All Whom I Have Loved Page 17

  I slept only fitfully, and again I saw the funeral. Now it seemed to me that Mother's funeral, unlike Halina's, had been hasty and short, with the monks hurrying through the prayers and dispersing rapidly.

  Father awoke. “Why aren't you sleeping?” he asked.

  “I can't fall asleep.”

  “Count to a hundred.”

  That old ploy, which Mother would suggest from time to time, sounded ridiculous to me now. But I started counting and fell asleep.

  We were late getting up. Father's request that he be woken in the morning for the six o'clock train must have been forgotten. The cleaning woman claimed that she had knocked on the door and called out that it was five o'clock and had heard Father call back, “Very good, thank you.”

  Father did not argue and was not angry. He ordered breakfast, and we sat and ate as if we weren't in a hurry to leave. The coffee was delicious, and Father ordered another pot. The owner of the hotel, a Jew of the old kind and involved in everything going on in the region, had of course heard of Father and immediately called his wife and daughters to see the marvel. Father, initially embarrassed, eventually responded to the owner's questions, telling him at length that he had only recently returned from Bucharest, where he had held a large exhibition, and that he was now on his way to Czernowitz. The Jew, for his part, told Father that anti-Semitism in this region was on the rise, and that now Jews were being beaten in the streets in broad daylight.

  “And what do the Jews do?” Father asked.

  “What can they do?”

  When we reached the station it was already noon. Father went to the ticket office and asked about the times of the trains, and on the spot he decided that it was best to travel now to Campulung and rest a bit, before the vacationers came. I had once spent a summer vacation with Mother in Campulung, and I remembered the long boulevards and the slender poplars whose shadows trembled on the sidewalks.

  We left on the first train, but just as the train pulled out of Storozynetz it started to rain. At first Father was happy, but as the day went on, he grew more withdrawn, and he buried himself in his coat. We arrived in Campulung at night. It was raining heavily there, too, and we huddled near the snack counter together with the station workers. The food there did not seem fresh, and we went outside to wait for a wagon. Everything that had happened to us since we left Bucharest now seemed like one nightmare that had become entwined with another nightmare. Wagons passed us, but the drivers didn't stop. Finally a wagon stopped and we got into it.

  “Take us to a hotel,” called Father.

  “Which one?”

  “Doesn't matter.”

  And that's how we came to the Hotel Bukovina. The woman who owned it—a woman who was not young—welcomed us politely and immediately served us coffee and rolls. The beds were comfortable, and we slept late. In the morning we sat next to the window and ate breakfast. Suddenly I saw how past years had remained frozen here, inside the tall vases on the sideboards. Father said, “It's a hotel like those from the old days; hotels like this are vanishing.”

  The rains did not cease. Father's plans to take walks and show me all the wonders of the place were out of the question.

  “It's a good time to sleep; sleep is no less pleasant than staying awake. A man who sleeps a week rises like new.” The woman who owned the hotel spoke genially, but her voice was not pleasant. I felt that she was trying to persuade Father. He listened to her and asked some detailed questions, while she elaborated: “A week of sleep is a real adventure.”

  “Adventure?” wondered Father.

  “Correct.” The proprietress held fast to her opinion.

  63

  The days are gray and crawl by. Father drinks and plays poker, and the owner of the hotel has given me an old pack of cards. I read Jules Verne avidly and sketch geometric forms. Every few hours Father goes over to the window and says, “I see no end to it.”

  “What class are you in, Paul?” the proprietress asks me.

  “I don't go to school.”

  “Why not?”

  “I've got asthma.”

  “Children with asthma don't go to school?”

  “I'm exempted.”

  “And don't you want to go to school?”

  “No.”

  During the past two years I've been breathing naturally and haven't ever choked. And to tell the truth, even before this, my breathing didn't trouble me. My exemption from school is an achievement in which Father takes pride. “Paul doesn't go to school; I've saved him from the herd,” he tells everyone. Lately it seems that Father's animosity toward school has grown. “For the sake of a little math, it's hardly worth spoiling one's entire life. To go to school is like being part of a herd; there are leaders and there are serfs. Instead of a serf-child, I have a child with a questioning heart.” Now Father no longer says, “Test Paul on his math.” He says, “Every day outside the school walls is freedom from prison.”

  Father drinks continuously, and his once handsome face is now ugly—red as a beet and blotchy. On a few occasions he has warned his gaming companions against whispering together and conspiring against him. These “companions” seem like a bunch of swindlers to me. Father loses, and I can see that his patience is running out. I'm afraid that soon he's going to jump up and hit one of them. But as it turns out, the danger comes from another quarter, in the form of a tall, blond Croatian woman who has landed here. Father, it seems, has captured her fancy, and everything he says amuses her. I've already seen women like this in Czernowitz. They laugh at everything and say, “How incredibly amusing.” I am sure that Father will find her revolting, but he doesn't. He sits on the couch and tells her in great detail about his journey to Bucharest, about the exhibition, and about the anti-Semites.

  “You're a Jew?” she says, wondering.

  “Correct.”

  “You don't look Jewish.”

  “What's wrong with being Jewish?”

  “There's nothing wrong; it's just dangerous.”

  Father likes the blonde's answer, and he says, “You're right about that.”

  “I'm always right.”

  Father laughs and says, “Apparently!”

  Then she disappears. The days continue dark and moist, the stoves roaring day and night. Most of the time I sit in the music room, reading Jules Verne and doodling geometrical shapes. When we were near the monastery, my imagination ran free; here I can't imagine a thing. My sleep is heavy and blocked, and I don't feel connected to anyone.

  One night I awake and don't see Father in his bed. I am seized with fear and want to cry out. I climb down and feel his bed—it is empty and cold. The salon and the music room are also dark. I go back to bed and wait for Father to return. Only toward morning does he come in on tiptoes and get into his bed.

  I know exactly what happened.

  We eat breakfast extremely late. Father's face is unshaven and his eyes are red and puffy. He carelessly shovels hunks of bread into his mouth.

  In the afternoon he plays cards and loses again. Losing makes him angry, but he neither raises his voice nor lifts his hand. Later, the blonde enters and he is irritatingly friendly when he speaks to her, complimenting her and calling her “my dear.”

  Every night Father disappears, and in the morning he returns on tiptoes, and each time he seems more wretched to me—the clumsy gestures of the blonde already cling to him. Sensitive to the slightest physical nuance, he has now acquired her ugly movements; he even swallows his words when he speaks. If only it would stop raining, I would drag him outside.

  It's already the end of May, and there's no sign of light. After dinner, Father sits on the couch and, ticking off on his fingers, counts the cities in which he's had exhibitions. It's not his usual behavior or his usual voice. The blonde sits next to him and laughs at everything that comes out of his mouth, but the others stare at him with the look of swindlers. Now it's clear to me: they're shaking him down, and at night the blonde steals from his pockets. I've already heard him m
utter: “She's been stealing again!” Father is like a caged lion, not beaten and not broken, only growling and cursing himself.

  64

  The days pass, and Father seems to change before my very eyes: his cheeks become sunken and an unpleasant ruddiness blooms on them. Sometimes I sense that I'm a burden, that I'm in his way, and I'd like to run away, go anyplace my legs will carry me. Father wallows in his drink, in poker games, and in keeping the blonde entertained. He is barely aware of my existence. Sometimes he'll rouse himself and say, “Paul, why don't you go to sleep?” or “Why don't you read?” I know that these are not heartfelt words; he doesn't really mean them. He's mired in the blonde's room, and it's almost three in the afternoon before he surfaces. The hotel's proprietress looks after me, serves me meals, and asks me questions. Once again, the question of school and my asthma arises.

  “I'm sick with asthma and exempt from school,” I repeat, time and again.

  “Always?”

  “Always.”

  The proprietress has old-fashioned manners and uses old-fashioned words. She calls me “my little sir.” Sometimes we play dominos or chess. I beat her effortlessly she immediately tells her guests, but these feats make not the slightest impression on Father.

  Were it not for the rain, I would run away. I already see myself working in the home of a peasant or at a Jewish grocery store. Better to work hard than to sit here and watch Father ignore me. The thought that he's entangled with the blonde and has forgotten me drives me crazy.

  My dreams have returned, and again I'm with Mother, traveling with her to Vatra Dornei, or to that hidden village not far from it. I lose her for a moment at the station but then find her quickly. She is so different from the way she looked recently, and her beauty is breathtaking. I ask her about her death and her burial at the monastery graveyard. She looks at me with that full, soft gaze that I so loved, and I understand that her death was an illusion that threatened to confuse my perceptions.

  “We'll always travel to Vatra Dornei,” she says, and I immediately feel that I'm connected to her with my entire soul. The two of us are linked to those wonderful waters, which seem to have grown clearer during the time we weren't there, so that I can now see her movements under the water.

  On awakening from the dream I'm dizzy, and it's hard for me to understand what is going on around me. The proprietress asks if I've slept well, and of course I do not tell her anything. Very gradually hotel guests emerge from their lairs and settle down at the long, set tables. They eat with gusto, gossiping and laughing, and naturally they talk about Father. Whenever they mention his name, my anger flares, and I feel like smashing the dishes on the table.

  One evening the blonde comes over to me and says, “How are you, Paul?”

  “Fine,” I reply.

  “And you aren't bored?”

  “No.”

  It seems to me that she is about to invite me to her room. I am wrong. “The proprietress tells me that you win every game against her,” she says. “Is that so?”

  “Correct.”

  “You're very talented.”

  I'm angry, and I say, “Apparently.”

  “Like your father.”

  “At least.”

  She explodes into hearty laughter, bending over and exposing her large breasts.

  Father is sitting on the sofa. My conversation with the blonde does not interest him. I see the circles of delirium around his eyes, and I know that he is drunk.

  Later, before she disappears with Father, she says, “Good night, sweetie, we'll see you tomorrow morning.”

  I wake up early, play on the floor, or read. There is a good library here, and the proprietress allows me to look through the books. I've found a book here with Father's name in it. The author showers praises on him, calling him the “Prince of Painters in a Declining Empire.” As I read that praise, Father's wretchedness grieves me all the more.

  Every afternoon, when I see Father coming out of the blonde's den, I want to say, “Father, let's pack our bags and leave. Rather the rain than this disgrace. These people are cheats—even the blonde steals from you. Let's travel to Czernowitz, where we'll be among friends. The streets in Czernowitz are paved, and they aren't muddy like they are here.” I want to say all this, but I don't.

  “Father!” The word escapes me.

  “What?”

  “When are we leaving here?”

  “Soon,” he says distractedly.

  The blonde flaunts all conventions of decency; she embraces and kisses Father in plain sight of everyone. I seethe with anger as the guests whisper and smirk. One evening, one of the guests provokes Father outright, calling him—in a contemptuous tone of voice—“Arthur Rosenfeld, the renowned painter.” Father takes him to task. “You shut your mouth!” he says.

  Out of sheer disdain for Father, the man says, “Why should I? Why not say it: Arthur Rosenfeld, the renowned painter, has gone to live in the provinces and settled himself in the Hotel Bukovina in Campulung.”

  “You shut your mouth!” Father repeats, without raising his voice. The other man apparently considers Father too drunk and woozy to touch him. He is wrong, of course. Father suddenly springs up like a lion and slugs him. Had he kept quiet, I suppose Father would have left him alone, but because he keeps goading him, Father hits him again—and hard. Chaos breaks out immediately, and a doctor is called. The blonde screams at the top of her voice, defending Father: “He is the one who provoked; he's the guilty one!”

  The next day, the man who was beaten up threatens to call the police. Father does not say anything. Fortunately for us, by then the skies have cleared, and we leave the hotel without further ado.

  65

  Father had intended to return to Czernowitz immediately, but for some reason he did not. The rains ceased, and a huge sun hung in the sky. We wandered through villages, and at night we would lodge with a peasant or at a roadside inn. Father hardly spoke, but sometimes he would burst into tears—heartrending sobs that shook his entire body.

  One evening he asked me if I would remember Mother.

  “Very much so,” I answered immediately.

  “And you'll also remember me?”

  I didn't know what to say. “Why remember? You're here with me,” I replied.

  The distance from village to village can be miles, and at times we found ourselves in the heart of the mountains, entirely cut off from civilization. In the hotel, my head had been full of fears; here I leaned my head on a tree trunk and fell asleep. On these endless green paths, we would chance upon peddlers, small Jewish stores, and taverns. Father spoke to the storekeepers in Yiddish. They were glad to see him and did not hide their troubles: the peasants did not pay their debts, they were attacked by wayfarers, and at night gangs would rob anyone they came across. Sometimes a storekeeper would try to keep Father from leaving, saying, “Why not sleep with us? We have two beds made up.” Once, an old Jew came up to us, placed his hands on my head, and blessed me.

  The nights beneath the trees made me think of Mother, and I saw her with nothing coming between us. Father did not see anything now. His walk was a kind of thrusting forward, and I sometimes had the feeling that he was heading toward the house of that art critic who had hurt him so much, and that when he got there, he would throttle him.

  One night Father muttered something about his childhood in the orphanage. When he recalled his childhood, I saw the long, chilly corridors where barefoot children would shuffle as slowly as they could, and the janitor, who stood under the light at the entrance, raising his voice, saying, “Go straight to your rooms—no hanging around!” A few years earlier Father had taken me to the orphanage and I had seen the corridors for myself. The elderly janitor had remembered Father, and they'd talked about the old days. When we left, Father had said: “He was once a strong man and we were terrified of him.”

  About Mother—not a word. Sometimes a groan burst forth from within him, and I knew that Father was angry with himself. When he was
upset this way, he would bite his upper lip, tighten his fists, and say, “I made a mistake.” One night he asked me something. I did not understand his question, and he repeated it. Eventually he said, “Not even you understand me.”

  A few days ago a peasant showed Father a revolver he was selling. Father checked the weapon and fired a few shots, then bought it. “Now we can sleep in peace,” he said in a voice that frightened me. Sometimes I felt that the purpose of this long journey was to prepare us for our return to Czernowitz, so Father could go back to painting. From time to time he reminisced about the weeks we had spent in Bucharest and his face was filled with longing. But the reality was different. Since Mother's death, it had been hard for me to understand what Father was talking about. Once he told me: “I'm afraid of oblivion,” but he strode along like a soldier and I found it hard to keep up with him.

  And so we drifted from one hill to the next. It was a green, hilly region, and at that time of the year everything was in full bloom. If a peasant threatened or cursed us, Father got angry, giving back as good as he got. And if he thought he had reason to hit someone, he hit him. He had scratches on his face and his neck, but he didn't bandage them.

  “Why do you need all this?” the Jews cautioned him.

  “You have to stand up to hatred.”

  “There are too many of them.”

  “That's no excuse.”

  All the same, the Jews liked him a lot, and whenever we were in a Jewish store the proprietress would hurry to make us a meal and the proprietor would offer us lodgings. At night, when thieves drew near the door, Father opened the window and fired. Once, he wounded one of the thieves, who fled screaming for dear life.

  66

  Our money was running out. It seemed as though Father had wasted most of it at the hotel. Now we were living from hand to mouth, and were it not for the storekeepers who invited us for meals and put us up, it's doubtful that we could have gone on. Sometimes they provided us not only lodgings but also tea and coffee and the kinds of dry baked goods that would keep us going for days on end.