A Kind of Woman

by Helen Burko

  “He was your lover?”

  “Yes. What a handsome man he was!”

  “Handsomer than me?”

  “What a question! Of course, he was handsomer…much handsomer, and in general…”

  Her words increased his subconscious jealousy even more.

  “Where is he now, this handsome man? Maybe we can bring him also to America after a while.”

  She laughed loudly.

  “How naive you are. Who knows where he is now. Who knows?”

  She stopped laughing and became serious. He continued to interrogate her to make her talk and maybe confess.

  “What was the name of your lover?”

  “What do you care what his name was? I used to call him liebling, too.”

  She closed her eyes again and sank into a fantasy of desire and longing. How beautiful she was as she lay there, but she aroused a loathing in him, a loathing that he made a tremendous effort to hide.

  “So that’s it,” he stated. “Little by little, I’m beginning to know you and understand you. Now it seems to me that, besides your parents, you had a lover whom you can’t forget, and so I’m even more amazed that you left everything to come with me.”

  “Should I not have told you? You asked me to be candid.”

  “Yes, that’s what I requested and what I want in the future.”

  “And I have really been honest. Does it satisfy you?”

  “Very much! But why did you come with me?”

  “Because you were so honest and frank… You told me all about yourself. That made an impression on me. I saw you weren’t like other men who, when they see a pretty face, tell her all sorts of lies, confuse her, promise her the moon, and in the end, abandon her.”

  In this way, they sat and talked, and Jacob, realizing he wouldn’t get clear answers from her, tried to find ways to explain the pros and cons until he decided not to delve into her life anymore and to accept her as she was.

  When he came to the decision not to try to solve the puzzle of why she came with him and left her home, her parents, and even her loved one, he saw her in a different light. His hatred disappeared and her unusual beauty charmed him anew.

  When he stopped his interrogation, they began again to caress each other as if no unpleasant conversation had ever taken place between them. She made an effort to excite him, to make him wild and erotic, and she changed from the reserved, restrained woman she was a short while ago.

  “I love a man who is wild.” She laughed and aroused him to such a pitch that he forgot everything around him.

  *****

  When they awoke again and went to the kitchen, they found food on the table that had been set for two and even tea that had only to be rewarmed. They sat and ate their breakfast.

  “Do you see what a great housekeeper we have?” Rachel said to him. “I think she does all this because she knows you are an American citizen and will pay her well. She looks like a respectable woman.”

  “Yes, clever and spry. Just look at the lovely twilight. We really should take a walk after we have slept all day.”

  “Fine, liebling, we’ll walk a little.”

  When she finished eating, she opened the window wide and then ran from room to room to open the windows, carefree like a schoolgirl who had come to spend her vacation at a resort.

  Intoxicating smells permeated the rooms. To Jacob, the songs of the birds sounded sweeter, and he felt the value and the importance of peace on earth.

  “Now we have to think of the future.” He followed Rachel into their room. She was standing in front of a mirror and fixing her hair while the cat pressed against her legs.

  “Of course.” She smiled and continued to comb her hair.

  “Before we start out, I’d like to write to my parents and my friends in America. I’d like to send the letter today, because it will bring us money so we can live well. You can imagine how happy they’ll be to hear I’ve survived!”

  At the same time, he remembered Doris’s parents and thought of the tragedy he would have to tell them about…that Doris and Lillian were no more. They would grieve even more when they heard he had survived and they had not.

  He wanted to banish these thoughts, and so he began to chew on the bread and cheese he had brought with him, as if by doing so he could grind up his unwanted thoughts.

  “Yes, I’ll write… What will I write? I don’t know… There is so much to write about!” He laughed as he suddenly remembered. “There’s no paper! I forgot to buy some!”

  Rachel didn’t respond. She had finished combing her hair and was playing with the cat and feeding him.

  “Oh, Kitzie, sweetie…”

  “Maybe you could find some paper in one of the rooms?” he asked Rachel.

  “All right. A pity Marta isn’t here, but you really should send a letter so you can receive money and we can rest here for a while without worrying.”

  “Right! That’s what I think, too. In the meantime, I’ll put on my shoes…although I don’t know if I’ll be able to. Either my feet swelled or my shoes shrunk. This is the first time I’ve taken them off after so much walking.”

  “All right.” She began to search the rooms with Kitzie in her arms. After a while, she put the cat down and looked in every drawer and examined every closet. It seemed to be a game to her to look everywhere. She was so happy when she finally found some rusted razor blades in a drawer.

  “Look, Jacob.” She ran to him and showed him her find. “Here are some razor blades. You have to shave!” She laughed wildly.

  He looked at the razor blades and laughed with her. “Yes, you searched and found! Sometimes you look for nothing and find something.”

  “Like you found me, right?” she added gaily.

  “Right, like I found you!” He smiled and looked at the rusty razor blades. “I don’t even have a razor to hold these, but after the war, even a razor blade is a valuable object. Now I have no choice but to make a wooden razor, but it’ll be very primitive.”

  “I’ll continue to search. Perhaps I’ll still find paper and a better razor blade. Look!” She suddenly noticed his feet. “You’re still barefooted!”

  “Those shoes, damn it, they refuse to fit my feet!” he said as he tried to pull on his shoes.

  “What kind of man are you if you can’t control your shoes?” She laughed and left to continue to search the rooms. As she was searching, she noticed something shiny sticking out of a small cupboard. It could be a piece of leather or a watch or a piece of paper. Instinctively, she pulled it out, and to her great surprise, she found it to be a German officer’s cap with all the insignia removed. Only light spots remained and hinted at the bright army metal and the snobbism of the past.

  She turned pale, and her hands began to tremble. She looked around wildly. How did the cap get here? she pondered. Have they been here? At that moment, she heard Jacob’s footsteps approaching the room.

  “Finally, I succeeded,” he told her from afar. Suddenly he realized she wasn’t responding, but he didn’t know in which room he could find her and began to call her.

  But Rachel stood and looked, mesmerized, at the cap.

  “Why don’t you answer?” he called as he ran through the rooms. The cat also sounded her “meow, meow” and rubbed up against Rachel’s legs, but Rachel didn’t heed her.

  “You’re right, Jacob, it isn’t nice to search in a stranger’s cupboards… But look what I found!”

  “What is that? An SS officer’s cap? How did it get here?”

  “Who knows? Who knows?” she asked with artificial gaiety mixed with bitterness.

  “Why are you so upset?” He looked at her. “Nonsense, my dear, that all belongs to the past. Their ‘illustrious’ past.”

  “I found it under a cupboard.”

  She turned to him and put the cap on his head.

  “It suits you…splendidly!” she said laughing.

  “Yes, it’s really something to see the cap, the pride of the SS men, on th
e head of a Jew or stuck, worn and faded, under an old cupboard.”

  Rachel didn’t pay any attention to his words and just held him and danced around the room with him. He took off the cap and threw it into a corner.

  “I don’t want to put such an abomination on my head!”

  She stopped dancing but continued to laugh.

  “It looked so nice on you.”

  “I don’t want it to look nice on me,” he said bitterly. “That cap is a symbol of evil and suffering.”

  “Don’t get so upset, my dear; it’s just nonsense. It all belongs to the ‘illustrious’ past of the German people.” She tried to dance with him again while humming a German tune.

  “Why a German tune and not a Russian tune?” he asked, smiling. “Is it the influence of the SS cap?”

  “Oh, I learned that song from the daughters of a farmer I worked for. They were as lovely as two princesses.”

  “I’m amazed they acted so well toward you that they taught you a song.”

  “Yes, they treated me kindly.”

  “Maybe because they thought you were an Aryan?”

  “Of course they didn’t know I was Jewish,” she said sadly.

  “All that is over. You mustn’t be sad now.”

  “It’s not over.”

  “Of course it is. What is past can’t be relived. And now I want you to be as you were a moment ago. I like to see you joyful, and I want you to always be like that, you hear?”

  She shook off her sadness and became joyful. He was surprised she could pass so quickly from one mood to another.

  They heard footsteps approaching.

  “Marta!” Rachel called out, a little panicky. “She mustn’t know we looked through her drawers.”

  They heard the creaking of the door, and Marta entered, dressed in a coat and holding a bag full of groceries. She greeted them with an artificial smile and with a sweetness that didn’t suit her face.

  “So you’ve finally awakened. Did you rest well? You were so sound asleep that I didn’t want to bother you, and I went out quietly. I understand how tired you must be.”

  “Thank you. Thank you very much.” Rachel acted as if she had known Marta for years. “It’s wonderful here, so good, and you’re a splendid woman, Pani Marta; you even prepared food for us!”

  “Oh, dear God, you have eaten so little,” Marta said when she saw that so much was left of the food she had prepared for them.

  “It doesn’t matter, Pani Marta,” Rachel answered her with artificial politeness. “Perhaps you need some money? After all, you have to buy everything with cash money. Don’t be bashful, Pani Marta.” She turned to Jacob. “Dear, give Marta some money.”

  Jacob held out some money, and Marta took it willingly, thanked him, and asked them what kind of food they liked best and what they would like for dinner. Rachel told Marta to prepare whatever she would like for herself.

  Afterward, Rachel sat down at the table with Jacob and drank another cup of tea.

  The cat jumped into Rachel’s lap, and she began to feed him from her plate like a mother would her child.

  “My sweet!” Rachel murmured to it. “Eat! Eat!”

  Marta and Jacob laughed.

  “My poor dear,” Marta said as she stroked the cat. “How he suffers when I leave the house, but from now on, he will be taken care of.”

  “She loves the cat more than she loves me!” complained Jacob with a smile. “Animals have always had better luck than people.”

  CHAPTER SIX

  A few days went by, and the love between Rachel and Jacob, in spite of their differences, grew stronger each day, especially Jacob’s love for Rachel. Not in vain do people say that opposites attract. He became so attached to her that he felt he wouldn’t be able to live without this young woman who was cheerful and sad in turn. Slowly, he became accustomed to her caprices, her reserve, her inconsistencies, and the double meanings in her words. He decided she was also a victim of the war like all the rest who had become confused and indifferent.

  In the few days they had been at the boarding house, they rested. The peace and quiet almost hummed in their ears, but to Jacob and Rachel, it was like a health-giving medication. They felt themselves reviving; every new day brought with it joy and hope for better days.

  Besides Marta, who was very seldom at home, they didn’t see a soul and the cat was their only friend, but gradually they felt no need for more. To tell the truth, Marta avoided long conversations with them. She rose early in the morning, prepared their food, and left, and they didn’t know where she spent entire days. When Jacob asked her where she went, she answered, “I’m going to a friend of mine. She is very ill, bed-ridden, and I go to help her a little. So much sorrow, my dear, so much grief this war has brought…endless troubles.”

  “And what kind of troubles!” he agreed with her. “People are evil, Pani Marta. No one understands or wants to understand each other.”

  “Right, my son,” Marta said in a voice that held some tenderness. “Man has sinned and turned away from the path of righteousness, but the Lord our Savior will forgive them all. Yes, he will forgive them all. Jesus is kind, forgiving, and compassionate.”

  But before Rachel or Jacob could respond, Marta would excuse herself, saying she was in a hurry, and go into the kitchen to prepare the food.

  All their days were spent walking in the woods or indulging themselves. When Rachel was cheerful, she enjoyed driving Jacob crazy by singing, dancing, and playing tricks on him. He noticed that she changed from day to day, but with all the changes, the differences between them, surprisingly, increased.

  “Please chase after me a little,” she begged him one day when she was in a good mood. “Please chase me… Chase me!” She pulled him along. “I want to remember my childhood. I want to be a little child again, mischievous, as I was once. I want you to chase after me! I want to act crazy!” He looked at her and couldn’t understand her strange desires.

  She cajoled him for a long time before he yielded to her. She began to run around in all the rooms as though she were twelve years old. Her hair was tousled and gave her a wild but charming look. Her blue eyes were full of desire. Her breasts rose and fell as she breathed heavily. When she was wild, she looked even more provocative, and she aroused in him a desire to hug her. Every once in a while, she avoided his arms; she was as nimble as a little devil, and she disappeared in one of the rooms, teasing and encouraging him to catch her.

  The urge to run came over her, and his desire to catch her increased. When she saw that danger lurked and he was near her, she opened the door and ran out into the forest, among the pine trees. The birds greeted her with joyful songs, and in that moment, she and Jacob resembled two animals that had escaped from their cage. Like a squirrel, she raced from tree to tree so he would chase after her, and he did. She was as agile as a deer. Both of them were sweaty and breathing heavily. She laughed wildly and teased him, and when he came near, she ran away into the trees.

  Finally, she allowed him to catch her. Her face was wet, her cheeks were red, and her eyes were flashing like a tiger in the circus. He caught her in his arms and carried her home like a little girl.

  “Oh, how wild you are…how wild!” he murmured, filled with passion.

  She closed her eyes contentedly and allowed him to carry her home as she said, “Oh, how happy I am…how happy.”

  “The daughter of the devil, that’s who you are,” he whispered and began to kiss her.

  She put her arms around his neck and whispered, “Oh, now I feel better. He too… He would carry me like this in his arms! He was tall like you…and serious, too.”

  “Who are you talking about? Him again?” Jacob became grim, but she paid no attention to him and continued.

  “But he was different…completely! Entire days, we would play like children. Oh, how handsome he was, how grand, how strong and fearless, but what’s the difference. Come, hold me tight. Hug me…tight…tighter… That’s it!” And she woun
d her arms tightly around his neck.

  He understood she was engrossed in her past life, in her imagination, and she was hugging her lover. Suddenly, he despised the unknown man, that lucky man, whom she loved still.

  She reminded him of it for the second time. He became sad, but as his sadness increased, she became gayer and louder.

  “Oh, if you knew how much I want to break out and act crazy!” She slipped out of his arms. “I haven’t danced for such a long time! Or sung! After all, I’m only a woman, and I have my desires and my caprices. But damn it to hell, what did I need all this for!”

  Jacob remained silent. At a time like this, when she was ecstatic, he tried to solve what she meant by her words. He knew they had some other meaning, but he couldn’t find it.

  “I didn’t know you were like this,” he said without thinking about what he was saying.

  “He, too, didn’t know or didn’t want to know,” she muttered sadly to herself in a whisper. “He couldn’t or didn’t want to understand. Perhaps because he knew many girls like me… Or maybe because his opinions were more important to him…more than me. He planted them in me, too. He and only he is to blame for all the lost days. We parted so we could meet in better circumstances…but things turned out differently.”

  “Damn it all!” raged Jacob when he heard her talking about that same unknown lover again. “Who in the hell are you thinking about with such feeling while you are lying in my arms? It makes me angry, damn it! It’s ridiculous! Please, don’t remind me of him. I’m a man, too, and I have my own caprices!”

  She laughed hysterically. “Right, you have caprices, too! All right, liebling, I won’t speak of him again. Suddenly, unintentionally, I remembered him, but he doesn’t deserve for me to dream of him. You’re better than he was…much better.”

  Jacob sat on the sofa, thoughtful. She sprang up lightly, sat on his knees, and spoke to him tenderly. “I didn’t know it would hurt you so. You speak so often of your wife, and it doesn’t bother me. Do you know why? Because I understand you. But from now on, I won’t speak of anyone if it makes you angry. You hear? Never again!”