Blooms of Darkness

by Aharon Appelfeld

  “What are you thinking about, Hugo?” Kitty asks in a whisper.

  “I’m not thinking. I’m seeing what I haven’t seen in a long time.”

  “You’re very well educated,” she says with a kind of authority. “Now I understand why everybody talks about ‘smart Jews,’ ” she adds.

  “They’re wrong,” Hugo responds curtly.

  “I don’t understand.”

  “They’re not smart. They’re too sensitive. My mother, if I may use her as an example, was a pharmacist with two diplomas, but all her life she gave to poor and suffering people. God knows where she is now and who she’s taking care of. She was always running, and because of that, she always came home exhausted and sank, pale, into the armchair.”

  “You’re right,” Kitty says, as though she understands his words.

  “It’s not a question of being right, my dear, but of understanding the situation as it is.” The moment that sentence leaves his mouth, Hugo remembers that it’s what Anna used to say. It was hard for him to compete with her ability to express herself. Only Franz, the constant competitor, could equal her, and everyone else appeared to stammer, to pile up words, adding and taking away as needed and not as needed. Only Anna knew how to phrase an idea clearly.

  “Thanks for the conversation. I have to go,” says Kitty in her childish voice.

  “Thank you.”

  “Why are you thanking me?”

  “Because of my conversation with you, my parents, my house, and my school friends appeared before me. The months in the closet had deprived me of them.”

  “I’m pleased,” says Kitty, and she steps back.

  “It’s a present I hadn’t expected,” Hugo says. The words choke in his mouth.

  Hugo thinks of writing in the notebook and clarifying some of the feelings that arose within him after the conversation with Kitty. But he immediately senses that the words available to him won’t do that.

  Every time he writes—and he doesn’t write often—Hugo feels that the days in the closet have dissolved his active vocabulary, not to mention the words he had adopted from books. After the war, he’ll show the notebook to Anna. She’ll read it, lower her eyes for a moment—a lowering of self-assurance—and say, “It needs, it seems to me, further thought, also reduction and polishing.” She would always relate to a page of writing as if it were a mathematical exercise, removing all the superfluous steps. In the end she would say, “It’s still not enough, there are still unnecessary words here, it still doesn’t ring true.” Sometimes Hugo would look at her work and feel inferior.

  When he read a weak or careless composition, Hugo’s German teacher used to say, “Is this all your thinking came up with? You’ve succeeded: not a single sensible word. A composition like this should never have been created. In the future, don’t even hand in such a composition. You’d be better off writing on the top of the page or on the bottom, I have not yet attained the level of a thinking creature.”

  45

  The winter continues, and covers the fields and the houses with a thick veil of snow. Again the frost returns, but not to worry, Hugo is sleeping with Mariana. Every night he’s wrapped in warmth and softness. They sleep like everyone else, until late. Sometimes, in her sleep, she draws him to her. He already knows what to do.

  “I have food for another four days,” Victoria keeps reminding the women. “After that, you can chew on the walls.” Now every minute is precious, and everyone knows it. They drink, play cards, reminisce, and confess. Hugo sees a woman kneeling before a crucifix, crossing herself and praying. For meals, Mariana takes Hugo out of the closet, and he sits with everyone. They are a merry bunch, full of life, and they have received an unexpected vacation in the middle of winter. They enjoy one another’s company and do whatever they please.

  “Now Hugo will speak.” One of the women halts the flood of happiness.

  “What do you want from him? He’s still a kid.”

  “He’s been with us for a year and a half. It would be interesting to hear what’s running around in his head.”

  Mariana intervenes. “You can’t think about anything else,” she says. “Always the same thing.”

  “Twelve-year-olds already know what sin is.”

  Hugo listens and enjoys the humor, the sassiness, and the insights. He has noticed that there isn’t much difference between their thoughts and their words. Women speak about everything that gives them pleasure or pain, though not in the same tone of voice.

  Victoria’s repeated threat, that the supplies are steadily dwindling, no longer frightens them. “It’s a good thing you’re not threatening us with hell,” one of the women says.

  “I am threatening, but what good will my threats do for stopped ears?”

  “Don’t worry. One day we’ll repent.”

  “I guess I won’t live to see that.”

  “Mom, you mustn’t lose hope.”

  “Look who’s talking,” replies Victoria, making a strange motion with her head.

  The word “God” isn’t uncommon here. The women often fight over it, and Hugo senses that if a priest or monk were to enter the room, the women would kneel silently in their places and ask forgiveness. “God is everywhere,” he heard one of them explaining at length. “There is no place where He is not present. He is even to be found here, in this garbage dump. We have cut ourselves off from Him, not He from us.”

  “You’re wrong. I think about Him all the time,” another answered.

  “If you thought about Him all the time, you wouldn’t be here.”

  “I’m here because I have no alternative.”

  “That’s an excuse. You can use that excuse on us, but not in God’s ear. God knows exactly what’s the truth and what’s a lie.”

  Hearing those words, the women fall silent, but not for long. Suddenly one of them bursts into sobs. Hearing her weeping, other women gather around her and say, “Don’t listen to that one. You know her. She looks for faults in everyone except herself.”

  Suddenly Madam appears. Since the guard left his post, she has been careful about what she says and doesn’t threaten anyone. She is a handsome woman and could have been the mother of any of the girls here. She speaks in Ukrainian and peppers her words with German. Her appearance stuns Hugo. “How are my girls?” she addresses the seated women.

  “We’re unemployed, and our future is in doubt. Maybe you could advise us on what to do? You’re our mother,” says one rather young woman, who has drunk a great deal but isn’t drunk.

  “Advise? Me? You know life better than I do.”

  “We haven’t had time to think. Three men every night make you dumb.”

  “Don’t exaggerate. There were a lot of nights when you slept alone and even got served breakfast in bed.”

  “I can’t remember them.”

  “I’ve got a list of your free nights.”

  “Interesting. My body doesn’t remember them.”

  Madam has firm opinions. “A profession is a profession,” she says. “If you chose it, don’t look at it as a punishment, bad luck, or the devil knows what. Every profession has its disadvantages and its little pleasures.” As for the men, she says, “Some are wild beasts who have to be put in their place, but most of them treat women gently.”

  “When’s the last time you slept with a man?” one of the women asks impudently.

  “I knew men before you were born.” Madam gives as good as she gets.

  “Maybe once they were gentle, but not today.”

  “People don’t change. What was will always be.”

  Madam doesn’t keep it a secret from them that a soft girl or one who’s too picky are not for her. “Even in our profession,” she says, “you can maintain manners and respect. But for that you need backbone.”

  Hugo goes back to the closet. I’ve got to write down everything that’s happening to me, he says to himself, so that I’ll always remember what I saw and heard. Mama will read and flinch, and she’ll say, Good God,
but Papa will take it in good spirit. Strange and puzzling things always amused him. He’ll say, Our Hugo, we must assume, is no longer the Hugo we knew. He’s matured before his time. Is that a reason to hit him?

  46

  The threat hangs over everything and is palpable at every meal. Supplies remain for only two more days; after that, everyone will be on her own. The house will be closed. It’s actually better for it to be closed. The Russians are merciless. Whoever collaborated with the Germans will be hanged in the city square. That threat, which Victoria repeats with a trembling voice, makes no impression on the women, who are immersed in the freedom that has been given to them. “God in heaven,” they say, “who took care of us until now, will keep on taking care of us.”

  “That was His care?”

  “You mustn’t be ungrateful. We didn’t go hungry, and we didn’t tremble with cold.”

  “True, we were just trampled.”

  Every word and every sentence receives a response. There are differences of opinion, but there are no bitter quarrels. Hugo sits and observes them: each face has its own expression. The women don’t look gloomy or depressed. They are taking advantage of the respite that was granted to them. It’s common for them to speak in the third person, and in that way they distance themselves a little from their lives.

  “I hate myself,” he often hears.

  “Go to a convent, and there you’ll be freed of yourself.”

  “That isn’t as bad an idea as I used to think.”

  “It’s hard for me to imagine you as an ascetic.”

  When Hugo is alone in the closet their faces come back to him, and he sees them one by one. Sometimes it seems to him that he has known the women for years, and only now have they removed the veil from their faces.

  Suddenly Hugo is sorry that his mother doesn’t understand him, and that he has to conceal these powerful experiences from her. In contrast to her, Uncle Sigmund, drunk and merry, repeats to the family, “Don’t worry about Hugo. He’s getting an excellent lesson. You’re tested on algebra and trigonometry, and you forget it. It’s a good thing he saw life in its nakedness while he was still young. Denials and words that reveal less than they conceal never helped anyone. The time has come to stop deceiving ourselves and our fellows.”

  The next day Hugo enters the hall, and what does he see? The women are down on their knees, and facing them, on a chair, is an icon of Jesus. Victoria is standing next to the kneeling women. She is reading, and they are repeating after her, “Good Jesus, forgive us all our sins. Because of our many sins and our pollution, we didn’t see You. You are merciful and full of loving-kindness. Don’t forget your girls and don’t leave them to drown in a slough of sin. Save them with Your grace.”

  After a pause, Victoria calls out, “Get up, girls, and stand on your feet. From now on you are joined to our Lord Jesus. Turn away from evil and do good, and don’t forget even for a moment that we are dust and ashes. Only by virtue of the soul, which is part of God above, do we exist. From now on, no more dealings of the flesh, but only the kingdom of heaven.”

  Victoria’s face is pale, but fire flares in her eyes. It’s obvious that the words are not hers, and that someone else is speaking from within her. The women understand that there’s no need to comment or disagree, but just to accept the simple meaning of what she said.

  Mariana, who didn’t take part in the ceremony, is stunned. What happened in the hall wasn’t like prayer. It was a mighty movement of the soul. Every night they would drink and sing folk songs and church songs. Victoria would admonish them that heavy drinking is a sin, and that they must overcome this temptation, but her efforts are in vain.

  Meanwhile, one of the women attacks Kitty. Kitty is stunned, and the woman beats her even harder, screaming, “You aren’t allowed to be here. You don’t belong here. You’re like a thorn in our flesh.” Kitty doesn’t open her mouth, not even when the blood flows down her face.

  Some time passes before the women grasp the horror of what has happened, and when they do, the poor girl is lying on the floor unconscious. For a long time they try to revive her. At last Kitty opens her eyes and asks, “What happened?” The terrified women, who are kneeling over her, answer together. “Nothing happened, thank God, nothing.” Everybody sighs in relief.

  47

  The guard’s son sneaks in, and he has news. “The German army is withdrawing in disarray, and the Russian army is closing in on its rear.” When he used to come to The Residence, his father would send him to one of the rooms. All the women were afraid of him, and they would scream when they saw him. He was as violent as he looked. Once his father sent him into Mariana’s room, and Mariana hollered in fear, “Jesus, save me.” He tried to overcome her, but she was hysterical and struggled wildly. In the end, he spat at her and said, “You don’t even know how to be a whore.”

  Since they last saw him, he has grown thinner. His violence hasn’t disappeared, but it isn’t like before.

  “You have to run away, and as quickly as possible,” he says.

  “Where will we go?” one of them asks.

  “Anywhere, just not here.”

  His father and he collaborated with the Germans, turning in Jews and Communists. Now he feels the noose closing around him, and he has come to seek witnesses to testify in his favor.

  “We’re not qualified to be witnesses,” one of them says. “Why not?” he asks.

  “Whoever works in our profession isn’t believed. They say that she’s lying or making things up.”

  “You won’t testify on my behalf?”

  “I’ll testify, but the investigators will disqualify my testimony.”

  He apparently understands his situation, and when night falls, he clears out.

  A woman’s voice is heard. “All these years he’s been turning in Communists and Jews. Now his time has come.”

  A snowstorm rages outside, covering the houses and the fences. Every time an obstacle stands in Mariana’s way, she grabs her bottle and won’t let it go. This night she outdoes herself. “Now let God be worried, not me. I can’t stop the whirl of the storm.”

  Hugo isn’t worried. The nights with Mariana are warm and pleasurable, and it seems to him that all this will continue without end. In the middle of the night, she catches fire, hugging and kissing Hugo and saying, “Now you’re mine. Now no one will take you away from me.” Hugo is astonished by the power of her softness, until her body and his are one.

  More than once in his life, Hugo will try to reimagine that drunken night. He will call up the thick darkness that was infused with perfume and brandy, and the pleasure that was mixed with a fear of the abyss. But not a word passed between them, as if words had become extinct.

  Victoria serves the last meal with restrained formality, and it’s evident that parting is hard for her. Eventually she recovers and says, “Girls, you mustn’t be afraid. Fear is a despicable trait, and we have to overcome it. God is in heaven, and He will preserve you.”

  Where will we go? their eyes ask again and again.

  “There’s nowhere to go,” Victoria says. “A storm is raging, and we can only be by ourselves and pray. Prayer is our secret weapon.”

  “What will we eat, Mother?”

  “I have some more corn flour, and tomorrow I’ll give everybody a slice of corn bread.” Victoria’s voice is now full and not hesitant. The girls are attentive to what she says and not afraid of her. She can’t feed them as she has done all these years, but she has abundant faith.

  Mariana still has a quarter of a bottle of brandy. She is frugal, sipping a few drops at a time and saying, “What will I do when the brandy runs out? I’ll lose my mind. Hugo, honey, guard the bottle. If I ask for it, tell me that I have to save the rest for an emergency. I won’t get angry at you.”

  But the nights are uninterrupted pleasure. Hugo drinks the last of the brandy from her mouth, wrapped in her legs, hearing only whispers of love. “You’re a wonderful puppy. All those months I longed for y
ou. Now you’re mine forever.” Hugo hears and does what she wants. Sometimes sudden fear makes him tremble, but he overcomes it. Mariana loves me, he says to himself, and there’s nothing to fear.

  Everybody sleeps late, and in the afternoon Victoria brings out the icon, puts it on the chair, and the girls fall to their knees and pray.

  “Prayer foils plots and changes fates,” Victoria instructs them.

  “What would we do without you, Mother?”

  “It’s not me. God sent me to you. God takes care of His creatures. There is no coincidence in the world.”

  What would we do without you? their eyes ask.

  “I gave you what God told me to give you. Now the image of Jesus is engraved on your hearts, and you know in your bodies, too, that there is a God in heaven. You mustn’t fear, and you mustn’t despair.”

  “And what will happen with our sins?”

  “If anyone confesses and promises not to sin again, his sins are erased.”

  Meanwhile, Madam has fled for her life. The women break into her apartment, and wealth and luxury abound in every corner. For a moment they are astounded. Then they begin to loot. They don’t find jewelry or money, but there is a cupboard full of beverages and chocolates. “If there’s no bread, we’ll drink liqueur and eat chocolate,” one of them says, and everybody cheers her. There’s joy, as after a successful robbery. Mariana satisfies herself with five bottles of brandy, two bottles of liqueur, a lot of chocolate, and a big package of cigarettes.

  At night spirits are high, and everybody goes back to loot some more. They find hidden corners, and in them are not jewels or gold coins, but a package of silk stockings and perfumes.

  “Do not rejoice at the fall of your enemy,” Victoria warns them. “You mustn’t exult too much.”

  “Madam oppressed us night after night.”

  “God doesn’t like gloating.”

  Over the past weeks, Victoria has changed completely. Her face has become narrow and taken on a deathly pallor. She no longer speaks like an ordinary person. Biblical verses tumble from her mouth, both clear and sharp verses and obscure ones. When something upsets her, fire lights up her eyes, and they blaze in fury.