Katerina

9

I WENT BACK TO THE TAVERN. Every time I left a household, I returned to the tavern. I sat by the window and before my eyes, one by one, the sights of the past days appeared to me. Two merchants had bought Henni’s house after brief negotiations. Henni did not bargain hard. More than she sought to sell the house, she sought to rid herself of it. The merchants understood and quickly got her to sign a contract.

After the sale, she burst into tears. The sobbing made her whole body tremble. I wanted to say something, but nothing I could think of was appropriate. I stood like an idiot, and the longer I stood there, the more obvious my idiocy became.

“Make some vegetable soup,” she said to me suddenly.

“I’ll do it right away,” I said, glad she had released me from the shame of silence.

We ate soup, and Henni spoke enthusiastically about the need to escape domineering managers and live a simple life, far from other people, near a forest. It was hard for me to follow what she was saying, but I sensed that she was trying to point to the error that had ruined her life and to warn me against the blindness that drags one, imperceptibly, down to destruction.

The next day Henni was on her way to Czernowitz, and I, bearing two bundles, was without a home, as on the day of my arrival here. I could have gone back to the village. Women of my age used to return to the village, marry, and have children and the slate was wiped clean. Even whores went back and got married and raised children, but I knew that I didn’t belong there, and I didn’t return.

I sat in the tavern and waited for a miracle. Meanwhile, there was no shortage of offensive propositions. Young peasants would attach themselves to me, make promises, threats. Once I would have slept with any lad gladly; but years of service with the Jews had changed me, apparently. Sturdy peasants now repulsed me.

“I’m sick,” I lied.

“What’s that matter with you?”

“My kidneys hurt.”

Rumors flew from mouth to ear. Now they ignored me or kept their distance and, when they got drunk, shoved me out the door. I noticed they looked at me the way they look at a Jew: a mixture of anger and disgust.

For hours I sat and pictured Henni’s face. Her presence was palpable even in her absence. Now it seemed to me that I could cling to her like a sister. But she was in Czernowitz and I was here. I sipped drink after drink and raised my spirits. With Rosa I had tried to wean myself away from drink, but my will wasn’t firm. Without a drink, I trembled. Five, six drinks lifted me up out of depression and gave me the strength to live. But on days when I overdid it—and once a week I overdid it—I would joyously hallucinate. Sometimes it seemed to me that I was sitting beside my mother. My mother also liked to drink. But she always drank alone. All of her actions were done in solitude, with her teeth gritted.

In the meantime, wicked looks began to surround me. You must return to your village, the Ruthenian eyes chastised me. That was the custom in this area. If a person was sick or had lost his mind, they returned him to his native village. If the brothers couldn’t bring him back, then cousins brought him back. Sometimes an anonymous Ruthenian would even perform that good deed. A Ruthenian is always a Ruthenian. If your life has gone awry, you must return to your native village and ask pardon of your dead parents, promising them that henceforth you won’t leave their shelter, and if you do leave, your blood will be on your own hands.

For weeks those evil eyes pursued me. In the end I did what I intended to do: I got on the night express train and left for Czernowitz. It was my misfortune to meet my old cousin Sarina on board. She assailed me, shouting, “You’ve abandoned the home of your forefathers. One doesn’t abandon the home of one’s forefathers.” I remembered her very well, an unfortunate woman, widowed at an early age. Her children didn’t like her and kept their distance, and she hounded them. Once she set the priest upon her sons so that he would confront them with the duty of honoring their mother. Her years had passed in solitude and bitterness. Now she had found me.

What could I answer? I lied, of course. I told her I was going for examinations in the hospital, and when they finished the examinations, I would return home. Her mind was set at ease, though not completely. She insisted that I promise her and, indeed, I promised her. Along the way she told me about my father’s last days, about his illness, and about his wife, who had tormented him. While he was sick he had frequently mentioned my mother, the love of his youth, which had only inflamed the wicked woman’s malice.

“She poisoned him.” The words left my mouth.

“That’s what people say. She didn’t get off with an easy punishment, either,” Sarina spat out not without pleasure in the other’s misfortune.

After an hour’s journey she stopped talking and fell asleep. I looked up: There were no strangers, only Ruthenians and the children of Ruthenians. Their peasant nature filled the coach. I could understand their language and taste all the flavors in it, and when they took a maize pie out of their colorful baskets, I knew that food delighted their palate more than any other delicacy. Even the odor of their coats, the sweat of their limbs—everything, down to their shoelaces—was close and familiar, but still a thin barrier separated me from them. That barrier prevented me from drawing nearer, from asking them how they were, and from tasting their beloved foods.

“Why don’t you get off with me?” Sarina asked distractedly when I woke her. She had apparently forgotten the excuses I had heaped up. “I’ll come soon,” I said, and helped her take down her packages.

“Swear.” She surprised me.

I swore.

The smell of the familiar fields together with the oath overcame me, and I wept. I wept for my loneliness and for my wanderings and for that place that had turned me out without a blessing. I remembered the two boys who had been taken from me, and the wound bled again. The railroad cars were jerked into motion, and the train sped out. My weeping eased.

At the following stations the look of things changed. A few Jews joined the voyage. I could identify Jews from far off, and it didn’t matter whether they were religious or not. In my youth I had been afraid of them, but now, when I met a Jew, I felt a kind of secret affinity. You could pick them out by a number of signs: They were short and thin and loaded down with bundles. The multitude of bundles immediately made their presence conspicuous. On the trains, the peasants tried to steal from them. They pleaded and bribed, and when bribery wasn’t effective, they defended their suitcases with their lives. I liked to observe them. I won’t conceal it: I was drawn to them. The years in their company didn’t mar that hidden attraction. They bewitched me with their gloomy smiles, but Rosa was closer to me than all of them. In her company I could talk or remain silent, it didn’t matter.

While I was looking in wonder, an old Jew approached me and asked whether I would be willing to help him carry his packages from the railroad station to the tram.

“I’m willing,” I said.

“I’ll pay you.”

“No need.”

“Why? I have six heavy bundles.”

“I don’t need the money.”

The Jew was frightened by my words and said, “I’ll do it myself.” In vain I tried to persuade him. All my entreaties were useless. He stood his ground: “I’ll do it myself. I always do it myself.” The trust he had placed in me a moment before had apparently lapsed. When we reached Czernowitz, he tied together the six bundles and fastened them to his body and, very slowly, he dragged them to the tram.

I spent my first day in the capital in a tavern. The taverns in the capital, I must admit, are more splendid, but they’re made in the same pattern: two long wooden tables with two heavy benches next to them. I had considered going directly to the city auditorium where Henni used to perform, but as was my way, I got delayed. I drank too much, and in the evening I couldn’t stand. The tavern owner, for a fee, let me sleep on the floor.

The next day I located Henni, and both of us cried like little girls. Henni had become very thin, her face was gaunt, and her long dress made the bones of her shoulders project. “You need rest,” I told Henni. Though she agreed with me, how could she get free of a contract for twenty-four concerts?

I knew how much I had missed her only now. By the way, I hadn’t opened the packet of jewels she had given me. I had hung it around my neck, and I said to myself, This will be my talisman. Now I felt the desire to adorn myself with one of them.

Henni was in a firm and difficult humor. She made a few contemptuous remarks about Izio’s becoming a monk, and finally she said, “I hate monasteries. I’ll never forgive the monks for the sins they commit. A person is free.”

The next day I met her manager, a young, plump Jew, grasping and fussy. He had prepared the concert tour down to the last note. To me, for some reason, that precision sounded like a banishment. You mustn’t drive people from their homes, I was about to shout, but my voice didn’t stand by me.

Later, we sat and sipped a few drinks. Her voice trilled. She spoke with a kind of enthusiasm of the need to overcome weaknesses and to practice a great deal, for only practice can repair the flaws. That wasn’t her voice but one she had borrowed for the purposes of this conversation. What are you talking about, I wanted to stop her. You have to take care of your health, to rest in the country. But I couldn’t talk. Her voice poured out and silenced me. Finally, she said, “No matter. We’ll see a lot of each other, and we’ll talk for many days. There’s a lot to talk about. A lot.”

The next day Henni left for provincial cities, and I, in my great despair, sat in a tavern and sipped a few drinks. Afterward, distractedly, I straggled along the street near the railway station. The night lights flowed on the damp sidewalks, and I, as they say, had no goal. If a man had come along and dragged me to his room, I would have gone. No one approached me. Everyone streamed by in haste. It made me angry that no one approached me, that everyone was ignoring me, but I kept on walking. For some reason I turned into a side street. While I was walking, I saw a dim light and smelled Jewish food. I had a strong desire to climb up to the first floor and ask for a little soup, but I didn’t dare. I stood and waited for the door to open and for someone to call me: Katerina, come in. Why are you standing outside? For a long while I stood there. It was, it turns out, a vain expectation. One by one, the houses were shut up behind walls of darkness. “Why won’t anyone give me a little soup?” I finally raised my voice. My words were not answered. The houses seemed like fortresses, and darkness was piled upon darkness. I kept on pacing, and as I continued, the odor pursued me. Irritation goaded me to climb up to the first floor and make a ruckus in front of the doors, but I didn’t do it.

While I was standing there, I noticed I was in front of a small store. From the door and the lock, I knew it was a Jewish shop. I was about to pass it by and continue on my way, but something told me to stay still, and I did. Now the way inside was easy. I smashed the window with a swing of my arm, and immediately I was stuffing cigarettes and chocolates into a bag.

Furtively, I went up and continued through the alleys. I knew it was a contemptible, ugly sin, but I still felt no remorse. A coarse pleasure flooded my body. The night passed without my feeling it. I was thirsty, but all the taverns were closed. Toward morning, I collapsed in a heap at the railroad station and fell asleep.