Blooms of Darkness

33

Hugo sits and awaits the guard’s footsteps. Once he saw him through the cracks; a tall, broad-shouldered man, he was reviling one of the women: “You’re just what you are. Clear out and go to your room.”

“I won’t go. I don’t take orders from you,” she shouted at him.

“If I hear one more word, I’ll crush you,” he said, and he demonstrated with his fingers.

Hugo feels sorry for himself, because he’s going to be crushed in the guard’s powerful hands and he’ll never see his parents again. But to get up and jump over the fence into the thick darkness — his legs refuse to do it. He takes the notebook out of the knapsack and writes:

Dear Papa and Mama,

Some time ago I left the closet. Mariana didn’t come back to me as she promised, and the cook, Victoria, threatened to turn me in. I have no choice but to escape to the forest. Now I’m sitting in the woodshed and preparing myself to leave. Don’t worry, I’ll get to the forest and I’ll find shelter there, but if fortune doesn’t favor me, and I’m caught or I disappear, you should know that you were in my thoughts all the time.

Hugo returns the notebook to the knapsack and tears flood his face.

The sky changes hue, and pink rays break through the horizon. From the woodshed he can see the meadows and the house wrapped in vines. From Mariana’s room, he saw only parts of them, and now they are revealed in full. I’m beginning a new life, he says as he gathers his strength.

While Hugo is standing at the entrance to the woodshed, preparing to throw the knapsack over the fence and then jump over after it, a desperate voice is heard calling, “Hugo, Hugo, where are you?” For a moment he’s afraid it’s an illusion, but the voice is heard again, with the same desperate tone.

“I’m here,” he answers.

“I can’t see you.”

“I’m outside.”

“Come back to me.”

He approaches the opening and crawls back in. When he pokes his head out of the darkness, he sees Mariana kneeling.

“Mariana,” he whispers.

“Good God, why did you go outside?”

“Victoria threatened to turn me in.”

Even in the darkness he can see how much she has changed. Her face has become narrow, her hair is pulled back, and her eyes are sunken. The way she holds him in her arms is also different. “I’ve stopped drinking,” she says, and lowers her head.

Hugo doesn’t hold back and kisses her face.

“I had some hard days, and I decided to dry out and come back here. Here I have my own room, food, and a salary. Outside they abused me.”

Hugo remembers her previous declines, but not one like this. Mariana tells him that for a week not a drop has passed her lips. Drying out depresses her, but she has no choice.

“I’ll help you,” he says.

“Without brandy, my life isn’t worth living. All the joy and all the desire for life have abandoned me, but I have no choice. Outside they persecuted me like a mangy dog.”

Hugo holds her hand, kisses it, and says, “Don’t worry, Mariana. I’ll do whatever you tell me to do.”

“I thank you very much,” she says in a voice unlike any he has heard her utter.

Mariana immediately starts tidying the room, mopping the floor, and returning the pictures to the shelves. Her image once again looks out from every corner — young and full of lust for life.

“What did you do during the days I wasn’t here?”

“I sat in the corner and thought about you.”

“I looked for someplace that would be right for us, but I couldn’t find anything. I wandered from place to place, and everywhere they recognized me and persecuted me, the way that hypocrite Victoria was abusing you. What were you going to do?”

“Run away to the forest to look for you.”

“My hero.”

In the afternoon, Mariana runs a bath for Hugo and says, “Now I’ll wash my man. I abandoned him for a long time, and now he’ll be mine again.” For a moment her old tone of voice comes back to her, and the light returns to her face.

That night Hugo sleeps with Mariana in the big bed. Her soft body and her perfumes surround him with sharp pleasure. “You’re mine, you’re all mine. Men are bullies and coarse in spirit, and only you are strong and sweet.” Thus, with a wave of her hand, Mariana drives away the darkness, which just a few hours earlier was about to smother him.