Unto the Soul

by Aharon Appelfeld

  While he looked at her she moved somewhat, without changing her position. The stove now lit her shoulders, the concavity above her hip, and her left leg. He knew her left foot well. In childhood she had sprained it several times, and each time they had brought her to the medical station the medic would say, “That wild girl again.”

  “She isn’t wild. She has no luck,” said her father, as though to protect her.

  “How did it happen?” he would ask with interest.

  “She tripped.”

  “Things like that don’t happen right in the street.”

  “There was a pit.”

  “That’s something else,” he would say and immediately go out to fetch splints to set her leg. From the time of his youth Gad had liked to scrutinize that foot, which was so subject to misfortune. It had an airy kind of gracefulness, perhaps because of the short big toe.

  He rose from his bed and walked over to the stove. She lay across both of the beds, with her right leg folded up and her left leg extended stiffly, which made the bulge of her buttocks stand out. That is how she had lain since childhood. But this time her way of lying had weight, as though she were attached to the mattress. Move aside, he was about to say. Years ago, when he was already about eleven, he had seen her washing in the bathtub. She was still a girl, but her movements even at that time had been those of a young woman. She had pulled her hair up as though to show the length of her neck. He had liked to look at her, and when she grew up he didn’t cease. He would close his eyes so as not to stare at her, but his imagination was stronger than the stare itself.

  Now he remembered: when they had come up to the mountaintop, Amalia had shivered and wept, and he had not known what to do. Thoroughly baffled, he had said, “There’s nothing to be afraid of. No one will come here. The whole mountain will be ours. Just for us.” That last sentence had stopped her weeping, and a kind of youthful wonderment had fluttered upon her face, as though she had seized upon some distant memory. He had given her a cup of tea, and she had drunk without thanking him. Afterward had come six years of fear and of stifled, secret love, memories, and distractions. Hardest of all were the suspicions: Who would betray whom? When her spirits were raised by strong drink, she would say, “You should go down there.”

  “You’re sending me to the gentile women.”

  “I’m no good. They’ll be good to you.”

  “You’re better than they are.” Upon hearing those words she would break out in wild laughter, as though he had whispered a vulgarity in her ear.

  Now the waters had neared the abyss. He bent to his knees and touched her foot. The foot trembled but didn’t move. He pressed his lips upon the hollow of her arch and devoured, bit by bit, the entire length of her body. She didn’t even move when he sank his teeth in her neck—as though it had been secretly agreed between them that this is how things would be when the time came.

  CHAPTER 11

  The next day they slept late. When they woke up, a few bright patches peeked out in the sky, and Amalia’s face was flushed and confused. The house had grown cold and Gad quickly fanned up a blaze in the coals. Amalia was in no rush to get out of bed. Gad stood by the window and, with great clarity, remembered the cold winter days at home, the store, and the customers who had stood bundled up next to the cashier, shivering with cold. He remembered his mother’s red hands and his father, who used to drag sacks toward the door. Amalia was little, and in the winter they didn’t allow her to leave the house. Once she had dared to sneak into the store. When their mother noticed her she came out from behind the counter; with a swift and cruel movement, she snatched her up and slapped her face. She was not content until she had also pinched her. Amalia sobbed, and their mother, extremely angry, had stopped her mouth. Immediately afterward she had returned to the counter and, all at once, wiped the anger from her face and stepped forward to serve the next customer.

  “The coffee is on the table,” Gad called out in a clear voice.

  “I’m coming.” The answer was prompt.

  Amalia stepped up to the basin, washed her face, and wrapped her head in a kerchief. They sat and drank cup after cup. Gad tried to say a couple of words in a soft voice, but the words came out empty and insipid. Amalia followed every word with a kind of confused tension.

  “We have to water the animals.” He woke up.

  “What time is it?” she asked distractedly.

  “Eleven-thirty.”

  First he gave water to the dogs, and then he went into the barn. The cow, whose master had brought the fodder in late, expressed its discontentment by tilting its head in annoyance. Gad patted its head and immediately set to milking it. Its udders were full, and the milking took a long time.

  Contact with the silent animal imperceptibly reminded him of Amalia’s illuminated face, of the smell of her armpit and the taste of her breasts.

  When he returned to the house with the pail of milk in his hand, Amalia was sitting on the bed, leaning back on both her arms, a pose he had not noticed her in before. A flash of blue sparkled in her gaze, and it seemed she was about to utter some warning.

  “I’m going down to cut firewood. Be so good as to put the milk in the pantry.” He tried to give his voice a domestic tone.

  “Right away.” Amalia swung her legs out of bed.

  “It’s very cold outside.” He spoke in his father’s voice. He immediately went down and immersed himself in the work. He worked without a pause, and in the afternoon a pile of cut wood stood at the door of the shed. Gad was content with the quality of the wood.

  When he came up he noted that she had not prepared lunch. For a moment he was about to scold her, but he stifled his complaint and said, “What shall we cook today? I’m hungry.”

  “I’m not hungry.”

  “But you have to eat.” He placated her.

  “I don’t feel like it.”

  Now he noticed that a self-indulgent tone had crept into her voice. For a moment he was about to approach her and stroke her head, to tell her, Let’s cook lunch together. I’ll peel the potatoes and dice the onions. Within an hour we’ll have a meal. Amalia apparently sensed his intention and chuckled.

  Finally he said, “I’ll make it.” He immediately took two earthenware pots out of the cupboard. He prepared the meal, and Amalia observed him without helping. Gad was excited and spoke like someone who intends to tell a long story. That of course was a misapprehension. After a few sentences his voice got stuck. He tried to continue, and it stuck again. Finally he said, “As soon as the snow melts I intend to build a new fence around the cemetery and to make the drainage canal deeper. Otherwise the rain will sweep away the gravestones.” Those few sentences recalled other words within him, not new ones but words he had already used many times. Amalia observed him without making any comment, a kind of smile flickering on her lips like someone who is enjoying a secret theft.

  Later they sat and ate. First they ate mamaliga with cheese, and when they finished that, Gad poured warm milk into bowls and in each bowl he put a piece of mamaliga that had hardened.

  “Why did you cry when we first came up here?” Gad surprised her.

  “I?” She was about to withdraw a little but recovered immediately and said, “I was afraid.”

  “I hate those crowded little villages. They’re stifling. Here everything is open and no one tells you what to do.”

  “I miss my friend Dunya.”

  “Now she’s certainly burdened with children and illnesses.”

  “I could help her.”

  “I don’t miss a thing. I don’t see how it’s possible to live together with so many people. Here no one asks you what you’ve done, where you’ve gone. Here you don’t owe anyone an accounting.”

  “But we must visit our parents, mustn’t we?”

  “And who will stay here?”

  Amalia bent her head as though she realized she had said something stupid.

  When it got dark she asked for a drink of slivovitz. Gad walked ove
r to the cupboard, and without saying anything he took out the bottle and poured one for her and for himself. He immediately began to talk with a kind of enthusiasm about the marvelous mountaintop, which gave a person what only an isolated place can give. Everyone was in thrall to the well-to-do and the bureaucrats, frittering away their days for nothing. Here was no yoke. Amalia was gripped by his voice, and her eyes never left him. At last he spoke, with the same enthusiasm, about the duty to collect a fixed sum from the pilgrims. Everyone knew there was no such thing as a free guard, so they all had to pay some amount, and if they wished to add something to it, they could. He spoke like the drunken peasants on their way home who resolve that, once they’re at home, they’ll beat their wives black and blue.

  Amalia listened quietly, without comment. Later that night, after she’d drunk quite a few cups and was full of his plentiful, disorganized words, she burst out crying. Gad was surprised by that sudden sobbing. He bent to his knees, and, like the night before, he grasped her foot and sank his mouth in the hollow of her arch. Amalia let out a sharp wail, but she didn’t pull her foot away, and, like the night before, he gripped her body and never let it go.

  CHAPTER 12

  The next day the sky was bright and spotless. The snow was crusted, and on its brilliant surface hopped large crows. Now, with a twinge of his heart, Gad remembered the cemetery and the peaks that surrounded it. For some reason it seemed to him that he had not been there for many days. Fear roused him from his bed, and he rose to his feet.

  “What time is it?” asked Amalia.

  “It’s twelve o’clock.”

  He rushed to the barn. The neglected, thirsty animal expressed its joy with a few broken moos. When they arrived it had been a young cow that had calved only once, and since then there had been a mute affection between them. It had never kicked him, and he had never struck it. In the mild seasons he took it out to pasture and stayed with it in the open air. During the quiet hours spent at its side, his mind drifted in pleasant daydreams.

  Right after milking the cow he said to Amalia, “I’m going up to the cemetery. Give the dogs something to eat.”

  “Where are you going?” she asked, half asleep.

  “To the cemetery.”

  “Don’t walk too far,” she said, without opening her eyes.

  “I’m here,” he said and went out.

  The sun was low and radiated light all along the peaks, a bare, cold sun. The visibility was clear and piercing, and below, in the scattered villages, the little cottages stood out bare. The distant, chilled vista reminded him of long winter roads, of his father and the little sled he used to drive. He had gone with him a few times to buy supplies in the villages. Once a snowstorm had trapped them in the fields, and his father, in great despair, had gotten down from the sled and cried out, “Save us, O Lord, save us!” To their surprise the prayer had been answered. The storm stopped swirling, and they reached home.

  The cemetery was entirely covered with snow. A few of the taller monuments peeked out above the accumulation. At first he was of a mind to take a shovel and clear it away, but he immediately realized the stupidity of that wish. The snow did no harm. He remembered his Uncle Arieh’s words: It was only the melting ice that seeped down and laid bare the tombs. Many months would pass before the spring, and until then there was nothing to do. There was no need to do anything. All at once that thought calmed the fear that had been gnawing at him ever since he opened his eyes.

  Over the years he had become attached to the place. More than once he had taken a book of psalms out of his coat pocket and prayed. Here he had seen his father and mother from time to time, people burdened to exhaustion, clutching their small store with their nails, but it was no use. The customers became fewer, the creditors took their bites, and everything collapsed. If there had been any speck of light in that murky space, it was Amalia’s glowing face. She was pretty, with a beauty that frightened her parents. More than once he had found his father sitting and staring at her while she slept. Their mother would say one mustn’t look at sleeping children, and he stopped, but not completely. He would stare at her in secret. The mother didn’t spare her; she used to hit her even after she had grown up into a young woman.

  At first it had seemed that no blow would spot that glowing face, but passing time acted otherwise. It secretly furrowed her face, which grew rounder, and above her upper lip the first lines appeared.

  When Amalia reached the age of eighteen, a young shopkeeper had wanted to marry her. He was a plump young man who had inherited a large store from his parents and spoke in the decisive fashion of a man who has a great deal of business and no spare time for idle matters. But Amalia, to everyone’s surprise, refused. Her mother and aunts remonstrated in vain. She was firm in her resolve: certainly not.

  “You’ll regret it.” Her mother reproached her with gritted teeth. The father did not intervene. Because he did not intervene, she got angry at him too. For weeks the house rumbled like a seething pot. In the end their mother fell ill, with a mortal illness, and never rose from her sickbed. Their father did not live long either. That very winter he fell ill and departed from this world.

  Amalia had been eighteen, and Gad was five years older. They tried to save the store, but it was foundering in debt. Finally they had no alternative but to sell. The cash barely sufficed to cover what was owed.

  After the days of mourning the house emptied of visitors. Amalia would stand at the window for hours. Her beauty faded. But in Gad’s eyes it was unspoiled. He had always loved her timid movements, and the lines hidden in her face. When their Uncle Arieh had invited them up to the mountain peak he had been pleased: From now on he and Amalia would be in the same house.

  When he returned to the house, the light in the sky had already dimmed. Amalia was sitting on the floor and playing with the dogs. A strange kind of mirth raced about her eyes.

  “What are you doing?” he asked, without looking at her.

  “Nothing at all.”

  “You mustn’t let the dogs into the house.”

  “They were cold.”

  That old suspicion, that murky suspicion, that she was secretly in love with the dogs lit a dormant flame within him, and again he said, “You mustn’t let the dogs into the house.” Now it sounded like a reprimand, and she bowed her head.

  She hadn’t prepared a hot meal again. They ate bread, smoked meat, and sauerkraut. Gad told her how much snow had piled up in the cemetery, and about the sights spread out there. Amalia asked nothing. Only later she surprised him and asked why it was forbidden for Cohens to enter the cemetery. At one time Gad had known all the reasons, but now, somehow, he had forgotten them. Greatly embarrassed he said, “That’s what’s written. One doesn’t ask. One obeys.” Amalia smiled. She knew her brother didn’t know the reasons.

  After the meal they downed a few glasses of slivovitz. Now Gad remembered the Jew who had brought him the bottle, a tall Jew with a proud mien and a thin sort of nobility. His conduct in the cemetery was restrained, but his eyes, large mournful eyes, overflowed with sorrow for which there was no balm.

  Later that night, already drunk, Amalia spoke with a mocking fluency about the cold dark days of her childhood, and about her mother, who used to strike her cruelly, and about her father, who was weak and never came to her aid. First Gad tried to console her with words, but when they were of no use, he drew near her and removed her blouse, and with a very powerful movement he hugged and then subdued her.

  CHAPTER 13

  The following days were cold and dark, and the two stoves couldn’t keep the house warm. Amalia sprawled in bed most of the day, only getting up to eat. Gad would prepare full meals, and they sat together at the table. Amalia didn’t ask what would happen or how. A kind of thin laughter occasionally burst out from within her and set the silence in the room aquiver. It was difficult to know what was happening inside her. Her face expressed no pain or sadness. Gad spoke a lot about the spring and about his plans to improve th
e cemetery, so that the place would be accessible and well taken care of. It wasn’t just any graveyard, but rather the Cemetery of the Martyrs, who defended the whole Jewish people, he said, like someone who had memorized something. She listened to his recitation without interference. She knew, even in her drunkenness, that nothing would come of his plans. The pilgrims wouldn’t respond to his entreaties. They would avoid giving contributions, and without money the peasants wouldn’t quarry the stones from the mountain. After sitting for an hour, she would go back and curl up in bed.

  “You mustn’t sleep so much,” he commented, without scolding her.

  “I’m tired.”

  “Prolonged sleep fosters evil thoughts.”

  “I feel good in bed.”

  And that was a kind of invitation to come and curl up at her side. Sometimes they didn’t get out of bed for a whole day. His thirst for her could not be quenched. Every night he would find new hidden corners in her body. Occasionally a kind of dread would attack him in the middle of the night. He would get up, light the lantern, and go down to the shed to saw firewood. That strenuous labor would blunt the attack, and he would be calmed.

  Once, nevertheless, she asked whether it was a sin.

  “Certainly,” he said, without batting an eyelash.

  Upon hearing that answer she spread out both her hands, leaned on the table, raised herself a bit, and said, “I don’t care if they punish me.” Gad heard her and placed his hands on his cheeks, as though he had been slapped.

  One morning a knock was heard at the door, and Amalia got up and slipped down into the cellar. It was an old peasant. Gad was pleased and smiled at him, offering him a drink. The peasant sipped it and told at length of the old days, when he had been young and had come here to sell supplies to Uncle Arieh.