by Felleke

We couldn't hear her talk. She was seated at some distance from my brother and me in the Blue Nile Restaurant's boisterous basement. She matter-of-factly cut a piece of injera from the edge of her tray and dexterously folded it around the dilot. No, she did not pinch the wrapped morsel to experiment with the texture; neither did she scrutinize the coarse chunks of the peculiar-for-the-uninitiated entrée.

She opened her mouth and, without a single finger bypassing her lips, dropped the food on her tongue. No, the gursha did not crumble upon touchdown. No, she did not have to barricade her mouth with her arthritic hand to prevent wayward tidbits of tripe from scattering on the communal plate. She simply closed her mouth and...chewed.

Four impeccably coifed fifty-something women in dowdy but exquisitely hand-tailored pleated skirts and ruffled blouses completed the circle at her table.

Impatient with the sluggish service, my older brother vigorously waved his long arm to get the waitress's attention. We had been ready to order fifteen minutes earlier. The waitress unloaded several empty beer bottles off her tray onto the bar counter and began to head in our direction.

She caught the waitress's forearm as the younger women at her table rolled their eyes in annoyance and exasperation. The waitress frowned and attempted to free her arm. Oblivious to the server's flippant demeanor and her companions' excessive formality, she smiled at the waitress, uttering a few indistinct words.

Mortified, the waitress flinched and bowed, deeply. Aghast, the rest of the women on the table looked up and greeted the waitress. She released the young woman's arm and held her face as they kissed at least seven times on each cheek before the rest of the party stretched out their arms, awaiting their turn.

"Don't you remember her?" my older brother asked.

"What do you mean, remember? She's been working in this restaurant for over a year," I grumbled.

"No, not the waitress! I mean the old lady," he said.

"Never seen her before," I insisted.

"That's Madame Hagop. Mme. Hagop Chakarian," he declared.

He was right. That was Mme. Chakarian, our next door neighbor in Seba Dereja. The preferred couturière of the highborn ladies of the ancien régime. Yes, and those were her daughters Nemzar, Eliz, Sirvart and Agata seated around the table--Monsieur and Mme. Chakarian had escaped from Ethiopia at the outset of the revolution, having already sent their daughters to the United States to attend college years earlier.

I wondered what had happened to M. Hagop.

"Let's go and say hello," my brother said. As we approached the Chakarian table, the waitress looked at us sheepishly. My brother walked around the waitress and bowed to the matriarch.

"I know you," Mme. Hagop exclaimed immediately in perfect Amharic. "You're Mekdes's sons."

She tapped her chest several times and murmured, "Esay, esay, esay, esay, esay, yenE lijoch!" She briskly looked over her shoulder and scanned the room. "Is MekdesiyE here? Where are your three sisters?" she asked excitedly. We shook our heads and explained to her that they were all in Addis Abeba. Disappointed, she pulled my brother's arm, kissing him on the cheeks several times over.

The Chakarian siblings' jaws dropped in disbelief. Memory had once again turned her back on them, favoring their octogenarian mother. I embraced and kissed the spry old lady as my brother greeted the sisters one by one. Mme. Chakarian implored the dazed waitress to bring two more chairs.

They appeared at once on either side of Mme. Chakarian. She held the waitress's wrist and looked at us. "Don't you know remember her? Her mother used to do alterations for me during the wedding season when I was swamped with orders. What am I saying? How could you remember her? She had stopped working for me by the time your family moved to our neighborhood. AyE! The nine hundred television channels, the shopping malls, the grocery stores, the drive-through banks, the outlets...you think they're any good for you? They're all like moths. Believe me, by the time they're through with you, your memory will have more holes than the chiffon curtains that used to hang in our Seba Dereja living room. And why not? No more homemade yogurt from our two Borena dairy cows grazing in our lush backyard. It was the daily yogurt diet that had kept my mind sharp. Let's not even talk about the yogurt in this country! Water has better consistency! They steal all the fat out of the milk and leave you with water. Ere'dya, 1% blo wetet!

"Ever since Hagop and I left home twenty-five years ago, I don't remember a thing. But I still mark each day I'm away from home on my 1975 Ethiopian diary, given to me by the Shell gas station owner in Bishoftu. Little did he know that we were on our way out of the country. Of course, there was no way for him to know. Hagop had planned our escape well. Since he didn't want to rouse the suspicions of the servants in our house or the soldiers at the checkpoint in Qaliti, we each carried one overnight bag. Imagine fifty-five years of your life packed into one suitcase! And yet, I surprised myself. I didn't take a single evening gown or any of my favorite bottles of perfume. And at that time, both meant a lot to me. MekdesiyE could tell you how proud I was of my couture. But all I packed were a few simple dresses, a toilet kit, my silver thimble, 12 standard dress patterns, the pincushion my mother brought from Aleppo in 1917, the zigzag scissors Hagop bought for me during our engagement and the photographs of my parents and grandparents. We left Addis Abeba on Qidus Yohannes--it was exactly a week after the brigands had announced the Emperor's death--so the gas station owner had a large stack of freshly printed diaries to give to his loyal customers. We used to fill our tanks at his station on our way back from Hagop's factory. Always!

You should see the diary now. I am almost running out of pages. Sirvart, do you remember? We were with you in Cleveland at that time. At the beginning, I used to draw a large stick per page, believing we'd return soon. But the situation at home went from bad to worse.

Mme. Chakarian chuckled.

"I know your mother wouldn't approve, but I am still very superstitious. Does she still go to Qidist Mariam every morning? You see, there I go again. It wasn't Qidist Mariam. It was SideteNaw Medhanyalem, wasn't it? I used to love attending service there with your mother. It was the most serene and cozy of all the churches in Addis Abeba. I also liked Mariam up on Entoto, but it wasn't as intimate. I don't know, maybe because it was a much larger church or because it was majestically perched on top of the mountain. But SideteNaw almost feels like a chapel in one's own house. Agata, do you know that SideteNaw Medhanyalem is Godfather to all of Mekdes's children? Your mother's smart, Yosef. He'll be sure that all of you, all five of his Godchildren, are protected in exile. But it's not just you. We all need him as our Godfather.

Where was I? You see how my mind wanders. Yes, superstitions! As the years went by I became more and more afraid of running out of space in the Shell diary while still remaining in this country, so I drew smaller and smaller sticks. Now, there are only two empty pages left. I don't know what I'll do the day I cross the last four vertical sticks with the final horizontal slash. But we will return before that happens, won't we? Things will change back home. They must! We've been away for twenty-five years, eight months and five days today. I have had enough!"

Mme. Chakarian sobbed quietly and dubbed her eyes with her handkerchief.

Nobody in our group stirred. The siblings stared in silence at their nearly empty tray. Nemzar's cheeks were wet with tears but she didn't bother wiping them off. I looked at the empty chairs next to Mme. Chakarian but didn't dare sit down. I shifted my weight to my left leg.

"If only I had been more patient, more understanding with my mother. I'm certain that the quarter of century banishment from my home is penance for my behavior toward her. It's only after I came to this country that I finally understood her incurable despondency. She was never fully content in Ethiopia. I didn't know any other home so I was irritated with her. Always pining away for Aleppo. That was the town from which my family came, you know. Right on the border between present-day Turkey and Syria. Were you and fifteen thousand of Aleppo's other Armenian residents not carted and abandoned in the desert? I would sneer. Did they not massacre and dump the mutilated bodies of your mother and most of your neighbors into the Euphrates River during the genocide? I would taunt. Were you not relieved when Negest and Ras Teferi offered sanctuary to you and what was left of your family? I would ask brutally. She would nod her head and squint after each question. After subjecting herself to my relentless torture, she would sniffle and resume her work on her handmade Armenian lace collars. After a few minutes she would stubbornly whisper, "But I still miss my home!"

Mme. Chakarian blew her nose with her lace handkerchief and looked up at us. Her teary eyes glistened in the candlelight. "Ere, ere, ere, ere, I've kept you standing all this time. Why didn't you sit down? Please sit down. ErE beMekdesiyE mot!"

We complied and sat on either side of her. She looked up at the waitress and entreated her to grab a chair for herself. The waitress excused herself and abruptly left the table. Mme. Chakarian held my hand and looked down.

"Hagop begged me to bury him back home before he left me five years ago," Mme. Chakarian continued.

"Mama, bakish! Don't." Nemzar interrupted. "You know you're only going to make yourself more miserable."

Mme. Chakarian folded her handkerchief and slid it into the cuff of her gray cashmere cardigan. She picked up a white thread dangling over a pearl button and twirled it between her fingers.

All of a sudden, Mme. Chakarian resolutely rolled the thread into a ball and dropped into an empty ashtray. She turned toward my older brother. "Tell me, how could I take him back? Almost every one that we knew, everyone that we grew up with, has either been killed or has left the country. If not, they've died from complications of all kind of failures: kidney, heart, liver, pancreas, lungs. I could go on! But I couldn't take him back. I couldn't! Hagop, you'll forgive me, won't you? I did, however, refuse that nonsense about the open casket. Demo open casket blo neger! Hagop, what kind of a country did you bring me to? Mind you, I didn't give up without making any effort. I had even contacted Father Khachadour at the Armenian Church in Addis Abeba and had purchased the airplane tickets for both of us. But the day before our departure my blood sugar level hit the roof! They had to hospitalize me for a few days. I just couldn't do it!"

Mme. Chakarian pulled out the handkerchief from her cuff and wiped her nose.

"It's all right. He has already forgiven me. He has! After all, he wouldn't want a wake with just hired pallbearers and me, would he? He deserves better. He deserves much better!"

Mme. Chakarian looked up at me sharply. "Yet abatu! Ya barya hulachinin sideteNa adergo rasu Tefa," she said bitterly.

I turned away and bristled in spite of myself. Startled, Nemzar glanced at me for a split second.

Mme. Chakarian's mother's defiant whisper echoed in my ear, "But I still miss my home. But I still miss my home. But I still miss my home."