A Kind of Woman

by Helen Burko

  “Oh, no, no, no!” she protested. “No!”

  But he paid no attention to her protest; he was too inflamed. She didn’t continue to resist him, as she was too much in love with him. After he had satisfied himself, he left hurriedly, and she was angry he had done so but was also content, a little surprised, and a little fearful of what would happen.

  Ten years had passed since then, and so much had happened to her in those years, especially in the last four years, the war years!

  She woke up from her remembrances when she felt the touch of Jacob’s lips on her closed eyelids and on her lips. She shuddered and opened her eyes.

  “You aren’t happy with me?” he tried to joke with her.

  She forced a smile and made room for him on the bed beside her, but she remained reserved and indifferent. She closed her eyes and tried to return to the memories of her first love, but at that moment, she felt Jacob’s passionate lips touching hers.

  “You are terrific!” he whispered and held her close. “I really feel married to you now.”

  “No wonder! We are really married!” She wanted to add something but desisted.

  He noticed it and asked, “You wanted to say something to me?”

  “I wanted to say a lot and nothing.”

  “What’s going through your mind now?”

  “The first night…”

  “The first night after our wedding?”

  “Yes!” She burst into laughter.

  Her laughter didn’t surprise him because he knew she had been with other men before she met him. Wasn’t it as permissible for her as for him? But deep in his heart, it pained and humiliated him, and blaming the war didn’t ease the pain.

  “The main thing is now we will be able to go to America—and not on the roof of a train,” he said with a pensive smile as he tried to erase her laughter and his sad thoughts.

  “It’s all the same to me!”

  “It’s not the same, Rachel.” He interpreted her meaning incorrectly. “You’ll see how happy you’ll be in America. Everything strange in you will disappear. You’ll live a normal life. I know how much you’ve been troubled in your young life and how you’ve managed to overcome it all. I know you’ve had a man—and maybe many men—before you met me, and it bothers me, but I have no choice. The war broke people, also you and me; we can’t escape the bitter truth. I’ll do everything I can to make you happy, but you’ll have to help me.”

  “You’re so good… You’re really and truly good to me! I’m grateful.”

  “Well, now you’re really and truly my wife, and why shouldn’t I be good to you? I only hope you’ll be a good wife to me.”

  “Oh.” She sighed contentedly and smiled cynically. “I’ll be really and truly a good wife to you. You deserve it, and I’ll have as many babies as you wish and give you anything else you wish for.”

  She rolled over to him and kissed him impulsively on his cheek and his forehead, but then, suddenly, she left him and ran over to the sofa and began to leap on it—one of her caprices. Her movements grew stronger by the minute.

  “Hop! Hop!” she called out as she moved her body on the sofa that sprung her into the air. “Oh, how good this is…how wonderful!”

  Jacob stayed on the bed and watched her with a wry smile. He decided not to disturb her and just laid there wondering how long she would keep it up. When she saw he wasn’t involved, she began to jump harder, until she finally tired and lay there.

  “So, did it relieve you a little to blow off steam like that?” he asked when she didn’t move.

  She didn’t respond, and he went over to her and started to tickle her because he was sure doing so would anger her and revive her. To his surprise, she opened her eyes and burst into wild laughter.

  “Stop it! Have you forgotten we were married yesterday?” He held her.

  “I forgot… I want to forget…”

  “Enough! I’ll remind you.”

  “Please, don’t remind me!”

  “Yes, I will. I’ll make sure to remind you!”

  “No, I don’t want you to! You’d do better to tell me what kind of wedding present you’re going to buy me! Tell me!”

  “Whatever you want as long as you stop being so wild!”

  “I won’t be wild! No! Buy me a piece of the sky, like that peeking through the trees.”

  “You have some strange desires.” He laughed.

  “Yes, strange. I want a piece of the sky, you hear? That’s what I want—a piece of the sky!”

  “Your eyes are like the sky, my dear; you don’t need a piece of the sky. You’re like a piece of nature—nature in the wild!”

  “You said that beautifully, liebling, and now take me to bed and hold me close to your heart. You, like me, are also… What shall I call it? Your eyes are like the night, and they shine like the stars.” She burst into laughter again. “Carry me to bed and tell me a story that will put me to sleep. I love your voice—it sounds like the church music of Bach.”

  “You are very well acquainted with music,” he said as he carried her to the bed.

  “I think I told you that I know how to play the piano. Oh, that’s what I want for my wedding present…a piano. I long for music.”

  “You see, only now after you have become my lawful wife do I discover that, in addition to all your other talents, you know how to play the piano.”

  “If you heard me play, you’d really be astonished. Oh, buy me a piano!”

  “When we get to America, I’ll buy you a piano, Rachel, and anything else your heart desires.”

  “No… Please buy me a piano today! We’ll still be here for a while until we get the permits.”

  “It won’t be long now, my dear,” he promised her. “Now everything will progress swiftly, but if you want a piano so badly, I’ll try to find one. Here in Poland after the war, it shouldn’t be expensive, and we’ll either take it with us or resell it when we leave.”

  When she heard he was willing to buy her a piano for the few days they would remain there, she jumped for joy and then began to cover him with kisses and hug him so hard that it aroused him, and he took her joyfully.

  When they awoke, it was already early evening. The day had gone and made room for a moon that rose in the sky and winked at the night that was on its way.

  “Oh, how good everything was! How lovely, liebling.” She held out her bare arms. “How wonderful! How much I enjoyed it! You can’t imagine!”

  “Why are you laughing, you crazy girl? What did you enjoy so much?”

  “First of all, I’m not a girl anymore.” She laughed. “Although I am a little wild. From now on, I’m Madame Barder!”

  “You aren’t satisfied with that?”

  “Very, very satisfied, and what a lovely wedding it was. What dancing! How happy everyone was, and Fabian—he’s really an interesting individual. He has the long hands of an artist. What a nice surprise he prepared for us.”

  Jacob saw Rachel was in a good mood, and so was he, but her laughter saddened him, although he didn’t know why.

  He made an effort to hide the feeling he had when thinking of her being his lawful wife by remembering what a lovely bride she had been in her white dress and veil under the chuppah, just as tradition called for. They had a marriage ceremony and even a wedding party with music and dancing, but in spite of all this, something was missing… Something that he couldn’t explain… Something that stood between them like an impenetrable wall.

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  “Your wish for your wedding gift has been granted, my dear, and now sit down and play something that will make our blood race,” Jacob said. Rachel couldn’t take her eyes off the piano he had brought her and waited impatiently for the movers to finish putting it in a corner of the room and leave.

  But the movers weren’t in a hurry to leave and requested that Rachel play some Polish folk dances. Also, they couldn’t take their eyes off her lovely face.

  “Wonderful! Wonderful! I feel as if I we
re born again!” She couldn’t stop praising the new piano, and she kissed Jacob on his cheeks.

  “You are really the best,” she told him and then hurried to the piano, raised the cover and filled the room with music that also drifted out into the trees.

  All of them were astounded at her technical expertise and at her intoxicating harmonies.

  “You really do play well.” Jacob felt a great satisfaction.

  She glanced affectionately at Jacob and also at the movers and Marta and began to play a few tunes that she knew by heart. Then she looked in the bench and found some sheets of music: a waltz by Strauss and a mazurka by Chopin.

  “That’s some piano playing,” said one of the movers, a broad-shouldered Pole with a large, turned-up mustache that was yellow from nicotine, whose feet were moving to the music. “By God, I think I have just been made to feel ten years younger.”

  “A pity that my Stefka isn’t here with me,” said the other mover. “I would dance like the wind with her, damn it!”

  When Rachel finished playing, Jacob went over to her and kissed her forehead.

  “All my efforts were worthwhile, even though we’ll be here just a short while. For this moment alone, it was worth it to buy the piano.”

  Marta also couldn’t stop flattering Rachel on her musical talent.

  “Pani Rachel plays wondrously, a real artist!”

  The movers thanked her for the concert and also praised her. After Jacob paid them, they left but continued talking about their great experience.

  “That’s some woman, by God!” The mustached worker dug his elbow into the rib of his partner. “Just looking at her hands, I thought the cholera would grab me!”

  “Not like the two stumps of wood that you have for hands.” His partner winked at him craftily. “A chick like that would never fall into our hands.”

  The mustached fellow looked around to make certain no one was in hearing distance. “To sleep with someone like that wouldn’t be a sin. He didn’t buy her that piano for nothing.”

  “You heard it was a wedding present, and no wonder!”

  “She’s worth it! She’s worth everything! For someone like that, everything’s worthwhile, by God! She isn’t worth only one piano, but a hundred, a thousand of them!”

  Their laughter and words echoed for a long time in the forest as they faded from view.

  After Marta flooded Rachel with compliments, Rachel went to Jacob and put her arms around his neck. At that moment, she was supremely content and maybe even happy.

  They didn’t talk. At first, Jacob wanted to ask her all kinds of questions about how and where she had learned to play so well, but when he remembered she didn’t like interrogations of this sort, he decided to keep quiet.

  With the piano, life in the boarding house became more diversified. At certain moments, Jacob would forget his home, his parents, his friends in America, and all the world. He felt good sitting beside Rachel and listening to her play. The sounds were calming, caressing him softly and rousing yearnings. He had no wish to leave; he wanted to stay there always and listen to her play.

  “I’ll play something nice for you.” She would jump over to the piano like a pampered schoolgirl of ten who wanted to show how well she had prepared her music lessons.

  After she gave him a resounding kiss on his cheek (this was one of her impulsive, emotional moments), she added, “I will play ‘Für Elise’ by Beethoven. Beethoven dedicated this piece to the girl he loved, Elise, and she, by the way, betrayed him. This time I’ll call the piece ‘For Jacob.’”

  Before he could comment on her dedication, she filled the air with a pleasing melody. Jacob stood beside her as though glued to the spot. As she continued to play, her eyes shone, and she began to sing to the melody. The piano bench almost rocked beneath her, and her blond curls danced. Even the pine trees close to the window seemed to murmur together with her, astonished by the newly discovered talent of this young woman. As she played, she seemed to blaze like a flame that has just popped out of a volcanic inferno.

  “A pity you didn’t bring me more sheets of music,” she said, still glowing from her playing.

  “Tomorrow I’ll bring you a pile of music!” he exclaimed, still excited. “I’ll bring you all the sheet music left in Poland. I’ll buy it all for you. I could sit here and listen to you endlessly. Play something of Tchaikovsky or Rachmaninov.”

  She didn’t refuse him. He was awed by this young woman, his wife, who could jump from a moving train and ride on the roof of the train, who had such a mature knowledge of politics and could play so well. Why, she’s a symphony or a composition by herself, he reflected.

  His reflections ceased when he heard a knock on the door. Rachel was still absorbed in her playing and didn’t notice someone had come in.

  “You’re having a concert here, huh!” said the Russian officer Matvey Bunin as he came in, made himself at home, and gave his hand to Jacob to shake. Jacob received him with a surprised coolness. Out of politeness, he shook his hand, but he was raging with anger that he tried to hide. Since Rachel spent the day with Bunin in Warsaw, they hadn’t seen him, and Jacob had forgotten him completely. He decided it was just a solitary occurrence that even Rachel had forgotten, and he never thought that, after what happened between them, Bunin would dare to visit them.

  Jacob realized that Bunin, whom he had seen only once, was now intoxicated and so wasn’t surprised to see him act with such impudence and make his way into the room where Rachel was playing.

  “Look at her! I didn’t know you were such a good pianist!” He laughed loudly. Rachel turned to him and rose from her bench immediately.

  “It’s you!”

  “What startled you so much, my beauty?” Bunin said with even greater impudence. “As far as I know, you’re one of us, and you don’t have to be afraid since…”

  “I’m not afraid of you!” she interrupted him seriously, and two sparks lit up in her eyes. “Whether I’m ‘one of us’ or not has nothing to do with you!”

  “How you danced the hopak,” he continued in the same insolent tone. “One would know you weren’t a coward, but you’re afraid now before your lover.”

  “He’s my husband!” she said grimly.

  “Really?” The officer grinned. “You told me then he wasn’t your husband, otherwise I wouldn’t have come here.”

  “We were married a few days ago!”

  “Really!” Bunin was surprised. “Excuse me! So I should congratulate the happy couple, and an event such as this calls for a drink, a little vodka. But before we celebrate the happy event, I would like to hear you play a little. I also play the piano.” And without paying attention to how displeased Rachel and Jacob were, he sat down and began to press on the keys.

  “Damn it, once I knew how to play quite well,” he said with a drunken smile on his face. “No matter, I’ll play ‘Scheherazade’ by Rimsky-Korsakov or ‘Sleeping Beauty’ by Tchaikovsky. Those are two I remember best. So, choose one! Myself, I prefer ‘Sleeping Beauty,’ but sometimes I like both of them.”

  Jacob was raging inside, but Rachel acted as if nothing had happened between her and the officer. She understood she must do something to ease the tension, so she smiled falsely.

  “So, my dear, who do you think plays better, me or Mr. Bunin?”

  “In the first place, I never gave him permission to play on my piano!” Jacob was white with rage.

  The officer didn’t hear—or pretended not to hear—Jacob’s words and continued playing. Rachel gestured to Jacob with a pleading look to keep calm.

  When Bunin finished playing, he turned to Rachel and smiled. “Now, Rachel, you play something for us!”

  To Jacob’s amazement, Rachel didn’t refuse but sat down again next to the piano and with a smile asked Bunin, “What shall I play? A Ukrainian hopak or a polka?”

  “Hopak, by God, hopak!” he said joyfully, smiling drunkenly.

  It was clear that all the drinking he had done to bolste
r his courage before he arrived had begun to take its toll, and as soon as Rachel started to play the hopak, a little out of key, he began to dance in the Russian manner, moving the chairs out of the way and yelling wildly, “Hop! Hop!” The floor shook with the thumps of his boots.

  During his dance, Marta entered, and seeing her, Bunin tried to drag her into his dance as he yelled, “Hop! Hop! Hop! Hop!”

  Marta was bewildered and frightened, but he held on to her. With great difficulty, she tore herself away from him. Marta and Jacob stood on the side when, suddenly, Bunin noticed Jacob’s grim face and turned to him.

  “Why are you staring at me like an idiot? You are probably thinking that a Russian isn’t intelligent because he dances such simple folk dances, huh? We don’t have intellectuals and fools—we’re all intellectuals and all simple people, by God! I also know the gentlemen’s dances, the panim, by God!” Then he turned to Rachel.

  “Do you remember how you danced then? Remember? Well, my Scheherazade, play the polka, but right away while my blood is hot and my soul is exploding! Play! Play! Damn it, play!”

  Rachel smiled provocatively and began to play, but then something unexpected occurred. Jacob went over to her and ordered her to stop playing.

  “Why?” asked the officer. “Play the polka, and we’ll dance!”

  “That’s enough for today!” Jacob’s tone was low, but the anger could be felt.

  “The time is always right for singing, dancing, and a drink of vodka. Drink and dance, for tomorrow we die!”

  “We have to go to Warsaw in a little while,” Jacob announced, trying to curb his anger.

  “Don’t give me that shit about Warsaw!” shouted Bunin, and there was something hidden and evil in his eyes. He didn’t give the impression of being angry. He took out a package of cigarettes and passed it around. Only Rachel took a cigarette and lit it with the match he held out to her.