All Whom I Have Loved

11

Even as autumn darkens the windows of the house, Mother tells me that from now on she will also be working in the afternoons, and Halina will look after me all day. I do not ask why. Halina is pleasant company; we play hide-and-seek and entice birds to us with crumbs of bread, we play on the main street and in the fields, and when it's not raining we go to the river. By the time Mother returns at night, I'm so immersed in our games that I scarcely notice her.

Halina tells Mother what we've done and what I've eaten. In the afternoon she bathes me in a large tub, puts me on her knees to dry me, and declares, “Such a nice strong boy, all the girls will want to kiss him!” Then she sinks her mouth into my upper arms and my thighs and adds, “Very tasty, the tastiest.”

This hurts a little but it is not without pleasure. She dresses me in a sailor outfit.

Every day Halina learns new words and immediately uses them; I learn, too, but not as fast. Sometimes we sit on the banks of the river and talk. Halina lives in a village near Storozynetz, and she has a fiancé. The fiancé is in the army, and she plans to marry him when he is released.

“Is he handsome?” I ask.

“Yes, he's handsome,” she says, and for some reason it hurts me.

“When does he come?” I ask her.

“From time to time.”

That is a slight consolation. I feel that I have already known Halina for a long time — since my walk with Father along the banks of the Prut, when I saw the girls doing their washing on its banks, except that then she was distant and unattainable and now she is so near me, I can touch her neck.

Mother has changed over the past weeks: she still complains about headaches, but less frequently. Now a hidden smile plays on her lips. She sits and corrects notebooks late into the night.

“What's happened, Mother?” I have to ask.

“Nothing, why?”

At first glance, there's no change at all, but when she gets up and goes to the writing table, I notice a movement I haven't seen before. She pulls back her hair with both her hands, shakes her head, and then lets it fall loose. Mother has long, golden tresses, which used to be gathered in a heavy braid. When we left the city and moved to the provinces, she cut off the braid, but her hair is still long and flowing and looks lovely on her back.

We sleep together in a wide bed. I usually sleep deeply now and seldom awaken at night, but sometimes toward morning I awaken and gaze at Mother's face. I see that she is fighting off bad dreams, and I want to wake her up and help free her from the clutches of the demons. But in recent weeks, I've noticed that her sleep is calm and her lips parted, and she seems to be smiling.

“Mother, you were smiling in your sleep,” I tell her.

“Was I?”

“I saw you smile.”

“Perhaps.”

The rain falls incessantly. Halina no longer takes me out to the fields, and most of the day we sit on the floor or by the window. When the rain lets up, we go to buy ice cream. At the end of the street, Halina has found a shack where they sell homemade ice cream. It's soft and tasty. Then we hurry back home so that we won't be caught in a sudden shower.

In the afternoon, the windows darken even more. Halina sits and knits and I sit and daydream. My daydreams are sometimes so real that they make me dizzy. “Halina!” I shout. Immediately she comes to me and enfolds me in her arms, explaining that bad thoughts are the waste products of good thoughts and that they have to be cleansed from one's mind.

“How do you cleanse the mind?”

“With song.”

So she begins to sing, and I fall asleep in her lap. I sleep for an hour, sometimes two. This sleep in Halina's lap is a soft sleep. She strokes my head and sings quietly. Sometimes I sleep until Mother returns.

When Mother comes into the house, Halina says, “The child is sleeping.” I hear her voice clearly but don't open my eyes. Halina tells Mother everything she's done and everything that we've done together. She concludes by saying, “The child's already been sleeping for two hours.”

Now I expect Mother to come over to me, but she doesn't. She takes off her clothes, puts on her dressing gown, and sits in front of the mirror for a long time, cleaning her face. I'm upset that she doesn't come to me and doesn't ask how I am. I've already noticed that in recent weeks she makes up her face frequently, she is easily confused, and in the morning she leaves but immediately returns — she's forgotten the key to her classroom or her umbrella. I have no doubt that there's something going on with her; all her movements tell me. Sometimes she seems angry with me for watching her so carefully. I'm afraid of my thoughts and tell myself over and over again that Mother would never abandon me.

Halina again surprises me. “Don't you want to go to school?”

“No.”

“All Jewish children excel at their studies — don't you want to be outstanding?”

“No.”

“Strange.”

Mother had tried a few times to have the ban that Father had put on my schooling rescinded, but Father stood his ground and it never happened. Sometimes I believe that Father invented my sickness only to free me from school. Father hates schools and vowed, in his heart of hearts, that he would never send me to one.

“Who taught you how to learn by yourself?” Halina asks.

“Father. You can test me,” I say, sure of myself.

“Me?” Halina bursts out laughing. “I should test you? I've forgotten everything I learned.”