“Halina is very sick.”
He apparently does not understand me, for he says, “First you have to learn the letters.”
“I want to learn.”
“Tell your mother to send you to the cheyder.”
I feel that he still doesn't understand me, and I am about to leave.
“Who are you?” He again turns to me.
I tell him my name.
My name seems to tell him nothing, for he asks no more and turns away from me.
I understand that this might not be the right person to speak to, and I leave.
The desire to pray grows stronger in me, and I walk on till I find myself at the chapel. The tiny chapel can hold no more than one person at a time. When there isn't a line, the person coming to pray can take his time, but if there is a line, he hurries his prayers and then blesses the person coming after him. It's mostly women who come here, but I've also seen men. Once I saw a tall, strong man kneeling and shaking the small wooden structure.
And so the days pass. Sometimes I sense that Halina's sleep is dragging her into a deep gorge and that someone must hasten to pull her out. I shared this feeling with the man at the information counter. He smiled and said, “It's absolutely forbidden to wake her up.” Since he said that to me, my life has become smaller.
Now I hardly ask, and I just wander along the side streets. When this tires me, I curl up in bed and sleep for several hours.
“I can't find a woman to look after you,” Mother says in an empty voice on her return.
“There's no need,” I answer coldly.
“You aren't bored?” Again, that superficial voice.
“No.”
Once Mother would have told me stories or read to me or sat quietly by my side. Now it seems that it's not her sitting next to me but another woman. My real mother has slipped away and left me with this awful substitute, and every word that comes out of her mouth wounds me. Sometimes I want to shout out, “You're not my mother!” I contain the fury in my heart by telling myself, “It's better that I hold it in; in only a few days Halina will wake up from her sleep and I'll run away with her.”
It gets colder each day, and in the morning frost glitters on the grass. But this doesn't stop me from going to the hospital every day. Sometimes I think that the man at the information counter understands me and wants to help me, but the nurses, who wear yellow uniforms, refuse to cooperate.
Every evening, Mother's mindless chatter makes my blood boil. For some reason, she's sure that Halina won't return to us. Too many days have passed since she lost consciousness. She calls Halina's sleep “a loss of consciousness,” and to me that sounds as if she's refusing to believe that Halina will come back. “She'll come back soon,” I say, not hiding my confidence from her.
Mother says, “It's not good to harbor illusions”—words she has already used. They grated on my ears then, too.
Since she has been teaching at the school Mother uses words that she didn't use before. Like “to harbor,” and “treatment and development,” and other words that freeze my heart. Mother would correct Halina's German, but I loved the timbre of her voice and the way she pronounced the words. When she said, “Come, let's put on your coat,” I felt that the two of us would wrap ourselves in it and that no one else would see us, but that we would see everyone.
24
Day after day, fierce rain continues to fall, and it's hard to get to the hospital. The water rushes down the streets, drawing mud with it. At times the rain becomes hail and lashes my face. I have a raincoat and boots that cover my feet, but I rarely use an umbrella. The umbrella comes between me and the sky, between me and people in the street. It's better to get wet and be able to see than to walk like a blind person—that's what I learned from Father. Father has a large umbrella, but he seldom uses it.
After visiting the hospital, I wander for about three or four hours and return home soaked, but there is something special to this dampness. I sleep differently. In my dreams I run with Halina. Running with Halina is brisk and joyful, and, as she always does after we run in the rain, she strips off my wet clothes and puts me in dry ones.
I've noticed that in recent days Mother returns early and prepares a huge dinner. After that she sits and talks to me about school. She is not in a hurry, and she seems calmer and less distracted. What has happened? I'm suspicious and prick up my ears. Sometimes André comes and joins our meal.
One evening Mother raises her head, looks at me, and says, “I want to tell you something.”
“What?”
“André and I have decided to get married.”
“When?”
“Soon. Are you angry?”
“No.”
I had known that a heavy blow would come but had no idea from where. I get up, go over to the sideboard, take out my wooden balls from the drawer, and put them on the floor. Halina brought me these balls from the village, and we would play with them for hours. I haven't touched them for a while, but now it seems to me that they bear a secret, that they can be trusted. I start rolling them, just as Halina taught me.
Later Mother asks me, “Would you like to be at the wedding ceremony?”
“I don't know.”
“You don't have to.”
We don't talk more that night. I sit on the floor and roll the balls. The thought that Halina will soon be well and that I will run away with her to her village gives me secret joy, like a sweet dream. Mother grades her notebooks and I play. I know that this night, too, I will hear her footsteps as she slips away. She will walk on her tiptoes, open the door carefully, and muffle the creaking. These sharp and tense moments wound me: I feel intensely sorry for myself and want to cry. Once I had a mother. That was long ago, for now she belongs to André. She gets undressed and they kiss each other and roll on the bed. This knowledge drives me mad, and I want to shout “Murder!”—just as the neighbors shouted when they saw Halina weltering in her blood. I feel sorry for my father; he wastes all his money on drink. He doesn't even have the money to visit me. He must know that Mother is about to marry and so he drinks even more. “Father!” I call out. For an instant, the darkness trembles and shadows flee from the walls. I am sure that Father has heard my cry and that he will come and visit me soon. Whenever I really long for him, he comes.
25
Mother returned toward dawn. She took off her clothes, put on a nightdress, and lay down next to me. I turned my back to her so she couldn't look at me. I didn't like it when she looked at me or hugged me.
In the morning she hurried off to school and barely kissed me. I remembered the long summer vacation we spent together on the shores of the Prut, and my heart bled. Now, instead of that closeness there were just some blurred patches of memory and a feeling of uncleanliness.
Sometimes I felt that Mother wanted to crawl out of her skin and come back to me, but she was trapped inside the movements she had picked up from André. She called them her flexibility exercises. But it was hopeless—they really didn't suit her. She must have been exercising with him, or who knew what. I, at any rate, made my peace with the fact that she was no longer my mother. I was very upset that she pretended that nothing had happened and she said, “In the winter we'll travel to the Carpathians and we'll go skiing.” I hoped that in winter I'd be very far from her and her lies.
In the meantime, the rains ceased and low mist-like clouds crawled between the houses and the alleys; the wetness seeped into everything. I wanted to go into the café and sit amid the tobacco smoke, as I used to sit with Halina not so long ago. Halina had said something to me then that stayed in my mind: “Jews are hardworking and that's why they do well.”
“And will I also do well?” I hastened to ask.
“I don't doubt it for a moment,” she said, and chuckled.
She also laughed when she told me about injustice and pain.
Without being aware of it, I had reached the hospital. The forecourt was empty, but beneath the awning the homeless and the drunks
had gathered. They immediately spotted me and shouted, “Here's the Jewish dwarf !” I was surprised; I had never been called anything like this before, and I wanted to laugh, but I understood soon enough that it wasn't a joke. A stone was thrown, and it hit my thigh. I wanted to run away, but my legs told me to seek shelter in the building, and that's what I did.
“How is Halina?” I asked the man at the information counter and waited for his usual answer.
“She is no longer in pain.” He leveled his gaze at me.
“Is she better?”
“She's already in heaven,” he said, and removed his cap from his head.
I did not know what his look meant, and I stared at him.
“She's already in heaven,” he repeated in a soft voice.
I then understood, but I didn't want to understand. “She's still sleeping?” I asked.
“She's already with God, my child. She can no longer suffer. Do you understand me?”
“I understand.”
“The good Father will look after her.”
“Thank you,” I said in utter confusion.
“For something like this we don't give thanks,” he said, and looked away.
I went quickly down the staircase and crossed the forecourt. It started raining again, and I felt the wetness in the soles of my feet, but I wasn't cold. I walked in the direction of the orphanage, meaning to reach the post office. There's an awning at the post office where you can take shelter from the rain. What I'd just heard had already made its way into me, but I did not yet feel it. I was hungry and thought about a cheese sandwich. The post office was full of people, so I immediately headed toward the kiosk where Halina used to buy me sandwiches filled with yellow cheese. The kiosk owner asked me my name, and I told him.
“You're Jewish?” He chuckled.
“True.”
“Do you speak Yiddish?”
“No.”
“Too bad.”
There were bearded Jews like him in the synagogue next to our house. He gave me the sandwich and said, “May God bless you.”
I didn't know what to say, so I said, “Thank you.”
The man looked at me and for a moment it seemed that he was about to say, “For something like this we don't give thanks.” The sandwich didn't taste good, but I wolfed it down anyway. It was still raining, and I decided to return home. I was sure that if I went home, I would see that a miracle had occurred.
As I entered the house, I saw no change at all. Mother's clothes were scattered on the bed and on the chest of drawers. Even my few clothes were strewn on the sideboard. I recalled Mother's hasty departure and anger welled up inside me. I took off the wet clothes and felt better. I went into the kitchen and then went back to the bedroom. For a moment it seemed to me that were I to stand still and eavesdrop, I might hear a voice. And then I really did hear Halina's voice laughing and saying, “The Jews are hardworking and because of this, they do well. Ruthenians are lazy and they waste all their money on drink. They don't know how to live. If they knew how to live, they would leave the country.”
There was no doubt it was Halina's laugh. I went over to the window to see if she was in the garden or in the pantry. It was open, and the garden was wet from the rain. There was no one there. A few birds were perched silently on the fence. In the background I saw the clouds and the drunks under the awning shouting at me, “Jewish dwarf!”
26
I must have slept for some time. When I awoke, Mother was already poring over her notebooks. “You haven't eaten anything,” she said to me. “Should I prepare something for you?”
“I'm not hungry,” I said without lifting my head from the pillow. I heard her leave the house, and I heard her return toward morning.
I woke up early and got dressed. Only now did my thigh hurt from the stone that had hit me, and for a moment I was about to tell Mother, but I bit my tongue. We ate a hasty breakfast. On her way to the door, Mother muttered a few words and I heard her say the name Halina. I wanted to ask what happened, but she slipped away and was gone.
I was afraid to stay at home, so I went out. At first I thought of going to the hospital, but I changed my mind and went to the chapel where I had often been with Halina. Once, one of the women there had told us, “You can't stand here watching. You can't watch people when they're praying.”
Halina had answered whatever she answered, but we continued to come, perhaps because I dragged Halina there.
This time there was no one inside. The chapel door was wide open, and the icon gazed out from it. I hesitated but finally went in and knelt down. The tortured man in the icon stared at me, and I closed my eyes. I felt dizzy, and I covered my face with my hands.
I went back downtown and saw Halina floating in the sky, as if in a vision. She was wearing an embroidered blouse, a linen skirt, and sandals. She was very real and yet still distant. Once, in one of the icons, I saw someone floating like this. I asked Father what the floating meant, and he answered briefly, “After his death, Jesus went up to heaven.”
I continued walking in the direction of the ice-cream shop. I no longer saw Halina. I bought one ice-cream cone and then immediately bought another one. My pockets were full of money, and I spent it carelessly.
In the evening Mother told me that Halina had passed away and that there would be a funeral in her village in three days' time. “Has passed away” means going to heaven, I told myself. I did not ask for details, so as not to let her know that I was waiting for Halina to come back to me. Later, Mother asked how I was and how I had spent the time. The question and the way she asked it made me furious. Since she'd started slipping off to be with André at night, she either talked to me in a pretentious tone or smothered me with embraces.
Before she started correcting her notebooks at the table, she asked if I would like to go to the funeral.
“I have to be there,” I said in a strong voice.
Mother appeared to be very taken aback by my reply, and she asked me why. My hands trembled, and I wanted to pick up a chair and smash it; I restrained myself and said in a clear voice, “I want to see Halina going to heaven.” Mother looked as though she was about to reply, but she didn't. I was very agitated and couldn't fall asleep. Mother began to correct the notebooks, but every few minutes she turned to me and asked, “Aren't you asleep yet?” I didn't bother answering. Every answer drew an annoying response; it was best not to talk. In the end I pretended to sleep.
At night after Mother had left, I could hold it in no longer and I shouted, “Halina, come quickly! I can't take these lies any longer!”
The days till the funeral crawled by. I ate many sandwiches and a lot of ice cream and even a bar of Suchard chocolate that I bought at the patisserie. I took the money from my back pocket and paid. It was a pity Halina wasn't with me—we could have celebrated together.
“How come you've got so much money?” asked the Jew at the patisserie.
“Mother gave it to me.”
“You shouldn't carry so much money in your pockets.”
“Why?”
“Money isn't a good thing.”
Now I realized: this Jew knew my sin, and it would be best to make myself scarce there. And that's what I did, but the fear stayed with me. Halina told me that thieves are locked up in narrow cells at the prison, and once a day they're beaten so that they won't forget what they've done.
27
We traveled to the funeral in the afternoon. Mother had rented a horse-drawn carriage, and it brought us to the village. Mother was wearing a long woolen dress and a peasant fur coat that she had bought at the market. She also dressed me in a winter coat. I was hot and it bothered me the entire way.
When we arrived at the church, a great crowd had already filled the entrance. Tall men wearing long shirts were standing against the walls. Inside, next to the coffin, were some old people, and behind them women were weeping. Halina had gone up to the sky and soon she would return to me. I told myself that if only they knew that, th
ey wouldn't be crying, but I also couldn't hold back my tears.
When they brought the coffin in through the doorway of the church, the flutes burst into a brisk tune. “Halina is ascending to heaven,” I called out in a whisper. Mother must have picked up what I whispered, and she reacted with an irritated gesture. Mother considers all faith meaningless, just superstition. She already said to me once, “There's no God in the sky, only clouds.” She also warned Halina not to tell me religious tales. When she heard this, Halina chuckled, as if she were being instructed to do something quite impossible.
As we walked slowly behind the coffin, the gates of light in the sky opened up and a great brightness poured down on us. The people bowed their heads so as not to see Halina rising to heaven. I wasn't afraid because I knew that she would return to me soon.
The skies closed and we didn't approach the grave. The priest spoke, and the village elder, too. They talked about Halina's youth and her love of life, and reviled the murderer. I was happy that I understood Halina's language.
After the funeral they declared that there would be a feast. Mother and I did not join the mourners but returned to the carriage awaiting us. There was no doubt now that Halina was making her way toward me, and out of sheer foolishness I told this to Mother. Mother looked at me and said, “There is no life after death. We have to get this fact into our heads.” There was tremendous impatience in her voice.
“Halina told me that Jesus rose after His crucifixion,” I insisted for some reason.
“It's a legend.”
“And a legend is always a lie?”
“On the whole.”
Mother does not believe in God; she had told me this on one of our outings during the summer vacation. How could you not believe in God, when He's there in every single place? Even the trees and the flowers thank Him every morning. On that vacation I was so happy to be by the water and to be so close to Mother that I didn't bother her with lots of questions. To tell the truth, I didn't care. But since meeting Halina, I know for sure that there's a God and that He's watching over us, that He loves those who are good and hates and punishes the wicked.
All Whom I Have Loved Page 7