All Whom I Have Loved

8

I dreamed a dream, and in my dream I saw Father becoming more and more distant from me. He was taller than his usual height, and he towered like a giant over everyone in the street. People stared at him, as if he were some marvel that had sprung up before their very eyes. I stood at a distance and also marveled, but as he came nearer, Father seemed to shrink more and more, and people ceased paying attention to him, and eventually he disappeared into the darkness.

Shocked and frightened, I awoke. I remembered the dream clearly and I told it to Mother. Mother hugged me and said, “It's a dream, it'll pass.” And she closed her eyes. I felt a distance in her words, perhaps because she hadn't heard me out. I gazed at her sleeping face, and I was astonished that she didn't sense that I was awake. “Mother,” I called, but she didn't answer.

And so the night passed. The next day, a slim young Ruthenian girl came to us, and Mother said, “This is Halina. Halina will look after you and play with you. I'm starting to teach.”

Mother showed Halina the kitchen and the bedroom and said, “Paul loves to take walks. Take him for walks in the streets and in the fields.” Then she picked up her briefcase, kissed me on my forehead, and left. I was in shock, and I didn't see her go out.

My mother tongue was German, and Halina spoke Ruthenian. She knew a few words of German and laughingly ticked them off on her fingers.

I stared at her, and it seemed that this was still the dream from the night before, that I was alone in the world among strangers, and that the person who had been brought to take care of me spoke a language that I didn't understand. “Get out of here,” I wanted to shout, but I choked and burst into tears. Halina tried to calm me. She cavorted and jumped up and down, she imitated birds and frogs, but the tears that were stored in me grew stronger and stronger. To distract me, she knelt down and wept with me, but even this ruse did not calm me.

I stood there and wept, and the tears seemed to flow back into me. Eventually I grew tired and fell asleep on the floor. When I awoke and saw Halina, I let out a shout. Halina must have been frightened, because she took me outside. “Take me to Mother! I want my mother!” I yelled, drumming my legs on the ground. Unfamiliar neighbors gathered around and tried to calm me, but I was so immersed in my tears that their every word only stoked my rage. Eventually they said to Halina: “There's no choice, take him to his mother, take him to the school.”

I wailed all the way to the school. Everything was a blur, but I did see the two-story building and the yard full of noisy children. My crying amused them, and they made fun of me. Halina scolded them and pulled me toward the teachers' room.

Mother saw me and was shocked. In her panic she let out a cry that sounded like she was choking. I was completely overcome with weeping and anger, and I lay on the floor, kicking my legs. Mother knelt and said, “I'm here, my love.” The words barely penetrated my ears. Finally I got to my feet and dragged her outside. Mother didn't resist but let herself be dragged along behind me. I saw she was clenching her jaw, but she didn't rebuke me. The entire way home she tried to distract me by saying things to me, and at the kiosk she bought me an ice cream. Halina stood as if she had been reprimanded, ready to do as she was told. Mother asked her something in her language, and Halina shrugged and said, “What could I do?”

Halina went on her way, and Mother and I entered the house. Mother sat by the table and said nothing of my behavior. I felt that she was waiting for me to come to her and apologize, but something in me refused to do this. Mother went to prepare lunch and I sat on the floor. Suddenly I heard her say, “You'll have to get used to it.” To get used to it—I'd already heard this cold expression, but this time it sounded like ice falling from the roof in the winter.

“Mother.”

“What?”

“When is Father coming back?”

“I don't know.”

We ate dinner in silence. A wall of silence had suddenly sprung up between Mother and me. Toward the end of the meal, Mother tried to placate me, but I felt that her words came from her lips and not from her heart. Before going to sleep she said, “I have to go to work. I have no choice. You're a big boy and you understand.”

When I didn't respond she began to cry. In the city she would sometimes cry over Father's behavior, about his wastefulness and the times he didn't come home. But this was a different kind of weeping; it was sharper and more bitter, as if she were saying, “You, too? You're ganging up with your father so as to hurt me?”

I didn't know what to do, and I knelt down.

“Don't make it so hard for me,” she implored.

“I won't make it hard.”

“I'm a new teacher and everyone's watching me.”

“I won't cry, I promise.”

Mother dried her eyes. Her face, which had become swollen from her tears, returned to itself, and she said, “What can I do? I have to go out to work. There's no one to support us.”

Her words sounded rehearsed, but the more she said, the clearer it became that I would not be able to stop the nanny from coming the next day. So as not to show how much it hurt me and to please her, I said, “Don't worry about it, Mother. I'll go to the park with Halina.”