A Language Beehive: Bourj Hammoud (4) – Visiting Turkey

My abridged translation of Armenag Yeghiayan’s sequel (Լեզուական Փեթակ՝ Պուրճ Համուտ – 4 -). The original is linked.  Vahe H Apelian

Courtesy Garo Konyalian

These visits were not unilateral, not only Turks would visit Lebanon, especially Bourj Hammoud, there were also no shortage of reciprocating visitors from Bourj Hammoud to Turkey. They began with the transportation of cheap goods and the introduction of expensive articles, such as leather, textiles, etc. At the beginning it was trickling in small quantities, in travelers’ bags. Later, in large quantities through known and unknown routes, in commercial quantities, to the point of flooding our markets, much like they currently flood the department stores of Armenia.

Along with these visitors, there were also patriotic visits that were driven by the desire to see the homeland.

A long time ago I became privy of two such visits. I share them with my readers as they were told to me by the visitors themselves.

The First Testimony

The narrator was Krikor Ngrurian. He hailed from Mussa Dagh. He remains a well-remembered, long-time public servant as a pedagogue, a teacher, and a principal.  

He told me that his father was a very healthy and active man who climbed trees to pick fruit and prune dead branches well into his old age. But, despite his iron constitution, he began to give up on his usual daily activities that filled his day and became withdrawn and remained preoccupied by his memories of their village in Mussa Dagh.   

To bring his father out of his withdrawal and disinterest, Krikor decided to take him to his birthplace. Krikor was no less determined to make that mission for he was also curious and wanting to see their paternal home and its surroundings that had remained a fogy memory of his early childhood there. 

They reached Mussa Dagh and their village. They easily found the street where their patriarchal house used to be.

"Our house was on the right side of a steep road," he had told me, “One or two meters lower from the road."

The local lads - not to also say the adults - who were used to such visits and to the generous rewards they received from the visitors, surrounded the father and son, and directed them right to the front of the house, whose current Turkish landlady, appeared apprehensive seeing such a crowd obviously fearing that they have come to take possession of her house. She, nonetheless, invited them to come in.  

“Sister, we used to live in this house. My father misses it. We came so that my father would live up his memory for a few moments and then we will leave.” 

The explanation of the purpose of their visit apparently rested the landlady, who took them around showing them the whole house, room by room, with all the nooks and crannies, the orchard, and other areas. Seeing their house erect calmed Krikor’s father who took a few deep breaths of relief. 

They returned to the yard, where the hostess had arranged chairs and prepared yogurt drink for them. They drank the yogurt drink, thanked the lady, and headed towards the stairways on their way out to the road.

- “A few days before the exile” continued telling Krikor, “my father had started to build a  brick railing on the right and left sides of the stairway. Everything was finished but there was only a brick or so left to place on the right side. I don't know why it had not been possible to put it in place, and we had left the house without completing. And here, I noticed with deep emotion that everything in and around the house had remained the same during the last more than thirty years, the way my father had told me, even the missing brick/s. When we were getting ready to put our feet on the first step, the landlady, who was following our steps, surely wanting to see us leave a moment sooner, said with a genuine grief:

- "Could you not have placed the bricks and then left?”

*****

Second Testimony

The narrator in this case was Yervant Demirdjian who was a long-time executive secretary of the prelacy and was well-known throughout the community whom he served with great devotion during the years of the leadership of Aram I as the prelate.

It was at the end of one of the meetings of the Educational Council when, I don't remember why, he invited me to his small office, which was located directly next to the assembly hall, and after everything else was discussed, he told the following story, in his peculiarly colorful style and vocabulary, which was only his own.

-         “I was barely seventeen years old; it was a year or two after the end of the war,” - he began, telling,  “when Turkey established an embassy in Aleppo, and declared that the cross boarder movement was  free for all Syrians, including and especially for the Armenians, emphasized those in our social circle, who had taken advantage of the opportunity and visited Turkey.”

So, without saying a word to anyone, he secured a passport from the state, then a visa from the Turkish embassy, and with a triumphant and beaming face he revealed all this to his parents, who were naturally horrified by the idea that their son, in his mid-teens, will be going to Turkey on his own, to visit Digranakerd, his birthplace where their patriarchal home they left behind was. But to no avail, the teenager had made his mind, driven out of patriotic sentiments towards his hometown. 

As far as I remember, his family left Turkey relatively late, that's why the image of the place was still fresh in his memory, as he told the details of his visit with an authenticity expected from someone who is very familiar with a place and no less because  there was a  listener sitting in front of him who was eagerly and breathlessly devouring his every word and following his every gesture.

Yervant had found in me a captive audience and gave way to his animated storytelling.

- “I went straight to our house, “- he emphasized – “with the impatience of someone who presents himself not only several minutes, but several hours earlier than expected.”

- “I explained my predicament to the new owners. They received me affectionately”, Yervant said.  

But rather than the house, Yervant was more interested to see the cabin they had in the adjacent yard or garden with a pentagonal glass dome. Therefore, he ran straight to the yard, to that cabin, where he spent most of his time and organized his children's games with friends.

The cabin with a pentagonal glass dome was still there, but, Yervant continued telling. 

- “One day I saw a bird on a tree in the yard, I immediately prepared my sling shot, took aim, but the marble missed the bird and hit one of the glass panels of the cabin dome and shattered it. My father punished me for the breakage I caused, but I remained waiting for the glass to be repaired. Time passed, that glass was not replaced when we were deported. And now, looking back, years later, how bitter my feelings became when I saw that the breakage had not been repaired, and pieces of glass remained stuck in the grooves of the empty window frame that seemed to be staring at me.”

 

armenag@gmail.com                  Արմենակ Եղիայեան

 The original:  http://vhapelian.blogspot.com/2023/02/a-language-beehive-bourj-hammoud-4.html