The Perfect Day

It was the perfect day. I woke at 1 PM, something I have been largely incapable of most of my life. During my sleep, I dreamt the whole time. I dreamt of my cousins. It was so nice to let myself sleep, to wake up and see the morning light shining through my room and simply ignore it. Letting the day go by without me.
And then I awoke. In some natural way. I spent the night awake, watching television, writing, reading, thinking, listening to music. My hotel room was a playground for my mind. I finally decide that 5 AM is a good time to go to sleep, and so I do.

I dress and dance to the music of fashion television. I know where I am going. I have known since before I arrived. To the market, to the market. To buy art. Vernisaj. I pass by a pomegranate juice maker man. I watch a woman wait for him to squeeze her juice. Her little girl, about 2 years old, walks around curiously, meandering, like the curls on her head. She is edible. I wonder how much the juice costs, and she gives me my answer as she puts two coins on the table.
I ask for one after she is done. I put my coins on the table. The man makes my juice, 2 and a half small pomegranates worth, and looks at me as he takes the coins. He is surprised or wondering why I do not speak to him in Armenian, like others.
I walk around lost trying to find the market. I enter in an alleyway and the smell and the plastic ceilings begin to make me feel nauseous. I feel my face go white. It feels like that night, after the fancy dinner, when I awoke at 3 AM, my face in a cold sweat my stomach like a dinosaur was trying to run through the tunnels of my intestines, not sure which way to come out, causing immense distress to me in his indecision.
Meanwhile the tiny alley way of the market is not ending, not opening into an open air place as I expected. I must turn around, I cannot handle this, I am getting claustrophobic, something I didn’t know I was capable of.
I come out of the market, grateful, thankful, for my freedom. I breathe, my stomach wants to vomit. I walk, wondering what it is I need to do. Food. No not food. It’s the juice. It was too natural.
I find the market, after asking two women and two men. I start to feel better, its open air, nobody is here, I have some peace. The air is clean today and the sun shines gently. I began to enjoy. Things I have never seen before, people’s creations. I bargain with young men, we laugh. I get a free souvenir for smiling. I buy beautiful art.

I stand with an artist in front of his art for 15 minutes. For 6 minutes we talk. He speaks french, armenian and russian, and sells in english so our conversation is not profound. He has modern still life paintings, hung by close pins on thin ropes and I like the colors and the way he gives the oil texture on the paper, because he does not paint on canvas. He uses limes, pool, and browns and it appeals to me and my love of water.

I am trying to decide if I want one and which one. I bargain him to 18 dollars but I don't know which I want. He stands next to me while I ask for silence as I stare at his paintings. There are over 40 hung before me, but I focus on four. As I picture them in my room on my wall, I realize they are a bit sad, and lonely. The choice of colors though nice, are a bit simple. I enjoyed that short relationship with his art, but I decide that I don't want to see this art everyday. I feel an obligation to buy and then quickly realize that he and I have had a nice time together, talking and enjoying his art. And so I tell him with my hands that I am not ready to buy, that I want to walk around. He is fine with it, doesn't seem annoyed one bit, and we say good bye.

Hours later, having walked through the whole market, having bought a pomegranate ring, a backgammon table, and things for my sister, I decide this perfect walk must come to an end. I go to pick up the art I bought and the guy offers his help to me "if you need anything" its hospitality. I have so many phone numbers of colleagues that offer their help should I get bored or lonely. But I am one of those people that indulges in solitude. So I turn down his offer and go my way.

I enter the hotel, the three young women receptionists always over-smile when they see me. Perhaps it is refreshing to see someone like themselves as a guest, on her own.

In the room I take out my art. I love it. I call Gayane. Make plans for tea later that night. I leave.

Artbridge café and bookstore holds me for two hours. I read, eat, write. Yerevan magazine is in English and its actually a good read. I write down nice quotes from an article about a famous Armenian writer during the Soviet times. I read about an Armenian artist who lived in Paris in the twenties and thirties, friend of Picasso who eventually returned to the Soviet Union only to be separated from his wife forever. George Micheal plays on the restaurant speakers. I feel at home. My perfect illy cappuccino makes me smile. My brain and my heart is fed.

Finally I am ready to go. The weather is dreamy. Some sort of autumn, warm enough so that I leave my coat in the hotel, cool enough so the trees are a thousand colors of yellow and green. I can’t find where I am going. It’s an art restaurant bookstore. Under the ZARA shop I see something. It is in French. I go down. It looks too restaurant. I come back up. I go back down. I open, I walk somewhere away from the tables and the people.

A boy is standing there, with others, but I don’t notice him first. I ask about the bookshop. He responds in an over-confident, French sort of way “yea, there are hundreds of bookshops.” I say, “well is there not one here?” “He says yea, it is through here.” He can see that I am still disoriented and decides to give me a tour. He has dark eyes, one perfect brow, he wears a black denim jacket, and black denim jeans, a black tie. His hair is fohawk. He starts to give me a tour, it’s a hip place, couches, dim lights and cave sort of feeling.

We end up in the bookstore and I ask for the bathroom. He introduces me to two doors: the proper entrance to the shop and the entrance to the bathroom. I say I am going to the bathroom and head towards the exit of the shop. In front of it, I stop, turn around and he says “you say you are going to the bathroom but you go to leave.” I laugh and walk to the bathroom.

I come back and we walk through the store together. He is studying pharmacology. He speaks English better than anyone I have met. He helps me pick out things for my brother in law.“ I used to work here two years ago, now I just hang out here because there is nothing else to do on a Saturday (looking at his watch) at 7PM, what am I going to do?”

At this point, I learn that my visa card is not working on the store credit card machine. He walks me outside. I ask him for the nearest HSBC. He says HSBC doesn’t work with visa cards, I say “it doesn’t work with your Armenian visa card, it will work with mine.” I don’t know how to say it in a way that isn’t patronizing but the bank is meant for foreigners. He gets it, and I don’t have to explain. We go and it works I get cash. I come outside, jump and say boisterously, “it worked.” He says “I know, I saw” with a smile on his face, in reaction to my exaggerated jubilation.
We walk back, make the purchase and I ask him if he wants to walk me to the hotel.

I like his conversation, he is clever, relaxed, and spicy. He is curious and absorbs quickly so he is able to mold into the world of foreigners. He tells me he has friends working for NGOs and development orgs and that’s why he can speak English so well. He tells me there is nothing to do in Yerevan because all the discotheques are full of men because women get a bad name if they are out. So everyone gets married.

He is from Syria, came back to Armenia to get away from the “horrible middle east.” “I have a lot of Iranian friends here. Armenian men and women are like villagers, very backwards they just got exposure to life ten years ago…” He asks me if I am going to meet some people right now. My friends are going to take me out to get tea at eight. And I want to call my boyfriend. He nods.
“Okay this my hotel.”

He looks at me, it’s a pregnant pause. I have been here before. A young eastern guy intrigued by an east meets west kind of woman. It is fun for me, because I like to push open their minds by my independent behavior. I like his company, I would like for him to walk me around town more and say abrupt things in a blunt manner, the way that he does. But it always goes in the wrong direction. But maybe this guy can stay cool, this isn’t Afghanistan after all. I tell him to come by the hotel at 7 PM on Monday night. We can go for walk, I say to myself in my head. I can buy time to see if I still want his company in two days. If I don’t, I will not show up.

We say goodbye.