All the Light There Was (25 page)

“By springtime, he’ll probably be crawling, and you’ll be complaining because he’ll be getting into mischief. I expect Pierre will be walking by then, with me chasing along behind. Look at him now.”

Pierre had dropped the toys and pulled himself to standing in front of the armchair. He turned to see if I was watching, and he grinned and showed his new teeth.

Jacqueline said, “Speaking of spring, how long are you going to wear black? You look like one of the old widows at the church. You could at least put on a little lipstick.”

“Glamour is not for a widow,” I said.

“Says who? Your mother-in-law? According to her, you should wear black for the rest of your life. It’s been almost six months. Isn’t that enough?”

“If I didn’t see Pierre grow, I would have no way of keeping track of time. The weeks are all the same—knitting, taking the sweaters to the workshop, and picking up more yarn. Helping my mother clean and cook. Scrubbing Pierre’s diapers.”

“You can’t stay cooped in this apartment waiting for white hairs. How about a community dance? Or, I don’t know, at least go to the cinema with a friend.”

“I don’t have anyone to go with. I’ve lost touch with all my old schoolmates.”

“What about Virginie?”

“When she’s not at school or studying, she’s waiting on her mother. I think my mother-in-law is going to insist that girl wear black at her own wedding, if she even lets her marry. I wish you didn’t live so far away.”

“I know. I was lucky to catch a ride in today with Cousin Karnig. Your brother’s so lazy on Sunday, all he wants to do is putter around the house. There’s always something broken he needs to fix. Sometimes I leave the baby with him and go to church just to keep up with the gossip. You’re welcome to visit. But maybe you should leave the baby with your mother and go to the cathedral. How could your mother-in-law criticize you for going to church?”

“She finally stopped complaining about the fact that we moved out. But now she’s sure that someone is going to put the evil eye on Pierre. She sewed a blue bead onto his hat and wants me to make him wear it. He pulls it off the minute I put it on. So then she chases behind him with garlic and a blue ribbon.”

Pierre, who had been sitting on the floor sucking on the spoons, suddenly lost interest in them, threw them, and chanted lustily, “Ba, ba, ba, ba.”

I said, “Yes, we’re talking about you. And it’s time for lunch.”

That night I lay in my bed thinking about what Jacqueline had said. My mother-in-law’s philosophy had cast a pall over me. To be happy, to laugh, to show an interest in anything outside the daily chores was to betray the memory of Barkev. But it wasn’t right. Barkev would not have wanted a life of sequestered mourning for me or for Pierre.

I hadn’t been to the cathedral since the fortieth-day requiem service for Barkev. I could put on my best black dress and go there on a Sunday for a change of scenery. The only cost would be the Métro fare and the coins for the offering plate.

A few mornings later, Pierre, whose nose had been runny the day before, woke up with red cheeks and a slight fever. He had been up several times in the night, whimpering to be held. The third time, I had just taken him into the bed, thinking this would be more restful for both of us, but instead he had moaned, turned, and kicked, repeatedly interrupting my sleep. In the morning as Pierre nursed, he sniffed and grunted, not seeming really hungry. I carried him to the front room, where my mother was setting breakfast on the table.

My mother touched his forehead. “He’s warm.”

“He has a cold.” I put him in the high chair and tried to feed him some cereal, but he turned his head, pushing the spoon away. He then started to wail.

As my father entered the room, he accidentally stepped on the kitten’s tail. The kitten yowled, the baby continued howling, and my father shouted, “What is this bedlam? Why is that cat always underfoot? Why is that baby screaming? Can’t a man have any peace?”

My father’s shouting only made Pierre cry harder. Now he pulled on both ears while snot streamed from his nose. I plucked him out of the high chair, wiping his face with a damp washcloth.

My mother said loudly over his wails, “I think he has an ear infection. Maybe a double ear infection. I’m going to warm some oil.”

“Damn it, woman, why are you shouting?” my father barked.

“If he has an ear infection, don’t you think we should take him to the doctor?” I asked as his crying reached a crescendo.

With a dismissive hand, my mother swatted away the idea. “Warm olive oil and a cotton ball in each ear is the best medicine.”

“I’m going to the shop,” my father announced. And with that he marched off without his breakfast.

After my mother poured the drops of oil and stuffed the cotton into Pierre’s ears, I took him to the bedroom. We sat in the wooden rocking chair my parents had given me for Christmas. As the chair’s runners creaked across the floorboards, and the baby relaxed in my arms, I sang a lullaby until he dozed.

I continued rocking and humming. My house of memory had many rooms, and there was one dedicated to Barkev, one for Zaven, and one for Auntie Shakeh. I imagined each room in detail—the chairs, the table, the carpet, and the pictures on the walls showing scenes from the person’s life. I put a vase of flowers on the table in each room: red tulips for Auntie Shakeh, lilacs for Zaven, and my poor Barkev had Lenten roses. After a while, I felt my eyes grow heavy, pulling me toward dreams.
Let them be good ones,
I thought,
or let me not remember them.

The next afternoon when I stopped by my father’s shop, Paul was alone. He dropped the hammer and shoe onto the bench and rushed forward to greet me.

“Your father should be back in about fifteen minutes. Do you want to wait?”

“That’s all right. Tell him I’ll see him when he comes home.”

“Before you go, Maral, I wanted to ask you . . .”

He stopped midsentence, and I noticed that his ears, which still stood away from his head like two handles, had turned crimson.

“Yes?” I asked.

“Well, there is a dance on Saturday.”

“Thank you, Paul. That’s sweet. Your sister has been saying I should get out among people more, but I’m just not ready.”

As I walked out of the shop, it occurred to me that, like a rudderless ship, I could end up drifting into the wrong harbor.

I entered the cathedral a few minutes after the liturgy had begun and paused to drop coins into the box and to light three candles. I walked down the aisle, facing forward, the velvet dots of my black veil floating in front of me as I looked out of the corners of my eyes at the people in the pews I passed. I stood when I was supposed to stand and sat when the congregation sat, but I was distracted.

When it was time, I recited the creed in unison with the congregation. I loved these words:
God of God, light of light, very God of very God, begotten and not made; Himself of the nature of the Father, by Whom all things came into being in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible
.
 .
.

When I had come to the church with Auntie Shakeh as a small child, I had thrilled at the repetition of these words. What did it mean to be begotten and not made? When I asked Auntie Shakeh, she told me it was a mystery, saying it in such a way that I knew I should not have asked. So much in the church was mysterious—what the priests did behind the curtain in the middle of the service, what they wore under their long robes, and how the communion host was transformed so it wasn’t just a wafer but actually Jesus’s body. I had wished I could touch the invisible things that God had made. I would glance at the seemingly empty air inside the vaulted church and imagine the angels. If the priest swung the censer near them, would it be possible to see their outlines in the smoke? Might I hear the rustle of their wings? Did angels smell like heaven?

These were the kinds of questions that made me feel both special and lonely when I was a child.
Now,
I thought,
I’m no longer special; I’m just lonely.

After the service ended, I talked with a few familiar faces in the vestibule. Some of the older women asked after my mother. I promised to convey their greetings. Jacqueline was right. It did me good to be out in the world, talking with people, even if it was mostly idle chatter.

When I stopped to say hello to Father Avedis, I screwed up the courage to ask him about Andon.

He said, “Shirvanian? I believe he was here a month or so ago to light a candle for his mother.”

I asked, “No funerals? No weddings? No baptisms?”

Father Avedis eyed me. “No weddings that I’ve heard about, young lady.”

At home I searched through my letters and found the note he had given me with the address for Tapis Shirvan. I put the address in my coat pocket, where it burned like a hot coal.

I made the weekly trip to my boss’s atelier one beautiful, sunny afternoon in late March. The early perennials popping up in planters and garden beds heralded spring’s arrival. I undid the buttons of my black winter coat. Coming back, not wanting to rush home, I meandered to the English library at the Sorbonne.

The librarian said, “Maral! It’s so good to see you. What brings you here?”

“I had business in the neighborhood and thought I’d stop to say hello. I know I’m not enrolled, but I was wondering if I might borrow a book.”

“For you we can make an exception. Go find what you want.”

A half an hour later, as I stood on the street corner outside the library with a bag of wool slung over one shoulder and Charlotte Brontë’s
Villette
tucked under the other arm, I reached into my pocket for the slip of paper. I already knew the address by heart, but I stared at Andon’s perfect handwriting. It was a fifteen-minute walk away. I looked at my watch. My mother probably wouldn’t notice an extra half an hour, and the baby was likely still having his afternoon nap.

I stood nervously in front of the plate-glass window that said in gold letters
TAPIS SHIRVAN
. Inside, deeply colored rugs hung on the walls and there were stacks of carpets on the floor. A balding, middle-aged man sat at a desk in the center of the showroom—it had to be Andon’s cousin—but no one else was in the shop. Of course, there would be a back room where the rugs were repaired, and if he was in the shop, Andon would be found there.

The bell above the door jangled as I crossed the threshold. The man at the desk glanced up.

“May I help you?” he asked in heavily accented French.

I replied in French, “Oh, yes, thank you. I’m looking for Andon Shirvanian.”

“He stepped out for a bit. He went for lunch and then to the post office. Would you like to leave him a message?”

“Thank you, I would. Do you have a piece of paper that I might use?”

He slid a pad of paper and a pen across the desk to me.

I paused for a second, the pen poised over the page. Then I wrote in Armenian,
I was passing through the neighborhood. Sorry to have missed you. Will be at church on Sunday. Maral.

I pushed the pad back to him.

He glanced at what I had written and smiled broadly. Then he reached out to shake my hand and said in Armenian, “Maral! I’m Andon’s cousin Hrair Shirvanian. Andon has spoken so much about you. I am so happy to meet you. You are the one who helped him with his French. It’s beautiful now. He writes all my letters. He’s taking English classes at night. Do you want to wait for him? Sit down and I’ll make us some tea.”

“Oh, no, thank you. I’m afraid I can’t stay. I’m expected at home.”

I hurried to the avenue and the nearest Métro station, my cheeks burning with embarrassment. My mother-in-law would be scandalized. I paused to catch my breath and briefly surveyed my image in a shop window. I tucked my hair behind my ears and straightened the collar of my coat. There was nothing to do now except wait for Sunday.

“S
HE’S GOING TO CHURCH
again this week. Next thing you know she’s going to take up with the Protestants and then we’ll know she’s a fanatic,” my father said.

My mother said, “Maral, please tell Father Avedis I say hello.”

Pierre, who had already finished breakfast and was standing holding on to the sofa, said, “Mama.”

“Look at him,” my mother said.

Pierre let go of the couch and took a step. He stood unsupported for a few seconds with a look of utter surprise on his face.

I laughed. “Good for you, Pierre!”

“Aman!”
My mother clapped her hands. “He’s walking.”

“Of course he’s walking. What do you think? Babies eventually walk and talk and use the toilet and do what humans do,” said my father.

“Okay, you cranky old man. My grandson just took his first step and to me that’s amazing,” my mother answered.

The baby lost his balance and sat heavily on his bottom. He turned, crawled back to the couch, and pulled himself up again. He grinned at his audience and took another step.

I arrived at the cathedral early and sat in the pew twisting a white lace-trimmed hankie. When I looked down and saw that the fabric was thoroughly wrinkled, I smoothed it on my lap, neatly folded it, and put it in my purse. I mustered the self-restraint to keep from craning my neck around as I heard the footsteps of churchgoers making their way down the nave. But finally, I was compelled to look over my shoulder and there he was. He was wearing his black suit with the starched white shirt and a red tie. He smiled and dipped his head in greeting, sliding into the pew on the other side of the aisle. I returned his smile, feeling myself flush. I faced forward, still smiling.

When the service finally came to a close, the exiting crowd pulled us toward the vestibule.

Andon said, “The café on Marbeuf?”

I nodded. He had chosen a place nearby but far enough away that we were unlikely to be spotted. We instinctively wanted to avoid anything that might set the church ladies gossiping.

The parishioners spilled out into the sunny courtyard, where they gathered in eddies and pools. After Andon and I briefly exchanged glances, he headed to the street while I paused to talk with one of my mother’s friends. I calculated that five minutes should be sufficient and so engaged in a painful conversation about the exact number of teeth Bedros now had, and how Jacqueline and Missak were doing in Alfortville. Just as I extricated myself, Father Avedis approached.