All the Light There Was Read online

  When I finally emerged from the bedroom wearing my new red dress, my family were all sitting in the front room, except for Auntie Shakeh, who had gone to church right after breakfast.

  “Are we ready to go?” I asked.

  “Meghah!” my mother said. “What did you do to your eyebrows?”

  “What about her eyebrows?” My father peered over the top of his newspaper.

  “Do they look bad?” I put my hand to my face.

  “Ridiculous,” Missak said.

  This was not at all the reaction I had been hoping for. We were going to the Kacherians’ for Sunday dinner. I hadn’t seen Zaven in weeks, and I wanted him to think I looked elegant and mature.

  My mother clucked her tongue. “I don’t know why you’d do something like that. They are hardly wider than a thread.”

  Missak said, “Jacqueline did the same thing. It looks silly.”

  I retorted, “I don’t care what you think. You don’t know anything about fashion.”

  “If it were the fashion to shave your head, would you do that as well?” my father asked.

  I turned on my heel and headed to the door.

  When we reached the Kacherians’, we found that Auntie Shakeh had arrived ahead of us and was already seated on the parlor couch with Virginie and Vahan Kacherian.

  Missak asked, “Where are the guys?”

  Vahan said, “Any minute they’ll be here.”

  Zaven and Barkev arrived just then, and we all took seats around the dinner table. I ended up with my mother on my right and Virginie on my left, far from Zaven’s place between his mother and my brother. Auntie Shushan ladled out the manti soup, and the bowls were passed around. The steam rising from my bowl smelled so wonderfully of chicken and onions that I said before I even tasted it, “Auntie, this is heavenly.”

  My father said, “In lean times, heaven is a full belly.”

  Missak imitated my father with fake solemnity. “Heaven, my friends, is a bowl of chicken dumplings.”

  Vahan laughed. “Enough proverbs, my friends. Time to eat.”

  With such a crowd, there was no chance for anything interesting to pass between Zaven and me: no meaningful glances, no words whispered on the stairs. When the men retired to the front room to talk politics and the women repaired to the kitchen, I fantasized that Zaven and I headed to the park, where the roses were just starting to bloom. He used his penknife to cut a rose from a bush and presented it to me with a flourish. But, of course, I was actually in the crowded kitchen with a damp dishtowel in my hand. Much later, I realized that all he was waiting for was a small gesture from me—going a few steps out of my way to cross his path or slipping a note into his jacket pocket—but for me at that age, even a small act seemed impossibly bold.

  The next morning when I met Denise on the corner of the rue de Belleville on the way to school, she was wearing a yellow fabric star sewn to her jacket. The law had gone into effect a few days before, and it was the first I had seen of this new insult.

  Denise avoided my eyes. “Did you see Z.K. this weekend?”

  I followed her lead, slipping into conversation without comment about the ignominious star. “We had Sunday dinner with his family yesterday.”

  “Did you get to talk with him alone?”

  “Nothing. Not even an elbow next to mine on the table.”

  “At this rate, you could be eighteen before he says anything,” Denise said.

  “Maybe he never will. Maybe he’s not interested in me.”

  “You know that’s not true.”

  Just then, a mother and a little blond boy of about five years old walked by. The boy pointed at the star on Denise’s jacket and said, “Mama, look, a Jew.” The mother leaned down and whispered something into his ear as she hurried him past.

  Denise flushed. “I was pretending there was nothing different today. But this is our life now. So one might as well get used to it. The first morning will be the most difficult.”

  “It’s like something out of the Middle Ages. How can this be happening in the twentieth century?”

  Denise shrugged. “The irony, if you can call anything about it ironic, is that we’re required by law to wear them but we have to pay for the fabric with our ration tickets.”

  “What would happen if you didn’t wear them?”

  “They would put us in jail, I suppose, if they caught us.”

  As we continued down the hill, we saw others wearing yellow stars, and Denise exchanged empathetic glances with them. It was as though they were acknowledging their membership in a no-longer-secret society. We walked in glum silence toward the lycée. When we were a few blocks from our destination, a young man we crossed paths with noticed Denise’s star and with a smile pointed to his own. In the center, instead of Jew, he had written Buddhist in black letters.

  “Do you think he’s really a Buddhist?” I asked.

  “Well, he’s not a Jew. My brother says we’re crazy to do what they tell us. We registered as Jews, and Henri says they have our address any time they want to come find us. Now my mother has sewn these stars on our clothes. Henri ripped his off this morning, threw it on the floor, and ground it under his heel. My mother was weeping, he was yelling at her, and my father started shouting at Henri. Henri’s angry they didn’t listen to him two years ago when he wanted us to go to America. We have cousins in Baltimore. But my parents trusted in the French Republic. They are French citizens, or at least they were until recently. What about your parents?”

  “They have Nansen passports, the ones for stateless people. That’s what most Armenians have.”

  “My parents’ citizenship was revoked. They have no country now either.”

  I thought of an Armenian maxim my father used in his darker moods: If they send two baskets of shit to our city, one will come to our house. The Occupation was baskets of shit, that was sure, and the largest one had been delivered to the Jews.

  When Denise and I reached the school, I noticed other classmates wearing yellow stars on their jackets. One girl had let her long hair hang down so it obscured most of the yellow, and another had turned back her jacket lapel to cover hers. Thankfully, when we all entered the lycée and exchanged our outerwear for the school’s democratizing smocks, the Jewish girls looked like everyone else.

  Denise and I went together to our first-period mathematics class. The teacher, Madame Bourdet, had a bonnet of short, gray curls and a long, pointed nose. She was a rigid and demanding instructor, but on this morning she seemed flustered whenever she turned from the board to face the class. She dropped her chalk several times and pulled out the hankie tucked into her sweater cuff to wipe her perspiring face.

  Just before the class came to an end, Madame Bourdet declared, in her formal manner, “My dear girls, this has nothing whatsoever to do with algebra, but I cannot restrain myself from sharing with you the profound regret I experienced this morning as I witnessed the latest affront to the values of the French Republic. And to those of you who are subject to this indignity, I can only say that I offer you my sincerest apology on behalf of the vast majority of the French people. Class is dismissed.”

  As we soberly filed out of the classroom, I turned back to see Madame Bourdet dabbing at her eyes with the white hankie.

  Denise took my arm and whispered, “She forgot to assign homework.”

  10

  I WAS AWAKENED BY the sounds of muffled shouting and pounding. Pulling back the curtain, I glanced at the clock on the windowsill. It was just after six in the morning, but it seemed earlier because the skies were gray.

  Auntie Shakeh sat up in bed. “What is it?”

  I slid my feet into my slippers. “I don’t know.”

  We pulled on our robes and went to the front hall. My mother leaned her head out the doorway while my father stood on the landing.

  “What’s happening?” I asked.

  “They’re taking the Jews,” my father answered. “The police are in the next stairwell. They’ll probabl
y be coming here in a few minutes. They’re taking them all, even the women and children.”

  I noticed that my brother was missing. “Where’s Missak?”

  “He went down to the street to see what’s going on,” my father said.

  “What about the Lipskis?” I asked.

  “They are packing their bags.” My father shook his head. “I told them to hide on the roof, but it would be no use. The police are searching from top to bottom.”

  My mother’s face was ashen. “Joseph is concerned about Sara. He’s afraid all this will make the baby come early.”

  “What about Claire?” I asked.

  “Children are to go with their parents,” my father answered.

  I said, “They should leave her with us.”

  “Yavrum, why didn’t I think of that?” my mother exclaimed. “Go get her, Garabed. Bring her here and tell them we’ll keep her until they come back.”

  “What should we do with this yellow-haired baby?” my father asked. “Think a minute. Who knows where they’re taking them or when they’ll be back?”

  “Garabed, enough. Maral, go get the child.” My mother motioned me toward the doorway.

  I looked at my father questioningly, and he nodded.

  I quietly rapped on the door, and Joseph Lipski opened it, his face grimly set.

  “Please come in.” He waved me into the apartment.

  Two valises were sitting by the front door. In the kitchen, Sara was folding Claire’s clothes and putting them into a small cardboard suitcase. Claire was sitting on a straight-backed kitchen chair, holding Charlotte in her lap.

  I said, “Mr. Lipski, my mother has offered to keep Claire until you come back. But we have to hurry. The police will be here soon.”

  “It is a kind offer, but I must ask my wife.”

  He spoke to his wife in Yiddish. She glanced quickly from Claire to her husband and finally to me. Her large eyes were bright with tears when she nodded yes.

  Sara Lipski snapped shut the suitcase and said something into Claire’s ear, embracing the child tightly before pushing her toward me.

  I picked up the suitcase and took the child’s hand, feeling as though the two of us were starting on a long journey. “Let’s go play some games, okay?”

  Claire looked up at her mother and her father, both of whom nodded yes, and then she nodded as well.

  “Go quickly.” Joseph Lipski escorted us to the door.

  Sara said something urgently in Yiddish. I didn’t understand the words, but I heard panic in her voice and knew she was having second thoughts about letting Claire go. I imagined that her heart must feel like a piece of cloth caught on a jagged nail.

  Quieting his wife with a firm word, Joseph herded Claire and me into the hall and closed the door behind us.

  The door to our apartment opened a crack and then wider to let us in.

  “Hello, little one,” said my mother. “We’re so glad you are coming to stay with us for a while.”

  Just then Missak returned. “What’s she doing here?” he asked in Armenian.

  My mother said, “We’re keeping her until they come back.”

  He slapped his forehead. “Have you all lost your minds?”

  “What else should we do?” My mother glanced down at Claire.

  Claire, who didn’t understand what we were saying, looked with large gray eyes from one face to another.

  Missak said through gritted teeth, “Do you not understand how dangerous this is? They’re filling buses they have lined up out on the rue de Belleville. There are some of Doriot’s blue-shirt Fascists in the courtyard watching the entrances. The police have lists of names with addresses and apartment numbers.”

  “And you think we should send her with them?” my father asked.

  Missak groaned. “It’s done. But keep in mind that if they find her here, we’ll be on our way to prison. I’ll tell the Lipskis what to say if the police ask for her. Then I’m going out.”

  I took Claire to my bedroom, and after I shut the door behind us, we opened the tin and spread the buttons on the bed and began to sort them by size and color. When the sounds of loud voices and slamming doors filtered in from the stairwell, I took Claire in my lap and sang her a French lullaby and then an Armenian one. Mercifully, she dozed for a while.

  After the building grew still, I led Claire to the kitchen to find some breakfast.

  “We have no milk,” I said to my mother. “What should I give her to eat?”

  My mother shrugged. “Margarine and toast. I’ll make some tisane.”

  I put Claire’s plate on the table, and we perched her atop several folded blankets on a chair so she could reach her food. Auntie Shakeh, whose eyes were rimmed with red, sat in her armchair rocking back and forth, muttering to herself. I caught the words orphan, desert, and shame, this last repeated again and again.

  My mother said, “Shakeh, you’re going to frighten the child. Maybe you should go lie down.”

  Auntie Shakeh went to the bedroom, still mumbling under her breath.

  When Missak returned, he reported, “Those are municipal buses they are using. I talked with one of the drivers who said he’d made the trip twice already. They’re taking them across town to the Vélodrome d’Hiver.

  “You know who’s in charge of this, don’t you? It’s not the Boches. The local cops, city bus drivers, and those creeps in their blue shirts are doing the dirty business,” Missak said with disgust. “Zavig told me they took the Rozenbaums too, but Henri wasn’t home last night so they didn’t get him. He tried to warn them, but it was too late.”

  “Denise?” I asked.

  He nodded.

  I felt sick, and tears smarted in my eyes.

  Claire, who didn’t understand Armenian, tapped my arm and asked in French, “What’s he saying?”

  “He just told me that your parents are going on a bus,” I explained.

  “Where will they go on the bus?” she wanted to know.

  “They are going to the Vélodrome d’Hiver,” I said.

  “When are they coming back?” Claire asked.

  My mother said, “We’re not sure, but you can stay with us until they come home.”

  I asked my brother in Armenian, “Do you know where Henri is?”

  “Don’t ask for information you don’t need. And you have to keep that kid quiet and out of sight until I figure out what to do with her.”

  Claire pulled on my wrist. “What’s he saying?”

  I smoothed her hair. “We’re just talking about some other friends who were on the bus with your parents.”

  When I went out to the shops a few hours later, the skies were overcast and the mood somber. In front of the grocer’s, people passed stories of the morning’s roundup up and down the line. Some families had been alerted the night before and had gone into hiding. A few people had managed to sneak off the buses and disappear down side streets. A mother on the rue Piat had thrown her children out the sixth-floor window and jumped out behind them rather than be taken by the police.

  As I passed through the courtyard of our building on my way home, Madame Girard, the concierge, stopped me at the foot of the stairs. She told me that in our building alone, six families had been rounded up.

  Madame Girard said, “It’s a disgrace that they took the Lipski woman in her condition. Those messieurs have no decency, no decency at all.”

  I said, “It’s a wretched business.”

  “And even the little ones, they took them also. But I didn’t see Claire with her parents.” Madame Girard looked at me. “I wonder what happened to her.”

  Our concierge, who was up and down the landings with her mop and bucket, had eyes like a bird of prey and ears as sharp as a dog’s. No matter what her sympathies, we couldn’t afford to let anyone know we had the child. A secret told to one person is a secret no more.

  “Maybe they left Claire with their cousins,” I suggested.

  Madame Girard eyed me. “They have cous
ins? Funny, they never mentioned it. You know hiding a Jew is now against the law.”

  “That’s too bad. I thought that for a Jew as small as Claire, too young even for the yellow star, they wouldn’t care so much.”

  “Even as small a Jew as Claire.” The concierge shook her head and clucked her tongue. “But in this building, the only one who might make a problem is Monsieur Delattre, on the third floor at the back. The rest mind their own business, but that one would sell his own mother if someone offered him five francs.”

  When I reached the landing, my father and brother were carrying a mattress out of the Lipskis’ apartment. My mother followed them with a few framed photos and more of Claire’s clothes.

  At dinner that evening, we spoke French in deference to Claire. She watched us intently but didn’t say anything unless addressed directly. When we took up our work in the front room after dinner, Claire sat at the table with a pencil and some parcel paper drawing stick figures that had large round heads and fingers like sausages.

  My mother said in Armenian, “Look at that little face. It’s searing my heart.”

  It was decided that Claire should sleep with Auntie Shakeh and me in our bedroom. It was a hot, breezeless night, so I spread a sheet loosely across Claire and Charlotte. I sat on the end of Claire’s mattress on the floor with my back against the wall, singing the same two lullabies—one in French and one in Armenian. With the hall light falling into the room at an angle across the floor, I waited for Claire to ask an impossible question or to start crying. Soon, though, the sound of deep, rhythmic breathing told me that she had fallen asleep.

  The next afternoon, after a family consultation, I rode the bicycle to the Vél d’Hiv, taking a basket of provisions for the Lipskis. I was red-faced and sweaty by the time I arrived, my white cotton blouse sodden and sticking to my back. There were dozens of police officers on the street guarding the entrance to the stadium. After walking up and down the sidewalk a few times, studying the face of each policeman in turn, I sidled up to a young officer whose open expression seemed the most sympathetic.