How to meet a musician . . .

LUNCH BREAK

The story begins in Van Nuys, California, in1985. I wander into a nondescript diner perched on the southwest corner of Oxnard and Van Nuys Boulevards. I’m hungry, having completed morning field canvasses for the Los Angeles County Assessor’s Office. Before I have a chance to flip through the lunch menu, music from a cheap speaker wedged into the corner of a whitewashed ceiling catches my attention. Classical, I think, but nothing I recognize.  Not liking cramped booths, I climb onto a barstool and smile a hello to the clean-aproned wiry cook working behind the counter. Baker’s cap askew, he asks, “You like Armenian hamburger?”

            “Sure,” I say, “if it’s good.” 

        “Of course it’s good; I put special seasonings,” he retorts.  Soft-spoken, friendly, refined, I’m unsure of his accent. Carefully he lifts and turns burgers on the grill with a long-handled spatula.  He flashes an occasional inquisitive glance my way, in case I want to order anything else.

I absently scan bare walls, waiting for my burger.  Finally my eyes rest blankly on the counter under my elbows.  News notes had been placed under the protective glass.  I peruse the clippings. When my burger arrives, I look into the cook’s face, then back at the clippings. “You?” I point at a press photo. He nods, grins, and moves away to serve another customer. I read on, munching. 

The story shifts from one man’s successful diner to the struggle of a young musician surviving a prisoner of war camp.  My stomach knots.  I’m German, and the camp is a German KZ (concentration camp).  The journalist wrote that a commandant had saved this man from death because he, too, was a musician.  I catch the owner’s eye and motion toward the speakers. “Yours?”  He nods and offers a title: “Shepherd Song.”

Maybe it’s the minor notes; tears begin to well in my eyes.  After all, I’d lost my father in action near the very place that the newspaper said this man was rescued. I find myself a mutual casualty of war. My burger goes flat, and I salt it with a tear.

The owner senses a problem and comes to my side of the counter. “What’s wrong?”

I blurt out, “Stupid war,” and the dam breaks.

When I recover, I tell him my story.  He understands. “Look,” he says, “I am ’live; you are ’live. Be grateful.”

Before lunch is over Ara Sevanian calls me Little Daughter.

More on Ara next week
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