Blooms of Darkness

61

Hugo stands there without moving. This is his city. He knows its streets and alleys. He has even passed through this not-very-splendid area a few times. He looks for someone familiar, but he sees only Russian soldiers dressed in long winter coats. Peasants carry firewood on their shoulders, and hungry dogs roam the streets.

An hour passes, and Mariana doesn’t return. The thought that she is being interrogated about her connections with the Germans, that she will be accused of treason, hits home to Hugo only now. As though through a veil, he remembers her shouts and weeping when they would abuse her at night, and Madam’s threats in the morning. He didn’t absorb these details then. Now, as he stands alone next to the guard at the gate, expecting her to come back, it’s as though the riddle has been stripped of its clues.

After standing for two hours, Hugo gets tired. He sits down on the ground and opens the suitcase. To his surprise he finds a little more cheese and bread. He eats, and his hunger abates. When he looks up, he sees the cook Victoria, accompanied by two guards. Her appearance stuns him, and he wants to approach her, the way one approaches a familiar person in an unfamiliar place. But then he remembers that she didn’t like him and claimed he was endangering the women in The Residence.

“What do you want from me?” she asks one of the guards.

“At headquarters they’ll explain everything to you,” he replies impatiently.

“I’m not a young woman anymore,” she says, and smiles.

The street fills with local people. The refugees stand out in their long, tattered coats.

“Who are you?” one of them asks Hugo.

“My name is Hugo.” He doesn’t conceal the fact.

“Are you Hans and Julia’s son?”

“That’s correct.”

“Come to the square. They’re giving out soup,” the man says, and goes away.

That sudden attention and the mention of his parents’ names help to lift Hugo from the dread in which he was mired. Now his father and mother appear before him — not as refugees who dash about in panic through the streets, but walking slowly, as if they were going to meet friends in a café.

One after another, the women from The Residence are brought to the headquarters. They are accompanied by guards and greeted by shouts of contempt. Even Sylvia, the old cleaning woman, is brought in. Astonishment freezes her small, wrinkled face. This is a mistake, she seems to be saying. I’m old, I was just a cleaning woman. The guards don’t say anything. They stand tensely with the detainees in front of the locked gate. The women are crammed together in front of the gate, making it possible for the mob that has gathered to express its vindictive joy. That vulgar satisfaction is expressed not only in shouted insults but also in obscene gestures. The guards do nothing to silence the crowd.

It’s good that Mariana has already gone in and was spared all this, Hugo thinks to himself.

Hugo recognizes most of the women, but not by name. As always, Kitty stands out. Her face is also full of surprise. Here she looks more like a child than she did in The Residence, and her perplexed eyes keep asking, What is the reason for this uproar?

The arrested women express neither resentment nor resistance. They are just surprised that the gate won’t open. If it opened, they would be saved from the curses and contempt that fall upon them from every direction. Hugo approaches and gets a better look at the women: they are still pretty, and some of them remind him of Mariana. But as a group they appear miserable and abandoned.

Hugo wants very much to say something to them, but the burly guards don’t let anyone come close enough. Things continue that way for a long while, and at times it seems that the women will simply stand there until they are released. One of them, a tall woman who closely resembles Nasha, the one who drowned, turns to the guards and asks, “How long must we wait here?”

“It doesn’t depend on us.”

“Then on who?”

“On the camp commander. He calls the shots.”

Suddenly Masha approaches, escorted by two guards, and all eyes turn to her. It’s as if she were not their companion in suffering but a savior. The women nearby hug her, and the ones farther away reach out and touch her. “There’s nothing to worry about,” she says. “We won’t hide a thing. We’ll say openly, we were forced. If we hadn’t obeyed, our fate would have been like that of the Jews.”

“True,” the trapped women agree.

“Both Victoria and Sylvia will testify that we were forced, and if Madam is against us, we’ll say explicitly that she was the collaborator, not us.” So she stands and prepares the collective defense brief. Her resolute words apparently make an impression on the crowd, because they stop cursing, and among the arrested women there is slight relief. Evening falls, the gate opens, and the women are taken inside. The gloating people scatter and go their way. A sudden silence falls on the place.

In the square, the refugees crowd around a large army pot full of soup. They eat the soup while standing, everyone keeping to himself. There’s haste in their movements, like animals who have been hungry for days, and now, when they have obtained what they want, no longer have any interest in their fellows.

Hugo is thirsty. He’s afraid to leave, in case Mariana is released and fails to find him. The thought that in a little while she will be freed, and that they will set out again, arouses new hope in him. With great clarity, Hugo remembers the blazing campfires and the fish they grilled on the coals. For Hugo, it is as though Mariana has been sculpted from that wonder. In vain he tries to remember one of her marvelous sentences. But, as though to spite him, nothing comes to mind.

“Mariana,” he calls out, wanting her to appear to him.

The street grows quieter, and the refugees who surrounded the pot of soup also disperse. Only a few people remain, leaning against the walls, smoking cigarettes and talking. Hugo is thirsty and decides to approach the pot. He takes a metal bowl out of the suitcase, pours some soup into it, and sits down.

A refugee comes up to him. “Who are you?” he asks.

“My name is Hugo.”

“And what is your family name?”

“Hugo Mansfeld.”

“The pharmacists’ son?”

“Correct.”

“In the morning they give out tea and sandwiches here,” the man says, and goes on his way.

Only now does he grasp what is going on: some people have been liberated and others are being sentenced behind the walls. The liberated ones run from place to place, looking for something. Hugo works up his courage, approaches one of them, and asks, “What’s going on here?”

“Nothing. Why do you ask?”

“It seems to me that everybody is looking for something.”

“You’re wrong. Everybody has gathered here because there’s soup. There’s nothing like hot soup for a thirsty body,” he says, and smiles.

Hugo returns to his place near the gate. The short conversation with the refugee, which revealed nothing, leaves him uneasy. For a moment it seems to him that the man bears a horrible secret within him, and that all of his words and movements are meant only to distract people from his secret. Now the man is leaning against the wall of a building and smoking hastily. From Hugo’s corner he looks tall and broad-shouldered.

Later, the guard at the gate asks him, “Who are you waiting for?”

“For my mother.”

“Where is she?”

“She’s inside. Will she be there for a long time?”

“Who knows?” says the guard, and turns his back.