I attempt to pick it up, and it almost slips from my grasp, it’s so heavy. That’s all I need, destroying her art. I handle it more carefully, the pricks of the crystal digging lightly into my fingertips. I’ve only ever seen khachkars in their traditional stone (hence the name, “cross stone”). Something about seeing a crystal carved into an Armenian cross feels both irreverent and reverent at the same time, and I’m no art critic, but that feels special.
“How much sugar do you like in yours?” she asks from the kitchen.
I should probably go over there and help. I set the khachkar back down gently on a piece of cut cloth. I think on her question and answer, “A little”. The kitchen is right there, with a window cut out, so she was able to see me handling her art. I stand in the doorway. The kitchen has sage-green cabinets, and it’s equally cluttered with appliances and spices and knives along a metallic rack.
She looks at home here, albeit a bit more dressed up than the true comfort of ratty-pajamas at-homeness. This outfit of hers. I want so badly to reach over and tug at the bow on her shirt, undoing it, revealing the skin of her chest underneath. But. Not now. She’s holding a teaspoon heaping with finely ground coffee and plops it into the jezveh (a pot made specifically for Armenian coffee, with a long handle and a pouring lip) without spilling a single grain of it. Hers is a beautiful hammered copper one and the bent handle makes me wonder if she picked it up from the relic-filled Vernissage open air market in Yerevan I’ve heard so much about. She adds a dash of spice from a jar and says apologetically, “I know,cardamom isn’t always traditional, but that flavor kick it adds is undeniable.”
I wave my arms. “You’re not dealing with a sourj purist. No complaints here.”
She spoons a teaspoon of sugar into the pot and lights the stove. “You said you were in the mood for this? Does your family make it?”
They do. They did. Just like that, I’m knocked off my feet and thrown into a memory of Nene’s house when we were younger. It’s not one specific day I remember but a mash-up of a hundred days, a feeling. Thetap-tapof my feet on the linoleum kitchen floor. Warm hues of greens and browns and ruby reds to contrast the cold of Twin Peaks. Pomegranate sculptures and the Armenian alphabet framed on the wall. And Nene sternly showing me how to ensure that the sourj does not boil over, to watch for the signs of agitation before they overtake the jezveh. Sitting in the kitchen nook on a rattly metallic chair, grasping my small Armenian coffee cup full of the dark, sweet sludge, and feeling that I was partaking in something very grown-up. I was always cold in that kitchen, and the nook furniture wasn’t comfortable at all, but I would give anything to be back there in her house, which had to be sold.
Nene hasn’t made it since then. My mom hasn’t since her friend Nora doesn’t come over anymore. “My Dad preferred American coffee, or at least he was enamored with the idea of American coffee. So Mom got used to making that. My father, uh, passed, five years ago.”
Ugh. I did not come here to talk about my dad.
Erebuni sets down the spoon. “Oh, I’m so sorry,” she says gently.
I shrug, trying to not make her feel bad. Using the wordpassing, too, is a reflex, since I found using the worddiedmakes people uncomfortable. Though Erebuni seems like she doesn’t mind leaning into difficult spaces.
“It’s okay. It was complicated. I mean, the death, no. He drank too much, he drove, he crashed into a brick wall and died before the paramedics arrived.”
Her eyes are huge, as if she could make them big enough to absorb all my hurt.
“I didn’t say it, but I appreciated your breathalyzer. He would never take a precaution like that. I loved him so much. We were always the close ones, teaming up against my mom. But since he passed, I’ve been seeing so much of the damage he left behind. It’s weird, being angry at your dead father. He wasn’t into anything Armenian, for one, which I always saw as a plus. God, I’m so embarrassed to say that.”
Erebuni is listening with attentive little nods, her focus turning occasionally to the coffee, which makes her hair fall in front of her face like a curtain. She turns toward me, the curtain pulled back. “It’s not embarrassing. We love what our parents love, especially a favorite parent.”
She is so good; she truly does not make me feel like I’m burdening her. Even in the sadness of this conversation, she uplifts me.
“Well. I don’t see eye to eye with him on that anymore. I get why he cast off so much of his identity, but he was wrong. You helped me see that.”
She peers into the coffeepot. “I’m not sure I can take credit.”
The kitchen fills with the heady scent of coffee and cardamom. It must be getting close.
“Thank you for listening to me. I feel like...” I pause, wantingto tell her how much she is starting to mean to me. I want her to know some part of it. I finish, “You really hear me.”
We are looking at each other. Her voice is soft. “Everything you say fascinates me.” I notice how close we are. How her lips are barely parted.
Then I hear bubbles humming against the copper pot, and she must, too, since she turns away, flipping the burner off. My chest heaves.
Too shy to acknowledge what happened, I break the moment further. I ask, lightheartedly, “How’s it looking? No pressure of course.”
She smirks. “I’m used to pressure. You can’t make good sourj unless you’ve been lectured about it by your parent or grandparent at least five times. Lucky for you, I’ve been chided for years by all manner of relatives. My great-aunt Maroosh was especially picky. I hear her voice in my head repeating, ‘hink ankam togh yera, verchuh mareh.’ ”
Erebuni examines the jezveh and barely sways her hips in what I think is a victory dance. Damn, I would like to see that again.
“Look at that ser.” Her voice brims with pride.
Ser, the Armenian word for “coffee foam,” also happens to mean “love.” That’s how important this process is to us. You can’t make good coffee without love—ack, so cheesy. But it’s also neat how that wove its way into our language. And I like to hear Erebuni say the wordser. Since it also kind of means “sex.”
After pouring our coffee, alternating between the two cups to keep the consistency even for both of us (she’s a master; that’s a pro move I forgot about until I watched her do it), she hands me the cup and saucer and directs me to the main room. There’s alow emerald velvet couch with some sun stains and worn areas that make me think this piece is old, and I brace for an uncomfortable seat, but it’s surprisingly soft.
She pulls out a long matchbook, strikes a match, then flutters among various candles in the room, plunging the flame into the wicks one by one, a hummingbird collecting from flowers. She puffs out the match just before it licks her fingers, and a few moments later the air percolates with the smell of smoke (the Armenian word,mokhr, always sounded so mystical to me, like the people who invented it were in wonder of it). The walls dance with flickering light. Okay, she’s clearly setting a mood.It’s on me not to screw this up,I think, just as the back of my neck begins to get hot, a little damp.
When she sits, we’re close enough that our knees could touch if we wanted them to. The bloodred of her shirt is striking against the worn green of the couch.
