When he spoke, it was with great restraint. “You have found a job with a printer?”
Missak said, “Not far from the Bastille. It’s in an alley off Popincourt. I’ll be an apprentice with a small salary. When I showed him my drawings, he thought maybe I could help with illustration too.”
I watched the flush move up to my father’s forehead, where the veins now stood out on his temples.
Suddenly he thundered, “Have I been training you for more than ten years so that you could go work for another man in another trade?”
Missak said nothing. None of us did. Instinctively, I lowered my head and drew up my shoulders as though reacting to a gust of cold wind.
“Azniv, did you know when you gave birth to this boy that he would grow into an ass who would kick his father in the teeth?” my father shouted. “Who would have guessed a son could be this ungrateful?”
There was a pause and I hoped for a second this was the end of the tirade. But in my heart, I knew that my father had only begun.
“It would be one thing if he had ambition to study, like his sister. Maybe if he had wanted to go to university and make something grand of himself. But he has no such ambition. Instead he wants to exchange his father’s honest trade for another. Why does he think that ink under his fingernails is any better than shoe polish? I’m going to go down to the river with all my tools—the hammers, the lasts, the sewing machine, and all of it—and pitch them in the water. What good is any of it? Why have I been working so hard? What will happen to my business when I die if my son refuses to make it his own?”
I looked at my brother, wondering how his heart wasn’t breaking a little at hearing, behind the bluster, my father’s hurt.
Okay, Babig,
I imagined him saying,
of course I will join you at the shop, and gratefully accept the fruit of your labor when the time comes.
But Missak had decided on his path, and his face was a mask of annoyance.
“How did I end up with a son like this? I know you, boy. You will not bend. You are more difficult than a mule.” Here my father paused for a moment.
My mother and aunt exchanged glances. Where could the stubbornness possibly have come from?
My father started shouting again, but I stopped listening. His words were like hailstones on a tin roof. After a while, the pelting slowed and the force of the wind waned as the storm passed over. His volume lowered. The insults stopped. He was asking, “And how much will he be paying you?”
My neck relaxed, and my head went back to its natural position. We had weathered the worst of it, although I didn’t think my father would ever entirely forgive Missak for this rejection.
When I carried the supper dishes to the kitchen, I noticed that Takouhi was sitting in her nest. I set the dirty plates on the counter and leaned down to the bird. Takouhi clucked with irritation as I slid my hand under her. She objected loudly as I withdrew our first brown speckled egg.
T
HAT FALL MY MOTHER’S
sewing machine broke down, and a family emergency was declared. My father, who was generally skilled at mending his own machines and tools, had worked on it for several hours before giving up.
Missak assured my mother, “Don’t worry. Zaven can fix it.”
“Do you really think so?” she asked, grimacing with anxiety. My aunt was at my mother’s elbow, mirroring her pained expression. There was no money for a new machine, and without my mother’s work, there would be a substantial hole in our household budget.
Missak said, “He can fix anything.”
The next day, Zaven leaned over the wounded machine in our front room, Missak behind him, as I knit sweater sleeves for my aunt. I observed from nearby as he deftly tinkered among its innards.
“How does it look? Do you think you can make it work?” My mother was hovering over him. My father sat in his armchair reading the newspaper.
Zaven lifted his head and smiled at her. “Don’t worry, Auntie. It doesn’t need any new parts—there’s just a jam in one spot, and some fiddling that needs doing in a couple of others. Missak, can you pass me the rest of my tools?”
Missak handed Zavig a leather satchel that opened to reveal an array of screwdrivers, pliers, wrenches, and mysterious implements. When Zaven was nine years old, he had taken apart the family bicycle, saving his skin by putting it back together the same afternoon. He had finished school at the end of July, and at the same time that Missak had taken up his position at the print shop, Zavig had started as an assistant at an appliance-repair shop. His father and brother both worked in the shoe trade, but as Zavig was the second son, there had been no objection to his choosing another line. The shop was on the rue du Faubourg-du-Temple, and there, under his boss’s supervision, Zavig was honing his natural skills.
My father dropped his newspaper. “Would you women move away and let the boy do his work? How is he supposed to get anything done with you breathing down the back of his neck like that? My boy, you have the steady hands of a jewel cutter. Too bad your father couldn’t have arranged for you to work in the diamond district. Doesn’t someone you know have a cousin down there?”
Zaven laughed. “What I do is more useful than that, I hope.”
“As long as the Germans don’t find any use for you with their machines.” Here my father lifted his newspaper and then commented from behind it, “For each German soldier the Resistance kills, the Germans shoot fifty or a hundred hostages. And the hostages are all Communists or Jews. They like it best when they are Communist Jews.”
“Missak,” Zaven asked, “can you hold this for me?”
Missak moved forward, almost tripping over Takouhi, who squawked as he tossed her toward the kitchen. “That stupid bird of yours is always underfoot.”
I replied, “This stupid bird of mine laid the eggs that went into the cake I baked.”
As though he hadn’t heard any of this commotion, my father said dryly, “Well, since Hitler invaded Russia, the Communists have changed their tune, eh, Zaven?”
Zaven said, “My father was always clear about who the enemy was, Uncle.”
My father dropped his paper to his lap again. “Yes, well, now Stalin also understands quite well who the enemy is. You can only guess what’s going on by reading between the lines of this lie-filled rag. But the Soviets won’t fold like a house of cards the way the French did. Stalin will make every man and boy fight the Germans to his last breath. If they can hold them off until winter, the Germans will be buried up to their frosted eyebrows in snow. With England on one side and Russia on the other, two cats will strangle one dog.”
Zaven stood up and closed his tool bag. “It’s done, Auntie.”
My mother sat at her chair before the machine and clamped a length of scrap fabric under the silver foot. When she pumped the pedal, the machine produced a rapid ratcheting sound as the needle darted up and down.
My mother’s face brightened. “Bless you, my boy. I don’t know how we can repay you.”
He grinned. “No need for payment, Auntie. I’m planning to eat half the cake Maral made.”
I dropped a finished sleeve into my aunt’s basket. “So we can go now?”
“Please be home before dark. Remember, they moved the curfew again,” my mother said.
Missak, Zaven, and I collected Jacqueline, Barkev, Hagop Meguerditchian, and Hagop’s girlfriend, Alice Balian. We headed toward the Buttes Chaumont, and Alice, Jacqueline, and I strolled ahead.
Jacqueline asked, “What do you have in that basket?”
“My mother packed a bottle of pickles, two tomatoes, and cheese. I also made a spice cake. What did you bring?” I asked.
Alice said, “My mother made some string cheese and
lavash.
Hagop brought a bottle of wine.”
Jacqueline shrugged. “Sorry. I’m a freeloader.”
“Don’t worry about it, Jacqueline,” I said. “We have plenty.”
We arrived in the park and spread the blue-checked tablecloth over a boulder near the waterfall. Jacqueline, Alice, and I laid out the food, using Zaven’s knife to slice the cheese, the fruit, and the vegetables.
Barkev said, “It’s a feast.”
Missak said, “Before the war, this would have been barely enough; now it’s a feast.”
Jacqueline said, “Don’t be so sour. My belly is full for once.”
“Thanks to Maro for the delicious cake,” said Barkev, holding up a jam jar and nodding at me.
“Our thanks to Takouhi, who laid the eggs.” I looked up to see Zaven staring at me. I blushed and turned my eyes away.
Hagop opened the instrument case he had borrowed from his father, pulled out a pear-shaped oud, and started playing. His fingers moved quickly over the strings.
“Don’t you know the words to any of those tunes, brother?” Missak asked.
“I can play, but I have no voice. Hey, Alice, my little canary, will you sing for us?” He played the first chords of the song “Maro Jan.”
Alice knew the verses, and at the chorus we all joined her.
For your red blouse I will die,
for your long blouse I will die.
I shall die for the blouse that Maro sews . . .
At the end of the song, Jacqueline asked, “Hagop, can you play ‘Bel Ami’?”
“I can play anything you want.” Hagop strummed the first chords of the song.
As Jacqueline and Alice sang, I leaned back on the bench staring up at the tall beech trees that surrounded us. The sun was low in the sky, and its late-afternoon rays were amber. The trees cast long shadows across the lawn. I shaded my eyes with my hand and glanced around at my brother and my friends, their features sharply defined by the golden light. The scene was briefly suspended, like a single frame from a moving picture.
I would find out later that by this time, Missak was already forging documents for a Resistance network, making false identity cards for those who had gone underground. Zaven and Barkev disseminated leaflets that were printed on a mimeograph machine in the basement of the building adjacent to the shoemaking atelier where Barkev and his father worked. Our customary values had been turned upside down by the war; lies and secrecy were the highest good, while openness and honesty led to betrayal. The boys protected us by keeping us ignorant of what they were doing, and we turned our faces away from any clues.
As the shadows lengthened, I studied Zaven’s profile, his face seeming pensive and remote. He had never looked so handsome, and I longed to put my hand to his cheek. When I was a little girl playing house with a doll and a miniature tea set, Zaven was always my imaginary husband. He arrived home from work in the evening and after supper read his newspaper while I bathed the baby in the sink. My parents never held hands or embraced. I had never heard them say that they loved each other, so marriage seemed to me an amicable living arrangement designed for the rearing of children. But at fifteen, infused with images of romantic love from movies and books, and with the war heightening the drama of daily life, I no longer saw it as a game. Now when his eyes rested on me for a few seconds longer than they had in the past, a thrill raced under my skin.
I sat up, suddenly noticing that the sun had dropped to the horizon. “We should go. We promised we’d be home before dark.” I started stacking the plates in my basket.
Hagop stopped playing and placed the instrument into its case. “Okay, little mother.”
“Isn’t she, though?” said Jacqueline. “She always makes sure you take an umbrella when it might rain. She used to correct my homework on the way to school.”
Missak said, “Do you know how hard it is to have a sister like that?”
“What’s so hard about it?” Zaven asked.
“She’s been making me look bad from the minute she started talking,” Missak answered. “When I said
bird,
she said
starling.
I couldn’t figure out where she learned half the stuff she knew.”
“Would you please stop talking about me as though I weren’t here? I need some help,” I said.
After we retrieved the remains of the picnic, I picked up the tablecloth and stood to shake off the crumbs.
“Let me help.” Barkev moved forward.
“No, brother, it’s my turn.” Zaven stepped in front of him.
I held two corners, Zaven took the two others, and we folded the cloth in half by bringing the corners together, and then in half again. When we folded it a third time, it brought us close, our knuckles brushing and his face inches above mine. I looked into his dark eyes for a few dizzy seconds.
“I have it,” I said, tugging the folded cloth from his hands and turning quickly to hide my embarrassment. I knelt down to put the fabric in the basket and then closed the lid.
Barkev was suddenly standing over me solicitously. “Let me carry that for you.”
“There’s no need,” I answered, glancing up at him and his brother. “It’s not heavy.”
“I’ll carry it,” said Zaven.
I looked from one to the other. I imagined that both of them would lay hold of the wicker basket and yank it back and forth until the handles broke off.
I told them, “I appreciate your chivalry, boys, but I’ll carry it myself.”
W
HEN I TRIED ON
my green woolen dress in November, I found I needed to cinch the belt two notches tighter than I had the previous winter. I hadn’t grown any taller, so the length was fine, but something was wrong about the way the dress now hung. I studied my figure in the oval mirror on the bedroom wall. We all had grown thinner and there was nothing to be done about it.
Turning from the mirror, I glanced at my aunt, who I had forgotten was in the room. Auntie Shakeh sat quietly on the bed, dressed as usual in a shapeless, dun-colored dress with a brown sweater over it, winding her long hair into a bun. It suddenly struck me how gaunt she had become.
“Auntie, what has happened to you?” I asked. “You are melting away.”
Auntie Shakeh finished inserting the long black hairpins that held the bun in place. “I don’t know, honey. I don’t have much appetite.”