Tzili: The Story of a Life

6

AUTUMN WAS ALREADY at its height, and in the evenings the horizon was blue with cold. Tzili would find shelter for the night in deserted barns and stables. From time to time she would approach a farmhouse and ask for a piece of bread. Her clothes gave off a bad, moldy smell and her face was covered with a rash of little pimples.

She did not know how repulsive she looked. She roamed the outskirts of the forest and the peasants who crossed her path averted their eyes. When she approached farmhouses to beg for bread the housewives would chase her away as if she were a mangy dog. “Here’s Maria’s daughter,” she would hear them say. Her ugly existence became a byword and a cautionary tale in the mouths of the local peasants, but the passing days were kind to her, molding her in secret, at first deadening and then quickening her with new life. The sick blood poured out of her. She learned to walk barefoot, to bathe in the icy water, to tell the edible berries from the poisonous ones, to climb the trees. The sun worked wonders with her. The visions of the night gradually left her. She saw only what was in front of her eyes, a tree, a puddle, the autumn leaves changing color.

For hours she would sit and gaze at the empty fields sinking slowly into grayness. In the orchards the leaves turned red. Her life seemed to fall away from her, she coiled in on herself like a cocoon. And at night she fell unconscious onto the straw.

One day she came across a hut on the fringes of the forest. Autumn was drawing to a close. It rained and hailed incessantly, and the frost ate into her bones. But she was no longer afraid of anyone, not even the wild dogs.

A woman opened the door and said: “Who are you?”

“Maria’s daughter,” said Tzili.

“Maria’s daughter! Why are you standing there? Come inside!”

The woman seemed thunderstruck. “Maria’s daughter, barefoot in this frost! Take off your clothes. I’ll give you a gown.”

Tzili took off her mildewed clothes and put on the gown. It was a fancy city gown, flowered and soaked in perfume. After many months of wandering, she had a roof over her head.

“Your mother and I were young together once, in the city. Fate must have brought you to my door.”

Tzili looked at her from close up: a woman no longer young, with frizzy hair and prominent cheekbones.

“And what is your mother doing now?”

Tzili hesitated a moment and said: “She’s at home.”

“My name is Katerina,” said the woman. “If you see your mother tell her you saw Katerina. She’ll be very glad to hear it. We had a lot of good times together in the city, especially with the Jews.”

Tzili trembled.

“The Jews are great lovers. Ours aren’t a patch on them, I can tell you that — but we were fools then, we came back to the village to look for husbands. We were young and afraid of our fathers. Jewish lovers are worth their weight in gold. Let me give you some soup,” said Katerina and hurried off to fetch a bowl of soup.

After many days of wandering, loneliness, and cold, she took in the hot liquid like a healing balm.

Katerina poured herself a drink and immediately embarked on reminiscences of her bygone days in the city, when she and Maria had queened it with the Jews, at first as chambermaids and later as mistresses. Her voice was full of longing.

“The Jews are gentle. The Jews are generous and kind. They know how to treat a woman properly. Not like our men, who don’t know anything except how to beat us up.” In the course of the years she had learned a little Yiddish, and she still remembered a few words — the word dafka, for instance.

Tzili felt drawn into the charmed circle of Katerina’s memories. “Thank you,” she said.

“You don’t have to thank me, girl,” scolded Katerina. “Your mother and I were good friends once. We sat in the same cafés together, made love to the same man.”

Katerina poured herself drink after drink. Her high cheekbones stuck out and her eyes peered into the distance with a birdlike sharpness. Suddenly she said: “The Jews, damn them, know how to give a woman what she needs. What does a woman need, after all? A little kindness, money, a box of chocolates every now and then, a bed to lie on. What more does a woman need? And what have I got now? You can see for yourself.

“Your mother and I were fools, stupid fools. What’s there to be afraid of? I’m not afraid of hell. My late mother never stopped nagging me: Katerina, why don’t you get married? All the other girls are getting married. And I like a fool listened to her. I’ll never forgive her. And you.” She turned to Tzili with a piercing look. “You don’t get married, you hear me? And don’t bring any little bastards into the world either. Only the Jews, only the Jews — they’re the only ones who’ll take you out to cafés, to restaurants, to the cinema. They’ll always take you to a clean hotel, only the Jews.”

Tzili no longer took in the words. The warmth and the scented gown cradled her: her head dropped and she fell asleep.