Naneh Sahakyan's Stories
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When one of my friends comes to my place for the first time, I first show my paintings to him or her. I am the creator of most of the drawings but there are also cuttings from various newspapers and journals. “See the hat on that girl's head? I cut it from this journal. Look at this …I painted it. And this is Cinderella with her friend,”
I start explaining.
For years these paper heroes formed my world and I used to play with them for hours on end. “ Nan , can we play too? Can we? Can we?” asked my brother and sister.
I sent them away from my room and closed the door, so that they wouldn't be able to open my boxes and let the paper heroes out. If anyone dared to violate my rules, I stood ready to protect my paper friends. Look, I ruled over these paper men, women, children and the fairy tale heroes, I gave them names, took them to play with in bed whenever I wanted. My brother and sister changed their names and that is the reason I grew mad. It was really unpleasant.
Once I came home and saw my paintings spread on the floor. There were new names written on their back. I stood still. My mother was busy doing something. My brother and sister had turned everything upside down. Mother had done nothing to stop them, though she would have surely done so a few months ago. I wasn't playing with my paper friends any more but still kept them. Then the awful day came…
They took away my pals, my mother let them do this and now I vaguely remember my paper heroes.
Wrote at 14 years old age
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“Oh, Granny, how nice you've knitted!”
I have always admired her work.
“I was very small, when I began to knit,” my granny used to say. “My mother was knitting socks for the front. I was watching her and learning.”
“Granny, you were going to school, weren't you? What were you doing during the holidays?”
“When I was a student my father and brother were soldiers.”
“What were people doing during war?” I went on asking like an idiot, to which granny gave a confused smile.
Then I forgot about war and asked other questions.
“How many schools were there in your village? How many students were there in each class? Look, we are 40 in our class and ours is not the only one.”
“There was an eight-year school in our village which didn't quite look like that of yours. There were only 5-10 students in our class. Few had the opportunity to go to school. Everyone worked to help his or her family. Some never attended school; they very soon became grown-up men.”
“Where did you usually rest during the holidays?”, another stupid question of mine. I didn't then perceive what granny had meant.
“Rest? Don't talk nonsense. I either stayed at home or was in the mountains with my granny, where mother sent me.”
“Oh, granny. You have even been in the mountain… I imagine you there, putting up a tent and having fun with your friends.”
“No, I went there to my granny. Granny used to take our cattle there. And she was a generous one; she never went to the mountains alone. Granny took the village orphans with her, gave them milk and cheese. There was no place in those days, 5-6 persons used to sleep on an ottoman.”
Granny put the knitting - needles aside, heaved a sigh. It seemed her thought floated somewhere else.
“Why did you get sad, granny?” I asked in surprise. “You talk about your childhood. Why then do you get sad? Well, I need to go. We are going to the puppet show with our classmates today.”
“Go, my dear, go”, granny recollected her wits and gave a joyful smile. “Go dear, you will have some nice stories to tell to your grandchildren then. Yes, you should go.”
Granny has died long ago, and it's only now that I understand many of the things she said.
Wrote at 14 years old age
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I was still at home. The phone rang. My friend was calling. I chattered with her a bit and told her I would meet her in the park. It was June, my favorite month. June is fun. I like it when the holidays have started and people haven't left for other places. I don't miss my classmates in June as I can see them in the park and talk for hours on end without having to think about lessons. My sister and brother were ready. Father was not coming with us; he had decided to stay at home and enjoy reading quietly, in peace. Mother put on her shoes and we went out. Everyone thought we were going out for a walk. Please don't tell anyone but I am going somewhere else. I am going to catch a miracle. I take pleasure in watching people walk calmly in no rush.
It was a bit dark in the park, the trees were high and it seemed we were in a crowded wood. I saw an old woman selling sunflower seeds and wanted to buy some from her. I was sure she would ask to weigh myself for a price and I would agree. She would repeat my weight in a gentle voice for the 7th time in a week, 30th time in a month. I wish all people were as kind as this woman. People talk to one another in calm voices – discussing their concerns and everyday difficulties. Sometimes they seem not to listen to one another as they talk and it seems as though they get relieved simply by talking. Maybe only the trees, the Hrazdan River, or the wind listen to them. That's not what matters. Everyone around is calm, very relaxed and that's the most important thing.
Wrote at 15 years old age
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There are mulberry trees in front of all the houses except this one in that street. The tree stands inside, in the garden, it is very small. Mrs. Varsik, our neighbor, has planted it lately. Mulberry tree is very strong, it can grow even among dust unlike the slim and capricious apricot and peach trees which hardly survive in the fertile soil of the garden surrounded with all kind of care. They even manage to complain. Mrs. Varsik felled all the peach trees in the garden and planted a small mulberry tree there. No one argues mulberry trees are for children. Judge yourself who except children will take the trouble of climbing the high branches of the tree and picking the small mulberry seeds. We shake the tree and eat the harvest just there beneath its shadowy branches. Old women have their share in the harvest. They have planted the trees, haven't they?
It was the end of June. The awful wind was shuddering the windows in my room. The whistle coming from outside through the open window wake me up at midnight.
“Never heard of such wind in summertime”, I mumbled half asleep half awoken and came up to the window to close it. Suddenly something moved in Mrs. Varsik's garden.
It was her. She was trying to roll a heavy stump towards her gates. I decided to call on her the next morning. I saw the cut-off trunk at the gates. Then I entered the living-room. There in the center was Mrs. Varsik's refugee son's photo. Her son had left the country being unable to make his living here. He had got married and had children, somewhere far away from his mother. Mrs. Varsik had never seen her grandchildren.
The photo in the center of the room was sent from afar.
“Good morning Grandma Varsik, my granny asks you for a cup of tea”, I said.
“I am writing a letter to my son, we can go together if you wait a bit for me to finish it. Who knows, maybe he will receive it”.
I remembered her writing thousands of letters like this before. She managed to send them somehow but none got to its destination.
“Goody, you go there to the garden, pick some cherries, my backache is awful I cannot do it myself”, she told me.
“Why does your back ache”, I asked meanwhile picking some cherries.
“The wind had opened the gates at night. I went up to close it and found out the lock was gone, so I had to roll the stump to close the door. ”
“Grandma Varsik, you should have left it open, no one would enter your place, it is an ordinary thing, anyone else may have been in your place.”
“I didn't think of someone entering my house, deary, what can they steal from me? I was just afraid the strong wind may root out the mulberry tree I have planted for my grandchildren. I ran out automatically to do something when I heard the wind whirling.”
Mrs. Varsik's mind was only occupied with her son and grandchildren. This was the reason she had planted the tree inside, in the garden, for mulberries not to be dusty, for her grandchildren to come and eat them clean. The mulberry tree will surely grow, its trunk will spread all over the garden, but will Mrs. Varsik's grandchildren be able to be back some day. Will they be able to try the tasty mulberries of their granny?
Wrote at 14 years old age
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“You are a bad girl because you support racial discrimination. You aren’t friendly with people dressed in black. I pity you.”
“But people in black are usually very boring. How can’t you understand this?”
“You are strange, because from time to time you laugh for no reason.”
“That is because my sense of humor is different.”
“You are a show-off, vain; you spend seven hours in front of the mirror.”
“But this is a way of expressing myself. Any branch of art serves this aim.”
“You are very affectionate; you almost tear your brother and sister into pieces, when you play with them.”
“If I had a dog or a cat, I would play with them.”
“Lessons are the only thing you care about. That’s all you do all day long.”
“Can you explain how you came to this conclusion? You can’t answer me, so keep your silly opinion to yourself.”
“You are a great romantic. You care your own worst enemy.
“Is that your problem?”
“You always have an answer to everything.”
“No, I don’t.”
“See, you have it.”
“You won’t win me. Never.”
“You are a selfish girl, who won’t accept defeat.”
“And you do not understand me; you always hurt, as though my tears make you happy. ”
Wrote at 15 years old age
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“Take this money, you may want to eat something,” said my mother and handed me some money.
It’s true my nerves were so shocked that I couldn’t even think, but I could remember that the fifty dram bills were pink. I was crying on the first day as the school guard would not let my mom in. Maybe it was my bad eye that the guard was fired a year after. Then a woman approached me, asked my name and took me upstairs holding me by the hand. She was a kind lady and they did not fire her a year after. She took me to a room where a woman with a set of false teeth was explaining something. Then the bell for the first lesson rang. I heard the bell for the first time and generally everything was new that day. I had never experienced so many new things. I got acquainted with fifty new children. They were talking to one another at the break, but I was a stranger to them. At the end of the classes a girl came up to me and we went downstairs together hand in hand. This I did for the first and the last time. Isn’t it interesting that she was to approach me on the very first day? I was going down the school stairs for the first time in my life. Who could have imagined that later on many-many things were to happen there, on that staircase? I went out to the school playground for the first time.
I love that day; I really love it. I remember everything. That was the most special day in my life that never occurred again.
Wrote at 14 years old age
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“A bit from here, a bit from there…” (The school)
One, two and this is the fifth. These are books, real books. They are nice books and more than that- they are interesting. I have not read them yet but I know. Do not make fun of me, I know they are interesting because I have read their forewords in the library, but I didn’t have time to do more than that. I am a ninth grader and although this is not my last grade there are things to learn from every sphere. Bit from here, bit from there and nothing as a final result. Do you think I should deepen my knowledge in the sphere that I like? This is quite impossible. We are made to study a great amount of things and what we really would like to know and learn has to wait in a long queue for its turn to come. If there were mice in our house they would have long ago gnawed the tall piles of my books, those I keep to read when where is no more school. I wish someone gave me the chance to choose what to study at school. This would both make the process of learning easier and would leave free time for watching a good movie on TV. Oh, I wish they heard me now. You would then have no complains of mine and I would break free from this strain.
Wrote at 15 years old age
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