“YOU KNOW THERE’S no difference between withholding and lying, right?” Ani is standing in her room.
“Good morning to you too,” Seda says. The morning light glows horizontal in the slats of her blinds. She rubs her face in an attempt to shake off the sleepless night. Two sleeping aids and still no sleep. Ani’s heels pound across the floor. She clicks the blinds open and whirls them all the way up, letting the sun flood the room.
“I can handle all your withholding. I’m used to it.”
“Who’s lying?” says Seda.
“You told me he was from the Armenian Herald.”
“No, you said he was from the Armenian Herald. I just didn’t correct you.”
“Semantics,” says Ani.
Seda sits up and motions for Ani to get her wheelchair.
“I’m ninety. You think you could wait to assault me until after breakfast?”
Ani places the chair, wheels locked, against Seda’s bed. “No one’s assaulting. We’re talking,” she says.
“Semantics,” Seda says, lowering herself into the wheelchair.
“What’s going on?”
“Nothing.”
“A man leaves you a house and it’s nothing?”
Seda can feel Ani’s eyes boring into her. She doesn’t dare look up.
“Why?” Ani’s voice cracks. “Why is it so hard for you to talk to me? I don’t deserve this.” She turns to face the window, away from Seda. Seda can hear the tiny whimpers escaping from her throat. They sound exactly the same as they did when she was a child. And just like then, Ani has managed to make this about her.
“What do you want to know?” Seda says.
“Everything.” Ani spins around. “Like who left you a house in Sivas?”
“Someone from my past.”
“Who? Who from your past?”
“An old friend. A Turk.”
“A friendly Turk just decided to leave his family home to you? Did this house belong to your family before the genocide?”
“We lived in it, yes.”
“Let me get this straight. Turks take everything you have, kill every member of your family, and when you somehow survive, kick you out of their country. Then sixty years later, one goddamn guy finally has a crisis of conscience? Thinks it’s probably a good idea to right things before he croaks and leaves you a house? Am I right?”
“Not exactly.”
“When were you planning on telling me this? Do you realize what kind of legal repercussions this could have? It’s an admission of guilt.”
“I knew you would do this,” says Seda.
“Do what?”
“Turn this into something it’s not.”
“What is it not?”
“I don’t want to have anything to do with the house. Or with Sivas. I just want to live my last days in peace. Is that so hard for you to understand?”
“Peace comes at a price. You of all people should know that.”
Seda spins her chair around and rolls toward the door. “You don’t want my story. You’ve got your own story. The one you’ve plastered all over the walls.”
“What other story is there?” Ani shouts back at her.
“I’m tired. I need my breakfast.” Seda starts heading toward the dining room for her morning meal before remembering that it’s Friday, the day of the exhibit. The dining room has been converted into a gallery of the past.
Kemal wasn’t just any Turk. And he had nothing to do with what happened to my family. He was a good man. What could he do?
CHAPTER 36
Witness
ORHAN ARRIVES EARLY on the day of the exhibit. He parks his car inside the gray fog of the empty lot and rests his groggy head on the steering wheel. Last night Seda’s words appeared in his sleep. Gendarmes and refugees were being eaten by giant silkworms from a mulberry tree. Auntie Fatma and Dede both made an appearance. They were scrubbing a basin full of paper money and coins. When he asked them what they were doing, they told him that the money was tainted. There was also something about a train or was it a wagon?
Inside the Ararat Home, the bronze bust of the mustached writer is gone and there is a new receptionist at the front desk.
“I’m here for the exhibit,” he says, hiding his satchel beneath the high counter. “Ticket?” she says, eyeing him suspiciously.
“I’m the lighting engineer,” he lies. “Ani asked me to come by.”
“All right, down the hall to your right,” she says.
Orhan signs the now familiar clipboard. The Ararat Home is completely deserted in the way only an old folks’ home or cemetery can be. With all the doors shut, the hallway is endless and barren. He drifts past one shut door after another, letting his fingers brush the walls that take up the empty spaces between doors. His body feels raw but transparent like a jellyfish’s. When the pair of walls that make up the hallway lean in closer together, he turns toward the garden, thinking, I am not one thing or another.