Tell me a story, Pap.

It seems since you came into this world six years ago you’ve been asking me this ques­tion. Even when your almond eyes stared back at me as you sat swad­dled in my arms, the same ques­tion lurked there. In some way, I could feel it coming before you had words.

Tell me a story, you ask.

I wish such a simple request could have a simple answer. This ques­tion has stolen much sleep from me over my life. I hear the grand­fa­thers at St. Michael’s speak about their child­hoods. The stories ebb and flow between Armen­ian and English, but never in the lan­guage of the Turks. Running along the streets of the old country on their bicy­cles. Swim­ming at the local pool. Sneak­ing into the cinemas. Mounds of presents under the Christ­mas tree. Close friends and the trouble they caused.  I wish, so much, to tell you of these things, but they have slipped from me. Or perhaps, I left them in Vasbouragan.

Your father asked me to tell him a story once. He may have been your age or a little older. In those days, much of life blurred from day to day. But I remem­ber the day he asked me, “Hayr, tell me about Armenia.” As you can see, you two have much in common. But I could not speak. My tongue fled and what­ev­er mem­o­ries still lin­gered about home dis­ap­peared. In all my years, it was the only time I struck your father. Any of my chil­dren actu­al­ly. Despite all I’ve done in this life, I regret that moment most.

But your eyes hold some­thing dif­fer­ent. I see you run and climb around our modest home, trying to get a fin­ger­ful of matzoon dough from the bowl when Nana has her back turned. The way you sit on my lap and tug at my beard and tell me how, when you grow a beard, yours will be longer and fuller. Not so white. How you tell me of your friend, Lamont, and how you always play tag at recess. Seeing you two togeth­er, one black and one white (that comes from your mother’s side) reminds me of so much I wish to tell you.

Many decades have caught up with me, Vartan-jan. When I look in the mirror, I see skin stretched and worn like an old shirt and more hair on my chin than on my head. Decades later, I don’t under­stand why God has let me live this long. Perhaps the truth that death lingers around my doorstep has sparked me to write this. Time and God have blessed me beyond what I deserve, but silence has poi­soned me, build­ing and bub­bling with each year. My father had told me, “If you speak too much, you will learn little,” but I have learned as much as I can from closed lips. Only God knows the time I have left. This may be the oppor­tu­ni­ty to open the wound and let it drain, so my last years bring me a peace­ful sleep I have not known since the spring of 1915. Before all of us walked into the desert.

Out of all my grand­chil­dren, I write this for you. Not because you are my favorite. No grand­par­ent can say such a thing. Even if they do, never put it in writing. I pen this for you because I see my father, your great-grand­fa­ther, in you. Maybe a little of Uncle Levon as well, though that’s not a com­pli­ment. I see in you the past but also the future. This is why I may finally give in and tell you the story you’ve asked for your entire life. Maybe I will tell you every­thing I cannot remember. 

Perhaps in the morning when the dark­ness has left. 

***

Last Friday, when you spent the night at our house, you asked me again.

“Tell me a story, Pap.”

I walked up the stairs to the attic where Nana had made a special room for you. She will always say it is for all her grand­chil­dren, but I know she had you in mind. The metal framed bed with the human turtles on the bed­spread. What do you call them? Karate turtles? Those dinosaurs on the book­shelf, the one with the big teeth, you told me was your favorite. He reminds me of my sister Aghavni. Oh, she had a ter­ri­fy­ing smile.

So, my little Vartan-jan, we had said prayers and Nana had gone down­stairs to boil water for tea. And you asked me that fiery ques­tion. I told you I was too tired and old. Maybe tomor­row after I’ve had a good sleep.

“Why don’t you have stories to tell me?”

I said, “I do. Just not now.”

Up from your pillow, your almond eyes, the ones your mother gave you, stared through my excuses, my lies, the walls I’d built. Each day a brick to conceal the mon­sters and keep them out of my family and my life like an unwant­ed pat­ri­mo­ny. But in your eyes, I saw the mon­sters had found the weak spots and made their way into your father and into you. All my fight­ing for nothing. Those night­mares from Ana­to­lia had migrat­ed with me. Sunk into the marrow of our family. Of our people. Each new blood cell birthed out of a thou­sand pic­tures my mind won’t throw out. The expanse of sea no longer sep­a­rat­ed Cal­i­for­nia from home.

As I sit upstairs on the bed where you slept last Friday, I want to tell the remnant of you those stories I’ve stored up inside of myself with a hope that it will do more than a stiff glass of oghi or an Ambien might. But the sight of your empty pillow, where your head rested, renders me mute and I return to my bed as the red digits on the clock sting my eyes. Some­times, I hear them laugh­ing at me.

***

The pages of Job sit open on my lap under the old lamp. A yellow bulb covers the chair and my wrin­kled, worn hands. Though my eyes stare at the dark ink of God’s words, my thoughts stay with you. From a few days ago and the questions.

“Why did you become a doctor, Pap?”

I pointed across the grass at Dun­smore Park where I would bring your father and aunts to run around and give Nana some peace and quiet. 

“Don’t you want to climb on the playground?”

You looked at me without a blink. You knew my evasive, old strate­gies. Such a clever boy.

“You climb all over my bedroom and I bring you here and no climb!” My joke fell like ashes to the grass at our feet and you waited, waited, waited.

“I like wearing the white coat,” I answered.

I felt your fin­ger­tips fiddle and twirl the hair on my fore­arms as the squir­rels tried to steal our chips. Sun­light so bright I had to hold my hand to my eyes. You stared across the park as other boys and girls scam­pered around the metal bars and chain-link swings. Your brows bent in that pensive, exag­ger­at­ed way that I see in my own mirror. 

You sighed and hopped down off the picnic bench. Not running but walking. Whether your steps showed dis­ap­point­ment or frus­tra­tion, I could not tell. But the way your blue sneak­ers scraped the blades of grass spoke so loud.

I don’t under­stand myself some­times because I wanted to tell you why I chose this pro­fes­sion. I truly did. When you survive what should have killed you, life’s meaning changes. You look at others dif­fer­ent. Black, white, Chinese. Even Turks. The entire­ty of their exis­tence is visible in their body. How their heart pumps blood or how they breathe when they sleep. How a kidney fails or where the oncom­ing migraine awakens from. All these mal­adies come from a place we ignore. I became a doctor to solve these issues. At least, I believed this once.

Since my prac­tice closed, I only see an old fraud in the mirror. Our bodies become pos­sessed, not by bac­te­ria or viruses, but by our mem­o­ries. I saw it every day and only suc­ceed­ed in dis­trac­tion. Take this pill or do these exer­cis­es. Drink more water. But each patient’s eyes carried their incur­able sick­ness. A hered­i­tary disease you cannot escape. As an Armen­ian, you will under­stand this.

The pages return to me, but Job’s burdens reflect my own and I close the book.

***

Last week, when Nana and I came over for dinner to your house, I found you crying in your closet while every­one else sat outside in the cramped back­yard. You sat with your knees tucked up under your chin and tracks ran down your dirty cheeks. The end of your nose glis­tened and shone.

“Vartan-jan, what hap­pened?” I asked, looking down at you on the floor.

You wiped your nose with the back of your hand and shrugged. The shadows of your church clothes dangled above you. The same image in another closet some­where else in Glen­dale came to me, but your father sat as you did now. The same sadness con­sumed him.

“Come now. Tell me a story,” I said with a smile.

But you remained stoic with your eyes fixed beyond me. Through me. 

“I’m sad, Pap.”

“Why? Your family is here. Nana brought some pahkla­va she made today,” I said with a wink.

Then you looked up at me with those eyes like scalpels. Each second felt like an inci­sion, first through the epi­der­mis, then muscle and fat, closer to bone.

“I don’t know. I’m just sad.”

It’s true. You don’t know, my boy. But I do. I know they come from Vas­boura­gan. A place you have never gone but will always know. 

I bent down and picked you up, feeling the crack and ache in my spine, and you wrapped your arms around my neck. Your wet face pressed against my shoul­der, and I felt my t‑shirt dampen with each tear as it soaked into the soft cotton. As damp as the blood in the foot­steps across the sea when your people had a home. 

***

Not even two hours of sleep. Most nights, I can muster that at least. I drank two shots of oghi, read from the book of Job, and prayed for each one of my chil­dren and grand­chil­dren. After­ward, I lay down but only stared at the dark­ness spread across the ceiling. Nana’s gentle snores coming and going in the night.

I thought of you in those hours, Vartan. I could almost hear them with every exhale from my wide nose. All your ques­tions and the moment in the closet. The way your feet scraped against the grass in the park as you bore burdens you never knew you had. My chest ached with guilt at being alive. If I had died on the exile across the desert with my mother and sisters when I was a boy or been shot down by the gen­darmes in the court­yard with my father and broth­ers, I would not have passed the sick­ness down to you. Those moments in the closet would have van­ished and your life would be free of what you don’t know. Free of the blood on my hands. Of the Turkish blood still under my fin­ger­nails. The unseen specks I cannot wash out. Jus­ti­fied? Maybe. One Turk for one million of us. Seems fair? Some days so, some days not.

You know Father Narek? I often visit him in con­fes­sion. He acts as if he doesn’t know me, but he does. He asks me to confess my sins. To tell him a story just like you do. So, I tell him of Vas­boura­gan and the desert and the trail of bodies along the way and how the sun scorched them. How the birds perched on the thin corpses of my sisters. How the sound of wind and the sound of mourn­ing became one. Of the orphan­age run by the Amer­i­cans and the boat ride to New York. I tell him of the Turkish gen­darme and how his heart slowly stopped at the end of my knife and how I ran for miles into nothing, feeling nothing. I speak of the guilt and the shame at being alive. And I speak of you. Maybe it is easier to speak to God than my own blood.

I tell him this every month and he listens. He says nothing and I wish to hear nothing. I tell him the story over and over, but I feel no peace like I thought I would. The truth is I cannot leave the stories in my home­land. In my Ana­to­lia. I pon­dered this for so long through the nights where mil­lions of voices cry out to me in my dreams. A sur­vivor begging to be heard.

Then I thought of you. Though my heart does not beat like it once did, know that it beats for you. To give your ears the words you have asked for despite the pain they may stir.

You ask me to tell you a story and I will, my Vartan-jan, my light, my life. I promise this. When the day comes and you turn the right age, I will take you beside me, we will sit on the bench at Dun­smore Park or even in your closet next to your old toys, and I will say, “Let me tell you a story.”

Then maybe the pain we share will make the burden lighter. If not for me, then for you and the years ahead of you. 

Tsavt tanem. 

Tsavt tanem.