Home in the 70s

Act V

In Malatya, my neighborhood in the outskirts of Yerevan in Soviet Armenia, many different street vendors appeared throughout the year to sell or collect something or other. The residents knew them and anticipated their arrival. They each came with a specific purpose and a characteristic call by which they were recognized.

The family from Artashat, with two kids my age, arrives on Sundays. They settle in the middle of the school’s playground, where neighborhood kids play on the weekends and can be seen from every window around the perimeter. People buy from them because it’s convenient. It's like picking fresh fruit and vegetables from your own backyard without the labor involved in growing them.

“C’mon, my boy, my sun in daylight, my moon at night, do a good job like the man of the house you are,” says the mother, a middle-aged woman with graying hair pulled back in a bun. Her sunbaked skin is the color of boiled wheat. She sits guard to the mounds of eggplants, tomatoes, cucumbers, apricots, grapes, and melons that the boy arranges and rearranges on the bedsheet he spreads on the sizzling asphalt. She wears a hand-knit wool vest over her long-sleeve chintz dress in red and blue floral print, a sliver of ivory skin exposed between the hem of her dress and the brown cotton stockings, tops rolled just below the knees. She fans herself with pages torn from an old civics book lying by her side. Her flushed face and the huff-puff she makes every time she moves give away her desire for the goods to be gone soon, along with the hot summer afternoon that drags. 

I invite the girl to play hopscotch with me, but she curls up against her mother. A country kid in a city; she’s shy.

The “fish” lady comes every Wednesday. She knocks on our door.  

“I have sig from Lake Sevan. Fresh, just caught this morning,” she tells Mama. The lady knows she made a sale even before Mama inspects the bag and says, “These look fresh, eyes clear, bright. I’ll take four.” 

Mama is a dependable customer. She prepares fish for dinner every Wednesday. She saves the tail for Harut. Mama makes sure Harut gets what he likes even when he skips dinner for a football game—more like mischief—with the boys in the bahk.

When given a choice, I choose the head. I like taking apart the eyeballs and the cartilage that holds the tiny brain inside the skull. To me, it’s more of an exploration. 

“Stop playing and eat your food,” Mama says. Then I carefully suck the brain matter out of its case. I learned this from Ne՛ne՛. Tender and creamy, it tastes delicious.

In the fall, close to New Year’s, the “walnut man” shows up. “Heen shor, heen gosheek, heen shor…” calls the old man in a tattered brown polyester suit, a burlap sack on his shoulder. He turns his head in different directions and moos in his monotone voice like a cow, “Heen shor… Heen gosheek… Heen shor...” 

Games come to a sudden halt. Every one of us rushes home to fetch mom or grandma, who brings out used items of clothing and shoes to exchange for shell-on walnuts. Santa Claus in disguise! He scoops up walnuts from the sack with his tarnished bowl and empties them into whatever container is in front of him. If it’s a tiny hand, he puts one in it and playfully says, “Now get lost!”

The man selling bleach concentrate visits once a month on a Saturday. Nothing is exciting about bleach or its vendor. Although poisonous, bleach cleans laundry, removes unpleasant odors; no household functions without it. You give him an empty glass jar and one ruble, he gives back a full one. The man doesn't stick around. Bleak and serious, he rushes to make his transactions and disappears. 

I've figured it out: The longer he stays, the greater the chance of him being caught. One does not grow bleach concentrate in the backyard. He has either smuggled it out of his workplace or handles it for someone else who has. Either way, he sells stolen goods. 

One day, sounds in our neighborhood become whispers. Neighborhood women, voices hushed, tell each other news about Yeran’s young daughter-in-law.

“Twenty-five years old. Died at the hospital.” 

“Ingested bleach. They couldn’t save her.” 

“Poor Yeran has to raise the two young ones herself. Her son works in Russia.” 

“They can’t even bury her until the husband returns.”

I knew the bleach man was bad news.

For an entire week, we avoid the playground, especially the southwest corner adjacent to Yeran’s house.

“Stay away. Don’t be loud,” our parents command. We obey. Although curious, none of us wants to come face to face with the black velvet top of the casket on public display outside at the entrance of the house. It signals that the body of the deceased lies on the dining table, the most honorable spot inside, awaiting the return of her husband.

The Yezidi women arrive with a different kind of call, “Matsoon-matsoon, vochkhari matsoon…” They announce the yogurt they make from sheep’s milk. Tin buckets full of white curdled milk hang from both ends of a horizontal stick across their shoulders. 

Mama does not like to buy from them. She says they’re dirty and tells me not to go near. I'm enchanted by the layered, multicolored, pleated, and silky skirts that Yezidi women wear. “They steal children,” Mama says when I'm around seven or eight years old.

Mama’s voice plays in the back of my head, and excitement rushes to fill my heart when I go near enough to take a closer look. They look clean to me. I don’t dare to touch, but every time they move, the pleats sway, and I witness the most spectacular show of color. Red, green, and yellow silk shimmers in the sun. However, a peculiar smell emanates from them and fills the air. To me, it smells like cow dung, probably because they do not use bleach.

Bleach erases stains,

cleans the slate just like death does.

I'd never use bleach.

Mama is well aware of my obsession with the tribal garments Yezidi women wear. 

“I’ve bought you from the Yezidis, you know? No wonder you like them so much,” she tells me one day. I don’t believe her, but after she repeats it a few other times, a seed of doubt is planted in my heart.  I start looking for signs of favoritism towards my older brother. I find them all the time! Although I don’t want to believe it, now I'm convinced I'm adopted. I'll ask my aunt Arshalouyse to tell me the truth next time she comes to visit. 

Perceptions of the adult world shape a young child’s psyche. Innuendos, comments, and jokes made in passing, as lighthearted and well-intentioned as they may be, could easily be misinterpreted by a child and often leave permanent impressions.