All Whom I Have Loved

13

The days pass and Halina learns more and more German words. I'm embarrassed; my Ukrainian vocabulary is weak and jumbled, and I can hardly string a sentence together. When I finally come out with a Ukrainian sentence, Halina bursts out laughing, hugs and kisses me, and says that one of these days she'll take me to her village so that everyone can hear my accent.

“Is it a strange accent?”

“Extremely funny.”

Halina's German sounds different from ours, but it's not funny — it has charm. I love to hear her ask a question or just say something. She tells me about her village and her parents. She seldom talks about her fiancé. She must understand that I don't like to hear about him.

A few days ago, she told me that her father would beat her when she was a child. Then she hitched up her dress and showed me the scars on her thigh. I was frightened: there were two long pinkish scars.

“Why did he beat you?”

“Because I was naughty.”

“What did you do?”

“I would steal money and go to the store and buy chocolate.”

“How often did he beat you?”

“Nearly every week.”

“And you weren't afraid to steal?”

“I was afraid.”

“So why didn't you stop?”

“Because I loved chocolate,” she breathed, her nostrils flaring.

I love to listen to her voice. When she talks, her entire body speaks. Yesterday evening she told me that she would never forgive her father for beating her. “When I shouted, he would strangle me with his two hands.”

From what she said, her mother was hardly blameless. “A bitter woman.”

“They don't beat me,” I bragged, perhaps unwisely.

“You're lucky. Jews don't beat their children.”

“Why not?”

“I don't know.”

We sit and talk for hours; so many amazing things have happened in Halina's life, and I want to hear more and more.

I hardly talk with Mother now. She returns home tired and distracted, and after dinner she settles down to grading homework. It's strange that she has hardly told me about her parents. Lately, I've meant to ask her about them, but when I see how distracted she is, I don't feel like doing so.

Eventually, when I summon the courage and ask, she says, “That's a long story, not for now. I'm so tired, I can barely keep my eyes open.”

I'm angry with her, but I don't show it.

I sit and look at her. When I look at her, my love for her returns. I love her hair, her neck, and her way of leaning over the notebooks. I recall the long walks we took on our last vacation, the riverbanks, and the sandwiches we ate on the reed mat in the garden. I'm afraid that the closeness we shared will never be there again.

Mother lifts her head from the pile of notebooks. “You're not asleep yet, my love?”

“No.”

“What are you thinking?”

“Nothing.”

“Close your eyes and count to a hundred. I still have another pile of notebooks.”

Before, Mother would have turned out the light and immediately gathered me in her arms, and I would have drifted into a deep sleep. But now she's preoccupied, and I find it hard to fall asleep. Thoughts devour my sleep. Even my dreams are not what they used to be. In dreams I see Halina, now as an angel and now as a demon; she tugs at my heart with magic powers and frightens me.