Free All the Light There Was by Nancy Kricorian

suitcase and took the child’s hand, feeling as though the two of us were starting on a long journey. “Let’s go play some games, okay?”
    Claire looked up at her mother and her father, both of whom nodded yes, and then she nodded as well.
    “Go quickly.” Joseph Lipski escorted us to the door.
    Sara said something urgently in Yiddish. I didn’t understand the words, but I heard panic in her voice and knew she was having second thoughts about letting Claire go. I imagined that her heart must feel like a piece of cloth caught on a jagged nail.
    Quieting his wife with a firm word, Joseph herded Claire and me into the hall and closed the door behind us.
    The door to our apartment opened a crack and then wider to let us in.
    “Hello, little one,” said my mother. “We’re so glad you are coming to stay with us for a while.”
    Just then Missak returned. “What’s she doing here?” he asked in Armenian.
    My mother said, “We’re keeping her until they come back.”
    He slapped his forehead. “Have you all lost your minds?”
    “What else should we do?” My mother glanced down at Claire.
    Claire, who didn’t understand what we were saying, looked with large gray eyes from one face to another.
    Missak said through gritted teeth, “Do you not understand how dangerous this is? They’re filling buses they have lined up out on the rue de Belleville. There are some of Doriot’s blue-shirt Fascists in the courtyard watching the entrances. The police have lists of names with addresses and apartment numbers.”
    “And you think we should send her with them?” my father asked.
    Missak groaned. “It’s done. But keep in mind that if they find her here, we’ll be on our way to prison. I’ll tell the Lipskis what to say if the police ask for her. Then I’m going out.”
    I took Claire to my bedroom, and after I shut the door behind us, we opened the tin and spread the buttons on the bed and began to sort them by size and color. When the sounds of loud voices and slamming doors filtered in from the stairwell, I took Claire in my lap and sang her a French lullaby and then an Armenian one. Mercifully, she dozed for a while.
    After the building grew still, I led Claire to the kitchen to find some breakfast.
    “We have no milk,” I said to my mother. “What should I give her to eat?”
    My mother shrugged. “Margarine and toast. I’ll make some tisane.”
    I put Claire’s plate on the table, and we perched her atop several folded blankets on a chair so she could reach her food. Auntie Shakeh, whose eyes were rimmed with red, sat in her armchair rocking back and forth, muttering to herself. I caught the words
orphan, desert,
and
shame,
this last repeated again and again.
    My mother said, “Shakeh, you’re going to frighten the child. Maybe you should go lie down.”
    Auntie Shakeh went to the bedroom, still mumbling under her breath.
    When Missak returned, he reported, “Those are municipal buses they are using. I talked with one of the drivers who said he’d made the trip twice already. They’re taking them across town to the Vélodrome d’Hiver.
    “You know who’s in charge of this, don’t you? It’s not the Boches. The local cops, city bus drivers, and those creeps in their blue shirts are doing the dirty business,” Missak said with disgust. “Zavig told me they took the Rozenbaums too, but Henri wasn’t home last night so they didn’t get him. He tried to warn them, but it was too late.”
    “Denise?” I asked.
    He nodded.
    I felt sick, and tears smarted in my eyes.
    Claire, who didn’t understand Armenian, tapped my arm and asked in French, “What’s he saying?”
    “He just told me that your parents are going on a bus,” I explained.
    “Where will they go on the bus?” she wanted to know.
    “They are going to the Vélodrome d’Hiver,” I said.
    “When are they coming back?” Claire asked.
    My mother said, “We’re not sure, but you can stay with us until they come home.”
    I