One evening after Claire had been with us for several weeks, the child broke her characteristic silence at dinner, saying, “Mama told me that when the baby comes, she would wrap it in a blanket and let me hold it in my lap if I sit in the big chair. Papa said when the baby comes, I will help Mama like a big girl.”
“You are a very good girl,” I replied.
“When do you think they will come get me?” Claire asked.
We all looked uneasily at one another.
Finally Missak said, “Your mama and papa have gone on a long trip by train. It may take them a while to get back to Paris. But they asked us to send you for a visit to your aunt Myriam in Nice.”
“Aunt Myriam?” she asked. “I’ve never met her. But I have a picture of her. May I go get it?”
“Of course you may,” my mother answered.
While the child was in the other room, my mother said in Armenian, “The poor child is upset enough about her parents and now you’re talking about sending her someplace else.”
My father said, “Azniv, we can’t keep her locked up in this apartment for months on end. We don’t have ration tickets for the milk and food she needs. We’re not her family. Her parents want us to send her to her aunt in Nice.”
Claire returned with a framed photograph of her mother and her aunt. “Aren’t they pretty?” she asked, holding out the picture to me.
“Beautiful,” I said. “And you know, you look a lot like your aunt Myriam.”
“Mama said so too,” Claire answered. “Will my parents be able to find me in Nice?”
My father said, “Of course they will.”
Claire asked, “Will you go with me, Maral?”
Missak answered, “Maral can’t take you, but I have a friend named Juliette who will go on the train with you. You’ll like her.”
“May Charlotte go?” she asked.
My mother nodded emphatically. “Of course you can take Charlotte. And I’ll make you and Charlotte matching dresses.”
That night I expected to hear the child crying in her bed, but instead it was Auntie Shakeh who turned to the wall and dampened her pillow with tears. After a while, Shakeh left the room. I slipped out behind her and hid in the entrance hall listening to my mother and aunt whispering in the kitchen.
“Vahkh, vahkh, vahkh,”
Shakeh moaned.
“Shakeh, shh! You’ll wake Missak.”
“What will become of them? Scattered to the winds like seeds. The parents sent one way and the child another. And what if they should decide to come for us?”
“Don’t talk like that. We aren’t on the Germans’ list. The only Armenians they have arrested are Communists. Don’t you think we did right in keeping the child? What would one as small as that do in a work camp?”
“Of course we did the right thing. But I don’t believe they are ever coming back.”
“We don’t know that,” my mother protested feebly.
“The child is an orphan,” my aunt said bitterly. “The same as we were. Except we saw it all. Our parents dead before our eyes. Bodies in the dirt. Children with big bellies and heads, arms and legs skinny like spiders. It is the same thing again, Azniv, the way they sent us to die in the desert. They are driving them out of their homes with nothing but a suitcase, sending them to who knows where, to do God knows what. Shame, it’s a terrible, terrible shame.”
My mother patted her sister’s shoulder while Shakeh wept.
Early in the morning, Madame Girard was across the hall in the Lipskis’ apartment, so we told Claire it was mouse time and set her up with the buttons and Charlotte in the bedroom. I went to check on the concierge.
She paused her mop. “Well, the landlord told me the Jews aren’t coming back, so I’m to clean their apartments for rental.”
The next evening, Missak, speaking in Armenian over Claire’s head, told us the arrangements had been made with his friend Juliette. He was close-mouthed about the details, saying nothing beyond the fact that Claire would be relayed to Juliette on the platform at the Gare de Lyon the following morning.
“But I won’t have time to wash her things,” my mother protested. “How can we send the child with dirty clothes?”
“Did you finish the dresses?” Auntie Shakeh asked.
“Almost. I can hem them tonight. And Maral, you must give Claire a bath. At least the child will be clean, even if her clothes aren’t. And pack her suitcase.”
“What about my suitcase?” Claire asked me in French.
“You are going to your aunt tomorrow. And my mother wants me to give you a bath,” I explained.
Claire’s eyes were solemn, but she didn’t say anything. It was unnerving how cooperative she was, and it made me want to pitch myself onto the floor and kick and scream.
After dinner I filled the zinc tub with water. I used a washcloth and the last slip of the lavender birthday soap to wash Claire’s arms and legs, taking special care to rub clean the knees dirtied from playing on the floor. She tipped back her head while I poured water from a battered pot over the curls that stretched and streamed down her back. The nails were trimmed, the ears were swabbed, and then I dried her with a clean, rough towel before helping her put on a yellow nightgown.
I folded her thin cotton dresses and underclothes, and Claire mimicked my gestures as she prepared Charlotte’s clothes to go into the suitcase. Once the lid was latched shut, I sat down on the edge of the bed behind Claire, running the brush through the damp, honey-colored curls.
“You have beautiful hair, Claire,” I said.
“I like yours better.”
“Why?”
“When you let it down at night, you look like a princess.”
“You’re the one who looks like a fairy princess,” I said.
After she was asleep I went to the front room. Auntie Shakeh was knitting a tiny sweater for Charlotte that matched one she had already made for Claire. And my mother was hemming a new dress for the girl. Missak told us that he would be leaving with her in the morning while it was still dark, because the two of them would be less likely to be seen by neighbors at that hour.
Before dawn the next morning, Missak tapped me on the shoulder, waking me from a fitful sleep. He put his finger to his lips and motioned for me to follow him out of the room.
“You have to take her,” he said.
“Me?” I felt as though he had dashed a bucket of cold water in my face.
“I’m sorry. If I could have thought of a different way, I would have. It’s too risky otherwise. The first train to Lyon is at six fifteen, and you’re to meet Juliette near the ticket window at six.”
Not wanting him to think me a coward, I ignored the electric panic rising inside me. “How will I recognize her?”
“She’ll be wearing a red hat and a plaid jacket and carrying a copy of
Le Petit Parisien
under her arm.”
I silently gathered up the clothes we had laid out for Claire the night before, and I grabbed some for myself and deposited them outside the bedroom door. I lifted the sleeping child from her bed. Auntie Shakeh roused briefly, but I told her that I was just getting Claire some water, and she went back to sleep. The suitcase was already waiting in the front hall. Claire sat on a stool in the parlor as I helped her on with her dress and socks.
I whispered to Missak, “Should I give her something to eat?”
He shook his head. “Juliette will take care of that. The important thing is to get her out of the building now without anyone seeing. And you have to be calm, or at least pretend to be. No looking over your shoulder. No handwringing. The more jumpy you are, the more attention you’ll attract.”
My heart was thumping against my ribs, and my nerves were jangling like a noisy key ring as Claire and I slipped down the stairs and through the courtyard. To keep myself steady, I imagined that I was walking with a book balanced on the top of my head: eyes straight forward and spine erect. Luck was with us and we crossed paths with no one until we were around the corner. On the rue de Belleville, we walked past peddlers setting up their carts and early-shift workers heading to the factories. We passed unnoticed as we descended the steps to the Métro. While the train rattled through the tunnel, I explained to Claire where we were going and how Juliette would be waiting for us in the station. She held Charlotte curled against her chest, listening attentively without responding. Here she was, about to be handed off to someone she didn’t know to be taken on a journey to see an aunt she had never met who lived hundreds of miles from the only home she had ever had. I couldn’t imagine how her five-year-old mind made sense of all this—starting with her parents’ disappearance—as she bobbed like a tiny cork in the rough, dark sea.
When we arrived, the tower clock outside the Gare de Lyon showed ten minutes to six. I steered Claire by a cluster of German soldiers, my blood beating high in my neck. I gripped the suitcase tighter and tried not to squeeze Claire’s hand too hard. Only the imaginary book on the top of my head kept me from turning to see if we were being followed. When we reached the ticket window, I scanned for a red hat and a plaid jacket, but Juliette was not there. The clock on the interior tower read two minutes to six. We waited to one side of the queue of ticket buyers. I had no idea what I should do if Juliette didn’t turn up. What would I do with Claire? I couldn’t bring her home in broad daylight. I felt jittery just thinking about it. Suddenly, a woman appeared beside us—requisite hat, jacket, and a newspaper tucked under one arm. She was pretty, blond, and appeared to be in her late twenties.
“Good morning, you two,” she said cheerfully, bestowing a kiss on each of my cheeks as though we were old friends. She leaned down to Claire and kissed her as well. “We don’t have much time. I purchased the tickets already and went to buy some breakfast rolls. So, Claire, it’s time for you to come with your aunt Juliette. That’s a pretty dolly you have there. What’s her name?”
Claire, who hadn’t spoken a word all morning, answered, “Charlotte.”
“That’s a beautiful name. If anyone asks, I am your father’s sister, okay,
chérie
? Say goodbye to Maral now.”
I sensed Juliette’s competence under her breezy chatter. She emanated natural warmth that Claire responded to immediately.
When I leaned down to embrace Claire, she whispered in my ear, “Charlotte says she is going to miss you.”
“I’ll miss both of you, little mouse,” I whispered back.
And with that, Juliette whisked Claire and her suitcase toward the quay where the train was boarding. After they disappeared onto the crowded platform, I turned toward home with a heavy heart.
Missak was waiting for me in the courtyard of our building.
“They made the train,” I said.
He nodded. “She’s good.”
I suddenly envied Juliette her usefulness and her courage. She wasn’t just sitting by while people were being rounded up like sheep. “Can I help? There must be something I can do.”
“You’re not cut out for it, Maral. You’re too nervous, and your thoughts show on your face. And besides, only one of us can do it. Your parents have just two children.”
Ten days later we received a postcard from Myriam Galinski, one of the preprinted variety that was used to communicate between the occupied and unoccupied zones. She had checked off the box for
WE ARE IN GOOD HEALTH
and written in pencil beneath:
The package arrived safely. Many thanks.
A
S THE AUTUMN SLIPPED BY
, I grew used to the fact that Denise was not waiting on the corner on weekday mornings. We had heard nothing from either the Rozenbaums or the Lipskis since July. I asked my brother several times about Henri, but Missak maintained that he’d had no news.
When the English teacher, Mrs. Collin, handed back the first composition of the academic year, I saw that I had received the highest mark. I knew that I was first in the class only because Denise was no longer there. Several other Jewish girls in our group were also gone, but it was unclear whether they had been taken in the July roundup or had managed to make their way to the Free Zone in the south.
There were other changes in my family’s routine that fall. Missak started staying later at his job, and sometimes, when he worked past curfew, he didn’t come home at all. He said his boss had set up a cot in the back of the shop where he could spend the night. My mother agreed it was safer for him to sleep there than to try to make his way home on dark streets and risk being picked up by a patrol.
When the leaves began to fall and the air grew chill, Auntie Shakeh came down with a ragged cough. Within a few weeks, she had taken to spending most of her time in bed, weak and pale. Despite her illness, Auntie Shakeh continued knitting, propped up with pillows. I delivered her finished work to the boss’s atelier, where I also picked up skeins of wool and patterns for new sweaters.
In November, Radio Paris announced that the Germans had crossed the demarcation line. At the same time, the Italians extended their occupation zone to include Nice, Toulon, and Corsica. Missak said it was good that Claire was in Nice because the Italians were not so interested in rounding up Jews as the Germans were.
My father was glad to see Vichy overrun. “Now they can’t pretend anymore. I wonder who’ll end up stringing that old goat up by the neck, the Boches or the Allies. With the Allies in Africa, it’s only a matter of time until the bear gets caught in its own trap.”
Winter was upon us, so my mother and I pulled out the woolens, which emerged from the cupboards reeking of naphthalene. We soaked them with some ersatz soap flakes in the zinc tub in the kitchen before rinsing them and then draping them on the sills to dry. With the apartment smelling of wet wool, I shredded an old sheet and stuffed rags in the cracks around the window frames.
As the weather turned bitter, Auntie Shakeh’s coughing grew worse. She was distraught when she was unable to make her weekly pilgrimage to the cathedral on Jean-Goujon—it was the first time she had missed Sunday services in years. I offered to accompany her, but my aunt said she didn’t have the strength. At my mother’s insistence, Auntie Shakeh finally agreed to go see the doctor. My mother and I bundled her up, each of us taking one of her arms as we led her slowly down the steps to the Métro. Climbing the flight of stairs at the other end of the trip was a long process with many pauses for my aunt to catch her breath.