Suddenly, Love

24

HEAVY SNOW FELL IN EARLY MARCH, AND ERNST DIDN’T leave the house. He wanted to go out several times, but Irena persuaded him not to: the sidewalks were slippery and the winds were fierce, and he could trip.

“Sitting in the house without interruption blunts my thoughts.”

“What can I do?”

“Allow me to go out.”

When she heard that, she burst into tears.

“Irena, what’s the matter? I was just joking.”

“I’m sorry.”

“You don’t have to say you’re sorry. I’m the one who has to apologize. You’re only thinking about what’s good for me, and instead of thanking you, I’m annoying you.”

Ernst is constantly struck by Irena’s simplicity. On March sixteenth she turned thirty-six, and in honor of the event Ernst wanted to take her out to dinner in a restaurant. But it was cloudy outside, so they celebrated at home.

Ernst lit two wax candles that he had prepared and handed her a present: a pendant studded with precious stones.

“You spend too much on me.” Irena allowed herself to use the familiar German “du” for “you” instead of the more formal “Sie.”

“It’s nothing.”

“It’s very expensive.”

Irena grilled fish and garnished it with vegetables. When she sits alongside him, Ernst wants to ask her about her life, about the lives of her parents, about the village they came from.

Sometimes he thinks that she preserves in her soul not only the events of her own life but also those of her parents’ lives.

On that festive evening in honor of Irena’s birthday, Ernst dared tell her, “Irena, you’re restoring my parents to me. I left them in a sinful haste.”

“I don’t understand.”

“You’ve preserved your own parents within yourself.”

“I don’t feel anything special.”

“You have the ways of someone who grew up close to her parents.”

“I don’t go to synagogue,” she said.

“But you have the tranquility of someone who prays.”

Irena was glad that Ernst was pleased with the meal and praised the work of her hands. But his insistence that, if something were to happen to him, she burn his manuscripts and inherit his house and his library frightened her. Nightmares don’t leave her alone. I can’t burn them, she wants to cry out. Order me to clean floors or polish sinks, but don’t order me to burn anything.

When a nightmare assails her, Irena gets out of bed, makes herself a cup of coffee, and reads the memorial albums her parents left her. As she reads them, it seems to her that she, too, was in their village, that she also greeted the Sabbaths and holidays, sat on the wooden bench alongside the door of the country house, and on Rosh Hashanah went to the river with everyone to perform the tashlikh ritual.

God, keep me from fear, she sometimes prays. The night before her birthday Ernst had appeared in her dream, dressed in his best suit, and demanded that she burn his manuscripts. She was so alarmed that she said, Your wish is my command, sir. And she knelt down.

But then the dream changed. Ernst was standing near the door, embracing her and pressing her to him. Irena loved his large body and its scent. This time she didn’t restrain herself. I want to be with you forever, she said.

Without a doubt, Ernst replied with kindness, but at some point we’ll have to part, just for a short time.

I refuse, she said, with an insistence that stunned Ernst.

In that case, your wish is my command, he said and lifted her in his arms.