All Whom I Have Loved

33

The rain grew fiercer each day, and hail fell in the evening. Father would come back in the dark and immediately start to make dinner. The dampness that he brought with him from outside mingled with the scent of the wood burning in the stove. We mostly ate potatoes, cheese, and yogurt, but sometimes Father brought corn pie from the city and we dipped it in sour cream. When he was in a good mood, he would show me drawings his students made.

“Very nice,” I said — an expression that Mother often uses.

“Where did you get that shallow expression?” Father wondered.

“Was I wrong?”

“ ‘Very nice’ is not a nice expression,” Father said, and chuckled.

My life at Storozynetz was forgotten, and Mother, too. When we walked around in the city, I sometimes thought I saw Halina. Once I pulled my hand away from Father and ran to a woman who looked like her. Her memory evoked sunlight for me, and I told myself that in summer she would return and we'd walk along the river. After our meal, Father sat and looked at a book, and I leafed through one of his many art volumes. The children's books that I'd brought with me from Storozynetz no longer interested me. I felt that the stories and pictures in them had died, and reading them wouldn't bring them back to life. Under a picture in one of Father's books I read the word “portrait,” and I asked Father what it meant. Father looked at me with a level gaze, and for the first time I saw two lines etched the length of his face. I sensed the hidden fury in them and I was scared.

“Why are you scared?”

“I'm not scared.” I tried to deny it.

This time Father stood his ground. “You have to be strong and you mustn't be afraid. Fear is indecent. A man has to uproot it from his heart.” I marveled at these full sentences coming from him — he usually spoke in words and not in sentences.

Sometimes Father raised his head from his book and asked me something. It was hard for me to explain to him what I felt or thought. Since Halina had left me, it was hard for me to talk. With Halina I would chatter, joke, and even invent words that would make her laugh. Now I found it hard to put a sentence together.

Most of the daylight hours I was at home alone, and when the rain let up, I would go out and stand on the riverbank. The landlord came again and asked me about praying. It was hard for me to lie to him, and I said, “No.” A sad smile appeared on his lips, and he told me that years ago, Jews who believed lived in these parts. They would pray every day, to say nothing of Sabbaths and other festivals.

“And where are they?”

“They've scattered.”

“Why?”

“Who knows?”

“And there are no more Jews who believe?”

“There are, but fewer and fewer.”

Strange, it was easier for me to talk with this Ruthenian peasant than with Father. The landlord told me about the Jews in the countryside who used to till their land like the Ruthenians, keeping God's commandments, not working on the Sabbath, and giving to the needy. He seemed to miss them.

“Is it good to be a Jew?” I asked for some reason.

“It's a great privilege, my son. God spoke to the Jews at Mount Sinai and gave them the Torah. Since then the entire world knows that there is a God in heaven and that the world isn't up for grabs. You see?”

“So why did they throw stones at me and call me a dirty Jew?”

“They're afraid of you.”

“Why are they afraid of me?”

“Because you're the son of a king.”

“Me?”

“You.”

It was hard for me to really comprehend his words, and I asked, “Why am I the son of a king?”

“Because God spoke to your forefathers and adopted you as his son.”

“I'm only nine years old.”

“You're a little prince, and when you get bigger, you'll be a prince.” Then he added in a sad tone, “The Jews no longer know who they are. Once they knew, but now they've forgotten and we have to remind them. Do you understand me?”

“A little.”

“They've forgotten that they're the sons of kings.”

I asked Father about what the landlord said. Father was brief as usual and said, “He's a man who believes.”

“And we don't believe?”

“Not to that extent.”

Mother explained; Father never explained. He hated explanations. Once, when were sitting in a tavern, I asked him why he didn't explain, to which he responded, “If you understand, you understand; explanations are useless.”