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The first dead man I saw was Grandfather Garabet. He had taught me all kinds of things that are in earth and heaven, showing them to me. He also wished to be the one to show me death. Later I told myself that it happened that way because the world was too small to hold the both of us and all our fantasies at the same time.
Just as no two lives ever resemble each other, no two graves are alike.

He put a pen in my hand from an early age and surrounded me with blank sheets of paper, just like they surround other children with sweets or toys. This is how I came to be the storyteller of the stages of my grandfather Garabet’s life. And in this way he will endure until he loses his memories of this world.

prison does not come and go; it is like damp, which, once it has seeped into your bones, you carry around with you... there are prisons from which you are never released, no matter how many bolts might be drawn back, no matter how many doors might be unlocked. There always remains a door you can never open. And nobody can help you; nobody can lend his shoulder to help you budge it because only you can see it.

Nobody can say he really knows what silence is unless he has heard the click of a gun being cocked behind him.

...You cannot tell the story of those who endure and, even less so, the story of those who endure and understand, because their suffering is endless. And who will tell stories that have no end, and above all who will listen to them? For that, there is not even any need to listen; it is enough to look out of the window, or to gaze over the battlements, as they used to do in the olden days . . .”

The only thing people have in common is stories. When you say that two people are of the same nation, it means that they have listened to the same stories. All kinds of stories are told about heroes because such stories always have a beginning and an end...

And he also said, “Being a hero is a form of cowardice. You cannot endure the suffering and so you try to put a stop to it, recklessly and at any price.”

In any event, Grandfather was coy about recounting those times since it was then that he had felt one of his rare urges to fight. Apart from that, he kept aloof as much as he was able, watching wide-eyed and seeking to understand. But to do that you also need courage. “Think about it,” he would say; “to be prepared to confront the reality, no matter what might happen. To be able to face all four winds at once.”

Every man lives in the world, but more than anything else he lives in an image of the world. In those days, and in who knows how many other ages, this used to be explained as follows: your name is spoken, on the one hand, and written, on the other. And the written name sits on the cover of a file. You have to live your life cautiously.

“And so,” decided Grandfather, “the war has not ended.” “Which war?” I asked. “Well, there is only one. But it keeps breaking out in different places, like a rash. The harder you scratch, the more inflamed it gets. In the end, history is nothing but one long bout of scratching.”

And Grandfather Setrak, my mother’s father, the philosopher of blood, used to say, “The blood is unrulier than the flesh. Victory is not the power of shedding others’ blood; that power is rather contempt or hatred. Victory is the power to shed your own blood.”

This is why Grandfather Garabet used to tell stories about the wars. In his stories, the victors were not always the ones we knew from the history books. “Don’t be hasty,” he used to say. “The one who seems to have won is rarely the true victor. It is the vanquished rather than the victors who have made history. To be victorious is ultimately a way of being written out of history.”

Grandfather lived through both world wars. He did not fight, but he watched. Those who fought understood less of what happened.

Grandfather used to say that what is written must anyway come to pass. And misfortunes are bestowed on the world like grass or rain. If you try to avoid a misfortune foretold, it happens all the same, except that you cast it on another’s shoulders. And so, in addition to all the other things you have to endure, why take yet another sin on your shoulders?

Grandfather had a Kantian view of the world: a roof above your head, an altar before you, and a soft carpet beneath your feet.

Of all the senses, smell is the most laden with memories. It is enough to open a door; a familiar odor wafts out, and all the events caught up with that sensation return to your mind. An entire life might be described through its aromas. The story of my childhood might also be told in this way.

The Book of Whispers
“We differ from one another not by what we are but by the dead we each mourn,”

—said my grandfather Garabet