The smell of a sewing machine always emanated from Sahak. Every day in the summer, his piano’s rough and crude chords trickled out of the window of the first-floor apartment from the third entrance of our building. His birthday was the first time in my life that I received a special invitation on a card. My mother had prepared a gift for him. It was a box wrapped in green cardboard. Years later when I asked my mother what was in the box, she said it had been a little deer antler comb. With the gift pressed tightly under my arm and after several failed attempts, I managed with a quick jump to push the bell of their apartment door. His mother opened the door. Sahak was leaning against her long leg. He welcomed me with a sad look in his eyes and a wrinkled black suit. Around the collar of his
