At eighteen, too skinny for my parent's liking with bleach blond dreadlocks, I traveled to Armenia, the birth place of my mother, to meet my eldest brother who was writing a piece for the travel guide Lonely Planet. Having recently graduated from high school, I had outgrown my life, and was tired of all the games kids my age were playing. There was a world to see. My boyfriend left me at the airport, with a kiss and a squeeze of the hand; the same hand that later bruised his cheek and crushed his heart.
After a week or so in Armenia, the high altitude got to me and I became calm and tranquil. Svetlana, our hostess, bathed me in her maternal care, and I gladly wallowed in it. Slowly I began eating again, and found myself smiling more and more, sitting by the side of this plump, round faced woman. She would spend hours in the kitchen preparing dinner for the evening as I poured over my Russian-English dictionary, talking to her, telling her about myself in one word phrases. The apartment building where we were staying was in the good part of Yerevan, where blackouts only occured once a week, and water shortages only every other day. This was the good side of town.
I had arranged to go see a friend of the family's by calling a number my mother had given me for the Armenian Ambassador. The line was faint as I sang into the phone our desire to meet this man, both my brother and I. We took a taxi, and I dressed in the best clothes I could find in my pile of jeans and t-shirts. I had pulled my dreadlocks back, and packed extra cigarettes to offer as gifts to these people whom I only knew through speaking with on the crackling phone line in broken English and Russian.
Our new friends had invited us for dinner, and by the time we arrived to the house in the suburbs, it was dusk. A chill descended upon my shoulders like a shawl, and I saw that my brother was nervous, attempting not showing it. The taxi stopped, and motioned for us to get out. As we did, we saw the vast expanse of the dirt road, with no street lights shrouding it. There was a tall man in a black trench coat waiting at the designated corner of the rendez-vous. Were we safe?
We had no choice but to conquer our hesitation and approach the man. The taxi had moved on, and the man's focus was on us. He started walking toward us with a decided step. We met him half way in the road, and he motioned with a jerk of his head for us to follow him as he mumbled something unintelligable in gruff Russian. We trailed in his footsteps like skulking animals, following him up to the apartment where our hosts were waiting.
Walking into this home, we were overwhelmed by the sight of very bizarre looking people. The diplomat sat in the high chair in the living room as a king would take to his throne, with his wife behind him, and his two daughters flanking his seat. There were several men in the room, slouching against the faded flower-printed wall paper. We were welcomed with forced smiles, exclamations, and hand shakes. I was given premium Russian Malboro cigarettes, and in exchange I offered them my American equivalent. We sat, drank, and smoked in semi-silence until it was time to be seated at the large table that was burdened with the weight of several cakes, large dishes full of Eastern European delights, salads, and pyramids of bread. A eight course meal all at once. All this for 8 people. So much food.
My brother and I ate whilst the others watched us. It was eerie. Finally, after we had been fed like livestock, out came the Cognac. And it flowed. Within half an hour of drinking, the akward silence broke; the large, intimidating men started smoking again, and the women looked less like abused children, and more like their former beautiful selves. The men, I deciphered, were sons of the diplomat. The younger one was burly like an ox, and did not stop staring at me, as though I were an alien from the farthest reaches of the world. The couple sitting to my right were the son and daughter in law of the diplomat. Her makeup looked as though she had applied it in the dark, preparing for a stage performance. He was drunk. He leaned over to me and whisphered something in bad English. I could not understand. I sought out my brother to translate.
"He asked if you smoke marajuana." My brother said, his cheeks flushed from the liquor.
I turned my head and enthusiastically nodded, "Yes!"
"Come, then." And off the couple and I trotted to their bedroom. We opened the window, and leaned out, the three of us squeezing our torsos out to the fresh air like teenagers trying to avoid getting caught. He lit a joint, and we started passing it back and forth.
"KGB, I was KGB, now I get good stuff," he waved the joint in his hand, grinning ear to ear.
"KGB?" I was floored. The weed was good, I was stoned, and I was smoking up with a KGB agent. I looked around to the dark night; I wanted to remember this for a very long time.
"My father get me job, KGB, I work, had gun. Very good." His wife was nodding, obviously very proud of her darling man.
I was so astonished. I remember looking at his face and wondering what he had seen, and done, during those years of the Soviet realm. The years of tyranny. Had they been married when he was tearing the souls from his fellow country men? Did he crawl into her bed at night, seeking her warmth and soft touch? Did he have nightmares, did he cry?
After our peace pipe, I understood that these two had been trying to have a child, yet she could not conceive.
"Not good, no baby, not happy," she indicated to her in laws. "Not happy."
Not happy. How is that, not happy? Be happy, my sweet lady. You are not with child, your KGB husband will not beat your child, her sulking uncles will not molest her as she blossoms, she will not grow up in the sorrow of a former Soviet Republic, selling her wares for a scrap of bread. Weep instead, for the loss of the richest country in the Soviet Republic. Armenia was the wealthiest country in the whole area, now it is reduced to black market trade and charity. My heart is heavy with this loss; it is heavy for my heritage that has been creamated along with the spirit of the people.
доброй ночи Армения.
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