All the Light There Was (14 page)

I turned a page.

Jacqueline persisted. “When was the last time you got dressed up?”

“I don’t have any stockings.”

Jacqueline rolled her eyes at me. “You don’t need stockings. We’ll just draw black lines down the backs of your legs.”

“Bare legs in this weather?”

“So go ahead and wear wool tights, no one will notice.”

“It doesn’t seem right, going to a party when . . .” I said.

“It’s not a party. It’s a patriotic evening. Don’t you have any national feeling? They’re Armenian, after all.”

When Jacqueline and I entered the noisy hall, it was already packed with what seemed to be half the Armenians of Paris. Among them were dark-haired young Armenian men dressed in the gray-green of the German army.

“Look at those uniforms,” I whispered to Jacqueline.

“I told you they were in the Wehrmacht. What did you think they were going to wear? Look at their faces.”

It was true that they shared the features of our neighbors and cousins, but it made me uneasy to see them in those uniforms; it blurred the lines between who was the enemy and who was not and where our allegiances should be.

Jacqueline and I squeezed our way to the front, stopping briefly to exchange greetings with people we knew, and found two seats. A few minutes later, men from Soviet Armenia took the stage and sang a series of folk tunes in beautiful harmony. A mournful song about lost love and longing for the homeland set a flock of white hankies aflutter. The singing was followed by high-stepping Russian dances that heated up the room and brought the crowd roaring to its feet.

After the show, Jacqueline and I talked with a small circle of the performers, most of whom spoke only Eastern Armenian. One of them, though, was fluent in Western Armenian. His way of talking was formal almost to the point of being stilted, but warmth emanated from his dark eyes, and his smile was incandescent.

After a while I asked him, “How do you know Western Armenian?”

He said, “My parents hail from Moush. During the Deportations they fled to Leninakan. We conversed in Western Armenian at home; I picked up Eastern Armenian on the street, and Russian at school. Now I am learning French.”

“My father’s family was from Moush as well,” I told him.

“Perhaps our families were known to each other. What is your surname?” he asked.

“Pegorian.”

“And your first name?”

“Maral.”

He smiled. “Maral Pegorian. That is a beautiful name—”

Jacqueline interrupted. “I’m Jacqueline Sahadian. And what’s your name?”

“Andon Shirvanian, at your service,” he said with a nod. “May I bring you young ladies something to drink?”

As we watched him thread his way across the crowded room, Jacqueline said, “He’s handsome, don’t you think?”

“He’s very polite.”

He soon returned, deftly balancing three cups of tea. After handing us each a cup, he pulled a folded napkin from his uniform’s pocket. Inside were three cookies, which he offered to us.

He said, “It is kind of the community here to host us so generously. I had not eaten a homemade pastry in more than two years.”

“Believe me,” Jacqueline said, “our cookies tasted much better before the Boches stole all the butter.”

Andon laughed. “Well, let me promise you that you are eating better here than most of Eastern Europe. When we were in the POW camp, they fed us a half a loaf of bread each day with a thin vegetable soup. Once a week, they doled out a teaspoon of jam and a teaspoon of salt. Of course, now they feed us well. The German army cannot do its job on an empty stomach. I fear that we are eating all your butter.”

“Our butter, our bread, our meat, our potatoes, our milk . . .” Jacqueline enumerated on her fingers.

He bowed his head. “Please forgive me.”

Jacqueline smiled. “I don’t blame you. I know that under that German uniform, there beats an Armenian heart. Is it all Armenians in your unit?”

“There is an Armenian legion, but our company is mixed. In addition to Armenians, we have Ukrainians, Georgians, and an odd assortment of others.”

I asked, “What work are you doing?”

“We are helping build a wall along the Atlantic coast. To my mind, France is preferable to Poland, although there is certainly no honor in this effort.”

“For the moment, you seem to have better fortune than many,” I said stiffly, thinking of Zaven and Barkev, who were likely half starved in some tiny, cold garret.

“I detect a note of disapproval in your voice, but I agree that a lucky star is shining down on me tonight.” He smiled, looking into my eyes.

Flushing, I glanced at the clock on the wall. Curfew was approaching.

I said, “We have to catch the last Métro.”

Jacqueline sighed. “You’re right, as usual. Just when we were having a little fun.”

Andon Shirvanian said, “I am so happy to have met you. I would hope to have the pleasure of seeing you again when I return to Paris. Miss Pegorian, may I call on your family at that time?”

I sputtered, “Well . . . we really must go now. It was nice to meet you.”

As we walked to the Métro, Jacqueline said, “You weren’t so friendly to him at the end. If you wanted to give him the idea that you’d like to see him again, I think you failed.”

“First off, I already have a boyfriend. Second, speaking of not nice, you were the one accusing him of stealing all our butter. Third, even though he is Armenian, he is wearing a German uniform. Can you imagine the scandal it would cause if he strolled down our street?”

“It would be different if he were an officer, don’t you think? And anyway, he would have died in that camp if he hadn’t joined the German army. What choice did he have?”

“Go ahead and make excuses, but Zaven and Missak would never put on German uniforms no matter how hungry they were.”

“Would you rather have a dead hero or a live man?” Jacqueline countered.

“If you think he’s so wonderful, why don’t you chase after him?”

“He wasn’t interested in me, or didn’t you notice?”

When I didn’t answer she added, “There’s no accounting for tastes. Some men prefer the boring intellectual ones.”

I laughed. “And others prefer—”

“Don’t say something you’re going to regret!”

I took Jacqueline’s arm. “I was going to say, ‘And others prefer the sassy ones with short hair.’”

A
T BREAKFAST, MY FATHER
read aloud in his heavily accented French from a newspaper article announcing the arrest of Missak Manouchian. Manouchian, an Armenian poet, former factory worker, and Communist, was accused of being the ringleader of a terrorist network that had assassinated several high-ranking German officers, including a close personal friend of Hitler. According to the report, the members of this criminal gang had also blown up munitions trains and assaulted German troops in Paris and its suburbs, all within the space of seven months.

When he finished reading, my father commented in Armenian, “If an Armenian in France does something dishonorable, the French say he’s a dirty immigrant. If he does something good, the French take the credit and say he’s French. Whatever they decide to say about this one, the Armenian people have another martyr.”

We didn’t know Manouchian, but his wife, Melinée, who had lived in Belleville before the war, was friendly with Zaven’s parents. The Kacherians had met the husband several times at social events.

Soon after the arrests, my father’s mortal enemy, the radio commentator Jean Hérold-Paquis, began devoting his daily radio show to what was called the Manouchian affair. My mother and I often left the room during his broadcasts, which my father insisted on listening to despite the toll it took on his blood pressure. But during these episodes about Manouchian, I was glued to the radio as well—it was a rarity for Armenians to be referred to over the airwaves, and certainly never before had there been a mention of someone who was in our circle. My mother sat mutely in her corner as Hérold-Paquis filled the front room with insults about the dirty foreigner, the murderer without scruples, and the dark-skinned half-breed who had spit in the face of the country that had given him refuge. Death was too good for the subhuman
métèque
who had murdered the führer’s friend. Then Hérold-Paquis turned his hatred more broadly, railing against Manouchian’s gang of filthy Red and kike criminals and terrorists. In his opinion, they all had rotten faces and unpronounceable names and were a pox on the French nation. It was really quite a performance, I had to admit, but his venom and race-baiting made me feel ill. Clearly we Armenians were barely human, and it was only owing to a stroke of luck or a bit of oversight that we weren’t being subjected to the same grim regimen as the Jews and Communists.

My father’s face grew red as the litany of abuse went on until finally he burst out, “You mark my words, that Nazi puppet is going to end up in front of a firing squad or on the gallows. He talks shit, he will eat shit, and he will rot in shit by the time this is all over.”

I looked to my mother, expecting her to reprimand him, but she was staring ahead vacantly. It was unclear whether she had even registered either the radio tirade or my father’s scathing response.

The next night, as the puppet launched again into his catalog of insults but before my father had had a chance to work himself into a rage, I said, “I can’t stomach any more of this.”

I removed my books and myself to the frigid bedroom. But even there I had difficulty focusing, and it wasn’t because of the temperature. All I could think of was Zaven. I knew nothing about where he and Barkev were and what they were up to, but I suspected enough to panic for their safety. The worse the war went for the Germans, the more brutal they became. Black-clad SS officers were now seen on the streets of central Paris, and rumors of the tortures practiced at the Cherche-Midi prison circulated in our neighborhood. By this point in the war, every one of us knew someone who had been arrested or deported.

The next day, after school, I stopped by the Kacherians’ apartment to see if they had had any news. I knocked, and a solemn-faced Virginie opened the door.

She brightened when she saw me. “Oh, Maral. Come in. My mother will be happy you’re here.”

Zavig’s mother, whose face was pale and drawn, invited me to stay for tea. “It’s so nice of you to visit, sweetie. We haven’t seen you in a while. I’ve been fretting about the boys, but it cheers me up to look at your pretty face.”

“Have you heard anything?” I asked.

Auntie Shushan pulled a note from her pocket and handed it to me. “Someone slid this under the door last night.”

Written on the card were the words
Don’t worry. We are fine. B & Z.

“That’s not Zaven’s handwriting.”

“It’s Barkev’s. Telling a mother not to worry is like telling her not to breathe. Lately I can’t sleep for more than a few hours at a time. I’m up in the middle of the night imagining awful things that could be happening to my boys. But I’m glad to know they are not in jail. I can’t stand to think of what poor Melinée must be going through.
Vahkh, vahkh,
the agony.”

The melancholy in our own apartment deepened as the anniversary of Auntie Shakeh’s passing approached. That week, my mother and I went to the church to make arrangements with the priest for the service for the repose of Auntie Shakeh’s soul.

Auntie Shakeh’s soul may have been in heaven, but it was my mother’s soul that had no rest. When I looked at my mother, I noticed that she was smaller and more fragile than she had been only a few months before.

My father shook his head when I asked him about it. “If you know a way to call her back,” he said, “I would be grateful. Nothing I say or do seems to help.”

In the evenings, as we prepared the meal and set the table, I told stories from my day, essentially pelting her with words. My father and I chatted through the meal, and I would tell more anecdotes while my mother and I washed dishes. I relayed gossip from the grocery lines, and tidbits about our neighbors that I had heard from the concierge. And when I couldn’t think of anything else, I talked about the weather. I almost wished my mother would admonish me to be quiet, but she passively allowed this torrent to pour over her with only an occasional perfunctory murmur of agreement or cluck of disapproval.

Most of the time, my mother seemed entirely engrossed in her own thoughts, and I assumed that the most likely subject of her brooding was her sister. I avoided mentioning Auntie Shakeh for fear of provoking deeper despair, but I started to think that maybe this subject was the only one that might help.

One Saturday afternoon my mother and I were alone in the front room doing our handwork, and I forced myself to broach the topic directly.

“It’s almost one year since Auntie Shakeh passed away. It feels like a part of you went with her when she died.”

My mother sighed.

“I miss you.”

My mother put her hand to her face and turned aside, casting her eyes down.

I tried again. “You hardly talk. You never laugh. You must be lonely.”

She said nothing. I stopped knitting, she stopped sewing, and the space was leaden with silence. I noticed her exhalations and the sound of the ticking clock.

“Lonely,” my mother said finally, “it was lonely in the desert. They were all dead except for Shakeh and me. There were so many thousands of ways to die. Dying was the easy thing. You could refuse to move when they told you to move and they would whip you until you bled. You could throw yourself in the river where bloated corpses passed by like rotting logs. You could not fight back when someone tried to steal your bread. You could lie down by the road and wait for death to come for you like the vultures.

“What was harder was staying alive. How should you stay alive when you had lost your humanness? Because after a while, you felt nothing when you saw them dead and dying, nothing at all. It was as though you were made of stone. There was no longer any need to turn your face from the suffering. Your heart was smaller and harder than a stone.