Aharon Appelfeld - Blooms of Darkness

“Now the Russians will come and whip us to death. What the Germans did to the Jews, the Russians will do to us. The Russians have no God in their hearts.”

There are no more guests. There is tension and creeping fear. The girls sit in the hall, chat, drink, and play cards. They remember the guests who were nice to them, brought them boxes of candy, and didn’t ask them to do anything disgusting.

“In a little while, the volcano will erupt,” the guard warns them.

“Let it erupt. Our life is worth zero squared,” replies one of them, and everybody laughs.

Mariana’s mood is exalted. She drinks as much as she wants and regrets the days when she denied herself the marvelous potion known as brandy. You only live once, she says.

Hugo is also content. Mariana doesn’t stop hugging him, and every few days she stands him next to the door, measures him, and says, “You’ve gotten taller. In a little while hairs will grow.” When she drinks, she is free. She shows him the bottles of perfume she has in her drawers, the jewelry, and the silk stockings she received as presents. Hugo likes to watch her when she stretches out her leg and puts on a stocking. Sometimes she stands before the mirror wearing only panties and a brassiere and says, “Isn’t it true that I haven’t lost my shape? I’m just the way I should be, not fat and not thin. A lot of women have doughy legs or a swollen belly. And now we have to teach Hugo how to love Mariana.”

“I love you,” Hugo quickly confirms.

“Wait, wait. You don’t know everything yet.”

After repeated warnings, the guard finally runs away. Madam announces that she’s now locking up The Residence. The kitchen will be closed, and everyone will have to take care of herself.

“And what will happen to us?”

“I can’t support you. I’ve already spent what I had. For more than a month, there’s been no income. I can’t feed seventeen girls. The bakery won’t give me bread, and the butcher won’t give me meat.”

“You’ll be sorry. You can’t close an institution. The German army will return and take revenge against everybody who spread rumors about its defeat and closed the institutions that served them,” one of the women warns her.

“What can I do?” she says in a different tone of voice.

“Don’t be hasty.”

“I’m not being hasty,” she replies. “I’ve been running this place for twenty years. Managing a residence like this is no small matter. I know what’s possible and what’s impossible. Now things have gone too far. The pantry is empty, and so is the cellar.” She bursts into sobs.

There is silence, and Madam withdraws to her apartment.

Later Victoria comes out of the kitchen and says in a whisper, “I have supplies for another week, if we’re sparing. After a week — God help us.”

“Thank you, Victoria, may God preserve you.” They bless her.

Mariana seems unaffected by the commotion. Since she began drinking again, her mood is steady — elevated, actually, but without any decline. Whatever happens hardly touches her. She tells Hugo about her childhood and early youth, and about the days when she was a girl in love with a boy named Andrei. He was handsome. One day his parents moved to a different village, and he forgot her. She cried a lot over him and kept looking for him. He disappeared and left her wounded.

“I won’t abandon you,” Hugo quickly confirms.

“Let’s hope not,” she says. Then she laughs and hugs him.

Now come the days they had all been looking forward to: everyone sleeps late, eats breakfast together, shares pleasant dreams, and keeps asking what good food is left in the kitchen.

Mariana doesn’t stop drinking, obviously seeking to recover what she had lost during the time of her abstinence. She often speaks about her youth, about the moves from brothel to brothel until she arrived at The Residence. She talks and talks, but her words make no impression. Her friends look at her as if to say, We’ve all been through that. What’s so special?

But when she says, “Now I want to introduce my young friend to you,” everyone is silent. Most of them already know the secret, or have guessed. Hugo is stunned. His mind always pictured the women of The Residence in the image of Mariana. Now they sit in the hall around the table, seventeen young women, each with her own hairstyle, looking like girls at a class reunion. At first glance, they remind Hugo of Sofia’s friends, young men and women who used to gather in their home on her birthday. They had come from the village and also went shopping while they were in town, thereby combining practicality with amusement. Hugo had been charmed by their way of speaking, their gestures, and their colorful village language.

After inspecting Hugo from head to foot, one of the women asks, “What’s your name?”

“Hugo,” he replies, pleased that he didn’t lower his head.

“A nice name. I never heard of a name like that.”

“It doesn’t sound Jewish,” another woman comments.

Kitty stands out in her childish clothing and with her big eyes. The others are wrapped in colorful robes, as though they just got out of bed.

“Shall we make Hugo a cup of coffee?” one of them asks.

“Hugo drinks milk,” says Mariana.

Mariana’s comment provokes loud laughter.

“What’s so funny?” asks Mariana.

“He’s a big boy. He’s a sturdy lad, a boy for coffee and not for milk.”

“Why don’t you say something?” one of the women asks Hugo.

“What do you want him to say?” Mariana tries to defend him.

“I thought he was a child. It turns out I was wrong. He’s a lad by any standard.”

“You’re wrong. He’s just tall.” Mariana protects Hugo again.

“I’ve learned the difference, thank God, between a child and a lad.”

That argument displeases Mariana. She takes his hand and says, “Hugo’s got a cold, he has to rest.”

“He doesn’t look as if he’s got a cold,” the woman replies provocatively.

“He’s got a cold, and a bad one,” says Mariana, extricating him from the women’s covetous gaze.

Hugo has hardly entered the closet when he hears the women’s laughter. His name and Mariana’s rise from the laughter. The laughter keeps swelling, and for a moment it sounds like gloating, because they managed to raise the veil from Mariana’s secret.

In the afternoon, Mariana prepares a hot bath and says, “Now I’ll wash my puppy. My puppy’s growing from day to day, maturing. In a little while he’ll be Mariana’s height. In a little while he’ll be even taller than her. I’m looking forward to that moment. Don’t be afraid, honey. Mariana’s swallowed a good bit, but she’s not drunk. I hate drunks.”

When she puts the big towel on his shoulders, she says, “You’re maturing. You’re maturing very nicely. It’s a pleasure to see you.” Hugo hears a didactic tone in her voice, as though she were explaining something to him about the laws of nature. Then she rubs his body with fragrant lotion and says, “My puppy smells like first fruit.” The phrase “first fruit” captivates him. He remembers another phrase, “bud and flower,” that Mariana also uses sometimes.

Now Hugo sees that most of the clothes in the suitcase are too short for him, and in some of the outfits he looks ridiculous. Mariana inspects the clothes and says, “Mariana will get you some older boy’s clothes. These clothes are simply too small on you. You’ve grown up properly.”

That night, after the bath, is a whirl of pleasures and dreams that come one after the other. Hugo has learned that dreams aren’t uniform. Pleasure is mingled with fear. Suddenly Mariana says, “Too bad we can’t stop time: if only we could always live this way, Mariana with her puppy. Mariana doesn’t need anything else. This is exactly what she needs. Hugo will grow up and defend her. The brave puppy.”