Blooms of Darkness

57

Morning breaks through and lights up the darkness. To their surprise, Mariana and Hugo find themselves standing at the foot of a mountain. On its side there are small houses surrounded by gardens. “We got there, thank God,” says Mariana, as if they had reached a different continent. She immediately sinks down onto the ground.

Hugo hurries to gather wood and light a fire. Mariana announces out loud, “From here, I’m not moving. I don’t have the strength to lift myself and walk even one more step.”

“We’ll rest. There’s no hurry.” Hugo speaks like an adult.

Then a large sun comes out and lights up the mountains and the plain. Thin mist rises from the moist earth. Not far from them a river meanders. It’s peaceful, as after a mighty battle that ended in a standoff.

Mariana puts the suitcase under her head and falls asleep. Hugo feels that he has now been freed from his bonds and can step out into the outdoors. His previous life, crammed and restricted in the closet, seems distant to him, rooted in darkness.

Mariana sleeps until noon, and when she wakes and sees Hugo at her side, guarding her sleep, she is very moved. She holds out her arms and hugs him. “I slept, and you watched over my sleep, my good soul. You didn’t sleep all last night, either.”

“Do you feel better?”

“Certainly I feel better.”

There are a few potatoes left and some sausage. They make a meal that, in her great enthusiasm, Mariana calls “a princely feast.” Fatigue and nervousness have vanished from her face, and she is entirely given over to Hugo, as though she has just discovered him.

“What are you going to want to do in the future?” She surprises him.

“To be with you,” he answers right away.

“The war is over, and soon your mother will come and get you.”

“Let’s see what happens.” He tries to give his voice the composure of an adult.

Mariana again gives free reign to her imagination. “Mariana was a beautiful, tall woman. She could have been a singer who traveled from city to city and moved people, a devoted housewife who raised her children like the Jews, going with them on long summer vacations and coming back suntanned. If I had been a kept woman, my lover would have taken me to sunbathe. But I’m a simple whore. I don’t want to conceal anything from you. To be a whore is the most contemptible thing in the world. Nothing is more contemptible.”

Hugo has learned that every one of Mariana’s moods has different words. Fortunately for him, her moods come and go, and so it is this time, too.

The sun is at its fullest, and spring is bursting from every blade of grass. Cows and horses have been taken out to graze. Mariana announces that this place is the loveliest imaginable and that it’s forbidden to waste this precious time. “All my life I was shut up in rooms,” she says again, “working at night and sleeping during the day. I forgot that there was a sky, plants, animals, and green beauty like this. Those poplars, look how tall they are. Now they’re naked, but soon they’ll be covered with silver leaves, and they’ll be even more beautiful.

“Now I’m sitting and contemplating everything. Contemplation brings tranquility to the soul. ‘Everything we see and hear is God,’ my grandma used to say, ‘because God dwells everywhere, even in the lowest weed.’ I was a child then, and I was attentive to what she said. But I went astray very quickly.”

Then she shuts her eyes and says, “The sun is warm and pleasant. I’m going to close my eyes. If informers come to arrest me, don’t follow me. Run away. You’re not to blame for my fate. You were good to me.”

Hugo wants to say, You’re wrong, it’s not true, but Mariana immediately sinks into sleep.

Hugo sits and stares at the fire and the landscape. Memories don’t disturb him. Instead, the sights of spring appear before his eyes. He imagines life from now on as pleasant — wandering along rivers with low trees on their banks, observing flowers of every hue, watching birds peck at seeds in the palm of his hand.

Mariana awakens and says, “Again you didn’t sleep?”

“I’m not tired. I was contemplating the landscape.”

“Come to me, and I’ll give you a kiss. Who knows how much time I have left to be with you in this world.”

“Always,” he responds immediately.