Blooms of Darkness

25

After Mariana’s return Hugo’s life changed beyond recognition. Mariana still forgot him sometimes, returned from town drunk and abusive, but in her moments of sobriety she fell to her knees, hugged and kissed him, and promised him that nothing bad would befall him. She would watch over him no less than his mother. Closeness to her was so pleasant for Hugo that he forgot his loneliness and the fears that surrounded him.

The baths were especially pleasant. Mariana soaped him down, washed and rinsed him, and she no longer said, “Don’t be embarrassed,” but whispered, “A proper young man, in a year or two the girls will gobble you up.” When she was depressed, her tone changed, and she turned things around: “If only they washed me like you. Believe me, I deserve it. They crush me every night like a mattress. Not even one word of love.”

“But I love you.” The words slipped out of Hugo’s mouth.

“True, you’re good, you’re loyal,” she said, and hugged him.

After her mother’s death, fear of God came over Mariana. She kept repeating that they would roast her in hell because she hadn’t watched over her mother, hadn’t called the doctor in time, hadn’t bought her medicine, hadn’t sat by her bedside. And not only that: instead of working in the fields or in a factory, she was working here. For that God would never forgive her.

Once Hugo heard her say, “I hate myself. I’m filthy.” He wanted to approach her and say, You’re not filthy. A good smell of perfume comes from your neck and your blouse. But he didn’t dare. When Mariana was sunk in depression, she was unpredictable. She didn’t talk but, rather, spat out harsh words like pebbles. Hugo knew that at times like that, he mustn’t talk to her. Even a soft word drove her out of her mind.

Hugo takes out his notebook and writes:

I’m trying to keep up continuity in my diary, but I’m not managing. The place is feverish. Since Mariana returned, her moods rise and fall, and sometimes several times a day. I’m not afraid. I feel that behind her suffering hides a good and loving woman.

Mama, sometimes it seems to me that what once was will never be again, and that when we meet after the war, we’ll be different. How that difference will be expressed I have no notion. Sometimes it seems to me that we’ll speak in a different language. Things that we didn’t used to talk about or ignored will concern us. Each of us will tell what happened to him. We’ll sit together and listen to music, but it will be a different kind of listening.

Before I yearned for this meeting, and now, God forgive me, as Mariana says, I’m afraid of it. The thought that at the end of the war I won’t recognize you and you won’t recognize me is a very hard thought for me to bear. I’m trying not to think it, but the thought won’t let me be.

There’s no doubt I’ve changed a lot in these months, and I’m not what I was. For a fact: it’s hard for me to write and hard for me to read. You remember how much I loved to read. Now I’m entirely immersed in listening. Mariana’s room, my eternal riddle, is a house of pleasure for me, and at the same time I feel that evil will come from there. The tension that pervades me most of the day has apparently changed me, and who knows what else will be.

By the way, Mariana always complains that everybody exploits her all the time, wrings her out, and crushes her. I often want to ask her, Who’s oppressing you? But I don’t dare. I mainly observe your instruction not to ask but to listen, but what can I do? Listening doesn’t always make you wiser.

The nights are cold. Hugo wears two pairs of pajamas, wraps himself in one of Mariana’s cloaks, and covers himself with sheepskins. Even that heavy covering doesn’t keep him warm. Sometimes in the middle of the night Mariana opens the closet door and calls him to come to her.

For a long time Hugo’s body hurts him from the piercing cold, but gradually sensation returns to his arms and legs, and he feels her soft body. That pleasantness is unlike any other, but, sadly, it doesn’t last for long. Suddenly, with no warning, a feeling of guilt breaks out within him and spreads over him like a searing flame. Mama is suffering on the cold roads, and you are embraced in Mariana’s arms. Mariana isn’t your mother. She’s a servant, she’s like Sofia. But amazingly, that sharp twinge of the heart is quickly swallowed up in feelings of pleasure, and there is no trace of its having entered him. Sometimes Mariana whispers in her sleep, “Why don’t you kiss me? Your kisses are very sweet.” Hugo does her bidding gladly, but when she says, “Bite, too,” he hesitates, afraid to hurt her.