Katerina

8

THE FOLLOWING DAY I ROSE EARLY, packed my few belongings and, without delay, set out on my way. The autumn winds were already blowing strongly, but the sky was blue. All that had happened the day before seemed erased from my memory. My body felt as hollow as after a night of drinking.

In the afternoon it brightened up and I sat beneath a tree. A puppy attached itself to me, and I played with it. Afterward, I was of a mind to go down to the river and have a swim, but I immediately changed my mind. I rose to my feet and turned back to the high road.

As evening cast its cold shadows on the fields, I saw once again, as if onstage, the two tall Ruthenians who had come in secret and stood in the courtyard. Nor did that woman vanish from my vision, her clumsy body and her swollen legs and her repeated question, “Who taught you Yiddish?” Finally, I hadn’t been able to restrain myself and I told her, “Nothing Jewish is strange to me.” She apparently sensed my anger and asked nothing more.

That very night I sat in the Fieldmouse and sipped a few drinks. The streets were as bright as the day of my first arrival here. I was tired, and my fingers trembled. Since I’d last been there, the crowd had changed. The usual drunkards had gone and their place had been taken by new ones. While I was seeking familiar faces, I saw my cousin Maria. I hadn’t seen her for years. She was unchanged—the same brazen look, the same vigorous vitality. I hugged her to my breast, and all my humiliations rose up before me. Maria seemed to sense my loss. She held and kissed me, and right then and there she announced, “A dinner fit for a king.”

“Where are you?”

“With the Jews.”

“It’s hard for me to work for Jews more than a month.”

“Why?”

“They irritate me.”

Since my childhood, every time I’d been depressed, Maria pulled me out of it. Danger meant nothing to her. She leaped off a bridge into the river like the fishermen, rode on horses, sailed rafts, and shouted out loud, “Son of a bitch!” If something struck her mind, she’d do it without hesitation.

“Where are you heading?” I asked.

“I’m going away in two hours.”

“Where?”

“To Vienna.”

She’d gotten in trouble more than once and again needed a gynecologist. Yet she emerged from all her travails stronger and more audacious.

“I’m tired of everyone. I need new sights now,” she exclaimed.

I envied her, because my own will is flinched. For a moment I was about to say, I’ll go too, but I sensed that I wasn’t ready yet for journeys like that. Maria had only to wish and she could spread her wings and take off.

We ate a good dinner. Suddenly, I saw my village before me, the meadows and the cattle and Mother standing by the dairy gate with a pitchfork in her hand, sharp contempt compressed in her eyes. It was clear she felt contempt not only for her husband and sisters-in-law but also for her childhood friends who had become rich and now ignored her. Something of that look now flickered in Maria’s eyes.

I walked her to the train platform. Now I knew that if it hadn’t been for Maria, it was doubtful whether I’d have left the village. She looked at me kindly but without pity, and she said, “You mustn’t be discouraged. You must learn to listen to your desires and not consider anyone else. People who are too considerate fall flat on their faces in the end. If you’ve decided to steal, then steal. If a fellow pleases you, sleep with him right away. The true will knows no bounds.”

That’s how Maria was. I accompanied her up the ramp and cried. My heart told me I would never see her again. Many people have been wiped out of my memory, but not Maria. She is ensconced in my heart, and I think about her often. To her credit, it should be said that she never offered false consolations. She demanded courage from everyone, even from the weak. She was contemptuous of the Jews because they love life, they cling to life at any price. “If you don’t risk your life, it isn’t worth living,” she used to say.

I parted from Maria, and the light went out above me all at once. If the old conductor had come up and said to me, “Come to my lodge and warm up my bones,” I would have gone with him. There was no will in me. I collapsed in a corner and fell asleep.

The next morning was cold and clear, and I had severe heartburn. A few drunkards clustered in a corner and cursed the income tax office and the Jews. At their stands, Jews sold candies wrapped in luscious pink paper.

“I’m not afraid,” said one of the old Jews, removing himself from a slit in the wall.

“I’ll be back,” the thug threatened him.

“Death doesn’t frighten me anymore.”

“We’ll see.”

“I’m going to death with my eyes open.” The Jew left his niche and stood up straight on the sidewalk.

“Why are you shaking?”

“I’m not shaking. You can come and see.”

“You disgust me.”

“You’re not a human being. You’re a beast of prey,” said the Jew, and he didn’t rush back to his hole.

I had neither friends nor relatives here. My purse shrank and emptied. I stood in the busy railroad station as on the day of my arrival here. My mother tongue evoked a hidden sight within me: my mother’s funeral. Often I promised myself to return to the village and kneel on my parents’ graves, but I didn’t keep that promise. My native village always had frightened me, and now even more so. Soon, I curled up in a corner and fell asleep. In a dream I saw Rosa sitting in the kitchen and clutching a cup of tea in her palm. A cold light poured over her forehead, her cheekbones jutted out, and her gray hair was not covered by a kerchief. There was no beauty in her face, just a strange restfulness.

The next day I was standing, lost in the mass, and a woman approached me and said, “Perhaps you’d like to work for me.” After days of wandering, struggle, and despair, once again an angel had appeared from on high. God almighty, only miracles happen to me. Every day the miracles are renewed and I, in my haste, had said that there was only ugliness here, only darkness.

She was a tall woman, with measured movements, very pretty, like a heroine of the Polish nobility. For a moment I was pleased that fortune had favored me with a different face this time. A Jewish home is a quiet one but very strict.

“Where have you worked until now?”

I told her.

“I too, if you don’t mind, am Jewish.”

I was astonished and, greatly embarrassed, I said, “I’m familiar with the laws of kashrut.”

“We are Jews of course, but we don’t observe the commandments.”

I didn’t know what to answer, so I said, “As you wish.”

It was a spacious home, different from regular Jewish households. In the living room stood a piano, and there was a bookcase in every room. Here, no one recited blessings and no one prayed, and in the kitchen there was no separation between milk and meat. Here, they only insisted on one thing—quiet. “There are also other kinds of Jews,” Maria’s mother had once informed me. “Free-thinking Jews. I don’t like them. The Orthodox Jews are a little coarse, but they’re stable.” Then I didn’t understand what she was talking about.

“My name is Henni, and I’m a pianist,” she introduced herself. “Don’t call me madam or Miss Trauer, and don’t address me formally. Call me Henni, and I’ll be very grateful to you.”

“As you wish.”

“We eat very little meat but a lot of fruit and vegetables. The market isn’t far. Here’s the pantry, and these are the pots and pans. I have no time for anything. I’m a slave, as you’ll see. What else? That seems to be everything.”

Henni practiced hour upon hour, and at night she shut herself up in her room and didn’t leave till morning. With Rosa I had been used to talking, and we would discuss everything, even secrets. There were days when I had forgotten that I had been born to Christian parents, that I was baptized, and that I went to church, so immersed did I become in the Jewish way of life and their holidays, as if there were no other world. And here there was neither Sabbath nor holiday. At first this life seemed like an unbroken stretch of pleasure, but I quickly learned that Henni’s life wasn’t at all easy. Once a month she used to travel to Czernowitz to appear in the concert hall, and when she returned, her face would be drawn, her mood gloomy, and for days she wouldn’t leave her room. Her husband, Izio, a quiet and mild-mannered man, tried to console her, but words were of no use. She was mad at herself.

“Henni, why are you angry?” I dared to ask.

“My performance was terrible, beneath contempt.”

“Who said so?”

“I did.”

“A person mustn’t blame himself.” I used one of Rosa’s expressions.

“That’s easy to say.”

So she dismissed me. It was hard for me to get close to her. I didn’t understand her. In the village I had never met women like that, and Rosa was different. Sometimes, after many hours of playing the piano, she would come to me and, somewhat distractedly, say, “Katerina, I thank you very much for your service. I’m giving you an extra hundred. If it weren’t for you, I wouldn’t have a home. You’re my home.”

Before the holidays, Henni’s mother used to appear, a tall and powerful woman, casting dread on everyone. The old mother was very Orthodox and anguished by her daughter’s way of life. She addressed me directly, saying, “My daughter, to my heartfelt regret, has forgotten her origins. Her husband is no better than she is. You must do that which is pleasing to God.”

Immediately, she ordered me to take all the pots and pans out of the cupboards, to boil a large pot of water, and to prepare sand and lye. Henni shut herself up in her room and didn’t leave it. The old mother was glad that the laws of kashrut weren’t unfamiliar to me, and in her great joy she hugged me and said, “I’m glad I have someone in this world who understands me. My daughter doesn’t. She thinks I’m mad. By your grace, Katerina, you’ll keep watch over the house, and I’ll pay you fully for being on guard. What can I do? Conceits are more important to my daughter than a kosher home.”

For a week we worked to purify the house. At the end of that time, the kitchen was divided into dairy and meat sections, according to the rules. The old mother gave me a banknote worth two hundred and said, “This is a lot of money, but I trust you. My daughter is living in sin, and I can’t do anything about it. Everything she does is only to make me angry. If you keep watch over the kitchen, perhaps the kosher food will kindle good thoughts in her.”

Later, she approached the door of her daughter’s room and called out, “Henni, Henni, I organized the kitchen together with Katerina. I’m going back home. Do you hear me?” No answer was heard. She mounted the coach and set out on her way.

Late at night, Henni came out of her room and said, “That’s it. We’ve survived that steamroller, too.” Just then our eyes met and my soul was bound to hers. That very night she told me that once she and her mother had been close, but in recent years her mother had been seized by religious qualms. Once every two months she would appear like a whirlwind. She was a very strong woman, and the effect of her dreads was strong, too. For some reason, it seemed to her that Henni was about to convert to Christianity.

That night I learned from Henni that Izio wasn’t her husband but a childhood friend with whom she had been living for years. Izio was studying the ancient, marvelous monasteries dispersed throughout Bucovina. With the passing years, he had found pleasure not only in antiquities but also in the monks’ way of life. On the weekends he would return, tired and dusty, like a tramp. That, of course, was merely what met the eye. He was entirely flooded with discoveries and experiences, and his face looked beatific.

I was happy there. The big house was at my disposal, and I strolled along its full length, with music accompanying me in every corner. Sometimes the house seemed like a church to me, where angels soared. When Henni went to Czernowitz, the silence was all my own.

For entire days I was by myself, following the old mother’s orders scrupulously. Henni sometimes joked and told me, “You’re my rabbi, you’re my Bible. Without you, who would know that today was Shavuot?” For the Shavuot festival I prepared cheese and strawberry tart: I remembered how Rosa told me that Shavuot was a white holiday, that the Torah was given on a day that was all light.

My cakes couldn’t sweeten Henni’s sadness. When Henni returned from her trips, she was shattered and her mood was overcast.

“Why aren’t you content? What happened? All the newspapers praised your performance.”

“But I, my dear, know about the flaws. Applause can’t repair deeply rooted flaws.”

“Why do you torture yourself?” I couldn’t restrain myself any longer.

“That’s how I am. What can I do?”

On the weekend, Izio would return from his journeys with a bundle of books at his breast. He looked like one of the monks ambling through silent courtyards with even, full steps. When they reach the northern wall, they strike large wooden mallets to remind their brothers that the hour of prayer has come.

“Where are you going?” I heard Henni’s voice.

Izio’s answer shocked me. “To myself,” he answered, adding nothing.

It was hard for me to understand their life together. Sometimes they seemed to be in love, and sometimes it was as if chance had thrown them together. I, at any rate, kept my promise and observed kashrut. That observance gives me great joy, as though I had returned home to Rosa and the boys.

Afterward, the old mother again descended on the house like a whirlwind. When she had ascertained that all the pots and pans were still in their place, the dairy utensils set apart from the meat utensils, she embraced me and kissed me. Henni, naturally, wasn’t happy. A few days earlier she had returned from the capital tired and once more depressed. Of course, the newspapers praised her playing, but she was contemptuous of them, and now her mother had come, with all her outdated beliefs, all her fears. Because Henni wouldn’t open her door, her mother sat with me and explained the whole affair: “It’s all because of Izio. He corrupted her.”

“He’s a quiet man,” I said in his favor.

“That’s not quiet, it’s madness. He’s in love with monasteries, and I wouldn’t be surprised if one day he converted from the faith of his ancestors.”

Before leaving the house, she told me, “The High Holy Days are coming. Please, be gracious and remind Henni. She’s lost all contact with heaven. She’s completely sunk into herself. May God have mercy on her. She needs mercy very much.”

The seasons passed, year pursued year, and I immersed myself in Henni’s life as though it were my own. I accompanied her when she left, and I loved it when she returned. She used to come back shattered and gloomy, but I also loved her gloom. After a week of agitated sleep, we used to sit for hours. I saw with my own eyes how music was destroying her day by day, how she became intoxicated, vomited, and became intoxicated again. I hadn’t the power to save her.

The disaster, or whatever you care to call it, came from another direction. Izio slumped and clung to the monasteries with a kind of morbid desire. His face changed and a greenish light covered it. The old woman turned out to be right. He went too far. The Christian faith overcame him, and one day he appeared in a monk’s habit.

That very week, Henni sold the house, packed three suitcases and, without a farewell to anyone, left for Czernowitz. She paid me down to the last penny. Before leaving the house, she handed me a packet of jewelry and said, “This is for you. It will be very useful to you.”