Արամ Հայկազ
( 1900 - 1986 )

ARAM HAIGAZ - LETTERS
Aram Haigaz's typical day was divided into compartments, and one of them was reserved for letter writing, which was usually done at night. From spring to late fall, he spent early mornings in his garden, and then was off to the newspaper where he worked as a photo engraver, a job that has disappeared in today's computer world.
In the evening, dinner was always at seven o'clock when my father came home from work, and when he lowered himself into his chair, the rule was that my brother and I - no matter what we were doing or what games we were playing - had to be at the table sitting on either side of him.
After dinner, while my mother took care of clearing the kitchen, my father moved to the larger dining room that was used for company, to look over the mail that awaited him in a neat pile on the table.
The mail came from all over the world. Mixed in with the family bills, letters and postcards for 'Chekenian,' were foreign envelopes for Aram Haigaz, made of thin, lightweight paper with red and blue airmail markings along the edges. He handled each piece gingerly. I never, ever, saw him tear open an envelope... he preferred to hold it up to the light and would use his scissors to cut a very thin sliver off the side.
He always wrote with a fountain pen, one of his several Parker 51's. He loved pens and was the first to admit that he could not have too many of them... I believe that pens were probably the only material thing that he valued, and I sometimes teased him about wanting to horde them.
As with his more formal writing for the various Armenian publications, he rarely changed a word, his handwriting was smooth and graceful, slanting right, in precise rows, almost delicate. Writing was not difficult for him. He did not struggle with words. He did not scratch out and erase, redo, add, tear up, go back and start over, revise again. His hand moved across the page slowly and steadily, without pausing, and at the time it did not seem at ail remarkable that he was writing letters at night, after gardening, working hard all day, fighting crowds in a hot subway on the roundtrip to Manhattan, stopping to buy a treat for us because he never came home empty-handed, repairing a light switch for my mother, listening to his children's complaints about school, or helping a neighbors.
My mother occasionally made a little joke about his dedication to his readers, and when we joined in -"What is Papa doing?"- she would say, "He is writing to his fans," which he always enjoyed. I never questioned him about the details, not because he was unapproachable but because as a typical teenager, I was absorbed with important things like myself, the latest movies and talking to my girlfriends.
Many times, my father did not know his correspondent and if he mentioned the person, it was not by name, but as "a man from Detroit..." or some-body in Haleb, or South America, or wherever. There were readers who felt that he spoke directly to them in his stories, and wrote to him as one would write to a close friend or relative, recounting their own experiences or asking questions about his neighbors, his garden, his grandchildren, or what happened to a character in one of the short stories.
When he finished his correspondent, he would save the envelopes that were from a foreign country and take them downstairs to add to his stamp collection, which was extensive.
During the colder months, especially on days off from work, Aram was often at his typewriter in the breakfast nook in the kitchen, typing on the big black Royal that we had presented to him as a Christmas surprise, a heavy machine with the keys converted to the Armenian alphabet. Up to then, everything he wrote had been handwritten. Now in his late fifties, he reluctantly started to use the typewriter for his writing and for official letters.
When that was going on, we could hear the loud click-clacking of the typewriter in the morning, and whether he was doing an article for Hairenik or an important letter, he had a mental deadline - ten o'clock, which was when my mother appeared at the kitchen doorway. Then hastily, he would clear away his papers as she put on the coffee,
Just before breakfast was ready, he would fold up the article or letter, address an envelope, seal and stamp it, and hurry across the street to drop the pièce in the mailbox before he had a chance to re-read it, saying to my mother, "vor kradzus chi-pokhem."
Then together in the sunny alcove, they would have a leisurely breakfast. My father died in 1986, barely two weeks before his 86th birthday. There have been occasions since then when I have been introduced to someone who, hearing that I was Aram Haigaz's daughter, was delighted to tell me that he or she had received a letter from him and were so proud to have it...they had saved it and would treasure it always.
I do not know what was in those letters and I never asked, because, as I explained, being young, we were totally involved in ourselves, Now, with this volume being published in Hayastan - an independent Hayastan which would have pleased Aram Haigaz beyond all imagination - I will see, for the first time, a little of what my father was writing about so many years ago.

Iris Chekenian
July 22, 2008 New York