Suddenly, Love

10

ERNST WRITES EVERY DAY. AFTER THREE HOURS HE FEELS weak all over. He hadn’t written about his own life in years past but about the lives of others. He believed that cutting himself off from his personal experiences was necessary for accurate and truthful writing, just as it was important to sever himself from Jewish tribalism. Jewish tribalism felt like an oppressive anachronism to him.

From time to time Ernst reads a passage or a chapter to Irena. When he reads to her she lowers her head as though trying to absorb his words with all her might. This time she couldn’t contain herself and said, “It’s forbidden to set fire to yeshivas and synagogues.”

“But at that time people believed that this would bring salvation to humanity, including the Jews.” Ernst tried to put things in their historical context.

When Irena disagrees with Ernst, she closes her eyes and her body trembles. Finding words to express her feelings is not easy for her. A day or two might pass before she can draw out a few sentences. When she finally does, they always surprise Ernst with their simplicity and seriousness. Sometimes she utters a sentence she has already said. It’s impossible for Ernst to argue with Irena because, among other things, she doesn’t stand up for her opinions. He has often tried to draw her into an argument, but all his efforts have been in vain.

Irena is not like other women. He learns this anew each day. There is a kind of solid innocence about her that one cannot easily shake. “My neighbor, Mrs. Grossman, invited me to dinner,” she told him this morning. “She can hardly walk, but she hasn’t forgotten the day my mother died. ‘Everyone is an orphan on the day of their mother’s death, even if they’re fifty years old,’ she told me. That’s right, isn’t it?”

Irena’s “isn’t it?” is part of her charm.

Irena always finds something good in everyone, even in the neighbors who weren’t friendly to her parents. It’s apparently hard for her to be angry. For example, she doesn’t understand why some people hate those who pray.

“And do you pray?” Ernst surprises her again.

“Sometimes, but not regularly. But I light Sabbath candles. I love to look at the flames. They move me.”

Ernst knows there are things he can learn from Irena. What he’s concerned with now are the things people don’t talk about — what they cover up or cut off in silence. After reading Irena a passage or a chapter, he asks her opinion about it. But the direct inquiry embarrasses her; she withdraws into herself and is silent.

Sometimes, in response to his request for an opinion, Irena rises to her feet, and her whole body seems to say, Why are you bothering me with something I have no notion about. But at other times she wants to say to him, You must beg forgiveness of your parents. Don’t worry. They’ll forgive you. Parents always forgive their children. You mustn’t ignore them. A person who ignores his parents is an orphan forever.

Ernst trips himself up with a question he had asked before and stumbled over. “Are you religious?”

This time, too, she says, “I do what my mother did.”

“That’s not what I asked.”

What do you want from me? she says silently.

Seeing the look on her face, Ernst stops annoying her.

There’s a contradiction in what you say. That sentence is frequently on Ernst’s lips. Irena often imagines it as a sword that has come out of its sheath and is about to be thrust at her, but then she says to herself, Ernst wants to teach me something important, but since I’m not capable of absorbing it, he keeps saying the same thing over and over. Irena knows the word “contradiction,” but she doesn’t know how to use it.

One time he aimed another obscure word at her. She was wounded, and in her pain she burst into tears. Ernst didn’t imagine that a word could hurt so much. When he realized what he had done, he drew near to her and said, “Irena, I was just trying to make things clear, not to hurt you. Perish the thought.”

Irena didn’t sleep that night. It appeared as though Ernst had tested her, and she hadn’t passed. By now Irena ought to know: Ernst’s thinking wasn’t like hers. Ernst inquires, clarifies, entertains hypotheses, compares, constructs, and contradicts. If other people were around him, he would clarify things with them, but since only Irena is with him for most of the day, he tries to clarify things with her. After a sleepless night, Irena decided that from now on when she doesn’t understand something that Ernst says, she’ll tell him, I don’t understand; it’s beyond me. Why bother with me?

The next morning Irena found Ernst totally drunk. He mixed up languages, called her Ida, waved his arms, and was as embarrassed as a wayward child. Irena went over to the stove to make him toast and coffee. When he saw the steaming cup, he cried out, “You’re my redeeming angel.”