Blooms of Darkness

36

The harvest is over. Wagons laden with straw roll along the dirt roads. Hugo sits and watches them. The more he looks, the more he knows that he once saw laden wagons like that during a golden summer along the Prut, but where it was and under what circumstances, he can’t remember. That forgetting pains him. Not long ago he saw his parents standing right next to him, at their full height, and now they are just passing shadows. Every time he tries to visualize them, they slip away or are covered with darkness. Their voices, too, which were bright and clear, have faded.

Mariana keeps saying — as always, with repressed anger — that her body can’t withstand this pressure for long. She speaks about her body as a being that she has no control over. Once she says to Hugo, “My body has calmed down a bit. Apparently it’s restrained itself.” Mainly she reviles it and calls it “loathsome flesh.” She speaks of her breasts as udders that have been milked without end. Once she surprises Hugo and says, “It’s no wonder the priest says, ‘Abandon flesh, for today it is here and tomorrow it is under the earth. Think about your soul and about the kingdom of heaven.’ ”

Every few days little Kitty comes in and asks how he is. Hugo’s hidden life makes her curious. “What do you think about?” she asks, and apparently she expects a long answer. Hugo tells her something that he hasn’t even revealed to Mariana. In the spring he saw his parents in his imagination, but now they have gone away from him. “What does that mean?” he asks.

“Don’t worry. They’ll come back to you,” she says in a soft voice.

“How do you know?” Hugo asks, and immediately knows that he shouldn’t have.

“Mine also went away from me, but now they’ve come back. Almost every night I see them in a dream.”

“Do they come to you from the other world?”

“That’s right. I’m happy to greet them.”

Kitty doesn’t probe too much. She tells him there are rumors that the war will be over soon. All the soldiers that were posted permanently in the city have been sent to the front.

“And they’re not hunting down Jews anymore?” Hugo inquires.

“There is a small unit that has stayed behind and is looking for Jews. They always find one or two, shackle their hands, and bring them through the city streets. They look very miserable. In a little while the war will be over and the nightmare will be finished.”

Hugo likes to hear Kitty’s voice. Even though she’s twenty-four, it reminds him of the voices of the girls in his school.

“And you’re really a Jew?” She surprises him again.

“Correct. Why are you asking?”

“You look like one of us, just like one of us.”

“I’m a Jew. It can’t be denied,” Hugo says, and chuckles.

Kitty looks at him fondly and says, “For years I dreamed I would have a brother like you, tall, with curly hair, and talking the way you talk.”

“I’m willing to be your brother.”

“Thanks,” she says, and blushes.

Every meeting with Kitty leaves a kind of pleasure in him and becomes part of his imagination. Once he dreams he is strolling next to a river with her, and suddenly Kitty announces that she is thinking of fleeing from The Residence and living in the country. She’s fed up with the fat guests. “If you want, we could go away together. I assume that you’re also fed up with life in the cage.”

“And what will I say to Mariana?”

“Tell Mariana that you’re fed up with the cage. You’re a boy like all the other boys. You didn’t sin or commit a crime, and you’re allowed to live outdoors.”

“Won’t the Germans hunt me down?”

“You’re my brother, and you look like me.” She laughs.

Hugo wakes up and finds Mariana sitting by his side.

“Give me a sip, honey. I didn’t want to disturb you, so I waited for you to wake up. You sleep very beautifully. It’s just a pleasure to watch you in your sleep. That’s how puppies sleep.”

“You should have woken me. You shouldn’t suffer too much,” Hugo says, and is surprised at himself.

“I wanted to know how long I could bear this torment.”

Hugo hands her the bottle. Mariana takes a long swig and immediately takes another.

“Take the bottle and hide it,” she says, and gets to her feet. “Let’s hope there won’t be any guests tonight. They’re getting fewer, thank God, but there are some who come back here and don’t forget to comment that my breath smells of brandy. I’m waiting desperately for the end of the war, and then we’ll be free. You’ll get out of the closet, and I’ll get out of The Residence. It’s better to hoe a cornfield than to be crushed night after night. My hero, why am I bothering your head? The day will come when you’ll say to yourself, Mariana was as crazy as a coot.”