Blooms of Darkness

by Aharon Appelfeld

  Mariana’s mother died, and she went to her village, but don’t worry, the cook Victoria brings me my meals and tells me what’s happening on the outside. Your letter brought me many visions of light and much hope.

  Take care of yourself,

  Hugo

  He places the notebook in the knapsack, and the tears that were locked in his eyes roll down his face.

  Once again Victoria brings him horrible news. That night they caught more Jewish families. They were taken together with the people who hid them to the town square, where they were all lined up and executed, so that everyone would see and hear and not be tempted to hide Jews.

  “What should I do?” Hugo asks cautiously.

  “We’ll see.” Her answer comes quickly.

  Saying nothing more, Victoria closes the door, and Hugo takes the notebook out of the knapsack and writes:

  Dear Mama,

  I don’t want to hide the truth from you. For more than a week, soldiers have been going from house to house and making searches. Mariana is mourning for her mother in the village, and I have been placed in the hands of the cook, Victoria. Before, she was sure that they wouldn’t search here. Now fear has fallen upon her. I’m not afraid. I’m not saying that to calm you down. The months in hiding have blunted my feeling of fear. I live our life at home every day. The house, the pharmacy, and mainly you and Papa are with me from morning to night. When I’m cold or my sleep wanders, I see you with great clarity. Recently I saw our ski vacations in the mountains once again, and the feeling of soaring came back to me. Mama, the loneliness doesn’t hurt me because you taught me how to be by myself. I won’t conceal from you that from time to time a feeling of uncertainty attacks me, or despair, but those are passing moments. You equipped me with much belief in life. I’m so glad that you and Papa are my parents that sometimes I want to break down the door of the hiding place and run away to you.

  I love you,

  Hugo

  24

  The next day Victoria doesn’t appear. Hugo eats leftover sandwiches and listens constantly. Not a sound is heard from Mariana’s room. From the neighboring rooms the usual voices are heard: “Where is the pail?” or “Did you mop the room yet?” Several times Victoria’s voice is heard. It’s hard to know, with her voice, whether she’s conversing or arguing. In any event, there are no quarrels. Between one bit of talk and another, waves of laughter arise, flood the corridor, fall, and shatter.

  Where am I? Hugo suddenly asks himself, as he sometimes does in his dreams. He already sensed the secret that surrounded this place during the first weeks after his arrival, but now, perhaps because of dour Victoria, it seems like a prison to him. Every time he asks Mariana about it, she evades the question and says, “Let that foulness be. It would be a shame to dirty your thoughts.”

  Hugo very much wants to take out the notebook and write about everything that’s happening to him, and about his thoughts. But fear and excitement prevent him from doing that. All morning long he sees Mariana’s face, and it is darkened by grief. She is muttering incomprehensible words, and from time to time she raises her head and calls out loud, “Forgive me, Jesus, for my many sins.”

  Toward evening men’s voices can already be heard. First they sound familiar, but in a short time he catches a military tone of voice.

  “Are there Jews here?” The question comes soon.

  “There are no Jews. We work in the army’s service,” a woman answers in German.

  “In what service?” the military voice keeps asking.

  The woman says something Hugo doesn’t understand, and everybody bursts out laughing.

  The atmosphere changes all at once. The men are served soft drinks, because one of them, apparently the commander, says, “We’re on duty. Alcoholic beverages are forbidden while on duty.” They praise the coffee and the sandwiches, and to the woman’s invitation to stay and enjoy themselves, the military voice answers, “We’re on duty.”

  “A little entertainment never hurt anyone,” the woman’s voice cajoles.

  “Duty first,” answers the military voice.

  And then they leave.

  Silence returns to the place, but the dread doesn’t release Hugo’s body. It’s clear to him that this time, too, his mother protected him, the way she guarded him during the first days of the ghetto and afterward, when danger lurked in every corner, and especially at the end, in the cellar. He always believed in his mother’s hidden power, but this time it is fully revealed.

  When it first gets dark, Victoria brings Hugo a bowl of soup and some meatballs.

  “You were saved this time, too,” she says.

  My mother saved me, he’s about to say, but he doesn’t. “Thank you,” he says instead.

  “Don’t thank me, thank God.” She rushes to teach him a lesson.

  “I’ll give thanks,” he quickly replies.

  Without another word, Victoria goes out and locks the closet door.

  That night it’s merry again. The accordion bellows and people dance and shout in the hall. The wild laughter rolls loudly and shakes the closet walls. Hugo is so tired that he falls asleep and dreams that Mariana has abandoned him and Victoria doesn’t hesitate to turn him in. He tries to cover himself in the sheepskins, but they don’t cover him.

  Toward morning the accordion falls silent. The people scatter, and no one enters Mariana’s room.

  At nine o’clock the closet door opens and Mariana stands in the doorway. It’s Mariana, but it is also not her. She’s wearing a black dress, a peasant kerchief is on her head, and her face is pale and sunken. For a moment it seems she’s about to kneel, put her hands together, and pray. That’s a mistaken impression. She stands there, and it’s clear that she doesn’t have the power to utter a word.

  “How are you?” Hugo gets to his feet and approaches her.

  “It was difficult for me,” she says, and bows her head.

  “Come, let’s sit down. I have sandwiches,” he says, and takes her hand.

  A glum smile spreads across Mariana’s face, and she says, “Thanks, darling, I’m not hungry.”

  “I can tidy up your room, mop the floor, whatever you tell me to do. I’m so glad you came back.”

  “Thanks, darling, you mustn’t work. You have to be in hiding until the troubles pass. My poor mother was very sick and died in great pain. Now she’s in the good world, and I’m here. She suffered a lot.”

  “God will watch over her,” Hugo quickly says.

  Hearing that, Mariana goes down on her knees, hugs Hugo to her heart, and says, “Mama left me alone in the world.”

  “We’re not alone in the world.” Hugo remembers what his mother wrote to him.

  “I have had some very hard days. My poor mother died in agony. I didn’t manage to buy the medicine for her. I’m guilty. I know.”

  “You’re not guilty. The circumstances are guilty.” Hugo remembers that phrase, which they used a lot at home.

  “Who told you that, darling?”

  “Uncle Sigmund.”

  “A marvelous man, an extraordinary man. I’m nothing compared to him,” she says, and she smiles.

  25

  After Mariana’s return Hugo’s life changed beyond recognition. Mariana still forgot him sometimes, returned from town drunk and abusive, but in her moments of sobriety she fell to her knees, hugged and kissed him, and promised him that nothing bad would befall him. She would watch over him no less than his mother. Closeness to her was so pleasant for Hugo that he forgot his loneliness and the fears that surrounded him.

  The baths were especially pleasant. Mariana soaped him down, washed and rinsed him, and she no longer said, “Don’t be embarrassed,” but whispered, “A proper young man, in a year or two the girls will gobble you up.” When she was depressed, her tone changed, and she turned things around: “If only they washed me like you. Believe me, I deserve it. They crush me every night like a mattress. Not even one word of love.”

  “But I love you.”
The words slipped out of Hugo’s mouth.

  “True, you’re good, you’re loyal,” she said, and hugged him.

  After her mother’s death, fear of God came over Mariana. She kept repeating that they would roast her in hell because she hadn’t watched over her mother, hadn’t called the doctor in time, hadn’t bought her medicine, hadn’t sat by her bedside. And not only that: instead of working in the fields or in a factory, she was working here. For that God would never forgive her.

  Once Hugo heard her say, “I hate myself. I’m filthy.” He wanted to approach her and say, You’re not filthy. A good smell of perfume comes from your neck and your blouse. But he didn’t dare. When Mariana was sunk in depression, she was unpredictable. She didn’t talk but, rather, spat out harsh words like pebbles. Hugo knew that at times like that, he mustn’t talk to her. Even a soft word drove her out of her mind.

  Hugo takes out his notebook and writes:

  I’m trying to keep up continuity in my diary, but I’m not managing. The place is feverish. Since Mariana returned, her moods rise and fall, and sometimes several times a day. I’m not afraid. I feel that behind her suffering hides a good and loving woman.

  Mama, sometimes it seems to me that what once was will never be again, and that when we meet after the war, we’ll be different. How that difference will be expressed I have no notion. Sometimes it seems to me that we’ll speak in a different language. Things that we didn’t used to talk about or ignored will concern us. Each of us will tell what happened to him. We’ll sit together and listen to music, but it will be a different kind of listening.

  Before I yearned for this meeting, and now, God forgive me, as Mariana says, I’m afraid of it. The thought that at the end of the war I won’t recognize you and you won’t recognize me is a very hard thought for me to bear. I’m trying not to think it, but the thought won’t let me be.

  There’s no doubt I’ve changed a lot in these months, and I’m not what I was. For a fact: it’s hard for me to write and hard for me to read. You remember how much I loved to read. Now I’m entirely immersed in listening. Mariana’s room, my eternal riddle, is a house of pleasure for me, and at the same time I feel that evil will come from there. The tension that pervades me most of the day has apparently changed me, and who knows what else will be.

  By the way, Mariana always complains that everybody exploits her all the time, wrings her out, and crushes her. I often want to ask her, Who’s oppressing you? But I don’t dare. I mainly observe your instruction not to ask but to listen, but what can I do? Listening doesn’t always make you wiser.

  The nights are cold. Hugo wears two pairs of pajamas, wraps himself in one of Mariana’s cloaks, and covers himself with sheepskins. Even that heavy covering doesn’t keep him warm. Sometimes in the middle of the night Mariana opens the closet door and calls him to come to her.

  For a long time Hugo’s body hurts him from the piercing cold, but gradually sensation returns to his arms and legs, and he feels her soft body. That pleasantness is unlike any other, but, sadly, it doesn’t last for long. Suddenly, with no warning, a feeling of guilt breaks out within him and spreads over him like a searing flame. Mama is suffering on the cold roads, and you are embraced in Mariana’s arms. Mariana isn’t your mother. She’s a servant, she’s like Sofia. But amazingly, that sharp twinge of the heart is quickly swallowed up in feelings of pleasure, and there is no trace of its having entered him. Sometimes Mariana whispers in her sleep, “Why don’t you kiss me? Your kisses are very sweet.” Hugo does her bidding gladly, but when she says, “Bite, too,” he hesitates, afraid to hurt her.

  26

  Thus February passed. In early March the snow melted, and Hugo stood at the cracks in the closet wall and listened to the burble of the rushing water. The sound was familiar to him, but where exactly he had first seen a spring with rushing water he couldn’t remember. His earlier life was gradually slipping away from him, and he no longer saw it with the same clarity. Sometimes he sat on the floor and cried about his former life, which would never return.

  Mariana doesn’t conceal from Hugo that the searches for Jews haven’t stopped. Now they’re not made from house to house but based on reports from informers. The informers swarm everywhere, and for trivial sums they turn over Jews and the households that concealed them.

  A few days earlier Mariana showed Hugo an opening near the toilet, so that in an emergency he could squirm out through it and hide in the woodshed adjacent to the closet. “Mariana is always on watch. Don’t worry,” she said, and winked at him.

  “And won’t Victoria inform on me?”

  “She won’t do that. She’s a religious woman.”

  But meanwhile the nights have changed and aren’t the way they were. Mariana receives two or three men one after the other. From eavesdropping he knows that the reception is harsh and tense, without any laughter. During the day she stays in bed until very late, and when she appears at the closet doorway, her face is rumpled and bitterness is spread across her lips. Hugo goes over to her, kisses her hand, and asks, “What’s the matter?”

  When Mariana says, “Don’t ask,” Hugo knows that the night was cursed. She tries to be pleasant to the guests, but they aren’t considerate of her. They make all kinds of comments to her and ask her to do things that disgust her. In the end they complain about her to the management.

  Apparently that’s how it always was, but now the demands have increased, and there are many complaints about her. Almost every day a woman comes into her room and scolds her. “Things can’t go on this way for much longer. You have to accept the guests’ demands. Don’t quarrel with them and don’t contradict them. Do exactly what they ask of you. You have to be more flexible.”

  Mariana promises but doesn’t keep her promise. She’s devoted to Hugo, though, bringing him sandwiches decorated with vegetables, and if she has no guests, she invites him into her bed. Those hours are his most beautiful ones.

  Sometimes Hugo manages to get her to talk, and she tells him about her life and about what she calls “work.” Her work, so she says, is the most contemptible in the world, and one day she plans to begin her life again. If she could stop drinking brandy, she could return to ordinary work.

  One evening she says to him, “Pamper me now.”

  “How?”

  “Wash me the way I wash you. Mariana needs some pampering.”

  “Gladly,” he says, not knowing what it involves.

  Before long, she has filled the bathtub with hot water and taken off her clothes. She says, “Now I’m in your hands. Pamper me.”

  He begins to wash her neck and back. Suddenly she raises her upper body and says, “Wash everything, my breasts too.” He washes her, and it’s like a dream: a mixture of pleasure and fear.

  Now he sees how big and full she is, and how long her legs are. After he dries her, she puts on a nightgown and says, “Don’t tell anyone. This is a secret between you and me.”

  “I’ll keep it, I swear.”

  “I’ll teach you some other things that will be pleasant for you.”

  All night he sleeps embraced in Mariana’s arms. It is quiet and pleasant, but his dreams are nightmares. Soldiers burst into the closet, and he tries to slip out through the opening that Mariana had shown him, but the opening is narrow and he doesn’t manage to crawl through. The soldiers stand there and laugh, and their laughter is roiled with contempt. In the end a soldier walks up to him and steps on him with his boot. He feels the heel digging into him and wants to scream, but his mouth is blocked.

  The next morning Mariana goes into town and forgets to bring Hugo a cup of milk. Thirst and hunger torment him, but he is so replete with pleasure from the night before that the hours pass with pleasant visions. Now he remembers clearly the tall chestnut trees along the streets, their thick leaves and their flowering branches, the fruit that would fall from them at the end of the summer, their green skin cracking on the damp pavement. To touch the shiny brown chestnuts always made him happ
y. Once he talked about it with his mother. She, too, thought that all fruit, even fruit that we don’t eat, had something marvelous about it. It was no wonder that people who observed the traditions blessed fruit before eating it.

  While Hugo is consoling himself with memories of having slept with Mariana the previous night, the closet door opens and Victoria stands in the doorway. He has already removed her existence from his mind, and there she is, short, round, her face flushed, her short fingers looking as if they have been soaking in red water.

  “What are you doing?” she asks, as though he has been caught doing a misdeed.

  “Nothing,” Hugo answers, trying to evade her gaze.

  “Do you pray?”

  “Yes.”

  “You don’t look like it.”

  “I kiss the charm,” he says, and touches the cross on his neck.

  “It’s not a charm, it’s a holy crucifix.”

  “Thank you for the correction.”

  “Don’t thank me. Do what you’re supposed to.”

  Without another word, Victoria locks the closet, and it’s clear to Hugo that at the first opportunity she will turn him in.

  27

  Mariana tried to stop drinking brandy, but without success. On a day without brandy, she confessed, her head felt as if it had been split and her body felt as if it had been raked over. Without brandy, the world was hell. Better to die.