Blooms of Darkness

by Aharon Appelfeld

  Every piece of clothing gives her a different form. The colorful garments brighten her face and arouse the joy that was in her. The gray and black clothes add gloom to her gloom. More than once she complained about the corsets and brassieres that constricted her. She used to stretch her leg forward while putting on her silk stockings, a gesture he loved from the first time he saw it. There are clothes she hadn’t worn for a long time, and the odors have faded from them. But most of the clothes retain the smells of her body. Hugo brings them up to his nostrils, and Mariana’s full being comes to life.

  For a long time he sits and sorts. If there were a cupboard, he could arrange the clothes on shelves, but since there isn’t one, he places them folded on the bench.

  Hugo shows the arrangement to Nasha, and she’s pleased. But her satisfaction isn’t enthusiastic. When she’s pleased, she says, “Acceptable” or “Fine.” Unlike Mariana, she guards her emotions and doesn’t reveal them. When Hugo compliments her clothes or her hairdo, she isn’t moved but says, “Nice of you to notice.”

  One evening she turns to Hugo and says, “I have a request of you. Help me cut my toenails. It’s hard for me to cut them and hard for me to put polish on them.”

  Hugo is surprised. He didn’t imagine she would address such a request to him. “With pleasure,” he says.

  Nasha’s feet and ankles are pretty and delicate, and he cuts her toenails carefully and gently, as she instructs him.

  “In our profession, our feet are the front,” she says with a guarded smile. Hugo doesn’t understand the exact meaning of that sentence. The contact with her, in any event, gives him no pleasure, maybe because she doesn’t thank him but says, “Very good,” and immediately adds, “Beyond the demands of the profession, it’s a good idea to look presentable. Did your parents insist on looking well?”

  “My parents are pharmacists.”

  “Untidiness drives me crazy, and here no one insists on order and cleanliness.”

  “Why?” Hugo asks carelessly.

  “Because everybody is only concerned with himself.”

  That night he hears one of the guests say, “Now there are no more Jews here. They’ve all reached their destination, and we’ll pull out those who are in hiding one by one. We managed to cleanse the region of Jews. Now it’s possible to breathe.”

  “Have they all gone away?” asks Nasha.

  “Without an exception.”

  “And now there won’t be any more Jews?”

  “We did our duty, once and for all.”

  Hugo understands most of what the man says, and what he doesn’t understand, he guesses. But he consoles himself with the thought that his mother is hiding in a distant, unknown village. There her childhood friend is watching over her, the way Mariana and Nasha are watching over him.

  31

  In the morning, Hugo awakens in a panic: Mariana’s room is in an uproar. It’s hard to know what the commotion is about. For a moment it seems to him that soldiers are making searches, and the women are trying to block their way to the closet. Hugo gets to his feet and is about to slip out through the opening alongside the toilet. Meanwhile, the commotion becomes weeping. From the weeping arises Nasha’s name.

  Hugo hears, and his body shrinks. For a long time the weeping continues, but gradually it goes somewhere else. A few women remain in the corridor and speak with strange practicality. From what they say he understands that a disaster has befallen Nasha. They don’t talk about its nature.

  Hugo sits in his place and sees before him Nasha’s long, white legs and the toenails he trimmed and painted with nail polish. He had noticed then that, unlike Mariana, Nasha didn’t bare her legs easily. It was as though she was afraid of being hurt. All the while Hugo was cutting her nails, she bit her lower lip, and when he finished putting on the nail polish, she folded her legs with a motion that showed fear of pain that might come.

  Later he hears one of the women say breathlessly, “After she finished her work, she left her room. She was wearing a warm coat, her hair was neat, she was wearing makeup, and she showed no sign of anything bad to come. The guard was sure she was going to town to visit her cousin and buy a package of chocolates in the bakery, the way she sometimes did.”

  “Still, who witnessed her drowning?” the woman is asked.

  “A fisherman. He saw her jump into the water and tried to pull her out, but he didn’t manage to. The current was too strong.”

  “Where is she now?”

  “Have you any more questions like that?” the woman replies angrily.

  Suddenly the voice of another woman is heard. She speaks deliberately but not without emotion, telling how Nasha had begun to work there more than a year earlier, and how she had adapted to the place. “A modest woman and loyal to her friends. If a friend didn’t feel well, or needed help, Nasha was the first one to help her. She helped without expecting anything in return. She never said, I gave to you, I helped you, you’re ungrateful.

  “Her grandfather was a priest, and she apparently inherited her virtues from him. She never complained, not about her friends and not about the clients. She suffered in silence, with nobility. She didn’t go to church, but God was in her heart. Too bad we didn’t know how to watch over her. She gave to everyone, and no one gave anything to her.”

  “Why did she take her own life?”

  “She was apparently very lonely. Lonelier than the rest of us. She never spoke about her parents or about her sisters. She always mentioned her grandfather. She would say, ‘A man of God in the full sense of the word.’ ”

  “And did she have guilt feelings?”

  “I guess so, but she never talked about it. She was very restrained. Once she said to me, ‘What won’t people do to earn a living?’ She didn’t express disgust or revulsion, the way we all do. She did her work every day without complaining about headaches or stomachaches. More than once I said to myself, Nasha is strong, she’s contemptuous of us. It turns out I was wrong.”

  Hugo hears the voices, and as he listens, he sees the rushing water envelop her pure legs. What will be, and how will his life proceed from now on? He doesn’t know. He imagines that toward evening Nasha will surprise everyone and stand in the doorway, saying, The fisherman was wrong. It wasn’t me. Here I am standing before you. In the end she will tell them, I was in Grandpa’s church, and I went up to his grave. He took me in his open arms and called me “my daughter.”

  Thus Hugo sits in the corner and dreams. Meanwhile, The Residence returns to its ordinary pace. The regular questions are asked, and the regular answers come in their wake. Suddenly an older woman’s voice is heard: “How much should I make?”

  “Thirty portions, no more.”

  “Sandwiches, too?”

  “Of course.”

  Hunger torments him, and he waits tensely for Nasha’s arrival.

  Toward evening the closet door opens, and Victoria stands in the doorway. “What are you doing?” she asks, as though he was again caught doing something naughty.

  “Nothing,” he says, and stands up.

  “Nasha drowned in the river, and you sit there as though everything is coming to you.”

  “I didn’t know,” he lies.

  “Nasha drowned, and I don’t know who they’re going to put in her room. Not everyone will want to watch over you. It’s risky to watch over you. You’re endangering all of us. Do you understand?”

  “Yes.”

  “If there are more searches, you’ll have to get out of here. We can’t keep you anymore.”

  “Where will I go?”

  “To the forest. There are Jews in the forest.”

  “And who will watch over Mariana’s clothes?”

  “That’s no concern of yours.”

  Later, Victoria brings him soup and meatballs and leaves. Hugo sinks completely into the tasty food. The terrors and fears that tortured him all day long depart. He recovers and says to himself, If I have to run away, I’ll run away. Now it’s summer, and t
he nights are warm. There’s fruit in the forest. The farmers won’t identify me. I’m blond. I’m wearing a cross on my chest, and I speak fluent Ukrainian. In the forest I’ll find Mariana, and we’ll live together in nature, far from people and their scheming.

  32

  The following days are tense: the women in The Residence quarrel and weep bitter tears. Nasha’s death continues to shake their hearts.

  “The evil fish ate her flesh,” a voice of despair is heard saying in the corridor. Victoria’s opinion is different: “Now Nasha is in heaven, and good angels escort her from place to place. There’s nothing to worry about. She’s in good shape now. If only we were, too.” But she speaks to Hugo in a different tone of voice: “You have to run away. If you don’t run away, we’ll chase you away.”

  “I’m waiting for Mariana.”

  “There’s nothing for you to wait for. She won’t come. You have to go to the forest. There are still Jews there.”

  Hugo disdains the fear that has gripped him, but it is stronger than he is. At night he dreams he is with his parents on the express train that makes its way to the Carpathians. They are covered with snow. The train stops, as always, at the station that everybody calls “The Peak.” Hugo clamps his skis onto his boots and skis straight from the platform. The skiing is smooth, and he feels his whole body soaring. His father, who is skiing behind him, calls out, “Hugo, you’re skiing wonderfully. You’ve improved a lot since the last time we were here. Where did you learn? That didn’t happen by itself.” Encouraged by his father’s words, Hugo increases his speed and soars over the snow. He says in a loud voice, “I’ve overcome fear. Now I’m not afraid anymore.”

  The next day Victoria speaks to Hugo sternly. “They’re searching for Jews from house to house. You’re endangering us all. You have a few more hours to get your knapsack ready, crawl out through the hole, and disappear. If you don’t, the guard will deliver you to the police.”

  “And where will I go?” His voice trembles.

  “I’ve already told you—to the forest. There are Jews in the forest. Don’t be a coward. Take a risk and live. Whoever doesn’t take a risk—fear kills him.”

  “I’ll go tonight,” Hugo says.

  “If I open the closet tomorrow morning and find you, your blood is on your own head.”

  That is the verdict, and he pictures the guard dragging him.

  In his heart Hugo decides that he’ll leave the suitcase, the Jules Verne and Karl May books, and the arithmetic and geometry books. He’ll take some warm clothes, the notebook, and the Bible. If God wants me to come back here, I’ll find everything in its place, but if He wants me to stay in the forest, there’s nothing to be done. The words roll about in his head. Later he realizes that this is Mariana’s way of speaking, and he has adopted it.

  For some reason Sofia, his parents’ housekeeper, appears before his eyes. She stood in palpable contradiction to all the ideas that were prevalent in his house. Her country manners, her religiosity, her personal beliefs, and her arbitrariness bespoke a confidence in herself and her way of life. Doubts never clouded her spirit. More than once she had said, “The Jews are too thoughtful. I never saw a Jew give his anger free reign. Why don’t Jews get angry?” Often, when she came back from church, Hugo would hear her say, “Why don’t you go to a house of worship? I come back from church a new woman. The prayers, the music, the sermon bind me to God and His Messiah. Don’t you long for God?”

  “We long,” his father would answer, half seriously, half facetiously.

  “If so, why do you stay at home on the Sabbath?”

  “God is everywhere, at home, too. Isn’t that what they say?” His father tried to answer cleverly.

  Hearing that, Sofia would wave her arm as if to say, Those are just excuses. Sometimes she would add, “The Jews are a strange nation. I’ll never understand them.”

  Sofia was full of vitality, and his parents liked her. They used to buy her a present for every holiday, or they’d give her some money so she could buy something for herself. About a month before the German invasion, she had gone back to her village. Hugo’s mother supplied her with clothing and severance pay. Sofia cried like a child and asked, “Why am I leaving you? You’re better to me than my parents and my sisters.”

  “You can stay,” his mother immediately responded.

  “I swore to my parents that I’d come back. I can’t violate that oath.”

  All three of them accompanied Sofia to the railroad station, and they didn’t leave until she was seated next to the window.

  Hugo rouses himself from his daydream. It’s two in the morning. The lair called “the closet,” where he has been imprisoned for about a year, now seems to him like a refuge that not only protected him but also nourished him with enchanted images. Every time he crawls down the opening near the toilet and goes outside, the darkness seems thick and full of hostility.

  Time is quickly passing, but Hugo doesn’t hurry. Mariana’s clothes, filling the closet and covering its walls, are precious to him now, as though they belong to his inner world. If he is going to die, better to die here and not outside, he says to himself, without properly considering what he’s talking about.

  At four o’clock Hugo shoves the knapsack through the opening and crawls down after it. Darkness cushions the bottom of the fence and the tree trunks. Pale patches of light are already scattered in the sky. Hugo could easily climb the fence and reach the field, but his feet refuse to obey. He stands in place and doesn’t move. Finally he goes into the woodshed and curls up in a corner.

  33

  Hugo sits and awaits the guard’s footsteps. Once he saw him through the cracks; a tall, broad-shouldered man, he was reviling one of the women: “You’re just what you are. Clear out and go to your room.”

  “I won’t go. I don’t take orders from you,” she shouted at him.

  “If I hear one more word, I’ll crush you,” he said, and he demonstrated with his fingers.

  Hugo feels sorry for himself, because he’s going to be crushed in the guard’s powerful hands and he’ll never see his parents again. But to get up and jump over the fence into the thick darkness—his legs refuse to do it. He takes the notebook out of the knapsack and writes:

  Dear Papa and Mama,

  Some time ago I left the closet. Mariana didn’t come back to me as she promised, and the cook, Victoria, threatened to turn me in. I have no choice but to escape to the forest. Now I’m sitting in the woodshed and preparing myself to leave. Don’t worry, I’ll get to the forest and I’ll find shelter there, but if fortune doesn’t favor me, and I’m caught or I disappear, you should know that you were in my thoughts all the time.

  Hugo returns the notebook to the knapsack and tears flood his face.

  The sky changes hue, and pink rays break through the horizon. From the woodshed he can see the meadows and the house wrapped in vines. From Mariana’s room, he saw only parts of them, and now they are revealed in full. I’m beginning a new life, he says as he gathers his strength.

  While Hugo is standing at the entrance to the woodshed, preparing to throw the knapsack over the fence and then jump over after it, a desperate voice is heard calling, “Hugo, Hugo, where are you?” For a moment he’s afraid it’s an illusion, but the voice is heard again, with the same desperate tone.

  “I’m here,” he answers.

  “I can’t see you.”

  “I’m outside.”

  “Come back to me.”

  He approaches the opening and crawls back in. When he pokes his head out of the darkness, he sees Mariana kneeling.

  “Mariana,” he whispers.

  “Good God, why did you go outside?”

  “Victoria threatened to turn me in.”

  Even in the darkness he can see how much she has changed. Her face has become narrow, her hair is pulled back, and her eyes are sunken. The way she holds him in her arms is also different. “I’ve stopped drinking,” she says, and lowers her head.


  Hugo doesn’t hold back and kisses her face.

  “I had some hard days, and I decided to dry out and come back here. Here I have my own room, food, and a salary. Outside they abused me.”

  Hugo remembers her previous declines, but not one like this. Mariana tells him that for a week not a drop has passed her lips. Drying out depresses her, but she has no choice.

  “I’ll help you,” he says.

  “Without brandy, my life isn’t worth living. All the joy and all the desire for life have abandoned me, but I have no choice. Outside they persecuted me like a mangy dog.”

  Hugo holds her hand, kisses it, and says, “Don’t worry, Mariana. I’ll do whatever you tell me to do.”

  “I thank you very much,” she says in a voice unlike any he has heard her utter.

  Mariana immediately starts tidying the room, mopping the floor, and returning the pictures to the shelves. Her image once again looks out from every corner—young and full of lust for life.

  “What did you do during the days I wasn’t here?”

  “I sat in the corner and thought about you.”

  “I looked for someplace that would be right for us, but I couldn’t find anything. I wandered from place to place, and everywhere they recognized me and persecuted me, the way that hypocrite Victoria was abusing you. What were you going to do?”

  “Run away to the forest to look for you.”

  “My hero.”

  In the afternoon, Mariana runs a bath for Hugo and says, “Now I’ll wash my man. I abandoned him for a long time, and now he’ll be mine again.” For a moment her old tone of voice comes back to her, and the light returns to her face.