“Tell Jacqueline I said hello,” I told him as he turned into his building.
“You should come visit,” Paul said, smiling, his large ears turning red.
“Maybe on Sunday,” I told him.
“Good night, Maral. Good night, sir,” Paul said respectfully.
As my father and I headed into the courtyard of our building, he said, “That boy is a hard worker. He’s not yet as skilled as your brother, but he’ll learn.”
“It’s good of you to teach him,” I said.
“It works out for everybody. Your brother didn’t want what I had to offer, and Paul is eager to learn,” he said. “I need the help. With new shoes so hard to come by, I’m putting patches on patches.”
In September, food rations were decreased again. The grumbling on the food lines grew louder. The German potato bugs were stealing our food. The black-marketers were getting fat while the rest of us wasted away. When I arrived home from the store, my mother peered into the half-empty sack and shook her head.
“
Meghah!
This was once the land of baguettes and butter. Now it’s the land of turnips,” she said.
“The Germans are trying to starve us into submission,” my father responded. “But they forget the French Revolution was started over loaves of bread. An eating dog is silent, but a hungry dog bares its teeth.”
Our family continued to scrape by, our official tickets supplemented by the ones Missak brought home from time to time. Through the autumn, the windowsill garden, the plot in the courtyard, and my mother’s bartering skills added to our meager fare. Still, I often went to bed hungry, glad to forget my gnawing stomach in sleep.
But when I slept, my dreams were a theater of yearning, and Zaven was the elusive star in each scene. I would catch a glimpse of him as he disappeared into the gloom of a dark alley. I would run after him, but he was always around the next corner and just out of reach. I would wake with my heart pounding as though I had been chased up the hill by a pack of dogs. Then I’d lie in bed and catalog all the catastrophes that might have befallen him.
Over the objections of my mother, one Sunday I rode alone to Alfortville on the old bicycle. I was even more careful about the potholes, because at this point the bicycle’s fender was held together with bits of twisted wire, and the tires were balding. Since the last time I had visited, the Nazarians had expanded their backyard chicken coop, and now it took up half their garden. Their thriving poultry business kept them well fed, and Cousin Karnig, almost discomfited, said that he was making a better living now than he had as a carpenter before the war. I arrived home with a chicken—not a live one, but one ready to go straight into the pot—and a dozen freshly laid brown speckled eggs.
“Thanks to Cousin Karnig, king of the henhouse,” my father said at dinner.
“Thank God,” my mother said as she passed around the bowls of thick soup. “These children are looking like scarecrows.”
“We’re not children anymore,” Missak corrected her. “And we have more to eat than a lot of other people.”
“Thank you, Grandfather,” I said.
That evening, feeling lonely for Zaven, I unraveled a gray throw blanket Auntie Shakeh had made and used the yarn to begin a V-neck sweater for him. The knitting became a ritual for ensuring his safety. Each stitch was a prayer; each hour we had spent together was a bead on a string of remembrance. I didn’t ask myself how I would manage to get the sweater to him once it was finished.
In October, school started, and I donned my smock for the final year at Victor Hugo. The animated faces of my classmates, the crowded corridors, and the heavy books in my satchel were a relief after my lonely summer. In the middle of the morning, we all lined up to get our government-issued vitamin biscuits. I tried not to gag as the biscuit turned into a grainy paste in my mouth. At least it helped quiet my stomach until lunch.
In English class we were reading
Jane Eyre,
and I escaped into its dramatic landscape. I sighed over the book’s dark and difficult hero. Against all logic, Rochester reminded me of Zaven, but then, everything reminded me of him.
One afternoon in early November as I rounded the corner toward home, Zaven fell into step beside me.
I gasped. “What are you doing here?”
“Don’t make a fuss.” He slipped his arm through mine. “Let’s go.”
“Where?” I asked. “How long can you stay?”
“For a walk.” He put his face into my hair. “You smell good.”
“Not here,” I told him, looking over my shoulder. “The school monitor is on patrol.”
He laughed. “You’re worried about the school monitor.”
I glanced around again. “Is someone following you?”
“No,” he said. “It’s okay.”
He led me toward the place de la République, but we skirted the square where German troops were garrisoned, taking back streets instead.
I said, “I’m so happy to see you. I want to ask you a million questions . . .”
“Don’t ask me a million questions,” he said.
“Are you going to visit your parents?”
“So you’re going to ask anyway? I’m not going to visit my parents. Have you seen them?”
“Your father finished the shoes he was making for me and I went to pick them up.”
He glanced down at my feet.
“They’re too nice to wear every day,” I told him. “I wore them on Sunday when I went to church with your mother.”
“You went to church with my mother? That’s new. What for?”
“She goes to pray for you and Barkev. I went to light a candle for Auntie Shakeh.”
“You’re not getting religious, are you?”
“Don’t worry, you godless Communist.”
“I’m more of an agnostic.”
“Oh, Zaven, I’ve missed you so much.”
“Four months is a long time.”
“You look thin,” I said.
He shrugged.
“We’re not far from our house. Can I get you something to eat?”
“Can’t risk it,” he answered.
“Let me go and bring something back.”
“I have only a short time and I want to spend it all with you. I have a proposal.”
“Yes?”
“There’s an apartment nearby. If you want, we could go there.”
Even though he didn’t put it into words, I knew what he was asking. I paused for a moment to consider.
He said, “Don’t worry. If you don’t want to . . .”
“Let’s go.” I took his hand. My mother, my father, my teachers, my dead aunt, even Jane Eyre—none of them would have approved, but I didn’t care.
We weaved our way through narrow streets that were unfamiliar to me but that he navigated easily. The wind picked up, rustling the last of autumn’s leaves on the sidewalks and in the gutters. I noticed the way his eyes inspected the street as we rounded each corner, and how he checked behind to make sure no one was trailing us. We entered a modest building on a small side street and took the back staircase to the top floor. Zaven felt around above the door frame and lifted a piece of wood to retrieve a key.
It was a small room, furnished with washbasin, a narrow bed, a table, and a single wooden chair. The white walls were bare, and there was no rug on the red-tiled floor. The casement window gave out onto the roof, and cold white light cut like a knife across the facing rooftops.
He pointed out the location’s advantages. “There are two staircases. The roof is connected to the one on that building, which also has a front and a back entrance.”
“That’s good to know.”
“The electricity is off.” He dragged the blackout curtains across the window and then struck a match in the dark to light a candle. Its flame flickered in a draft that stirred the curtain.
Zaven sat down on the bed and I sat beside him on the scratchy wool blanket, leaving a little space between us. He slid closer.
“This is okay?” he asked.
I nodded.
“You know, if you don’t want to be here, we can leave,” he said.
I shook my head.
“Do you have any yarn with you?” he asked.
It seemed like an odd request. “In my satchel, I have a piece I’m working. There’s some in there.”
“Can I have it?” he asked.
I opened my bag and pulled out the ball. “How long?”
With his pocketknife he cut two red strands. After handing back the ball and putting away the blade, he faced me holding up the yarn.
“Will you marry me?” he asked.
“I will,” I said.
“Give me your left hand.” He took one piece of yarn, wound it around my ring finger twice, and carefully made a small bow. “You are now my wife.”
He handed me the other piece of yarn, and I tied it around his ring finger.
“You say it,” he instructed.
“You are now my husband.”
He leaned to blow out the flame, and the room went black.
No one had ever talked with me about what to expect or what to do. That was the way it was for us then. Armenian modesty and shame—the word for it was
amot—
shrouded these things in silence. And while I never spoke of that afternoon, in my heart I never was ashamed.
By the time we stepped out onto the street, night had fallen, and moonlight angled between the buildings. Zaven insisted on accompanying me partway home. We walked in silence until we reached the edge of our neighborhood.
I asked, “Will you let me bring you something to eat?”
“I’ll wait at the park. But you have to be quick. And you can’t say a word.”
“You promise you’ll be there?”
“Of course,” he said.
I was breathless as I entered the apartment and slammed the door behind me.
“Maral? Is that you?” my mother called from the front room.
“
Parev,
Mairig,” I answered as I headed to my bedroom. I rolled up the sweater I had made Zaven, tucked it under my arm, and sped to the kitchen. “I’m starving and I have to run out for a few minutes. May I take this bread and cheese?” Without waiting for a response I grabbed both and dashed to the front door.
My mother called after me, “Girl, where are you going?”
But I was already trotting down the stairs. I sped toward the park and had a stitch in my side as I collapsed onto the bench beside Zaven.
“That was fast,” he said as I handed him the food.
“You’re starving,” I said, watching him wolf down the bread and cheese.
He grunted in response as he swallowed the last bites.
“I wish I had brought more,” I said.
“No, that was plenty.”
“Don’t lie. That wasn’t enough at all. Try this on.” I held out the sweater.
He stood up, took off his jacket, and pulled the sweater over his head. “It’s beautiful. And just in time for the cold weather.”
I said, “It’s a little big.”
“It’s perfect.” He sat down beside me, taking hold of my hand. “After the war, when we have plenty of food, it will fit me the way you imagined.”
“After the war,” I repeated. “I’m afraid it’s never going to end.”
“Fear is like hunger. It gnaws at you, but you have to ignore it. You find other things to think about, like this new sweater and the smell of your skin.” He leaned into my neck and inhaled deeply.
I put my arms around him. “Please don’t go.”
“I have to.”
I pulled back to look at him. “What if they catch you? We won’t know a thing. I’ll be walking down the rue de Belleville and I’ll see your name on a poster. ‘Zaven Kacherian, shot by firing squad,’ it will say. Each time they put up a new one, I read the list to make sure you’re not there.”
“Maral, please don’t cry.”
I wiped the tears from my face, but the words came in gasps. “Can’t you stay? Each night I stare at the sketch tacked on the wall, the picture Missak made of us, and I try to imagine where you are. Sometimes I feel as though we’re connected by an invisible thread, and other times all I feel is that something dreadful has happened to you.”
“I’m sorry. But I have to go.” There was flint in his voice.
I took a deep breath. It didn’t seem that any amount of pleading would dissuade him. “I understand. Well, I don’t understand, but I won’t make this more difficult.”
“I love you,” he said.
“I love you too.”
We left the park together, and when we reached the corner, he disappeared down a side street. As I trudged home, I slid the yarn off my finger, wound it into a tiny ball, and put it in my coat pocket.
By the time I arrived at the apartment, my father was in his chair in the front room with the newspaper. My mother told me there was food waiting for me on the counter. In the kitchen, I lifted the cover off the plate—bulgur with stewed green beans, onions, and tomatoes that smelled faintly of butter. I had no appetite and wished I could have given it to Zaven.
My mother came into the room behind me. “Did he like the sweater?”
“It was a little big, but he liked it.”
So she had guessed that I had seen him. But it didn’t seem that her intuitions went deeper than that. Now I had a new secret. It was getting hard for me to distinguish between the lies the war required and those necessary for growing up.
O
NE SUNDAY AFTERNOON IN
late November, Jacqueline, who was working as a secretary in an Armenian lawyer’s office, came over with a bunch of her boss’s castoff magazines and the latest news from the center of the community. She and I sequestered ourselves in my room flipping through pages; I sat on my bed while she lay on what had been Auntie Shakeh’s.
Jacqueline said, “Can you imagine? Armenians in the Wehrmacht. They were in the Soviet army and were captured by the Germans. They had a choice between rotting in POW camps or joining the Boches.”
“And clearly, these men made the noble choice,” I said.
“Oh, don’t be harsh. You don’t know what you would do. What’s so noble about starving to death?”
“And what exactly are they doing here in France?”
“They’re working on the Atlantic wall. Some of them are on leave now, and some of them are passing through on their way to the coast. There’s going to be a cultural evening with them next Saturday. We have to go.”
“You are welcome to go, but I don’t have to go anywhere,” I said.
“It’s a chance to have a little fun. You can’t study and knit all the time. You’re turning into your aunt, God rest her soul, and you’re only seventeen.”