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

“I’d like to just sit in the car for a little while, if it’s okay,” she said. “Then when I’ve rested my leg we can go to Khor Virap.”

“They got Armenian doctor in next village, probably,” said Samvel. “He fix you up good.”

“No, I’d like to stay here for a little while. Maybe you could get me a bottle of mineral water or something from the store. I’m thirsty.”

“Jim-dandy,” he said. “I bring back to you in few minutes. You stay in car. You not supposed to be here, according to rules. But everybody in Armenia break rules all the time, so don’t worry. But stay here.”

He walked off in search of a store. Anna scanned the streets, going and coming. Several trucks arrived from the direction of Yerevan, and so did a half dozen cars of various description. A horse cart trotted down the street with an Azeri farmer and his son. A few bicycles whizzed by. But in none of these vehicles did Anna see anyone who looked remotely like Aram Antoyan. Down one side street, she thought she saw a tall man in a gray coat watching her from the shadows. But when she moved to get a closer look, he disappeared.

Samvel returned after a while with a fizzy cherry drink in a bottle, full of apologies. Most of the local stores were closed for some reason, he said. Typical Azeris. In an Armenian village the stores would all have been open, and they would have had Pepsi-Cola. Anna drank it slowly, scanning the highway. When the bottle was finally empty, she complained again of pain in her leg and asked if Samvel could perhaps get her something to eat. He looked at his watch. It was almost ten o’clock now.

“Food is better in Armenian village,” he said. He wanted to leave.

“Please, Samvel, I need to eat something before we travel.”

He nodded and went off again. Anna fixed her eyes on the Yerevan road and watched the same occasional parade of cars, still looking in vain for the face of Aram Antoyan. Where in God’s name was he? she wondered. She was half angry at him and half worried. She turned and was scanning the streets in the interior of the village, wondering if maybe he could have come some other way, when she saw something that made her heart leap.

In the distance, nearly a hundred yards away, she could see the figure of a man emerging from a car that had parked on the small road that led away from town in the other direction. What made her think immediately of Aram was the man’s gait, that close-footed step of the mountain pony that she had found so endearing in Paris. The man in the distance was heading toward a warren of houses. Anna wondered for a moment what to do, and then simply acted on impulse.

She opened the car door and walked quickly—forgetting the fake limp—toward the figure in the distance. She removed the headscarf, so that he would recognize her more easily. He was walking toward her—perhaps sixty yards away now—and was turning to his left. The closer Anna got, the more certain she was that it was Aram. He still hadn’t recognized her.

Anna quickened her pace, until it was almost a run. He had stopped in front of a two-story house, slightly grander than most of the rest in the village. Oh my God, thought Anna. This must be the home of the smuggler, Sadeq Shirvanshir. In a moment, Aram would be in the house and gone.

“Aram,” she called out to him, into the wind.

He turned and glanced at her briefly, so preoccupied with his own business that he didn’t really bother to look who might be calling his name. He turned back toward the door of the house.

“Aram,” she cried again.

This time he heard, looked, and looked again in disbelief. They were still forty yards apart. Anna began shaking her head and waving her arms, in pantomime, as if to say: Don’t go in the house. Stay away from the house. Stay away from me.

He understood the first part, but not the second. In his shock and exhilaration at seeing the woman he thought he had left behind forever in Paris, he thought only of embracing her. He ran toward her, in short, tight steps, and put his arm around her.

“Qu’est-ce que c’est?” He was delighted and dumbfounded. “What can this be? Why are you here?”

Anna took his arm and walked quickly away from the house of Sadeq Shirvanshir, then stopped and looked at him. Aram had grown his beard back. He looked ruddy and healthy, not at all the worse for his return home.

“Listen to me carefully, Aram,” she said in French. “There is a problem with the delivery. I don’t think it’s safe for you to pick things up. I promised back in Paris that I would warn you if something was wrong. This was the only way, coming here myself.”

Aram was shaking his head and smiling. “But there is nothing wrong, you silly girl. Everything is okay.”

“Yes, there is something wrong. Trust me. The KGB knows what my friends and I have been doing. They are probably waiting for you to pick up this delivery. You shouldn’t take the risk. They will think you’re a spy.”

“But you are wrong. There is no danger here,” repeated Aram. “I tell you, we are safe.”

“Listen to me!” she pleaded. “I have come all this way to warn you, and you aren’t even listening.”

“No, you must listen to me,” he said. He was trying to be calm and manly, in the presence of this anxious woman. “There is nothing to worry about. There is no danger.”

“How do you know? What are you talking about?”

“I have already met the smuggler, Shirvanshir. I met him three hours ago, at first light. I stayed with friends last night in the next Armenian village, so that I could