Blooms of Darkness

59

The next day the elderly couple offers them cups of tea. They accompany them to the gate and wish them a successful journey. Moved by the gesture, Mariana hugs and kisses the woman, and they immediately set out.

The following days are quiet and pass without surprises. They go from hill to hill, light campfires, and buy potatoes and cheese from the peasants. Hugo fishes successfully. Every day he catches three or four fish in his shirt.

Mariana’s fears are not assuaged, but they have lessened and are no longer outwardly expressed. From time to time she says, “You, my dear, must watch out for yourself and not try to defend me. Everyone has their own fate. That’s life.” Hearing her words, Hugo freezes where he is and doesn’t respond. But sometimes the words form in his mouth, and he says, “We’ll always be together, that’s God’s will.” His words bring a wry smile to her face.

Sometimes he reads psalms to her. Mariana encourages him and says, “Read, honey, you have a marvelous voice. I don’t understand the poems, but they exalt my soul. Do you understand them?”

“Not everything is understandable to me, either.”

“If we find a priest, he’ll explain them to us. Sometimes they leave the church and stroll along the river.”

While they are on the road, Hugo adopts Mariana’s way of speaking. When something succeeds for him, or when Mariana overcomes her depression, he says, “Thank God.” Mariana feels that she has transferred something of her inner self to Hugo. “Take the inside of Mariana and throw away the shell,” she says to him. “What’s inside her is faith in God on high, and her shell is depression. Depression is what always tries to drag her down to hell. If it weren’t for that illness, her life would have been different. Beware of depression as of the plague.”

But there are also days of laughter and drunken pleasures. “Isn’t it true that Mariana is still young and beautiful?” she would say.

“Very true.”

“If we get to a safe place, I’ll take care of myself, and all my beauty will be yours.”

“Thank you,” says Hugo, because he can find no other words.

“We’re like a pair of birds. Did you ever see a bird thank another bird? They hop from branch to branch, pleased with each other, and when evening comes, they fall asleep from having chattered so much.”

“Too bad the water in the stream is so cold,” she says at one point. “We could go into the stream and swim like two fish. When I was a little girl, I used to swim in the river. Since then I haven’t. I have a strong desire to swim. It seems to me that swimming would ease my depression. When a person swims and comes out of the water, he immediately walks erect. His eyes see splendid colors. Am I wrong?” Hugo loves that sudden wonderment. At such times he feels she is connected to mysterious forces within her. Her expression changes, and she is under influences that are not her own.

“It’s wrong that people kill animals and eat them,” she says after a while. “That’s a disreputable trait. Animals are so much like us that the killing of them cries out to heaven. Papa, of blessed memory, would slaughter a pig before every Easter. The memory of it gives me chills to this day. When I was young I swore in my heart that I wouldn’t eat meat. Of course I didn’t keep that oath.”

“Our family is vegetarian.”

“I didn’t know.”

“Just fruit and vegetables and dairy products.”

“I always said the Jews are more sensitive. But what good did their sensitivity do them? They were persecuted even more cruelly. Don’t ever forget that the members of your tribe were cruelly killed in the streets just because they were Jews.”

“I won’t forget.”

“The Germans drove them into the ghetto and sent them who knows where, just because they were Jews. God can’t bear injustice like that. He will bring a flood upon their persecutors. Don’t forget, you mustn’t pass over injustice in silence.”

But there are also days of total silence. Mariana would sit down, sunk in her thoughts, and Hugo would keep drilling into himself: I must plant every detail of this journey in my memory. When Mariana is deep in thought, a strange light appears on her face, her forehead expands, and her hair stands up on her head. Sometimes it seems to Hugo that her lovely being is being eaten away by her dejection. But, not to worry, when she is once again filled with wonder, her face lights up with beauty.

“Forget my sadness and irritation and remember only the light that was between us,” she says to him distractedly.

A peasant woman sells them a few eggs and a jar of cream, and they sit down on the ground to eat. After the meal, Mariana says to Hugo, “Of all the people who were with me, only you are mine.”

“You’re very beautiful.” He can’t restrain himself.

“I’m very glad that I please you. A woman without an admirer is a sealed well. Life is stifled in her, and her beauty withers. Now, thank the Lord, I’m far from all those who tormented me. Now I’m my own woman, and I am only with you.”

“I don’t mind sleeping outdoors. I can make campfires and they’ll warm us up.”

“That’s very nice of you, but don’t forget, it rains in the spring, and sometimes very hard.”

“I can build us a temporary shelter.”

They sit and talk that way until they run out of words, and then they lie down together and fall asleep.