All Whom I Have Loved

36

I sit at home looking through a book on the history of art. The word “expressionism” crops up on almost every page. It's as if it's a magic word, and if I knew how to pronounce it, I'd be enlightened, and wiser. Two of Father's drawings are in the book. In the first you can make out utensils and fruit, and in the second, a young woman wearing a wide-brimmed straw hat. The woman looks like Mother, not the Mother who was here some days ago, but the Mother who was with me over the summer vacation by the tributary of the Prut.

Now I can picture Father as a beloved prince borne aloft on his admirers' shoulders, greeted in every city with flowers. Father does not speak, as the way of princes is not to speak. But now there is no one who knows that Father is a prince. In the city he has many acquaintances, but they also don't know that he is a prince. They speak to him as an equal. If they only knew, they would kneel before him. Our landlord has worked out a bit of the secret. Once he said to me, “Your father is a real prince; it's a pity that he doesn't pray.” I showed the landlord the book, and I pointed to Father's name and to his two paintings.

“I didn't know that he was a painter, but I knew he was a real prince,” he told me.

“How can you tell?”

“By his features. There are many real princes among the Jews, but they've forgotten who they are and they behave like anyone else.”

“Why have they forgotten?”

“It must be God's will.”

“And when will they wake up from their forgetting?”

“Who knows?”

At this time of the year the landlord works in the yard. When it rains he's in the cowshed or the barn. He walks slowly, mumbling to himself. Sometimes he speaks to the animals as if to partners who labor alongside him. Once I saw a cow giving birth to a calf. I could not bear the sight of the blood and the pain, and I went into the house.

I want to ask Father about the days when he would paint and travel with his paintings from city to city. But I don't ask because I know there are secrets of which one must not speak. Father guards a big secret; if you get too near to his secret, his face darkens.

Once, he saw me looking through the book about the history of art and said, “That's not for you.” I kept quiet and did not tell him that I had discovered his secret. “Why don't you read your own books?”

“They don't interest me.” I didn't hide it from him.

A smile spread over his face, and I knew that he understood me.

At night we go to the church refectory. It is full, and they serve corn pie, with milk and cream, at the counters. Father meets many acquaintances here, and they slap him on the shoulder. They say that the old man is sick and that it is doubtful that he will preach. It's a shame that here they don't know that Father is a prince. If they knew, they would carry him like they carry the venerable old man. True, Father is a silent prince, and he guards his secret behind seven doors. If he would only let me bring along that book, The History of Art in the Austro-Hungarian Empire, and show them the photo of Father and his two pictures, then they would believe me. They would cheer and crown him.

This evening the old man does not speak, but everyone sings. It is a thunderous song that shakes the walls of the hall. People cover their faces with their hands, and Father also sings with his eyes closed.

Then we walk for hours in the fine rain, visiting churches and galleries. Father does not like the pictures in the galleries, and he is particularly angry with a gallery that shows Jews in traditional clothes, calling it a desecration of man and other names that I don't understand. Before we take the tram, we go into a tavern and Father downs a drink or two. In the tram he suddenly says to me, “There are things that we will never understand.”

I know his mind is elsewhere, and yet I still feel that he is offering me a fragment of his mystery.