Blooms of Darkness

12

One night, angry voices are heard from Mariana’s room. Mariana is speaking in German, and the man corrects every mistake. The corrections drive her crazy, and she says angrily, “We’re here to have a good time, not to study grammar.”

“A loose woman remains a loose woman.”

“I may be loose, but not for any price.”

The man responds to that with shouts, insults, and, apparently, a slap in the face. A broken sound comes from Mariana’s throat, but she doesn’t surrender. In the end he threatens to kill her, but Mariana is daring and shouts at him, “You can kill me. I’m not afraid of death.”

The fight stops all of a sudden, and for a moment it sounds to Hugo as though Mariana is choking and having convulsions. He rises to his feet and presses his ear against the wall. No sound can be heard. The silence grows thicker. Hugo trembles with fear and curls up on his couch again.

At home, they insisted on proper speech. Only Uncle Sigmund, when he was drunk, would utter a naughty word or a curse. Hugo’s mother would silence him and say, “The boy can hear,” and the boy did indeed listen and wondered about the nature of the dirty words that were forbidden to be used.

Later, a woman’s voice is heard in Mariana’s room. The woman speaks to Mariana softly. “You mustn’t quarrel with a customer. The customer comes to enjoy himself and relax. He doesn’t like it when you make a comment to him or contradict him.”

“He corrected every word that came out of my mouth, and I felt like he was whipping me with his tongue.”

“What do you care? Let him correct you.”

“What kind of behavior is that, to correct every word you say. It’s worse than a beating. I might be loose, but I’m not a slave.”

“Our profession, dear, demands a lot of patience of us. Every customer’s got his own quirks. Don’t forget, the whole thing doesn’t last more than an hour, and you get rid of him immediately.”

“I’m fed up. Let him do what he wants, but not correct my German.”

The other woman speaks softly, with a country accent. She asks Mariana to go to Madam and apologize. “If you don’t apologize and express remorse, she’ll fire you. It would be a shame to lose a job.”

“I don’t care.”

“You mustn’t say, ‘I don’t care.’ Anyone who says ‘I don’t care’ is desperate. We believe in God, and we don’t despair easily.”

“I don’t go to church.” Mariana persists in her rebellion.

“But you believe in God and in His Messiah.”

Mariana doesn’t respond. From her silence, it is evident that her obstinacy is softening slightly. In the end, she asks, “What should I say to her?”

“Tell her, ‘I apologize, and in the future I won’t make comments to customers.’ ”

“It’s hard for me to get a sentence like that out.”

“It’s like spitting and going on. Enough.”

Hugo listens intently and catches every word.

Hugo understands Ukrainian. He learned the language from their maid, Sofia. Sofia used to say, “If you learn Ukrainian well, I’ll take you to my village. In my village there are lots of animals, and you can play there with the colt and with the calf.” Sofia was always happy, and she used to sing and chatter from morning till the end of her work at night.

When Hugo began first grade, Sofia said to him, “Too bad you have to go to school every day. School is a prison. I hated school and the teacher. The teacher used to shout at me. She insulted me and called me ‘stupid.’ True, I had trouble with arithmetic, and I wrote with mistakes, but I was a quiet girl. She liked the Jewish children, and she used to say, ‘Take an example from them. Learn how to think from them. Clear the straw out of your heads and put in some thought.’

“I hope you won’t suffer. I suffered all the years I was in school and I was glad to leave the walls of that prison. Oh, I forgot, dear,” she said, slapping her forehead, “I forgot you were a Jew. Jews don’t have trouble with arithmetic. You’ll raise your hand. You’ll raise your hand all the time. Whoever raises his hand has the right answer.”

Hugo loved Sofia. She was plump and merry, and she peppered her words with proverbs and sayings. She was pleased with whatever came her way. When his parents weren’t home, she used street language, like “bitch,” whore,” or “son of a bitch.”

Once he asked his mother, “What’s a whore?”

“It’s a word we don’t use. It’s a dirty word.”

But Sofia uses it, he was about to say.

Every time Hugo heard that word, he would envision Sofia washing her body with a stiff sponge, because anybody who used that word was dirty and had to wash his body very well.

Now, in the last darkness of the night, Hugo sees Sofia’s whole body, and she, as always, is singing and cursing, and that obscene word is rolling around in her mouth. The familiar, clear vision restores his house to him all at once, and, amazingly, everything is in its place — his father, his mother, the evening, and the violin teacher, who used to close his eyes in protest every time Hugo played out of tune.

Hugo’s progress in playing was very slow. “You have an excellent ear, and you even practice, but your desire isn’t strong, and without a strong desire, there’s no real progress. Music has to be in your fingers. Fingers that don’t have music sunk into them are blind fingers. They’ll always grope and always make a mistake or play out of tune.”

Hugo understood what was demanded of him. But he didn’t know exactly what to do. Sometimes he felt that the music really was in his fingers, and with more effort, they would do what they were ordered to. But in his heart he knew that the mountain called “correct playing” was very steep, and it was doubtful that he would be able to climb it.

Anna was better than he in this, too. She had already performed at the end of the school year, and her future in this field was not in doubt. Hugo would make efforts not to fall behind, but his achievements were mediocre, and in his report card there were no “excellents.”

Anna had only one competitor for the title of “Outstanding Pupil of the Year”—Franz. Franz was also good in every subject. He solved arithmetic problems easily, wrote fluently, and quoted poems and famous sayings by heart. He was thin, and his hair stood up, which was why they called him “hedgehog.” But don’t worry, there wasn’t a pupil in the class who came up to his ankles. His head was full of dates and the names of cities, national leaders, generals, poets, and inventors. He devoured books and encyclopedias. More than once he shamed the teacher with his knowledge. Once, full of envy, Anna said, “He’s a machine, not a human being.” Franz heard her and retorted, “Anna is knowledgeable up to a certain point.”

So the competition went. Not even the war and the ghetto halted it. Franz made sure that Anna got word of his achievements. Anna examined every one of them, and in the end she said, “In French, I have no competitor.”

From the dark corner of the closet, Hugo’s earlier life suddenly seems like petty busyness. His mother used to say, “Why compete? Why degrade yourself? What good are competition and envy? Let everyone make an accounting with himself, and that’s enough.” Back then he didn’t understand the meaning of “make an accounting with himself,” but now he pretty much understands: I have to immerse myself in listening and observing and to write down everything my eyes see and my ears hear. Many secrets surround me. I must write down every secret. In saying this, it was as if light flooded the dark closet, and Hugo knows that his mother, who pulled him out of the sewer and restored him to life, has done it again.