“I love it. Oh, sign me up, Evan. It’s better than a Barbara Stanwyck movie. Oh, it’s grand. I love it!”
And outside, a breeze playing with her marvelous black hair, she said, “I live with my mother and my grandmother, so that’s out. Do you have a place we can go to?”
“Yes.”
“But Owen said something about you not sleeping. I mean-”
“I don’t, but I have a bed.”
“How sweet of you,” she said, taking my arm, “to have a bed.”
Chapter 3
It was about a week after that when I finally did meet Kitty’s grandmother. Kitty had told me several times that I would enjoy the old woman’s story, and she became especially enthusiastic when I showed her my membership card in the League for the Restoration of Cilician Armenia. She had never heard of the group-rather few people have, actually-but she was certain her grandmother would be delighted.
“She has some pretty grim memories,” Kitty said. “She was the only one of the family to get away. The Turks killed everybody else. I have a feeling she got raped in the bargain, but she never said anything about it exactly, and it’s not the kind of subject you discuss with your grandmother. If you’re really interested in all this Armenian jazz, you’ll enjoy her. And she’s getting older, you know, and I think she may be getting a little flaky, so not many people listen to her very much any more.”
“I’d love to meet her.”
“Would you? She’ll be all excited. She’s like a kid sometimes.”
Kitty lived in Brooklyn, just across the bridge, in a neighborhood that was largely Syrian and Lebanese with a scattering of Armenians. We walked from the subway. It was early afternoon. Her mother was out waiting on tables in a neighborhood diner. Her grandmother sat in front of the television set watching one of those afternoon game shows where everyone laughs and smiles all the time.
Kitty said, “Grandma, this is-”