Hold on to the Sun (11 page)

Suddenly Lusia stopped and gasped for breath.

“I have to stop a minute,” she said.

Monyek immediately took her elbow.

“Yes, sure, we’ll wait a bit,” said Mrs. Honiger.

“There’s no need,” said Lusia.

“No problem. We’ll wait a minute,” insisted Hella.

But Lusia started off again, with Hella walking by her side.

“It’s a shame about the Hararis,” proclaimed Hella Honiger, “They work so hard.They can’t even have a proper rest. You saw what they look like.”

“Yes, yes,” muttered Monyek to be polite.

And Lusia concentrated all her efforts on walking, her orthopedic shoes leaving a trail in the sand covering the path.

“What did they achieve after all these years. Eh?” said Staszek, wagging his long face solemnly at the beach, which looked very white in the afternoon light. He shook his head
and blinked with worry. “Such a hard life they have there. Really terrible.”

But a moment later he grapped Monyek’s elbow with a laugh, and said, “At least there’s no danger of the boys marrying shiksas there!” And Hella too burst into laughter, which shook the cloth of her suit like a gust of wind.

“
Nu
, good, you can’t have everything,” Monyek, too, smiled. And the four of them went on laughing for a moment, very heartily.

Just above them, on the pinnacle of the bluff rising from the shore, the balcony of the Map of the World Observatory towered. The sounds of traffic suddenly greeted their ears, together with snatches of conversations of people visiting the observatory.

Lusia stopped.

“One thing certain with us over here is that we travel a lot.We never stop wandering, eh?” Staszek Honiger kept on laughing, and took a few more steps without noticing that Lusia had stopped.

“Staszek!!” Mrs. Honiger thundered behind him bossily, “Wait for Mrs. Taft!”

Mr. Honiger turned his head and ran back with an apologetic smile.

“There’s no need, no need,” said Monyek, “We’ll just wait here for a bit until Mrs. Taft has a rest.”

“No problem,” Mr. Honiger interrupted him.

“We’ll wait with you!” Mrs. Honiger planted herself like a wall between Lusia and the ocean.

“Really, don’t hold yourselves up,” said Monyek. “In any case we intended to stay on the beach a little longer. Don’t hold yourselves up.”

“Actually, we told the Putterboitls that we’d be at La Promenade this afternoon. So really maybe . . . ” said Mrs. Honiger.

“Good, so we’ll wait for you at La Promenade, you’ll be there!” Staszek Honiger exclaimed.

“Yes, yes,” Monyek Heller and Lusia Taft replied together.

“
Nu
, so we’ll see you later, right?” Mr. Honiger doffed his checkered cap, and crying “Mrs. Taft!” he seized Lusia’s slightly swollen hand and planted a kiss upon its back.

“It’s really a shame you came for such a short time . . . ” added Mrs. Honiger.

“You have to bring Mrs. Taft back again, you hear?” Mr. Honiger laughed as he shook Monyek’s hand.

“Yes, yes, we’ll be glad to see you,” Hella Honiger straightened up and turned away in pursuit of her husband’s checkered cap.

“See you later at La Promenade!” Staszek Honiger turned his smiling face toward them and kept on waving as he set off up the path.

“Yes, yes,” cried Monyek, signaling limply with his hand.

And Lusia nodded her head at them and for a moment
her curls caught fire in the rosy light of the sun which was beginning to set.

 

“Nice people, the Honigers,” she said after they’d retreated a little way up the path.

“Yes, nice people,” said Monyek.

“Mrs. Honiger said she’s from Chrzanów. I should’ve asked her if she knows Celina, my late husband’s sister-in-law. My husband was from Chrzanów too,” said Lusia, and after a moment she added, “Really nice people.”

“Mr. Honiger’s got a heart condition. A few years already,” said Monyek. “Since then they stay here all summer nearly every year.”

The tapping of the Honiger’s footsteps disappeared down the path, and they now looked like two spots floating and bouncing above the sand.

“Why don’t we sit down on the bench and rest a little,” said Monyek.

“There’s no need. I’ll just stand here for a minute,” Lusia smiled faintly, shaking her head in a kind of bewilderment.

They remained standing where they were on the paved path. Lusia bent over her purse, opened the clasp, and after a moment pulled out a crumpled handkerchief hemmed with a delicate, almost transparent, line of blue embroidery. She dabbed her nostrils and threw the handkerchief back into her purse. For a moment she went on examining its bulging depths, and then she snapped it shut, and patted
her hair absentmindedly back into place. She stood still, her face turned toward the vast expanse of sand.

“You know, one hardly manages to rest from all the travelling, and then you have to start travelling again,” said Monyek after a moment, his hands hanging on either side of his suit.

“It’s quite all right. Really, thanks for everything,” Lusia shifted her weight from one foot to the other, and now she could make out the grayish line of the sea through the waves of wind, white with sand.

“It’s a pity we have to leave already,” added Monyek, fixing the knot of his tie again.

“Really, it’s a lovely place,” said Lusia.

“The air here’s good too. Good for your health,” said Monyek.

“Very good for the health,” said Lusia.

“Yes, yes,” echoed Monyek, and leaned toward Lusia, stooping so low that his elegant jacket slipped off his shoulders and glinted in the light of the setting sun. But Lusia had already tucked her purse firmly under her arm and set off again with a resolute and purposeful tread.

“What’s the time?” she asked, after walking for a while. “Really, it’s hard for me to tell what time it is here. I’ve lost my sense of time completely.”

“Soon it will be six already,” Monyek thrust his hand sharply out of his cuff, exposing the face of his watch.

“Strange. It’s so quiet here. I’m really not used to it,” said Lusia.

“Strange that we’re walking here together too, no?” said Monyek, and he tried to laugh.

Lusia smiled submissively, and a light breeze blowing from the sea caught in her hair.

“Good,” announced Monyek, as if he were beginning a speech.

But his hand suddenly dropped in a round, flopping gesture, and again he laughed silently. And before he could straighten himself in order to begin again, a muffled, mechanical sound of hammering keys and hurdy-gurdy bellows reached their ears. The sound vanished momentarily beneath the veil of fine sand intensifying the pallor of the sun trapped in the haze, and then the gust of wind brought the hammering sound back to them. After a moment, when the flashing light dimmed, they saw next to the place where the brightly colored pennants had flown yesterday the merry-go-round which operated on Sunday afternoons for vacationers’ entertainment.

Lusia suddenly smiled without thinking.

“Chopin,” she said.

Then she opened her red-painted lips and emitted clumsy sounds.

“Ra ra ra, ra ra ra, ra ra ra . . . ”

“Right, right,” cried Monyek gaily, “Chopin. Chopin. Mazurka.”

“Ra ra ra, ra ra ra, ra ra ra . . . ” repeated Lusia emphatically, swinging her head in time to the melody.

“They’re playing it especially for us, like a request,” laughed Monyek, and he too moved his head, his brown silk tie jumping between the lapels of his jacket.

“Nice music,” said Lusia, dismissing her own singing.

“Very nice,” Monyek chimed in quickly, and he, too, fell silent.

Lusia quickened her pace slightly. Her shoes seemed to tap out the triple beat on the paved path, in a kind of exhiliration.

“Such a coincidence,” she said.

On the merry-go-round the horses harnessed to their chariots pursued each other stubbornly. In one carriage, a lone girl in a sailor suit held on fiercely to the harness of her horse. The wooden manes waved in the mechanical round as if blown by the evening breeze. The volume of the music suddenly increased hurling its shrieking sounds into the haze.

“Our vacation will soon be over,” said Monyek, too loudly, and after a moment he began again.

“Before we leave, I wanted to ask you if you’ve already thought it over.”

“Pardon?” Lusia pulled her eyes away from the merry-go-round.

“I thought that we should think about the things we still have to arrange before we get married,” said Monyek.

“Yes, yes. Of course,” said Lusia, and nodded her head obediently.

“Yes,” repeated Monyek, after a moment, as if to himself.

And for a moment the only sound to be heard was that of their footsteps, tapping out a stubborn accompaniment to the angelic tune ground out by the mechanical bellows.

 

Suddenly Lusia stumbled and twisted her ankle, and but for the tightness of the skirt constricting her limbs she would have fallen to the ground. Monyek quickly stretched out his hand and seized hold of her elbow. Lusia’s purse slipped and fell onto the path with a quiet thud. Monyek bent down to pick up the purse which had fallen open and lay on the sand like a big bird with a broken wing.

Monyek handed the purse to Lusia and got ready to hold her again. She shut the clasp with a snap and began dragging her orthopedic shoes up the path.

“You really should look after yourself a bit better. You should rest,” said Monyek, hurrying after her.

“Yes, yes,” said Lusia to herself.

Her little face suddenly crumpled like a clenched rag, and her chin wobbled.

“I’m sorry. I’m really sorry,” she said, and her pursed mouth gaped. Her brown eyes, hidden behind the quivering wrinkles of her cheeks, stared fixedly ahead.

“I . . . I really don’t know,” she mumbled.

“Mrs. Taft,” Monyek flapped his matchstick arms in the fine woolen sleeves, “I . . . ”

The gathering mist dulled the colors of the merry-go-round and the day seemed to solidify in the haze without continuing its slide into the ocean.

Monyek’s hands gripped his tie.

“You really should rest,” he said.

“Yes, yes. Perhaps,” replied Lusia, her hand clutching her handkerchief.

“Why don’t we sit down a while,” said Monyek after a moment, “Over there, on the bench.”

“Thank you,” replied Lusia and bowed her head.

They plodded through the sand toward the bench, and for a moment their backs swayed, one toward the other. Monyek’s jacket hung awry on his shoulders and Lusia’s short body heaved with the exertion of trudging through the sand, like a wounded bird tottering and flapping its wings.

On the beach behind them the little pennants waved, and close to the waterline, which seemed to stretch into infinity, the ebbing tide froze under a blanket of white mist.

Monyek spread out his hand, indicating the bench, and said, “Here we are.”

Lusia took a firmer grip on the purse under her arm and lifted her face.

“Yes, yes,” she said.

She crushed the flimsy handkerchief, carefully straightened her skirt, and approached the bench in order to sit down.

BETWEEN TWO AND FOUR

Every day between two and four the little girl was left by herself. The first few moments of those two hours—hours that would soon freeze until the world returned, thawing into its normal course—were still taken up by the usual routine that followed the meal.The mother piled the dishes into the sink to wait for after their nap, and the father filled the little kitchen—already steeped in the smells of vegetable soup and pumpkin—with the aroma of a cheap cigar that mingled with steam from the kettle and vapors that rose from the water poured into his tea cup. But these moments of grace came to an end when the newspaper dropped onto the father’s eyeglasses, and his snores were answered by the mother’s mutterings and mumblings as she too dozed off, and a prolonged oppressive silence took hold of the house.

The sliding door closed behind her, and her room drowned in boredom. Sitting herself down on the prickly blanket that covered the sofa, she could not decide how to occupy herself. The smell of moth balls wafting from sweaters taken from the closet with the panic of the first
rains nipped at her nostrils. When winter approached, the grey window always seemed terrified by a looming disaster. Now, the smell made the strangeness in the window even stranger. When she blinked her eyes shut, the window frame continued to float beneath her eyelids, a phosphorescent green that quickly turned to gold and was burned there, a sharp stain.

The only refuge was the balcony, whose tiles still held the warmth of the morning sun’s rays. She poked her head through the iron railings, above wilting plants in asbestos pots. The new scene stamped on her sight brought with it the cooing of wild doves, air laden with the smell of mowed grass, and the top of a birch tree, pigeons hopping from its branches onto telephone wires. The waves of her breathing caressed her and the room’s terror was dispelled from her lungs, replaced by an inexplicable joy that seeped into her throat until she almost cried out. Biting hard on a hunk of sweater she had stuffed in her mouth to stifle the scream, the girl deeply abandoned herself to the waves of happiness that flooded her chest and swept along with them random pictures drenched in pleasure.

But just as suddenly as she had freed herself from the grip of the room and the sofa, now something inside her decided that she had had enough. At once, she found herself in the midst of a string of hushed actions, intended first of all to open the sliding door to her room and guide it carefully back into place, and then to open the front door,
which, despite the well-practiced pressure she put in every fraction of the handle’s turn, and the spit she spread on the cold bolt of the lock, still made squeaking sounds that made her heart jump and the whole stairwell pound and spin. The last slam, and the smell of plaster and dust that filled the stairwell, gave an air of secret adventure to the freedom now galloping toward her.