Katerina

22

AFTER SIGI LEFT SOLITARY CONFINEMENT, she never ceased praying and crossing herself, proclaiming that Jesus was standing at her right hand, the God of vengeance had appeared, and now the hour of the Jews had come as well. A kind of flame blew on her bony cheeks. The Ruthenian she spoke had also changed. She talked like the old women in the village, mentioning Jesus every time she spoke, and the Holy Mother and the angels, who would overcome all evil and the children of Satan.

I’d lost a friend. I spoke to her very seldom, but she, for some reason, sought my company, reproaching me and reminding me that without faith there is no life and without Jesus we are lost in this world. Her voice was frightening. “You have been influenced by the Jews too much. They’ve cast their spells upon you and ruined the pure faith in you. The children of Satan know a woman’s soul and they purchase it easily. You mustn’t feel sorry for them. They’ve blackened the Ruthenian soul.”

I slipped away from her, willing to work in the frozen fields so as not to be near her. One night I couldn’t bear it any longer, and I said to her, “What do you want from me?” She was startled and said, “Nothing. I love you. I want to return you to the bosom of faith. The children of Satan have harmed you.”

“Don’t spread that nonsense,” I said, and I was scared by my own voice.

The warning worked. People, it seems, fear murderers, and I too was afraid of my voice. In court they had exhibited the jackknife I had used to murder the murderer, and they asked me if that indeed was the same jackknife. It was a simple jackknife that I had taken with me when I left Henni’s house. There had been no reason for that little theft.

Afterward, the days were short. The cold was great, and the work exhausting. My thoughts shriveled, and my legs moved along as though by themselves. I was cut off from my own life and buried in a kind of hard hollowness. I wasn’t angry and I didn’t want anything. If they punished us with overtime, I would work without a word. Everyone used to wait for visiting days with impatience. I didn’t look forward to them. My lawyer would come once a month and bring, as was his habit, a few sweets and some jam.

“How are the Jews?” I asked, not in my own voice.

The lawyer was surprised by my question and said, “Why do you ask?”

“Rumors are flying about here that they slaughtered them in the villages.”

“Does that worry you?”

“Jews, you should know, are very close to me.”

“You’d better think about happier things,” he whispered.

“They are dear to me.” A voice came from my throat.

“I don’t understand what you’re driving at.”

“I love their little houses.”

“Don’t talk out loud,” he cut me off.

“I love to talk Yiddish. I miss it, like the breath of life.”

The lawyer got to his feet and said, “That’s irrelevant. We’ll talk about it later.”

“I’m not afraid.”

“Nevertheless.”

“I won’t stop loving them.” I managed to get out that sentence before the visit was terminated.

Later, I knew that it wasn’t Katerina speaking. When Katerina is connected with her dear ones, her voice is full, her vocabulary different, and her feelings radiate from her body; but when she is cut off from them, she is like anyone else, weary and depressed.

That winter was very long. Occasionally, strong feelings would assail me, acute beliefs that would make my head spin till I felt faint. There were moments when I was very close to my dear ones, a great and very private closeness, especially to Benjamin, my little angel. That winter I told one of the women prisoners, “I don’t need Jesus. I have my own Jesus.” I didn’t know what I was talking about, but they allowed me opinions and beliefs. People are cautious with murderers.

But most days I was depressed and kept to myself. My vision was diminished, my ears grew deaf, and I was sealed up like a wall. When they put out the lights, I curled up in my coat like an abandoned animal. The morning didn’t inspire me with will or faith; I would dress and report for roll call as if it were an extension of a restless sleep. For a long time we would wait for the truck, and when it came at last, the women prisoners hurried to clamber aboard, knocking each other over in their rush. The truck was closed with a tarpaulin, and it was warmer there.

“Start working. That’ll warm you up,” said the old guard. He didn’t beat us, but he berated us, saying that man was born to toil, there was no sin without punishment, and that one must accept punishment with love. The guards weren’t evil spirits but human beings who did their duty. This world was only a corridor to the anteroom. Without doubt, there was a religious tinge to his words. Sometimes that tone evoked a thread of awe as in the priest’s funeral prayers.

For six hours we would extract beets from the frozen earth. The spades were dull, but nevertheless our limbs did the impossible, bringing the beets up from their icy beds. After a few hours, there would be a pile of white beets. In the afternoon they brought us soup and a crust of bread. The food was tasteless, but a person can get used to anything. Sometimes a woman would despair of her life and flee, but not for long. The gendarmes would find her.

“Why not accept torments with love?” the old guard would preach his sermon to us all.

“These aren’t torments, that’s just humiliating,” one of the women prisoners answered him blandly.

Nothing mattered to me. In those dark and opaque days, I did what I had to do. I didn’t complain and I didn’t make accusations. But occasionally, in the winter—and this happened several times—a kind of malicious joy would spread and grate upon my nerves. The pain was great, but I restrained myself. In the end I couldn’t bear it anymore. I raised my voice and shouted, “Silence!”

“What do you want?” a prisoner asked impudently.

“Not to talk.”

“ Me?”

“You.”

People treat murderers with respect. Not even the women guards yelled at me, but in my heart I knew my strength wasn’t my own. Only when I was close to my dear ones did I have a voice, and there was awe in me.

At the end of the winter a lot of stolen shirts and sweaters reached us. Everyone was happy, but they didn’t show it. “Don’t put on that shirt. Katerina is roaming about.” I would hear the whisper, my small revenge in this darkness.