Blooms of Darkness

14

Every few days Mariana forgets about Hugo, and this time she has forgotten about him for many hours. At twelve o’clock she stands at the closet doorway, dressed in a pink nightgown, and looks at him guiltily, saying, “What’s my darling puppy doing? I neglected him. All morning long he’s had nothing to eat, and he’s certainly hungry and thirsty. It’s all my fault. I slept too much.”

She quickly hurries to bring him a cup of milk and a slice of bread spread with butter. The warm milk is quickly swallowed.

“Have you been awake for many hours? What were you thinking about?”

“I was thinking about my uncle Sigmund.” Hugo doesn’t hide it from her.

“Poor guy, a good man.”

“Did you know him?” Hugo allows himself to ask.

“Since my childhood. He was handsome, and a genius, too. Your mother was sure he’d become a professor at the university, but he became enslaved to drink and destroyed his life. Too bad about him. He was a good uncle, right?”

“He always brought me presents.”

“What, for example?”

“Books.”

“Sometimes he would come to me, and we would talk and laugh. He always made me laugh. Where is he now?”

“He’s in a labor camp with Papa,” Hugo answers quickly.

“I liked him very much. I even dreamed about marrying him. You’re still hungry. I’ll bring you some sandwiches.”

Hugo likes the food that Mariana brings him. In the ghetto food was scarce. His mother did everything possible and even the impossible to prepare meals from nothing. Here the food is tasty, especially the sandwiches. Because of the sandwiches, the place seems to him like a big restaurant where people come from all over the city, like Laufer’s restaurant, where his parents went on his birthday and on his mother’s birthday. His father refused to celebrate birthdays.

After eating the sandwiches, Hugo asks, “Is there a school here?”

“I already told you. There is one, but not for you. You’re in hiding now with Mariana until the end of the war. Children like you have to hide. Are you bored?”

“No.”

“In the afternoon, we’ll take a bath. The time has come to take a hot bath, right? But meanwhile I brought you a little present, a cross to wear around your neck. I’ll put it on you right away. That will be your charm. The charm will protect you. You mustn’t take it off either by day or by night. Come here, and I’ll put it on you. It suits you very well.”

“Do all the children here wear crosses?”

“Certainly.”

Hugo feels the way he felt on the day he was called up to the blackboard to get his report card from the teacher. The teacher said, “Hugo is a good pupil, and he will improve.”

It turns out there is a bathroom behind the cupboard in Mariana’s room. The bathroom is wide and luxurious, with little cupboards, a dresser, a mat, soap bars of every color, and bottles of perfume.

“I’ll bring two pails of boiling water. We’ll add cold water from the faucet, and we’ll have a bath from paradise,” Mariana says in a festive tone.

Hugo is stunned by the colors. It is a bathroom, but different from any he’s ever seen. The ostentatious luxury says that here people do more than take baths.

In a few moments, the bathtub is full. Mariana touches the water and says, “Marvelous water. Now get undressed, my dear.” Hugo is astonished for a moment. Since he was seven, his mother had stopped washing him.

Mariana, seeing his embarrassment, says, “Don’t be ashamed. I’ll wash you with perfumed soap. Plunge in, dear, plunge in, and I’ll soap you down right away. You start by plunging in, and only afterward you soap yourself.”

The embarrassment evaporates and a strange pleasantness envelops his body.

“Stand up now, and Mariana will soap you from your feet to your head. Now the soap will do wonders.” She soaps him and washes him hard, but it’s a pleasant hardness. “Now plunge in again,” she orders. In the end she pours tepid water on him and says, “You’re good. You do everything Mariana tells you to do.”

She wraps him in a big, fragrant towel, puts the cross around his neck, looks at him, and says, “Wasn’t it nice?”

“Excellent.”

“We’ll do it often.”

She kisses his face and neck and says, “Now it’s night. Now it’s dark. Now I’ll lock you in your kennel, honey. You’re Mariana’s, right?” Hugo is about to ask her something, but the question slips out of his mind.

Mariana says, “After a bath, you sleep better. Too bad they don’t let me sleep at night.”

Why? he is about to ask, but he stops his tongue in time.

That night is quiet. Though he does hear voices from Mariana’s room, they are muffled. He can feel the chilly darkness and the thin night lights that filter through the cracks between the boards and make a grid on his couch.

The bath and the cross that Mariana put around his neck seem to mingle into a secret ceremony.

Both gestures gave him pleasure, but he doesn’t understand what is visible here and what is a secret.

That night Hugo dreams that the closet door has opened, and his mother is standing in the doorway. She is wearing the coat she wore when they parted, but now it looks thicker, as though she has filled it with wadding.

“Mama,” he calls out loud.

Hearing his voice, she puts her finger on his mouth and whispers, “I’m also in hiding. I just came to tell you that I think about you all the time. The war is apparently going to be long. Don’t expect me.”

“When approximately will the war be over?” Hugo asks with a trembling voice.

“God knows. Do you feel well? Mariana isn’t mistreating you?”

“I feel fine,” he says, but his mother, for some reason, narrows her shoulders in disappointment and says, “If you feel well, that means I can go away quietly.”

“Don’t go.” He tries to stop her.

“I mustn’t be here. But there is one thing I want to say to you. You know very well that we didn’t observe our religion, but we never denied our Jewishness. The cross you’re wearing, don’t forget, is just camouflage, not faith. If Mariana or I-don’t-know-who tries to make you convert, don’t say anything to them. Do what they tell you to do, but in your heart you have to know: your mother and father, your grandfathers and grandmothers were all Jews, and you’re a Jew, too. It’s not easy to be a Jew. Everybody persecutes you. But that doesn’t make us inferior people. To be a Jew isn’t a mark of excellence, but it’s also not shameful. I wanted to say that to you, so that your spirits won’t fall. Read a chapter or two of the Bible every day. Reading the Bible will strengthen you. That’s all. That’s what I wanted to say to you. I’m glad you feel well. I can go away in peace. The war will apparently be long, don’t expect me,” she says, and goes away.

Hugo wakes up in pain. For many days he has not seen his mother with such clarity. Her face was tired, but her voice was clear and her words were orderly.

Several days ago he had promised himself that he would write down the events of the day in a notebook, but he didn’t keep his promise. His hand refused to open the knapsack and take the writing implements out of it. Why aren’t I writing? Nothing could be easier. I only have to put out my hand and immediately I’ll have a notebook and a fountain pen. Thus Hugo sat and spoke, as though he weren’t talking to himself but to a rebellious animal.