exile.'She had enjoyed a tumultuous life as a novelist and columnist. Armanoush kept a picture of her on her desk, in which Zabel broodingly peered out from under the brim of her hat at some unknown spot beyond the frame.
The others in the Anoush Tree had different nicknames for reasons unasked. Every week they would choose a specific discussion topic. Though the themes varied greatly, they all tended to revolve around their common history and culture-' common' oftentimes meaning 'common enemy': the Turks. Nothing brought people together more swiftly and strongly-though transiently and shakilythan a shared enemy.
This week the subject was 'The Janissaries.' As she scanned through some of the most recent postings Armanoush was happy to see Baron Baghdassarian was online. She didn't know much about him, other than that he was the grandchild of survivors, just like her, and resplendent with rage, unlike her. Sometimes he could be extremely harsh and skeptical. Throughout the last few months, despite the elusiveness of cyberspace or perhaps thanks to it, Armanoush had unknowingly developed a liking for him. A day would be incomplete if she couldn't read his messages. Whatever this thing she felt for him-friendship, fondness, or sheer curiosity-Armanoush knew it was mutual.
People who believe the Ottoman rule was righteous don't
know anything about the Janissary's Paradox. The Janissaries were Christian children captured and converted by the Ottoman state with a chance to climb the social ladder at the expense of despising their own people and forgetting their own past. The Janissary's Paradox is as relevant today for every minority as it was yesterday. You the child of expatriates! You need to ask yourself this age-old question time and again: What will your position be with regards to this paradox; are you going to accept the role of the Janissary? Will you abandon your community to make peace with the Turks and let them whitewash the past so that, as they say, we can all move forward?
Glued to the screen, Armanoush took a bite of the remaining apple and chewed nervously. Never before had she felt such admiration for a man-other than her dad, of course, but that was different. There was something in Baron Baghdassarian that both enthralled and scared her; she wasn't afraid of him exactly or the things he so boldly claimed-if anything, she was scared of herself. His words had a far-reaching effect, capable of digging out this other Armanoush that resided inside her but as of yet had not come out, a cryptic being in deep slumber. Somehow Baron Baghdassarian poked that creature with the spear of his words, prodding it until it woke up with a roar and came to light.
Armanoush was still running her brain over this frightening outcome when she glimpsed a long message posted by Lady Peacock/ Siramark-an Armenian American wine expert who worked for a California-based winery, frequently traveled to Yerevan, and was known for her amusingly smart comparisons between the United States and Armenia. Today, she had posted a self-scoring test that measured the degree of one's 'Armenianness.'
1. If you grew up sleeping under handwoven blankets or wearing
handwoven cardigans to school
2. If you have been given an Armenian alphabet book on each
birthday until the age of six or seven
3. If you have a picture of Mount Ararat hanging in your house,
garage, or office
4. If you are used to being loved and cooed at in Armenian, scolded
and disciplined in English, and avoided in Turkish
5. If you serve your guests hummus with nacho chips and eggplant
dip with rice cakes
6. If you are familiar with the taste of manta, the smell of sudzuk,
and the curse of bastirma
7. If you easily get pestered and aggravated over remarkably trivial
things but manage to stay composed when there is something
really grave to worry or panic about
8. If you have had (or are planning to have) a nose job
9. If you have a jar of Nutella in your refrigerator and a tav/a board
somewhere in your storeroom
10. If you have a cherished rug on the floor of your living room
11. If you can't help feeling sad when you dance to 'Lorke Lorke,'
even if the melody is bouncy and you don't understand the lyrics 12. If gathering to eat fruit after each dinner is a deeply rooted habit
at your house and if your dad still peels oranges for you, no
matter what age you might have reached
13. If your relatives keep shoveling food into your mouth and do not
accept 'I am full' as an answer
14. If the sound of duduk sends shivers down your spine and you
cannot help wondering how a flute made from an apricot tree
can cry so sadly
15. If deep inside you feel like there is always more about your past than you will ever be allowed to learn
Having given a 'yes' to every single one of the questions, Armanoush scrolled down to learn her score:
0-3 points: Sorry dude, you must be an outsider.
4-8 points: You sound like an inside-outsider. Chances are you are
married to an Armenian.
9-12 points: Almost certainly you are an Armenian.
13-15 points: There's no doubt, you are a proud Armenian.
Armanoush smiled at the screen. And in that moment she grasped what she already knew. It was as if a secret gate had been unlatched in the depths of her brain, and before her mind could accommodate the thoughts gushing in, a wave of introspection rolled over her. She had to go there. That was what she sorely needed: a journey.
Because of her fragmented childhood, she had still not been able to find a sense of continuity and identity. She had to make a journey to her past to be able to start living her own life. As the weight of this new revelation dawned on her, it also motivated her to type a message, seemingly to everyone but in particular to Baron Baghdassarian:
The Janissary's Paradox is being torn between two clashing states of existence. On the one hand, the remnants of the past pile up-a womb of tenderness and sorrow, a sense of injustice and discrimination. On the other hand glimmers the promised future-a shelter decorated with the trimmings and trappings of success, a sense of safety like you have never had before, the comfort of joining the majority and finally being deemed normal.
Hello there Madame My-Exiled-Soul! Glad you are back. So nice to hear the poetess in you.
That was Baron Baghdassarian. Armanoush couldn't help rereading the last part aloud: so nice to hear the poetess in you. She lost her train of thought but only momentarily.
I think I can relate to the Janissary's Paradox. As the only child of resentfully divorced parents coming from different cultural backgrounds,
She paused with the discomfort of revealing her personal story, but the urge to carry on was too strong.
Being the only daughter of an Armenian father, he himself a child of survivors, and of a mother from Elizabethtown, Kentucky, I do know how it feels to be torn between opposite sides, unable to fully belong anywhere, constantly fluctuating between two states of existence.
To this day she had never written anything so personal and so direct to anyone in the group. Her heart pumping hard, she took a breather. What was Baron Baghdassarian going'to think about her now and would he write his true thoughts?
That must be hard. For most Armenians in the diaspora, Hai Dat is the sole psychological anchor that we have in order to sustain an identity. Your situation is different but ultimately we are all Americans and Armenians, that plurality is good as long as we do not lose our anchor.
That was Miserable-Coexistence, a housewife unhappily married to the editor-in-chief of a prominent literary journal in the Bay Area.
Plurality means the state of being more than one. But that was not the case with me. I've never been able to become an Armenian in the first place, Armanoush wrote, realizing she was on the brink of making a confession. I
