“They Were, (and) are no more” (Կային, Չկան) is the title of the last chapter of Antranig Zarougian’s “The Greats and the Others” (Մեծերը եւ Միւսները) book where he casts a glimpse of the way an intellectual group of writers related to each other, as poets, novelists, journalists, and editors who propelled the post genocide Western Armenian literature to new heights that subsided with their passing away. The attached is an abridged translated segment from that chapter. Vahe H. Apelian
“ After Rue Richer, the next sanctuary was the “Haratch”1 journal. But there was an important matter I needed to settle first. I have no visa. When I presented myself to the French consulate in Aleppo to get a visa, the consul was M. Delbek (Տելպեք). Even though we knew each other, he pretended not to know me and hence offered me a cool reception and asked me dismissively:
- “Why do you want to visit France?”
Just to have said something, I said:
- “To admire the country.”
He responded with a sharp rebuke:
- ‘But sir, you had ample opportunity to admire France in here, but you lost it.”
His remark was obvious. Syria had just gotten rid of the French mandate with a struggle and the Armenians had naturally sided with the local Arabs. I was supposed to humbly put up with his rebuke and accept his remark and move on. My status as an applicant gave me no other room. However, his one remark, his demeanor and his overt scorn turned into a debate.
- “You, Armenians, are an ungrateful people.”
I realized that my ears started buzzing and I started feeling hot and flushed.
- “Are you telling us that we are ungrateful when, it is simply our gratitude towards the Arabs that compelled us to stand against the French whom we valued. Let us face it. Even if all the Armenians sided you, could you have stayed a day longer?”
I should have stopped here. What I had said could have construed as tolerable. But something else stirred in me and I blurted it out at the cost of endangering my getting a permit to visit France.
- “Mr. Consul, do you remember the events in Cilicia? There too, the Armenian believed in France, but were abandoned. I was four or five years old, but I remember. We were displaced and were in Aintab. An early morning my mother woke me up and told me while crying – ‘Get up, get up, the French have left last night, the Turks now will rush in.” And holding me by my arm and carrying a bundle of rags under her other arm we fled to the Armenian quarter so that the Turks would not slain us. The previous night the French army had left without alerting. Even the Armenian combatants were forbidden to stay put to protect their compatriots. You tell us now that we are ungrateful.”
I was moved and I was left with the impression he too was mellowing down. He fixed his gaze at me for a long time while tapping his desk with his fingers and finally said:
- “Well, well, since you say that you will go to Italy from there, I will issue you a transit visa for France. But admit that you were not in your brightest during the last event.”
It was the first time that I was leaving for overseas and I had no clue what “transit visa” meant. I felt elated and pocketed my stamped passport and left the consulate feeling secure and triumphantly entered Paris. It is after my arrival that I realized the visa the son-of-a-gun Derbetk had issued was only for two days' stay. I had to renew my visa if I wanted to stay longer.
I am now standing in the hall of a government office in front of a closed door trailing a long line waiting for my turn. They invited the attendants three at a time. Finally, my turn arrived after an intolerable wait. I entered the office along with two other Lebanese. I was in between the two. The lady who was going to grant us an extension for our visa was a fat lady, around fifty years old, unsmiling, and bitter looking. The first Lebanese received his extension. I extend to her my passport. Seeing the picture of the Syrian eagle on the cover, she flew into a rage.
-“Sir, you do not like us, we do not like you, we are even. So, get out of here.”
I had not realized that there was such a hatred against the Syrians. I was standing still with the passport in my hands. I could not utter a single word. Nothing of the sort I had said to the French Syrian consul, I dared say here. Aleppo was Armenia to me. Here I am like the legendary king Arshag2 on Persian soil. The witch dismissively gestured at me with her hands to leave and make room for the next applicant, much like she would have, had she been annoyed by a fly.
The Lebanese who was standing behind me hurled a gross insult at her on my behalf. I cannot write the expression here, but it had the Arabic words that sounded much like a “kiss” and “.....” (sounding a profanity). It was refreshing to hear it. But it would not help me in any way.
It was total fiasco. I was visiting Paris for the very first time and before even visiting the Eiffel tower, I was being kicked out. I felt dejected and depressed and went to Hrair Sassouni’s restaurant in Place d’Alexandrie, next to a large tree. My last hope rested on Arshag Chobanian but I was going to see him the following day and thus offered no immediate solution. I explained my predicament to Hrair.
-“ You do not need to go to anyone else, come tomorrow morning and we go and arrange it for you.”
- “But already two days have passed. Tomorrow means that I have overstayed my visa and that scares me.”
- “Come tomorrow at 9 a.m. and do not think,’ he said carrying with his French wife to the kitchen a carton container full of vegetables.
I was wondering whether I should believe him or not when he returned smiling, looked confident, and was very amicable. I was seeing this man for the very first time. From his demeanor and his dress, he appeared to me a street-smart man. I knew that there were some among them who were adroit, enterprising and could get things done. But there were also those who were simply more of a loudmouth than anything else. Which among them was Hrair? I could not dismiss from my mind the dog gampr3 that threw me out. I was envisioning diminutive Hrair in front of that ferocious woman and was sinking more in my despair. But I had no other avenue. I had to wait for tomorrow. I was in a shipwreck.
The next morning, I met him before nine o’clock. We are in the official building. Hrair saluted an official, exchanged joke with another behind a counter. He looked for someone and located him and three of us entered an elevator that took us right in the dog's den. There were a few there. They were all Frenchmen. Among them there was someone who was seating at the edge of a desk with one of his legs touching the floor, the other midair, exchanging pleasantries with that woman. I noticed that she knew how to smile.
No one was paying attention to us. They hardly took notice of us and continued their pleasantries. Hrair’s friend, without asking anyone else, took the square visa stamp, and noted fifteen days on my visa and stamped it and we went down. The whole thing did not last more than five minutes. There were no words exchanged with the lady who would have stamped my visa. I am ecstatic.
When we were in the streets, Hrair posed a moment, and tapped his breast with his palm and with a pompous air, said:
- “Go and tell khalo4 (Garo Sassouni) the kind of status Hrair has attained in Paris.”
But immediately, a bit pensive and almost whispering as if there would be people who would be hearing us, he added:
- “I am joking my dear unger (comrade). It was not a big deal. In the evening they will be showing with three or four friends for dinner and drink a few bottles of wine and that is all to it. Things are done this way here.”
And then, he produced a bundle of cash and gave it to me saying: “When you return to Beirut, give it to our khalo. It’s a gift for the boys. Let him accept it, it's from me.”
Forty years later I am in the Place d’Alexandrie. The big tree is still there. The only things that do not die in France appear to be the trees.
But where is Hrair, his restaurant and thousands of the other grown-up orphans like him? Where are they?
They were, are no more.
Notes
1. Haratch ('Forward') (Armenian: Յառաջ) was an Armenian daily newspaper based in France. Haratch was founded in 1925 by Schavarch Missakian. The newspaper was famous for attracting high profile names in Armenian literature and journalism.
2. King Arshag Legend claims that King Arshag spoke forcefully when stepping on the portion of the rug, in the Persian king’s palace, under which it contained soil from Armenia but not when away from it.
3. Gampr, Gampr (Armenian: գամփռ gamp’ṙ) is an Armenian breed of flock guardian dog native to the Armenian Highlands.
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