Sosi
Mama teaches me how
to bargain for fabrics.
First, fingertips feel
texture and weight,
face and voice silent.
Never take first price.
See what the Turks have to offer,
but buy Armenian cloth if you can.
Never show which one you love.
Go to see each merchant’s wares.
Compare and think and breathe in spices:
hot bite of cayenne,
fenugreek for
basturma
,
warm, strong taste of earthy cumin,
deep red paprika to make a paste,
crisp allspice for
manti
stuffing,
mahlap
’s bitter almond nip.
We buy a bolt of woven wool
tight with pattern and warmth.
Mama says the silks I love
will wait till I’m a wife.
Silks instead of Mama,
silks instead of home.
I search for Vahan in the market,
beside his clocks and chimes.
Arkalian clocks
keep time for miles.
Beirut, Konya, Van.
Baron
Bedros, Vahan’s father,
works the tiny tools and gears
inside the clocks’ bellies.
Vahan paints their faces.
His long-lashed eyes meet mine.
Mama sees and pulls me from him,
back to the Turk to pay,
pinching my hand,
as her voice stays honey sweet.
“Sosi
jan
, a woman never looks.”
Fatima Bey Injeli comes into the stall behind us.
“Special price for you today,
gavour
, infidel?
As though you need it,
already with all the best land.”
Mama places the bolt between them.
Her left hip juts out like a ledge.
She stares straight ahead, lips sealed.
The Turk from the shop says to Fatima,
“The
gavour
are clever with their money,”
as he drops a coin
into Mama’s open palm.
“Teşekkür ederim.”
Mama thanks him,
nose up, lips drawn tight
like a hard, wrinkled pit.
“I can buy my cloth from others if you like.”
The Turk bows his bald head low,
the fringe of hair around his crown
like an upside-down, bristle-black smile.
“No, madame. You must come again
with your lovely daughter.
The bolt and the price pleased us both.”
“Good day, then,” Mama says,
pulling me from the stall,
past the other vendors,
past the crowd,
over the bridge,
squeezing my hand,
muttering,
“The bee gets honey from the same flower
where the snake sucks her poison.”
She lets go
only when we reach our orchard
spread along the river’s edge.
“I said nothing to that snake
only because your father
holds her husband, Mustafa, dear.
As if I didn’t have enough to worry me
with you making eyes at clockmakers’ sons
before fathers have even spoken?
And Shahen, always wet from the river.
He played with Turkish boys again, you know.
The pair of you will be my end.
And the nerve of that vendor,
insulting us
as we give him good money!
Sosi, look around you.
This is Armenia.
Fat Turks from Constantinople
rule for miles and miles,
making Muslim villagers brazen.
Kurds and Turks may live here too,
but these are our lands.
Your father planted these very vines
with cuttings from my father’s arbors
when he was leaving boyhood,
the age of you and Shahen now.
His grandfather’s grandfather
planted the olives,
his father,
the apricots.
Nothing came free.
Not the millstones.
Not the earth.
Not the sheep.
Not the wheat.
Generations of sweat.
Don’t you ever forget.”
Grapevines heavy with fruit
bend over straight wood frames.
Silver olive leaves
shimmer behind them.
Apricots blush in the sun.