Blooms of Darkness (8 page)

However, there were days when she came back from town happy: she had bought a dress or a pair of shoes. She would apologize for being late, bring him a good meal, hug him, and say, “Too bad I can’t heat the closet.” Hugo would be perplexed and tell her what he had thought about during the day. He wouldn’t talk about his fears.

Some nights bad dreams persecute him, and in the morning he gets up and can’t remember a thing. He has already learned that a dream forgotten in the morning has not disappeared. It is hiding and secretly burrowing. There are forgotten dreams that break out and rise up in the middle of the day.

Some days Hugo’s father and mother are so distant that even in a dream they seem strange to him. His mother tries to approach him nevertheless. He looks at her and is surprised that she doesn’t understand that from such a great distance it’s impossible to draw near.
Mama
, he calls out, to share her sorrow more than anything. It is clear to him: the distance between them is steadily growing, and in a little while he won’t see her anymore.

It isn’t always that way. There are days when his parents appear to him in a dream and remain with him all day long. They haven’t changed. They are exactly as they were. That they are unchanged is felt every step of the way. For example, the way his mother hugs the coffee cup in the morning, and his father puts a cigarette in her mouth. When he sees that picture, he is certain it will be that way forever. He has to be patient. The war will end soon, and the trumpets of victory will sound all over the city.

16

One day Mariana comes back from town drunk and angry. Her face is rumpled, and lipstick is smeared on her chin. “What happened?” asks Hugo, rising to his feet.

“People are bastards. Just to steal from Mariana. Just to take from her. Whatever she gives them is never enough. They want more and more, the leeches.”

Hugo doesn’t understand why she is angry, but he isn’t afraid. In the months he has been with her, he has learned her moods. Now he knows that in a little while she will curl up in her bed and sleep till the evening. Sleep is good for her. When she gets up, her face will be peaceful.
Darling
, she will ask,
what did you do?
And it would be as if all her anger had never been.

This time it is different. She sits on the floor and doesn’t stop muttering: “Bastards, sons of bitches.” Hugo approaches her, sits next to her, takes her hand, and brings it to his mouth. That gesture seems to move her, because she hugs him and says, “Only you love Mariana. Only you don’t want anything from her.”

For a moment it seems to him that she is about to say something else.
Now Mariana is going to sleep, and you, darling, will sit next to her and guard her sleep. Mariana is quieter when you watch over her
. This time she surprises him, turns to him
with a wink and says, “Come and sleep with me. I don’t want to sleep alone.”

“Should I put on my pajamas?”

“No need. Just take off your shoes and your trousers.”

Mariana’s bed is soft, the covers are pleasant to the touch, and perfumed. Hugo immediately finds himself embraced in her arms. “You’re good. You’re sweet. You don’t want anything from Mariana. You pay attention to her.” Hugo feels the warmth of her body flow to him.

His mother used to sit next to him before he went to sleep. She would read to him, she would answer his questions and look in his eyes, but his legs had never touched her knees.

Now he is embraced in Mariana’s long arms and close to her body.

“How is it to be with Mariana?”

“Fine.”

“You’re really delicious.”

In a few minutes, she falls asleep. Hugo remains awake. Images of the day he came to Mariana flash before his eyes. Now it seems to him that even her drunkenness is beautiful. The lipstick smeared on her chin adds to her charm.
If Mama comes, what will I say to her?
The thought passes through his mind.
I’ll tell her that I was cold, that the closet froze my legs
. That sudden thought casts a shadow over his coziness.

The day grows darker. Mariana wakes up in a panic. “Darling, we slept too long.” She speaks to him as if to a member of her household, not someone who has slept in her bed for the first time. “Now we’ve got to get dressed. Mariana has to start working in a little while.”

Mariana quickly puts her clothes on, makes herself up. Remembering that Hugo hasn’t eaten lunch, she rushes to bring him soup. There isn’t any more soup, but she brings thin sandwiches decorated with vegetables. “I starved my darling. Now let him eat his fill,” she says, kneeling down and kissing
him on the face. Mariana kisses hard, and sometimes she also bites.

“I’m sorry you have to go back into the closet. Don’t worry, Mariana won’t forget you. She knows it’s very cold there, but what can she do? She’s got to work. Without work, she has no food, she has no house, she can’t support her mother. You understand Mariana, right?” She kisses him again. Hugo doesn’t restrain himself this time. He takes her hand and kisses it.

Soon a man’s voice is heard in Mariana’s room. The voice is stern. Mariana is ordered to change the sheets, and she does it in good spirits, joking with him and saying, “You’re wrong to suspect me. I change the sheets and pillowcases after every customer. That’s the basis of all trust. My job is to give enjoyment, not unpleasantness. I’m changing them so you’ll feel good.”

The man doesn’t stay in Mariana’s room for long. When he goes, she opens the closet door, and the heat of her room comes into the cold closet. Hugo wants to get up and thank her, but he restrains himself.

The two pairs of pajamas he is wearing, the hat, and the heat that comes from Mariana’s room finally warm him, and he waits for sleep to come and gather him up. He manages to hear another man come in, who immediately announces that it is very cold outside. He has been on watch for five straight hours, and it’s a good thing that’s over.

“Did you always keep guard?” Mariana asks.

“I’ve already been on all sorts of disgusting missions. Guarding an installation isn’t the worst thing of all.”

“Poor guy.”

“A soldier isn’t a poor guy,” he corrects her. “A soldier does his duty.”

“Right,” says Mariana.

Then he tells her about funny letters that were sent from home, about the strange packages that reach the soldiers from
parents and grandparents, and about a soldier who received a pair of slippers. It’s clear he needs someone to listen to him, and he has found a ready ear.

Hugo eavesdrops and eavesdrops, gets tired, and falls asleep.

17

In Hugo’s dream he sees Otto. At first sight, no change has taken place in him. The same skepticism and the same pessimism that he inherited from his mother are spread across his face. Only the pale pink of his narrow cheeks has turned brown, gotten thicker, giving him the look of a farmer. “Don’t you know me?” asks Hugo.

Hearing his question, Otto smiles, and suntanned creases spread across his forehead and cheeks.

“I’m Hugo, don’t you recognize me?” He makes an effort to emphasize the words.

“What do you want from me?” Otto shrugs his shoulders. Hugo recognizes that gesture very well, but at home it was accompanied by a few swallowed words of pessimistic justification. Now it’s a silent twitch.

“I have come from far away to see you. I miss you.” Hugo tries to rouse him from his forgetfulness.

What do you want from me?
Otto’s gaze rejects any further approach.

Hugo sits and observes him: a peasant lad, with loosely fitting clothes, shoes made of coarse leather, and leggings wrapped around his calves. “If you deny me, I’ll go on my way.” He finds the words to say to him.

Otto responds to this appeal by lowering his head, as though he has grasped that it’s a question of bad manners.

“Otto, I didn’t come to bother you. If you decide to ignore me, or to forget me, or I don’t know what, I’ll clear out right away. You’re allowed to choose your friends as you please, but there is one thing I want to say to you. You’re deeply embedded in my soul, no less than Anna. You may forget me, but I won’t forget you.”

Hearing Hugo’s words, Otto raises his head, looks at him as if to say,
Don’t waste your time, I can’t understand a word you’re saying
. Clearly it isn’t denial or ignoring or contempt. Otto has changed completely. From his earlier incarnation nothing remains.

Hugo looks around again: the mountains are covered with trees, and on the broad plains peasants are harvesting golden grain, working together at a steady rhythm. In a moment Otto will join them. In these areas there is apparently no need for words. Otto is happier than he was at home. Here he blends into the seasons. There are no exceptional events. There is no mother to proclaim, morning and night, “If this is what life is, I’ll give up my share.” Here everyone eats full meals, and the animals submit to the discipline of the working people. No one argues or contradicts anyone, and in the evening, they gather up their belongings and return to their huts.

Suddenly Otto gives Hugo a look that says,
Take me out of your thoughts. Your thoughts are no longer my thoughts. I belong to this place. This isn’t a land of wonders. It’s a difficult country, but whoever clings to it is cured of pessimism. Pessimism is a serious disease. My poor mother bequeathed it to me
.

“And what will become of all of us?” Hugo asks.

Otto gives him the practical look of a peasant, as if to say,
That’s no longer my concern
. “The Jews and their pessimism tried to send me to hell. Now, thank God, I’m rid of them,” he says, and then vanishes.

Hugo wakes up, apparently because of the commotion taking place in Mariana’s room. Mariana is shouting at the top of her lungs, and a man is threatening, “I’ll kill you if you don’t shut up. I’ll kill you. Don’t forget that I’m an officer. With an officer, you don’t argue. You do what he orders you to do.” That threat doesn’t silence her, either.

In the midst of it all, a shot is heard. The sound pierces the house and the closet. Mariana’s room freezes for a moment. There is no response to the shot from the corridor or from the yard, either. Only later does Mariana burst into loud sobs, and a few women enter her room. “Are you wounded?” one of them asks.

“I’m not wounded,” she murmurs.

“That’s a relief.” The same woman goes on to ask, “What did he want from you?”

Mariana, still sobbing, tells the woman what the officer demanded of her. She speaks in detail, and graphically. Hugo doesn’t understand anything she says. The women agree with her that they mustn’t give in to demands like those. There is sisterhood and much talk, which slightly diffuses the shock.

After that everybody leaves Mariana’s room. There is silence. Not a sound can be heard—just the dripping of the faucet in the yard. Through the cracks in the closet, the first rays of morning light filter in. They are long and touch Hugo’s feet. For a moment he forgets the shot and the shock. The wonder of light captures his attention.

Later Hugo hears a woman say, “He didn’t intend to kill her. He wanted to frighten her.”

“He was afraid that his shame would be revealed to his fellow officers.” The voice of an older woman is heard.

“If so, he meant to kill her.”

“What can you say? Our profession is dangerous. They should pay us a risk allowance.”

Laughter is heard, and the voices mingle with one another.
Hugo knows there will be accusations, clarifications, threats, and, finally, Mariana will have to apologize and promise that in the future she won’t shout and will do exactly what the customer demands of her.

It’s strange that this knowledge calms his fears and that he is comforted in his heart. In a moment the white morning will be revealed, and everything will be as it was. In the afternoon Mariana will stand in the doorway of the closet with a bowl of soup in her hand.

18

The winds die down and snow falls without letup. Hugo stands next to the cracks in the closet wall and watches the thick snowflakes slowly floating down. The white sight reminds him of home on Sunday mornings: Sofia went to church to pray; his father, dressed in casual clothes, prepared a festive breakfast; his mother put on a new housecoat. The gramophone played Bach sonatas, and the blue porcelain stove roared and gave off pleasant heat.

Hugo loved that relaxed atmosphere, with none of the tension of rushed weekday mornings. On Sunday mornings worries were erased, the pharmacy was forgotten, and his mother didn’t even talk about all the poor people she took care of. The music and the quiet enveloped the three of them.

When Sofia returned from church, she would be all covered with snow. Hugo’s mother would help her shake off the snowflakes, and then prepare a cup of coffee and a piece of cake for her. Everybody would sit down beside her. Sofia would tell them about the service and the sermon, always bringing back a parable or proverb that had impressed her. One time she recited, “For man does not live by bread alone.”

“What impressed you about that verse?” asked Hugo’s father.

“We sometimes forget why we’re alive. It seems to us that making a living is the main thing. Or that physical love or property is the main thing. That’s a great mistake.”

“So what is the main thing?” Hugo’s father tried to draw her out.

“God,” she said, opening her eyes wide.

Sofia was full of contradictions. Every Sunday she would make sure to go to church, and sometimes also in the middle of the week, but in the evenings she liked to pass the time in the tavern. True, she didn’t get drunk, but she came back merry and a bit tipsy. Some of the men she had spent time with promised to marry her but changed their minds in the end. Because of those false promises, Sofia decided to return to her native village. In the village, no man would dare to promise marriage and not keep his promise. If a man promised marriage and didn’t keep his promise, they would lie in wait for him and beat him till blood flowed.

Hugo liked to listen to Sofia’s stories. She spoke to him in Ukrainian. She loved her mother tongue and wanted Hugo to speak it without an accent, too, and without mistakes. Hugo tried but didn’t always succeed.