All Whom I Have Loved

51

We missed the eight o'clock train and waited at the snack counter for the one departing at midnight. Father read a newspaper, lighting one cigarette from another. A cold night already crouched over the empty platforms. Here and there a porter could be seen dragging a bag or a suitcase. The warehouses alongside the platforms were locked with wide iron bars, and dim light rested on the protruding windowsills. I suddenly felt so sorry for Father that I touched his hand.

“What is it, dear?” He turned to me apprehensively.

“Nothing, Father.”

I saw how his speech had become muted and his cheeks sunken. People came and went, but there were no familiar faces among them.

After an hour and a half 's delay, the train arrived. The car was cold and empty. The suitcase and the duffel bag seemed small next to the seats, as if they had shrunk. Father wrapped me in a sweater and took off my shoes. The lights from the lamps came through the windowpanes, laying squares of light on the floor.

“Are you cold?” Father asked in a whisper.

“No.”

“In three and a half hours we'll be in Storozynetz.”

The words echoed through the empty car and then vanished. Father took a few swigs from his flask, and a groan escaped him. I again saw Eddy, from whom we had parted only a short while earlier. His large right eye was spread over his face, as if it was trying to hide his soul. Now I understood: Eddy had not cried over Father's fate but over himself and his own life, which had not changed since he had left the orphanage.

I was awake. The wide car was full of shimmering shadows that heightened my alertness and overwhelmed me.

Later I fell asleep, and I saw Mother emerging from brackish water. It was similar to what I had seen in the sum-mer — the river flowed in the same direction, and the water was black and viscous.

“Mother!” I called.

“What is it, my dear?” she said, and the black water flowed away from her. Some water stains clung to the upper part of her body.

“Mother, please take away those stains.”

“It's nothing,” Mother said, and shook them off, the way she shook dust off her coat. Now it seemed that she was about to kneel down, spread out a cloth, and prepare sandwiches. These movements are imprinted in my mind, and I can easily imitate them.

But this time she did not spread out a cloth; instead she drew out of her bag the books and notebooks that I had left in Victor's splendid home in Bucharest, laying them on the ground. For some reason they seemed very tattered, as if someone other than I had been studying from them.

“Mother, did you bring all this here?” My mouth dropped open.

“It wasn't heavy,” she said, and showed me the bag.

“And you didn't bring sandwiches?” I asked, and immediately regretted my question.

“I did prepare them,” she said, “but they spoiled.”

“They got black?” I asked.

“How do you know?”

I looked at the water. It flowed black, and in the bends of the river, a sharp metallic light glinted on its surface. Mother wasn't surprised by all this oddness; on the contrary, there was a strange ease about her.

“Mother.” I raised my eyes to her.

“What is it, my dear?” she said.

“I know that you've married André,” I told her.

“How do you know?”

“Everyone knows.”

“But you weren't supposed to know.”

“If everyone knows it, so do I,” I said, and we both laughed, as if we had been caught in a white lie.