who was about the same age as Moses, looked like he had dropped from his father’s nostril, as we say.

Manoogian tapped on the face of his gold watch. “Alice, I think it’s time we were going.”

Arsinee gave me a hug and whispered in my ear, “Don’t call me that odar name. My husband thinks Alice makes me more American.”

“When can I come visit?” she said in a louder voice.

I glanced at the frowning face of my mother-in-law. Then I looked at Arsinee’s mother-in-law, who could have been Vartanoush’s uglier twin.

Arsinee suggested, “Why don’t we meet at the school park on Wednesday afternoon. Around three.”

For me, finding Arsinee was like Jesus raising Lazarus from the tomb. When she left the orphanage, my last link to my childhood in Hadjin was gone. I was sure that she and Sarkis had died on the road to Mersin. Years later and thousands of miles away, she bloomed like a forgotten bulb in the garden. A scarlet tulip among the daffodils. I hadn’t known what I was missing until it was returned to me. Nothing—husbands, mothers-in-law, acts of war, natural disasters—would ever separate Arsinee and me again.

After dinner that afternoon, as we were washing the dishes, Vartanoush started needling me about Arsinee. It was predictable. She couldn’t stand the scent of my happiness.

“How do you know that Manoogian girl?”

“She comes from the same town as my family.” I tucked the dish towel into the waistband of my apron and carried a stack of dishes into the pantry. I made a sour face at the shelves.

“I’m not sure I like her,” Vartanoush continued. “Did you notice how short her skirt was? It barely came to her knees, and stuck to her like her own skin.”

“It was almost to her ankles.” I looked through narrowed eyes at my mother-in-law’s shapeless black dress and lint-covered black sweater. She had a bunched-up, graying handkerchief dangling out of the sleeve.

“Hmmph. Alice.” Vartanoush pursed her lips. “Some name for an Armenian girl. Her husband seems to think he’s a big shot just because he owns a clothes store. And that girl’s red cheeks aren’t from nature.”

I watched the old woman’s nose twitch above her faint white mustache and downturned mouth. She had never looked more like a rat. “Her name’s Arsinee.”

“You told her you’d meet her at the park? What kind of place is that to meet someone? There’s all types of riffraff on the streets these days. Are you embarrassed of your own home? What if she doesn’t come right away, and you’re sitting there all alone in the park? How will that look? Who’s going to watch Moses while you’re out?”

“I’ll take him with me,” I said.

“Of course not. I’ll watch my little angel.”

Moses was my shadow in the garden and the house. I had wanted a few hours of freedom, which her jealousy would buy me.

In the late afternoon that same day, the Melkonians, a young couple who had recently arrived from Aleppo, came by for coffee. Moses played under the dining room table with a little wooden train Toros had bought him. I set a plate of cheoregs I had made on the table, along with some string cheese and homemade pear jelly. Vartanoush carried in a tray of Turkish coffee and tea.

It was Toros’s habit to read the Sunday paper from one end to the other. Then he would recount the most depressing items, with commentary. It brought out the Protestant in him, so we were treated to a second sermon. That day, he finished the catalog of ruin and disaster with a lecture on the financial and spiritual bankruptcy of the whole country—the corruption of politicians, the evil of bootleggers, the squandered lives of drinkers, and the sinful ways of Hollywood movie stars.

“Shameless, godless creatures, I tell you. They swim in diamonds and furs while around them people are starving. And the lives they lead! How many marriages? How many children out of wedlock? The goings-on in that wretched town are too scandalous to mention before our good women.”

Vartanoush murmured her approval. The Melkonians nodded in assent. I spread my hands on the table to examine my nails, which needed filing. It occurred to me that I might join Moses under the table to play with the train. My husband was a good father, with fine qualities, but his righteous diatribes annoyed me. He should have been a preacher or a politician, instead of wasting all that breath on us. But the Melkonians and Vartanoush seemed to appreciate his words.

He went on, “Every God-fearing Christian man who goes to see these movies is giving his hard-earned money to support sinners in their wicked, wicked ways.”

“Not to mention,” added Vartanoush, “that he is filling his head with thoughts unworthy of a good Christian.”

Varsenic Melkonian said, “When Hagop and I were walking the other day, I saw a picture of an actress in front of the Coolidge Theatre. She was half-naked, and I had to look the other way.”

“I told my wife to turn her face,” Hagop Melkonian boasted. “The movie was called The Tarnished Lady”

I imagined Hagop’s tongue lolling out of his mouth as he stared at the half-naked woman, while his wife, following his orders, covered her eyes with pudgy hands and walked right into a street sign.

“Shameless,” interjected Vartanoush.

“That’s Tallulah Bankhead,” I said. What a wonderful name that woman had. It rolled on the tongue like a grape. At that moment, I was ready to take the next bus to join her in Hollywood.

Everyone turned to look at me. Moses came out from under the table, and I lifted him into my lap. I closed my eyes and rested my cheek on the top of his head. He was growing as fast as a vine.

Toros continued, “I see the names of the movies in the paper. Transgression, Laughing Sinners. They won’t be laughing so hard on Judgment Day.”

On Wednesday afternoon I put on my best clothes, as though I were going to meet the president’s wife. Vartanoush had to get in a few snippy parting remarks. But I wasn’t going to let her bother me.

“What are you all dressed up for?”

“I feel like it.”

“Pride goeth before the fall.”

I didn’t say, “The mouth of a fool poureth out foolishness.” I had started memorizing verses from my English Bible. I recited them in my head in response to Vartanoush. I could have said them out loud if I wanted, because she never learned more than three words of English.

As I headed down the stairs, I said, “If he’s not up in an hour, you should wake him.”

“You act like I don’t know my own grandson,” she called after me.

As soon as I was out the back gate, I felt like I had shed a heavy coat with stones in its pockets. My shoes skimmed the sidewalk. I passed the market on Mount Auburn Street, where Toros was at the cash register, giving change to a customer. He didn’t notice me go by. It was as if I were invisible or another person altogether.

When I reached the park, I saw Arsinee coming across the open field. We both started running and met in the middle, breathless and happy. I felt young, not like an old married woman.

“Come on,” said Arsinee, taking my arm, “let’s sit under the trees.”

“Not on the bench?” I didn’t want to ruin my best dress.

“It’s nicer over there in the shade.”

Out of a carpetbag, Arsinee pulled a tablecloth. “I brought this for us to sit on. My mother-in-law will take the rug beater to me if she finds out, but there’s no reason she should know.”

“She beats you?” I shouldn’t have been surprised, but it made me angry.

“When she gets a chance. The old demon has a temper, but I stay out of trouble. Most of the time.”

“What does your husband say?”

Arsinee laughed broadly, showing the gold crowns of her teeth. “He’s happy to let her keep me in line.”

Nobody did any hitting in our house anymore. Once in a while Moses got a swat on the seat of his pants, but that was it. Toros was the kind of man who shouted and banged doors. When he was truly furious, he glowered like a volcano. But no beating. Not even from Vartanoush, not since that time she knocked me down the stairs.

“Zabelle, don’t make big eyes. She hasn’t hit me in months. And Peter brings me a new dress whenever she does. What about your mother-in-law? Now that’s a mean-looking weasel. And how old’s your husband, anyway?”

“Almost forty. He’s like an old man—he never wants to go out.”

“And I thought my husband was over-the-hill. Peter is thirty-five. We’re too young to be stuck with such old goats.”

“Toros is a good man,” I said. “And his mother does a lot of the housework.” I didn’t mention that she still did most of the cooking and that the food tasted like shoe leather.

“You’re so soft, Zabelle. If I hadn’t found food for us, you would have starved. ‘Oh no, Arsinee, I can’t beg for money! Oh, Arsinee, I can’t eat that!’ I made you do it. I had to be jarbig for the three of us.”

“If I hadn’t said no, we’d have been eating boiled bits of rag.”

“And would it have killed you?”

“No, but eating that lard the woman threw in the alley almost did.”

“So I made o...

Table of contents

• cover page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• PROLOGUE Heaven and Hell
• CHAPTRER ONE The Tin Cup
• CHAPTRER TOW Armenian Eyes
• CHAPTRER THREE The Balcony
• CHAPTRER FOUR Holy War
• CHAPTRER FIVE The Birth of Love
• CHAPTRER SIX Ways of the Wicked
• CHAPTRER SEVEN Other Lives
• CHAPTRER EIGHT The Conversion
• CHAPTRER NINE The Work of the Lord
• CHAPTRER TEN Chahaslanian and Son
• CHAPTRER ELEVEN The Wedding
• CHAPTRER TWELVE The Suitor
• CHAPTRER THIRTEEN The Survivor
• EPILOGUE Hadjintsi Badmoutioune
• Acknowledgements