Tzili: The Story of a Life

11

WHEN THE SNOW began to thaw she fled. The old woman guessed that she was about to escape and kept muttering to herself: “As long as she’s here I’m going to teach her a lesson she’ll never forget. Who knows what she’s still capable of?”

Now Tzili was like a prisoner freed from chains. She ran. The heads of the mountains were still capped with snow, but in the black valleys below, the rivers flowed loud and torrential as waterfalls.

Her body was bruised and swollen. In the last days the old woman had whipped her mercilessly. She had whipped her as if it were her solemn duty to do so, until in the end Tzili too felt that she was only getting what she deserved.

But for the mud she would have walked by the riverside. She liked walking on the banks of the river. For some reason she believed that nothing bad would happen to her next to the water, but she was obliged to walk across the bare mountainside, washed by the melted snow. The valleys were full of mud.

She came to the edge of a forest. The fields spreading below it steamed in the sun. She sat down and fell asleep. When she woke the sun was on the other side of the horizon, low and cold.

She tried to remember. She no longer remembered anything. The long winter had annihilated even the little memory she possessed. Only her feet sensed the earth as they walked. She knew this piece of ground better than her own body. A strange, uncomprehending sorrow suddenly took hold of her.

She took the rags carefully off her feet and then bound them on again. She treated her feet with a curious solemnity. It did not occur to her to ask what would happen when darkness fell. The sun was sinking fast on the horizon. For some reason she remembered that Katerina had once said to her, in a rare moment of peace: “Women are lucky. They don’t have to go to war.”

Now she felt detached from everyone. She had felt the same thing before, but not in the same way. Sometimes she would imagine that someone was waiting for her, far away on the horizon. And she would feel herself drawn toward it. Now she seemed to understand instinctively that there was no point going on.

As she sat staring into space, a sudden dread descended on her. What is it? she said and rose to her feet. There was no sound but for the gurgle of the water. On the leafless trees in the distance a blue light flickered.

It occurred to her that this was her punishment. The old woman had said that many punishments were in store for her. “There’s no salvation for bastards!” she would shriek.

“What have I done wrong?” Tzili once asked uncautiously.

“You were born in sin,” said the old woman. “A woman born in sin has to be cleansed, she has to be purified.”

“How is that done?” asked Tzili meekly.

“I’ll help you,” said the old woman.

That night she found shelter in an abandoned shed. It was cold and her body was sore, but she was content, like a lost animal whose neck has been freed from its yoke at last. She slept for hours on the damp straw. And in her dreams she saw Katerina, not the sick Katerina but the young Katerina. She was wearing a transparent dress, sitting by a dressing table, and powdering her face.