All the Light There Was (27 page)

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.

N
ANCY
K
RICORIAN
, 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.