"The Silence of Color" by Narine Abgaryan, summary

Narine Abgaryan’s collection of prose was published in 2022. This book is a work of fiction and documentary, combining the two-part title story, the short story "One Heart," and the autobiographical travelogue series "A Picture from Around the World." The narrative weaves together motifs of human vulnerability, memory, family ties, and overcoming personal and collective tragedies.

The story "The Silence of Color"

The events of the first part unfold in the Armenian town of Berd in the Tavush region. Seven-year-old Levon has synesthesia: in his mind, each color represents a specific number, shape, and musical sound. Green appears to the boy as a grumpy, deep-voiced four, white as a one, and blue as an eight.

Levon’s older fourteen-year-old brother, Gevo, suffers from autism. He barely tolerates touch and constantly assembles a wooden pyramid in a strictly defined color order. His younger brother finds a way to connect with Gevo emotionally through colored river pebbles. Levon understands that Gevo perceives colors in the same way and gives him precisely the number of pebbles that corresponds to their numerical value. The boy’s family is dominated by his sharp-tongued grandmother, Sofa, who constantly nags his kindly grandfather, Gevorg, while Levon’s father compiles a wall chart of numbers and colors.

At school, a new girl, Astghik, is seated next to Levon at his desk. Her father, who inadvertently caused a fatal car accident and is serving a prison sentence, sold the family’s house and moved in with relatives. The girl’s name doesn’t sing or turn into numbers in Levon’s head, remaining completely silent.

One winter, Grandfather Gevorg lets his grandchildren ride a snow scooter with Gevo’s sled attached down an icy alley. Suddenly, Grandfather Gevorg suffers a heart attack and falls to the sidewalk. Trying to brake, Levon loses control, swerves into the road and is hit by an oncoming car with three sevens on its license plate, and loses consciousness.

The second part of the story shifts the action to the summer after the tragedy. Gevo died in the accident, but his grandfather survived. Levon mentally decorates the twelve steps of the staircase in the house, where his older brother’s dark handprints remain, with scarlet poppies, marking the number five. Levon’s sister, twelve-year-old Margarita, is struggling through puberty, and Levon himself is experiencing the first surges of sensuality while observing his adult neighbor, Marina. The birth of a boy, Marko, is expected in the Astghik family, and the girl herself is learning humility, counting down the long six brown years until her father’s release.

The story "One Heart"

The action takes place in Berd during a debilitating August drought. The town’s residents maintain a custom: on the first Sunday of the month, at dawn, they take family heirlooms out into the courtyard, asking the heavens for mercy.

Lonely seventy-two-year-old Anania hides poultry and a goat in a cool cellar, watches TV series on her laptop, and knits items for her daughter’s shop. Her neighbor, Salome, and her daughter-in-law tear down a worn woolen rug from the wall, which has toppled an antique sideboard. In the resulting gap in the masonry, the women discover a cache of tuff bricks. Inside are Ottoman documents for a lost ancestral estate in Bitlis, antique gold jewelry, and a silver sewing kit. Their frail neighbor, Samson, an elderly cabinetmaker who lost both his sons in Afghanistan and has lived for many years in the memory of his deceased wife, undertakes to repair the sideboard.

Surgeon Grigor, who once left his first wife, Mariam, after their adult daughter died of sarcoma, is happily married to twenty-five-year-old Hripsime. His young wife announces her long-awaited pregnancy.

Tamara, a mother of many children, and childless sister Anait, whose health has been undermined by years of fruitless attempts to conceive, accidentally receives a letter. It turns out that her husband had a daughter in Moldova before their marriage. Their thirty-year-old daughter, Tanya, wants to meet her father. After experiencing heartbreak, Anait agrees to adopt her stepdaughter.

By autumn, the heat subsides and the rains begin. Samson dies quietly in his sleep on the eve of October, bequeathing his house to his faithful neighbor, Tamara. Tamara gives birth to twins, Anait warmly welcomes Tanya, who has flown in for a visit, and life for the town’s inhabitants continues amid the sound of autumn showers.

A series of notes "Around the World in Pictures"

The final section of the book consists of travel essays and memoirs by Narine Abgaryan. The writer travels to various geographical locations, capturing the lives of emigrants, everyday scenes, and a deep connection to her roots.

In the Arkhangelsk region, the author recalls her grandmother Anastasia’s Pomor family in the village of Gora. In St. Petersburg, she shares her anxiety about the future and her emotional weariness on the English Embankment. In Yerevan and Dilijan, the pages are steeped in the aftermath of the 2020 Karabakh War: the writer visits Rafael, a seriously wounded soldier who read her books while on duty, in the hospital and collects the memories of refugees.

In Georgia, the author unfolds scenes of the Tbilisi airport and the grandeur of ancient churches. In the Baltics, she has a curious encounter with the writer Julian Barnes at a book festival in Tallinn. In France, she visits Parisian book fairs and editorial offices; in Israel, she explores the daily life of local residents and the power of maternal care; in Cyprus, she engages in an internal dialogue by the sea; and in South Korea, she reflects on the monuments of Seoul, food culture, and Zen Buddhism.

The Canadian and American chapters explore the lives of family and friends in exile: in Boston, the restless niece Eva is growing up; in San Diego and San Francisco, the recipes and experiences of refugees from Baku are carefully preserved; and in Cleveland, stories of medical adaptation resonate. In England, the author admires the cheese shops and museum halls of London, and in Italy, she admires the frescoes of Perugino and the sculptures of Michelangelo.

A special place is given to her native Berd. With humor and filial tenderness, the author conveys the dialogues of her elderly parents, the Vardavar celebration, folk superstitions, traditional recipes, and memories of neighbors. The ending returns the reader to Moscow: in the story about a young woman named Tonya, who lost her mother with heart problems, senior nurse Sobolevskaya finds a way to convey a symbolic maternal blessing to her grieving daughter and restore her faith in life.