Blooms of Darkness

68

Hugo remains awake. I’ll remember this night, too, he says to himself. The passing hours fill him till there’s no more room, but at the same time he feels hollow, as if he were being plundered from within.

He opens the suitcase and there before his eyes are Mariana’s two flowered dresses — one mostly dark red and the other mostly sky blue. Both of them suited her. Both of them enhanced the light that filled her face and complemented her long neck and arms. There are also two pairs of shoes, both high-heeled. They made her taller and emphasized the beautiful outlines of her breasts. Sometimes she would say, “There’s nothing like high-heeled shoes. They were created for Mariana.” There are also two folded corsets. Mariana had a complex attitude toward corsets. Sometimes she complained that they made it hard for her to breathe, but when she was in a good mood, she would admit that the corset molded her figure. She spoke about her breasts with pity. “My poor breasts,” she used to say, “what hasn’t been done to them.” There are also silk stockings, a few slips, bottles of perfume, lipsticks, powder, and a bottle and a half of brandy. From those few objects, Mariana is sculpted. “I don’t need much,” she would say. “I just want people to leave me alone.”

Hugo doesn’t forget even now how self-involved Mariana was. There were days when she forgot him, and he almost collapsed from hunger. But the light that glowed in her face would erase all the little injustices.

Years will pass, and Hugo will continue to wonder what libation she poured into his soul, and under what circumstances she was taken from him. If she has been within me until now, he would say, that means that one day we’ll meet again.

Hugo closes the suitcase carefully and looks around. The bonfire now burns quietly. The refugees sleep, but some of them lie there with their eyes open. The woman with the wild hair who demanded immediate information has also sunk into deep sleep.

Flames leap out of the bonfire, and a man rises to his knees and begins to whisper. At first it sounds like a prayer, but soon it becomes clear that the man has come to the conclusion that those who haven’t yet returned are not going to. In vain he has deluded himself and the others.

No one responds to his whispering. The people lie huddled under their coats like children. It occurs to Hugo that the man didn’t intend to speak to the people’s wakefulness, but to pour his secret discoveries into their sleep.

A short woman emerges from the darkness with a carton of sandwiches, a pot of coffee, and some mugs. She approaches one of the refugees and offers him a sandwich and a cup of coffee.

“Why aren’t you sleeping?” the man asks in surprise.

“I don’t need sleep,” she says apologetically.

“You won’t be able to keep it up. A person has to rest.”

“I may be a short, thin woman, but I am very strong. You can’t imagine how strong I am. Another woman in my place would have collapsed. I don’t feel any weakness. I have the strength to undergo more.”

“You’re going to work like this all the time?”

“That’s what I’ve been doing since I left the hiding place and learned what I learned.”

“Have you no other plans for the future?”

“I do this willingly. If only I could do more. Take, please.”

The man takes a sandwich in one hand and a mug in the other and promptly starts drinking.

Before long the woman stops next to Hugo and offers him a sandwich and coffee. Hugo takes the gift without saying anything. “You look familiar to me, son,” she says.

“My name is Hugo Mansfeld.”

“Good God,” she says, and kneels. “You’re Julia and Hans’s son. How did you end up here?”

“I’m waiting for my parents.”

“You mustn’t wait for them,” she whispers a bit louder. “We have to leave here. Whoever hasn’t come by now probably won’t come soon. We have to leave here, together, so that we can all watch over one another.”

“Won’t my parents come?”

“Not now. Now we have to leave.”

“For where?” Hugo asks hesitantly.

“We have to leave together and watch over one another. Brothers don’t say, I’ve already given. Brothers give more, and we have, thank God, a lot to give. One gives a cup of coffee and the other helps a woman bandage her wounds. One gives a blanket, and the other raises the pillow of a person who’s having trouble breathing. We have a lot to give. We don’t know yet how much we have.”

She speaks in a flood of words. Hugo doesn’t understand everything she plucks from her heart, but her words seep into him with the hot coffee. In time he will say to himself, This was like a field hospital — people and blankets and burning pain. The small woman goes from place to place, bandaging wounds, driving away bad thoughts, and serving coffee and sandwiches.

A man shows her the stump of his hand and asks, “Better?”

“Much better,” she says, and kisses his forehead.