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From the Armenian Quarter, Jerusalem

From the Armenian Quarter, Jerusalem From the Armenian Quarter, Jerusalem JAMES NAJARIAN Inside, we counted only several thousand— the monks still seal the gates each night at ten. Our families intermarried with our histories. We knew who had escaped which massacre, whose name enshrined a child or brother dead or given up for dead, —and we shared these names. We went by nicknames, everyone. We had a Hagopee Maryaam, a “Jacob’s Mary,” to distinguish her from Joachim’s or David’s. A Hovnan, Jonah, might be tall or cross-eyed or someone’s seventh son. A man we called Keratseeg Hovsep, or “Joey the Beauty,” was a balding, pockmarked dwarf. One of thirty Marys was known as Anousheeg, or “cute.” She was illiterate. During the war, whoever read her husband’s letters to her let it be known that he addressed his wife as Anousheeg Maryaam,or “Mary the Cutie” Though she was neither plain nor beautiful, she would be called “The Cutie” her life long. There was a person whom we called Shefeeya, an Arab Christian who chose to live with us. Above, she was a man, below, as far as anybody knew, she was a woman. She had no breasts; she shaved. She wore the robe of an http://www.deepdyve.com/assets/images/DeepDyve-Logo-lg.png Literary Imagination Oxford University Press

From the Armenian Quarter, Jerusalem

Najarian, James
Literary Imagination , Volume 18 (1) – Mar 12, 2016
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Publisher
Oxford University Press
Copyright
The Author 2015. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the Association of Literary Scholars, Critics, and Writers. All rights reserved. For permissions please e-mail: journals.permissions@oup.com
ISSN
1523-9012
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1752-6566
DOI
10.1093/litimag/imv037
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Abstract

From the Armenian Quarter, Jerusalem JAMES NAJARIAN Inside, we counted only several thousand— the monks still seal the gates each night at ten. Our families intermarried with our histories. We knew who had escaped which massacre, whose name enshrined a child or brother dead or given up for dead, —and we shared these names. We went by nicknames, everyone. We had a Hagopee Maryaam, a “Jacob’s Mary,” to distinguish her from Joachim’s or David’s. A Hovnan, Jonah, might be tall or cross-eyed or someone’s seventh son. A man we called Keratseeg Hovsep, or “Joey the Beauty,” was a balding, pockmarked dwarf. One of thirty Marys was known as Anousheeg, or “cute.” She was illiterate. During the war, whoever read her husband’s letters to her let it be known that he addressed his wife as Anousheeg Maryaam,or “Mary the Cutie” Though she was neither plain nor beautiful, she would be called “The Cutie” her life long. There was a person whom we called Shefeeya, an Arab Christian who chose to live with us. Above, she was a man, below, as far as anybody knew, she was a woman. She had no breasts; she shaved. She wore the robe of an

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Literary Imagination – Oxford University Press

Published: Mar 12, 2016

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