All Whom I Have Loved

48

Then I fell asleep and I saw Mother. She was in a swimsuit, sitting alongside the stream and preparing a midmorning snack. Her face was clear and open, and a bright smile played upon her lips.

“Mother,” I said.

She turned her head slowly toward me. I'd always known this way she had of turning her head, but now it was as if I were seeing it for the first time. I felt her love for me, and I was gripped by silence. She immediately explained that she'd wanted to come to me at Christmas and take me to the Carpathians, but things hadn't worked out. I didn't know what she was talking about, and I wasn't going to ask her. Her love was so apparent that it completely overwhelmed me.

“Mother,” I said again.

“What, my love?”

“How long will we be here?” I tried to hold her attention.

“All the time,” she replied after a brief pause.

“And I won't see Father anymore?” I asked, then regretted it.

“I, at any rate,” she said in a tone that I recalled well, “intend to make the summer vacation last as long as I can.”

“More than a year?”

“More than five years,” she said, with a peal of laughter.

“And we won't leave here?”

“Why should we leave?”

“I thought perhaps we would travel to the city.”

“What do we need the city for? The city destroys all hope.”

“Hope.” I tried to probe this familiar word, which suddenly sounded suspect to me.

“How else would you say it?” wondered Mother. This sentence was also something I recalled, but I didn't remember when it had been said.

Then I stopped talking and Mother prepared sandwiches. Her thin sandwiches, with yellow or white cheese. Mother's sandwiches had a fresh taste that they retained for hours.

“Why don't you ask me what I've been doing all this time?” I asked.

“I know everything.”

“How?”

“I'm with you, even when you don't see me.”

“So you know Victor?” I wanted to test her.

“Of course I know him. Victor was with me at the teachers' seminary. He was an outstanding pupil. But he didn't want to be a teacher; he was drawn to art.”

“Strange.”

“Why strange? He was always short and round and very generous.”

After the meal we went down to the dark lake. The trees at the dark lake are always low and dense, protecting you on all sides, and we swam without clothes. Mother was taller without clothes, perhaps because she gathered up her hair. It was unusual for her to dive under the water and stay under so long. I was scared and shouted, “Mother!” Hearing my shout, she surfaced and floated.

When she came out of the water I started to ask her whether she had married André. Mother made a dismissive gesture with her hand, as if to say, “Let's not talk about it.” But I couldn't hold back and I asked her anyway. Her face darkened and she said, “Why do you ask?” Her question, or, more accurately, her rebuke, was so sharp that it left me mute. She immediately added, “And suppose I did marry, is that a reason to lash me with knotted whips or banish me forever?”

I was shocked by what she said. “I love you, Mother.”

“I hope so,” she said suspiciously.

“Why do you say ‘I hope so’?”

“What should I say?”

I didn't know how to respond, so I was silent.

“If I've been mistaken, do forgive me,” said Mother in an affected tone of voice, which immediately saddened me.

We didn't speak the entire way home. Once inside, Mother took off her shoes and put them in the corner. Then she threw herself onto the bed and covered her face with her hands. I knew that I hadn't behaved well toward her, and yet my heart still did not let me go over to her. I stood in the doorway and watched her. The more I looked at her, the more I knew that she had been meaning to say something to me, but would not tell it to me now.

I woke up as the train came to a sudden halt, and I saw Father standing next to me. When he saw that I was awake, he knelt down and hugged me, as if he hadn't seen me for a long time.