Copyright by Ann Bandazian 200, 2004

From the youngest age rebellion was present in Luceen's life. Up to the age of five she rarely tuned into the talk of her father and his friends. Life was extremely complicated--much more for this first generation American.

Before the twins were born and before what was oddly called The Great Depression, Luceen thrived in her parent's love and admiration. She was taught Armenian folk songs, poems, and children's prayers which she performed altogether for any audience without hesitation. Patient relatives listened hoping that either considerate parent would call an end to the recital so they could talk of really urgent matters. Sometimes her father would say,

"Guhneeg, al guh pahveh-" ('Woman, that's enough')

Luceen lived in a warm cocoon of love. She knew she was wonderful-- a cheerful angel. With what seemed the sudden and mysterious appearance of her twin baby sisters, the sun was blotted from her golden world. Laughter dried. No more performances were requested. Grayness intensified as her parents became more and more preoccupied with the welfare of their family" on the other side"

--a sad, foreign, ghostly place. Their worry was always about safety and money.

The story kept secret by all but very few relatives really began shortly after Raffi's father left Armenia with his younger brother and two cousins from the same village-- Pehri in Kharpert. Their goal some said was to buy a soap factory, dismantle it and bring it to Armenia. Others said it was to flee a Turk his father had angered

Raffi's mother, Ahnoush, stood helplessly by as her hot-headed bridegroom, Aram, filled with plans and dreams, left her with relatives--promising he would return soon. Ahnoush had no immediate family as she was an orphan.

Aram promised his relatives that he'd be back in a few months with a business valuable to their area. He said he would stay with Ahnoush's older sister who was married and living in Chicago.

Ahnoush's relatives never approved of the man with whom she had eloped. Aram had a reputation as a gambler and adventurer. His handsome good looks coupled with poetic words of love, convinced Ahnoush to elope. Once they'd slept together, the families were forced to make the best of it with a church wedding which gave the union the appearance of propriety.

Three months after he left her, Aram wrote jubilantly that he, his brother and their cousins had succeeded in buying a modest soap factory. It was being dismantled he wrote and he'd soon be back home with her.

His letter reached Ahnoush at the same moment that Europe quaked and flamed into war. Aram became irrevocably stranded in the United States of America.

The most relaible version of the story had it that Ahnoush was finishing the family wash at a brook a slight distance from the village. All the women except her widowed Aunt Helena and little Berjig had finished their wash and left.

Ahnoush was a pearl, a plum, a dove, a beauty with huge almond shaped dark eyes, delicately arched eyebrows, wavy black hair, full lips, and flawless skin. She was of medium stature and her body was more voluptuous than thin.

Whenever the Kaimaikam, the civil governor of their district, rode his purebred Arabian horse through their village, he looked for the beautiful Ahnoush. She was innocent of his lust but was instructed from childhood to conceal her face from the view of Turkish men. Sometimes during play, she was careless about concealing her face with her head scarf. There were many kidnappings and beautiful girls just tragically disappeared.

One day towards dusk, the Kaimaikam had one of his men disguised as a Mullah,(a priest) to wait and watch Ahnoush for the right moment-the right moment when she might be preoccupied and more or less alone.

Ahnoush dreamily gathered the wash. She was picturing her reunion with Aram and his joy when she would tell him that she was pregnant.

Little Berjig was hiding behind a tree and Aunt Helena was pretending to search for her without success. At this moment in the midst of Ahnoush's imaginings, the Mullah, swooped down, threw a huge kelim over her, flung her on his horse and raced to the Kaimaikam's official residence. Aunt Helena turned in time to see the barbaric abduction. She ran after the horse but was left frightened and desolate in a cloud of dust. Ahnoush's screams were strangled in her terror paralyzed throat.

Once inside the Kaimaikam's residence, she was released. There were five other young women in the large room with her. Three of the girls were Armenians and tried to comfort the hysterical Ahnoush. They too had been abducted and raped many times. In paroxysms she told them that her husband was in America and that she was pregnant.

An old woman entered the room and said in Turkish that Ahnoush must be bathed to prepare herself for an audience with the Kaimaikam.

Unable to move, she was pushed by the old woman and two other wormen to a room blurry with steam. The Armenian girls stayed behind unable to save her from what would surely end in rape.

Ahnoush was firmly held and scrubbed with scalding water. Then she was wrapped in a vast towel sheet, oiled and perfumed. Her clothes were thrown into a woven reed basket. Somewhat large, peach colored trousers were pulled onto her lower body and a similarly large, coral colored tunic covered her upper body. The old woman undid Ahnoush's braid and brushed her wavy hair into an ebony cloud. Ahnoush wept the entire time.

She prayed ceaselessly. It was only prayer that sustained her from the time she lost her parents and Aram left for America. At this moment, in the middle of her prayers, Ahnoush was struck with severe abdominal pain and doubled over crying.

"God--the baby! For the love of God--someone help me! Please, help me-"

The Armenian girls rushed into the room but were pushed outside. The old women and her assistants lifted Ahnoush onto a couch and covered her with a woolen shawl. While Ahnoush writhed in pain, the three Turkish women whispered. It was obvious they were wondering what to tell the Kaimaikam and how he might punish them. They fled from the room leaving Ahnoush alone, in pain and terrified.

Amazingly the bleeding stopped. Her pregnancy remained intact. Ahnoush slept on the floor on woolen quilts with the other girls. Throughout the night, her harem mates came to ask in whispers how she was doing.

Ahnoush didn't see the Kaimaikam for two weeks. Perhaps he'd forgotten about her. She said,

"I have faith. God is good."

God was elsewhere being good. The Kaimaikam hadn't forgotten about Ahnoush, the dove, the plum- While she wept he raped her. The next time he came to use her, she wept and he stopped to beat her and then stormed away. Though she had several bruises, he was careful not to seriously injure her. The Kaimaikam wanted babies from Ahnoush. The raping continued many times in the weeks that followed. Ahnoush lost count of the times and she lost Aram's baby.

When she became pregnant with the Kaimaikam's baby, her Armenian sisters helped her abort herself.

Ahnoush's duties during the day were confined to working in the garden.

The days passed. The months. A year. Prayers and dreams sporadially sustained her. She aborted two more pregnancies by the Kaimaikam.

The deportation death marches began with unrelenting, bloody savagery. Weapons were whatever was handy--often butcher's ax-like knives and tanners' circular knives. After being repeatedly raped the previous night, the naked corpses of girls as young as eight or ten were thrown in the roads. Old men, women and children were clubbed, beaten and lashed as if they were wild animals.

Those of Ahnoush's family who survived, wound up in Syria or Lebanon where they were mercifully allowed sanctuary. Aunt Helena and Berjig continuously told everyone the story of Ahnoush's abduction. No one had the courage to write Aram the dreadful news.

The relatives agreed that somehow Ahnoush had to be rescued. After much speculation and some disagreement, it was finally agreed that there was only one man- Levon, Aram's nephew--who might be able to save her. Levon spoke and wrote in Turkish. He thought he could pass himself off as a teacher. But he would have to disguise himself. Only Aunt Helena knew the final plan.

Dressed in Turkish robes and wearing a clumsy tarboosh on his head, he rode his horse, Aghpahr, past the Kaimaiham's residence several times before he was able to determine Ahnoush's schedule. When he was absolutely certain of the times of the day when she worked in the garden, he rode close to her and whispered that he was Levon. Stunned, she whispered that he couldn't possibly be Levon. Exasperated and desperate for their immediate escape, Levon wondered how to convince her of his identity. Suddenly, he remembered the arrow shaped scar on his forehead. He quickly lifted the tarboosh making the scar visible. Ahnoush stared in speechless astonishment. Levon indicated that she was to follow him. When they were in a grove of trees, she climbed upon the horse and holding tight to his waist, they quietly with incredible haste rode away.

By the time she was finally reunited with Aram in France, he had already heard the awful story. Now he had a wife who had been repeatedly raped and was made pregant by the Kaimaikam. Aram became wild with an anger--a rage which stayed with him all his life. He tried to deny the events of her abduction but they were horrible fact.

Aram and Ahnoush became convinced that only a baby of their own could restore health to their marriage. The self-abortions had done a mysterious damage to Ahnoush's body and spirit. Each time she became pregant she lost the baby. Each lost baby renewed wounds of grief and outrage.

Finally, her older sister in Chicago wrote that there was a skilled Armenian doctor who specialized in women's reproductive problems. She invited Ahnoush to come and see him.

"Dear Sister, I ache to see you. You must come and see Dr. Movsessian. He's a very capable man whose family came from Kharpert too- Like us, they have known loss-"

Aram was dead set against sending his wife to a doctor in Chicago even though he was a fellow Armenian. The very thought of one more man touching his wife's private body parts, inflammed him. His sister wrote calling Aram a giant stupid squash head paralyzed in conservatism. Ahnoush was no limp fading flower. She stood straight and strong saying,

"Aram, I'm going to take the train to Chicago. When I return you'll see-- I will be pregnant in six months."

Neither Anoush's sister nor Ahnoush talked about what the doctor said or did. The truth was that Aram wouldn't have understood the details anyway.

What was important was Ahnoush's prediction. Not six--but five months later, she was pregnant. Raffi was born at home. The labor and delivery were murderous. But such heavenly joy came to Aram and Ahnoush that they avoided the story of her abduction, rapes and pregnancies as long as they both lived. But Ahnoush never forgot or forgave.

Everyone pronounced Raffi God's perfect gift. For a few short years Aram felt blessed. Raffi was their only child.

Ahnoush adored him. Her premature death from a ruptured appendix and peritonitis took her from Raffi and Aram. Raffi was thirteen years old and confused about the enormity of what had happened.

Luceen's grandfather was called Kazar Aga. Aga was a title of honor and respect. He was slim and tall--his height further accentuated by wearing the fez as was the custom. Fine beaked nose and heavy brows belied a gentle man of solemn bearing. Kazar's wife died in childbirth leaving two children--Hovsep and Teriz.

The age of the children was not clear to Luceen. The story which she was told focused mainly on her grandmother. For Kazar and his family there was grief and bewilderment. Who would raise the extremely young children?

Neighbors and relatives came together to discuss who might succeed Kazar's first wife. Someone suggested an eighteen year old girl whose name was Khanum Ichmalian. Khanum means a very grand woman. The eighteen year old had little say in the discussions. One thing was certain everyone had to act quickly as the children needed a mother.

The family went to Khanum's parents and asked if they would give their permission for her marriage. They truthfully said that Kazar was nearly twenty years older than the prospective bride. Stately and six feet tall of stately bearing, Kazar gave the appearance of being a giant. In her stocking fee, Khanum was five foot three. Her parents after reviewing all Kazar's qualifications, gave their permission.

Luceen often heard the legend that her grandfather owned and managed a large commercial bakery, had vineyards and property. He also had servants who worked in the house as well as others who worked in the fields and vineyards. He was considered a man of means.

Prior to and on their wedding day neither Kazar nor Khanum had ever seen eachother--at least that they would have noticed or remembered. Their relatives thought it best to have the wedding at Kazar's house early in the morning. To avoid confrontation with the Turks, they had to keep the ceremony as quiet as possible and the priest not seen. The Turks were always talking about wanting to kill Armenians and especially fancied Armenian girls.

At the point in the ceremony when the priest asked Khanum if she would take this man to be her husband, she looked up and saw Kazar for the first time--a tall, older man with handlebar mustache. She fainted.

A murmur went up among the wedding guests,

"Oh, God! The bride has died! The bride is dead!"

A few others, more collected, ran for water to splash on the young bride's face. With the shock of the cold water, Khanum regained consciousness. The ceremony was quickly finished. It now dawned on Khanum that she was wife to Kazar and mother to his two children--Teriz and Hovsep.

Young Khanum proved to be an devoted wife and mother. Of her children who survived the first and eldest was Marta, Luceen's mother--a woman so stoic, strong and commanding she should have been carved in stone -a veritable Generalisimo.

CHAPTER 4

THE STORY OF LUCEEN'S FATHER

When Kehvork, now called George, was nearly seventeen, he fled occupied Armenia as the Turks were drafting young boys into the Army. Being in the Army of the conqueror could mean intolerable treatment, crippling injury or death. He might even be called upon to murder his own people.

Kehvork loved poetry and the works of the great Armenian writers and translations of Shakespear, Victor Hugo, Alexander Dumas, and several of the great Russian writers. Kehvork was the eldest of four children born to Shoushan his brilliant but illiterate mother. His father, Hahgop (for Jacob), ran a small bakery.

Kehvork was an acolyte in the Armenian Apostolic church in the village of Yeghehkee. He enjoyed this position in the church but loudly proclaimed his dislike for the overbearing, pompous priest.

He had just begun learning the tinsmith's trade when his father, a harsh man, said,

"Son, it's time for you to find your way to America before the Turks grab you. We didn't register your birth until you were two years old- so they don't know your actual age--but they'll soon be after you. I'll give you gold pieces to carefully and prudently use on your travels."

Thus his education ended abruptly and he never fully learned the tinsmith's art.

His mother wept to near sickness when he left. But Kehvork was filled with all the hope and excitement of the young. He had no worries about the dangers he might encounter along the way.

His father also told Kehvork that he was going to write to Uncle Ahrahkel to meet him in New York and help Kehvork get settled. Uncle Ahrahkel would also be sent money to help in this process.

So, Kehvork set out with two other boys the same age. On donkey, on horse, on cart, on foot they traveled eventually winding up in Cyprus. It had been a difficult journey and he was still thousands of miles from his destination. In Cyprus Kehvork developed an eye infecton. He knew from letters af other immigrants that the officials in the United States of America were death on eye infections and he would be barred from entering the country.

A witchy Cyprus woman said she would cure his infection for one gold piece. Precious as it was, and loathe as he was to part from it, Kehvork had no other alternative. He paid the woman the gold piece. She put some boiled herbs on his eye but it remained infected. His two friends left him in Cyprus saying they hoped to meet him in Marseille, France. A few weeks later nature healed Kehvork's eye but he was one valuable gold piece poorer.

When he finally arrived in Marseille and located the Armenian community, he discovered that his friends had already left for America. He sent a postcard to his family who were frantic with worry saying he had safely arrived in France. He said he had had an eye infection which was better now. He neglected mentioning the witch doctor woman and the loss of one gold piece.

His trip to America was on an enormous ship filled with people from a dozen other countries. Kehvork found the voyage exciting and the emigrants from other countries interesting. He only had a bare trace of ocean sickness.

In dense fog the ship landed in New York two weeks before Christmas. Kehvork walked back and forth, back and forth searching for cousin Ahrahkel but he was nowhere in sight. His heart sank to his belly in total despair. He now had only one gold piece left. He didn't know a thing about American money and knew only a little high school English. Confused and heartsick, he sat on his lumpy bundle of clothes and his precious lamb's wool quilt.

As he was sunk in despair, he saw two men who looked Armenian--if there was such a thing as looking Armenian. He listened intently as they spoke and it was his blessed language. Furthermore, they were talking about the Armenian Revolutionary Federation which was Kehvork's all consuming passion. He said in Armenian,

"Excuse me, Gentlemen. My name is Kehvork Manoogian. I was to be met by my cousin Ahrahkel Davidian, but somehow, our communications have gotten confused-"

The older of the two gentlemen introduced himself as Boghos Goshgarian and said he'd be happy to assist Kehvork through immigration. When Kehvork said his father was a member of the Armenian Revolutionary Federation and now that he was old enough he too was going to join, Boghos was ready to adopt him as a son.

He was taken to Boghos' apartment in Brooklyn, New York where he was fed an enormous Armenian meal cooked by Boghos' wife, Serahnoush. Her name meant "sweet love" and she was certainly that. Lucky Bopghos. All during the meal Boghos and his cousin, Ahsadour, talked about the growing membership of the Armenian Revolutionary Federation in America and Europe.

After a bath and clean clothes, Serahnoush urged Kehvork to get some sleep. He put his quilt down on the parlor floor over a beautiful Oriental rug and slept like one dead.

The next morning, Boghos and Ahsadour were up before Kehvork. Boghos was going to work and taking Ahsadour with him. He hoped to charm and persuade the foreman to find a job for his friend. To make things easier, Boghos gave Ahsadour the English name of Oscar. Serahnoush provided Kehvork with soap and towel. He hurried to join the men now nearly finished with their breakfast.

Boghos got right down to business. He counted four dollars from his wallet--a onsiderable sum for that time. Giving it to Kehvork he said,

"Kehvork, my boy- we have to go now to catch the seven-o'clock bus. Serahnoush will go with you to the bus terminal where you can catch the bus to Worcester. From the bus station in Worcester you can telephone your relatives. Someone there will help you use the telephone."

Kehvork said,

"Unger (comrade) Boghos, how can I ever thank you and your noble wife? I will send a money order for the money you have given me-"

Boghos said,

"No-son-- no money order. We are Armenians and comrades and we share everything we have with one another. God go with you."

Both men stood to leave. Boghos nodded goodbye to his wife and added,

"Shunohrahgal yenk, guhnig.(we are grateful,woman)." which was fancy phrasing for "thank you."

Boghos and Ahsadour wiped their mouths with paper napkins, shook hands with Kehvork and left.

All went smoothly for Kehvork at the bus terminal. The trip to Worcester was amazing. Everything in America was very big. Big people. Big houses. Big farms. Big factories. And trees- so many trees!

At the bus terminal in Worcester he was able to make himself understood to a young female employee who dialed the phone number for him. In a minute he was talking with cousin Rupen.

Rupen came to the bus terminal where Kehvork and he had an emotional meeting. At Rupen's house there were more hugs and kisses and tears. Upon inquiring about cousin Ahrakel, he learned that his cousin was in the hospital having narrowly survived gall bladder surgery. Kehvork said,

"No wonder the poor man couldn't meet me in New York-"

Rupen's hospitality was generous but the apartment was crowded with Rupen's wife, their two children, his mother-in-law, and his widowed mother.

Two weeks after his arrival, Kehvork who was now called George, went to the local hall of the Armenian Revolutionary Federation and quickly banded together with three other Armenians from Kahrpert, their home state in Armenia.

They welcomed him into their two bedroom apartment which they shared with one other Armenian from the village of Pehri. They cooked meals together--some of them a mess--others edible. With the leftover kaymah--a sort of steak tartare--they made kufta--a sort of meatball etc. etc.

After breakfasting on soup, they went looking for employment. The English they spoke was pitiful even though they had studied both English and French in school--and naturally they knew the language of their conqueror, occupier, and oppressor-- Turkish.

At night they read the Armenian paper. They told stories sad, humorous and exaggerated. Ahlexsahn played the oud, a sort of lute. They sang familiar folk songs loudly and with fervor. There was one about sitting under the apple tree with a young man's beloved. Another humorous one was about a demanding woman, Yeghsa, who wanted a fur coat, a diamond ring etc. and poor Ahgoh saying he'd give her every thing she demanded--Each phrase was ended with "oh-oh-oh-oh-Yehso-jahn-"

The comrades also sang the songs of the freedom fighters

There was no moon

It was a dark night

one small group walked quickly, quickly-

The news from home was bad. George's uncle wrote that the Turks had shot his father. He grieved a short while for his father but worried about his mother who had been slightly crippled from an injury sustained during her birth. And what would happen to his sister and two brothers?

George found a job in a wire factory. It was no surprise that a man like George with lively intelligence and sensitive nature was soon bored. This job was in a deafeningly noisy factory with grease everywhere on his person and clothing, Then there was the loneliness of working with other foreigners. After a while they all found ways of communicating. George felt warmly towards many of them but they weren't his people.

Before the year was up, George heard from several of his A.R.F. comrades about livelier times in Chicago. He packed his belongings into one large cardbard suitcase and took the train to Chicago. The job this time was in another factory, not quite as noisy as the first but also greasy dark and isolating. George sent most of his pay to his family, who were now refugees dispersed in Jordan and Lyon, France.

George loved fine clothes and became a fashionable dresser. He boasted that he never wore cheap clothes. When Chicago lost its charm, he returned to Massachusetts and found a job working in a shoe factory.

CHAPTER 5

The story of Luceen's Father--continued

On the subject of names, most of the early immigrants had two first names--their Armenian name and then some English approximation of the name which was commonly used in American society. This also applied to many first generation Armenian children.

While he was working in the shoe factory, the war in Europe became a war for America. Whether it was due to patriotism for his new country or an ache for adventure, George joined the United States Army. He loved his adopted country and was extremely patriotic all his life loudly declaring all dissidents should be stood against the wall and shot.

Soon after basic training at Camp Meade, George was sent to work in the poison gas plant in Niagara Falls. He claimed that the gas prematurely turned his hair white. Some of his fellow soldiers became quite sick. Whatever the cause, it was evil. At his first opportunity,George decided he'd get the hell out of the poison gas factory.

One day the Sargent came to his group and asked,

"Anyone here a cook?"

George quickly raised his hand,

"I am, Sargent."

The Sargent said,

"O.K. Follow me, soldier-"

Years later George insisted that he wasn't lying when he said he was a cook. Hadn't he worked in his father's bakery?- His wife, Marta,happy to boast always interrupted,

"But our family had a bakery too. You must have heard that ours was much bigger. Anyone from Mehzirah can tell you how rich we were. We had vineyards all over the village, a seventeen room house, workers in the vineyards and helpers at our houses. And we had another house in the city-"

At this point, George mimed playing a violin--intimating that she was exaggerating which infuriated Mart and gave George great glee. Marta was a very serious woman.

After the war and George's discharge from the Army, he went to work in another factory. This employment too was short-lived. Then he traveled by train to Philadelphia, Providence and Boston visiting his Armenian revolutionary comrades.

The newly rented A.R.F. hall quickly became a second home where George played "tahvloo" backgammon--and drank the bitter Armenian coffee served in delicate demi-tasse cups and where they loudly and passionately discussed politics--national, international, and Armenian. If one didn't know this was their way, they'd swear assault and murder were seconds away.

When George was thirty-two, his mother dictated a letter which his sister wrote.

"Kehvork, my son--my soul, it's time you married and settled down. There's no future in erunning around. I have in mind a very nice girl from our village. You perhaps remember the Derderians. Her father is called, "Bedros Agha" because he is so respected for his intelligence, generosity, and gentleness. His eldest daughter, Marta, is a fine, serious girl and very intelligent. She works in the office of the school principal. Some say that she even went to Euphrates College-

I'll talk with her family--that is, her parents and older, half-brother Hovsep.

You write to her and send a picture of yourself in your American Army uniform. You look very beautiful in it. All day long I pray for your safety and happiness. Zarouhi has put Marta's address in this letter on another piece of paper.

God bless you, my son. All my love--"Maihreeg" Mother.

The letter was written by his only sister, a tiny firecracker of a woman who married an Armenian from Russia. Though his mother never had the opportunity to learn to read or write, she made up for that lack with blazing courage, an incredibly sharp intelligence with a rapier tongue to match, and a beautiful singing voice. Whenever irked by any Turk, she lashed out fearlessly with threats and curses. Shoushan, that was her name, frequently sang in a clear lovely voice-- including the very day she died. When she was informed of her husband's murder by the Turks, she cooly without sign of grief simply said,

"He was a harsh man."

Very few Armenian children of any age dared disobey their parent's wishes or recommendations. And George was no different. He wrote the letter to Marta as ordered and inclosed a fairly flattering picture of himself.

At the end of his letter, George wrote to Marta that he'd send money for her passage to Cuba where they'd meet. If she liked him, they would get married in Havanna and travel by train from Florida up the coast of America to Oakwood. If for any reason she was disappointed or displeased on meeting him, he would pay for her passage back to her family now living in Aleppo, Syria.

Marta would, in effect, be meeting a stranger. She found comfort in learning that there were no drunkards, criminals or village idiots in his family. Though he was now a member of the radical Armenian Revolutionary Federation made up of many intellectuals, she persuaded herself that fatherhood responsibilities would weaken his attachment to the revolutionaries.

Marta wasn't keen on revolutionaries but her options for marrying a suitable man were poor. As a result of periodic bloodletting the Turks had left few eligible men. Most men had either been slaughtered or escaped to other countries.

At age twenty-four people were beginning to refer to Marta as a spinster. Her hair style was severe and the dresses she wore were always black, brown,or dark blue and without lace of other ornamentation. She wore no powder or rouge. Thanks to her rigid Protestant religion and the grim facts of her life, Marta seldom laughed and wasn't of a flirtatious nature.

Above all else, Marta honored family responsibilities. It wasn't difficult to realize that if she married this man, Kehvork/George, she would settle in America--a land of financial comfort-- and she could save enough money to gradually bring her family into a protected haven. She prayed and prayed that she would find George a good man--one not too difficult in temperament--one she could live with. Love was never a consideration--any kind of love.

In later years when Marta told the story, George always said to whomever was listening,

"And she jumped on the next boat in her rush to marry me."

But dust never settled on Marta. She always snapped back,

"Don't flatter yourself, George. You weren't the only short, good looking man in Armenia."

They both enjoyed this banter which was a kind of flirting.

On the day of Marta's departure, her mother threw herself on the ground and wept as if her daughter had died. She cried with the same shattering grief when each of her three daughters left for America.

When only Seerahn was left, she said,

"That's it. I won't allow Seerahn to go to America. She must stay or I will die--I swear I will die. My heart can tolerate no more."

Seerahn remained with her parents until both died--not surprisingly within a year of eachother. Thereafter, Seerahn joined her sisters in America leaving their brother, Antranig and older half-brother, Hovsep to their export business.

With a few pieces of gold jewelry sewed into the hems of her clothing, Marta heroically set off on the frightening ocean voyage to Cuba. Once settled in the United States, she would sell the jwelery and send the money to help the rest of the family come to Americal. It didn't happen the way they planned because as they often said-- man proposes--God disposes.

On the boat Marta met two other Armenian girls who like Marta were coming to Cuba hoping to marry Armenian men--matches arranged by relatives.

Sometimes when these girls met their prospective husbands, the shock was stunning. Men old enough to be their fathers had sent pictures of themselves taken twenty years earlier. Most women made the best of the situation. They sewed, cooked, did the laundry, cleaned their apartments, saved money, found part-time jobs, bore and raised children. When the husbands became ill, they nursed them.

When their elderly husbands died, they inherited enough money to live in a frugal manner. Sometimes a widower with children asked these women through an intermediary to be his wife and mother to his children. Out of economic necessity the young women most often agreed. Though their lives afterwards were difficult, they also had happy and joyful days. Divorce they believed was the province of whores or royalty and not an option for them. Marta only knew of one divorce among the girls who married elderly men.

Marta was pleasantly surprised to discover that George resembled the picture he'd sent. He was the same height as she and at five foot five. She considered herself to be tall. Overall his features were pleasing--his eyes hazel and coloring ruddy fair. George displayed good manners. His speech suggested that he was educated and not the speech of a peasant. Marta decided to agree to his proposal of marriage.

With hope--with resignation--and with courage Marta went along with George's plans. His thoughts were perhaps similar to Marta's. It was prearranged that they would spend the first two days of their honeymoon at the home of distant relatives who lived in Havana. The relative managed to secure a justice of peace who would also perform the actual ceremony.

As George told it,

"This justice of the peace wiped his hands on his overalls and said some things in Spanish. We didn't understand a word. He could have been swearing at us-"

Marta who had barely said six words, exclaimed,

"Oh, George, don't make jokes. Be serious."

George said,

"Well, I didn't understand a word. Did you? And then suddenly our relatives told us we were married. That was that."

Though Luceen had heard this story many times, she loved it and loved acting horrified for the benefit of her younger twin sisters, Norma and Diana.

She teased,

"Mom, how do we know you and Daddy are legally married? We could be illegitimate-"

Marta snapped,

"Don't talk like a crazy person,Luceen. We have the marriage certificate."

On the day of their marriage, it turned out that Marta had occasion to worry that she'd made a reckless choice of this man as husband.

Their host was a very religious man. George later described him as a dim-witted, frustrated haberdasher who secretly longed to be a minister.

That first night Marta who ached to get some sleep asked to be excused but no one was listening. So she stayed with them trying to suppress her yawns. Then George and the man became involved in talk about God.

The man said,

"It's a great comfort to me that I talk with God every day."

George said,

"Yes- I understand. Of course, you talk with God in prayer."

The man said,

"No. Every night I talk with God- in person-right in my bedroom."

"Come on, man- admit that you imagine that you see Him-"

"You're wrong, brother. If I wanted, I could touch Him-"

George's face turned red with anger,

"I'm sorry to say I don't believe you."

The man said,

"Are you saying that I'm a lier?"

Marta heard and jumped from her drowsiness. The man's wife coughed nervously.

The man said,

"Whether you believe it or not, God stands by my bed and I talk with Him just the way you and I are talking now. The trouble is- you have no faith."

George's face became darker scarlet,

"Very well then, brother- I'll stay awake with you tonight and we'll wait for God to come and talk to you!"

Marta wanted to die. How could she have made such an awful mistake agreeing to marry this outspoken, quarrelsome man. She might have known--a revolutionary. Alas, there was no running away now. For the sake of her family she had to make the best of it.

At this point, God actually did jump in and gave the man's wife an exit strategy. She told her husband she felt sick and needed her medication. His attention was fastened on George. He seemed not to hear her. She repeated that she felt very sick and needed her pills before her headache became worse.

Marta glared at George who had been having the best fun arguing with this frustrated non-minister. George's expression now was that of impish glee.

Marta said,

"That's odd- I feel a slight headache myself."

George got the message and remembering his new bride, said,

"Yes, we've all had a tiring day. If you don't mind, we'll be going to our room."

They all wished eachother a good night. And the man who talked to God in such proximity that he could touch Him, followed his wife to their bedroom.

Marta and George went to a small room with one small window. In this small room there was a sewing machine, boxes of unsold haberdashery, a rocking chair, a small dresser with a smokey mirror, a small bed, many embroidered pillows and a heavy Armenian wool quilt.

Feeling icey after her new husband's maddening performance, Marta turned her back to George,and spoke not a single word to him all night. A few tears of exhaustion and disappointment slipped from her eyes. She didn't sob and slept poorly. George had no regrets about his sparring with the man who spoke to God in the flesh.

After saying,

"Goodnight, wife," he immediately fell soundly asleep with occasonal snoring.

George and Marta didn't expect to become rich Americans --like those they saw in films. They didn't even expect comfortable living standards. Most of their fellow immigrant Armenians lived in city cold flats and lived as frugally as they had in Armenia or the land formerly known as Armenia--now divided between the Russians and the Turks.

When their tiny gem, Luceen, was born, they moved out of Uncle Setrahg's apartment to a tenement in the Soutwest part of the city. Their new house was brick. There was still remained evidence that it once was a fine house with ornate fixtures for gas lamps on the walls. Though it was a climb to their third floor home and the top of the house, they were young and it was no special hardship.

George bought bedroom furniture "on time" from Greenberg and Beatman who were reasonable and compassionate fellows. Each week George religously brought the partners a small payment. Some of their furniture was given to them by Armenians who had graduated to better furniture. George returned to Greenberg and Beatman to buy an ice box and kitchen furniture--once again on the same time payment plan.

All George's friends were members of the Armenian Revolutionary Federation. Their wives became Marta's friends. One of George's A.R.F. comrades, a thoughtful deep thinker, Sehnek became Godfather to Luceen. His wife. Vergeen, who had done nursing in the old country, became Godmother. Sehnek worked as a general handy man for a very wealthy woman. He was the first Armenian they knew who owned a car.

Although Takouhi was from Sahmsohn, a place distant from George and Marta's village, she became a good friend. She was a tall, fine featured, husky woman who had miraculously found work in what was called, "the rag factory." Jobs were scarce. Many women begged Takouhi to find them a job. But she liked and respected Marta enormously and was a bit in awe of her as Marta, unlike herself, was educated. What she really respected was Marta's wisdom and satiric wit. Takouhi was as good as her promise--in 1934 she found Marta a job in the rag factory.

At this same time, it became obvious that George would never be a team player working for someone else. Bowing down to what he thought were ignorant, unreasonable factory bosses was against his freedom loving soul. The only other option for George was to start a business of his own. His training in the old country as a tinsmith was cut short and it didn't seem a trade by which he could support a family.

The year was 1937 when Marta screwed up her courage and asked her brother-in-law, Margos for money to open a shoemaker's store. With gentle pressure from Marta's sister, Haigoush, Margos gave George and Marta the necessary money. And they promised to repay the loan as soon as they possibly could.

George knew absolutely nothing about repairing shoes and the idea of working on dirty smelly shoes was repellent to a man who had the soul of a poet and the heart of a revolutionary. He knew that when a man became a husband and father he had serious responsibilities.

Also operating a shoe repair shop in the same city was Toumas Hagopian from the same village as George. Because Toumas' shop was on Main Street, he felt there would be no real competition from George on Park Street. Toumas patiently instructed George on the art of shoe repairing. George made the best of his shoe repairing business. Enjoying a very modest success, two years later George added hat cleaning for his customers. Yes, he granted, handling dirty smelly shoes was repugnant but the very best, probably priceless result was his independence. George could also listen to the radio whenever he wished and he could enjoy long talks with those many customers he liked and enjoyed.

At the rag factory Marta enjoyed the raucus humor of the immigrant women with whom she worked. She often missed the point of dirty jokes. Once she naively asked,

"Do bulls have babies?"

Her question was received by the women with wild hilarity. They oftened teased and embarassed her by repeating her question.

Sorting remnant fabrics was their job. They were told the rags would eventually become paper. The air in the rag factory was heavy with lint. All the women coughed. To keep the lint out of their lungs, they tied kerchiefs over their noses and mouths.

From her co-workers Marta learned how to smuggle fabric remants in her large black leather pocketbook. She could also tie some fabrics under her voluminous dress skirts. These fabrics became dish towels, pillow cases, sheets, curtains and clothing for members of the entire family--adults and children--male and female alike. Their boss, Jimmy, with a knowing Irish gleam in his eye sometimes asked,

"How is it when you ladies come in the mornings you're slim but when you go home you're fat?"

No one answered and all suppressed smiles.

With heavy economizing George and Marta were able to save nearly half of their mutual incomes to send abroad to their families. Nearly without exception all those who survived the genocide and settled in host countries lived in stringent circumstances.

Years later Marta gave the rag factory credit.

"That rag factory of Mr. Bernard Kelly saved our lives--and we were even able to help our family over there-"

Marta took two buses to get to work and left the house at five-thirty in the morning. George and eight year old Luceen helped dress the twins who were now in morning kindergarten. In their travels to and from school, they passed the small First National, Pincus' tailor shop, Sal's barber shop, and a delicatesan named after the owner, Johnny's--and of course, George's Shoe Repair and Hat Cleaning shop.

In the afternoons, they had nearly an hour to walk home, eat lunch and return to school. Luceen and the twins crossed in front of the school with a policeman acting as crossing guard. After that it was an easy ten minute walk to their father's shoe repair shop. In the rear of the store, George heated a hearty soup or stew on a hot plate. The children ate while George waited on customers.

Before he married Marta, George stayed at the magical farm of his actual uncle Tahnyel where he enjoyed free room and board and continuous meals of potatoes which turned out to be their one successful crop. The three eldest daughters, Rosie, Alice and Daisy did the cooking and presented potatoes cooked in every imaginable way. George didn't dare complain because times were tough and all was offered to him free of charge.

Uncle Tahnyel got George a job at the paper mill where he was foreman. Farm ownership was a brand new endeavor and something of an experiment for Tahnyel and perhaps the only way to keep his family of five daughters and two sons fed.

After working and living in this manner, George quit the magical farm and the paper mill and returned to the city of Oakwood and was found work in the typwriter factory. In the years that followed George proposed to and married Marta and they had their first daughter, Luceen.

When Luceen was a year and a half old, to escape the strangling heat of their third floor tenement, Marta packed their necessities into a single suitcase and bundled up Luceen and took the bus to Clarkson's Corners and the magical farm. They stayed at the farm with the very large and interesting relatives through the months of July and August. George visited one or two weekends a month.

They continued to escape the suffocating heat for several summers until Luceen was three and the twins one year old. Hannah and Alice took turns playing with the twins. The other girls s took her along with them to pick and eat wild blackberries. The three older girls took her to the brook which was clear, cold and very deep it seemed to her--coming to her waist. Rosie held her head under water while she sputtered in terror. Everyone laughed saying that Rosie ducked her--whatever that meant. In a tiny room at the side of the house Luceen loved to watch grownups push a huge handle up and down until water come out. She could never figure out how the water came out of the huge wooden box which hid the source of the water. Peter was a menopausal baby and not party to many of the girl's activities. He also loved standing on a stool and pumping the handle up and down to watch the water pour out. Ignoring all threats of punishment for wasting precious water, Peter often found a way to sneak to the pump when other's were busy elsewhere. Luceen decided that the cousin's way of getting water was much more wonderful than their thin city fawcets.

After they'd been away from home for a month, her father, George, came to spend the weekend. Luceen ran from him, went to the chicken coop and crawled in under the fence. She joined the chickens who somewhat frightened her. George searched everywhere in vain.

Young Peter helped pointing to the chicken coop,

"She's in the coop-"

Goerge finally discovered her with the chickens.

Peter was absolutely right. Luceen was somewhat frightened and somewhat proud, calling,

"Go home, Daddy--go home."

With loving pataience he asked,

"My child, what are you doing in there? Come say hello to me-"

He had abandoned her for a long time. Luceen stood solidly with the tiptoing noisy chickens.

Wondering what became of husband and daughter Marta began her own search. She finally located George at the chicken yard and Luceen self-imprisoned inside the coop. Marta who had little patience for childhood dramas, said,

"Luceen, look --Daddy's here. Come out-"

"Go home, Daddy. Bad Daddy. Go home."

Marta went to open the door of the chicken yard but George stayed her,

"Leave the child alone, Marta. She's angry with me for staying away. She has a good reason."

After both parents were gone, Luceen crawled under the fence and sheepishly rejoined the family. without a word, she hugged her father. All was well.

The cows were enormous and made loud scary mooing sounds. Luceen didn't appreciate their presence or that they gave milk. She didn't like the sticky way milk coated her throat.

Even though she noticed the enormous cows, Luceen only vaguely observed that her mother's belly was swollen. She didn't especially care that the female relatives were whispering a kind of conspiracy. There was too much else to think about--like adorable, fluffy kittens playing with eachother in the barn, tumbling unsteadilly on their short fat legs.

Even after the dreadful twins appeared in her house, Luceen never made a connection between her mother's swollen belly, her disappearance for a few days and her return with two ugly babies. Much in life was strange and mysterious. This was bad magic. The twins cried all the time. They did peepee and bad smelling kaka. Worst of all and unforgivably-- they took George and Marta's attention from her. Worst of all, relatives who used to fuss about her specialness now gave their warmest chirpiest attention to the twins. Everyone seemed to forget that she was born on Easter Sunday and practically a holy person like Jesus.

At the magical farm,Tahnyel's wife, Dovie, continued nearly killing herself trying to keep the farm going. Tahnyel lost interest in this overwhelming and losing proposition. He happily escaped under the huge lilac tree into the novels of Zane Gray many of which he had read at least once before. Tahnyel didn't bother to pay the town taxes which he found an annoyance. George was stunned and outraged. He roared at his uncle as respectfully as he dared,

"Man, why didn't you say something?! By hook or by crook I would have gotten the money for taxes. How could you just let that beautiful place go?"

The town took the entire place for non-payment of taxes. George and Marta wondered what Tahnyel and Dovie were going to do now.

Tahnyel said,

"The girls will have to go to work. Daisy is eighteen and the others a year or two younger-"Peter is too young to work now.

George said,

"What can they do? Clean houses of the rich? Factory work? They're very smart girls. They should be going to college-"

Tahnyel shook his head. There wasn't a chance in hell they could go any further than high school. He announced his decision to move to the city where there were jobs for all the girls and in two years--Peter .

Tahnyel rented a large apartment across the street from Rocky Ridge Park and the family quickly settled in breathing a sigh of relief that they were no longer saddled with the unending work and crushing responsibilities of farming.

No one seemed sad that the farm was lost. Once in a rare while someone would mention missing the fresh milk and eggs, or the clear cold spring water, the lilac trees, the sweet blackberries and the giggling brook.

Soon four of the girls found jobs. Hannah and Rosie found jobs cleaning the houses of rich families. Because it was working with delicate tea cups and tiny fancy sandwiches, Alice loved the tea shop in which she worked as a waitress. Daisy found what was considered a pretigious job as secretary to the treasurer of the same typwriter factory where Tahnyel and George were employed. Both families nearly burst with pride when Jenny received scholarship money to go to teacher's college which was oddly called, "normal school."

The first university for Luceen was the Campfield Avenue Library. There she entered a palace of silvery magic. There was no sex in the stories she read. And there was no sex in the Shirley Temple movies which Mom approved for her viewing.

From the fairy tales Luceen learned mainly of the rewards and punishments for good or bad behavior-- exactly as Marta always promised.

"Luceen, looks are very important. Remember every prince is only looking for one thing--a beautiful girl to make his princess."

And so Luceen was certain that no prince would ever come looking for her. For her the Cinderella story was baloney.

When she became twelve and Mom, overburdened with husband, children, job, family here and the family in the old country, became more lax in movie screening. Every week she gave Luceen money so she could take the twins to the movies with her. This way she knew that they were safely in a movie theater and not on the streets.

From a ragbag of movies Luceen also learned as in Mom's lectures and fairy stories that bad people were always punished. She also learned that the good pretty girl was always kissed by the good handsome young man at the end of the movie. And she was absolutely sure they became married after the movie ended and just like in the fairy tales they lived happily ever after.

With Danny, the son of George's comrade in the A.R.F. and best friend, Luceen and the twins caught bees in bottles thinking they would eventually get honey. The results were frustrating so they realized were the confused and dizzy bees. Luceen and Danny walked down to the brook through skunk cabbage and crossed it by hopping from stone to stone trying not to get their shoes wet. She and Danny played Dick Tracey and Tess. They sang the Woody Woodpecker song and the hit songs of the day.

The same age as Danny but darkly wise was his cousin,Dikran. Diko could hardly wait to get Luceen alone to confide how babies were conceived.

"See- the man puts his thing in the woman's thing."

Luceen laughed wildly and then quietly whispered,

"What thing? You know something, Diko--you're nuts. That's impossible. I don't believe you."

"O.K.--don't belive me. I'm telling you I know what I heard."

Then she ran off to tell Danny. She wanted to ask Danny what he thought but decided to think about it for a while. It was not easy asking about such a dirty thing. Later when she was alone, she decided that she had no "thing". All she had was a tiny hole from which to pee.

She told Norma what Diko told her. Norma just laughed,

"I wouldn't believe anything he said if he swore on a stack of Bibles."

Luceen said,

"Diko must think I'm a sucker-"

Marta overheard her.

"Luceen, don't say sucker. Never say sucker again."

"Why?"

"It's a very bad thing."

"But, Mom-"

"And don't say jerk."

"Everyone says it-"

"Listen to me- It's a very bad thing."

"Can't I say anything?! Everyone says sucker--everyone says jerk-"

"I don't care how many people say those things. You're my daughter and I say you can't-"

Luceen whined,

"Gee, Mom- Give me a reason. Why?"

"It's a big shame thing."

She gave up on her mother who was from the old country and probably didn't know about such things. Just to make sure that Diko didn't know what he was talking about, Luceen looked in lots of library books. There were odd drawings and odd names for body parts but there was nothing that helped clear the connection about a man's thing, a woman's thing and babies. It was clear that Diko was telling a dirty joke. He was disgusting.

The movies had good romances. There was a pretty ice skating doll, Sonja Henie, who smiled and laughed and was kissed by different handsome men like Richard Greene and John Payne. Luceen ached to be pretty, blonde and a champion ice skater so a boy as handsome as Richard Greene or Robert Taylor would love her and kiss her. The best romance was in the movie, Suez, with Tyrone Power and a French girl named Annabella.

From movie magazines thrown in the ash cans by the older girls in the tenement building next to hers, Luceen cut out pictures of Tyrone Power and Robert Taylor and put them on her dresser. Actually, it wasn't her dresser. She shared it with the twins who parroted her obsessions.

When Luceen was in the sixth grade, Marta bought her ice skates for Christmas. In her blue and maroon snow suit ordered from the Montgomery Ward catalog, Luceen practiced and practiced ice skating convinced with a little luck she could be another Sonja Henie. But her proficiency never provgressed beyond being able to stop with a fancy turn. And Tyrone Power never came to Colt's Park pond to watch her skate and so fall in love with the magnificence of her.

Marta wanted her girls to be perfect. They had to be much more than pretty and well dressed at all times. Miraculously she found time and energy to sew matching dresses and on the bodices embroidered roses.

Grace and manners were just as important--perhaps, more. Marta's heavy lectures fell mainly on Luceen. It seemed the twins could get away with murder. When Luceen complained that her burden was oppressive, Marta answered,

"You're the eldest, you have to learn first. Later you can teach your sisters."

"Fooey to that-"

"What did you say? Speak in Armenian so I can understand you."

"I didn't say anything important-"

Making Middle Eastern coffee properly was Luceen's first lesson. The bitter brew was served in exquisitely fragile demitasse cups. Except for the merest whisper of sugar, it was simply a strong pulverized coffee and water mixture, made in a small brass pot used only for that purpose. Actually, the sugar was optional. Usually men preferred the coffee without any trace of sweetening--it probably seemed tough and manly.

There was a trick to getting the coffee made to perfection--it had to be watched like a hawk so that it wouldn't boil over. Each time it reached a near boil, the gas had to be lowered until the foam reached the top. This foam was prized and when served had to be evenly distributed among the various demitasse cups.

From Syrian neighbors in Aleppo, where her mother and family fled in exile, Marta learned how to read fortunes from the remaining coffee grounds. The coffee was drunk to nearly empty but stopped at the point where only a fine mud was left at the bottom. Then the cup was turned away from the drinker's mouth and set down on the saucer. If left for a few minutes, sometimes, but not often, the cup stuck to the saucer. When this happened, Marta would announce,

"I can't read this cup. Your heart's desire will be granted."

Usually, after the grounds had settled, patterns on the sides of the cup were formed in tree- like patterns and small lumps. Marta would lift the cup from the saucer and study the patterns, turning the cup this way and that. After an appropriate lenth of time and serious examination, she would turn to her sisters or close relative and confide,

"You're getting a letter. I see money-"

"Money? Are you sure-- money?"

Marta would answer delicately pointing to something in the cup,

"See that lump--that's money."

"Oh, wonderful. What else is there?"

"Two people are standing very close to eachother and talking."

"Is the talk friendly or a quarrel?"

"I can't tell that."

And then Marta would throw her arms up helplessly and laugh,

"Anyway, you know that it's all lies--lies."

Marta's Protestant religion forbad such heathen practices as fortune telling. When no one was looking, she quickly examined her own cup. If Luceen happened to come into the room while she was studying the patterns, her mother would snap,

"You know this is all lies, Luceen- We just do it for fun."

Luceen's Aunt Alice had a gift for interpreting the grounds but she too had the same religious strictures. When no one else but the sisters were present, they read eachother's fortunes in the demitasse cups. If they saw anything which might be construed to predict sickness or death, they always comforted one another with,

"It's all lies anyway."

Luceen was never taught how to read fortunes from patterns left in the cups of Middle Eastern coffee. Her lessons had to do with making and serving the coffee properly. Once the coffee reached perfection, Luceen placed the filled demitasse cups on their tiny saucers. Being careful not to spill the coffee, she then placed them on a tray specifically designated for that purpose. That was still the easy part.

Next she had to navigate through the kitchen and dining room to the parlor without spilling a single drop. She was instructed to first stand before the oldest male in the group with her head slightly bowed,and wait until he took his coffee. If pleased, he would say,

"Ahbrees, aghchigus."

Which wasn't easy to translate. Literally, it meant something like,

"Life to you, my girl."

Next served was the second oldest male and so on until all the males were served in descending order according to age. The youngest male was the last of the males to be served. Sometimes she would hesitate trying to determine who was the older of two men and her mother would gently point to the correct gentleman.

Using the same procedure, the women were served--oldest woman first and so on. The oldest male was accorded the most respect of all the people present. The youngest male was accorded more respect than the oldst woman. Deserving the least amount of respect was the youngest female--often the most recent bride.

When all were properly served, Luceen's coffee and service were praised and she was excused from the room.

Serving the men first was old world and discriminatory but women continued the practice without complaint. The custom of honoring and respecting elders of both sexes for their life's experience and wisdom was right but not valued in the new world.

Early in her coffee making career and after a particular family dinner, Luceen served Uncle Morose first as she was supposed to. His Armenian name was Rosdom but he was named Uncle Morose by Aunt Alice because of his dark saturnine look. Unfortunately, this coffee was one of Luceen's least successful coffees with only skimpy foam at the top.

Teasing, Uncle Morose, who wasn't much of a kidder, asked,

"Luceen, where's the foam?"

Quick as a wink and without a thought, she snapped,

"On the bottom, you bum."

Instantly and in unison Marta and George gasped in horror. Luceen's heart sank. She'd made an awful blunder. Her face turned crimson. Uncle Morose, tickled by her impudence, laughed. Luceen fled to the safety of the kitchen.

From the parlor her mother and father called her rude, stupid and uncivilized.

"Shame--shame--shame. Is that what we taught you?! You are a disgrace-"

It was impossible for her to unsay what she'd just said. But of all the people to be rude to, the absolute worst was Uncle Morose. Everyone always stepped about him very cautiously. He had a sensibility so fine, he could be hurt by the slightest ill-considered word or look.

George said this was Uncle Morose's way. It was said that his wife of three years drank poison and killed herself. No one knew why his attractive, educated wife from a good family would do such a horrible thing. After a while the speculations stopped and no one questioned Morose about it. He just became more silent and intolerable. This happened before Luceen was born.

For example there was the time just a few years ago when the family gathered for a picnic at Alfred Byrd's place on the Hudson River. The menfolk were barbequing shish kebab and joking about funny family happenings--also arguing about serious political matters.

When everyone was ready to eat, Marta noticed that Uncle Morose was missing. The women and children looked for him down by the water, in the nearby woods,and in the shanty without luck. No Uncle Morose. Some word or gesture had offended him.

He couldn't have gone back to Oakwood. It was a four hour journey by bus and train. Uncle didn't own a car. Morose's flight cast a chilly shade on their picnic. The men reviewed their talk and jokes trying to figure out what might have hurt his feelings. No one could even guess. By the time they resigned themselves to his disappearance, the kebabs were cold.

It was Aunt Haigoush who figured it out. She absolutely was certain. He must have walked two miles to the bus stop taking him into the next town. From there he hired a cab to take him to the train station. The train landed him in Grand Central. Another train took him to Oakwood and finally a taxi to his apartment. He probably got home about midnight. They estimated what the unknown slight cost him in dollars and cents. Uncle wasn't a rich man--just sentitive to the point of unpredictable strangeness.

On Monday morning he was back in Oakwood. George went to Morose's optometrist's store and questioned him sternly but briefly.

"Djoh, what happened to you? We were worried."

Uncle didn't answer and George questioned no further. Instead, he invited him to Sunday dinenr for kaymah- a kind of steak tartare- an offer Uncle found difficult to refuse. Besides Morose missed Luceen and the twins, proclaiming them and all children innocent and the only humans he trusted.

Of all their relatives, Uncle Morose- a trained optometrist-- was the most respected. He was consulted for nearly every problem--legal, moral, educational and financial--even medical. His eldest sister, a poet, died during the death marches. His younger brother, a brilliant mathematician, was killed in a fight with an enemy soldier who destroyed his books. No one knew what became of his eldest brother, a journalist, who was a member of the Armenian parliament for the pitifully brief time of his country's independence.

Uncle's childhood secret love had been kidnaped and was never seen or heard of again. Some said she bore the captor's baby and one night deliberately rolled over the infant and smothered him. It was also rumored by some that years later Uncle Morose had an affair with a French woman when he lived in Marseilles. After he wound up in America, matchmakers arranged his marriage to Elmahs, a woman as sensitive as he. It was an ill-fated match.

This was the man Luceen had insulted. She wanted to cry. In fact, she hovered on the brink of crying. Her parents would never let her hear the end of her awful behavior. At this point in her suffering, Marta came to the kitchen and ordered Luceen to return to the parlor and beg Uncle's forgiveness. She told Luceen exactly what to say.

Dragging heavy leaden heart and feet, Luceen returned to the scene of her crime. Uncle was smiling. She stood before him, head bowed and with quavering voice began her apology as coached by Marta.

"Uncle, I am sorry that I was rude to you- I wasn't thinking. Please accept my apology."

Uncle Morose, still smiling--lit a cigarette, inhaled two puffs and said,

"I won't accept your apology unless you call me bum once more-"

Dumbstruck, she stared at him. Then she looked to her horrified parents for direction. They were plainly totally confused.

Uncle Morose still smiling and smoking repeated,

"Come on--call me bum-"

Luceen looked to Marta for guidance. Realizing this was a very odd man and that there was no other choice, Marta nodded her head in agreement.

Very weakly Luceen murmured,

"You bum-"

and fled to the bedroom to the sound of Uncle's hearty laughter. She had never heard him laugh like that. And that particular robust laughter was never again heard from Uncle Morose.

There were three popular girls in Luceen's seventh grade class which meant that everyone--boys and girls alike- wanted to be their friend. Kissy had dimples, red hair and beautiful clothes. She was an only child. Her father owned two shops that sold cigarettes, cigars, newspapers and magazines. Kissy's best friend was Peachy who had black hair, blue eyes, a turned up nose and a faint spinrkle of freckles. Her mother was the head nurse of obstetrics at Oakwood General. Finally, there was Virginia Holbrook who wore her hair in an upsweep--also earings, lipstick, and grown up clothes. Virginia was independent, sophisticated and looked like an actress.

When Luceen tried getting into talks with either Kissy or Peachy, they were barely polite and obviously impatient for her to go away. Virginia had no special girlfriend or boyfriend. The boys teased her and tried in dopey ways to get her attention. To those boys, she said,

"Don't bother me. I have a boyfriend."

Peachy said that Virginia's boyfriend was in college and that her boyfriend's father was president of an insurance company. Virginia was out of everybody's league.

Luceen's life away from school was the most exciting. Being Armenian--even though her classmates and probably many teachers had never heard of Armenia--had its good points. The center for the activities of the Armenian Revolutionary Federation in Oakwood and nearby towns was in a dark,long and narrow rented hall situated above an ice cream shop in the French-Irish section of Oakwood called Frog Hollow.

The hall was always chokingly filled with cigarette, cigar and pipe smoke. There were no non-smokers except for Ahshod whose great pleasure and weakness was sipping a glass of tea making him the butt of jokes by the other non-tea drinking men. Hard to abide was the one bathroom which stank from years of careless men's urine soaked into the wood floor and one dirty hand towel.

Around the room were pictures of leading A.R.F. revolutionaries--bearded men with dark, fabulous Armenian eyes. There was Christopher Michaelian, bow tie slightly ashew and Simon Zavarian, eyes looking off to the distant horizon and his vision of a better tomorrow for his people. The last of the famous trio was a determined looking young man simply called Rosdom.

There was a portrait of Ishkahn, the famous company commander, wearing a Persian lamb hat--his rifle held against his shoulder--looking far too sensitive to be a freedom fighter. Armenians had been merchants,and craftspeople, obsessed with books. Military supremacy was not an ideal.

Her real true uncle, not Uncle Morose who only had the honorary title of uncle, was Uncle Sehbou. He told her that before the eleventh century Armenian women were warriors. You couldn't prove it by most of the gentle women Luceen knew. The exception was Ofsahnah, the wife of the A.R.F. treasurer. One of the men who was more peasant than intellectual said of her,

"That Ofsahnah's got her husband's balls."

Ofsahnah could scratch the eyes out of anyone who crossed her husband or family. No doubt about it, she was descended from those legendary eleventh century women.

Luceen saw but didn't especially linger over the maps of historic Armenia--a country at that time the size of contemporary France. Most fascinating to her was the black-hooded abbot of the Monastery of Thaddeus, who had been a secret agent of the Armenian freedom fighters.

The A.R.F. club was a mysterious, sad, joyful, romantic place. From the tenderest age, Luceen's heart always quickened as she climbed the stairs to the hall of passions. Loud arguments. Loud jokes. Loud affectionate insults. The loud sound of checkers triumphantly slapped on the backgammon boards. Sometimes there were songs about revolutionary heros. And once in a rare while, forgetting the genocidal horrors for a instant, a fragment of a song in the foreign tongue of their enemy conquerer.

There were annual celebrations honoring Armenia's exquisitely brief independence. Located along the silk route, Luceen's ancesters were trampled and slaughtered again and again. Always miraculously a few survived.

Was the decision wise or unwise to so early declare Christianty their state religion in the part of the world which wasn't? Was it suicidal to accept and preach Jesus love--forgive--and turn the other cheek? Or was Christianity Armenian's secret of survival? Luceen didn't have sufficient knowlege to say which.

With Marta working in the rag factory all day long it was worrisome that there was no one to keep an eye on Luceen and the twins. Aunts Alice and Haigoush insisted that it would be no hardship to take the children for the summer. They could play with their first cousins. They could help with small chores. The main problem though small would be getting them to Montross-on-the-Hudson.

George's A.R.F. comrade,Bahrohn Kahchig, agreed to take them in his Buick. Clothes and bathing suits were packed. The trip took three hours. In Bristol, Kahchig stopped at his house and changed cars. The Packard he said was for distance travel. He so loved his cars that he very seriously and often said,

"When I die I want my two cars buried with me."

Bahrohn Kahchig talked and sang all the way to Montross. He spoke in a Persian-Armenian dialect which was a mystery to Luceen and the twins. Most of the time all three were busy trying not to get car sick.

Montross was heaven and worlds different from their city--Oakwood. Rich New Yorkers bought summer places in Montross and the surrounding small towns for escape. There were cool, pure lakes and of course the historic Hudson River. The air was fresh and clear. The nights were cool with breezes from the river.

Oblivious to the presence of snakes, Luceen, the twins and four cousins climbed the steep hill behind the house on North Division Street to pick wild blueberries. They ate more than they ever delivered to Aunt Haigoush who was the pie maker in the family.

Once a week there was a massive clothes washing operation, done with a wringer style washing machine. When the clothesline was filled, the female children spread the rest of the clothes on hedges which separated the houses while the boys worked on nailing together boards for a raft with visions of reliving Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn's adventures on the Mississippi.

Dupont Park was at the end of the road. On days so hot the road tar sizzled, they walked to the wading pool and frolicked in the water until they turned mauve.

Luceen used her seniority to make plans for the cousin's activities. On rainy days, acting as costumer, cosmetician, and director, she presented dramas and comedies on the large back porch to no audience but themselves.

The vacation pattern was set and went on until Bahrohn Kahchig died and was buried without his beloved Buick and Packard cars. Now Luceen and the twins were old enough to travel by train. And Luceen was in the fifth grade.

She liked her teachers to be pretty. Miss Nelson her kindergarten teacher was blonde and pretty. Miss O'Keefe her first grade teacher had brown hair and blue eyes. She was pretty too. Miss Marconi had dark hair and eyes and looked like Linda Darnell. Miss Gebhardi had gray hair but it was curled in a nice style.

She was lucky until her fifth grade teacher. Miss Novak had a large lumpy body and thin crinkled gray hair that she pulled into a braid which was pinned in a circle at the back of her head. She had a wart-like mole on her chin and wore no makeup but too much rouge.

In addition to their morning exercises of pledging allegiance and saluting the flag, they had to recite the Lord's prayer which they also had recited in all the previous grades. Miss Novak, not satisfied with all the usual rituals, made them recite the twenty-third psalm. There was a spooky part about walking in the shadow of death in a valley that Luceen hated.

Luceen continued to feel dumb in arithmatic and was always relieved when that subject was done for the day. She didn't shine in gym either but it wasn't too obvious except when she had to climb the ropes or get the basketball through the hoop. After gym the girls had to shower. Luceen was surprised and reassured to see that some girls had more dark hair down there than she did. Lorraine Renault had the shocking most. It was a shame because dark hair down there spoiled their clean beauty and they weren't like the women in museum paintings.

Luceen overheard her parents talking about the coming marriage of Sarkis Badalian to a girl of Irish parentage.

Marta said,

"We're going to lose our nation and culture if our boys and girls keep marrying odahrs-"

(odahr meant stranger-any nationality which was not Armenian.)

George said,

"What can we do? Our boys like blonde girls. These things happen when kids are young. Their blood boils."

"I blame Sarkis' parents. Did you ever see them at church? Did you ever see them at an A.R.F. function?"

"Huhrandt was a good member of the Committee but his wife was never involved. Sally was bitchimlamish (put on airs)--only spoke English--broken English at that."

"And what awful English. The men at the club always laughed at her behind her back."

"Sally had all those American friends who really mainly came to eat at her house. There's one thing you have to give her--Sally was a good cook and always had a full table-"

"Well, we can't worry about them, George. Our duty is to keep our children Armenian."

Overhearing this talk put Luceen in a state of mild dread. Her mother and father were going to keep her different from her American friends.

Immediately after this talk, Marta came to Luceen,

"You are almost fourteen years old. It's almost too late--anyway, you'll start Armenian school."

"Oh, no I'm not."

"What do you mean 'no'? In my house the word 'no' doesn't exist. I've ordered the primer and I'll buy you a notebook. Uncle is teching classes at the club every Sunday afternoon."

"What do I need to learn Armenian for? I know it already."

"You know nothing. Make up your mind that you're going and you're going to learn."

Stamping away, Luceen called out the last word,

"You can make me go- but you can't make me learn."

Her mother ran after her with the absolute last word.

"Go ahead and be stupid. See where it gets you. Listen to me--you have to go--even if you sit there like a donkey."

After their Sunday dinner of chicken and pelav, Luceen put on her second best dress and waited for Margaret Krikorian who would drive her. Margaret Krikorian owned a small coupe car and worked part time in the phone company. Luceen was silent during most of the drive.

If she thought Uncle Morose was going to go easy on her Luceen was wrong. After six months she had made so little progress that she had to stay on the first primer with three new young students while others went to a slightly more advanced one.

Marta and George were pleased tht Luceen continued to attend Armenian school. After a conference with Morose, he agreed to tutor her privately. She would go to his optician's office and store after school every Friday. It was a long walk--about twenty blocks but spending money to take the bus was out of the question.

After his last customer left, Uncle motioned her to the tiny back room of his shop. There was a showcase displaying eyeglasses and two chairs. They used the top of the showcase as a desk.

Even with private lessons, she made no better progress. Armenian was a difficult language--as bad as algebra. To begin with, the letters were like Chinese or Hebrew and then there were a ton of different letters for sounds which were nearly alike. It was boring and she was embarassingly dumb.

Then she had an ingenius idea. Uncle had laughed merrily when she called him bum that time with the Armenian coffee. She would make him laugh. He would be less serious. The time would fly with less time for lessons.

She told jokes on herself and the twins and he laughed. She perfected her technique of being funny and he always laughed, seeming less morose and even a bit charmed.

One day while laughing he grabbed her and hugged her--then quickly moved his hands to her tits . She struggled free. What was he doing? Was it a joke? But he was rubbing her tits. There was something repellent about this. She didn't like it and broke free.

In the days leading to the next lesson she wondered if she had imagined what happeneed. Perhaps it wasn't wrong--but felt wrong. No one had ever instructed her on what to think or do in such a situation. Maybe she exaggerated the whole episode in her mind.

Nothing happened during the nest two lessons. She relaxed. That hugging rubing thing was a mistake. During the third lesson she made him laugh. As if I was a game, he grabbed her--this time from behind and grabbed her tits and began rubbing and squeezing them. She wriggled away all the time trying to act normal so as not to anger him.

Right or wrong, she decided that she was never going back to lessons again. Period.

But the problem was how to get out of lessons without telling the upsetting thing Morose did. She made up a great lie saying that her math teacher wanted her to stay in study hall three afternoons a week and work on her algebra with an honors student.

Marta said,

"What about your Armenian lessons? You're free on Sundays-"

"From now on I'm going to have lots of homework on the weekends. Do you want me to flunk algebra and have to repeat my freshman year?"

"I'll discuss the matter with your father.

Luceen held her breath. She would never tell anyone what Uncle Morose did. They might say she made it up--and how could she say anything so ugly about such a serious and educated man? They might even say that she tempted him--that it was her fault. Or they might confront Morose who would deny ever having done anything wrong. Then he would get mad at the family for years like that other time. Was it wrong? Whatever, she never wanted to be alone in a room with him. It was a filthy rotten mess.

George said that not doing well in school could affect Luceen's life for the rest of her life. Getting passing grades in her American school was more important now than Armenian lessons. She could always learn Armenian later and she might even appreciate it more when mature.

Except for reading there was nothing about school that made Luceen happy. In the summer there were the dreamy, lazy vacations with the cousins in Montross. During the rest of the school year, Luceen was fastened to the radio. Now all three children had lunch at home. With no parent to object, lunch time at home the radio was tuned to The Romance of Helen Trent and Our Gal Sunday. After school there was Stella Dallas and Portia Faces Life. In the evening there were the wonderful comedy programs--Baby Snooks, Charlie McCarthy and Jack Benny.

Luceen had two new girlfriends, Muriel and Claire who lived in the tenement next to the grocery store. Their house was identical to hers. They liked all the things Luceen enjoyed-- movies and movie stars. Roller skating, ice skating and frolicking in the swimming pool at Pope Park.

When she was nearly thirteen and believed to be mature for her age, Annie Hagopian asked for Marta's permission to take Luceen to a meeting of the Armenian Revolutionary Federation's youth branch. It would be a trial--to see if Luceen liked the group--and for the members to see if they found her mature and bright enough for membership. Maarta and George thought it an excellent plan

For her part, Luceen was mesmerized. It was heaven. Everyone was older, sophisticated, witty, and intelligent. Quiet and shy, her eyes wide with fascination, the deciding members bestowed on her intelligence far exceding what she actually possessed. Luceen desperately wanted to be a member. And miracle of miracles. the membership almost immediately said she could join.

The monthly meetings were held in the back room of the same smokey A.R.F. hall where all the other activities took place--serious and social. Annie Hagopian, who was nineteen, worked in an insurance company and owned her own car. She offered to drive Luceen to meetings.

At meetings they talked about planning a dance, hiring a new group of young Armenian musicians to play at the dance. They talked about having olympic games this year in Providence, Rhode Island. The blue book they said was part of the educational program. In it she read about the first Armenian American. His name was Martin and he was the servant of Governor George Yeardley of Virginia. Martin apparently came to American in 1618 and began growing tobacco. In those days tobacco wasn't sprayed with poisons and not so deadly as later tobacco. It was mentioned that Martin was involved in a court fight against the English laws which unfairly doubled the amount of duty imposed on the products of people of foreign birth. And later Martin became a member of the Standing Committee of the Virginia Company of London. Luceen felt proud of her people. This was information she should have known when the neighborhood kids called her a foreigner. Relating the insult to Dad, he said, "Tell them we were ejoying our golden age of culture their ancesters were living in trees, swinging by their tails and eating leaves."

The Armenian Youth meetings weren't all seriousness. Luceen loved the joking and horsing around among the older boys and the merry flirtations with two of the witty and pretty girls. One thing was repeated over and over until it was like an invisible stamp on her forehead--our main goal is for a free and independent Armenia. To Luceen a free and independent Armenia was as far away as the moon and as impossible as finding a diamonds in the street.

Wondering if she might have a really exotic and different story to tell her friends, Luceen asked her mother for her story--the one no one ever talked about.

The one she got was a story she never expected.

Her mother said,

"I will tell this only once--so listen and remember."

"Why will you tell it only once?"

"Because it still burns my soul. Sit on the couch and listen without any interruptions. Promise?"

"Will it take long?"

"Yes. Do you want to hear this or not?"

"Yes, I want to hear it-"

"They said that we were vermin, swine and infidels so it would be easy to exterminate us. We were told that we could only take what we could carry. In the beginning we were all deadly quiet not knowing what to expect. For a while the children thought it was some kind of a game--an adventure. A few of the adults began singing to keep up our spirits. Mothers carried those children who weren't able to walk. Our feet bled. The old people were the first to die. The corpses were thrown into ditches. We were warned not to stop and we had to get permission to stop for our bodily needs."

Marta stopped talking. Luceen watched her mother's face expecting her to cry. Instead she said,

"Luceen, get me a glass of water. My throat's dry."

Marta always put on an act of being very strong and she fooled everyone in the family but George and Luceen. As she sipped the water, Luceen wondered if her mother was through telling the story. Her mother observed Luceen's serious attention and said,

"There's more, Luceen. Do you still want to hear it?"

"Sure. I didn't know if there was any more."

"The Turks wanted homes and food and money--so six months before the deportation, they forced us to live outside our houses in the yard. They gave us bulghur to make soup. We built a cooking pit in the small wash house. We had no vegetables or meat. The children became sick. Babies died of starvation. In truth many Turks were hungry too. But they were wrong. They were wrong to think they could live rich, happy and in peace by taking everything including our lives."

" "Did anyone in your family starve, Mom?"

"Let me count those who died. My aunt and her five dhilren, my grandmother and grandfather. Five male relatives died--perished. The enemy raped young girls--and afterwqrds, if they felt like it, murdered them. Many of the survivors of rape threw themselves into the Euphrates River thinking they were better off dead."

Marta voice broke. It looked for sure like she was going to cry. But she composed herself and continued,

"It's very important for a girl to remain a virgin until she marries--of course, it's a man's rule--but women obey-"

"What's a virgin and why is it important?"

"In time you'll know. For now you don't have to know."

"A few women actually married Turks to save their families. Luceen. That's how important it was to keep families- And some women escaped the harems and finally found their way to America. Other girls were never heard of again. But people never stopped asking,

"Whatever happened to this or that person. Sometimes, they would learn that the boy or girl relative had been in an orphanage and try to locate them. Often there was no further knowlege or maybe a rumor that they were living in some other country--not America-"

Marta stopped, took her crumpled handkerchief from her apron pocket and dabbed at a tear. "Never mind. Forget the story. Those were evil times--evil people. It's not good for you to have them in your mind. Go see what your sisters are doing."

"But I want to hear the rest-"

"There's too much to tell and some things I won't tell. No, forget about it. They aren't good things to know."

For some time George and Marta puzzled about which church to choose for the religious education of Luceen and the twins. Except for the one time she was christened, Luceen hadn't been in an Armenian church. The simple reason was that the priest only came to the Oakwood/Fairfiew Armenian Apostolic Church from New York City just once a month. Though Oakwood shared the joint title, the church building was actually in Fairview--twenty-seven miles from Oakwood. The Manoogians had no car and bus travel was too circuitous.

Armenian friends advised George and Marta to enroll the girls in the Episcopal church saying it was most similar to the Armenian church. Not knowing that there were two styles of Episcopalian churches--one high and one low, they sent the girls to St. John's Episcopal Church on Mount Olive Street with Sarah Badalian who lived nearby.

When Marta discovered St. John's was "low" church and didn't have the ornate robes, incense and other trappings, she and George were disappointed. Marta was less disappointed than George because all the members of her immediate family in Armenia had been converted to the Congregational style of Christianity in the time of her grandfather. She blushed to confess grandfather's motives had more due to customers for his wholesale haberdashery business than God, Jesus or the Virgin Mary.

George was merciless in his teasing Marta about her Protestant religion--calling her a fake Yankee. He added there was no color or excitement in her religion. Marta answered,

"Every church is the house of God, George--and you, of all people-- having been an altar boy-- should know that."

"I didn't know anything when I was a boy except for wine tasting when the curtains were closed."

Before their first Sunday, Marta took all three girls to Brown and Thompson's Department Store and bought them hats to be worn whenever they were in church. She said that it was a sign of respect in most churches. Luceen soon discovered that the best part of Christianity was Easter when Mom bought them new hats and patent leather shoes. Marta sewed up a storm so that all three girls could have matching dresses.

St. John's Episcopal Church was Luceen's winter religion. Her baptismal religion was Armenian Apostolic. Her summer religion was Baptist.

How two women whose ancesters were of the Armenian Apostolic faith and whose grandfather became Congregationalist became Baptists is an interesting story.

Aunt Alice and Haigoush had flexible jobs sewing neckties at home for one of Uncle Mikael's bosses. Aunt Haigoush's husband, Margos, also worked as a gardener. Between the two men they tended the gardens of three important men who worked in New York but spent their weekends in Montross.

Their necktie sewing jobs gave both sisters not only flexible hours but a few dollars and independence. No time clock to punch. No foremen watching over their shoulders and looking at the huge wall clock. Each summer as Luceen, Norma and Diana waited for the platform-shuddering train to pull into the Oakwood station, Mom peppered Luceen with instructions and warnings,

"Always be helpful. Don't wait for your aunts to ask you to do something. Keep your eyes open--see and do whatever needs to be done without having to be asked."

"What about the twins? Don't they have to do anything?"

"You may tell them to help you. Eat everything your aunts make without a fuss. Make sure Norma and Diana eat too--especially Diana."

"Suppose Diane doesn't eat--can I hit her?"

"Absolutely not. Are you crazy? Keep a watchful eye on the girls and the rest of the cousins. Remember, you are the eldest and supposed to be the intelligent one."

"Mom, I think I hear the train coming-"

"It's still far away. Also- on rainy days plan games to keep the children out of mischief so Aunts Alice and Haigoush can sew and do their work."

Luceen agreed to all the advice. There was one good point in all those heavy orders. She could be the boss and her kingdom of dominance would spread to her four cousins. Casper, Aram, and Haig who were the sons of Haigoush. The youngest, a girl named Mahnoushag, was Alice's precious doll but no problem to manage.

Sundays in Montross and attendance at the Baptist Church always came too quickly. Aunt Alice's marriage to this church began at J.J. Newberry's five and ten cent store. It was there that Aunt Alice first met the spinster, May Ellen Austin, the very slender pillar of the First Baptist Church of Montross. May Ellen sold corsets, slips,bloomers and brassieres.

Though Aunt Alice was reed thin, it was proper for ladies of good breeding and Christian faith to keep their voluptuousness harnessed--even those who weren't voluptuous.

Aunt Alice brought Haigoush to May Ellen for corset counselling. Instantly May Ellen assessed both women as being from an educated class and exotic background. When she learned that they came from the fascinating Biblical Middle East, she was nearly ecstatic.

On their third meeting, talk took a gentle turn to May Ellen's mission and obsession--the unwashed, the alcoholic, the desperately poor, the unloved,the unshavened and the unsaved. She spent her days and many nights gently sheparding them to salvation.

To May Ellen's further joy, she discovered that though her new friend's husbands were members of the ancient Armenian Apostolic Church who were of the non-attending variety, both of their wives were devout Protestants.

Aunt Alice described for May Ellen's edification, their lives before and after the genocide-- the kind, loving, often buck-toothed Anglo Saxon missionary ladies and fragile men who endured enormous hardships to open orphanages and schools for the wounded little birds. Quite incidentally, they gained converts to their Protestant faiths.

It took only two more meetings with May Ellen Austin at J.J. Newberry's ladies' undergarment department to persuade Aunt Alice to come to Sunday service. Initially, Haigoush was hesitant as her husband, Margos, was suspcious of the sneaky motives of all Protestants.

Aunt Alice found the First Baptist a lively church with sermons warning of roaring hellfire awaiting the unsaved. All was not grim, however. Sermons were endured finally because of the fine, rolicking music on the piano accompanied by the congregation singing con spirito.

Intrigued by Alice's stories and ignoring her husband's disapproval, the following Sunday Aunt Haigoush secretly joined her sister at the eleven o'clock service. She too was captivated by the passion of the first Baptists. Soon Haigoush declared to Margos that she was a new member of the First Baptist Church of Montross whether he liked it or not. Margos didn't like it but kept quiet as no one fed him quite as perfectly as his wife.

Finely detailed letters were written to their sister, Marta, quickly saying that the girls were absolute angels and she mustn't fret a single minute about their behavior. The bulk of Alice's and Haigoush's three page letters were about their exciting and rewarding membership in the Montross Baptist Church.

Marta was often told that she was the most intelligent member of their entire family. She was also immodestly convinced that she was far more than merely intelligent. Immediately, she saw through the religious palaver to another more accurate truth. It was Alice's instinctual knowlege that church membership was necessary for social progress in the family's newly adopted country. It was also undeniable that Protestant missionaries were helpful with their immigration to America the magnificent.

Luceen who had only a mild curiosity about the doings at her aunts' church didn't dare protest about going or not going to Sunday school--and Wednesday night prayer meetings--and monthly visits to churches in one of the more direly poverty-striken rural towns.

From the first minute Luceen saw him, she was turned off by the Reverend Milton Bonsac who looked like the pictures she'd seen of Friar Tuck in the Robin Hood story. But he lacked the good Friar's wit. He was fat, pink and cold and his sermons were terrifying. Hell was for the unsaved but an unbelievably beautiful heaven with castles of gold, divine harp music, dressed in floaty gossamer angel costumes and best of all, reunion with their dearly departed. But only the saved. Every sermon ended with a plea for sinners to come forth, declare their base nature, denunce sin, and pledge to take the Lord Jesus Christ as their savior. Sometimes no one came forth. The silence was deadly. Luceen came close to volunteering to put an end to the agony of waiting.

Forgetting her promise to Marta to be compliant, during supper Luceen blurted,

"I don't like the minister. He's too spooky and loud."

"Try to understand the man, Luceen. The dream of his life was to be a pharmacist--but his parents with many children didn't have the money to finance a business-"

"O.K. Aunt Alice, what if he's not happy, does he have to scare the hell out of everyone?"

A shocked involuntary gasp emitted from Aunt Alice. The cousins joyfully laughed at Luceen's forbidden use of the word hell. Shaking her head, Aunt Alice scolded,

"I know Marta doesn't permit you to say "hell". Please don't use that word again--especially in front of the boys who love shocking words."

"Well, the minister uses the word "hell" a hundred times and no one gives him the-- devil-"

The children laughed at her words "hell" and "devil" but abruptly ceased when they saw Aunt Haigoush's stern look. Aunt Alice shrugged, sighed and went off to start supper. She should have known that Luceen, the daughter of a revolutionary, would be opinionated and different. No matter, Luceen was spirited much like herself.

Besides Horace Converse, the music director, the only other person who fascinated Luceen at the First Baptist Church of Montross was sweet-faced, quavering voiced May Ellen. Every Saturday May Ellen gathered up derelicts from bars and alleys--any who promised to give testimonials on Sunday evening about being lost but now found in Jesus and happily cleansed of sin. Quite apart from salvation they enjoyed refreshments, praise and admiration from the parishioners. Thanks to May Ellen now their lives were brand new, clean and glorious.

After six weeks of listening to repentant sinners and seeing their glowing faces, Luceen began to wonder if she could enjoy the same beautiful life of the reformed. But public humiliation by detailing made up sins was something she couldn't do no matter how rewarding the redemption. Still she was unwilling to abandon the idea of salvation and a wonderful new life.

Several times Luceen chased salvation in secret in Aunt Alice's suffocating attic on her knees in record breaking heat amid woolen afgans and quilts.

"Dear God, I'm sure I have bad sins. Sometimes I want to drown the twins. They're so dumb. And sometimes I wish my mother was a nice American lady and my father was an American boss who worked in an insurance company making a lot of money. Those must be sins. I want to be saved--so please do it-"

Afterwards with a conspiritual smile on her face, Luceen emerged from the attic and floated around watching and waiting for her life to change. Nothing obvious or great happened. Things went on in the same old way. Everybody stayed the same. It was clear that God was skipping around somewhere else leaving Luceen unradiant and unsaved.

Luceen, now twelve, began worrying about high school. A few girls in the other seventh grade class said they were going to college and would be taking college courses in high school. But most of the students knew they had to find jobs after graduation. Attending college was a frivolity in the year nineteen thirty-nine.

When it was her turn to see Miss Snow, the guidance counsellor, Luceen was very nervous. Miss Snow had a reputation of not wasting energy being gentle or tactful,

"Now Luceen, I see from these records that you never really excelled scholastically. In fact, your highest mark was in home economics. Do you have an interest in the field of home economics?"

"No, Miss Snow-"

Without wanting to, Luceen giggled at her rhyme. Miss Snow frowned at the inappropriateness of her giggle in the midst of such a serious discussion but continued,

"The most practical course for you is one in business. The subjects you'll need will be shorthand, typing, and business English."

Luceen nodded with false seriousness. Encouraged, Miss Snow concluded,

"So, if there are no questions- I can only add--do well in your subjects and who knows one day you might wind up the secretary to a bank president."

Sensing the conclusion of the interview, Luceen stood. Miss Snow closed the folder of Luceen's school records and mused,

"Of course, doing so well in home economics, marriage would also be a practical option-"

Luceen opened the door to leave as she heard Miss Snow asking

"Do you have a boyfriend, Luceen?"

She gently closed the door pretending that she hadn't heard the guidance counsellor.

Luceen accepted Miss Snow's boring guidance with neither disappointment nor bitterness. Admittedly, she did grow dopey dreamy whenever she saw the rich, handsome college boys at Saint Paul's College. But neither college nor college boys had a place in her future.

After paying rent for three years and really not getting ahead, Daisy called a family conference. All were present except for Uncle Tahnyel who told them to decide whatever they wanted but please just leave him out of it. Daisy presented her case.

"This is crazy. We lost the farm and now we're wasting lots of money helping other people rich. Let's everbody kick in a hundred dollars a month. Pretty soon we'll have enough money for a down payment on our own house. My boss, Mr. Bachelor, knows someone important at Oakwood Savings-"

Daisy received no argument. Within three years all the girls, except for Jenny who was in college. The boy, Peter had a job delivering the morning paper. Tahnyel worked at the same typwriter factory as George. The first scouts into the wilderness of real estate searches were Daisy and Hannah.

Seven months later, they'd found the house. Next Rosie and Alice went to look at the house. They were just as smitten as Daisy and Hannah. The last to go to see the house were Dovie, Jenny and young Peter.

Tahnyel said,

"If you like the house,buy it. Don't bother me. I'll give you whatever money you need--just don't bother me."

The house they bought was a huge Victorian with a hndsome stained glass window at the front door and a more modest window on the first floor stair landing. The floors were oak. There were several closed-off fireplaces but the ornate oak and marble surrounds remained. Rigid bathroom scheduling kept order on the numbers who had to use the one bathroom. The real estate agent suggested making another bathroom out of one of the large downstairs closets.

To Luceen, Marta and George the house Uncle Tahnyel bought was a mansion. They were very proud to be related to the family who owned such magnificence.

Going to Uncle Tahnyel's for any reason was high on Luceen's list of favorite places to visit.

Soon after settling in, Hannah began taking piano lessons. Rosie took singing lessons from the same woman. Daisy exempted herself from culture to manage family finances and social events.

The invitation to George and Marta's family was for Thanksgiving dinner. It would be the first such dinner in their new country for the entire Manogian family. Luceen's family was only dimly aware of this American custom. The nominal head of Uncle Tahnyel's household was Daisy. The rule in this Armenian house was to first consult the male head. Daisy went to Tahnyel who was sitting in his favorite overstuffed maroon armchair reading another Zane Gray Western,

"Papa, we had too much work to do at the farm to celebrate Thanksgiving but now that we're all grown and working in the city, we can start having Thanksgiving dinner with your nephew's family. What do you think?"

For Tahnyel life at the mansion wasn't much different from life at the farm. It was a place to return to after work at the factory, to eat and to read Zane Gray novels, often the same one forgotten after a time, and finally to deep snoring sleep.

This time he showed interest,

"That's a good idea. I like George and Marta. Their daughters are surprisingly well behaved. Anyway, I have nothing to do will it. Go ahead and do what you like."

And so Dovie and Daisy initiated Thankgsiving dinners at the mansion and invited George, Marta and the girls.

As Luceen entered the mansion, the smell of roasting turkey was the first hint of the dizzying feast that was to come. Dovie, Hannah and Daisy were the major cooks but the others helped.

Everything glittered--the china, the opalescent light globes on the hanging brass fixure and the hurricane lamps on the piano. The turkey was roasted to a perfect golden brown and was stuffed with barley, mushrooms, sauteed Italian sausage, onions, basil and mint. There were two sauce boats containing turkey gravy. Gravy a new experience. Two bowls of cranberry orange relish. A classic rice pelav heavy on the butter and chicken broth. Stringbeans in an onion, tomato sauce. Mashed potatoes. Winter squash seasoned with ginger, butter and honey. The simple salad consisted of tomatoes, cucumbers, peppers, parlsey and onions dressed with lemon juice and olive oil. Luceen ate everything offered.

Daisy said to Luceen,

"Better leave a little room in your stomach for dessert, Kiddo-"

There were four pies. Two were pumpkin and two apple--both served with thick whipped cream. Luceen asked for a thin slice of both and ate every bit of each wishing to wipe the plate clean with her finger. Marta intercepted her thought with a censorious look. During the meal there was little talking of interest. Mostly requests to pass one dish or another and compliments to the cooks. As they came to the end of the endless feast, talk and laughter accelerated.

Peter,as he was recently taught, asked to be excused from the table. He was in the midst of putting together a special model airplane and was expecting an important friend with the same passion. Unforunately the important friend didn't show up.

With considerable pride Dovie said that Peter's model airplane making friend was the Governor's son. Hannah, who was critical of everyone and everything said that the Governor's son looked like a frog with a wide nose, freckles and donkey ears. Alice said she didn't think frogs had ears. But since he was the Governor's son he'd never have to worry about getting into a college of his choice or profession of his choice.

Marta started scraping plates to help with the clean up, but Rosie and Alice said the cleanup was their job and all were to sit until the table was cleared. In the meanwhile, Hannah would entertain with piano music.

The twins began to fidget--having sat though a very long meal. Daisy took them to the parlor to watch Hannah play the piano. Peter returned to plague the twins with silly questions.

Just as Dovie was describing her daughters recent membership in the Young Armenians Arts Council, the doorbell rang and two young women in their early twenties and one young man about the same age dashed in. One of the female beauties had dark brown hair and eyes. She wore a gold silk blouse and black velveteen slacks. The other beauty had brown hair with streaks of blonde. Her eyes were blue gray with incredible eyelashes which half shaded her face. She was wearing a dashing plaid suit. The young man who was more beautiful than either girl, wore a black wood cape, lined in faux leopard fur. A black Persian lamb hat nearly covered his curly black hair. What instantly captivated Luceen was his fine Clark Gable mustache.

Daisy brought them to the dining room and made the introductions.

"Auntie and Uncle--I'd like you to meet our new friends--Margo, Janice and Caesar-- and I'd like the three of you to meet my aunt and uncle. Actually, George is my father's nephew. And we call his wife, Aunt Marta-"

All three shook hands with George and Marta saying,

"Nice to meet you."

George and Marta unused to American style of introductions, said in Armenian,"

"OOragh yenk dzahnotznahloo-" (we're happy to be introduced to you)

Caesar swept off his cape and put it about Alice's shoulders. Alice said,

"Am I supposed to be honored to have your cape?"

Caesar shrugged,

"I think being honored would be your appropriate response-"

Then he took off the Persian lamb hat and placed it on Peter's head. It sank down over his eyes. Peter stumbled about saying,

"Help-help- I'm blind!"

Only the older people found him amusing-

Hannah said,

"Auntie Marta, do you know that Caesar is a concert pianist and composer?"

Marta smiled genially but made no comment. She clearly found him too dramatic. Caesar wasn't someone with whom she could feel comfortable. George on the other hand, greatly amused, chuckled and insisted that chairs be brought for the young people to join them. Luceen frowned. No one had bothered to introduce her. Was it because she wasn't old enough, smart enough, or beautiful enough to count? She went to the kitchen quietly angry but soon returned.

Then everyone began pleading with Caesar to play something on the piano. Alice put his cape on Luceen saying,

"Maybe his talent will be transmitted to you-"

Luceen blushed scarlet hoping Caesar would notice and say something to her. He didn't. With very little protest he agreed to play just one short piece.

Daisy waved everyone into the north parlor where the upright piano had the place of honor. As they were all heading that way, George asked in a voice embarassingly loud,

"What kind of a name is Caesar? Is that boy Armenian?"

Caesar overheard and answered in clumsy Armenian that his parents were Armenian and his given name was Garo Sanasarian. His stage name for the past five years was Caesar Augustus which fascinated and intrigued the concert- going public.

There weren't enough chairs in the north parlor to accomodate everyone. Luceen and the twins were told to sit on the floor by the piano. The flashy new lady friends stood beside Caesar as he flexed his fingers, shoulders, and arms in a warming up exercise. Uncle Tahnyel and George sat together on the sofa. Daisy perched on the arm. Dovie and Marta sat in overstuffed chairs. Peter was divested of the Persian lamb hat and banished to the kitchen to fetch Rosie and Hannah.

There were requests for Beethovan, Bach, Schubert and Chopin. Caesar chose Chopin. Luceen, to see better, slowly worked her way beside the girl in plaid all the while trying to be mouselike inobtrusive. Caesar's thin polished ivory fingers glided over the notes. His lavender eyelids closed and opened with changing moods. What continued to captivate Luceen most was his exciting, fine Clark Gable mustache. Oh, if she could only describe him to Claire and Muriel. No, that would just spoil her future dreams of him. No one must know that she was wildly in love with Garo Caesar the pianist and composer.

For eight days Luceen kept the secret of Caesar Augustus the composer and pianist to herself before it burst from her heart to her lips. Norma was putting Cutex rose pink nail polish on Diana, her twin's fingernails.

"Do you remember that guy who played the piano at Uncle Tahnyel's?"

"The dopey one with the animal fur in his cape?"

"Yeah, he was funny, Luceen. Didn't you just want to fall over laughing?"

"You kids are nuts. You don't know a thing about good music. That's called "classical music." Jeez, I wish I had sisters who had brains and weren't such morons-"

"What did you want to tell us about mustache man?"

"Nothing. Forget it."

"Are you in love with the mustache man?"

"God, no! What made you say such a dumb thing? No, I was just asking-- Didn't he remind you of an actor?"

"May-be- kind-of- I don't know. You say who?"

"Clark Gable."

"Oh, Luceen--Now we know--you got a boyfriend--you got a boyfriend-"

"Shut up. He's not a boyfriend and you know it. He's got lots of girlfriends. Are you blind? Didn't you see those beautiful girls with him. Now shut up and polish your nails."

At school girls were talking in wicked whispers about "getting the curse" or getting a visit from "my red-headed friend." Putting together the bits and pieces Luceen figured it was bleeding from the peepee hole. She dreaded and in a curious way anticipated, "the curse."

She had embarassingly puffy bosoms that were difficult to hide. All her dresses were still sewn by Mom. Then it came. Parroting the wiser girls, she called it "my red-headed friend." It was nothing but a rusty stain on her home sewn rayon bloomers. Pretending ignorance she went to Marta.

"Mom, there's blood on my bloomers-"

It seemed odd to Luceen that Mom appeared the tiniest bit pleased to learn this.

"My girl, that's only natural. If it didn't happen, we would worry. I have flannel material from old pajama bottoms cut into strips. We'll fold them like a bandage and then you can pin them to your bloomers. When they are soiled, you take another clean strip of flannel. I keep them on the bottom shelf of the linen closet. Put the dirty ones in a brown paper bag under the bathtub. I'll wash them on washing day and we'll have them ready for next month."

By the end of the week, the rags under the bathrub stank to high heaven. She supposed all the other girls did the same too--though no one discussed their curse rags with her. The curse was an awful darn inconvenience. There wasn't one thing good about it except for being one of that special group who could moan about just getting their red-headed friend. They could carry on about having bad cramps and not being able to participate in gym class. There was a certain sisterhood among those who were already heroically dealing with the curse.

No explanation was given about the connection between the curse, eggs, sperm, implanting sperm, boys, babies or the dirty joining of genitals. Luceen stayed content in ignorance. Though disgusted with this ridiculous fact of being female, she was still able to escape into dreams of Caesar Augustus, cape swirling, piano magic making, thin mustached Clark Gable. Sadly there wasn't even a breath of suggestion that she might ever see him again.

It was Spring and graduation from grammar school was impending. Marta responded to Luceen's oblique statement that several girls in her class were getting permanents by making a date with Maria Theresa Malizzia. Working in her sewing and ironing room, Maria Theresa gave permanents to daughters of the women who were rag factory co-workers.

Luceen happy in dreams of finally becoming a movie actress beauty, eagerly allowed her head to be doused in smelly lotions. Then curlers attached her head to a scary electric contraption. Luceen watched diaperless babies crawling about the floor while her hair cooked. The whole process took a long time.

When her head and hair were released from the machine, Luceen looked in the mirror for magic. Instead she saw that she didn't look like any actress she could remember. She consoled herself that at least the result was cute tight curls. Now maybe romance would come to her in the person of Caesar Clark Gable.

With graduation only a month away Mom and Luceen's important project became creating a graduation dress. Together they went to the yard goods and pattern department of Sage & Allen. Aunt Alice had given them two and a half yards of a white fabric oddly called sharkskin. As the fabric was given free, they had money to spend on a McCall's pattern and beautiful gold and white buttons. Luceen didn't puzzle long about the fabric's being in no way from or looking like sharkskin. The picture on the pattern showed a princess style dress with square neckline and short sleeves. The gold and white buttons would rescue the dress from being common or drab.

In two weeks Mom cut and pinned and basted and readjusted before she machine stitched the graduation dress--like no one else's.

Other girls had dresses with puffed sleeves and lace and ruffles but not Luceen. White pumps with a one inch Cuban heel were necessary and bought. The final effect was disappointingly like the outfit of someone going to a religious school.

Graduation with rehearsals and nervous speeches finally became a reality on a steamingly hot early June evening at the Horace Bushnell Memorial Hall. Impressive and glamourous honors and awards were announced with no mention of Luceen--nor did she expected any. Suddenly, in the middle of a Caesar Clark Gable dream, she heard her name. She grasped the last words and knew the principal was saying that she, Luceen, received the highest mark in home economics. A few people clapped--probably her family. It might as well have been an award for making paper dolls or mud pies for all the glamour or prestige. She consoled herself, at least it was an award and her family was proud.

Summer flew or dragged by depending on what was going on that particular day. In the Fall Luceen would be walking two miles to the handsome stone Gothic building called Miles Standish High School. She worried about how she'd find her home room and other classes. She worried that students from two other grammar schools would be funneled, along with those from her school, into that one large high school and she'd become lost in the crowd. There was nervousness but no hope of meeting anyone as exciting or splendid or beautiful as Caesar Clark Gable. She also knew she would die of dumbness in all her subjects.

Algebra was undecipherable--like trying to make sense of Egyptian hieroglyphics. Business English was hopelessly dull. Typing was a disaster. Her sweaty fingers slipped and slid on and off the correct keys. Because she had long ago wanted to be Courtroom Caroline from the radio serial--the brilliant and beautiful lawyer, she chose to take Latin. She had observed many of law phrases were in Latin. Quite amazingly she did well in Latin. On balance, it was obvious Luceen was going to be a moron throughout her four years in high school without a breath of a hope for an exciting or brilliant career.

A quick survey of the boys with a view for romance, gleaned not a single prospect. Boys she'd known in grammar school were now attractively tall but pimply. Not a single one came close to the perfection of Caesar Clark Gable. It had now been months since she'd seen him that one and only time. The thought came to her that he might not even have existed. If he did exist he might have melted into the clouds in the sky. She was desperate to have someone or something to hang onto.

She asked her girlfriend Claire for an old movie magazine with an article on Clark Gable. Alongside the small pictures there was one large one of the actor which Luceen cut out and ecstatically taped to her closet door. She searched for Garo Sanasarian Caesar's name, address and phone number in the phone book. There were three Sanasarians but all were listed under first names obviously one of them his father's. What if she called the right number but his father or mother answered? No point in worrying, she wouldn't call him anyway. It was just more torture.

The days went painfully boringly by and there wasn't the merest hope of seeing Caesar Clark Gable again. To taste the sweetness of his name aloud, she told her friends Claire and Muriel about the dazzling pianist, his cape, his hat, his curly black hair. When they asked about the color of his eyes, she had to confess that she didn't really know but guessed they were brown as were most Armenians. She told about his beautiful thin fingers flying over the notes of Chopin. But they showed almost no interest. Finally, she told about his thin Clark Gable mustache. The only response from Muriel was that her Uncle Ralph had a mustache and it scratched when he kissed her. Claire said she liked Bing Crosby much better.

Exactly like her sisters, her friends were morons and jerks. She had to take decisive action and talk to her mother--but very indirectly--very subtly.

"Mom, when are we going to Uncle Tahnyel's again?"

"They're a big family and they're all so busy. We can't invite ourselves. We were just there for Thanksgiving. Why do you want to go?"

"The girls teach us about classical music. That way we can get ahead of the kids in school-"

"Alright- We haven't talked since since Thanksgiving. I'll call Dovie and ask how the girls are doing."

"Yeah, and ask her about their friends in the Armenian Culture Council or Association--whatever it was."

"Don't tell me what to say. I'll call and see how they are. Bring the clothes in from the clothesline. Night will bring with it dampness-"

Daisy answered the phone. Dovie was off shopping. It was Daisy who tendered the invitation for Sunday night supper. Mom said she would consult with George and call back. Luceen found that bit of Mom's pretending that George ran things fake and silly. Why couldn't she come right out say thanks--and accept.

Of course, George said he'd enjoy visiting his uncle. Luceen was airborne-- stratospheric. In her most recent dream, Caesar Augustus Tavidt Sanasarian Clark Gable would stop by Uncle Tahnyel's for a visit and it would be the beginning of their romance.

She agonized. The yellow dress or the brown dress? The yellow had trimming of brown rickrack. The brown had a lace collar. Naturally, each twin preferred the opposite. Then Luceen went to the high court.

"Mom which dress should I wear to Dovie and Uncle Tahnyel's--the yellow or brown?"

"Both are nice in a special way. I like them both."

"Come on, Mom. Which one do I look the prettiest in?"

"You're young. Youth looks good in every color. It's not important. They're just family. Run along and do your homework until I call you to help-"

Luceen decided on the brown dress with the delicate lace dollar. She fixed a brown velvet ribbon to a barrette and pinned a few curls to the side of her forehead. The twins watched her primp in fascination. They made her nervous.

"Why don't you kids go somewhere else. Help Mom for a change. Why am I always the one to help?"

"Hey, Luceen what do you want for Christmas?"

"I haven't thought about it. Why?"

"Well you better. Only eight days left-"

"Mom always gets what we need. Slippers. Socks. sweaters--Stuff like that."

"I know- isn't it awful, Luceen?"

"O.K. this is it. You two get lost. I can't put on my Tangee lipstick straight with you two gawking at me."

Amazingly, both girls vanished. They had their own dressing to tend to.

As they were going up the walk to Uncle Tahnyel's, a young man was leaving. Was it a dream? Would her mother notice if she pinched herself? With black wool cape, this time lined with peacock blue satin,and wildly whipping about in the wind--was Caesar Clark Gable! He stopped and frowned a second trying to place them.

But George recognized him instantly and jokingly teased-

"Where are you running off to, Mister Pianist? You must have heard I was coming. By the way, you might not remember-- I'm Tahnyel's nephew, George Manoogian. We met a while ago."

"Of course, I remember you and your charming wife. Oh, I'm so sorry. Honestly, no one told me you were coming."

Luceen tried to hide her scarlet face. It was wonderful. It was awful. What if he spoke to her- But suppose he never noticed her-

Marta spoke,

"Ignore George. He likes to tease. I remember you are Garo Sanasarian with a fancy name for concerts. You're young and you're busy. We understand. Where are your other friends?"

"You must mean my pals, Margo and Janice? They're off Christmas shopping."

Luceen's sprit shriveled at the mere mention of the two tramps.

George said,

"Well, let's not hold you up. It was good to see you again. Have a good Christmas and happy healthy, successful new year. And give your parents, even though we've not met them, our good wishes,"

"And the same to you and your family,Bahrohn Manoogian."

And at this point he looked at Luceen and the twins. Luceen swallowed and breathed simultaneously which caused coughing. Her life was over. She was going to die.

Caesar laughed and smiled,

"Hey, kiddo- take it easy--otherwise; you won't make it to Christmas-"

Knowing this was a big moment for her, Norma kicked Luceen who forgot she was supposed to be the delicate fairy princess in a real life almost movie romance and yelled,

"Ouch!-quit it, jerk."

Her mother sharply pinched her cheek.

"How many times have I told you not to say that word?!"

Leaving with his cape still blowing wildly about, Garo Caesar Clark Gable- waved and disappeared into his huge black 1939 Buick.

Luceen went through the motions of greeting and eating. Supper was a sort of hearty meatball chowder called bulohr. Bulohrs were tiny meatballs made of ground lamb, finely minced onions, parsley and mint and very fine bulghur wheat. They were cooked in a chicken broth with spinich, sauteed onions, mint and yoghurt. In truth, Luceen loved bulohr but today it hung like lead bullets in her chest. The bulohr was accompanied with a purslane, tomato, cucumber, onion and parsley salad. Luceen forced that down. Dessert was vanilla pudding which she didn't care for. Puddings were like gooey snot. The walnut cookies were delicious. She was offered only one. When pudding was offered Luceen shook her head no. Hannah said,

"Hey, Luceen- you dieting? I think you're getting a little plump-."

Marta came to Luceen's defense,

"No dieting in my house. Luceen's just right. She's still growing-"

Rosie said,

"Luceen's what people call "pleasingly plump."

Thankfully Alice interrupted to say that Sunday Night Classical Music Concert was on the radio and if the children hurried to the South Parlor, they could listen with her.

The twins who had long ago agreed with Luceen that pudding was like nose snot, said they didn't want their dessert either- but would like a walnut cookie. Hannah told them to eat at the table to keep cumbs off the Oriental rug. When finished, she said they could join the classical music lovers in the parlor.

The adults dawdled at the table while Hannah, Alice, the twins and Luceen found chairs in the parlor. Wanting only to dream and exaggerate her encounter with Caesar Clark Gable, Luceen sat in a rocking chair far from the radio. She tried mentally rewriting a new and improved movie script for what just happened with her love at the same time pretending to appreciate the classical music.

Now and then words and phrases came to her. It was probably Alice speaking-

"Rachmaninov--can you girls picture a cold country with snow and a dark wooden house? ..... Mozart--imagine a marble ballroom and beautiful women in gorgeous satin gowns dancing...."

As the program was ending, the adults came to the South Parlor asking if the news had come on yet. Though they asked, they were still talking and not paying particular attention. Suddenly Rosie gasped,

"Oh, God--it can't be true?"

"What? What can't be true?"

"For Christ's sake--shut up and listen, a minute-"

The man on the radio was speaking in sonorous solemn tones like those of a priest. Luceen snaped out of her reverie. The man was saying something about war. There was absolute silence in the room. The twins became alarmed,

"What's happening, Mom? What's the man saying, Mom?"

Norma catching everyone's horror began to cry.

Marta went to her,

"Me lahr aghchigus, Ahstvadz mez guh buyeh (Don't cry, my girl. God will protect us)."

Each person tried to grasp in silence what this declaration meant. Diana said she wanted another cookie. Norma stopped crying and said she wanted one too. Dovie told the children to go to the kitchen and help themselves. The cookies were on a blue and white plate with a windmill on it.

War? Luceen was mystified-terrified. War. It was a word with a heavy sound. She read about war in school history books. War happened in other countries in other long ago times. War. Did it mean airplanes would drop bombs on their house? Did it mean enemy soldiers would march down New Britain Avenue and fight Americans with guns or knives? Could she be wounded? Could she or the people she loved die? For a few minutes she forgot all about Caesar Clark Gable. Then the word intruded again--War. It was mysterious and terrifying.