Suddenly, Love

2

“YOU WERE BORN IN ISRAEL, ISN’T THAT RIGHT?” ERNST surprises her again the next day.

“No. I was born in a displaced persons’ camp near Frankfurt.”

“I was sure, for some reason, you were born in Israel.”

“I don’t remember anything about it,” Irena says, and immediately regrets it. Her parents had nurtured the memory of that camp to the point where sometimes it seemed to her that she remembered the smallest details. Her parents had met there. Her mother had become pregnant and only in the sixth month of her pregnancy had they been married, by an American army rabbi. Her mother had told her this at the end of her life. In any event, that DP camp near Frankfurt had been impressed in Irena’s memory, and sometimes she dreamed about it. Sorry, I do remember. She is about to take back her words, but she immediately sees that this would be foolish.

Ernst is in a good mood this morning. He reads the newspaper and jokes about a political hack who is pretending to be an honest man. “Just like before the war. They say that life doesn’t repeat itself. That’s a mistake. It does repeat itself.” Ernst reads newspapers and is well informed about events in the country. Five years earlier he divorced Sylvia, his second wife, and quit his job. About Sylvia, who immigrated to Vienna, he speaks little, just a scornful remark here and there.

Irena doesn’t ask, but the bits that she catches during the day seep into her soul. Ernst’s few words sometimes are scalpel-sharp. At first she thought he was a lawyer. His acuity frightened her. But now she knows that it was the discipline of the last few years. He writes for three hours in the morning and for two or three hours in the evening. And he takes two strolls, one in the morning to the café and another at night, which he calls the “march.” That discipline, or whatever you might call it, imbues his behavior with sharpness and sometimes impatience. But it isn’t directed at her.

At nine every morning Ernst goes out to the café and sits there for an hour and a half, or sometimes two hours. Most of the customers are strangers to him, but he doesn’t feel isolated. Since Irena’s arrival, Ernst’s life has changed. She takes care of everything. The kitchen, where confusion always ruled, is tidy and gleaming. The living room is bright, and even the bookcase, his most intimate domain, is different from what it was. Ernst likes to sit at home, and when he goes out, he yearns to return.

When Ernst saw Irena for the first time, to tell the truth, she didn’t please him: she was short and barely uttered a word. But before long he began to find her ways pleasant; her face was bright, and even her stammering had some charm. Since her arrival, Ernst has been rising early, shaving, and sitting at his desk. Irena arrives exactly at eight and prepares breakfast for him, everything in measured portions and at the right temperature. More than once he has suggested that she join him, but she always refuses. Only after he has left the house does she make a cup of coffee for herself.

Until she began to work for Ernst, Irena’s whole life had been her parents. Her father was an electrician, and her mother stayed at home and kept house. Several times she had wanted to leave her parents’ home, but in the end she hadn’t. Her short stature and her shyness had kept her back. Irena’s mother had poured all the love she had into Irena’s heart. Later, after she died, Irena’s father had been like a mother to her as well. When he died, Irena stayed at home and cherished their memory. On Sabbaths and holidays she would set the table and light the candles, sit in her place, and imagine they were at her side. She made no changes in the house. What had been permanent became more permanent.

After her parents’ death, Irena worked in an old age home for a while. The old people were fond of her and gave her nicknames. But some of the old women tormented her, called her “tight-lipped,” and cursed her. One time an old woman threw a plate at her, and Irena decided to leave.

Fortunately for her, she didn’t need that job. Along with the apartment, her parents had left her their savings and the reparations they had received from Germany. In fact, she could have gotten by without working, but her imagination preyed on her, made her head spin, and finally drove her out of the house.

Years earlier her parents had tried to find a husband for her. They were men much older than she, short and crammed with urges. Irena had been so embarrassed she hadn’t even raised her head. At last they stopped pestering her. After her parents’ death, a man began to accost her, making advances every time she entered her building and went upstairs. One time he attacked her at the door to her apartment and pulled up her dress. She struggled with him and escaped into her apartment. For a long time she didn’t leave home.

So the years passed. Irena tidied the apartment just as her parents had done while they were alive. The thought that she was guarding their home, the kitchen and its utensils, the living room, the wide bed in her parents’ bedroom, her bedroom — this gave her strength. Not only would she envision her parents here, she would also sail away to their village in Galicia.

Once Irena’s mother came to her in a dream. Her advice was the same as when she was alive: You have to get out of the house, dear. You’re still young. Your life is before you. If not now, when? Irena wanted to tell her about the frightening man who had attacked her, but when she saw her mother’s face, the words stuck in her mouth. When Irena awoke the next morning, she was sorry that her mother hadn’t noticed that the apartment was tidy, just the way she had left it. In great pain, she wept.

Irena sat at home most of the time, as though it weren’t an apartment but a house of prayer, where one changes nothing and only preserves what is already there. With great caution she even shuttered the windows so the sun wouldn’t damage the furniture. The thin darkness in the summer was pleasant. In the winter she raised the shutters, but never the way her mother had done. Her mother used to open the windows every morning energetically. Irena hadn’t inherited that vigor from her.