When Anahit Harutyunyan mentions the name of "the old country", her mute mother, Khanum Hakopyan, gets very excited. For thirteen years now, Anahit has been her mother's tongue and ears, her book of memories.
The mother was lamenting her child's arrival into this world. Everyone told her to leave him behind, to at least save herself. There was chaos everywhere - confusion, blood, dust.
"I am a Sassun girl," boast Grandmother Nuri, who lives in the village of Araks in Sardarapat.
"I'm black ant, and you're a red one. Now, the black ants are going to kill the red ones." "I want to be a black ant too." "You can't, because you're Armenian."