Each morning Gagik scoured  roadside markets for picnic supplies: lavash, parchment thin bread, to wrap around soft cheese, olives, green onions, cucumbers and tomatoes.

As we approached Geghard, the 10-13 century monastery, a scene straight out of my Sunday school coloring book sprang to life. A family group, leading a sacrificial lamb was met by a group of pied pipers who piped them into the church. The lamb would later be butchered and a grand picnic held on the banks of the river. Geghard was also the church where a group of teenagers sang beside the chapel where stones are pressed into the wall and if the stone sticks your wish will come true.  Gagik said, "They are singing for the freedom of their friends in Karabakh."  (An Armenian enclave surrounded by Azerbaijan).

Geghard is an architectural wonder.  Carved in solid rock, it is a collection of several churches chiseled from the mountainside as a sanctuary for the early Christians.  Memorable as Geghard is, it's Gagik's song that I remember.  He stood in the center of the original church surrounded by columns and walls carved from one stone and sang quietly - perhaps to himself, perhaps to his God, but the curved stone vault increased the volume until, by the time it floated skyward through the round opening, it was a heavenly chorus.

On a Sunday visit to Cathedral Echmiadzin we discovered that Gagik was an artist and the son of an artist. In fact his father had helped restore the frescos in this beautiful Cathedral famous as the site where Christ descended from Heaven and pointed to the spot on which the Cathedral should be built. The elaborate service of the Armenian Apostolic Church was in progress when we arrived. Under vibrant blue and gold frescos and sparkling crystal chandlers, the gold mitered, black robed Catholicos moved slowly through the standing crowd dispensing blessings and accepting offerings. There was incense, a chorus and at the altar where Christ descended, a motionless prostrate man, obliging the faithful to lean over him in order to kiss the stone.

Our favorite trip was to Hamberd, a fortress and church high upon the slopes of Mount Argats. On the slopes, higher even than the fortress we found the distinctive rectangular steles of the pagans.  These stones (khatchkars) were later inscribed with intricate filigreed crosses and thousands of them are found all over Armenia.

As we approached the fortress we saw a school bus and a rollicking party in progress.  It was an end-of-school picnic and the English teacher suggested that while we looked at the fortress and church she would make coffee.

The teachers second question after, "Where are you from?" was, "Have you heard of the Genocide?"  One of the women offered to sing for us and we heard for the first time the poignantly beautiful song, "Your house is in front of my house, but I don't see you anymore."   The teenagers then turned up the boom box and the dancing began.  We spent a couple of hours eating grilled chicken, drinking vodka and dancing.  An added attraction was the daring feat of a local youth who scaled the fortress wall sans ropes or shoes.  It was for us a moment in an Armenian paradise.

The last day we stayed too long at the imposing Matenadaran, the library that holds thousands of books dating to the fifth century documenting the history of Armenia.  But to those in this shrunken landlocked country that once spread to three seas, The Matenadaran is more than a library; it is the depository of cultural history and is spoken of in reverential tones.  It is like scaling a mountain to get to this lofty mausoleum-like building.  On the first terrace is a statue of Mesrop Mashtots who, as every school child in this land of 98% literacy knows, created the Armenian alphabet in 405 A.D.  On the second terrace are granite statues of writers and finally inside a wide staircase leading to the exhibition room.  Here are the intricately illuminated manuscripts bound in leather, ivory and filigreed silver and parchment books of botany, math, science, geography and astrology. Gagik proudly pointed to the framed pictures and quotes of William Saroyan who in the early twentieth century introduced  the Armenian people to the world in his plays and novels. He also shyly told us it was his father who showed Saroyan around when he visited Armenia.

When we finally reached the Genocide Museum, the door had just been locked but Gagik explained that we had come from San Francisco to see the museum. Without hesitation we were ushered into the underground gallery where grainy photographs depicted the suffering of the Armenians who were "relocated" from ancestral lands by the Turks.  Although in 1915 the word "genocide" was not known, over 1,500,000 Armenians perished in the world's first genocide. The Treaty of Sevres, the last treaty of World War I, granted lands lost in the genocide to Armenia and demanded punishment of the perpetrators.  But by 1923, western powers caught the scent of Ottoman oil and signed the Lausanne Treaty.  Reparation, restitution, retribution and Armenian dreams slipped into fields of black gold  The remaining sliver of Armenia was incorporated into the Soviet Union until its breakup in 1991.

After visiting the Genocide Monument, 12 leaning stones surrounding the eternal flame and the slender sky-piercing shaft representing the hope of the Armenian people, we sat on the ledge of the courtyard waiting for a last glimpse of Mount Ararat.  This is a true "court" yard formed by a semicircle of 12 basalt slabs inscribed with statements by politicians, writers and scientists. Each visitor is a witness who can make his own judgement regarding the Genocide.

Even though the sky had turned fittingly somber, we hoped for a last glimpse of Mt. Ararat.  It didn't seem strange to sit silently with Gagik who actually spoke little English and who in retrospect I thought of as a spirit guide.  Gazing over the rooftops of Yerevan, I thought of my childhood during the depression on the high plains of the Texas Panhandle, and my mother's frequent admonition: "Dorothy, please finish your dinner.  Just think of the poor starving Armenians."  If I had had any inkling of the starving Armenians, I wouldn't have been able to choke down a bite.  And I thought of what Peter Balakian had written about his Armenian grandmother in  "Black Dog of Fate":  "She was history knocking on the door of my heart."

I gave up on Ararat.  I knew the mountain was there but this was to be a "wasn't" day.  Peter's grandmother had begun all her stories, not with "Once upon a time," but with "A long time ago there was and there wasn't."  A few drops of rain fell.  And then, like an answer to a prayer, Ararat  "was".  The mystical mountain, ephemeral, hauntingly near and illusively far, billowy clouds becoming mountains and snow covered mountains tops becoming clouds.  A tantalizing glimpse and it was gone.  But I knew that on whichever side of a man-made border Mount Ararat lies, there lies the soul of Armenia.