All the Light There Was

by Kricorian, Nancy

  My mother raised her palms and eyes to heaven. “Yaman, yaman. Dear God, is death the only end to this suffering?”

  That night I lay in bed studying the drawing on the wall. Missak had captured Zavig’s nature in that sketch: the high forehead; the large, soulful eyes; the open smile. I tried every ritual I knew to fall asleep—turning to my habitual position on my side with a hand slipped beneath the pillow, and counting to a thousand in French and then in Armenian. I switched on the bedside lamp and tried reading from Auntie Shakeh’s Bible. But nothing helped, and I lay in the dark as the infernal machine of my imagination began to work: Zaven was in a grimy factory where unwashed, rail-thin men in tattered clothes trundled misfortune around in wheelbarrows. I must have fallen asleep at some point, but when the alarm went off in the morning I felt as though it had been only ten minutes since I shut my eyes.

  The news of Zaven and Barkev’s deportation cast a pall over our household for many weeks. I continued having difficulty sleeping and stumbled wearily through the day. My mother’s hands were either frantic with work or still as dead birds. On Saturday evening when Missak was a half an hour late for dinner, my mother wept into her apron while my father scolded her. When Missak finally arrived, no one reprimanded him. We sat at the table and ate dinner to the sounds of cutlery against plates.

  One morning at the breakfast table, my father announced with forced cheerfulness that the Germans were in a tough spot and it was only a matter of time before Hitler was defeated. He predicted that the Kacherian boys would be back before the holidays and that life would return to normal soon thereafter.

  He said, “The Americans and the British will land on the coast any day now. They’ll break through that wall and roll across France.”

  My mother eyed him skeptically. “Did Saint Sarkis tell you all this in a dream?”

  “There are rumors going up and down the hill, and I can feel it in my bones,” he said.

  “Maybe what you’re feeling in your bones is old age,” she said. “Or maybe it’s going to rain.”

  As sad as we were, we returned to the routine of our lives. I studied for my exams. My mother set my father to building several more window boxes out of old crates. She sent Missak out to the park to collect dirt to fill them. I helped her plant tomatoes, peppers, and parsley in the boxes. Then my mother worked her magic on the grocer and came home with another sack of bulgur.

  One Sunday, I was dispatched by bicycle to the cousins in Alfortville. My father sent newly made sandals with wooden soles that I traded for onions, eggplant seedlings, and another beady-eyed laying hen. Since the bird would eventually land in a pot, I christened her Havabour—Chicken Soup. On my way back, the bicycle finally suffered a flat tire and I had to walk the last mile home.

  I took my exit exams in early June, and days later, as I was standing in line at the market, I heard the long-anticipated news. It was Tuesday, June 6, and the street was buzzing: the Americans and English had launched their attack on Normandy. The Allies had landed on French soil and would soon be heading east.

  With the news of the Allied landing, our daily lives felt provisional and petty. But still, the shopping had to be done, the meals prepared, and the table set for dinner. My mother sewed, my father repaired shoes, and I completed my last days at the lycée. We brushed our teeth at night and slept as best we could. I woke in the middle of the night thinking of Zavig and Barkev somewhere deep in Germany, where the war might go on for many months. I tried not to think about how awful it was that they had been deported only weeks before the Americans arrived.

  All the girls in my class were concerned that their exam results would disappear into the war’s chaos, but even here, the routine was maintained; French bureaucracy held sway, and the marks were posted on the wall.

  My English teacher, Mrs. Collin, pulled me aside. “Marie, what are your plans for next year?”

  “I don’t know. I have a knitting job this summer. In the fall, I thought I would look for an office job of some kind—”

  Mrs. Collin interrupted. “Young lady, it would be unfortunate if you didn’t continue your education. Would you like me to put in a word for you with the English Literature Department at the Sorbonne?”

  As much as I was flattered by my teacher’s concern, and as deeply as I would have loved to study more, the disorder of the war, the closure of the teacher’s colleges, and my family’s strained finances had made me wonder if going to the university made any sense. I hadn’t even brought it up with my parents, and truthfully, I felt that my life was on hold until Zaven returned.

  Mrs. Collin peered into my face. “Look, you should at least apply. There is a chance for a scholarship, and the English Department’s library hires part-time assistants. Who knows where we will all be in October. Let me help you so you may at least have a choice.”

  So she lobbied on my behalf, and a place and the funds were found. My father grumbled about higher education being wasted on a girl. Studying literature seemed frivolous to him; if I had been studying for something practical, like a teaching or a nursing degree, he might have responded with more enthusiasm. My mother told me not to pay any attention, and in the end he grudgingly gave me his gnomic blessing: “Reading is a golden bracelet.”

  20

  CARRYING A HEAVY BAG full of yarn one hot evening, I plodded up the rue de Belleville from the Métro; three boys on bicycles whizzed down the hill, tossing leaflets behind them like confetti. Several of the papers fluttered to the sidewalk at my feet. I picked one up and saw it was a call to action for Bastille Day.

  Rise up, rise up, citizens, on the 14th of July, take to the streets of Belleville and show your defiance of the Nazi Occupier.

  Since the Allies had landed in Normandy, the atmosphere in the city was electric and mercurial. In our neighborhood, with its history of working-class revolt, each day there was some new act of defiance: Métros were purposely stalled in the tunnels, factory workers walked out on strike, and underground newspapers were openly distributed on corners. The quiet muttering against the Germans turned into a loud discourse in the market lines.

  When Bastille Day arrived I was unable to convince my mother to join Jacqueline and me on the streets, but she didn’t attempt to stop us. At the first sign of trouble, I promised her, we would scuttle home. We passed by the shoe-repair shop to pick up my father and Paul, and the four of us made our way to the corner. The Kacherians were already there, as were Jacqueline’s parents and siblings.

  Boys were moving along the sidewalks of the rue de Belleville selling miniature paper tricolor flags. The profits were for the benefit of the Resistance, so the boys soon sold all their wares. The street quickly filled—the crowds went up and down the rue de Belleville as far as I could see. People had gathered on one side of the street, while on the opposite sidewalk the police had lined up. But marching down the middle of the street were members of the armed Resistance—the Francs-Tireurs et Partisans—openly carrying their weapons for the first time.

  At the sight of the Partisan Snipers, Shushan Kacherian exclaimed, “Meghah! If those boys aren’t afraid, it must be true that the Germans are losing!”

  My father laughed. “Maybe now you’ll believe me.”

  Just then a young man waving a full-size tricolor ran to join the gun-toting irregulars. Suddenly the crowd was singing “La Marseillaise”—singing, bellowing, and shouting with all the rage and joy of believing that the Occupation would soon be over.

  My father slapped Vahan Kacherian on the back and yelled over the roar of the crowd, “Those are our men! If only your sons were here to see this. But they’ll be back. The Soviets are headed west and the Americans are headed east. Soon they will crush the Boches in the middle.”

  Turning to me, Zaven’s father said happily, “You’ll be pleased to see Zaven when he comes home, won’t you, young lady?”

  Everything seemed possible in that moment. As the raucous chorus continued, I imagined that any minute Zaven would round
the corner to join us.

  There were no Germans to be seen, only the French police. At one point, orders must have been given to disperse the crowds, and police vans started to move in. They attempted to drive down the street, but no one moved. Men shouted, “The police are with us! The police are with us!” And it appeared that they were. The vans retreated and some of the officers themselves joined in singing another round of “La Marseillaise.”

  My father grinned. “Too bad your mother and brother aren’t here to see this.”

  Missak suddenly bobbed up beside us. “I’m here!”

  My father clapped him on the shoulder. “Where have you been?”

  “Down on the boulevard de Belleville. It’s a wild party. Everyone’s singing and dancing. It was so jammed it took me a half an hour to get through.”

  After a while the police vans arrived again, but people had already started dispersing, leaving the street littered with paper flags, trampled leaflets, and crushed flowers.

  Jacqueline, Missak, and I sat on the bench in the courtyard of our building watching Havabour peck and scratch at the weeds growing between the cobblestones.

  “Your mother invited me to stay for dinner,” Jacqueline said, eyeing the hen. “Too bad that chicken isn’t in the pot.”

  I said, “My mother saved eggs to cook with the bulgur. I think there’s even butter to fry the onions.”

  “You’re so lucky. We’re eating badly at my house, or we’re hardly eating. The kids look skinnier every day. All I earn I spend on black-market food, but I can’t buy much. A kilo of butter costs a thousand francs. Can you imagine that? Who has a thousand francs to spend on butter?”

  Missak reached into his pocket. “Here,” he said, handing her two fake ration cards.

  “Oh, Missak, I could kiss you!” Jacqueline said.

  He flushed. “Just because you have the tickets doesn’t mean you’ll be able to find the food.”

  I studied Missak out of the corner of my eye. He wasn’t one to embarrass easily. Then I noticed the way we were sitting—with Jacqueline in the middle between my brother and me. I wondered how long their romance had been going on without my noticing.

  Jacqueline put her hand on Missak’s arm. “But still, we should be able to get something with these, and something is better than nothing.”

  I stood up. “Time to set the table.”

  “Do you want me to come with you?” Jacqueline asked, withdrawing her hand from Missak’s arm.

  “No need,” I said, scooping up the bird and nestling it in the crook of my elbow. “I’ll come down and let you know when it’s ready. And Jacqueline, will you do me a favor?”

  “Sure. What do you want?” Jacqueline asked.

  “Will you cut my hair?”

  “You want a trim?”

  I pointed at my jaw line. “I want it cut to here.”

  “Your mother will have a fit,” Jacqueline said.

  “So we’ll do it at your place.”

  The next day, I went to the Sahadians’ carrying in my bag a purloined pair of my mother’s sharpest shears.

  As the first long tress fell to the kitchen floor, Jacqueline’s mother said, “Are you two crazy? Why are you cutting it so short? Maral, your mother’s going to cry when she sees what you’ve done.”

  “It’s the style,” Jacqueline said. With a snip of the scissors, another lock of hair dropped, and then another.

  When it was done I shook my head, surprised by how weightless it felt. I put my hand to the ends.

  “I knew it,” Jacqueline said triumphantly. “See how nicely it curls? Think about all those girls who have to put waves into their hair. Do you like it?”

  I examined myself in the hand mirror. “Do you think it looks good?”

  Jacqueline said, “It’s perfect. What do you think, Mairig?”

  Auntie Sophie said, “Okay. So it’s nice. Maybe your mother won’t be too sad.”

  21

  BY EARLY AUGUST, RUMOR had it that General Leclerc and the Americans were just over the horizon. The whole city was waiting, and when people got tired of waiting, they took action. First the police went on strike, disappearing from the streets and slipping out of their uniforms. The next day our letterbox was empty because the postal workers had walked off the job. The following day my father was thrilled to hear static where Radio Paris was usually found. There were no newspapers, electricity was cut, and gas was suspended. The Métro was shut down, and with the tires on our bicycle flat and beyond repair, we had no way to move around the city except on foot. Out of habit my father went to his shop, but customers were rare. I strayed only a few blocks from home, and my mother went no farther than our courtyard. One morning I ventured out to discover that posters had been plastered all over the walls of Belleville calling for a general strike and insurrection. We had heard nothing from Missak, who was, as far as we knew, living at the print shop.

  The following Sunday morning Missak showed up at home looking as though he hadn’t slept in days. His voice hoarse and taut with excitement, he reported that the battle for Paris had begun the day before, with street fighting in the Latin Quarter and around the Gare de la Villette.

  “Finally,” he said, “Paris is rising up.”

  That afternoon a truce was announced via loudspeakers on cars that cruised the neighborhood. Missak and I went out to see what was going on, joining the jubilant crowds who had poured into the streets to celebrate. But a neighbor reported that the fighting was continuing in small pockets around town, despite the official announcement.

  Vahan Kacherian waved to us from the corner, and we went over to say hello. Just then a column of German army trucks sped up the hill and people scattered in fear. Missak, Vahan, and I dashed into the Kacherians’ courtyard.

  Once inside, Vahan beamed. “The Boches didn’t stop, and they probably won’t stop until they get to Berlin. With any luck, my boys will be home by Christmas.” He patted my arm. “Then we’ll have some raki to celebrate!”

  I remembered the day four years earlier when we had watched from behind the slatted shutters in the Kacherians’ apartment as the German troops marched down the hill toward the heart of Paris. It seemed unreal that the long night was almost over.

  On Monday morning, Missak was up early, claiming he had to return to work at the print shop.

  My mother pleaded, “Oh no, Missak. Stay home. It’s too dangerous.”

  “My boss needs me.”

  My mother retorted, “I’m your mother, and I need you. Why should you roam the streets when there are bullets flying in all directions?”

  My father interjected, “Azniv, he’s a man now. And he’s not stupid, are you, boy? You will keep your wits about you and your head down.”

  “You are actually going to let him go?” my mother asked.

  “It’s his decision, Azniv. And as they say, if disaster is on its way, it can strike you even while you sleep in your bed.”

  When my mother was in the other room, I took hold of Missak’s hand and examined his fingernails.

  “Brother, there isn’t any ink here. It doesn’t look like you’ve been doing any printing at all.”

  “There’s other work to do.”

  “With guns?” I asked.

  “Guns, grenades, Molotov cocktails,” he said, laughing and miming the tossing of a flaming bottle.

  “I’m glad you think that’s funny. Missak, please don’t be an idiot and get yourself killed now.”

  “I’m coordinating the printing and distribution of leaflets. Dull, I know, but someone has to do it.”

  He left, and we had no word from him for days. With no newspaper and no radio, we relied on street gossip and Resistance handbills for news. There were gun battles on the quays along the Seine, and random shootings of passersby by enraged German soldiers as they fled. My mother was panic-stricken about Missak’s whereabouts and safety.

  Meanwhile, a few blocks up the hill from us on the rue de Belleville, men had pulled up the
cobblestones and built a barricade. When my mother heard about it, she asked my father to go see if Missak was there.

  “All the white hairs on my head have Missak’s name written on them. If you find him, Garabed, you grab him by the scruff of the neck and bring him home.”

  When my mother’s back was turned, I slipped out the door behind my father.

  “What are you doing, girl?” my father asked as I caught up with him at the foot of the stairs.

  “I want to see what’s happening.”

  “Your mother’s going to be angry at both of us,” he said.

  “So maybe now there will be a white hair with my name on it.”

  The barricade was assembled of paving stones and whatever else the men had been able to lay their hands on, including broken shutters, an old baby carriage, and metal bed frames. Trees had been cut down and tossed on top of the pile. The boys and men of Belleville stood around the barricade armed with ancient pistols, their grandfathers’ hunting rifles, and iron rods. Missak was nowhere to be seen.

  From the men on the barricade we heard there was heavy fighting in the Latin Quarter and around the Hôtel de Ville. Even though many Germans were leaving Paris under orders, the remaining troops were well armed and battling in the streets against poorly equipped Resistance men. There were also German snipers on rooftops around the city, which made moving from place to place hazardous.

  “We’re not going to just sit and wait for Leclerc’s guys and the Americans, you know. We’re fighting to liberate Paris,” one boy said. He looked to be about fourteen and was holding a rusty sword.

  Another man added, “Yes, well, we haven’t seen a Boche here yet. But if they do show up in Belleville, we’ll damn well liberate ourselves.”

  The waiting game continued, with most stores closed and people cooped up in their apartments. My father’s shop was near enough that he still went there each day, primarily as an escape from my mother’s anxious handwringing and groaning, which were getting on my nerves as well. Jacqueline came by to find out if we had heard anything from Missak, which we hadn’t. Then Jacqueline and I went to see if Donabedian would let her use his phone to contact Baron Hovanessian at the law office. She had been unable to get to work for almost a week, and when she called, her boss told her that the Germans had used tanks against some of the Resistance barricades in the city center, but he thought the worst of it was over.