Blooms of Darkness

by Aharon Appelfeld

  Meanwhile, their supplies have run out, and Hugo decides to go up to one of the nearby houses to replenish them. Mariana equips him with two silver rings and is pleased by his initiative. Before he sets out, she says in a voice that he hasn’t heard before, “Please come back right away, and don’t delay.”

  Fortune favors him, and for one ring he gets potatoes, a wedge of cheese, and pears. Mariana runs to him with open arms and calls him a “hero.” Hugo knows that it’s easy to change her mood. A small success restores the light to her face. She admits that depression is her enemy and knows that she mustn’t give in to it. She must always look at the bright side of life and not sink into melancholy.

  Later Hugo spreads out a shirt in the water. Luckily, he catches three fish. They clean the fish and grill them on the coals. In her joy, Mariana hugs and kisses Hugo and tells him he’s in danger—she’s simply going to gobble him up.

  That night she teaches him two pleasant Ukrainian folk songs, singing each one several times. They fall asleep next to the fire, intertwined. Hugo dreams about his violin teacher, a short, irritable man who used to demand relaxation and quiet from his pupils. “Relaxation and quiet are the preconditions for good violin playing,” he used to say. “For some reason,” he once told Hugo, “my parents wanted me to be a violinist. I’m irritable. Irritability doesn’t suit that instrument. Only a calm quiet brings out the required clarity and tempo.”

  The next day they set out. “It’s a shame to leave this marvelous place,” Mariana says. “I’ve gotten used to this little hollow and the campfire and the tall trees that sway in the wind. Why should we wander when we can sit?” So she speaks, but in her heart she knows there’s no choice. The nights are cold, the earth is wet, and even a big fire only heats small parts of the body. They must have a roof over their heads.

  They climb a hill from which the villages, the outlying areas, and parts of the city can be viewed. It turns out that they haven’t gone far. Mariana is thrilled by the landscape. “Look, dear,” she cries out, “at what God created. What beauty. What tranquility. Horses and dogs know how to live right. Only people, the crown of creation, as they say, make a commotion with everything they do. My grandma used to say, ‘Flesh and blood—today quiet and drowsy, and tomorrow a murderer.’ You have to be brave.”

  “What must I do?”

  “Don’t fear. Fear debases us. A debased person isn’t worthy of living. If you’re going to live, then live in freedom. That simple thing was what I didn’t know. All my life I lived a debased life.”

  “I’m not afraid.”

  “That’s just what I wanted to hear from you. It’s better to die than to live a debased life.”

  Later, for no discernible reason, Mariana bursts into tears. Hugo kneels and wipes her eyes, but her weeping does not subside. “Mariana’s going to die, and no memory of her will be left. If I stayed alive, I could reform, but now I can’t. In hell they’ll roast me. Rightly, they’ll roast me. You, my dear, take care of yourself. When the informers come to take me, don’t go after me. They’ll take me straight to the gallows, or who knows what.”

  “How do you know? There are no people here, there are no informers. There’s a splendid landscape and great tranquility.”

  “With my own eyes I saw them.”

  “What did you see?”

  “I saw three soldiers handcuff me and march me off.”

  “That was a bad dream. You mustn’t believe in bad dreams.”

  “The dream was the truth,” she says in a whisper.

  But when the sun descends to the horizon, and the lower part of the sky turns purplish-red, Mariana calms down. She takes a few swallows of brandy, and the dark visions fade away.

  Suddenly she says to him, “Why don’t you read me some poems from the Bible?”

  Hugo takes the Bible out of his knapsack and reads her the first psalm.

  “It’s very beautiful, even if I don’t understand it. Do you?”

  “I think so.”

  “That phrase pleases me a lot, ‘like a tree planted by the rivers of water.’ Do you like the Bible?”

  “Mama liked to read it to me, but since then I’ve barely opened it.”

  “I forgot. You’re not religious. But since you’ve been with Mariana, you’ve changed a little. Mariana loves God very much. Too bad I didn’t walk in His ways. I always did the opposite. You have to promise me that you’ll read a chapter or two every day. That will strengthen you and give you power and courage to overcome evildoers. Evildoers swarm everywhere. Do you promise me?”

  “I promise.”

  “I knew you wouldn’t refuse me.”

  They find shelter with an elderly couple. The old people accept German money and serve them hot vegetable soup. When Mariana asks whether the Germans have already retreated, the old man answers with assurance, “The German army is the best in the world. An army like that can’t be defeated.” The old man’s words fill her with hope, and she suddenly feels that she has been given a reprieve.

  Their room is wide, and there is a large bed in it. There’s even a sink in the corner. After many days without a house, without washing, and without a toilet, the place seems like a splendid inn.

  “We’re in good shape here, right?” Mariana says.

  “Very much so.”

  But Hugo’s sleep isn’t quiet that night. He sees his mother among a mass of refugees, and her face is dark and thin. She goes from person to person and asks whether they have seen Hugo. A woman refugee asks distractedly, “Where was he?” His mother is embarrassed for a moment, but she recovers and replies, “With a Christian woman.”

  The refugees are consumed by their hunger and don’t take the trouble to answer her. They look to Hugo like the people from the ghetto who were waiting to be deported. In great despair he bites the handcuffs that shackle him. The massive effort does indeed free his hands, but instead of going down to the refugees and to his mother, he falls into a deep pit.

  “What’s the matter?” Mariana wakes him up.

  “Nothing, a dream.”

  “Don’t pay attention to dreams,” she says, and draws him to her breast.

  59

  The next day the elderly couple offers them cups of tea. They accompany them to the gate and wish them a successful journey. Moved by the gesture, Mariana hugs and kisses the woman, and they immediately set out.

  The following days are quiet and pass without surprises. They go from hill to hill, light campfires, and buy potatoes and cheese from the peasants. Hugo fishes successfully. Every day he catches three or four fish in his shirt.

  Mariana’s fears are not assuaged, but they have lessened and are no longer outwardly expressed. From time to time she says, “You, my dear, must watch out for yourself and not try to defend me. Everyone has their own fate. That’s life.” Hearing her words, Hugo freezes where he is and doesn’t respond. But sometimes the words form in his mouth, and he says, “We’ll always be together, that’s God’s will.” His words bring a wry smile to her face.

  Sometimes he reads psalms to her. Mariana encourages him and says, “Read, honey, you have a marvelous voice. I don’t understand the poems, but they exalt my soul. Do you understand them?”

  “Not everything is understandable to me, either.”

  “If we find a priest, he’ll explain them to us. Sometimes they leave the church and stroll along the river.”

  While they are on the road, Hugo adopts Mariana’s way of speaking. When something succeeds for him, or when Mariana overcomes her depression, he says, “Thank God.” Mariana feels that she has transferred something of her inner self to Hugo. “Take the inside of Mariana and throw away the shell,” she says to him. “What’s inside her is faith in God on high, and her shell is depression. Depression is what always tries to drag her down to hell. If it weren’t for that illness, her life would have been different. Beware of depression as of the plague.”

  But there are also days of laughter and drunken pleasures. “I
sn’t it true that Mariana is still young and beautiful?” she would say.

  “Very true.”

  “If we get to a safe place, I’ll take care of myself, and all my beauty will be yours.”

  “Thank you,” says Hugo, because he can find no other words.

  “We’re like a pair of birds. Did you ever see a bird thank another bird? They hop from branch to branch, pleased with each other, and when evening comes, they fall asleep from having chattered so much.”

  “Too bad the water in the stream is so cold,” she says at one point. “We could go into the stream and swim like two fish. When I was a little girl, I used to swim in the river. Since then I haven’t. I have a strong desire to swim. It seems to me that swimming would ease my depression. When a person swims and comes out of the water, he immediately walks erect. His eyes see splendid colors. Am I wrong?” Hugo loves that sudden wonderment. At such times he feels she is connected to mysterious forces within her. Her expression changes, and she is under influences that are not her own.

  “It’s wrong that people kill animals and eat them,” she says after a while. “That’s a disreputable trait. Animals are so much like us that the killing of them cries out to heaven. Papa, of blessed memory, would slaughter a pig before every Easter. The memory of it gives me chills to this day. When I was young I swore in my heart that I wouldn’t eat meat. Of course I didn’t keep that oath.”

  “Our family is vegetarian.”

  “I didn’t know.”

  “Just fruit and vegetables and dairy products.”

  “I always said the Jews are more sensitive. But what good did their sensitivity do them? They were persecuted even more cruelly. Don’t ever forget that the members of your tribe were cruelly killed in the streets just because they were Jews.”

  “I won’t forget.”

  “The Germans drove them into the ghetto and sent them who knows where, just because they were Jews. God can’t bear injustice like that. He will bring a flood upon their persecutors. Don’t forget, you mustn’t pass over injustice in silence.”

  But there are also days of total silence. Mariana would sit down, sunk in her thoughts, and Hugo would keep drilling into himself: I must plant every detail of this journey in my memory. When Mariana is deep in thought, a strange light appears on her face, her forehead expands, and her hair stands up on her head. Sometimes it seems to Hugo that her lovely being is being eaten away by her dejection. But, not to worry, when she is once again filled with wonder, her face lights up with beauty.

  “Forget my sadness and irritation and remember only the light that was between us,” she says to him distractedly.

  A peasant woman sells them a few eggs and a jar of cream, and they sit down on the ground to eat. After the meal, Mariana says to Hugo, “Of all the people who were with me, only you are mine.”

  “You’re very beautiful.” He can’t restrain himself.

  “I’m very glad that I please you. A woman without an admirer is a sealed well. Life is stifled in her, and her beauty withers. Now, thank the Lord, I’m far from all those who tormented me. Now I’m my own woman, and I am only with you.”

  “I don’t mind sleeping outdoors. I can make campfires and they’ll warm us up.”

  “That’s very nice of you, but don’t forget, it rains in the spring, and sometimes very hard.”

  “I can build us a temporary shelter.”

  They sit and talk that way until they run out of words, and then they lie down together and fall asleep.

  60

  What Mariana guessed would happen finally happens, but a bit differently from how she had imagined it. While they are sitting under an oak, drinking tea and contemplating the fire, three short men suddenly appear. They are dressed in old leather coats. “Get up, woman, and come with us,” one of them orders.

  Mariana is stunned. “Why?” she asks. “What did I do?”

  “It’s an order,” he replies.

  “I refuse to obey this illegal order.”

  “Why be stubborn, woman?” He speaks in an intentionally relaxed way.

  “I never did harm to anyone. Why should I go with you?”

  “You can make your arguments to the authorities. Meanwhile, get up and come with us.”

  “I refuse to go. I have a son, and I have to watch over him.”

  “I repeat what I said. Get up and come with us. The interrogation will be short, and afterward they’ll let you go. Why are you being stubborn? It’s not helping you.”

  “Why?” She raises her head, as though she has just woken up.

  “There’s no why. This is an order.”

  “What is my name, if you’ve been sent to get me?” She musters her courage and cunning.

  “Mariana Podgorsky,” he answers, and shows her the piece of cardboard in his hand.

  “I won’t go. Evil tongues must be answered with contempt.”

  Even to that the man responds with moderation and says, “If I were in your place, I wouldn’t be stubborn.”

  “But I am being stubborn.”

  “If so,” says the man, and he pulls a pistol from his belt, “we’ll have no choice but to shoot you. Our order is to bring you in alive or to kill you. It would be easier to kill you and put an end to the whole business.”

  Hugo sees the three men up close. They are short, sturdy, and indifferent. He wants to approach them and beg for Mariana’s life, but he is so frightened that the words freeze in his mouth.

  The pistol and the coldness that accompany the man’s last words apparently convince Mariana, and she rises to her feet.

  Now it’s clear—she’s a head taller than they are.

  “Walk, and we’ll follow you,” he says without raising his voice.

  Hugo and Mariana start walking. The men don’t hurry them. After a few minutes of walking, without turning her head back to them, Mariana asks, “Why do you need me? I’ll thank you if you tell me the truth.”

  “You have nothing to be afraid of. The Russians aren’t like the Germans. With the Russians, nothing is arbitrary. Every innocent person will be freed. You’ll be freed, too. After all, you didn’t kill anyone.”

  “I didn’t commit any crime, and I didn’t murder.” She clings to those words.

  “You have nothing to fear.” He continues talking in a moderate tone of voice. “They’ll investigate and examine, and in the end they’ll let you go. You need some patience, that’s all.”

  “Where are you taking me?”

  “To the headquarters.”

  “They’ve hardly arrived, and they’re investigating already.”

  “A week has passed since the region was liberated. Now they’re checking into everything, and in a little while new life will begin.”

  “Since my childhood, I’ve supported myself. No one helped me.” Mariana brings a new tone into the conversation.

  Hugo feels as if he’s in a dream, constricted and bound. Even to reach out and take her hand, even that small gesture, is not within his power.

  “Mariana,” he whispers.

  “What, honey?”

  “Where are we going?”

  “You heard,” she says curtly.

  It turns out they were very close to the city, and right near the river. Hugo remembers clearly the long walks he took with his father. Those were always times of contemplation, mindfulness, and love of nature. He had especially liked the summer walks. On Friday afternoons, on their way home, they would meet bearded Jews going to synagogue. Seeing those Jews, his father would fall silent. In answer to Hugo’s question as to whether those were the real Jews, his father would give a long reply that would confuse things more than it clarified them. Hugo remembers his father’s slight embarrassment and the silence that accompanied it.

  “Are we going to walk through the city?” Mariana asks, again without turning to face them.

  “The headquarters are located on the outskirts of the city. We’re not far from there.”

  “Why don’t you let m
e go, brothers?” She addresses them without imploring.

  “We’re on duty, and our duty won’t permit us to do things like that.”

  “We’re brothers, we’re all Ukrainians and the children of Ukrainians,” Mariana says. “What if you tell them that you couldn’t find me?”

  “We’ve already been looking for you for three days. We can’t come back empty-handed.”

  “I’ll pay you double.”

  “We’re Communists and believe in Comrade Stalin.”

  “We’re Ukrainians and believe in God and Jesus His Messiah,” Mariana replies. “Leaders come and go, but God is eternal.” There is strength in her voice.

  “Communism has done away with the old beliefs.” He isn’t swept away by what she says.

  “I would be careful about defying God,” Mariana says. “God is in heaven, and He hears everything. On Judgment Day, we’ll all stand before Him.”

  “Are you threatening us?”

  “I have no pistol to threaten you. I wanted to remind you that Ukrainians didn’t lose their faith in God even in the dark days.”

  “What do you want? We’re just on duty and doing what we’ve been told to do. If you have any complaints, raise them at headquarters. There they will clarify everything. There everything is in order. They’ll hear you out and free you.”

  “I want to remind you that I’m a loyal daughter of our tribe. None of us is the height of perfection. I was in the underworld with the God of our fathers. I never abandoned Him, even for a moment.”

  “In heaven you’ll be found innocent,” he says curtly.

  “I hope that you’ll also find me innocent, if only for the sake of my son, who doesn’t have a living soul in the world.”

  “Where’s his father?”

  “God knows.”

  “Tell them everything in headquarters. They’ll listen to you and let you go.”

  “They’re Communists. They don’t believe in God. If I were in your place, I would let the woman go. How much are they paying you for me?”