Blooms of Darkness

58

The following days are clear and bright. The fire burns day and night. Hugo is sure that Mariana’s fears will subside as they advance toward the wooded, uninhabited areas.

“Come on, let’s get moving,” he keeps saying.

“To where? Who knows what’s swarming around out there.”

To overcome his secret despair, Hugo fans the flames of the campfire and assures Mariana that collaborators won’t reach them there. The place isn’t populated, and it’s far from the main road.

Meanwhile, their supplies have run out, and Hugo decides to go up to one of the nearby houses to replenish them. Mariana equips him with two silver rings and is pleased by his initiative. Before he sets out, she says in a voice that he hasn’t heard before, “Please come back right away, and don’t delay.”

Fortune favors him, and for one ring he gets potatoes, a wedge of cheese, and pears. Mariana runs to him with open arms and calls him a “hero.” Hugo knows that it’s easy to change her mood. A small success restores the light to her face. She admits that depression is her enemy and knows that she mustn’t give in to it. She must always look at the bright side of life and not sink into melancholy.

Later Hugo spreads out a shirt in the water. Luckily, he catches three fish. They clean the fish and grill them on the coals. In her joy, Mariana hugs and kisses Hugo and tells him he’s in danger — she’s simply going to gobble him up.

That night she teaches him two pleasant Ukrainian folk songs, singing each one several times. They fall asleep next to the fire, intertwined. Hugo dreams about his violin teacher, a short, irritable man who used to demand relaxation and quiet from his pupils. “Relaxation and quiet are the preconditions for good violin playing,” he used to say. “For some reason,” he once told Hugo, “my parents wanted me to be a violinist. I’m irritable. Irritability doesn’t suit that instrument. Only a calm quiet brings out the required clarity and tempo.”

The next day they set out. “It’s a shame to leave this marvelous place,” Mariana says. “I’ve gotten used to this little hollow and the campfire and the tall trees that sway in the wind. Why should we wander when we can sit?” So she speaks, but in her heart she knows there’s no choice. The nights are cold, the earth is wet, and even a big fire only heats small parts of the body. They must have a roof over their heads.

They climb a hill from which the villages, the outlying areas, and parts of the city can be viewed. It turns out that they haven’t gone far. Mariana is thrilled by the landscape. “Look, dear,” she cries out, “at what God created. What beauty. What tranquility. Horses and dogs know how to live right. Only people, the crown of creation, as they say, make a commotion with everything they do. My grandma used to say, ‘Flesh and blood — today quiet and drowsy, and tomorrow a murderer.’ You have to be brave.”

“What must I do?”

“Don’t fear. Fear debases us. A debased person isn’t worthy of living. If you’re going to live, then live in freedom. That simple thing was what I didn’t know. All my life I lived a debased life.”

“I’m not afraid.”

“That’s just what I wanted to hear from you. It’s better to die than to live a debased life.”

Later, for no discernible reason, Mariana bursts into tears. Hugo kneels and wipes her eyes, but her weeping does not subside. “Mariana’s going to die, and no memory of her will be left. If I stayed alive, I could reform, but now I can’t. In hell they’ll roast me. Rightly, they’ll roast me. You, my dear, take care of yourself. When the informers come to take me, don’t go after me. They’ll take me straight to the gallows, or who knows what.”

“How do you know? There are no people here, there are no informers. There’s a splendid landscape and great tranquility.”

“With my own eyes I saw them.”

“What did you see?”

“I saw three soldiers handcuff me and march me off.”

“That was a bad dream. You mustn’t believe in bad dreams.”

“The dream was the truth,” she says in a whisper.

But when the sun descends to the horizon, and the lower part of the sky turns purplish-red, Mariana calms down. She takes a few swallows of brandy, and the dark visions fade away.

Suddenly she says to him, “Why don’t you read me some poems from the Bible?”

Hugo takes the Bible out of his knapsack and reads her the first psalm.

“It’s very beautiful, even if I don’t understand it. Do you?”

“I think so.”

“That phrase pleases me a lot, ‘like a tree planted by the rivers of water.’ Do you like the Bible?”

“Mama liked to read it to me, but since then I’ve barely opened it.”

“I forgot. You’re not religious. But since you’ve been with Mariana, you’ve changed a little. Mariana loves God very much. Too bad I didn’t walk in His ways. I always did the opposite. You have to promise me that you’ll read a chapter or two every day. That will strengthen you and give you power and courage to overcome evildoers. Evildoers swarm everywhere. Do you promise me?”

“I promise.”

“I knew you wouldn’t refuse me.”

They find shelter with an elderly couple. The old people accept German money and serve them hot vegetable soup. When Mariana asks whether the Germans have already retreated, the old man answers with assurance, “The German army is the best in the world. An army like that can’t be defeated.” The old man’s words fill her with hope, and she suddenly feels that she has been given a reprieve.

Their room is wide, and there is a large bed in it. There’s even a sink in the corner. After many days without a house, without washing, and without a toilet, the place seems like a splendid inn.

“We’re in good shape here, right?” Mariana says.

“Very much so.”

But Hugo’s sleep isn’t quiet that night. He sees his mother among a mass of refugees, and her face is dark and thin. She goes from person to person and asks whether they have seen Hugo. A woman refugee asks distractedly, “Where was he?” His mother is embarrassed for a moment, but she recovers and replies, “With a Christian woman.”

The refugees are consumed by their hunger and don’t take the trouble to answer her. They look to Hugo like the people from the ghetto who were waiting to be deported. In great despair he bites the handcuffs that shackle him. The massive effort does indeed free his hands, but instead of going down to the refugees and to his mother, he falls into a deep pit.

“What’s the matter?” Mariana wakes him up.

“Nothing, a dream.”

“Don’t pay attention to dreams,” she says, and draws him to her breast.