“Father,” I say.
“What?”
I hope that Father will now tell me something about Bucharest, but he says nothing. His face is tense. I know why: he hasn't had a drink since last evening.
There isn't a soul waiting for us at the station. Victor, who has promised to come, has not. We stand by the exit and wait. The station at Bucharest is not at all like the station at Czernowitz. It's much grander, humming with people, and there are many policemen watching over those coming and going. We stand there with our suitcases, at the threshold of a strange city, like poor people who don't have a roof over their heads. Father lights one cigarette after another, and despair burns in his bloodshot eyes. Suddenly I see a bald man waving his hat, treading heavily in the gray morning mist. He looks like a drunk who has just woken up from a stupor, but we are wrong, for he turns out to be none other than Victor. Father runs toward him and hugs him.
Victor is a small, rotund man. He speaks German with a heavy accent, and after every few sentences he says, “It'll be fine; there's nothing to worry about.” He invites us to a restaurant, and the breakfast is good. I particularly like the poppy seed rolls, which remind me of the vacation with Mother.
“Arthur,” says Victor, and slaps Father's shoulder. It is obvious that he is happy to see him, and he expresses his happiness with his hands, by rubbing them together. He uses small expressions of encouragement and mentions the names of critics who once praised Father's paintings. For years Victor has dreamed of bringing Father to Bucharest, but he did not have enough money. Some six months ago, he came into an inheritance; his aunt left him her house and jewelry. “And now I can realize my old dreams. Come, let's go home.”
“Is it far?” wonders Father.
“Five kilometers, possibly less.”
“What I urgently need is a drink.” Father speaks in a low voice.
“Right away,” says Victor, and orders the waiter to bring one.
We take the tram and are on our way. We pass gray fields that are covered with dirty splotches of snow, frozen puddles, and low houses with thin wisps of smoke rising from their chimneys. Here and there is an abandoned house or a small factory. The fear that no one would meet us at the railway station and that we would wander around lost in a big city was groundless.
In the meantime, Victor reveals some of his plans: an exhibition in Bucharest and an exhibition in Paris. People are looking forward to it; the outlook is bright. The words roll rapidly from his mouth, and it's obvious that his inheritance has turned his head. Father does not ask any questions, which appears to increase the flow of words from Victor, as if he is trying to remove any doubt.
After half an hour's journey we arrive at the house, an impressive two-story mansion surrounded by a forest. Vic-tor's aunt, his mother's sister, who left him the house, was a childless widow. She lived there all alone, devoted to the memory of her husband, whom she had loved with all her heart.
“And who was her husband?”
“A retired general. After finishing his service he converted to Judaism, learned Hebrew and Yiddish, and founded the Association for the War Against Anti-Semitism.”
“Did it have many members?”
“A one-man association!” Victor says, laughing.
The house is spacious and filled with light, the ceilings are high, and the floors are made of fine wood. Victor embraces Father. “The time has come for artists to create in ease and comfort. Poverty is humiliating.”
I recall our room in Czernowitz, and I know what he is talking about.
40
And so our life has suddenly changed. Father works in his studio every day, and I drift about the house. It's full of rooms. I go from one to another and end up sitting in the kitchen, solving math problems that I make up and doodling. Victor has brought me two pads, one for math and one for drawing, and I sit and fill them. When I'm tired I go outside. It's very cold, and the trees are covered with snow. Unlike our room in Czernowitz, which was next to the Prut, here everything's quiet, and were it not for the crows hopping over the surface of the snow, one could hear the silence, as Mother says.
My life in Czernowitz now seems distant, hardly mine at all. Sometimes I feel as if the Ruthenian landlord is standing behind the house and will soon appear, saying, “The Jews have forgotten that they are Jews.” I'm afraid of his words; there's always some unpleasant demand in them. I know that this is his drunkenness speaking, and yet I'm still afraid. At these moments I'm glad that we've left that narrow room and removed ourselves from the landlord and his religious demands.
Although my life in Czernowitz seems long ago, it has not been forgotten. Sometimes I wake up at night and I think that Father is dressing to catch the first tram. The memory of Father's departures in the darkness is still within me; whenever I think of them I feel sorry for him. Now we wake up together in daylight. The windows of the house are wide, and the light of snow streams inside. Two stoves blaze day and night, and I walk around the house without a sweater, unlike in Czernowitz. In the morning, we sit together at the table and drink coffee.
Every evening we go downtown, meeting Victor and my father's other old friends. Bucharest is bigger than Czernowitz, but colder. The sharp winter winds pounce on us from the alleys and lash at our faces. Of late, Father has changed beyond recognition. The depressions that he suffered from in Czernowitz don't appear to weigh on him here. Though he does drink and does speak enthusiastically, this is not the dangerous enthusiasm of Czernowitz. It's pleasant to be with him. When he's happy, everything around him seems happy—even the walls of the house. It's a pity he spends most of the day in the studio. When he emerges, he's as pale as chalk and immediately collapses in sleep. After two or three hours, he'll revive and we'll go out to the park. I don't dare to enter his studio when Father is at work. I think of his studio as an arena, where there are many demons in the guise of dwarfs. The demons are lithe and sticky, and they taunt Father. Father pulls them off, but they keep coming back, and they cling to him. I'd already heard about the demons in Czernowitz. Father would say—“Those demons!”—and make a gesture with his right hand. Even though I couldn't see them with my own eyes, I could feel their disturbing presence. Now it's clear to me: we've brought them from Czernowitz. In my heart of hearts, I pray that one day Father will muster the strength to push them far away.
We see Victor almost every evening. His stature and his clothes completely contradict his actions. From up close he looks like a poor, neglected man; his clothes smell of grease. He wears a striped blue suit that is faded and wrinkled; it's clear that he wears it all the time. It's strange—that the suit says more than his face: it speaks of his desperate attempts to help impoverished artists; it tells of nights without sleep. Father asks Victor if he painted in his youth. “Yes, I did paint,” he replies, a smile stealing over his round face, “but heaven help those paintings!” Victor's impoverished appearance is misleading. On the day of our arrival he presented Father with a wad of banknotes, and every time he sees us, he gives more. Father says, “That's enough.” But Victor cannot help himself. We sit in a café for two or three hours, sometimes till the last tram is about to depart, but we have not yet gone into a tavern. True, on our second day here Father equipped himself with some bottles. But here he drinks only at home.
Victor is planning a large exhibition of Father's paintings for the spring, to be held at the Raphael, a well-known gallery that is currently being renovated. “It's going to be quite an occasion,” says Victor, his childlike eyes glowing. He has boundless faith in Father. I'm afraid of this faith, and I remember our last day in Czernowitz: Father tearing up sketches and paintings and shoving them into the gaping mouth of the stove. The landlord implores him, “Sir, don't destroy what you've made,” but Father pays no attention to him and continues to rip up papers and canvases, feeding them to the fire with a fearsome glee.
One day Victor arrives at our house with a woman. She is tall and blond, and she has a smiling face. Fathe
r goes to greet them, and Victor introduces her as Suzy. Suzy is to come to us every day from nine to three to be Father's model.
“What is a model?” I ask Father at lunch.
“A woman whom one paints,” Father replies, without raising his head from the plate.
Suzy appears the following day and enters the studio. I stand by the door and eavesdrop. “I'm twenty-nine and I've been married, but it didn't work out,” Suzy tells Father. “Since I got divorced, I've modeled for two painters, and from now on I'll be happy to serve you, too.”
Father asks some questions, and Suzy answers and laughs. Then they fall silent, and the only thing to be heard is the scratching of charcoal on the paper.
I go into the kitchen and sadness comes over me. It seems as though Father is also about to be taken from me, and I will be put into an orphanage. I decide that I will run away to Halina's village and await her resurrection there.
At three o'clock the door of the studio opens and Suzy comes out without looking at me. In the evening Father complains to Victor that it's hard for him to draw a woman who is also modeling for other artists. Victor asks why, and Father gives an example, and everyone at the café laughs. I understand nothing of what he has said, and yet I feel relieved.
This evening Father is in a good mood. He tells jokes and imitates people, and he narrates a long story about the famous art critic who at first had praised his work and then retracted what he'd said. Only a few days earlier Father had been mute, quite unable to produce a sound. Now he not only converses and expounds, but he even recites poetry and sings. In my heart, I pray that the demons that beset him in Czernowitz will not overcome him here. When the demons engulf him, his mood plummets, and depression darkens his brow and seals his mouth.
Suddenly Victor sinks to his knees and announces, “We will change the order of priorities.”
“What priorities?” asks Father.
“Artists should be at the top of the ladder.”
Father also sinks to his knees, and he embraces Victor; everyone laughs.
41
Victor has brought a new model to the house—a small and slender woman called Tina. Her expression is one of naïve wonder. Her lips tremble, and it's clear that speech doesn't come easily to her. I see at once that Father likes her.
I stare at Victor's round face. Sometimes he seems like a practical man whose actions are reflected in his every movement, and sometimes he seems so distracted that if truth be told, he doesn't know what he's doing. In the café, he eats sandwich after sandwich, and when it's almost midnight he says, “We have to go home; I've got a long day ahead of me tomorrow.” It's not hard to guess that there's no woman waiting for him, and no hot dinner, and it's doubtful that he has changed his shirt in the past month. But he takes good care of us: every time he comes, he brings us vegetables and fruit, and a chocolate bar or box of candies for me.
Father works from morning till night. Through the door I hear the scratching of charcoal on the paper. Sometimes it sounds like he's trying to remove a stubborn stain from the paper. When Father paints I feel his efforts, and sweat covers my entire body. To share in his labors, I doodle on a pad and invent math problems.
Last night I dreamed of Mother. She was tall and full of gaiety, and her hair spilled over her shoulders as it had during our summer vacation. But her eyes were listless. She spoke of the orphanage in which she had grown up. She had already told me something about it. Her parents died very young, and the Jewish orphanage had been her home. Now it could clearly be seen in her eyes that she was an orphan: they were sunk into their sockets, and the more I gazed into them, the more sunken they appeared. I woke up frightened; Father was in a deep sleep and did not hear me.
I remembered how run-down the orphanage in Storozynetz had looked, and pity filled my heart. Once I had asked Mother if she remembered her parents. “Nothing now,” she said, and shrugged. Her words surprised me. Then I swore to myself that I would store in my memory all the people and the sights that have passed before my eyes, so when the day came I would be able to say: “Of course I remember. How could I forget?”
I get a letter from Mother today. Father doesn't ask me what she writes, but I tell him anyway. Mother wants to visit me at Christmas. Not a word about herself. I feel that even these few sentences did not come easily. I fold the letter and put it inside the writing pad.
Father is painting feverishly. The little woman appears each morning and emerges from the studio at three o'clock. Father's face has changed over the last few weeks, and in the evening, when he sits close to me, I feel the tension that simmers within him. I'm afraid of this tension and of his restrained movements. But even more than that, I'm afraid of the demons that surround him. The demons that were invisible in Czernowitz jump around here in every corner. Sometimes Father makes an abrupt gesture to drive them off, but they don't go far. I see them next to the sofa and beside the bed. They are very small beings in the shape of people. On the whole they are lively, but occasionally they fall prey to some kind of distress, and they shrivel up and disappear.
Yesterday Father let me come into the studio and showed me his paintings: demons—demons of every hue and kind. They were larger on the canvases than they were in our rooms. They had transparent human faces with expressions of mocking malice. The female demons are naked and rub up against the male demons provocatively.
“How are they?” asked Father.
I didn't know what to say. “Nice,” I replied.
“It's not nice,” said Father.
“What should I say?”
“You can also say nothing. You do recognize them?”
“I can see them clearly.”
“Well, there you are!” he said, pleased that he had managed to explain something complicated to me. Suddenly I remembered that in Czernowitz Father had beaten up one of the critics who had called him “a prophet of doom who ought to be crucified.”
That was the critic who brought the lawsuit against Father. The suit dragged through the courts for an entire year. Once, Father took me to the court, and I saw the lawyers for the defense and the prosecution wearing black gowns. Father was defended by a Jewish lawyer named Kurt Schnitzler. He would slap Father on the shoulder and say, “Don't worry, it will all work out.”
Father gave the lawyer part of his salary every month, which completely drained his resources. Then, at the height of the litigation, the malevolent critic passed away. Father celebrated his demise with a drinking spree.
Father once told me, “As long as I breathe, I'll be beating up anti-Semites and art critics.” But now he faces a different struggle. Sometimes it seems that he's painting the demons so as to expose their wickedness and their wretchedness, and sometimes it seems that he revels in their hidden wisdom. Father is a secretive person, revealing only part of his inner self, but there is a harsh honesty in everything he does.
In the meantime, winter is at its height, snow covers the fields, and we haven't left the house for more than a week. When Father comes out of his studio, his face and his clothes are covered with paint, and he reeks of turpentine.
42
In the midst of the winter storm Victor broke through the snowy siege and came to us. Two small horses harnessed to a narrow sleigh brought him, and with him, two baskets of provisions. “So long as there are people like Victor, it's worth living,” said Father, in a burst of high spirits. Victor now looked a little more practical. His round face was ruddy and appeared firmer. Though he was as short as ever, he did not look awkward. He was happy that he had been able to reach us, and Father hastened to make him a cup of coffee. I've noticed that whenever he arrives, the demons scatter for dear life and the snow lights up the room.
Father showed him the paintings. Victor stood rapt, and as he looked at each in turn, he called out, “Splendid, splendid!” He told Father that the gallery was preparing to receive the pictures. The opening would be on the first of March.
Christmas arrived, and my hopes that
Mother would visit me were dashed. She informed me by telegram: to my great regret, i cannot come. I was angry and vented my anger on the sketch pad; then I tore it up. Many of my father's habits were already in me. When I reach his age my face will be unshaven and my shirt creased, and there'll be a pen stuck into my coat pocket.
Mother changed in my mind's eye. Sometimes I saw her as a Ruthenian peasant woman, like those we saw washing or beating out linen by the streams of the Prut. Mother loved watching them work, as if she were searching for what she had lost. Sometimes I saw her as I did up close in Storozynetz, with the large briefcase in her right hand, hurrying to school. But mostly I saw her as she was during her last visit to me, in the heavy coat, walking slowly, her shoulders weighed down as if by a heavy insult. I so wanted to make her happy, but I didn't know how.
When Victor left the house, the demons surrounding Father returned. Sometimes it seemed that the demons were nothing but small animals that Father bred in cages and now found it hard to part with. “They must be driven out! They belong outside and not at home!” I wanted to blurt out, but of course I didn't. There were hours when they disappeared, when they were neither seen nor felt. Then it was clear to me that they existed solely in my imagination, and if I didn't imagine them, they wouldn't exist.
Whenever I asked Father about them, a smile would come to his face, as if I had asked him about his shifting moods. Once he said, “Demons? They're everywhere. Sometimes they dress up as moneylenders, and sometimes as art critics.”
Occasionally he gave them nicknames: the red demon, the green one, the shriveled one. It was hard to know which of them were good and which wicked. Once I heard him say, “A demon is a demon.”
It was strange how there, of all places, in that large and spacious house, they managed to annoy him more than in that sooty one-room apartment in Czernowitz. I tried to ignore them, telling myself, “They aren't real.” But what was to be done? In spite of this, they seemed to appear wherever I turned. When I threw a wooden building block at them, or a spoon, they scattered in all directions. Sometimes they were so tiny that it was hard to see them, even with a steady eye. Once, Father stormed out from his studio, a rag in hand, threw open the front door, and shouted, “Get out! I don't want to see you anymore!”
All Whom I Have Loved Page 11