My mother nodded. “You look nice.”
“Please don’t tell my mother-in-law,” I told them.
“What should she have to say about it?” my father asked.
My mother, who was holding Pierre in her lap, replied, “The poor thing still can’t bear anyone else’s happiness.”
“I might be a little late today,” I said. “If you don’t mind, I thought I’d go for a walk.”
“That’s fine,” my mother said. “I’m taking Pierre over to see Shushan and Virginie this morning. Don’t worry—I won’t mention a thing. After lunch the little one will take a nap.”
I paused on the landing to pull out a compact mirror and apply some lipstick. Then I ran down the stairs, through the courtyard, and onto the bright street. I enjoyed the swish of my full skirt and the sound of my heels clicking on the pavement.
As I approached the café, I saw Andon sitting at the same table as the week before, anxiously scanning the street. He hadn’t seen me yet. When his eye caught mine, he waved and smiled.
“Am I late?” I glanced up at the clock on the wall as I slid into my chair. “Only three minutes. That’s not late, is it?”
He shook his head. “I’ll order. Tea for you?”
I nodded and he gestured to the waiter.
“How was your week?” I asked.
“Long. And how was yours?”
“Very long,” I answered. “You seem irritated.”
“Not irritated. I arrived too early and then I sat here worrying that you might not come.”
“Why would you think that?”
“Because I wanted to see you so very much.”
“I’ve been looking forward to this all week.”
“Maral, I want you to know that my intentions are honorable,” said Andon.
“I never thought they were dishonorable.”
“I’m quite serious. I should like to speak to your father,” he answered.
“Oh, Andon, I’m quite serious myself, but not enough time has passed.”
“When I heard about your husband, I waited for you to contact me. If you think of how long we have known each other, I have been waiting a very long time.”
“It’s too soon.”
“Are you sure it is a question of timing? Perhaps it is something else.”
“Such as?”
“The circumstances of my departure from Poland, and the uniform I was wearing when we met. I am not ashamed but neither am I proud of what I did. It is perhaps best a story left untold for many years. General Dro was lately expelled from his party. The men I was with did not go back to Yerevan; they went straight to camps in Siberia.”
“Oh, Andon, I’m so sorry to hear about your friends. But that’s not it. I just need a little more time.”
“As you may have surmised by now, I am a patient man.”
Under clear blue skies, we went for a walk along the river, strolling across one bridge to the Left Bank and then crossing at the Île Saint-Louis and going back to the Right. We ended up at the place des Vosges, just a few blocks from my old lycée. Too soon it was midafternoon and time for me to head back to Belleville. As we started toward the Métro station, I wanted more than anything for Andon to kiss me, but I knew he was too polite to do such a thing.
“There’s something I want to show you before we say goodbye,” I said.
“What is that?” he asked.
“Follow me.” I led him to a small passageway—a little alley where some of the older Victor Hugo girls had gone with their boyfriends.
“This is it?” he asked, looking around.
“Not quite all of it,” I said.
When I kissed him it was like a glass of raki that filled me up and set the world on fire.
When I put my cheek against his, he whispered, “You light up dark walls.”
We walked hand in hand to the Métro entrance, where he asked, “Next Sunday?”
I groaned. “Next Sunday we’re going to Alfortville for Pierre’s birthday.”
“Two weeks?”
“Such a long time. Let’s meet at the Buttes Chaumont. Maybe I’ll bring Pierre.”
When I arrived home, Missak, Jacqueline, and Alex were at our apartment. I had missed Sunday dinner, but my mother had covered a plate for me and left it on the counter. My father and brother played backgammon in the front room, and my mother put the babies down for a nap in the bedroom. I stood in the kitchen with my food as Jacqueline washed the dishes.
“You look happy,” she said. “Was there good gossip after the service?”
“I’m the news. Don’t say anything. I went for a walk with Andon.”
“Shouldn’t he be in Leninakan?”
“He didn’t go back. He’s working at a rug shop on the Left Bank.”
“Paul will be disappointed. But he never had much of a chance.”
“He should try to pry Virginie loose from my mother-in-law. She’s more his age.”
That night Zaven appeared in my dreams. We were in our building’s stairwell. It was a cold, dark night, and I heard the drone of planes in the distance. Zaven put his arm around me, and I rested my head on his shoulder.
He whispered, “I should never have left you.”
Then he was suddenly gone, and I was alone in the courtyard.
I heard footsteps approaching, and out of the shadows came Henri and Denise, and the Lipskis, and behind them Auntie Shakeh, wearing a black dress that hung on her skinny frame like a sack. A throng of people moved forward to join them, and I recognized, among the many faces, the Latin and Greek teacher Mademoiselle Lévy, two Jewish girls from my class at the lycée, and Missak Manouchian. All of them stood silently in the courtyard with somber faces. Finally Barkev emerged, walking with a limp and weaving through the crowd toward me. I put my hand to a dark bruise on his cheek. He said, “It’s lonely without you, Maro Jan.”
32
MY MOTHER WAVED TO me from the shade, where she was sitting in a row of lawn chairs with my mother-in-law and Jacqueline’s mother. “Maral, that baby is going to ruin his suit. Look—he already has grass stains on his shorts.”
“So, I’ll use bleach,” I answered, watching as Pierre tottered across the lawn toward my father-in-law, who was waiting open-armed near the men gathered around the grill. “It’s his birthday.”
Jacqueline walked past with a steaming casserole. “The shish is off the fire, so come to the table before the pilaf gets cold.”
When the meal was over Hagop Meguerditchian played his oud, while his wife, Alice, sang along. Missak circled the table pouring raki into the men’s glasses.
My father-in-law raised his glass. “Here’s to the health of my grandson Bedros.”
“Genatz!” my father added.
“To my godson, Bedros Pierre!” said Missak, and then he downed the raki.
I picked Pierre up and kissed him on the neck. “The birthday boy!”
My mother-in-law gave a strangled moan. Shushan Kacherian’s lips were trembling, and tears started rolling down her face.
My mother took her hand and said, “Don’t cry, honey. He’s watching from heaven.”
Shushan groaned through her tears. “That baby will never know his father.”
Virginie flew to her mother’s side. “It’s okay. Let’s go in.”
Shushan sobbed as Virginie led her away. “Why, O Lord? What did I do to deserve this kind of suffering?”
As the back door closed behind them, Jacqueline murmured into my ear, “She knows how to ruin a party.”
I answered, “Maybe it’s better than if no one had said anything.”
“She’s not the only one who lost them. She never thinks of you, and Missak isn’t over it . . .”
“I wonder if it’s something you get over, or if you just wear it like a scar.”
She said, “Don’t talk like that. You’ll be happy again. I know you will.”
“Let’s go for a walk,” I said. “I want to tell you something without the
whole world hearing.”
We put Pierre and Alex into the perambulator, and before we had rounded the first corner, both of them were asleep. Before we rounded the second corner, I told Jacqueline that Andon had asked me to marry him.
“But how can you marry him after what he did?” she asked.
“What do you mean?”
“You know very well what I mean. You saw the uniform he was wearing.”
“But Jacqueline, at the time you didn’t mind the uniform. In fact, you defended him. Remember?”
“It’s different now. The war is over. And I’m married to Missak.”
“What does he have to say about it?”
“When I told him about you and Andon, he didn’t like the idea at all. Missak risked his life in the Resistance. And after what happened to Zaven and Barkev, it just doesn’t seem right.”
“Missak has never met Andon, and Andon wasn’t a Nazi. He was an Armenian prisoner of war who had a choice between dying and putting on a German uniform. He built a useless wall along the coast.”
She shrugged. “Don’t argue with me. He’s your brother. You talk to him.”
But I didn’t want to talk to him. I could imagine the way the conversation would go, my arguments only pushing him to cling more tightly to his mule-headed judgments.
Back in our Belleville apartment that night, I lay in my narrow bed thinking about Andon and my brother. If I married Andon over my brother’s objections, would the family be riven for years? I wasn’t concerned about my mother, but I would have to talk to my father before Missak did.
Here I was, having lost two husbands, making plans for taking a third. Was it my fault that I had lost them? If I had thrown my arms around Zaven’s neck and insisted that he shouldn’t leave, would he have stayed? If I had loved the first one less and the second one more, would it have made a difference? Was there something I could have said that last morning that would have lessened Barkev’s suffering?
My sense of obligation suddenly felt like an intolerable burden. For a moment I imagined myself packing a suitcase and running away with Andon, maybe as far away as America. But I knew it was impossible. The one duty I could never shirk was my responsibility to my son, and it was that small life that tethered me in a thousand ways.
Finally I fell asleep, but I woke and twisted in my sheets, repeatedly switching on the light to check the slow-moving hands of the clock.
I dreamed I was walking down a dark street. Moonlight cast long shadows across the cobblestones. I saw Zaven standing in the doorway of a building ahead. As I walked toward him, he ducked inside. “Zaven, wait!” I said, quickening my pace to follow. But when I reached the entrance hall, it was pitch-dark. Someone struck a match. The flame cast a circle of light on his face, and I saw it was Harry from the Bronx. He lit the cigarette that dangled from his mouth. “This damn war’s still not over,” he said. Behind me came the sound of boots hammering on the cobblestones. I woke up with my heart pounding.
That week the baby was fretful because his first molars were coming in. My mother rubbed his gums with peppermint oil, but soon after he was drooling and whining again. Everything felt intolerable. At meals, I couldn’t believe how loud my father’s chewing sounded, and I was equally appalled by the way my mother gulped down food without chewing it at all. When I wasn’t knitting or doing dishes or taking care of the baby, I tried to read, but I found myself going over the same paragraph several times without registering what it said. One afternoon in the middle of the week I went out in the neighborhood, but it was like looking in a funhouse mirror where faces were distorted with pettiness and self-regard. The next day, people I passed on the street seemed to be on the verge of tears.
Later in the week I went by my father’s shop at the end of the day as he and Paul were closing down the machines and sweeping up. After we said goodbye to Paul, I told my father all about Andon: the prisoner-of-war camp, General Dro, the German uniform, the folkloric party, the Atlantic wall, the end of the war, his wanting to marry me, and my brother’s objections.
My father said, “When you’ve seen what I have, where a decision to go one way or another turned out to be a matter of life or death, you give people more room to do what is human. Don’t misunderstand. Cruelty is one thing. The Nazi puppet earned his firing squad, and Delattre got better than he deserved. I understand your brother’s feelings, but I also understand your young man.”
“What should I do, Babig?”
“Strange as it sounds, I can’t tell you. I don’t know if your brother will come around. You have to decide for yourself what kind of husband and father you think Andon will be.”
The responsibility was then mine alone. Missak would be angry, and even if they never found out about the German uniform, the Kacherians, particularly my mother-in-law, would be displeased. I envied Andon that his family was half a world away.
When Sunday morning finally arrived, I decided I wouldn’t take Pierre to the park. Given the misanthropic mood I had been in all week, I was apprehensive about meeting Andon and didn’t want the added distraction of a possibly fractious baby. It had been two long weeks since our last meeting, and I had no idea what I would feel when I saw him.
At breakfast, my mother said, “That dress looks nice. Are you going to church?”
I answered, “I’m going to the park. Would you watch the baby?”
“I’m glad you’re not taking him. It looks like rain.”
I said, “I hope not.”
“Well, if it does rain, you should bring that boy home for lunch.”
“What boy?”
“After all this time, do you think I’m really so stupid?”
When I reached the park, Andon was standing by the entrance in his Sunday suit. He smiled and waved at me with a tall black umbrella as I approached. Under his other arm he was holding a large, odd-shaped package wrapped in brown paper.
He kissed me on both cheeks. “I feared you might not come because of the weather.”
“I didn’t bring the baby.”
“Not with the rain about to come down. I brought something for his birthday.” He handed me the parcel. “Please open it.”
I tore off the paper, and inside was a black wooden horse set on four red wheels.
“It’s beautiful. Did you make it?” I turned the toy in my hands. The details were exquisite, from the trimmed woolen mane to the colorful saddle.
Andon nodded. “The saddle is a piece of an old rug.”
“It’s wonderful. Pierre will adore it.”
“I think we have a little time before the rain. Let’s go for a walk. This is my first visit here, and you must know it very well.”
“I’ve been coming here since I was a little girl.” In fact, I thought, my initials are carved with Zaven’s in the trunk of that tree over there, and Barkev and I celebrated our wedding party on the lawn by the lake. “This time of year, there are new flowers blooming each day.”
“We should come every Sunday. You know, during the week, when I read something, I imagine what you might say about it,” Andon said, and here he pulled out a small notebook. “I even have a place where I write questions I want to ask you.”
There were many men in the world, and there was likely another man that I could have met and married if I had turned away from Andon that morning. But I didn’t, and I never regretted it a day in my life.
“Why are you crying?” he asked.
I shook my head and shrugged.
He offered me his handkerchief.
A large drop of rain landed on my arm. I glanced up at the sky, which had grown darker and more ominous as storm clouds rolled in. The leaves on the trees stirred against one another. A few more droplets of rain fell, spattering at our feet. As drops pelted down faster, Andon opened his big umbrella and held it over us.
“What do you suggest we do now?” he asked.
“I thought you might want to speak to my father.”
And then the rain suddenly began
to pour down in sheets; a bolt of lightning flickered jaggedly in the sky. Steering the umbrella against the wind, we ran for home.
About the Author
NANCY KRICORIAN, author of the novels Zabelle and Dreams of Bread and Fire, is a widely published essayist and activist. After graduating from Dartmouth, Nancy studied and worked in Paris before earning an MFA in writing at Columbia University. She lives in New York City.
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