Deadly Beloved(45)

He brushed the wrinkles out of his suit, saw Father Tibor Kasparian seated alone in the front booth, and headed in that direction. In the light of morning the Ararat was a diner-like place with bare Formica tabletops and glass and silver sugar cylinders and a menu full of cholesterol and saturated fat encased in a cracking plastic cover. By night, however, the Ararat got exotic. That was because it had been written up in the Philadelphia Inquirer on and off as an “authentic ethnic experience”—which, in fact, was what it was in the morning. There was no telling what it ought to be called now, with the big menus with their bright red tassels laid out on every bright red tablecloth; with Linda Melajian dressed up in Gypsy skirts and dangling earrings made of bits of gold-colored tin and black plastic beads. It was a mercy nobody had thought of dressing Linda up as a belly dancer—or maybe they had, and her mother wouldn’t allow it. The whole thing gave Gregor a headache. Ever since the collapse of the Soviet union  , the people of Cavanaugh Street had been in continuous contact with the people of Armenia, and they all knew perfectly well that Armenians did not wear Gypsy skirts and beaded earrings. They wore Levi’s jeans and rayon flower-print dresses from Sears if they could get them—which, thanks to Lida Arkmanian and Father Tibor Kasparian, they usually could.

Gregor made his way over to Tibor’s booth and looked down at the books strewn across the tabletop. Tibor scattered books wherever he went, like Hansel and Gretel scattering bread crumbs. Two of the books on the table were in Greek, so that Gregor couldn’t read the titles. The third was The Client by John Grisham. Tibor was reading a little paperback called How to Have a Perfect Wedding. Gregor sat down.

“Well,” he said, pointing to the paperback’s cover when Tibor looked up. “How do you have a perfect wedding?”

Tibor made a face. “It is apparently a lot of work. I would have thought it would have been enough if the bride and the groom loved each other, but that is not true. There have to be wedding favors. There have to be three different entrees in case there are guests who are vegetarians allergic to cheese.”

“I can’t imagine anybody on Cavanaugh Street being allergic to anything edible. Has anybody actually seen Donna today?”

“We all see her, Krekor. We do not talk to her. Her mother is here.”

“I know.”

“Her mother wants to decorate the iconostasis with flowers, Krekor. It isn’t possible. The only time we decorate icons with flowers it is in honor of the Epiphany. Or something like that. I think it has been a mistake to conduct our services in Armenian now that we are in America.”

“We’ve been in America for generations. We’ve been conducting our services in Armenian for all the generations we’ve been here.”

“I know, Krekor, but not one of these new generations can speak Armenian. They don’t know what the liturgies say. They don’t know what the religion teaches. They get their ideas about weddings from magazines and their ideas about church services from Martha Stewart. I am going to shout at somebody before this all is finished.”

“Probably Donna’s mother.”

“Probably you. I wouldn’t want to offend Donna’s mother.”

“Gregor!” Linda Melajian rushed up in a jangle of beads and tin and rustly cheap fabric. She was out of breath. “What can I get for you? Did you hear about the tea service Donna’s aunt sent from Seattle? Donna’s father’s sister. It was sterling silver.”

Linda was wearing a gold and white ribbon in her hair. It didn’t go with her Gypsy outfit. Gregor looked around and realized that all the tables had little gold and white bows on them, placed at the base of the glass candle holders that were supposed to look like kerosene lamps but didn’t. Had they ever used kerosene lamps like that in Armenia? Gregor had no idea.

“Could you get me some yaprak sarma?” he asked Linda. “And a bottle of Perrier water or whatever. And a salad. Is Donna going to have her reception in here?”

“Donna’s going to have her reception catered from here, but we’re closing off the whole street. She got permission from the city. Like a block party.”

“She sent out three thousand invitations,” Tibor said. “Not so many people are going to fit into Holy Trinity Church.”

“Oh, they won’t all come to the church,” Linda said dismissively. “They wouldn’t even want to. I mean, these days, a third of them will probably be Buddhists and a third of them will probably be atheists, and nobody will have the time.”

“Right,” Tibor said.