48
Yesterday the blizzard seemed to be dying down, but it turns out to be just a pause. From hour to hour the winds grow stronger, and in the morning the yard and the fields are covered with snowdrifts. Not a living soul can be seen outside. In The Residence, everything is drunkenness, the gobbling of chocolate and cookies, singing, and declarations. “What we did for the Germans, we’ll do for the Russians now. It’s not for nothing that we call our profession the oldest one. Since ancient times, men have needed women. Everybody understands that in our line of work, one isn’t choosy about one’s clients. Whoever comes, comes. Today Germans, tomorrow Russians.”
“The Russians are jealous.”
“We’ll serve them just the way we served the Germans—even better, because the Ukrainians and the Russians are brother nations.” That is Masha’s voice. It has a housewife’s practicality. Because of her orderly way of speaking and because she is older, they call her “Our Masha.”
Hugo can identify most of them, but not by name. Each of them has a nickname, except for Kitty. Since she was beaten, Kitty’s face has turned yellowish blue, and her eyes have sunk into their sockets. She doesn’t complain, but her bruised presence keeps asking, What’s bad about me that annoys the strong women? True, I’m not big, and I’m not strong. Do they have to hit me because ofthat? Sylvia, the cleaning woman, takes pity on the weak and the stricken, and she makes applesauce for Kitty, saying, “This will strengthen you and make you healthy.”
Every moment brings a new surprise. In the evening one of the women says to Mariana, “What a darling boy you have. Why do you keep him only to yourself? We want to pet him a little, too.”
“You should be ashamed of yourself. He’s just a child,” Masha scolds her in a motherly voice.
“I didn’t mean anything by it, just to pet him. Come, boy, come to me.”
Hugo freezes in his place and says nothing.
Mariana responds with repressed anger. “Leave him alone.”
“You’re horribly selfish,” says the woman with venom.
“Selfish?” Mariana’s face grows tense.
“To keep him just to yourself. What is that, if not selfishness?”
“I ran a risk and protected him. Is that what you call selfishness?”
“Don’t play the innocent. We know each other too well.”
“You’re mistaken.”
“I’m not mistaken.”
Masha intervenes. “Why fight?” she says. “He belongs to us all.”
“I don’t agree,” says Mariana. “Hugo’s mother was my childhood friend. I promised her that I would protect him until my last breath.”
“Every woman needs a child. Every woman longs for her own child. Why keep us from a little stroke and a kiss? It’s very natural,” says Masha in her motherly voice.
“I know her well,” says Mariana, without looking at the woman who asked to caress him.
“There’s no need to fight. In a little while the blizzard will die down, and everybody will go her own way. Who knows when we’ll meet again. Why not part in friendship? Life is short. Who knows what’s in store for us?” says Masha, sounding like a woman worried about her family.
Masha was prophesying without knowing it. Suddenly the whirling of the blizzard stops, and everyone stands at the windows and looks out. They can’t believe their eyes. Silent snow covers the houses and the fields. There is neither man nor beast, just whiteness on top of whiteness, and a silence you can feel through the windows.
“This period has come to an end,” says one of the women, pleased with how the sentence has struck her mouth.
“What period are you talking about?” the question soon comes.
“My ten years in this place: the room, the hall, Madam, the guard, the guests, the vacations, all the good and the bad. In a little while the Russians will come, and everything will be destroyed. Now do you understand?”
“For me there’s no difference. How does that change things?”
“There is a difference. The Russians will come and flog us. The guard said it clearly, ‘Everyone who slept with the Germans will be sentenced to death.’ They’ll hang us in the city square, and the whole city will come and see our execution.”
“You’re exaggerating.”
“I’m not exaggerating. I’m saying just what they said and just what my heart says: the Russians are already preparing the scaffolds. They know no mercy.”
Victoria stands like a bastion. “You mustn’t fear,” she repeats. “Fear degrades us. God is our father. He loves us and He will have mercy on us. You mustn’t give in to imaginings and false wishes. From now on, every woman must say to herself: As I sinned, so I sinned. Now I deliver myself to the hands of God. May heaven guide me. I’m willing to do just what they tell me to do from on high. People are evil, only God is pure.”
Victoria speaks with religious devotion, but the women don’t listen to her. They stand at the windows, wondering and trembling. Even after darkness falls and it is night, they don’t move from the windows.
To her credit, Victoria doesn’t let them wallow in their fears. “It doesn’t matter what those in power do,” she keeps saying. “What matters is what God does. Fear of people is a sin. Overcome fear, stand straight, and walk toward God. Our Lord Jesus did not fear when they nailed Him to the cross, because He and God were one. Whoever clings to His virtues wins the kingdom of heaven. Remember what I’m telling you.”
They all look at her in astonishment. No one comments, and no one asks a question.
Suddenly one of the drunken women puts out her hand and says to Hugo, “Darling, come to me. I want to hug you.”
“Leave him alone,” Mariana says dismissively.
Immediately they all scatter, each to her own room.
49
Toward morning there was a great panic, and all the women fled. Mariana and Hugo slept through it all, and when they wake up, no one is left in the house except for Victoria and Sylvia, and they are dressed in their coats and about to set out.
“What’s the matter with you?” asks Victoria.
“I was asleep and didn’t hear a thing,” says Mariana.
“There’s no one in the house. The girls left most of their belongings. They didn’t want to drag anything along. Too bad.”
“Have the Russians come?” Mariana wonders. “They are spread out through the whole city.”
“Frightening.”
“There’s nothing to fear.” Victoria doesn’t forget her principles, even at this early hour.
“I’ll take a suitcase. I can’t live without brandy or cigarettes. Then I’ll leave, too,” says Mariana, as if it were a minor transition.
Mariana stuffs a few garments into the little suitcase, along with some shoes and the brandy and cigarettes. Hugo’s knapsack is ready. “I don’t need anything else. This is exactly what I need.” Mariana speaks in her ordinary tone of voice.
The Residence suddenly seems like a big body whose soul has been removed. Victoria hurries Sylvia along. “The house is full of ghosts,” she says. “Come, let’s get out of here quickly.”
The sky is high and blue, and the sun is bright and dazzling. While he was in the closet, Hugo imagined his liberation as a winged run that couldn’t be stopped. Now he staggers after Mariana with heavy steps. “Too bad we didn’t get up earlier,” says Mariana. She makes a sharp turn toward a grove of trees.
The grove is sparse, and the short, bare trees leave them even more exposed. Mariana doesn’t feel comfortable in the open air. She changes direction and finally sits down under a tree and says, “We have to find a protected place. Here everything is wide open.” Hugo knows that she will soon take a bottle out of the suitcase, have a swallow, and her mood will improve.
“Aren’t you cold?” she asks, shivering.
“No.”
Hugo loves the tilt of her head and the question that comes in its wake. Her body still radiates warmth and the smell of perfume. He takes her hand
and kisses it. Mariana smiles, takes a bottle out of the suitcase, drinks, and says, “The sky is beautiful, isn’t it?”
He sees her in daylight for the first time now and is astonished at her beauty.
“We have to find a house. We can’t live without a house. I won’t go to the convent. In the convent they slave away and pray all the time. I love God, but I don’t feel like praying all the time.” Hugo listens attentively to her mutterings. In them she always expresses her true heart’s desires, and they are usually fantasies that have no basis in reality. Now he can follow them, because she’s speaking slowly, sad and happy by turns, and in the end she sums it up for herself. “I’ve suffered enough, and now I’ll live in the country, just me and Hugo. You understand me, don’t you?” She turns to him.
“It seems to me that I do,” Hugo answers cautiously.
“Don’t hesitate, honey.”
Hugo doesn’t expect that response and laughs.
“You should know that hesitation is our undoing.”
They are outside the city, in the heart of the snow-covered fields. From here Hugo can see the white church, the water tower, and some buildings that he can’t identify. The months in the closet have distanced him from the city that he loved. Now, when he sees its edges, he remembers the long walks he took with his father along the river, in the alleys alongside the park, and in secret places that only his father knew.
Mariana guesses what he is thinking and says, “We’ll always be together.” She hugs him and covers his mouth with hers. He feels her tongue and the taste of brandy.
They could have sat there for a long while, enjoying the landscape and the closeness that warmed them both. But then an unidentifiable noise is heard in the distance—perhaps a tractor or a tank that is stuck and struggling to move. The sudden noise spoils their feeling of closeness.
“We’ve got to move on,” Mariana says, and rises to her feet. “We mustn’t be lazy.”
They advance without speaking. Suddenly Hugo sees the closet before his eyes—the straw mattress, the sheepskins, and the jumble of Mariana’s clothes. That was the home of his imaginings for a year and a half. For hours he would wait painfully for her to come, but when she did appear in the doorway, his despair would vanish like the morning fog.
“Strange.” The word slips out of his mouth.
“What’s strange, dear?”
“The bright light and the sky,” he says.
“It’s a sign that God is watching over us.”
When Mariana drinks from her bottle, she sometimes utters sentences that make no sense, or whose logic is faulty. But they always have a tone of exaltation and wonder. Sometimes she utters an expression or a simile that surprises Hugo with its brilliance. Once, after she had drunk half a bottle and was foggy, she said, “You should know, my dear, that God dwells within you, even in your belly button.”
While they are plodding along, a peasant suddenly appears before them. Mariana is frightened, but she quickly recovers and asks, “Have the Russians come yet?”
“They’re at the outskirts of the city.”
“And when will they get here?”
“Today, apparently,” says the peasant in a subdued tone of voice.
“There isn’t much time,” says Mariana, unwittingly betraying her fear.
The peasant fixes his gaze on her. “Aren’t you Mariana?” he asks.
“You’re mistaken,” she immediately responds.
“I was sure you were Mariana.”
“People sometimes make mistakes.”
“Is this your son?”
“My son? Can’t you see that he’s my son?”
“Mistakes keep happening,” he says, and turns away.
“There are ghosts everywhere,” she mutters as the peasant walks away. Hugo now realizes that the lives of all the women who lived in The Residence—who entertained Germans in their rooms, had sex with them, and partied with them all night—are in danger. In his imagination he nurtured the illusion that Mariana didn’t belong to them. She only pretended she belonged to them. She was secretly always his, and now she really is all his.
50
They find shelter in a hayloft, abandoned but roofed. Mariana spreads her kerchief on the ground and puts a small bottle of liqueur and some chocolate-covered cookies on it. Hugo tastes the liqueur, and it pleases him.
The sun now stands in the middle of the sky and is reflected on the blanket of snow, which gleams with great intensity. When they traveled to the Carpathians to ski, Hugo’s mother took care to wear sunglasses. He hears the sound of her voice, warning and fearful.
After finishing the strange meal, Mariana lights a cigarette and says, “It’s odd that everyone is glad the war is over, and only I’m afraid.”
“What are you afraid of?”
“Of the Russians. They’re fanatics. They will kill anyone who was in contact with the Germans. How strange—life isn’t so important to me, yet the fear still remains.”
“We’ll slip away from them,” says Hugo, trying to pull her out of her distress.
“I’m not complaining. I feel good now. A night spent sleeping alone or with you is worth everything to me. Since my youth, I’ve been forced to work like a slave, night after night.”
“I’ll watch over you,” says Hugo, looking into her eyes.
“You have to get sturdy and grow. Since you’ve been with me, you’ve grown, but not enough. I’ll make sure you have enough to eat. Spring is around the corner, and when it comes, we can walk along the river, catch fish, and grill them.”
Hugo wants to flatter her, but he can’t find the words, so he says, “Thank you very much.”
Mariana looks at him softly and says, “Friends don’t need to say thank you. Friends help each other. It goes without saying.”
“I was wrong,” Hugo says.
“We have lovely days ahead of us,” Mariana announces, and sips from the bottle.
Later, they keep their distance from the houses on the road. Mariana is in a good mood. She sings and jokes and imitates Madam speaking German. At last she says, “I’m not sorry I left The Residence. In a little while spring will come, the trees will be covered with leaves, and they will be our roof. Mariana loves nature. Nature is good to women. Nature doesn’t threaten, and it isn’t violent. A woman can sit on a riverbank and dip her feet in the water, and if the water is warm, she can swim. Do you agree?”
“Absolutely.”
“You love Mariana, and you make no demands or criticisms of her.”
“You’re beautiful.”
“That’s what Mariana loves to hear. My father, of blessed memory, used to say, ‘Beautiful women are a disaster. All troubles come because of them.’ ” She chuckles with the harsh voice of a crow.
The setting sun stands on the horizon. Frost is blowing in the wind, and Mariana rouses herself from her thoughts and says, “In a little while night will fall, and we have no roof over our heads. We’ve gotten too far from the houses, and now we’ll have to go back to them.” There is no panic in her voice. Hugo has noticed that when the bottle is within reach, her thoughts are clear and without gloomy clouds.
“The horizon is beautiful,” she continues in a nostalgic tone. “When I was a girl, I loved to look at it, but many years have passed. I forgot how beautiful it is. I was sure then that if I walked for an hour or two, I’d get to it. Why are you laughing?”
“I thought the same thing when I was a child.”
“I knew we had something in common,” she says, and they both laugh.
They advance with short steps, and without hurrying. “I would give all the money in the world for a cup of coffee and some cheesecake,” Mariana says. “I’m not hungry, but a cup of coffee and some cheesecake would strengthen the faith within me. What about you, sweetie? You haven’t eaten all day. Mariana is very selfish, and she’s always tied to her own belly button. Sometimes she forgets the people she loves. That’s a flaw in my character. I doubt I can correct a
flaw like that. But you forgive me. You always forgive me.”
Meanwhile, night has fallen, and it has gotten colder. Mariana gives Hugo her thick sweater and the kerchief. The coat that he brought with him from home is short on him now, and it won’t button. “Now you’ll be warm,” she says, and is pleased with his new look.
Suddenly, a cabin appears before them, a rather meagerlooking hut with no fence.
“Let’s ask. Maybe they’ll let us spend the night,” she says, and knocks on the door.
An old man opens it, and Mariana quickly tells him that they have fled from the front and are looking for a place to sleep—for payment, of course.
“Who are you?” asks the old man in a sharp voice.
“My name is Maria, and I’m a widow and a mother. This is my son, Janek.”
“What will you pay me with?”
“I’ll give you two packets of German cigarettes.”
“Come in. I was about to go to sleep. A person doesn’t know what the night will bring him.”
“We’re quiet, and we won’t disturb you. In the morning we’ll be on our way.”
“Have the Russians come already?” the old man inquires.
“They’ve broken through the front, and they’re rushing forward.”
“Only God knows what the day will bring.”
Mariana hands him the two packets, and the old man holds them in his trembling hands. “All winter long I haven’t smoked,” he says. “Without cigarettes, life is tasteless. I don’t have the money to buy them. In the past my sons used to bring me tobacco, and I would roll my own cigarettes. This last year they haven’t come. They forgot their father.”
“They didn’t forget. The war blocked the roads.” Mariana defends them.
Blooms of Darkness Page 16
