Tzili: The Story of a Life

26

THEIR SLEEP LASTED a number of days. From time to time one of them opened his eyes and stretched his arms as if he were trying to wake up. All in vain. He too, like everyone else, was stuck to the ground.

Tzili opened the haversack and spread the clothes out to dry. Two long dresses, a petticoat, children’s trousers, the kitchen knife which Mark had used to make the bunker, and two books — this is what was left.

From the size of the garments Tzili understood that Mark’s wife was a tall, slender woman and the children were about five years old, thin like their mother. And she noticed too that the dresses buttoned up to the neck, which meant that Mark’s wife was from a traditional family. The petticoat was plain, without any flowers. There were two yellow stains on it, apparently from the damp.

She sat looking at the inanimate objects as if she were trying to make them speak. From time to time she stroked them. The silence all around, as in the wake of every war, was profound.

Whenever she felt hunger gnawing at her stomach she would take a garment from the haversack and offer it in exchange for food. At first she had asked Mark to forgive her, although then too, she had not given the matter too much thought. Later she had stopped asking. She was often hungry and she bartered one garment after the other. The haversack had emptied fast, and now this was all that was left.

These things I won’t sell, she said to herself, although she knew that the first time she felt hungry she would have to sell them. She would often feel a voracious greed for food, a greed she could not overcome. Mark will understand, she said to herself, it’s not my fault.

She sat and listened to the pulsing of the embryo inside her. It floated quietly in her womb, and from time to time it kicked. It’s alive, she told herself, and she was glad.

The next day spring burst forth in a profusion of flowers. And the sleepers awoke. It was not an easy awakening. For hours they went on lying, stuck to the ground. Not as many as they had seemed at first — about thirty people all told.

In the afternoon, as the heat of the sun increased, a few of them rose to their feet. In the light of the sun they looked thin and somewhat transparent. Someone approached her and said: “Where are you from?” He spoke in German Jewish. He looked like Mark, only taller and younger.

“From here,” said Tzili.

“I don’t understand,” said the man. “You weren’t born here, were you?”

“Yes,” said Tzili.

“And what did you speak at home?”

“We tried to speak German.”

“That’s funny, so did we,” said the stranger, opening his eyes wide. “My grandmother and grandfather still spoke Yiddish. I liked the way they talked.”

Tzili had never seen her grandfather. This grandfather, her father’s father, a rabbi in a remote village in the Carpathian mountains, had lived to a ripe old age and had never forgiven his son for abandoning the faith of his fathers. His name was never mentioned at home. Her mother’s parents had died young.

“Where are we going?” the man asked.

“I don’t know.”

“I have to get there soon. My engineering studies were interrupted in the middle. I’ve missed enough already. If I don’t arrive in time I may be too late to register. A person starts a course of study and all of a sudden a war comes and messes everything up.”

“Where were you during the war?” asked Tzili.

“Why do you ask? With everyone else, of course. Can’t you see?” he said and stretched out his arm. There was a number there, tattooed in dark blue on his skin. “But I don’t want to talk about it. If I start talking about it, I’ll never stop. I’ve made up my mind that from now on I’m starting my life again. And for me that means studying. Completing my studies, to be precise.”

This logic astounded Tzili. Now she saw: the man spoke quietly enough, but his right hand waved jerkily as he spoke and fell abruptly to his side, as if it had been cut off in midair.

He added: “I’ve always been an outstanding student. My average was ninety. And that’s no joke. Of course, it made the others jealous. But what of it? I was only doing what I was supposed to do. I like engineering. I’ve always liked it.”

Tzili was enchanted by his eloquence. It was a long time since she had heard such an uninterrupted flow of words. It was the way Blanca and Yetty and her brothers used to talk. Exams, exams always around the corner. Now the words momentarily warmed her frozen memory.

After a pause he said: “There were two exams I didn’t take, through no fault of my own. I won’t let them get away with it. It wasn’t my fault.”

“Never mind,” said Tzili, for some reason.

“I won’t let them get away with it. It wasn’t my fault.”

And for a moment it seemed that they were sitting, not in an open field in the spring after the war, but in a salon where coffee and cheesecake were being served. The hostess asks: “Who else wants coffee?” A student on vacation speaks of his achievements. Tzili now remembered her own home, her sister Blanca, sulkily hunching her shoulder, her books piled on the table.

The man rose to his feet and said: “I’m not hanging around here. I haven’t got any time to waste. These people are sleeping as if time lasts forever.”

“They’re tired,” said Tzili.

“I don’t accept that,” said the man, with a peculiar gravity. “There’s a limit to what a person can afford to miss. I’ve made up my mind to finish. I’m not going to leave my studies broken off in the middle. I have to get there in time. If I arrive in time I’ll be able to register for the second semester.”

Tzili asked no more. His eloquence stunned her. And as he spoke, scene after scene of a drama not unfamiliar to her unfolded before her eyes: a race whose demanding pace had not been softened even by the years of war.

He looked around him and said: “I’m going. There’s nothing for me to do here.”

Tzili remembered that Mark too had stood on the mountainside and announced firmly that he was going. If she had said to him then, “Don’t go,” perhaps he would not have gone.

“Mark,” she said.

The man turned his head and said, “My name isn’t Mark. My name’s Max, Max Engelbaum. Remember it.”

“Don’t go,” said Tzili.

“Thank you,” said the man, “but I haven’t any time to waste. I have no intention of spending my time sleeping. And in general, if you understand me, I don’t want to spend any more time in the company of these people.” He made a funny little half bow, like a clerk rising from his desk, and abruptly said: “Adieu.”

Tzili noticed that he walked away the way people had walked toward the railway station in former days, with brisk, purposeful steps which from a distance looked slightly ridiculous.

“Adieu,” he called again, as if he were about to step onto the carriage stair.

The awakening lasted a number of days. It was a slow, wordless awakening. The refugees sat on the banks of the river and gazed at the water. The water was very clear now and a kind of radiance shone on its surface. No one went down to bathe. From time to time a word or phrase rose into the air. They were struggling with the coils of their sleep, which were still lying on the ground.

Tzili felt that she had come a very long way. And if she stayed with these people she would go even farther away. Where was Mark? Was he too following her, or was he perhaps still waiting, imprisoned in the same place? Perhaps he did not know that the war was over.

And while she was sitting and staring, a woman came up to her and said: “You need milk.”

“I have none,” said Tzili apologetically.

“You need milk, I said.” The woman was no longer young. Her face was haggard and there was a kind of fury in the set of her mouth.

“I’ll see to it,” said Tzili, in order to appease the woman’s wrath.

“Do it straightaway. A pregnant woman needs milk. It’s as necessary to her as the air she breathes, and you sit here doing nothing.”

Tzili said no more. When she did not respond, the woman grew angry and said: “A woman should look after her body. A woman is not an insect. And by the way, where’s the bastard who did this to you?”

“His name is Mark,” said Tzili softly.

“In that case, let him take care of it.”

“He’s not here.”

“Where is he?”

Tzili sat looking at her without resentment. No one interfered. They were sitting sunk into themselves. The woman turned away and went to sit on the riverbank.

That night cool spring winds blew, bringing with them shadows from the mountains. Quiet shadows that clung soundlessly to the trees but that nevertheless caused a commotion. At first people tried to chase them away as if they were birds, but for some reason the shadows clung to the trees and refused to go.

And as if to spite them, the night was very bright, and they could see the shadows clearly, breathing fearfully.

“Go away, leave us alone!” The shouts arose from every side. And when the shadows refused to go, people began to beat them.

The shadows did not react. Their stubborn resistance infuriated the people and they cast off all restraint.

All night long the battle lasted. Bodies and shadows fought each other in silence, violently. The only sound was the thud of their blows.

When day broke the shadows fled.

The survivors were not happy. A kind of sadness darkened their daylight hours. Tzili did not stir from her corner. She too was affected by the sadness. Now she understood what she had not understood before: everything was gone, gone forever. She would remain alone, alone forever. Even the fetus inside her, because it was inside her, would be as lonely as she. No one would ever ask again: “Where were you and what happened to you?” And if someone did ask, she would not reply. She loved Mark now more than ever, but she loved his wife and children too.

The woman who had grown angry with her before on account of the milk now sat wrapped up in herself. A kind of tenderness shone from her eyes, as if she were, not a woman who had lost herself and all she possessed, but a woman with children, whose love for her children was too much for her to bear.