Hopes and Dreams

Act XIII

In one of her letters, my Aunt Angel writes that my parents’ extended visit to Aleppo two years earlier has dispelled some of her fears about the place behind the Iron Curtain. She has decided to visit her mother and the rest of the family in Armenia for the first time since their separation twenty-three years ago.

Papa takes care of the required invitations and visas. He drives his Volga 21 for six days to fetch his sister from the port in Odessa on the Black Sea in Ukraine. No direct transportation to or from Armenia is available beyond the borders of the Soviet Union. Six days later, Papa returns with his sister, my Aunt Angel, about five feet tall, 200 pounds heavy, and four suitcases just as plump and heavy. What’s in them? I wonder.

For the days and weeks that follow, I have to sleep on the living room sofa, so aunt Angel can have my bed next to her mother. My brother’s bedroom has now become the “tourist” room filled with clothing, shoes, makeup, accessories of all sorts, spread over the desk, sofa, chairs, and more merchandise than I've ever seen in any of the stores Mama has taken me to. I don’t see people come and go, since most transactions occur during the day when I'm at school. However, I learn that all the items are for sale and people come to buy as they hear by word of mouth of the tourist from overseas at 29 Tserents street. They come in search of a pair of jean trousers or a jacket, stone-washed and faded are most sought after. They ask for T-shirts with prints of popular bands, sunglasses, and belts with big buckles. Everything that can't be found in the government-owned and operated stores can be found in my brother’s room at my house.

A private enterprise, much like a garage sale in the West, was considered a “black market” operation in our part of the world. Had anyone leaked the information to the government agencies, my parents would've faced incarceration. In situations such as this, the “circle of friends” my father cultivated would come in handy.

I get my share of goods. I now have a pair of gold earrings—star-shaped with a tiny turquoise bead in the center of each, several pairs of pastel color tights, Arabian princess slippers—golden with heels and sequins on top, sparkly tutus—one pink and one lime green, lace-trimmed undershirts and underpants—pretty for a girl, and lots and lots of Chicklets gum.

One evening, after Aunt Angel has left, Mama talks to me as she puts away a pink, quilted, spongy robe, a pair of beaded black velvet slippers (handmade by a famous Armenian shoemaker in Aleppo), and a crochet bedspread with matching shams.

“These are for you,” she says. "Some day, when you’re older, you'll get married, and you 'll need these for your dowry.”

At every change of a season, Mama takes out everything she has stored in the cabinets to air it. I take the opportunity to try on things and see what I can snatch. I'm eager to see if they fit. I know they're special, unlike anything my friends have.

When I'm in fourth grade, I can’t wait for the first warm day in the spring so that I can shed the winter school uniform—the brown wool dress, the black apron, the wool tights, and wear knee highs, a white shirt, and a mini skirt. I know the day has arrived when the sun's out bright, the birds chirp happy tunes before I wake up, and icicles along the roof gutters have started to drip.

Mama has put out new warm-weather clothing for me. I love the white knee-highs, red pompoms dangling on the sides. Never mind the slush and mud; I'm wearing them! I'm amused by the pompoms that swing and play tag on the sides of my knees as I walk to school.

When I get to the school entrance, Vartan, my classmate, has arrived before anyone else.

“Look at the akhpar style clothing you wear! I didn’t know you were one of those,” he says. I sense disbelief in his tone and dread the thought of being placed in a category with “those.” Girls like Isabel and Yeran are "that." They mispronounce words like their akhpar mothers and fathers do, and can't spell. Oh, no! I’m still wearing the gold star earrings with turquoise in the middle. I've forgotten to take them off. That dot of turquoise is the giveaway. Only girls from "those" families have similar earrings. I hope no one else notices them.

“My mother's a local, and so am I,” I say, wondering if he believes me. When I return home, I cut off the pompoms from all three pairs of brand-new knee-highs Aunt Angel has left for me. I take off the earrings and hope never to wear them again.

Eastern Armenian language and grammar were foreign to Western Armenian speakers, who often mispronounced words like "yeghbayr," meaning “brother," earning them the nickname “akhpar.”

To this day, I don’t know if my mother noticed the change or not, since she never mentioned the knee-highs or the earrings to me. My dowry, all the things my mother had purchased, made by hand herself, and collected for me since I was an eight-year-old girl, were confiscated at customs at Moscow Sheremetyevo Airport in April 1980 during my family’s relocation to the United States. One of the few pieces of articles that have survived is the pair of black velvet slippers, which I never got to wear. By the time I got married, they were out of style and a whole size too small for my feet. I keep them under a glass display case. They remind me of my childhood, but most importantly, they are a reminder of a mother who raised me with hopes and dreams, although they were different from what I had hoped for and dreamed for myself.