Katerina

by Aharon Appelfeld

  “Don’t tell me what to do!” he scolded.

  He used to rise late and go to the tavern. That was how my father behaved in his time. For my part, I worked hard from morning to night, so that nothing would be lacking at home. What little love we had gradually disintegrated. Upon his return he would talk to me in Ruthenian, the way one talks to a despised servant.

  “Sammy,” I would plead with him.

  “What are you talking about?” His eyes pushed me away.

  One night he spoke to me, saying, “Why don’t you bring me some vodka? I don’t need either bread or potatoes.”

  “It’s raining outside.”

  “I need a bottle of vodka right away.” He eyes bulged and the blood in their veins poured out of them. This wasn’t his normal anger. Ruthenian drunkenness had overpowered him. I wrapped myself in my coat and went out to fetch him a bottle. That night he sang and cursed the Jews and the Ruthenians. He didn’t let me off easily, either. He called me a woman of the streets.

  I was afraid and ran away.

  Czernowitz is a big city. There’s no end to its streets. I wandered without any destination. More than once I was about to go back, but I didn’t have the strength to bear his eyes. His drunkenness wasn’t violent, but the words he spat fell upon me like damp whips.

  I would sleep in little Jewish-owned taverns. I had no choice but to sell another one of Henni’s jewels. Every time I prepared to sell one, fear would possess me. The jewels were tied to my body, and it was hard for me to part with them.

  This time the lot fell on a brooch made of thin strands of silver, with a large blue stone in the center. I touched it, and my fingers were scorched. I don’t hate Jewish merchants, but I do hate jewelers. I sold them Henni’s jewels for almost nothing. I was angry at them, but I wasn’t angry at Sammy. If he had crossed my path, I would have gone to him. But Sammy didn’t cross my path. I went from merchant to merchant and stood at their doors like a beggar. One of the merchants impudently asked me, “Where did you get the brooch if I may ask?”

  “I didn’t steal it, sir,” I said, plucking up my courage.

  Winter came, and I rented a room with a Jewish family. It was a poor family, burdened with many children, and the room was narrow, actually an alcove. Fortunately for me, it adjoined the apartment and absorbed some of its heat. I was glad to be in a Jewish house again, to hear the language, the prayers, and to divert myself with the thought that I had come home.

  During these last days, I saw Rosa, and she had become very old. Her hair was thinned and gray, and one deep wrinkle divided the length of her face. For some reason I took it for the cut made by the murderer. Though the cut had healed, its depth was still visible. To my surprise there was no need to tell her anything. She knew everything and even pronounced Sammy’s name. Every time I take the high road, I see Rosa. She’s bound to my most secret thoughts. The last time, we spoke at length, and she was glad that I spoke the language fluently and pronounced the names of people and places correctly.

  My landlady’s name was Pearl, and she constantly marveled at my Yiddish. When I told her that Yiddish is a pleasing language, sweet to listen to, a suspicious smile crossed her lips. They kept the children away from me, and most of the day I was shut in my alcove, thinking and dozing off.

  Selling the brooch was painful. The sum I got for it was large, and perhaps that’s why I was able to block my tears. I paid my rent to the landlady. She couldn’t believe her eyes, and in her embarrassment she told me, “You’re good.”

  “What’s good about it?” I asked.

  “Everybody, until now, has cheated me, and you paid me on time.”

  Now, at night I sit on my bed and write down the events of the day. I acquired that habit from the time I dwelled with Rosa. My dear ones have left me, and now I have nothing in the world but my notes. I store all my thoughts in them. My notes are numerous and confused, and in some it’s hard to make out the writing, but still I continue. I also write when I’m tired, because sometimes it seems to me that I must preserve every face and every detail, so that when the time comes I can go back and remember them. But in the meantime there was the fear. I was frightened of the winter silence, of the drunkards wandering in the streets, of policemen, of the mob of peasants sitting in wagons and playing dice. Fear lurked in all my limbs. I saw clearly that a tempest was brewing on the horizon and the mob would storm the Jewish houses. I remembered the sight of the young men of my village who would come home from looting, merry and drunk. I remembered my friend Waska, a quiet and decent lad. We used to herd the flocks together. I loved him because of his generosity, his manners, and his forthrightness. We used to spend many hours in the field, and after my father had married his second wife, I would stay with Waska till late at night. I preferred the darkness of night to my stepmother’s face. That Waska, who used to hug and kiss me delicately, who was bashful about asking for my body, that darling Waska went out in the winter with all his friends to hunt Jews, and when a Jew who had crossed his path—not a young man—managed to slip out of his hands, Waska didn’t give up. He ran after the Jew and caught him, venting all his fury. Not content, he dragged the Jew back to the village.

  At Easter, the air of the village would be full of passion. The young men would unleash all their fury on the Jews. The reward wasn’t slow in coming. If you captured a Jew, others would come to save him; if you caught a Jew, you were sure of getting a suitcase full of merchandise.

  14

  IN FEBRUARY, I gave birth to a son. The midwife, an old Jewish woman, informed me immediately that the child was sound in all his limbs and his weight was satisfactory. The labor was intense, but I was so excited I hadn’t felt the pains.

  The next day I told the landlady I wished to have the boy circumcised and would call him Benjamin. The landlady, a simple, loyal woman, who kept a stall where she sold candy and seeds, was shocked by my intention and said, “What are you thinking about? Why give the child a serious defect? He’ll suffer from it all his life.”

  “I swore in my heart,” I said.

  “I don’t understand you,” she said.

  I had abundant milk. I nursed the child morning, noon, and night. Strange, but for years I hadn’t remembered the daughter born to me in Moldovitsa, and now, as I nursed Benjamin, I remembered her face with great clarity. For a moment a chill passed through my body. But the sadness proved to be a passing one. I was weary from giving birth, from nursing, and every time the baby fell asleep, I slept with him.

  My thoughts grew narrower and narrower, and it’s doubtful whether I was thinking at all.

  “Where does the mohel live?” the words left my mouth.

  “Why do you need him? Why?” The woman’s open face bespoke honesty and loyalty.

  “I’ll pay him,” I said in my great stupidity.

  “He’s a God-fearing man, and he wouldn’t do something like that,” said the woman, lowering her face.

  The next day I went down to the train and traveled to a village. I guessed they wouldn’t be as strict in the country. But I quickly discovered my error. I spent long hours in isolated taverns, struggling with all my power to get to a mohel. The people I met didn’t encourage me. “What for?” they said. “One must protect oneself and one’s children.”

  I had a long conversation with a widow in one of those narrow little roadside taverns. She spoke to me like a mother. “You’re punishing your child with your own hands. Don’t you see what they’re doing to the Jews? Not a day passes without a murder, and you, instead of protecting him, want to give him a severe blemish. We have no choice, but you, with your own hands and a clear mind, you’re sentencing him to a miserable fate.” There was sharpness and honesty in her voice. But for some reason, I don’t know where I found the strength, I repeated that single sentence like a fool. “I am determined to have the baby circumcised.”

  I roamed from village to village and from tavern to tavern. A few Jews lived in each village, and in every tavern I found
quiet, marvelous people, who offered the baby a cup of warm milk and served me a mug of coffee, but they wouldn’t heed my request, and more than once they reprimanded me. In my great anguish, I was about to open my mouth and tell them: I’m a Ruthenian, the daughter of Ruthenians, but my fate has pulled me from my ancestors, and now I have nothing to grasp except the hems of Jewish homes. In my heart I knew no one would understand, so I kept silent. Finally, in one isolated village I found a Jewish grocer who served as an occasional mohel. He saw my distress and agreed to circumcise my son. His agreement astonished me, and I burst into tears.

  That night I didn’t sleep. Evil thoughts tormented me, and as though to bring my dread to a boil, the baby was relaxed and suckled quietly. The thought that the next morning he would be circumcised suddenly cast fear upon me, and I wanted to flee the place. But my resolution was stronger than my fear, and I didn’t budge from the house.

  Early in the morning they circumcised him, and I couldn’t restrain myself. I sobbed like a servant woman. When I was aroused from my faint and saw that the child was breathing, I felt easier. I took the landlady’s hands, bowed down, and kissed her, as we do in the village.

  The first night after the circumcision I didn’t sleep. The baby, to my surprise, didn’t cry but only murmured and sighed. I stood next to his wretched little cradle, and my mouth emitted words I had likely heard in my childhood in the meadows.

  For a month I stayed in the mohel’s house. His wife prepared me milk porridge and a cup of coffee every morning. I nursed the boy day and night. A kind of oblivion, such as I had not known all my life, enfolded me, and I slept for many hours. Again I was in Henni’s company. Henni told me many things about her childhood and about her parents, who pinched pennies so she could study with a famous teacher. The teacher’s demands were many and difficult. After a day of torture, she would return home by the night train. More than once she begged: Let me be; I don’t want to be a pianist. But her parents didn’t listen. If she refused to rise in the morning, they made her get up, and if she refused to take the train, one of her parents, usually the mother, would escort her. Thus for years and years. When she was twenty, she ran away from home with Izio. Her mother, greatly upset, returned to her faith and began to take fastidious pains at home and with her husband.

  “It’s good you’ve got a baby,” said Henni. “If I had had a baby, I wouldn’t have committed suicide. But why did you have him circumcised?”

  “That’s what my heart told me to do.”

  “The Jews have no particular excellence—the same stupidity and the same wickedness.”

  “What can I do? I only feel at peace among Jews.”

  My answer saddened her, and she curled up, folding her legs as she used to do in life. A hard sadness and total self-abnegation.

  “You’re angry at me.” I couldn’t contain myself.

  “I’m astounded at your hard-heartedness.”

  “Why do you say hard-heartedness?”

  “What else can I call it? Do you have another word? A person takes a healthy child and gives it a scar. What can we say? What can we call that crime?”

  I wanted to cry, but my tears welled up within me, and I didn’t utter a word.

  I opened my eyes, and I was afraid to stay in the house any longer. Henni’s appearance had horrified me. There and then, I decided to set out. “Why won’t you stay longer? It’s cold out,” the landlady pleaded.

  “I must be on my way,” I said without explanation.

  The snow was silent and a cold sun glittered in the sky. I wrapped up Benjamin and paid the sum we had agreed upon. The woman, to my surprise, wasn’t satisfied and asked for more. I added more, but I couldn’t seal my lips, and I said, “Why did you do that?”

  “I demanded what was coming to us, no more.”

  “Hadn’t we agreed on a price?”

  “We did everything required—and more,” the woman replied in frightfully businesslike tones.

  Not until I was outdoors, in the cold sun, did I feel what my days in the mohel’s house had done to me. In my heart I regretted that we had parted that way. There’s no touch in this world that doesn’t leave a scratch. I wanted to go back and ask forgiveness, but for some reason I didn’t. Now, when I picture that woman, I know she wasn’t evil or miserly, just bitter. Her barrenness cried out from within her.

  I stood at the village square and didn’t know which way to turn. Without Henni’s jewels, who knows where I would have ended up. I bundled Benjamin in two fur wraps, and he slept quiedy. His tranquil sleep strengthened me, and I was willing to set out on foot.

  “Where are you going?” An old peasant stopped his wagon.

  I told him the name of the nearby village.

  “Get up.”

  “How much must I pay?”

  “Nothing at all.”

  After an hour’s ride, he asked, “Where are you from?”

  I told him.

  “But you don’t look like someone from a village.”

  “Then from where?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “From the village, father, from the meadow.” The old melody of my mother tongue rose within me.

  “There’s something in your voice.”

  “What, father?”

  “Some other tune.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “And what were you doing here?” he probed.

  “I was visiting relatives,” I lied.

  “I wouldn’t let my daughter go out on a trip alone.”

  “Why?”

  “The road spoils you. A person soaks up foreign terms, foreign gestures. We Ruthenians must watch ourselves. Jews ruin everything. Now they’re spoiling our women. You mustn’t work for the Jews. The Jews corrupt one’s soul.”

  I got down at the next village square and was glad to be free of that man and his reproaches.

  15

  THE SNOW MELTED, and a bright sun hung in the sky. I regretted the incident with the mohel’s wife. Had it not been for that scratch, I would bear her face with love. Now the memory was stained, and I will remember only her last look. That aftertaste did not cloud my spirit for long. I immediately saw that I was in a Jewish street full of good smells.

  It turned out that Passover was coming. Anyone who has ever been in a Jewish home at Passover will never forget it. The ceremony lasts about three weeks—about two weeks of preparations, the holiday itself, and the end. The stages are clear, without any superfluity. I was with Rosa only a few years, but still the holidays are stamped into my flesh like fire. Now the air is purged of all odor; its cleanliness chokes me. Now there are no Jews in the world, and I’m the only one, in secret, evoking the memory of their holidays in my notebook. Were it not for the world to come, there would be no purpose in my old life.

  I’ve put the cart before the horse. I was in Zhadova on market day, and everybody was gathered in the square. Toward Passover, everyone whitewashed the outer walls of their homes. The low houses, which were steeped in mud all winter, now rose from their humble position, standing straight and sparkling in light blue. “From the depths, I cried to you, O Lord,” we read in the Book of Books. Anyone who has ever seen the low houses rising out of the mudbanks understands that verse literally.

  While I was still riveted to the spot, the old urge overcame me. For more than two months I hadn’t had a drink. I sipped two drinks and came right out, so that Benjamin wouldn’t get used to those odors or to the language of the peasants. In the tavern, people do what they please. There, nothing is permitted or forbidden. I swore in my soul that for Benjamin’s sake, I would keep my distance from taverns. I wanted to raise him in quiet, clean surroundings. Benjamin’s face was open, and a great light canopied his eyes. When he opened his big, bright eyes, a smile would break out between his lips. Three times a day I used to nurse him, and those few hours of closeness were my joy.

  I rented a room from a Jewish family. The Jews are very strict on Passover, yet it’s not a pan
icked strictness but an attentive caution, like a gradual purification.

  I paid the rent in advance and received an attic room. My status in that area was strange. The Ruthenians scented out that something had gone wrong in me. The look of my face, though, hadn’t changed, but a few movements, perhaps a few accents in my speech, had become warped. With the Jews, my status was clearer: I was a servant in a Jewish house, spoke a good Yiddish, was familiar with the practices and customs, and they had to be careful in front of me. A Jew is a cautious creature, and he’s especially cautious with servant women who have worked in Jewish homes.

  “How many years did you work for the Jews?” The landlady interrogated me.

  “Many years.”

  “With observant people?”

  “Also with observant people.”

  “And why don’t you go back to your village?”

  I was used to these questions. Every servant woman is suspect of thievery, of tale-bearing. In her presence one doesn’t speak openly. But what is there to do? I also understand that secret language, and that amuses me. More than once I wanted to reveal it to them: I understand every word, every remark, and every hint. You have nothing to fear; I won’t steal and I won’t inform on you. I only want refuge at night.

  Now it seemed to me that they regretted renting me the attic. I seldom went downstairs, only once or twice a day, no more. The landlord never ceased reproaching his wife for renting the attic. “Where will I have a place to myself during the holiday? Where can I open a book? Every corner is taken. It won’t be easy to get that stranger out of the house.”