Where to Find Me Read online

  Praise for Alba Arikha

  Major/Minor

  “An unusually affecting book about the rage and rebellion of a stormy adolescence. Written in terse, pointillistic sentences – as if each sentence were a dab of paint – the accumulation of these tiny strokes creates a rich, fully realized portrait of a young woman’s inner life. I read it straight through in a single sitting – unable to stop.”

  Paul Auster

  “This is a fiercely honest and compelling account of what it is to grow up in an artistic household, and the joys and miseries involved in the forging of an independent spirit.”

  John Banville

  “Extraordinary and heartbreaking.”

  Edmund de Waal

  “Major/Minor is very, very good. In less gifted hands it could easily have become the kind of mawkishly confessional writing that makes one squirm. Alba Arikha has

  got it just right: poetic and honest.”

  Ian Buruma

  “The ability to let prose ease into poetry,

  as Arikha does here, is rare.”

  TLS

  “An excellent memoir, in all sorts of ways.”

  William Leith, Evening Standard

  “This is Arikha learning about herself as she learns about her father. The pacing of his revelations is astute: it gives the book its force. As does her language. It would appear that she has learnt concision and precision from her godfather.”

  Nicholas Lezard, ‘Book of the Week’, The Guardian

  “Think Schindler’s List, but with extra twists and turns… Alba Arikha has written a wonderfully atmospheric book. On the one hand we are in Paris of the Eighties, on the other we are in Eastern Europe in 1944, a place of trauma of the sort that takes generations to heal.”

  Kathryn Hughes, The Mail on Sunday

  “Anyone who’s ever had a tantrum will recognize the helpless rage that comes with being thirteen, and her family’s wartime experiences give Arikha’s sparse prose a haunting melancholy.”

  The Spectator

  Soon

  “One hopes, one hunts for a book that resembles nothing one has read before. Alba Arikha’s Soon is not only a true original, it’s beautiful, moving and, yes, profound.

  Which makes it a rare creature indeed.”

  Michael Cunningham

  “This is a beautiful book, all the more rich for being spare, a book to pick up again and again, as one might pick up a smooth polished stone, for its satisfaction and its mysteries.”

  Rupert Thomson

  Where to Find Me

  Where to Find Me

  Alba Arikha

  ALMA BOOKS

  alma books ltd

  3 Castle Yard

  Richmond

  Surrey TW10 6TF

  United Kingdom

  www.almabooks.com

  First published by Alma Books Limited in 2018

  © Alba Arikha, 2018

  The W.G. Sebald quote is from The Emigrants by W.G. Sebald, published by Harvill Press. Reproduced by permission of The Random House Group Ltd © 1996

  Alba Arikha asserts her moral right to be identified as the author of this work in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988

  ISBN: 978-1-84688-448-1

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise), without the prior written permission of the publisher.

  This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not be resold, lent, hired out or otherwise circulated without the express prior consent of the publisher.

  For Tom

  And so they are ever returning to us, the dead.

  W.G. Sebald

  Si c’était à recommencer, je te rencontrerais sans te chercher.

  Paul Éluard

  Where to Find Me

  Part I

  1

  Jean is my first boyfriend. We are nineteen years old, students at the Sorbonne. In our spare time, we ride bicycles along the Seine and discuss literature. We both want to be writers and change the world. “I could become the next Proust,” he tells me.

  It is the summer of 1939, two months before Britain and France declare war on Germany. Jean writes poetry for me on the backs of bus tickets. He kisses me on street corners and tells me I’m the one. We linger in Montparnasse cafés, hoping to catch a glimpse of Jean-Paul Sartre. We see him once, sitting alone. He seems to have a cold and wipes his nose several times with a handkerchief. We don’t dare approach him.

  At night, we drink cheap rosé from a bottle and smoke Gauloises. We go dancing. I wear red lipstick and a black turban hat. I lose my virginity to Jean in the backroom of a jazz club. A saxophone soars as he removes my stockings. Jean’s arms are soft and warm and I think I love him, although I’m not sure. Perhaps it is the thrill of knowing that our meetings are illicit which contributes to the rise in my feelings: Jean has been given strict instructions to stay away from me. I am a Jew, the daughter of a shopkeeper. Jean is from a rich bourgeois family. His father is the CEO of a major car factory that supplies trucks to the Germans. He is a close friend of Pierre Laval, the former Prime Minister. The relationship is too dangerous, and we separate. Jean writes me a farewell poem on the back of a last bus ticket. I never hear from him again. But I still have the ticket.

  On a rainy dawn, 14th June 1940, German tanks stream into Paris. A man’s accented voice comes on the loudspeaker and announces that the capital is now an open city. A curfew is being imposed from 8.00 p.m. that evening. A large swastika flag is raised over the Eiffel Tower, and the Hôtel de Ville is draped, like a fallen woman, in another. Thousands flee that same day. The traffic signs and street names are now in German. Paris time becomes Berlin time. I pass the Arc de Triomphe and see German soldiers goose-stepping at a ceremonial changing of the guard.

  A week later, Hitler comes for a visit and poses for a picture in front of the Eiffel Tower. “He’s only visiting,” my father declares. “He’ll be gone soon. Hitler will fall.”

  But he won’t. I can feel it. Our town is unrecognizable. Something awful is about to happen to us.

  “We should leave,” I tell my father. “We shouldn’t stay here.” But he disagrees and accuses me of being weak. “Courage is facing the enemy, not fleeing from it,” he says. “And in any case, no one has the right to tell you how to live. No one human being can decide the fate of another.”

  He is wrong, but he is my father and I must listen to him.

  The drip-drip of elimination. This is how it begins. Small drops at first, propaganda material disguised as anodyne images meant to reassure an uncertain public: happy schoolchildren with a skipping rope, fashionable young women posing for the camera and flirting with German officers, churchgoing families dressed in their Sunday best. We need to believe these are realistic snapshots of life. We need to pretend that nothing has changed and that life goes on as normal, even though giant swastikas line the quiet streets. No traffic, no construction work, no pedlars selling their wares. Instead, police sirens rend the air and foreign soldiers patrol the pavements. Nevertheless, I continue to attend my classes at the Sorbonne. I’m studying English literature. I love the teacher, André Stein, who speaks about Victorian authors, especially George Eliot, as if they were personal friends. I lose myself in his words and the books he recommends. I read them at night, in my small room, and I dream of a better world.

  The drip quickly turns into a steady flow. The curfew is imposed every night. The streets are dark. I stay home.
We listen to Radio Londres, transmitted by the Free France resistance movement. My father strongly disapproves of it. “Troublemakers,” he scoffs. “Sowing discord.” Yet he listens. A man, a professor, explains that the word “occupation” has taken on a new meaning. It now means vandalized, taken, closed down: bookshops, parks, apartments, bakeries and brothels. What next?

  “Not toyshops,” my father declares. “They would never dare. Anyway, this man doesn’t know what he’s talking about.”

  During the day, my mother sets off for work, wearing vermilion lipstick and tailored dresses. She has recently been promoted to manager of stockings and tights at the Galeries Lafayette, a job she loves. One morning she returns home, her lips pale, her eyes red. “I’ve been fired,” she says, holding back her tears. “I’m no longer allowed to work.”

  “But why?” my father asks, startled.

  “Because I’m a Jew, Maurice.”

  My father looks at her and says nothing.

  *

  My father’s toyshop, Maurice Baum: Jouets, stands on the Rue des Rosiers, right next to our apartment. It is a well-known and much loved institution, nestled on the ground floor of an eighteenth-century building. Toys of all shapes and colours line the shelves, and its pervading smell is akin to a musty book. When I was a child, that shop, that smell, was my haven. Now it feels unsafe. What if the Germans close it down? What will happen to us then?

  My father’s brother and his children live above the shop. My cousin Pierre, who’s outspokenly political, attends the Sorbonne with me, and studies physics. He’s arrested on a Sunday morning, and we are all shocked. “He should have shut up instead of spouting his views on street corners,” my father says. “No wonder they arrested him.”

  Pierre is eventually released, but I feel more nervous than ever. There have been further arrests of people we know. The fact that my mother has lost her job and that my father’s Gentile clientele has dwindled only makes matters worse. Yet, it seems to leave my father undeterred. He attributes the situation to general panic, to overreaction, not to the anti-Semitic propaganda which is spreading insidiously, like the plague.

  I begin to wonder: is my father losing his sanity? Everyone else I know is concerned, but not him. I share my thoughts with my mother, who immediately puts me in my place. “Don’t you dare question your father. He knows what he’s doing. If he says we’re safe, you must trust him.”

  I visit my friend Françoise, who would like to become a concert pianist. She lives with her parents in a large apartment near the Panthéon. We listen to music together, Mozart and Schubert mostly. We talk about my wanting to leave France and what’s happening at home. “I don’t understand my father,” I tell her. “It’s as if he doesn’t want to believe that we’re at war. He keeps saying that everything is all right. But it’s not, and I’m scared.”

  “Maybe he knows, but doesn’t want to admit it to you,” she ventures. “I’m sure he’s as scared as you are. But no matter your differences, Flore, you still can’t leave,” she adds. “You can’t do that to your parents.”

  Françoise has nothing to fear. She’s a Catholic girl, the daughter of a prominent historian. “No one will touch my father,” she tells me. “He knows important people.”

  Afterwards she plays me a Chopin Prelude. I look at her and realize that I know no important people. Would it be different if I did? Yes, it would. But Jews no longer have the option of being important.

  I close my eyes for a short while and listen to Françoise play. I forget where I am. Who I am. Not a Jewish girl. Not the daughter of a man who cannot see what is happening outside his toyshop. Because my father’s reality has become warped. The Germans are like toys inside his imaginary playground. Like the marching-soldier collection displayed in the front window of his shop.

  Soon, the springs will unwind and no one will be able to fix them.

  2

  My father comes home one day with two puppets from his shop. The paint on their faces is chipped. I still remember what they look like. One of them is a harlequin with a tricorne hat and a diamond-patterned costume. The other is a witch. She wears a pointy black hat and a polka-dot robe, and she carries a broom. I find them slightly sinister, but my father seems utterly enchanted by them, like a small child. I can see him, sitting at the kitchen table, carefully painting over those faces with a small brush. His dexterity and concentration are fascinating to watch. But there is something else. Something teetering. Foreboding. As if he may be losing control. And yet his discourse is strangely coherent. “Don’t you understand that this is just a temporary state of affairs? You must be patient! You must believe me! Why don’t you believe me?”

  “Because you’re wrong, that’s why!” I shout. “Look at what’s happening around us!”

  “Don’t you dare contradict me!” he shouts back. “I know exactly what’s happening!”

  My mother intervenes. “Please,” she says. “Let’s not argue about this.” She gently grabs my father’s hand. “There is no man more patriotic than your father,” she tells me, with a note of pride in her voice. “He would fight for this country, if he could.”

  “But the Vichy government doesn’t care if Maurice Baum the shopkeeper wants to fight for his country, don’t you understand?” I exclaim. “They will do nothing to save us! Nothing!”

  “Stop talking nonsense,” my father snaps. “And don’t you forget that Charles de Gaulle’s niece is one of my biggest customers. She always comes into my shop to buy toys for her children. She will have a word. She told me she would. And I believe her.”

  “A word with whom, Papa? With Charles de Gaulle?”

  He hesitates. “With who matters is with who,” he finally answers. He stands up and suddenly appears small to me. Diminished. His black shoes need a polish; his blue suit has little specks of dandruff on the collar. His usually gentle face is taut and serious: perhaps he is worried after all. Perhaps Françoise is right. Perhaps nothing is wrong with him and he just doesn’t want to admit the truth: that we’re in danger. All Jews are in danger. Yet, here we are, sitting in our living room, passing time.

  I look around us. A sliver of light falls in the centre of the room, revealing imperfections. The particles of dust. The cracks in some of the chairs. The hole in the colourful rug. The cobweb on the window sill. We have fallen from grace.

  I can only watch as strands of darkness slowly coil themselves around us.

  3

  Every morning, after she has ensured her yellow-star badge is pinned to her chest, my mother leaves the house in search of food. We can no longer buy meat, eggs or milk from the usual shops, so we have to search elsewhere.

  She finds us bread on the black market. The only vegetables available are yellow turnips and Jerusalem artichokes. I hate them, but I eat them anyway. We have no choice. We have become pariahs in our own land. I am no longer allowed to attend the Sorbonne. My beloved teacher, André Stein, has been arrested and taken away; we’re still waiting to hear news of him. Jewish children are banned from all playgrounds. We say nothing. When we’re made to sit in the last car of the Métro, we still say nothing.

  At home, meals have become oppressive. My mother and I sit in silence while my father does all the talking. About his toyshop, his loyal customers and how the nation is being fooled into believing that the Germans will actually manage to keep their promises – and that includes deporting Jews, or whatever it is people are saying. “Never believe what you hear,” my father repeats, like a mantra.

  After dinner, he puts a record on, usually Maurice Chevalier. He particularly likes the song ‘Pour toi Paris’, which he knows by heart. Once, he grabs those puppets with their newly painted faces. He stands in the middle of the room and starts to make them dance to the music, as he sings along with them. “Pour toi, Paris. Pour la route qu’avec toi on a suivie, pour toi, Paris.”

  It is an indelible image. M
y father holding up those stringed puppets as they pivot from one leg to the other and he sings along to Maurice Chevalier’s voice in the dim light of our sitting room. Outside, German boots crunch past our front windows, heavy footsteps like a drum.

  *

  The French police come to arrest Jewish families who live on our street. My father insists we will be spared. He knows best. “Those Jews they’re arresting are foreigners. Immigrants. We’re not. We’re French citizens through and through.”

  Then he is ordered to close his toyshop. But he still doesn’t want to hear of it. “It’s my life,” he keeps saying. “My shop. I’m not closing anything.”

  My mother begins to cry. “Please Maurice, they’ll arrest you if you don’t, please.”

  But my father doesn’t budge.

  I will never forget this day. Monday 12th July 1943. My mother is wearing a blue polka-dot dress cinched at the waist. Her hair is curled. On her feet, wooden platform shoes. They clunk like hooves. I can smell her perfume. Shalimar, by Guerlain. My cousin Sarah is holding her hand. Sarah and her mother were taken away in the middle of the night to Drancy. The child was released after a few days. She is seven years old and she is sick. My mother is taking her to the doctor. She knows it is risky to walk the streets, but she must. Her niece is very sick. “It will be all right, Maurice,” she repeats, several times, as if to convince herself. At first my father says nothing. But he knows. By now he knows how dangerous it has become for Jews. We’re being singled out and taken away, like sheep to slaughter. That is what my uncle has told my father, who said nothing. This is his tactic. To say nothing, as if admitting the truth were a form of defeat. It makes me so angry I no longer talk to him. When my father speaks to me, or asks me a question, I answer curtly. But that day, something is different. I’m not sure whether he has heard a piece of news he hasn’t shared with us, but he looks tense rather than defiant. Angry too, when Sarah starts to cry. “Stop crying!” he shouts at her. She stops, surprised, and looks at my father. We all do. There are lines on his face. His lips are pursed. The sun is shining outside. The weather is beautiful. All the horrible things in my life happened when the weather was beautiful. “I’m going to the doctor,” my mother declares. “It’s no good you just standing there.”