Translated by Shant Norashkharian from the original Armenian which was reprinted in Beirut, Lebanon, by Sevan Publishing House in 1981. The original was written from November 1927 to January 1929, and published in the Parisian Haratch daily newspaper from May 28 to September 3, 1929.
And so Pierre fell within retreating compatriots such as those. But not immediately. Years had passed from that first havoc and now this world-factory had been emptied from its incidental Armenian workers. After becoming familiar to the place, environment and language, most of them had slowly been able to escape from the life-swallowing jaws of the machines and to involve themselves in more appropriate crafts, occupations. Exceptions remained. At the corner where Pierre worked there was not one Armenian; on his left there was a small, bald man in his forties who on summer Sundays went to the riverbank to fish, and then spent the whole winter telling his fishing stories. The machines complemented him, he was one of their parts and as soon as he got away from that iron monstrosity he ceased to have any value. That is why he could not catch fish and had so many stories to tell. And the one on the right side became friends with Pierre and with his cigarettes from the first day. That red-headed and stout young man who was a tireless reader of sports newspapers, judging from Pierre's looks he thought he had found someone who thought like him, and everyday he started to bet with him about who would win, whether it was this or that athlete. But when he saw that everyday he was the loser, he found out that Pierre never read a sports paper and had no interest in such things. Immediately he cut his friendship in half. Only in half, because he continued being friends with the cigarettes.
Peace! Peace of the soul! Pierre had the firm conviction that he would be able to find it here, he would be able to possess it in this life, which, even though it was tiresome, it was monotonous, unchanging and endless. But before reaching that desire, he passed through three stages. First those few days slid by under a completely unaware, mute and numb impression. His escape from Paris, falling into a dark and rotten hotel again, trying to find work and the effort to get used to it again, killed every faculty of awareness within him. Immediately afterwards he fell into a limitless, unrestrained rage; the days, the nights, all his moments became filled with curses, hatred and poison. He hated, terribly hated Nenette, he endlessly whistled the curses through his teeth, no longer restraining himself. Still he was suffering immensely, immensely. In the nights after dinner he was unable to return to his room, and along those dark and edgeless streets he carried his fever with the snow, almost loudly repeating: "May you be cursed, may you be cursed, Nenette, may you suffer! I want you to be tormented and looking for me; how, how was I carried away, deceived by her! What was she...? She was another 'chick' like the others; what exceptional thing did she have? Nothing! First she was much older than me; in a few years she will be old; already the blond hairs will be quickly wilting. What a boy was I! I could not see the reality with open eyes. I was charmed by her makeup, her stylishness, her beautiful clothes, delicate underwear. The French were right when they called them, 'The woman's heavy artillery'. Yes, she had flair, exterior appearance, but what is lust after all? It is tyrannizing an unbendable pride; it is possessing and dominating a strong individuality; lust is immobilizing and tying able and clever wrists; it is benumbing of an intelligent head, the enjoyment of the expression of the pain and the easiness of it; Yes! Lust is violating an attitude. Poor Liz, poor Liz, how did I not recognize you...! May you be cursed, yes, I mean you, Nenette, you...!"
And the days turned, turned. The machines endlessly repeated incoherent words and incomplete sentences to him, for which, in his effort to find an explanation or sometimes an answer the young man meandered, fell into the lap of contradictions, until he fell silent. A filer from far away hissed against his ears, "khol shvayd, khol shvayd, khol shvayd, khol shvayd..." Or on this side, a noisy machine rattled repeating: "Why didn't we do evil; Why didn't we do evil; Why didn't we do evil; Why didn't we do evil...". Pierre fell silent; because first he found that hatred was useless and only served to smear his soul, and another moment he became afraid of it , as if the effect of the curse was inescapable. He got afraid of his own curse and getting away from it he was satisfied to recite with a mild voice, like a prayer (in French) :
Large eyes in the faceAnd when the two words immediately following Nenette's name, "dear" and "be cursed", stopped from being recited, the young man essentially changed.
Who has placed you there?
Of which vessel without masts
Are you the crew?
Since which landing
Have you waited thus
Open all night?
He was reaching a new stage. As if he was collecting on himself, crouching, getting denser.. His chin became a fist and his glance lunged forward into the distance, spread out like a call to arms. In the young man the adult man was being formed, molded, away from people and societies. The little songs which excited a young man, the lovely and cute trivia no longer interested him and he felt that he looked at life and objects with disdain, but from a height, with a completely new glance. He felt that now he walked without dragging, he lived without leaning.
It was in this period that he got mixed with the Armenians. They would gather at noon in a nearby restaurant, to go later and occupy the same corner of a coffee shop. Among them were first the eternal children, the silly, and the addicts of women , who after work changed pants and threw themselves on the dance floor. They were those intolerable vile ones who crouched inside their shells and a few elderly ones from the provinces. One of them, in spite of having formed a "threesome" family with a Frenchman and his wife, dropping his head down contemplated, contemplated, with impenetrable wrinkles on his forehead. Around another elderly person the boys had drawn a yellow line. They approached him with great precaution; that is, they never approached him. Every once in a while he would say: "A letter came from my wife again, she wants to come here. How shall I bring her...?" They never asked the reason; everyone knew that the poor man was suffering from a terrible disease. There were two former schoolteachers, barely thirty, one of whom insisted on finding rhymes for his village's brides, and feet for its oxen. And the second constantly poured letters and requests everywhere, begging that they would quickly save him from this morgue, or else he would commit suicide. Yes, he would commit suicide!
Bedros was able to become friends with - of course for having belonged to the same class of Istanbulian-Armenians - a delicate, frail, and a little meticulous Skudarian named Khndamian. This last one suffered greatly, tormented himself, crucified himself for having fallen in the filth of a factory after losing his social position. He said, "I came to Paris with a little money; I started a basturma business with a friend. My situation was fine at that time. We went under; not a dime was left; and now... but I have the right to be dissatisfied, I have the right to hate this life! It is in every way exactly contrary to my nature. I like the silence and the deep sounds in that silence, the bell, the ox, the frogs, the donkey...And I like nature, the splendid dawns, among which a circumcised lad throws his "yarey ". I love the rosy pieces of the woman's flesh, clean, gorgeous breasts, the fragrances, the beautiful underwear...How good was that basturma business, what a pity, what a pity...!"
But there was another one that Bedros loved immediately. He loved him but without getting too close to him, without giving the signal of friendship, not because there was more compassion and pity in that feeling, but because the boy's fierce and extraordinary character was very far from being easily communicable. He was a former student of the Central school, the son of a pastor, and they called him Lokhum (sweet, white Middle Eastern pastry) . His classmate Khndamian said that since as a child he had snow-white skin, soft character and sweet nature they gave him that name. Extremely untidy exterior, always smoking thin lips, little dirty teeth, and the line around his blonde and curly hair looked like question marks, parenthesis, semicolons. But what a contradiction to the nickname he carried! A certain nervousness to the point of being diseased was shaking him. He did not talk, but became irate, roared, argued. He already concerned himself only with subjects which were worthy of arguments, underlying his sentences with curses. Bedros once was present at one of his outpourings:
"What, what ?" he rumbled, "again French paper! Again French theater! There are no Armenian ones? Will you ever be shocked, will you ever become aware of our situation? Will you ever fight, struggle against disintegration and assimilation? Burned out ashes, all of you! Leather merchants, all of you! You only look at your little profits, you only tremble over your little fingers. We also have a homeland! We must stand ready to go there. Occupy yourselves with that! We must dry the swamps, we must open the waterways so that...Bastards! Weaklings...You were like that in Istanbul also, and your fathers were like that also. When someone there ran down the street with the expression of terror and pain on his face, I knew that someone was not killed, a deceived husband had not torn his opponent apart, a woman had not strangled her children, lovers had not committed suicide as they do here, but simply an Easterner had fallen on the ground hit by a heart attack. Ninety percent died that way; by rottenness, by immobility. Yet you, here...how shall we generate a spark from you when the hour rings, you who are extinguished flames now? Where shall we find fire to go to war? Because yes, we will have a fight as long as there is a Catholic still standing up and a mountain peak adorned with snow, as long as there is "our homeland" boiling in our veins with blood , as long as our homeland did not exist..."
Bedros kept quiet. Those who got upset and angry, considered it best to leave, not to cause once again the arguments, fights which had happened before and were so painful. Besides the unexplainable disturbance that was caused by these words, Bedros felt a deep pain seeing the suffering which was shaking inside the blonde boy's whole being, inside his whole childish simplicity and gullibility. When he shouted his hands trembled and his glance seemed to come from behind two magnifying glasses. This was a second Souren, but less knowing, less actor, less artist.
Weeks after this day, Bedros thought he had recognized a cough in the darkness of the night. The two red beaks of the cigarettes approached each other. It was Lokhum . As soon as they advanced a few steps, tired and quiet, Lokhum became irate and started shouting:
"What kind of ungodly, inhumane, monstrous, barbarian law is this? Which cursed hand has recorded it, which damnable brain has imposed it on our heads? I have a mother, I have a father; why should I remain far from them, why should they be wasted from missing me and why should I be unable to enjoy their closeness? We are not like them; for us, what is there greater and dearer than our parents? Which love is it that can replace motherly love? Mother, mother... she is everything for me! Why should I be unable to go to Istanbul? Who am I? What am I? Which state will occupy itself with me, with us? All the philosophers, all the moralists and even the animal worshipers should leave everything and occupy themselves with this, only with this injustice...".
Even that same night Bedros decided never to approach this boy again from now on. There are words which we do not want to hear. There are pains which we do not want to acknowledge; we run away from them, because they are truly great. With the limitless sorrow of longing, Bedros fell into his room and cursed that same boy, who being so childlike had torn his heart, had torn two hearts. The former photographer, however, did not need to avoid being close to him, because Lokhum disappeared suddenly, after leaving his job at Renault. Since he lived at the same hotel as Khndamian, it was possible to hear what had happened days later. Lokhum had gone to the Russian embassy, demanding a visa to go to Armenia. They had refused. He had told them that he wanted to live in his homeland; they had refused. He had even told them that he wanted to see Ararat and breathe it; they had refused again. This time he had run to the Turkish embassy. After seeing the flag with the crescent, their letters and and the Turkish heads, he had become completely infuriated. He had demanded that they immediately, immediately give him a visa...that his mother was close to dying, she would die, that he was sick as well, that he had nervous breakdowns, that they should not ruin his future; his place is not here in the "factories", that they must not...He had begun to swear, to roar, to curse. A few of them had to fall over him to throw him out.
Peace! Peace of the soul! As much as the row of days got longer, Pierre ran that much more after peace. He never reached. He felt and comprehended that he was mistaken once again. The factory had given him pride, cleanliness, and partly supposed freedom, but not what he had longed for. Because in spite of being fit and strong, the monotony of this life would cause him to be completely alone with himself, and the inner dialogue to start again. They say that as frequently as memories are recalled, that much faster the past changes its form, because every time we add to the memories an untrue and fake element which stays. Similarly, for Pierre it was now a true suffering reliving the last days of his love. It seemed to him that for a long time he had been breathing a suffocating, almost criminal environment with Nenette. It is true that he succeeded getting away from those dark thoughts, but he comprehended that his soul will find peace only when this monotony ends, life starts again and new emotions come to veil the past. Pierre wanted to escape one more time. But this was not going to be a simple escape like the former one, but advancing, charging forward on a road which was already drawn. He would lunge forward to a goal, an ideal, a reason. But its name?
The Armenian workers he knew, all of them, except for Lokhum, were retreaters. But if there is an element that is least worthy of blame for cowering in regards to their nation, it is this working class. Whoever recognizes their toil will never dare to blame them. And it was in that silent and forgiving way that Pierre looked at the boys and himself, because he was also a retreater. But he differed from them in one fundamental way. He differed, because not only he was not money-minded and, having the awareness of a highest existence was able to have scorn for his easy life, but because there was a power in him. A power which was getting denser, bigger, which wanted to become aware of itself, and which was ready for dedication, for sacrifice. He searched for a ground, a field of action; a road which was higher than the daily smallnesses, on which every leg is not strong enough to run, and where he could tell himself: "I, higher than my past".
Naturally, Bedros' first thought went to his nation. Would he dedicate himself to national work? He thought, he thought. The answer was negative. Bedros said, recalling a distant phrase: "Humanity is made of the living and the dead. The dead are incomparably more numerous than us. And they are more powerful by the summation of their activities. They are our masters and they govern us. We live in that building which was built by a late architect, we feel sad like the way the other writer did, we live according to those sentences now turned to proverbs which one day a foreign patriot preached and we become that which they make us.
Well then how shall we remain Armenian, when we don't have our dead, when we did not bring our dead with us? How shall we not become foreigners, when this dead man preached so well...". Yes! I know that it is possible to change a generation, even to pour a whole nation in a desired mold. But for that it is necessary for that mob to be in our paws and that it be obligated to submit to us. In Istanbul it was possible, but here, at least for the likes of me there is no possibility for national work, because I am neither a writer, nor an orator. I must at least be a party member, for which I have no desire. Oh, something else, else, but not this!"
This style of reasoning must not be considered a contradiction to his spiritual state. A young man in his situation throws himself into the unfamiliar with much more love and willingness than into the familiar. He will get involved with much more pleasure, even in an activity which is new, but sometimes contrary to his nature, his blood, rather than a road with which he has become familiar since becoming aware, on which many times he followed step by step the advance of others, and where he thinks there is more mud than something else.
Immediately afterwards Bedros thought about his parents, his mother: "You need your mother in order to live? You're still a boy...!" And he went away. He leaped over religion and looked at the books. Once he had loved the literary and purely imaginary works, but now he could not tolerate them. And because likewise it was impossible to be occupied with love stories, only the philosophical works were left. Bedros had neither the preparation nor the love to bear those. He belonged to that category of numerous people who thought: "Of all the ideas expressed about life, I prefer life."
These mental wanderings and the inadequate rationalizations which he used to escape from an undesirable goal disturbed the Armenian young man's soul and thinking, which had to happen. Again he fell in a crisis and his unnamed yearnings impelled him into impossible horizons. He thought of taking any job on a ship and going beyond countries, seas and docks; going to the icebergs in the north, the blonde and tall beauties, or to the south, to the full breasts of the black-eyed; to go to the equator, into the middle of the savages, where of course he would desire the women. He brought into his imagination a wild beauty with thick lips, firm tits and countless bracelets. "Yes!" he said, "one must either enjoy a primitive woman like that, or never enjoy any woman. Because the animalistic simplicity of that savage is more precious than our women's two-faced, mindless and empty behavior. Besides, perhaps I shall possess that woman with the big earrings by force. There, that's what's precious and not the love that is gained by mutual agreement! One must possess the desired creature by force, against her will. And those who pursue the kisses forbidden by society, aren't they in search of that forceful resistance?"
And the Armenian's thinking was hitting one wall after another, turned like a tied horse, wandered, rolled, became consuming, could not be bridled. This time Bedros fell on a whole different ground; he wanted to become dedicated to spirit communication, sorcery, and other dark room explorations. A day later he wanted to follow the example of the blonde Frenchman next to him and become an athlete. As soon as he had glanced at a sports paper, he changed his plan, wanted to go to horse races, to play with luck, and to win a lot of money. He even had the idea of collecting stamps, forming an album, and...shouted, shouted...
He finally came to a decision. He realized that the reason of his crisis was his loneliness, that he had to return to Paris and get mixed with his close friends. Why was he escaping them all? Why had he abandoned even Souren and Hratch? However, his visit to Paris occurred under completely different circumstances. One of the worker-schoolteachers at Renault, the one who poured letters everywhere saying that they should save him, or else he would commit suicide, that same schoolteacher was to be ordained pastor on Sunday. That poor soul was unable to imagine any other way of committing suicide. All of Renault's Armenians decided to be present as a group to the ceremony. Bedros started the trip from Biencourt Sunday morning with a group of eight, of which he immediately became the one in charge, and transferred his exaggerated, forced but very delightful way of having fun immediately to others. Singing, joking, yelling they finally arrived at the church, where Bedros had not set foot for over a year. At Jean Goujon street, before getting mixed in the crowd in front of the door, he had his friends stand with a military immobility, and going farther a few steps he ordered:
"Breathe...in!"
All eight of them suddenly and noisily raised their noses up.
"Did you smell the incense?" Asked Bedros.
"What smell of incense? I smell basturma, old brigadier, basturma..."
The speaker, needless to say, was Khndamian, the former basturma merchant who immediately disappeared in the crowd. They were indeed selling biscuits, baklava , basturma , pumpkin seeds and other useful and nice things in front of the church. Khndamian quickly came out of the crowd, with a dried piece of meat and the boys regrouped to go to the small coffeehouse across the street, the one familiar to you all. With the basturma of course they had to drink oghi which they drank. They even thought for a moment to call the pastor-to-be from across the street but then they realized it would be inappropriate. So in his absence, they "ordained him, watered him, baptized him, blessed him, buried him", and drank. When they left to attend the ceremony, it had been over long ago. Not even one pumpkin seed was left. But who cared? Our boys returned to Biencourt and drank, sang, yelled.
That day was decisive for Bedros. When he returned to his room after midnight, he was totally drunk. He started talking with Nenette. He put her picture in front of him, and talked, joked, laughed, and...and suddenly started crying like a boy.
Yes, something like that never happened again, but Bedros continued drinking. Not one week had passed from that Sunday and already he came home every night really drunk. He quickly became friends with drinking Frenchmen, quickly learned the names of drinks, and drank willingly. Many times in the mornings he would not catch up with seven thirty, and already his earning was not adequate for his expenses. But who cared? It was enough that every night he rocked on the waves. "Oh, well", he would tell himself, " I am sure that someone watching me from far will think that I slipped, lost my helm, surrendered Gars; they don't know that I drink simply to see, to watch, to get to know life. I can go back to my former state any time I want, but I repeat, it is not enough..." .
Yes, it was no more enough, neither the wine, nor the oghi , so he searched for stronger things.
Rain, mud, dark streets. They walked quite a long time, both speechless, until they reached this purely industrial section's Chinese quarter. The dirtiest of all quarters, the most miserable, the most disgusting. Finally their steps slowed down and stopped in front of a small hut, from which a weak light rained through one of the cracks of the shutters. The Frenchman knocked on the shutter twice and continuing on he entered into the nearby alley, where a small door was opened in front of him. They sat in front of two red glasses and waited for quite a while. The Frenchman said a few things to the owner, and when some others left, after pulling the curtain at the end of the room aside, they both came down the steps and entered into an underground cavity. Oh! the stench...!
Initially Bedros could not see anything. Then he noticed a red light placed on the floor, a flame, in front of which sat a cross-legged Chinese, similarly with a very red face, filling up pipes. When Bedros fell on a pillow, the French requested that they serve the newcomer well and left. There were no women; they were men sleeping, lying down or sitting. They were smoking. As soon as Bedros had inhaled a puff from his pipe, the one next to him sat up and with a tongue which moved with difficulty requested a second smoke. Bedros was terribly shaken up by that voice, immediately held his arm with all the strength of his fingers, and to subdue the disabled voice , almost shouted:
"You, you Lokhum...! What are you doing here...?"
He turned his head, looked indifferently, and exhaling the smoke answered slowly:
"What are you doing here?"
Yes, what was he doing here? The answer died in a delay, while the red Chinese took in the breath of a hellish deity. Bedros found his friend very changed; his nostrils had become larger, his lips sucked in the poison with great force and his glance did not remind him of any Lokhum. Why was he so filthy, shabby, and ruined? Why was he unemployed?
" You were a good adjuster, why did you leave your job? You're not looking for one; why, why did you let yourself go? Come, let's go out, Lokhum, for the love of God let's go out. You are killing yourself; at least feel sorry for your mother; at least for your mother...I know what sufferings you have, I understand you very well, but this is not the way of salvation; we don't need to give you any advice, you know...feel sorry for your mother... these days will pass, we must not lose our hopes..."
"No! Said Lokhum, no! I don't want to live with hope any longer."
"Then with what...?"
"I want to live."
Bedros was searching for words to convince his friend, but at the same time he was afraid that perhaps he would become irate, enraged again. But it was impossible to continue the conversation, because those present started making remarks about the noise. Bedros paid and almost by force took Lokhum out. The rain had restarted. The two shadows went side by side sticking up their shoulders, putting their collars up. Bedros talked for a long, long time. "What?" He would say, you think it is possible to return to the former state easily when one has become the slave of these poisons? Is it possible to easily become free from the claws of these addictions? What are we worth, if we have to appeal to such means to soften our pain? What does our courage mean, our will, our education and our upbringing, if we are unable to use them against our days of suffering? We must struggle and never have scorn for pain, because it alone can forge, bend and form us.
Don't look at me! I simply came for curiosity, simply to look at this life closer and to study it. It is not possible that I leave myself in this swamp. Never, never...!"
Unbelievable situation, Lokhum did not reply even with one word. Bedros realized that more than talking to him he was directing those sentences at himself. He was never sure of the effect they would have on his friend, but he comprehended that at that moment it was himself that he was pulling out of the mud, with all the fierceness of his arms. The one next to him had turned to a mirror, and Bedros saw in him clearly the state in which he could fall unmistakably, if he did not have the strength to escape, to become bridled, gathered. Lokhum suddenly stopped and said:
"I have no work; I have no money; give me ten francs."
Bedros gave him double. Squeezing the bills in his palm, Lokhum went away immediately, without saying a word. But he suddenly stopped under a lamp, turned back, laughed loudly in a terribly frenzied way like a devil, and opening his arms jumped up shouting:
"I conned, I conned Bedros, I took the ten francs...!"
And running away he got mixed with the dark. Of course, he went to smoke again.
. . . . . . . . . . . . .
They ran the machines one more week.
When one day at noon Bedros entered the coffee shop, he stopped at the door motionless with surprise. It had never happened that all Armenians, all with no exception had gathered like that around the same table, all silent, speechless, heads down. In the middle sat the poet-schoolteacher in front of a letter paper, with the pen in the air. "I can't, brother, I can't write such a thing", and then read what he had been able to write: "Dear madam: We are the dear friends of your son...What was his name? I'm not writing Lokhum, of course!" "Zareh" answered one voice and the poet repeated: "Dear madam: We are the dear friends of your son Zareh, who...". "I can't, brother, I can't write such a thing...".
"Please, what happened, tell me also?" Begged Bedros.
Khndamian took Bedros to the other corner of the coffee shop and said:
"Lokhum lost his mind; yes, lost his mind...! When yesterday evening I entered the hotel, they immediately took me to his room; already a policeman had come and they had tied the poor thing to the bed, waiting for the officials...If he would only say something to someone...! He only talked; he constantly talked...they called me because of that, since he only wanted to speak in Armenian...they wanted me to translate him...my tongue was tied, I could not translate...I should not have translated...but when I translated, all of them started laughing...Is that a laughing matter...? A laughing matter...?"
He wouldn't dare, he wouldn't dare, but being unable to resist his curiosity, Bedros, asked:
"What was he saying...?"
"What would he say? 'Let's dry the swamps, let's open waterways; let's dry the swamps, let's open waterways; let's dry the swamps...' ".
Feedback/Comments: The email address of Shant Norashkharian is:
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