Tzili: The Story of a Life

18

AFTER THIS the days grew cold and cloudy and Mark drank a lot of vodka. The tan faded suddenly from his face. He would sit silently, and sometimes he would talk to himself, as if Tzili weren’t there. On her return from the plains he would ask: “What did you bring?” If she had brought vodka he would say nothing. If she hadn’t he would say: “Why didn’t you bring vodka?”

At night the words would well up in him and come out in long, clumsy, half-swallowed sentences. Tzili could not understand, but she sensed: Mark was now living in another world, a world which was full of people. Day after day he sat and drank. His face grew lean. There was a kind of strength in this leanness. His days became confused with his nights. Sometimes he would fall asleep in the middle of the day and sometimes he would sit up until late at night. Once he turned to her in the middle of the night and said: “What are you doing here?”

“Nothing.”

“Why don’t you go down to the village and bring supplies? Our supplies are running out.”

“It’s night.”

“In that case,” he said, “we’ll wait for the dawn.”

He’s sad, he’s drunk, she would murmur to herself. If I bring him tobacco and vodka he’ll feel better. She no longer dared to return without vodka. Sometimes she would sleep in the forest because she was afraid to come back without vodka.

At that time Mark said many strange and confused things. Tzili would sit at a distance and watch him. Alien hands seemed to be clutching at him and kneading him. Sometimes he would lie in his vomit like a hired hand on a drunken spree. His old face, the face of a healthy working man, was wiped away.

And once in his drunkenness he cried: “If only I’d studied medicine I wouldn’t be here. I’d be in America.” In his haversack, it transpired, were a couple of books which he had once used to prepare for the entrance exams to Vienna University. And once, when it seemed to her that he was calmer, he suddenly burst out in a loud cry: “Commerce has driven the Jews out of their minds. You can cheat people for one year, even for one hundred years, but not for two thousand years!” In his drunkenness he would shout, make speeches, tear sentences to shreds and piece them together again.

Tzili sensed that he was struggling with people who were far away and strangers to her, but nevertheless — she was afraid. His lean cheeks were full of strength. On her return from the plains she would hear his voice from a long way off, rending the silence.

And again, just when she thought that his agitation had died down, he fell on her without any warning: “Why didn’t you learn French?”

“We didn’t learn French at school, we learned German.”

“Barbarous. Why didn’t they teach you French? And it’s not as if you know German either. What you speak is jargon. It drives me out of my mind. There’s no culture without language. If only people learned languages at school the world would be a different place. Do you promise me that you’ll learn French?”

“I promise.”

Afterward it began to rain and Mark dragged himself to the bunker. A rough wind was blowing. Mark’s words went on echoing in the air for a long time. And Tzili, without knowing what she was doing, went up to the bunker and called softly: “It’s me, Tzili. Don’t worry. Tomorrow I’ll bring you vodka and sausage.”