La Mer

Churchgoing is, as any other ritual activity, a social endeavor. Both worship and fellowship possess interpersonal etiquette practiced between members of varyingly integrated social groups.

In the Armenian Apostolic Church, depending on the specific site of diaspora, there is no intermingling of ethnic backgrounds. There are simply the Armenians, and possibly also the more recent expatriates who speak Russian, identifiable by their Adidas and Calvin Klein.

Minoth knows not to wear jeans to church, but he wears jeans every day of his life, so the chinos Addam prescribed for him wrinkle in ways he feels ill-equipped to handle when he sits, stands, sits, kneels, and stands again.

His name is traditional (or at least sounds so), his nose is prominent, and his equally prominent brows hold hands at the top of the bridge. Apart from his height, nothing should make Minoth stand out, and some of the Soviet refugees are willowy anyway.

It's his companion, in a bright yellow polo and an even brighter smile, that gives him away. Addam, the sometime-Protestant with a wide-eyed curiosity, mouths his way through the chants far more confidently than Minoth.

"You don't have to sing if you're not in the choir, Prince," he grits out in a sideways whisper, but Addam ignores the warning, and it's just as well, because Minoth still doesn't know the words to Hayr Mer.

When the congregation begins to filter up the aisle for confession, ladies donning veils that look more like doilies, Addam turns to Minoth, quizzical, but just receives a hand motion indicating that they maintain their places as those gathered ahead stoop to the carpet.

The chant comes: "...those I have confessed, as well as those which I have forgotten..."

And then the assemblage in the chancel rises and straightens out into a queue, the organist scrambling off the bench to take communion first so she can return to her post.

"Aren't you taking communion?" Addam asks, thinking of grape juice and misplaced Manischewitz wafers.

Eyes straight ahead, Minoth replies, "I haven't confessed."

"But the priest just said to everyone, 'May God grant you forgiveness' - even I know, because he said it in English too - there are others who didn't go up to the altar queuing now, see?"

"...I'm not ready."

So Addam drops the subject, and instead lets himself be fascinated by Minoth's looks of mild-to-moderate discomfort as he greets these aunts, those uncles during coffee hour, despite himself a model conversationalist armed with little recalled details about everyone he meets.

No one bothers to ask Addam "Hay es?" but they do inquire politely about who he'd come with, and when Addam points at Minoth, he thinks "odar" sounds like a grave expression of approval, but who can really tell?