Tzili: The Story of a Life

22

THE NEXT DAY Mark still did not return. She stood on the edge of the plateau exposed to the wind. The downward slope drew her too. The slope was not steep and it glittered with puddles of water. Now she felt that something had been taken from her, something that belonged to her youth. She covered her face in shame.

For hours she sat and practiced the words, so that she would be ready for him when he came. “Where were you Mark? I was very worried. Here is some herb tea for you. You must be thirsty.” She did not prepare many words, and the few she did prepare, she repeated over and over again in a voice which had a formal ring in her ears. Repeating the words put her to sleep. She would wake up in alarm and go to the bunker. The walls of the bunker had collapsed, the flimsy roof had caved in, and the floor was covered by a spreading gray puddle. There was an alien spirit in it, but it was the only place she could go to. Everywhere else was even more alien.

The days dragged out long and heavy. Tzili did not stir. And once a voice burst out from within her: “Mark.” The voice slid down the mountainside, echoing as it went. No one answered.

Overnight the winds changed and the winter winds came, thin and sharp as knives. The fire burned but it did not warm her. Low, dark clouds covered the somber sky. She prayed often. This was the prayer which she repeated over and over: “God, bring Mark back. If you bring Mark back to me, I’ll go down to the plains and I won’t be lazy.”

How many days had Mark been gone? At first she kept track, but then she lost count. Sometimes she saw Mark struggling with the peasants and hurling pointed sticks at them, like the ones he had made for the walls of the bunker. Sometimes he looked tired and crushed. Like the first time she had seen him, pale and gray. Man is not an insect, she remembered and made an effort to get up and stand erect.

For days she had had nothing to eat. Here and there she still found a few withered wild apples, but for the most part she now lived off roots. The roots were sweet and juicy. “I’ll go on,” she said, but she didn’t move. For hours she sat and gazed at the mountainside sloping down to the plains, the two marshes, the shelter, and the haversack. Sometimes she took out the clothes and spread them on the ground, but Mark did not respond to her call.

The moment she decided to leave she would imagine that she heard footsteps approaching. A little longer, she would say to herself. Death is not as terrible as it seems.

Sometimes the cold would envelop her in sweetness. She would close her eyes and curl up tightly and wait for a hand to come and take her away. But none came. Winter winds tore across the hillside, cruel and cutting. “I’ll go on,” she said, and lifted the haversack onto her shoulders. The haversack was soaked through and heavy, with every step she felt that the burden was too heavy to bear.

“Did you see a man pass by?” she asked a peasant woman standing at the doorway of her hut.

“There’s no man here. They’ve all been conscripted. Who do you belong to?”

“Maria.”

“Which Maria?”

And when she did not reply the peasant woman understood which Maria she meant, snickered aloud, and said: “Be off with you, wretch! Get out of my sight.”

One by one Tzili gave the little garments away in exchange for bread. “If I meet Mark I’ll tell him that I was hungry. He won’t be angry.” The haversack on her back grew more burdensome from day to day but she didn’t take it off. The damp warmth stuck to her back. She went from tree to tree. She believed that next to one of the trees she would find him.