Katerina

by Aharon Appelfeld

  Once, at lunch, one of the prisoners asked me, “Katerina, how did you have the courage?”

  “I don’t know,” I answered her.

  That was the truth. My life was truncated, as though it no longer belonged to me, but I myself, wonder of wonders, stood on my own feet.

  The women prisoners didn’t abuse or mock me. One has to be wary of a woman capable of carving up a corpse into twenty-four pieces, I heard them whispering. Most of them were imprisoned, as I found out in the course of time, for poisoning or throwing acid. There were only two real murderesses, and I, it turned out, was one of them. The commandant summoned me and asked, “Do you have relatives?”

  “I haven’t. My parents died, and I was an only daughter.”

  “What are you laughing about?”

  “The phrase ‘only daughter’ struck me as funny.”

  “Did you have other relatives?”

  “My father had some bastards, but I didn’t know them,” I said, and kept on laughing.

  “People don’t laugh here. Get out of the room,” they ordered me, and I left.

  I rued my laughter, but I couldn’t control myself. Before my eyes I saw my father’s two redheaded bastards on the narrow wagon, the way I had seen them many years ago.

  Although everyone here is sentenced to many years of imprisonment, still they count the days, the months, and the years. I was so hollow that the whole matter of time didn’t concern me. I worked like a machine, and at the sound of the bell at night, I would put my tools down in the storeroom and report for roll call. After dinner they closed the sheds, and I would fall on my bunk like a sack.

  The days passed, and one day was like the other. The women prisoners who worked outside used to talk of the summer sun and the harvests. Here, between the walls, it was very cold even when the sun shone. Everything absorbs the cold. But to me, to tell the truth, nothing was disturbing.

  Once a month there were visits. Everyone looked forward to them, even putting on makeup. There was no one to visit me, and I was content that I didn’t have to undergo that embarrassment. The visits left a layer of oppression and sadness. After the visits, the prison would be stirred up all night long.

  “What are you thinking about?” One of the women prisoners surprised me while I was scouring the floor.

  “I’m not thinking, I’m tired.”

  “It seemed to me that you were thinking.”

  “What is there to think about?” I said, trying to end the conversation.

  The woman, my age, told me that she had already been imprisoned in that jail for six years and she had another seventeen years before her.

  “What were you sent to jail for?” I asked, and I regretted it immediately.

  “For throwing acid,” she said, and smiled a strange smile.

  Before getting married, she too had worked for Jews for many years. I immediately saw that she remembered her years with the Jews fondly, and like me, she had first worked for an observant family and then in the city for nonreligious Jews.

  “They were my nicest years,” she said, and tears welled in her eyes.

  That is how the friendship between us began. Her name was Sigi. In the winter, in the darkness and chill, we would bring up memories of Hanukkah and Purim; in the spring, of Passover and Shavuot. On Yom Kippur she would wrap herself in a shawl and fast. Had it not been for the boy who seduced her, had it not been for that cheat, she would have remained with the Jews forever.

  Thus, miraculously, I found a secret tunnel to return to my loved ones. One evening I saw Henni. She knew what had happened to me and how I had landed there. I told her that there was no remorse in my heart. I was prepared for a long life in prison, without any illusions.

  “Where do you get that faith?” Henni asked me.

  “From my mother.” I didn’t hesitate.

  “Strange,” said Henni. “You didn’t love your mother.”

  “I didn’t know how to love her.”

  “And now you love her?”

  “Now she’s within me.”

  Barely had I pronounced those words when darkness covered that clear vision, and I sank down into the abyss.

  21

  WHILE THE WORK WORE THE days out, the cold made the nighttime hours infinitely long, and still I would wake each morning standing in line. There’s no limit to how much a person can endure. I felt, sometimes, that changes were taking place in my body. My legs swelled up and the veins turned blue on my hands, but I had no pains. I worked from morning to night. At night I would stand on my feet and say to myself, Another day. The thoughts shriveled up in my head, like a hollowed pumpkin.

  “Were you married?” Sigi asked me.

  “No, but I had a child.”

  “Good for you.”

  Later she told me about her first days with the Jews, how she was afraid of them, and how she got over her fear. In the first winter she had come down with pneumonia, and she was sure they would fire her right away, but the Jews surprised her and took care of her. The first summer she met Herz Reiner, a young, nonreligious Jew, a student in Lemberg, who courted her with frightening gentleness.

  “Wouldn’t you like to go back to them?”

  “I would.”

  Sigi was tall and strong and full of contradictions. “I love the Jews,” she used to say. “But it’s too bad they’re Jews. If they weren’t Jews, I would love them even more. They are special creatures. I love contact with them.”

  “Would you have married Herz Reiner?” My tongue egged me on.

  “That’s something else. A woman has to get married in the church. We sin and love young Jews, but the church doesn’t love them. We have to marry people like ourselves.”

  “So you don’t love them.”

  “I’m a Ruthenian, my dear, a Ruthenian wild beast. The Jews are another race. We can be amazed by them, sleep with them, love them, and curse them, but not marry them. We’re different. What can you do? It’s not our fault. That’s how the Creator made us.”

  I liked Sigi. I didn’t talk about everything with her, but I felt that we were attached to a memory full of warmth and sin, and that feeling gave us a kind of hidden advantage. We didn’t talk about it to anyone, and not much between ourselves, but we enjoyed each other’s company.

  At night there was lots of talk. There were nights when they got carried away and talked about failed loves, and there were nights when they talked about harsh and vicious parents, or sometimes about brothers and sisters, and there were nights when they talked only about the Jews, and those were the liveliest nights of all. All of them had worked for Jews. And there were some whose fathers and forefathers had worked for the same family.

  To steal from a Jew’s house, that was a craft a person learned over the years. It wasn’t easy to steal from Jews, they were alert and quick, but if you confused them, it was quite possible. After a year or two, one knew all the secrets—when they prayed and when they mated. On the holidays they were all in the synagogue, and that was the time to rifle through the drawers. To steal from a Jew’s house was a special kind of pleasure, almost like making love, declared one of them, and she made the women all laugh. Love affairs with Jews—that was also a matter they liked to explore. In that matter, there were some differences of opinion. Some women were sure that there was nothing like the Jews’ love; they were clean and gentle and never would abuse a woman. Others held that their manners were too refined. A woman needs a beast of the field, not caresses and whispers.

  Meanwhile, they informed me that my lawyer had come to visit. Visiting hours were tense. Within a short time you had to take everything in and tell everything, and all through a narrow barrier. The shouts were deafening. My lawyer got permission to see me in a guardroom, not with everyone else.

  Since the trial his hair, or rather, the remnants of his hair, had gone gray. He was short and balding, but no change had occurred in his expression, soft and attentive. “I’ve wanted to come to see you for a long time, but I couldn’t m
anage,” he apologized. He had brought me a package of sweets and a jar of jam. Meanwhile, he told me that he had managed to recover the jewels that Henni had left me from the agency that had confiscated them. From now on they would be in the prison office, and when the time came and I was freed, they would be returned to me, “And you’ll have a penny to keep body and soul together.”

  “No need,” I said, very stupidly.

  “A person never knows what the days have in store for him.”

  Now he, too, seemed embarrassed. Perhaps he was disappointed because I hadn’t appreciated his efforts enough. To correct the impression, I said, “Everything is fine with me.” And that was the end of my words. He didn’t know what to say either, and he got to his feet. No one urged us to finish the conversation, but I, for some reason, hurried back to the shed.

  At night I continued digging down in search of a path to my dear ones. It seemed to me, for some reason, that if I could get to Henni, I could get to them all. That feeling led me astray. The nights grew completely opaque—not a slit and no light. Only darkness on top of darkness, and here, among the bunks, as in every tavern, they would curse and blame the Jews. If it weren’t for the Jews, everything would be different. They must be exterminated, wiped off the face of the earth. There was no false note in those voices. They sounded as clearly as the mooing of a cow, and sometimes like a coarse folk song.

  In my heart I knew that those voices didn’t have the power to hurt my dear ones, but nevertheless I wasn’t at ease. Who knows what harm a curse can do? My dear ones were wandering in the world of truth, laid bare, souls without bodies, and here the evil ones stood and reviled them day and night.

  I hadn’t feared in vain. The next day I learned that a pogrom had taken place in one of the villages near the prison. The killing wasn’t very great, but there were many wounded. One of the jailers reported the details, and the news spread quickly. Apparently, the booty was plentiful this time. Now the peasants wouldn’t need the Jews’ stores anymore; they would have their own cloth, their own sugar, and high shoes of every type and size. Late that night a bottle of vodka passed from hand to hand. Everyone was happy that at long last they were letting the Jews have it.

  At Passover, when it was permitted to give the women prisoners clothes and food, Jewish coats were already visible—lace dresses and woollen stockings and also a few new girdles. Everybody was happy, and they all tried them on.

  “Why are you all alone?” One of the prisoners turned to me.

  “I miss people.” The words came out of my mouth.

  “You should forget everything. Everything that was is as if it never were.”

  “And don’t you remember?”

  “Certainly I remember, but right away I say to myself, You mustn’t remember. I’ve ordered my sisters and cousins not to come visit me. If I’m set free, I’ll go visit them. They don’t owe me anything. Visits just drive a person out of his mind. I would forbid visits. I don’t miss anything anymore. I did what I had to do, and now I can sit at ease.”

  “What did you do?” I asked.

  “I murdered my husband. Only you and I did the job all the way. The others just tried it and felt sorry about it.” A spark lit her eyes.

  The prison was well guarded, but news still slipped in through every crack. The day before, we had heard that Sigi’s husband had been killed in a tavern. Everyone was pleased and drank, and I too joined in the pleasure. Sigi got drunk and in her drunkenness she announced, “I love our Lord Jesus with a great, powerful love. He is our Lord, He is our Savior. I knew He would take vengeance for me. Now the time has come for the Jews who killed God. I’ve worked for the Jews a lot and I stole a lot of money from them, but I’ll never forgive them for killing our Lord. How did those children of Satan dare to murder Him, for He is love and He is grace. God won’t forgive them. He has prepared a great revenge for them. You’ll see!”

  She talked so much she vomited and turned as white as a sheet, but she didn’t stop cursing everyone who had tormented her throughout her life: her father and mother, her husband and children, the Jews and their cheating. If she hadn’t included the chief guard of the prison in her curses, the night would have ended happily and everyone could have slept in peace, but since she did include her, the jailers immediately pounced on her, beat her, and dragged her to the guardroom. The prisoners’ pleas were of no avail. That night she was tried and sent to solitary confinement, and that was the end of the great celebration.

  22

  AFTER SIGI LEFT SOLITARY CONFINEMENT, she never ceased praying and crossing herself, proclaiming that Jesus was standing at her right hand, the God of vengeance had appeared, and now the hour of the Jews had come as well. A kind of flame blew on her bony cheeks. The Ruthenian she spoke had also changed. She talked like the old women in the village, mentioning Jesus every time she spoke, and the Holy Mother and the angels, who would overcome all evil and the children of Satan.

  I’d lost a friend. I spoke to her very seldom, but she, for some reason, sought my company, reproaching me and reminding me that without faith there is no life and without Jesus we are lost in this world. Her voice was frightening. “You have been influenced by the Jews too much. They’ve cast their spells upon you and ruined the pure faith in you. The children of Satan know a woman’s soul and they purchase it easily. You mustn’t feel sorry for them. They’ve blackened the Ruthenian soul.”

  I slipped away from her, willing to work in the frozen fields so as not to be near her. One night I couldn’t bear it any longer, and I said to her, “What do you want from me?” She was startled and said, “Nothing. I love you. I want to return you to the bosom of faith. The children of Satan have harmed you.”

  “Don’t spread that nonsense,” I said, and I was scared by my own voice.

  The warning worked. People, it seems, fear murderers, and I too was afraid of my voice. In court they had exhibited the jackknife I had used to murder the murderer, and they asked me if that indeed was the same jackknife. It was a simple jackknife that I had taken with me when I left Henni’s house. There had been no reason for that little theft.

  Afterward, the days were short. The cold was great, and the work exhausting. My thoughts shriveled, and my legs moved along as though by themselves. I was cut off from my own life and buried in a kind of hard hollowness. I wasn’t angry and I didn’t want anything. If they punished us with overtime, I would work without a word. Everyone used to wait for visiting days with impatience. I didn’t look forward to them. My lawyer would come once a month and bring, as was his habit, a few sweets and some jam.

  “How are the Jews?” I asked, not in my own voice.

  The lawyer was surprised by my question and said, “Why do you ask?”

  “Rumors are flying about here that they slaughtered them in the villages.”

  “Does that worry you?”

  “Jews, you should know, are very close to me.”

  “You’d better think about happier things,” he whispered.

  “They are dear to me.” A voice came from my throat.

  “I don’t understand what you’re driving at.”

  “I love their little houses.”

  “Don’t talk out loud,” he cut me off.

  “I love to talk Yiddish. I miss it, like the breath of life.”

  The lawyer got to his feet and said, “That’s irrelevant. We’ll talk about it later.”

  “I’m not afraid.”

  “Nevertheless.”

  “I won’t stop loving them.” I managed to get out that sentence before the visit was terminated.

  Later, I knew that it wasn’t Katerina speaking. When Katerina is connected with her dear ones, her voice is full, her vocabulary different, and her feelings radiate from her body; but when she is cut off from them, she is like anyone else, weary and depressed.

  That winter was very long. Occasionally, strong feelings would assail me, acute beliefs that would make my head spin till I felt faint. There were moments
when I was very close to my dear ones, a great and very private closeness, especially to Benjamin, my little angel. That winter I told one of the women prisoners, “I don’t need Jesus. I have my own Jesus.” I didn’t know what I was talking about, but they allowed me opinions and beliefs. People are cautious with murderers.

  But most days I was depressed and kept to myself. My vision was diminished, my ears grew deaf, and I was sealed up like a wall. When they put out the lights, I curled up in my coat like an abandoned animal. The morning didn’t inspire me with will or faith; I would dress and report for roll call as if it were an extension of a restless sleep. For a long time we would wait for the truck, and when it came at last, the women prisoners hurried to clamber aboard, knocking each other over in their rush. The truck was closed with a tarpaulin, and it was warmer there.

  “Start working. That’ll warm you up,” said the old guard. He didn’t beat us, but he berated us, saying that man was born to toil, there was no sin without punishment, and that one must accept punishment with love. The guards weren’t evil spirits but human beings who did their duty. This world was only a corridor to the anteroom. Without doubt, there was a religious tinge to his words. Sometimes that tone evoked a thread of awe as in the priest’s funeral prayers.

  For six hours we would extract beets from the frozen earth. The spades were dull, but nevertheless our limbs did the impossible, bringing the beets up from their icy beds. After a few hours, there would be a pile of white beets. In the afternoon they brought us soup and a crust of bread. The food was tasteless, but a person can get used to anything. Sometimes a woman would despair of her life and flee, but not for long. The gendarmes would find her.

  “Why not accept torments with love?” the old guard would preach his sermon to us all.