Katerina

13

MY SECRET NOW DIVIDED US. Sometimes Sammy would turn to me, saying, “What are you thinking about?”

“Nothing.”

We got up on time in the morning and went out to work. Usually, we would meet in the canteen at ten o’clock and drink a cup of coffee. That hour, despite the crowd, was an agreeable one for us. We were happy to be together. On the hard and unwelcoming benches of the canteen he told me several secrets about his past. I was afraid he would ask me a direct question.

Apparently, Sammy sensed my weakness and he allowed himself to stay longer at the tavern. He would return at ten o’clock, not drunk, just foggy, as though he knew I wouldn’t scold him.

What would happen, and how would the days progress? I didn’t know. Fear dominated me. To blunt the fear, I worked. I worked in the store and I worked at home, and sometimes I would get up early and prepare him a hot breakfast.

“Why all the bother?” He didn’t understand.

“It’s hard for me to sleep.”

That was the absolute truth. As early as five, evil thoughts would crawl into my head and fill me with dread. I could, of course, have gone to a doctor secretly and had an abortion, but that thought frightened me even more. Village girls used to travel to the city to have abortions. Upon their return, their faces were dismayingly yellow.

“What are you thinking about?” he asked again.

“This and that.”

“Something is disturbing you.”

“Nothing at all.”

The truth could no longer be concealed, but I, for some reason, did conceal it, as though burying my head in the sand.

Before we knew it, the long nights came, the sleepless nights. I felt ill, and I had to go outside and vomit. First he didn’t notice, but when he did, the look of my body had already revealed the secret. Sammy opened his eyes and astonishment virtually froze them.

What could I say? I piled words upon words, and the more I added, the more his face froze. Before leaving for work, he said, “I’m very sorry. I don’t know why I deserve this. There are things that are beyond my understanding.” Each of his words, even the spaces between the words, cut into my flesh.

I was weak, but I still went to work. I didn’t want to stay in the house. In the courtyard I saw Sammy. His back was bent, and he was busy sorting out the merchandise. I gathered my strength and approached. The frost in his eyes had not faded. The veins in the whites of his eyes now looked bulging and thick. His look wasn’t hard, just weary.

“Forgive me,” I said.

“No need to ask forgiveness.”

“I don’t know what to say.”

He didn’t answer. He walked away and immersed himself in his work. I stood where I was and watched his movements, constricted, like those of a man just now risen from his sickbed. In the evening, I served him a meal and he didn’t say anything. I washed the dishes and did some laundry, and when I came back in, he had already fallen asleep.

Between us the words grew ever more limited. Jews don’t beat you, but they get angry silently. I knew that. In the end I said, “I don’t want to be a nuisance to you. As soon as the rains stop, I’ll go back to my village. I have a house there.”

Sammy fixed me with his icy gaze and said, “Don’t talk nonsense.” He made a convulsive gesture with his right hand, and that was the evil omen. He returned to the tavern and began drinking as in the past. First he would come home in a haze but not drunk. Before the week was out, he had ceased getting up to go to work. His face turned gray, and the tremor returned to his fingers. I was familiar with his drunkenness, and I wasn’t afraid of it, but this time it turned out to be a different kind. He would return late, sit next to the table, and mutter in a mixture of Yiddish, German, and Ruthenian. In the past when he had gotten drunk, I used to entreat him, but now I stood at his side and kept silent. My silence only augmented the flow of his words. I wasn’t afraid of him, only of his Ruthenian words. Once I said to him, “Why don’t you lie down and rest?”

“Don’t tell me what to do!” he scolded.

He used to rise late and go to the tavern. That was how my father behaved in his time. For my part, I worked hard from morning to night, so that nothing would be lacking at home. What little love we had gradually disintegrated. Upon his return he would talk to me in Ruthenian, the way one talks to a despised servant.

“Sammy,” I would plead with him.

“What are you talking about?” His eyes pushed me away.

One night he spoke to me, saying, “Why don’t you bring me some vodka? I don’t need either bread or potatoes.”

“It’s raining outside.”

“I need a bottle of vodka right away.” He eyes bulged and the blood in their veins poured out of them. This wasn’t his normal anger. Ruthenian drunkenness had overpowered him. I wrapped myself in my coat and went out to fetch him a bottle. That night he sang and cursed the Jews and the Ruthenians. He didn’t let me off easily, either. He called me a woman of the streets.

I was afraid and ran away.

Czernowitz is a big city. There’s no end to its streets. I wandered without any destination. More than once I was about to go back, but I didn’t have the strength to bear his eyes. His drunkenness wasn’t violent, but the words he spat fell upon me like damp whips.

I would sleep in little Jewish-owned taverns. I had no choice but to sell another one of Henni’s jewels. Every time I prepared to sell one, fear would possess me. The jewels were tied to my body, and it was hard for me to part with them.

This time the lot fell on a brooch made of thin strands of silver, with a large blue stone in the center. I touched it, and my fingers were scorched. I don’t hate Jewish merchants, but I do hate jewelers. I sold them Henni’s jewels for almost nothing. I was angry at them, but I wasn’t angry at Sammy. If he had crossed my path, I would have gone to him. But Sammy didn’t cross my path. I went from merchant to merchant and stood at their doors like a beggar. One of the merchants impudently asked me, “Where did you get the brooch if I may ask?”

“I didn’t steal it, sir,” I said, plucking up my courage.

Winter came, and I rented a room with a Jewish family. It was a poor family, burdened with many children, and the room was narrow, actually an alcove. Fortunately for me, it adjoined the apartment and absorbed some of its heat. I was glad to be in a Jewish house again, to hear the language, the prayers, and to divert myself with the thought that I had come home.

During these last days, I saw Rosa, and she had become very old. Her hair was thinned and gray, and one deep wrinkle divided the length of her face. For some reason I took it for the cut made by the murderer. Though the cut had healed, its depth was still visible. To my surprise there was no need to tell her anything. She knew everything and even pronounced Sammy’s name. Every time I take the high road, I see Rosa. She’s bound to my most secret thoughts. The last time, we spoke at length, and she was glad that I spoke the language fluently and pronounced the names of people and places correctly.

My landlady’s name was Pearl, and she constantly marveled at my Yiddish. When I told her that Yiddish is a pleasing language, sweet to listen to, a suspicious smile crossed her lips. They kept the children away from me, and most of the day I was shut in my alcove, thinking and dozing off.

Selling the brooch was painful. The sum I got for it was large, and perhaps that’s why I was able to block my tears. I paid my rent to the landlady. She couldn’t believe her eyes, and in her embarrassment she told me, “You’re good.”

“What’s good about it?” I asked.

“Everybody, until now, has cheated me, and you paid me on time.”

Now, at night I sit on my bed and write down the events of the day. I acquired that habit from the time I dwelled with Rosa. My dear ones have left me, and now I have nothing in the world but my notes. I store all my thoughts in them. My notes are numerous and confused, and in some it’s hard to make out the writing, but still I continue. I also write when I’m tired, because sometimes it seems to me that I must preserve every face and every detail, so that when the time comes I can go back and remember them. But in the meantime there was the fear. I was frightened of the winter silence, of the drunkards wandering in the streets, of policemen, of the mob of peasants sitting in wagons and playing dice. Fear lurked in all my limbs. I saw clearly that a tempest was brewing on the horizon and the mob would storm the Jewish houses. I remembered the sight of the young men of my village who would come home from looting, merry and drunk. I remembered my friend Waska, a quiet and decent lad. We used to herd the flocks together. I loved him because of his generosity, his manners, and his forthrightness. We used to spend many hours in the field, and after my father had married his second wife, I would stay with Waska till late at night. I preferred the darkness of night to my stepmother’s face. That Waska, who used to hug and kiss me delicately, who was bashful about asking for my body, that darling Waska went out in the winter with all his friends to hunt Jews, and when a Jew who had crossed his path—not a young man—managed to slip out of his hands, Waska didn’t give up. He ran after the Jew and caught him, venting all his fury. Not content, he dragged the Jew back to the village.

At Easter, the air of the village would be full of passion. The young men would unleash all their fury on the Jews. The reward wasn’t slow in coming. If you captured a Jew, others would come to save him; if you caught a Jew, you were sure of getting a suitcase full of merchandise.