58
Our life now revolves around the monastery. We come to see Mother at regular times. Sometimes Father falls to his knees and does not stir from that spot for an entire hour. Sometimes Mother opens her eyes and gazes at us, and sometimes a word escapes her. But for the most part she's sunk in her sleep, and we stand by her bed and gaze at her. It's Mother and yet not her. She looks at us but does not see us. Sometimes I feel that she tries to pull us into her sleep. I would go to her willingly, but I do not know how to break through the barrier between wakefulness and sleep. Father seems to know a little about it. I heard him discuss this with one of the monks. An elderly monk heard Father's name and cried out in wonder, “Why, if it isn't Arthur Rosenfeld—the famous painter?!” It turned out that this elderly monk loved painting; he had seen Father's exhibitions, admired them, and bought a small sketch that he hung in his room. He even remembered that one of the critics had called Father the King of the Demons—even then Father frequently painted demons. But Father doesn't usually talk with the monks about painting; they talk, instead, about the mystery of faith. It's hard for me to understand these complicated things, and I stand in awe as Father converses with the monks as an equal. Sometimes he recites poems or passages from the Bible to the admiring monks. Once I heard one of the monks say to him, “You're really one of us. How did you come to live in a world without God?” Father answered him straightforwardly, “There's no man without God,” much to my surprise.
On clear days we venture farther, to the forest or the open fields. Our walks are mainly journeys of silence, but once, Father turned to me and said, “Don't take the path I've taken.” I asked him what he meant. He answered me at length, but I understood nothing of his explanations.
The days pass, and there is a strange order to our life here. Sometimes it seems that this is how it will be from now on, forever. Occasionally, after a visit to the monastery, Father may burst into tears, his whole body trembling. I don't know what to do and I stand next to him like a block of wood.
In the midst of this, Kuba, Father's friend from the orphanage, arrives. He has brought us dried fruit and pear preserves made by his wife. He very much wants us to come visit him in the hills, but Father holds firm. “I cannot leave this place. My duty is to be here right now.” Kuba is a head shorter than Father, his face dark and his eyes sunk in their sockets. When Father talks, Kuba's eyes open very wide and he absorbs the words with them. Father loves that he is here with us, and he constantly gazes at him.
We go into the inn, and Father tells Kuba that here the monks have retained the ancient traditions; they don't eat pork and they bury their dead on the day of their death. Kuba listens but doesn't ask for details. Father goes on drinking and appears to become drunk, for he talks at the top of his voice. Among many things, he tells Kuba about the wonderful people God had put in his path, like the Ruthenian peasant with whom we lodged, who loved Jews more than life itself and who for months refused to take any rent from him because he was a Jew, for Jews are the sons of kings and they're hidden priests and they need to be helped to carry out their hidden purpose in the world. Then he tells Kuba about the amazing Victor, who put a mansion at his disposal and arranged an exhibition for him, ignoring the anti-Semites. He mentions how much Victor loves his fellow men and loves artists, how he fought for their cause with all his might and put his entire wealth at their disposal. “God has put many good angels in my path. He even put Henia in my path, but I didn't know how to look after her and now she's lost to me.”
So Father talks, and the more he talks, the simpler the sentences become, and even I understand them. Kuba listens, large tears flowing from his wide-open eyes, but he utters not a word.
And later, too, when we accompany him to his cart, Kuba does not ask anything. He embraces Father, kisses him, and says, “We'll see each other soon.” But my heart tells me that we will not see him again.
59
Then the skies cleared and spring settled in. Water from melting snow filled the gullies and flooded the roads. Father rejoiced at the sight of it, and again he began to devise plans: Mother would recover, and we would take her to Czernowitz. There were good doctors in Czernowitz, doctors who stuck to medicine and didn't dabble in faith. I, too, began to recall the handsome streets and the splendid cafés in the center of town.
Twice a day we would come to the monastery, stand by Mother's bed, and gaze at her as she slept. Sometimes it seemed that she was about to wake up. This was a mistake; from day to day, her deep sleep only became deeper, and her expression never changed. The monastery doctor, a converted Jew and a monk, told Father, “Everything is in the hands of heaven. A man may decide whatever he wants, but in fact the weighty decisions are made elsewhere.” Father apparently did not expect to hear such a diagnosis from a doctor and asked no further.
We were outside for most of the daylight hours, buying provisions from peasants and preparing meals next to a well or in a grove. Sometimes we would light a bonfire and roast potatoes. Roasted potatoes with butter and cheese is a delicacy. Father sipped from his flask but did not curse. He gazed at the landscape and said, “One of these days I'll come back here to paint these marvels. God has presented us with such refined forms here.”
The onset of spring had apparently calmed him somewhat, and he went back to reading the works of Saint Augustine, which he had brought with him in the duffel bag. The rest of his books had been left in boxes with Victor. When Father remembered them, he'd say, “One of these days we'll need to fetch them; they're as vital to me as the air I breathe.” Even his smoking had changed slightly; although he still lit one cigarette after another, he did not smoke them with the same intensity as in the winter.
In the afternoons, Father sat with the monks. Mostly he spoke and the monks listened. When Father recited long passages from the New Testament, a kind of youthful wideeyed wonder filled their faces, as if they were hearing something that their ears were not used to hearing. Once I heard him praising the mosaics and ancient icons in the monastery. He said, “This is great art, and the time will come when students at the academy will rush here to learn from these pure-hearted artists the meaning of true yearning for God.”
In the evenings we returned to the inn. The roads were bad at this time of year and had so many potholes as to be practically impassable. Few people came. Sometimes Father sat with the innkeeper, and they talked of bygone times. One evening the innkeeper said, “Years ago, many Jews lived here, and they would worship God. In this past generation, the children threw off the yoke of their religion and the yoke of their forefathers and fled to the big cities. The fathers still lived out their days here, but eventually they vanished from the world. Now there are very few Jews in the region, the synagogues are on the verge of collapse, and there is no one to repair them.”
Then he told Father about the festivals and customs of the Jews in this place. On the Day of Atonement all the men would wear white clothes, and they looked like creatures from another world. “It's a pity that they've left us,” he added.
“They've left because they weren't wanted,” said Father.
“We loved the old Jews,” said the innkeeper, a faint smile spreading across his lips.
“And the pogroms?”
“The old Jews were used to pogroms. People beat them and they accepted their suffering with love.”
“You make it sound like a law of nature.”
“If you like—”
“That's one crazy law!”
“Look, anyone who does not recognize the divinity of Jesus deserves to be beaten. They have to be beaten for their stubbornness.”
“That's a skewed way to look at it.”
“We think it's the right and just way to see it.”
“It's a distortion.”
“Why do you say distortion?”
“Actually, we should say that it's a wicked distortion.” Father's anger flared up.
I was afraid of his anger and of his trembling hands. It see
med that in a moment he would get up and hit the innkeeper. “It's a wicked distortion,” Father repeated angrily, and we immediately went up to our room. Father took off his clothes quickly, put on his old pajamas, and got into bed. I did not know why he had held himself in check this time. Father doesn't usually hold himself in; if he hears malicious talk or witnesses an injustice—not to mention hearing something anti-Semitic—he does not hesitate but immediately lashes out. This time he restrained himself. His restraint pained me, and I was so stirred up that I couldn't sleep for the entire night.
60
Early in the morning the bells of the monastery began to ring, and Father made me get dressed in a hurry. The path to the monastery was mired in mud. We slushed through and arrived there soaked. The monk at the entrance greeted us differently—with a deeply bowed head.
“What's happened?” asked Father.
The monk bowed even lower and did not utter a word. The other monks immediately gathered to his side and surrounded us.
“What's happened?” Father raised his head.
“Henia passed away early this morning,” the monk said quietly.
“What?” said Father, his jaw dropping, as if he did not understand.
We all turned to go down the corridor and from there to the infirmary. Mother lay in the bed, propped up by a pillow, her white face suffused with an eerie calm. Father seemed to crumble all at once, and the monk grasped his forearm and held him. Suddenly the bells sprang to life again and began to toll; the sharp peals made me dizzy.
“What?” Father repeated.
“Henia is no longer suffering,” whispered the monk.
In the next chamber the choir burst into song. It was a soft song and it washed over me with a kind of painful pleasantness. Father shrugged, as if refusing to accept the gift that had been offered him.
“Henia is suffering no more.” Now the monk spoke out clearly.
Father grasped my hand and turned toward the corridor. The monks did not stir. We walked down the corridor into the entrance hall. The monk who had recognized Father's name bowed. Father did not thank him. We left immediately to go for a walk around the monastery.
The sun stood full and round in the sky and poured its light upon us. The ground was muddy, and it was hard to walk. Father went ahead; when he had gone some way, he noticed that I'd fallen behind and came back for me. I had become tired and asked him to stop. He did, and lit a cigarette. When we had completed the circuit, we stood at the entrance but did not go inside.
“We've arrived,” said Father, as if we had carried out a mission.
We returned to the inn, and Father downed a few drinks and chatted with one of the drunks. The innkeeper, who knew everything, came up to Father and said, “God gives and God takes away.”
Father didn't agree. “What's this giving and taking?” he said. “That's just haggling. If you give, you give; you don't take back. Victor, for instance, gave and did not take. He always gave.”
“Which Victor are you talking about?”
“Victor from Bucharest—good, loyal Victor.”
“I have no idea which Victor you're talking about,” said the innkeeper, returning to his counter. Father was drunk and was now confusing scenes from the past with the present, even mentioning little Tina. Yet he wasn't angry and he didn't threaten. At noon he announced, “I'm off to sleep,” and he took a long nap.
Toward evening he woke up and we returned to the monastery. Father was not drunk, but he was hazy and spoke about distant things that were apparently troubling him. In the waiting room, he took the abbot by surprise, asking him if it wouldn't be proper to give Henia a Jewish funeral, as she'd been born Jewish and had grown up in the Jewish orphanage in Czernowitz.
“But she did convert,” said the abbot weakly.
“But she divorced her husband.”
“But not Christianity.”
“Isn't it proper to return a person's lost honor to them?”
“What honor is sir referring to?” The elderly monk smiled.
In the meantime, more monks had gathered and Father's self-confidence ebbed. “If you think otherwise,” he said, “I won't interfere. Death rules us all, and it makes no distinction between Jews and non-Jews. In the end, we'll all die. And yet, it seems to me that it's preferable for a person to be gathered to his forefathers. As the Bible says, Born a Jew and died a Jew and returned to his resting place, even if it's an imperfect resting place,” he said with a grimace.
“Henia converted. It was her wish,” said the elderly monk in a soft voice.
“Correct, sir. I spoke of matters of leniency.”
“Henia converted. It was a full, religious conversion. I performed it myself.”
“That's right. Perhaps that's how it has to be.”
“She was Christian to the depths of her soul.”
“I do not doubt it, sir.”
I was astounded by Father's conciliatory tone. I had never seen him throw his arms about in such a sloppy way. And the entire time we stood there, Father was pleasant to his hosts, praised the medical care and the way we had been treated. Finally, in a voice not his own, he said, “Henia is in faithful hands,” and burst into tears.
61
During the funeral Father was drunk and could hardly stand. Two monks supported him. It was a funeral without music. Father did not cry but talked loudly. The monks and the people who had gathered did not hush him, but it was clear that his confused talking disturbed them.
The wagon carrying the coffin made its way heavily. Father suddenly asked if there was still far to go, and a monk answered him as if speaking to a child, “We're already at the graveyard.” The sky was blue but not open like at Halina's funeral. I stood next to Father, tired and numb.
The ceremony was conducted by one of the tall monks, who read from a book and then spoke at great length. For some reason it seemed to me that his talking prevented Mother from rising to heaven. Father apparently felt as I did. “Henia!” he burst out. “What have they done to you?” No one hushed him, and he fell silent. I did not see the lowering of the coffin and the covering of the grave.
After the funeral we returned to the monastery. Father had not yet sobered up. He turned to the monks who were supporting him as if to his brethren in suffering, telling them about his journey to Bucharest and about the anti-Semites who had tried to ruin his exhibition. The monks paid no heed to his words, but Father went on, telling them about Victor, calling him a “ministering angel.” Faint smiles flitted across their faces; then they were serious again.
During the meal after the funeral Father kept talking. He spoke of the anti-Semites who contaminate the very air we breathed. He did not speak of Mother. One of the monks said of her, “She was a noble woman, and even in sickness she conducted herself with nobility.”
“And let me tell you,” said Father, “it's a pity that she married that man.”
“But you had in fact divorced,” observed the monk.
“That is true, but we never stopped loving each other.”
The monk blushed.
Then the monks went to pray. “Come, let's go out,” Father said, gripping my arm, and we left immediately. The last light was still flickering in the sky as we walked along the road, and the puddles had dried up.
We left the mountain that night. At first Father wanted to go to the monastery to thank the monks, but then he decided to set off right away.
“Why leave at night?” The innkeeper tried to dissuade him.
“I still have to get to Storozynetz tonight.”
“The roads are terrible—no one will want to set out at night.”
“I'll pay good money.”
Father drank but did not get drunk. He told me that he was thinking of taking the night train from Storozynetz to Czernowitz; immediately after that he would rent an apartment and begin to paint. “Life without painting is death.” I did not envision him renting a room; instead, I saw him sitting with his friends in a tavern, drinki
ng and cursing. I had already learned: what Father desired had very little bearing on what he did.
At midnight, before the inn closed, Father saw a wagon and stopped it. The driver hesitated at first, but eventually he agreed. Father wrapped me up in two sweaters, put a hat on my head, and we set off. As it turned out, the road had dried, and although it was a steep downward slope, the horses were careful and were able to brake the wagon when they had to.
Father buried his head in his coat. I saw again the tall monks who stood in the corridor and listened to him talk. They turned to him and said, “Why not join us? There's a large library here, and light-filled rooms where you can sit and paint. Why wander from place to place?” Father gave them a long answer with many explanations, of which I understood not a word.
The feeling that Mother was in the sky and that I was traveling to her in the wagon became much more real, perhaps because the skies suddenly cleared.
“Are you cold?” Father asked.
“No,” I said, and I heard the sound of the word leaving my mouth.
Again I saw Mother as she was during the summer vacation: tall, with long, flowing hair, floating on the black waters of the lake.
62
We reached the railway station in Storozynetz sometime after midnight. It was empty, and the ticket-office windows were shuttered. Father asked the guard when the next train was leaving, and he answered indifferently, “Just five minutes ago.” Two dim bulbs lit the platforms, and darkness surrounded us on all sides. We had no choice but to go to town and look for a hotel. “I was wrong,” said Father, as we set off.
I remembered Storozynetz well, but in the darkness it looked different. The tall chestnut trees cast their heavy shadows on the sidewalks. We went from street to street, finally stopping at the entrance of a low house with a sign on it: HOTEL SALZBURG. Father knocked on the door. A woman opened it, and Father asked her for a bed for the night. She offered us a room with two beds.
All Whom I Have Loved Page 16
