Janice looked away from the couple towards the mountain. There were any number of mountains to choose from, but as she scanned the horizon her eyes lit on one that stood more proudly than the others. It rose with dignity and majesty catching the last rays of the setting sun. It certainly was far enough away to be in Turkey, beyond the closed border; perhaps it was the fact that it was out of bounds, forbidden, that it engendered such reverence and awe in Solya’s heart. It had become the only connection Solya had to a lost, distant past that she wanted to revive. Together they watched in silence while the mountain, faint in the distance, changed colour from top to bottom under the influence of the dying sun. They watched through the vapours of mist and smoke that rose from the city below and from scattered, distant villages as the snow-capped peak was drenched in turn with red, pink then orange light before it faded to purple then grey and disappeared into the night to spend the long hours of darkness in the possession of the Turks, away even from the fond, protective gaze of Armenia.

Nikolas broke the silence. He was cold and hungry and didn’t want his wife to stay too long. Every time he took her to see the mountain she came home unsettled. “Well that’s our Ararat,” he said victoriously. “What do you think of her?”

Ararat. It was a word that sent shock waves through Janice. Memories flooded into her mind from a lifetime ago. Sunday school lessons and comic songs; acting out the story of Noah’s Ark and wondering how all those animals managed to keep from eating Mr Noah for forty days and forty nights. Her mind ran on to thoughts of security and the warmth of her parents’ home; pictures of doves carrying twigs and the first ever rainbow made up of the colours she had just seen on the snow of the mountain. Something good but forgotten had been called out from the stored boxes of Janice’s shelved past.

Tears came to her eyes and Solya noticed. Solya moved over and put her arm round her in solidarity, but Solya’s tears and reverence were political, Janice’s were not. Nor were her tears for a denied history: she didn’t know what her tears were for, but she was certain that it was something to do with being drawn and blessed by whatever had come to her on those invisible rays that fell through the break in the clouds over Yerevan that afternoon; something that called quietly to her across the years from the warmth of the Sunday afternoon parlour in Doncaster, via the eerie mists around Ararat.