carrying cloth-covered plates and steaming casseroles. They moaned and sighed in the front room while their men wandered in and out during the day as their vocations allowed.
It was left to me to go through Auntie Shakeh’s scant possessions. She had lived lightly on the earth, like a sparrow. I folded her clothes—a few plain dresses, some underclothes, two worn pairs of shoes made for her by my father before the war, the hand-knit sweaters, and a frayed cloth coat. She had never married or had children. I wondered if she had ever been kissed, if she had ever wanted more from life than being our spinster aunt. As I went through her belongings, I could see her sitting in the corner watching, her knitting needles busy as always. I heard her voice:
Don’t forget,
anoushig,
to put some mothballs in with the woolens when the spring comes. You don’t want to find them later full of holes.
I gathered up the items on the top of the dresser my aunt and I had shared, among them a hairbrush, a comb, a hand mirror, some hairpins, and the Bible. I put everything except the book in a suitcase and slid it under the empty bed. The Bible I placed in my own dresser drawer. Then I sifted through the knitting baskets, putting the small balls of leftover yarn into one bag and sorting the knitting needles into pairs. I stowed all this in the bottom of the small armoire in the front room, where my mother sat in silence.
For the forty days of mourning, my mother, dressed in black and with her hair pulled severely back from her face, sat in the parlor, her hands folded in her lap and her eyes straight ahead. She barely spoke and when she did, it was hardly above a whisper. When my father leaned toward her and said words into her ear, her face remained immobile. She made me think of a bell with no clapper.
One evening soon after the formal mourning period had ended and when my mother had gone early to her bed, my father sat in his armchair staring into the air. Missak hadn’t come home that night. I was, as usual, bent over my books, an old blanket my aunt had knit over my shoulders for warmth.
“Babig,” I said. “Can I ask you something?”
My father nodded.
“Do you think she’ll come back to us?”
“Give her time,” he said. “No one can sigh for forty years.”
He continued, “My brother also died of this disease, when we first came to Camp Oddo in Marseille. He was all the family I had. The rest had been killed in the Massacres. Just like your mother and Shakeh, my brother and I had been the only two left from our family.
“The two of us were sent to an orphanage in Jbail, where they trained us to make shoes. That’s where we met Vahan Kacherian. Then my brother and I took the ship to Marseille so we could find work and make a new life for ourselves. At Camp Oddo, he got sick, like your aunt. He was in the hospital, where he wasted to nothing, and there was nothing I could do for him. I visited him in the evening after work each day. One night when I came, he wasn’t in his bed, and the nurse told me he had died.
“Food tasted like ash in my mouth and everything was dim. Then I found your mother. When we were married, the whole camp celebrated with us like they were our cousins. Because we had no real family—no parents, no grandparents, no aunts, no uncles. We were orphans, but most everyone there had lost as much as us, and some a little more. Azniv and Shakeh were my new family. It was my job to take care of them. Little by little, the sun came back. And when your brother was born, we named him for my brother.
“This world is made of dark and light, my girl, and in the darkest times you have to believe the sun will come again, even if you yourself don’t live to see it.”
I asked, “Is that an Armenian proverb?”
My father smiled faintly. “I made that one up myself.”
12
O N A SUNDAY AFTERNOON in January, I layered on my warmest clothes and left the apartment carrying a bouquet of
It was left to me to go through Auntie Shakeh’s scant possessions. She had lived lightly on the earth, like a sparrow. I folded her clothes—a few plain dresses, some underclothes, two worn pairs of shoes made for her by my father before the war, the hand-knit sweaters, and a frayed cloth coat. She had never married or had children. I wondered if she had ever been kissed, if she had ever wanted more from life than being our spinster aunt. As I went through her belongings, I could see her sitting in the corner watching, her knitting needles busy as always. I heard her voice:
Don’t forget,
anoushig,
to put some mothballs in with the woolens when the spring comes. You don’t want to find them later full of holes.
I gathered up the items on the top of the dresser my aunt and I had shared, among them a hairbrush, a comb, a hand mirror, some hairpins, and the Bible. I put everything except the book in a suitcase and slid it under the empty bed. The Bible I placed in my own dresser drawer. Then I sifted through the knitting baskets, putting the small balls of leftover yarn into one bag and sorting the knitting needles into pairs. I stowed all this in the bottom of the small armoire in the front room, where my mother sat in silence.
For the forty days of mourning, my mother, dressed in black and with her hair pulled severely back from her face, sat in the parlor, her hands folded in her lap and her eyes straight ahead. She barely spoke and when she did, it was hardly above a whisper. When my father leaned toward her and said words into her ear, her face remained immobile. She made me think of a bell with no clapper.
One evening soon after the formal mourning period had ended and when my mother had gone early to her bed, my father sat in his armchair staring into the air. Missak hadn’t come home that night. I was, as usual, bent over my books, an old blanket my aunt had knit over my shoulders for warmth.
“Babig,” I said. “Can I ask you something?”
My father nodded.
“Do you think she’ll come back to us?”
“Give her time,” he said. “No one can sigh for forty years.”
He continued, “My brother also died of this disease, when we first came to Camp Oddo in Marseille. He was all the family I had. The rest had been killed in the Massacres. Just like your mother and Shakeh, my brother and I had been the only two left from our family.
“The two of us were sent to an orphanage in Jbail, where they trained us to make shoes. That’s where we met Vahan Kacherian. Then my brother and I took the ship to Marseille so we could find work and make a new life for ourselves. At Camp Oddo, he got sick, like your aunt. He was in the hospital, where he wasted to nothing, and there was nothing I could do for him. I visited him in the evening after work each day. One night when I came, he wasn’t in his bed, and the nurse told me he had died.
“Food tasted like ash in my mouth and everything was dim. Then I found your mother. When we were married, the whole camp celebrated with us like they were our cousins. Because we had no real family—no parents, no grandparents, no aunts, no uncles. We were orphans, but most everyone there had lost as much as us, and some a little more. Azniv and Shakeh were my new family. It was my job to take care of them. Little by little, the sun came back. And when your brother was born, we named him for my brother.
“This world is made of dark and light, my girl, and in the darkest times you have to believe the sun will come again, even if you yourself don’t live to see it.”
I asked, “Is that an Armenian proverb?”
My father smiled faintly. “I made that one up myself.”
12
O N A SUNDAY AFTERNOON in January, I layered on my warmest clothes and left the apartment carrying a bouquet of
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