Siro by David Ignatius (short books to read txt) 📕

stay here at the Faculty of Medicine for another year. Perhaps longer. I am very good at my work. But I feel that I must go home, to be with people who feel as I do.”

“Who are they, your fellow patriots? What do they want?”

“I will tell you a little history, so you will know who we are. Our dissident movement began in April 1965, on the fiftieth anniversary of the genocide of our people. The apparatchiks running the Armenian republic weren’t planning any ceremony to mark the event. It wasn’t convenient, as the Russians like to say. But the ordinary people wouldn’t stand for it. This pain was their identity, and they wanted to scream—so that the world would know they still existed. They took to the streets, by the thousands, in a great tearful march that lasted all one day and into the next. The local KGB and the militia went crazy. But they could not stop it.”

“Did you march?”

“Yes, of course I marched. I was sixteen years old. I wanted to scream, like everyone else. But after we had stopped screaming, my friends and I wanted to do something more.”

“What was that?”

“We wanted to build a real country. In 1968, some of my compatriots started a group called the Armenian Self-Determination Movement. They argued that no government in Yerevan could be legitimate without free elections. That was quite a revolutionary idea in 1968, and many of them were put in prison. A few who weren’t arrested went underground. Some even went to Beirut to join the secret Armenian organizations that were starting there in the early 1970s.”

“What about you?”

“I was careful and cautious. Perhaps I was also frightened. I won a place at the university in Moscow, and everybody told me that I was destined for great things. I didn’t want to destroy my chances. You see, a clever scientist in the Soviet Union can live a very good life. It is not something to throw away. But all the while, as I worked and studied, I stayed in touch with my old friends. They had become very excited about the campaign to assassinate Turkish diplomats. All the hotheads wanted to run off to Damascus and join ASALA and kill Turks. But I thought this was a terrible mistake.”

“Why?” Anna was letting the waves of his argument lap against her, waiting to see the source from which it flowed.

“For all the reasons I explained to you last night. We are a people caught in the past. We want the world to see our old wounds, to celebrate our suffering with us, to commemorate, to apologize. But I think this approach is wrong. It keeps us chained to this dead animal of the past. And it will lead us to make the same tragic mistake as before.”

“What is that mistake?”

“We are looking for the world to save us. We want the Turks to apologize to us. We want Moscow to protect us. We want America to love us. We are looking for someone else to give dignity and definition to our race. But I am finished with that. When I came here to Paris and had a chance to think for myself, I realized that I am tired of the Armenian past. I want to build the Armenian future. I want us to be an ordinary part of the modern world, just like everyone else. And I have found a small group of people who feel the same way I do.”

“Bravo,” said Anna. “But you can’t do it alone. You need help.”

“I know. That is why I am here, with you. I don’t know exactly what you do, you and your ‘foundation,’ but I have a feeling that you can help us.”

Anna took a deep breath. So here it was. He had walked across the line on his own, without so much as a push. Did he really know what was on the other side?

“I want to tell you about what I do,” she said, “so that there will be no misunderstanding between us later. My foundation works closely with the government …”

“Don’t tell me,” he interjected.

“I must tell you some things. I represent …”

“Don’t tell me!” he said again sharply. “It is better left unsaid.”

Anna stopped and thought. There was no requirement, certainly, that she tell him all the details. But it bothered her to be sidestepping the central fact of their relationship.

“Sometimes,” she said, “it’s better to know exactly what you’re getting into. Things can happen later.”

“And sometimes it is better to leave things fuzzy. In this case, I want something very specific from you. And if you can get it for me, the rest is irrelevant.”

Anna had a strange feeling of disorientation, as if the huntress was also the prey. “What do you want from me?” she asked.

“My friends and I have decided that we want Armenia to join the revolution.”

“What are you talking about?”

“The revolution of one world. When you come to a place like Paris from the Soviet Union, you realize that there is something happening in the world which doesn’t have anything to do with capitalism or socialism, or even with politics. It has to do with communication. The world is becoming one, and we Armenians want to join. Now.”

“Join what? I still don’t understand what you mean.”

“We want to sit around the same fire with you at night. We want to watch the same news on television, watch the same movies on Saturday night, dance to the same music. We want to share in the same conversation. If we can do that, the rest will take care of itself.”

“How can I possibly help you do that?”

“It is simple, really,” he said, stretching his hands out toward her. “It is just a matter of obtaining the right sort of antennas.”

She thought at first that he was putting her on. “What antennas?”

“Television antennas.”

“What are you talking about, Aram? Are you crazy?”

“Please! This is the most serious thing in the world. The Kremlin is