The Veiled Light

Part 1
       “Hey guys, I’m Shushan,” I introduced myself to my new group members, with whom I was to give presentations for the “Introduction to Clinical Psychology” course. Had the students been given the chance to form the groups themselves, I might have found myself among some familiar faces, but as you may have guessed, the professor did it himself. And now, introducing myself to these new students proved itself to be harder than I had anticipated. “It’s an Armenian name,” I attempted to answer the puzzled faces before me, but it seemed I complicated things more; now I had to explain where that mysterious and unknown country was. As I began describing the location, I became too passionate to resist talking about the uniqueness and warmth of my people. I was especially emotional now, as I missed my home so much; it had been two months since I left Armenia in pursuit of my dream of studying psychology in the University of Geneva. My audience seemed to be almost as enthusiastic as I was while speaking; all but one-a dark skinned and serious faced young man sitting two seats away from me. I had yet to find out who he was. He kept shifting in his seat and his eyes looked everywhere else but at me. As is often the case with the speaker, I felt insecure that it was somehow me that was making him uncomfortable, so I made a wider leap towards my conclusion. 
       As the rest of the members continued presenting themselves, I discovered once again what an international and culturally rich university I was a part of; I was preparing to give a presentation on Bipolar personality disorder alongside Juliette from France, Dimitri from Russia, Martin and Johanna from Switzerland, and- “Kadir,” at last spoke the mysterious young man, “from Turkey,” he continued after a pause, gripping my eyes with his gaze as if to check my reaction. My pulse quickened and I felt my heart beating like a drum inside my chest. Suddenly all the anger and hatred that had accumulated in me towards the Turks began rising up. They had attempted to eradicate my nation, killed so many of my people, almost succeeded in destroying my own ancestors, and, on top of that, denied that such a thing happened! I knew that Kadir could not be held responsible for the deeds of his ancestors, just as I had not been directly affected by their brutality, but there is something about pain that creeps into our DNA and secretly passes on from one generation to the next. 
       “Are you all right?” whispered the girl sitting next to me, whose name I had missed, bringing me back to the room. 
       “Yes!” I quickly answered, noticing my sweaty palms, and assuming that my emotions had made themselves visible in the redness of my cheeks. “I’m all right,” I reassured her just to get out of the spotlight. 
       “Well then, shall we begin?” brought up Johanna, who seemed to be growing impatient. Everyone’s gaze turned to her as she began proposing an outline for the presentation, and I felt thankful for the chance to breathe. When I felt certain that Kadir’s eyes were no longer on me, I stole a glance at him from the corner of my eyes.  He seemed to be unshaken by my reaction; he sat there with his arms crossed and his legs firmly set on the floor. He was motionless-too motionless. His face was stern and strong; if he felt any shock or discomfort to be near me, his face did not betray him. I tried my hardest to concentrate on Johanna’s voice and have a contribution to the ongoing discussion about what to include in the presentation, but I failed miserably. Towards the end of the class, I observed that I had heard a thousand words but understood none. If this was how all our meetings were going to pass because his presence would not allow me to concentrate, I needed to change the group. 

Part 2
       “Hey, a few of us are going to have lunch,” said the same girl who was sitting next to me. “Would you like to come?”
       “Thank you,” I replied, “But there’s something I have to do now.” She nodded and, with a smile, joined her friends. 
       “Wait!” I called out as she was walking away and ran after her. “I’m sorry. I was a bit distracted. I missed your na-”
       “It’s Hadassah. Call me Hadass.” She smiled understandingly.
       “Thank you,” I blushed a little out of embarrassment but smiled anyways as I continued my search for the professor’s office. I knocked on the door and, receiving the permission to enter, I stepped in. I couldn’t believe my eyes! It was Kadir standing across the room!
       “I suppose you came here to change your group, too?” the professor predicted sarcastically, but receiving no refutation from me, he raised his eyebrows in surprise and made a deep sigh. “I thought I had made it pretty clear that the groups were final, and the only exceptions would be made in urgent and necessary circumstances.” Noticing that he had not quite convinced either of us, he turned to Kadir and asked him to explain why he should be granted his wish. Clearly wishing he could have explained himself without my presence, the latter proceeded anyways. “There are certain complications,” he said glancing at me, “that would reduce my chances of getting a good grade on the assignment. I was hoping to be given the chance to work in an environment where I would be comfortable enough to do my best.” 
       I felt the heat of frustration boiling inside of me. If one of us had the right to complain about the presence of the other, it was me! Surely, it was his nation who had wounded mine, not the other way around. 
       “What kind of complications might those be?” the professor investigated further. “I’m afraid I cannot say.”
       “Then I’m afraid I cannot help you!”
       “But-”
       “What about you?” the professor turned to me. “Me?” I asked sheepishly, buying myself more time to come up with an answer that would achieve for me a better fate than Kadir’s. By the look on the professor’s face I understood that I was testing his patience. “I-I don’t know,” was the best I could do. Kadir, who had been avoiding eye contact with me at all costs, now turned to me in surprise. The professor found my reply amusing, but I was too preoccupied by Kadir’s soundless facial expression to notice. For a moment, when I forgot all the preconceived ideas I had believed about the Turks, I almost saw a shade of innocence and exhaustion, and even a little sadness buried in the blackness of his eyes. In that instant I wanted to hate him less, but every voice in my head resisted the possibility of a Turk and innocence to be compatible, so I dismissed the idea. 
       The professor startled us both with his “unexpected” refusal of our requests and invited us to leave his office. “I hope you find a way to cope with whatever is bothering you and succeed in the assignment.”
       Neither of us said a word as we stepped out of the office. I may have attempted to speak with him, but he walked straight on ahead of me without looking back.

Part 3
       I wanted to find out why he wanted to quit the group, what possible reason could he have for wanting to avoid me; but he never gave me the chance. Whenever I approached him in the hallway or during our group meetings to have a simple conversation, he would cut it short and move on with whatever he was doing, almost as if I became invisible the moment he decided not to see me anymore. A week of such failed attempts passed when I could no longer balance my anger with self-control, and so I approached him when he was standing in front of his opened locker and got straight to the point. “Why do you hate me so much?” I demanded. “What have I done to you? Isn’t it me who should be avoiding you and hurting you?”          
       Startled by my sudden outburst, he spoke anyways. “I don’t hate you,” I thought I heard him say. My heart beat faster as I anxiously waited for him to go on. But he just stood there, still and silent, his eyes never parting from mine. It seemed as if he was battling with himself about whether or not he should voice his thoughts. “It’s your name,” at last he spoke, “It reminds me of someone. Or rather, being around you reminds me of something.” My eyes took the role of my mouth when it was too stunned to speak and invited him to go on. After conquering another battle in his mind, he explained further. “My great grandmother was named Shushan.” He gave me a moment to take it in. “She was Armenian.” 
       I stood there motionless and, for an instant, breathless. “She told my grandmother that a genocide happened and that she survived it. I wish my grandmother had never told me about it, I wish I had never heard that story!” His face became stiff and darkened again, and the faint glimmer of light that had appeared in his eyes vanished instantly.
       “Wow,” I cleared my throat to bring myself back to consciousness. “But why do you keep saying “story”? Don’t you believe it to be a reality?”
       “I can’t,” was all he offered me. 
       “But why?” I felt the anger raging in me again. “So many people were killed, there is so much evidence for it! I would not have been born had my great grandparents not escaped!” My voice was getting louder and fiercer. I took a moment to calm down. “How can you deny it when your own veins carry Armenian blood?” I shut my eyes to hold back the tears, and had it not been for my inability to believe him to be capable of feelings, I might have admitted to noticing a sparkle in his own eyes. 
       “Because I can’t!”
       “Why not?” I demanded.
       “Because if I do,” he stepped closer and grabbed me with his eyes, “How can I survive the guilt and the shame I will feel? How can I face the reality of not being able to change what happened but wishing with every part of my soul that I could? How can I ever live with what my people did to yours-what I did to you?” 
       He walked away, perhaps to escape to a place where he could freely let his tears flow. I stood there, paralyzed and aghast, my knees weakening from nervousness. I grabbed on to the locker he had left open and tried to take in all that I had heard him say. 

Part 4
       For the next week, he seemed to have disappeared, not showing up to class, not even to our group meetings. I looked for him in all his usual places in the cafeteria, the library, but he was nowhere to be found. I didn’t know why I longed to see him, or even what I would say if I did; but I was sure the words would come. 
       “Is everything okay?” Hadass once again invited me back from my thoughts to my group members. 
       “I guess I’m a little distracted.” 
       “Can I help somehow?” she whispered as she leaned towards me. I hesitated at first, but her kind smile and my desperation to share my burden urged me to open up. “Well, there’s something I want to forgive, but I feel as though forgiving it would somehow make it seem okay and justifiable.”
       “But if it was justifiable,” she said, “You wouldn’t need to forgive, would you?” 
       That one sentence put together the scattered puzzle pieces in my mind and formed an image that made perfect sense. All my life I had believed forgiving to be the equivalent of forgetting or excusing, and it never made sense to me how such an exquisite pain could be expected to be forgotten. It cannot be forgotten. I could not forget it. But if I forgave, the memory of it would stop killing me every time I recalled it; and perhaps, it would stop killing him, too. I had always thought of forgiveness as a characteristic of the weak, but now I realized I could only forgive if I was strong enough. If ever we were to heal of this poison of hostility, I had to be strong. I knew what I had to do. 
       After a long investigation, I finally found his dorm room and knocked on the door. Clearly he was not expecting to see me, but his uneasiness did not stop me from jumping straight to the point. “What happened a century ago was not your fault, and I am no one compared to a whole nation holding on to the pain and the hurt caused by it.” I stepped forward and looked him straight in the eyes with all the boldness I could muster. “But I forgive you! What happened was inexcusable, inhumane, unforgettable, and unjustifiable, but I extend forgiveness from my nation to yours, hoping that one day you can accept it.” 
       “Why are you doing this?”  
       “Because it is the only way we will ever heal.” I waited for him to take it in and, when I myself was ready, I extended my hand to him in offer of reconciliation. A tear rolled down his cheek as he looked at my hand, but a smile curved on his lips nevertheless, as he gently took my hand in his, and to my absolute surprise, leaned down and planted a kiss on it. I cannot truthfully claim that my own eyes remained dry as I watched him and experienced the beauty of it all. 
       Over the next few weeks, I discovered a whole new side of Kadir-perhaps it was a discovery for him as well. He seemed lighter and happier, almost as if an invisible yet unbearable burden had fallen off his shoulders, and a curtain that had veiled the light in his eyes was now torn and cast aside. One morning, as I was getting my books from my locker, a smiling Kadir stopped by to tease me. He took one of my notebooks and began reading it, and then made me chase him in order to get it back. We laughed together like we never had before. I stood there watching him and contemplated in awe at how powerfully redeeming forgiveness was-and I don’t mean only for him.
       “Aren’t you coming?” he stood by the door of the lecture-hall, waiting for me. “I’m coming!” I laughed as I ran to enter the class side by side my friend; or maybe, side by side my brother.