“These aren’t torments, that’s just humiliating,” one of the women prisoners answered him blandly.
Nothing mattered to me. In those dark and opaque days, I did what I had to do. I didn’t complain and I didn’t make accusations. But occasionally, in the winter—and this happened several times—a kind of malicious joy would spread and grate upon my nerves. The pain was great, but I restrained myself. In the end I couldn’t bear it anymore. I raised my voice and shouted, “Silence!”
“What do you want?” a prisoner asked impudently.
“Not to talk.”
“ Me?”
“You.”
People treat murderers with respect. Not even the women guards yelled at me, but in my heart I knew my strength wasn’t my own. Only when I was close to my dear ones did I have a voice, and there was awe in me.
At the end of the winter a lot of stolen shirts and sweaters reached us. Everyone was happy, but they didn’t show it. “Don’t put on that shirt. Katerina is roaming about.” I would hear the whisper, my small revenge in this darkness.
23
IN APRIL THE DAYS WERE BRIGHT, the mornings very cold, but in the afternoons the sun would come down and warm us. We worked in open fields and we would return drunk with the pure air. Had it not been for a few escapes, the days would have passed uneventfully. After every escape came the beatings and the screaming. The chief guard, a sturdy, cruel woman, was responsible for the beatings; she beat with lust and devotion. She didn’t torment murderesses, but she wheedled them, “Why face trials? Solitary confinement is no Garden of Eden, believe me.”
Time vanished in the daily schedule. Your previous life grew ever more distant and vague, as though it wasn’t your own. A prisoner came back to the shed after a day’s work and sought nothing but her bunk. One woman remembered that she once had been held back a class in school, and her father, a senior official in the local council, wept from sheer embarrassment.
“My father,” she confessed to me, “was apparently a little Jewish. At any rate, there was something Jewish about him. Only Jews are capable of crying about something like that.”
“He didn’t beat you?”
“No, he just wept.”
“Do you have good memories of your father?”
“No. His weeping frightened me. He was a stranger to us all.”
“What makes you suspect him?”
“I don’t know. As a young man, he worked for Jews, and so did his mother, my grandmother—for many years she worked for Jews. Jewish manners clung to them.”
“But you loved him.”
“I didn’t know how to love him. He liked to sit in the garden for hours and gaze around. I was afraid of him. In truth, we were all afraid of him. The Jews had a bad influence on him.”
“Is he still living?”
“He died a year ago. I asked to attend the funeral, but they didn’t let me. It’s better they didn’t. Everyone would have looked at me with pity. I don’t like to be pitied. A person should suffer in silence.”
Thus, from the thick depths, little trills rose up. Those whispers were absorbed very well in the shed, but they had the power to move one for a moment.
“How much more time do you have left?”
“I don’t count. Anyway, I won’t live to be freed.”
I kept my secrets, and I didn’t reveal them. Only with my lawyer would I exchange a few sentences and be moved. Once a month, he came to visit and brought me fruits that were in season. He was fifty, but his tattered clothing made him look older. If I could have done it, I would have laundered his shirt, pressed his suit, and polished his shoes. His loyalty pained me.
“How are the Jews in the villages?” I asked, not in my own voice.
“Why are you asking?”
“Because I’m afraid.”
“A person should worry about himself. You have enough problems of your own.”
Everything that happened in the villages was well known here—a robbery or murder every month. Jewish clothes came in regularly, even a pair of candlesticks. If I had money, I would have bought the clothes from the women and put them on my bunk. At night I would breathe in the starch hidden in their fabrics. I missed the village Jews—their little stores that gave off an odor of sunflower oil, the children racing about in the courtyard, the silence of Sabbaths and holidays, the old Jews standing at street corners and looking about in wonderment. For a long while they would stand, and suddenly a smile would rise to their lips, then they picked up their feet and disappeared. For hours I would observe their birdlike way of walking. I always had the feeling that they were linked to blue and silent worlds.
But, even to myself, I didn’t reveal the great secret. My Benjamin had gone up to heaven and he was the true Jesus. Jesus in the churches has rosy cheeks, plump arms, and his whole look is annoyingly self-righteous. A kind of revolting spirituality. A fake angel. But my Jesus had been in my womb, and to this day he fills me. My Benjamin doesn’t look self-righteous like the icons in the church. My Benjamin used to bite. They were sharp but sweet bites, sealed into my flesh to this day. My Benjamin would stick out his tongue and tease me, and sometimes he hid under the table and called in a chirping voice, “Mommy’s a mouse. Mommy has a tail.” Benjamin was mischievous. Without his mischief, I wouldn’t have known how much light there was in him. Sometimes I said to myself, Where is my mischievous one? There were days when I saw him in the midst of a field or among the open containers, the ladles, and the coarse words. He was present everywhere. I don’t like it when people bow and scrape. After kneeling and bowing down, a person is capable of dreadful actions. On Sunday, after prayers, they used to behead animals for the big meals.
“Why are you so quiet, Katerina? What are you thinking about?” The chief guard spoke to me in a motherly tone.
“I’m not thinking.”
“But something seems to be disturbing you. You can tell me. We no longer punish people for thoughts.”
“I have no complaints.”
They were afraid of me. One of the prisoners refused to sleep next to me, and when they forced her, she wept like a child who had been spanked. The chief guard’s scoldings were no use. In the end, she sat next to her and spoke softly: “You have nothing to fear. Katerina won’t do you any harm. Murderers only murder once, and after that they’re quiet and pleasant. I have lots of experience. Quite a few murderesses have been jailed here.” Strangely, those words calmed her, and she brought in her belongings and made the bed beside me.
“What’s your name?” I asked her.
At the sound of my question her shoulders tensed, and she stepped back, saying, “Sophia.”
“Why are you scared?”
“I’m not afraid, I’m just shivering.”
You have nothing to fear, I wanted to tell her, but I knew my words would make her tremble even more.
“It’s hard for me to stop shivering. My body shivers by itself.”
“We mustn’t be afraid of each other,” I said for some reason.
“I’m not afraid anymore, but it’s hard for me to stop shivering. What can I do?”
Her face was disheveled and wrinkled. You could see that she had been afraid all her life. First, she had been scared of her mother and father, later, of her husband. In her great fear, she had tried to murder her husband. Now she was in jail and afraid of her cellmates. The chief guard didn’t spare her. She beat her, but not hard. She tortured her, not for her sins but for her fears. “You mustn’t be afraid of people, you understand?”
“I’m not afraid anymore,” she assured me.
“Don’t tell me you’re not afraid. You’re all fear.”
“I don’t know what to do,” she finally admitted.
“You have to say to yourself, There is God in heaven and He is the king of kings. He knows every secret and only Him do I fear. All the rest is illusion. Do you understand me?”
Sophia’s behavior was exceptional. The women prisoners usually accepted blows in
silence, sat in solitary confinement without screaming, but there were days when the chief guard went out of her mind, casting dread on everyone, and then screams rose up to heaven.
24
YEARS PASSED, and a woman with the same name as mine arrived here. She was younger than I, from my village, and glad to see me. She told me at length about a quarrel over property, about the living, and about the dead. My murder had apparently made a big impression in the village. As after every horrible act, the village split into two camps. Some people thought I was justified and they blamed the Jews for whom I had worked, while others blamed me and my wanton character. She herself had been sentenced to life in prison for injuring her husband. Her husband had jabbed her with a pitchfork in the barn. She had snatched the tool from his hands and, with the very same tool, struck and wounded him.
I remembered her but not clearly. Our houses in the village were far apart, but sometimes we would meet in the pasture, at weddings, or in church. Even then she carried the anxious look of a hunted animal. I had not seen my village for years and it had even been erased from my dreams, but suddenly it rose again to life, a painful rebirth, with all its odors and colors.
“You haven’t changed,” she told me.
“How is that?”
“I would have known you right away.”
I remembered her. She had been about five, dressed in a long linen gown and standing next to the large animals and staring at them with a look of amazement. Something of that look remained in her eyes.
“What do people do here?” she asked me in a homey voice, the way you ask people in the village.
“They work.” I tried to make the moment milder.
She cried, and I didn’t know what to say to her. In the end I told her, “Don’t cry, dear. Lots of people have entered and left this place. A life sentence isn’t the final word. There are early releases and pardons.”
“Everybody hates me, even my children.”
“You have nothing to worry about. God knows the whole truth. Only He can judge you.” Barely had I pronounced the name of God when the anguish was wiped from her face, her eyes opened wide, and she looked at me with that gaze from her childhood.
“I thought about you a lot,” she said.
“There’s nothing to worry about, we’re not all alone.”
“Who could have imagined we’d meet here?”
“It’s not such a dreadful place,” I went on, to distract her.
“Does anyone visit here?” the poor thing kept on asking.
“There’s no need for visits. Here a person minds his own business.”
“A Jewish lawyer defended me. I don’t believe in the Jews. They always talk a lot, but their mouths and hearts are not the same. A life sentence is better than being defended by Jews. They run around everywhere.”
I let her hatred seethe and sensed that the seething eased her pain. Afterward, I offered her an illicit sip of liquor. The drink calmed her, and her face returned to her. She said, “Thanks, Katerina. May God watch over you. Without you, what would I do here?”
“What did they say about me in the village?” I tried to amuse her.
“That the Jews put a spell on you.”
“Do you believe that?”
We both laughed.
The days passed, and no one came to visit her. In the winter there were hardly any visits. The prison is remote and access difficult. Only my lawyer showed up, appearing as regularly as clockwork.
“Why take the trouble?” I reprimanded him.
“I’m your lawyer, aren’t I? Doesn’t a lawyer have to find out how his clients are?”
“True, but you have to watch your health. Health comes before everything.”
During the past two years he had aged. His clothing had become ragged, his lower lip, which had been a bit swollen and blue, seemed to have become bluer still. A cigarette was always stuck to it. On that cold day his face expressed neither goodheartedness nor wisdom; a kind of iciness suffused it. The whole time, he rubbed his hands together and said, “It’s cold, cold out.” Why did you come then? I wanted to scold him, but instead I said, “In your office, there’s a heater.”
“What office are you talking about? It’s been a long time since I’ve had an office.”
“You need an office, don’t you?” I said, and I didn’t know what I was talking about.
“I have no need for an office anymore,” he said, waving his right hand.
The winds blew in, hurling their drafts into the exposed anteroom. I remembered my first meeting with him in the midst of the angry crowd of gendarmes, wardens, and attorneys. He had seemed shorter than all of them to me, thin and embarrassed.
“I’m your lawyer,” he’d introduced himself. “I’ll try to defend you with all my might. Your case is a complicated one, but we’ll prevail.”
“What can I give you?” I had asked him then, very stupidly.
“There’s no need for anything.”
Now the same man was standing before me, only more impoverished. The cigarette on his blue lip seemed to be stuck there from the time I’d first seen him.
“Where do you live?”
“I have a room in town. My parents live in a village. I sometimes visit them. They aren’t pleased with me.”
“Why aren’t they pleased with you?”
“Once they wanted me to marry,” he said, and smiled.
“You didn’t miss anything.”
“My parents had great hopes for me. I’m an only son. They worked hard all their lives, and they invested their savings in me so that I could study at the university. I wanted to study painting, but they didn’t consent. They didn’t appreciate painting, so I studied what they wanted.”
“You’re a successful lawyer.” I tried to encourage him.
“It’s hard to say I’m successful. I don’t have an office, and I don’t know how to collect fees, either. But I’m not going to change, apparently.”
A kind of spirit seized me, and I told him, “You defended me excellently. With all your might.”
“In my opinion, you should have been found innocent.”
“I’m not sure.”
“I am.”
He fastened his coat and was about to leave. Buttoned up now, he looked even shorter. I very much wanted to give him something of my own for the road, but I didn’t have anything. “Don’t go out in the storm.” I wanted to delay him.
“I’m not afraid. An hour’s walk—and I’m at the railroad station.”
“It’s not worth taking the risk in this weather.” I spoke to him in an old-fashioned way. The guard in the hut didn’t press us. In that season, everyone is busy keeping his limbs warm. The watchman was also stamping his feet.
“Don’t go to the village. You won’t change your parents, and they won’t change you. Everyone to his own fate.”
He was surprised by my voice for a moment and said, “All these years I caused them only unhappiness. I very much want to visit them, but I don’t dare. It’s hard for me to bear their looks. They don’t reprimand me anymore. My father even gave me a little money—but it isn’t right to take money from an old man. They’ve worked hard all their days.”
“Are you observant?”
“You’ve touched a sore point. It’s hard for my parents to accept that their only son is making his way through the world without faith. If I were successful at my profession, they would certainly forgive me.”
At that moment I felt a strong physical attraction for that little, troubled man, the way I had felt once toward Sammy. My dear, I was about to tell him, I’m willing to be your servant, your concubine, to clean your room and wash your shirt. My body’s not holy. I love you because you have a light that warms my soul. It’s hard for me to bear the coarseness of the women here.
“I’ll be seeing you,” he said, and raised his hand.
“When?”
“I’ll come in a month.”
“Thank you. I’ll be expecting you.”
“To my regret, I didn’t bring you good news.”
“But your very coming, your being here …”
At that moment a great storm was raging outside, a black storm. Through the cracks in the door I could see him as he headed off, and the wind swung him on its wings.
25
THE DAYS ADVANCED HEAVILY, as though they were tethered to a sluggish locomotive. The winter was long and its darkness was great, and the summer was hardly felt. One day was like the other; there was no end to the days. Nevertheless, year pursued year. A person no longer sought closeness to anyone. Almost nobody talked to me. A murderess is a murderess, I heard more than once. I didn’t answer, and I didn’t insult. I was attached to my secret by an umbilical cord, and from there I drew patience. I had a family hidden from all eyes. Now my lawyer had joined it. For months, he didn’t come to visit me.
Sometimes I saw him in the image of John the Baptist, standing by the waters of the Prut and pouring water on people’s heads. That task doesn’t suit you, I remarked to him. And what task does suit me? he asked without turning his head. You’re the court-appointed lawyer for the poor and the downcast; they are certainly waiting for you. You’re right, my dear, you’re absolutely right. But you mustn’t forget that a year ago I was dismissed from my job. But if my new task doesn’t please you, I shall return to my old one. I hope they won’t kill me. If you’re afraid, don’t go there, I was about to tell him, but I didn’t have the chance. He disappeared from before my eyes. I didn’t understand the meaning of that dream. I missed him and his cringing movements, and every month I expected him.
Outside, they had begun looting Jewish shops once again, and no small amount of the booty continued to arrive. One of Sigi’s aunts brought her a poplin blouse. I saw immediately that it was a Jewish blouse. Sigi wore it, and her mood improved. It was very hard for me to bear the way she looked in that blouse, but I restrained myself and didn’t say a thing. But one evening I couldn’t control myself and I said to her, “That blouse doesn’t suit you.”
“Why?”
“Because it belongs to the Jews.”
Katerina Page 13