All Whom I Have Loved

28

The surprise came from where I least expected it. While I was wandering the streets and returning to places I had been with Halina — sad and happy by turns — I saw Father. He was so glad to see me that he immediately snatched me up, lifting me high. We went straight into a café.

I hadn't seen Father for a long time. I'd almost forgotten what he looked like, and only in dreams did I see him. I had asked Mother many times why he didn't visit me. Mother gave long, indirect answers, and I didn't understand a thing. Now he stood in front of me as I remembered him: very tall, a peaked cap on his head, and a thin, shy smile hovering about his lips.

I told him about the murder.

Father listened without asking questions. He did not ask and did not argue. Sometimes I thought that he didn't know how to share other people's sorrow. Of course this wasn't so. He was a man without words, and you had to gaze at his face and his hands to learn from them. It was from his trembling hands that I knew he'd been drinking a lot recently. His eyes were swollen, which meant that he had not been sleeping much.

After I finished my cocoa he told me that Mother was about to be married, and he was going to take me with him.

“And what will become of Halina?” I asked.

“It will be fine,” he told me with a nice smile.

The rumor about Mother's marriage had reached him. It was hard to know if he was depressed or angry. When Father was angry his hands shook and he held his head to the side. On the way home, I wanted to ask him not to be angry, but I didn't dare. Mother was at home and let us in silently. Father immediately told her that he intended to take me with him to Czernowitz. Mother didn't ask why, as I had expected her to, but she said, “I'll get his clothes ready, and in a week everything will be clean and packed in a suitcase.”

“I won't be able to come in a week,” Father said without looking at her.

“I don't have a housekeeper, and all the clothes are dirty.”

“It doesn't matter,” he said, and he covered his mouth with his hand.

Mother must have been scared, for she immediately began to put my clothes into the green suitcase. Father stood there, looking at her without saying a word. He must have been angry. His anger now had a dark aspect. When she started to put in my toys, the dominos and the balls, she burst into tears. Father watched her crying without interfering. I went over to her and hugged her. Mother kissed me again and again, and her tears covered my face. Father muttered something and then swallowed his mumbling.

The suitcase was overflowing and would not close. Father got down on his knees, grasped it with his two hands, pressed on the lid, and latched it shut. He looked at me and said, “Let's go.”

“Paul.” Mother turned to me with a choked voice. “I'll come to see you in a few days.” And immediately she added, “I've put the math book and the notebook for practicing handwriting in a folder.”

“I'll do all the problems,” I said, wanting to please her.

“See you soon,” she said, and raised her right hand, as if she were about to take an oath.

I looked up at her; her face was swollen, stained with red blotches, as if she had fallen or been slapped. And so we left the house. Mother stood on the steps, and as we walked away I could feel her following us with her eyes, but I didn't turn to look at her. Father walked along with his large strides, and I stumbled after him.

I felt the sudden parting from Mother only at the snack counter in the railway station. It seemed that I had parted from her long ago, and that only now did I feel it. Father bought me a sandwich and a bottle of lemonade and sat next to me.

“Father,” I said, trying to start a conversation.

“What?” Father's eyes widened.

“What will I do in Czernowitz?”

Father fixed his gaze on me, and I immediately felt that my question had made him uneasy.

The train was delayed, and Father lit cigarette after cigarette. At last, when it did come, people burst onto the platform and rushed for the doors. The conductors tried to stop the crowd, but the people were stronger than they were. It was not long before everyone was pressed inside.