Aharon Appelfeld - Blooms of Darkness

Mariana brings him the soup and says, “Eat, dear. You’ve had a hard day.”

Hugo eats the soup. Mariana looks at him and says, “You’re a big kid. How old are you?”

“Eleven.”

“You look older. Take off your shoes and go to sleep. Tomorrow we’ll sit together and talk about how to make your days with me pleasant,” she says, and closes the closet door.

It’s still dark outside, and through the cracks in the closet wall the shrieks of birds of prey filter in, as does the clear cry of a rooster that has woken up. For a moment it seems to Hugo that the door will open soon and his mother will come in, stooped over, the way she was in the habit of walking during the past weeks. She will tell him that she has found a marvelous hiding place and that they will go there together now. Her voice and expression are clear, and he awaits her arrival intently. But in the end fatigue overcomes him, and he falls asleep.

It is an uncomfortable sleep that presses on his chest and binds his feet. Several times he tries to slip out of the oppression. In the end he wakes up and feels better.

Now he can see the closet. It’s narrower than he imagined. Through the cracks between the boards light filters in and brightens the back. The front remains dipped in thin darkness.

Sleep, it seems, has wiped the expectation away from his heart. He sees his mother standing at the counter in the pharmacy with his father at her side, as though time had frozen them in their places. The panic of the last few months is not visible on them. They look quiet and settled, and if they weren’t frozen into mummies, there would have been no change in them.

While he is still wondering about their frozenness, the door opens, and Mariana stands in the doorway, dressed in a colorful nightgown, with a cup of milk in her hand.

“How did you sleep?”

“Well.”

“Drink, and I’ll show you my room.”

Hugo takes the cup and drinks. It is sweet, fresh milk that seeps into him and warms him up.

“Where’s Mama?” He can’t control himself.

“She went to the village to find refuge.”

“When will she come to me?” Again he makes a mistake and asks.

“It will take a little time. Come, I’ll show you my room.”

Hugo didn’t expect such a surprise. It is a broad room, well lit and wrapped in curtains. All the slipcovers in the room are pink, as are the chairs. Colorful jars and flasks are scattered on the dressers.

“Do you like the room?”

Hugo doesn’t know what to say, so he answers, “It’s very beautiful.”

Mariana chuckles, a kind of suppressed laugh that is hard to figure out.

“The room is very beautiful.” He tries to correct himself. “In the daytime you can play here. Sometimes I sleep in the daytime, and you can watch over my sleep.”

“I’ll play chess,” it occurs to him to tell her.

“Sometimes I’ll have to hide you, but don’t worry, it will be for a short time, and then you’ll come back here. You can sit in the armchair or on the floor. Do you like to read?”

“A lot.”

“You won’t be bored with me,” Mariana says, and she winks.

Mariana goes out and leaves Hugo by himself. The room isn’t like a room where a person lives. The pink slipcovers, the fragrance of perfume, give it the look of a beauty parlor. Not far from their house was a beauty parlor. There, too, the furniture was pink. In the corners they shampooed the hair of full-figured women and did their finger-and toenails. Everything was done there with a lazy ease, with laughter and open enjoyment. Hugo liked to stand and look at the scene, but his mother’s feet never crossed the threshold of the beauty parlor. Every time they went by it, her lips would curl into a smile whose meaning he couldn’t fathom.

For a long time Hugo stands still, wondering about the nature of this roomy place. Finally he sums it up for himself: it’s not a beauty parlor. There isn’t a broad bed in the middle of a beauty parlor.

Meanwhile, Mariana comes back with a tray of little sandwiches and says, “This is for you. Sit in the armchair and eat as much as you want.”

Hugo remembers that at weddings the waitresses would serve sandwiches like that. At home the sandwiches were simple and served without a paper wrapping. “These are sandwiches for a wedding, isn’t that right?” The sentence slips out of his mouth.

“We eat that kind of sandwich here. Are they tasty?”

“Very.”

“Where were you recently?”

“In the basement of our house.”

“If they ask you, don’t say that you were in the basement.”

“What should I say?”

“Say that you’re Mariana’s son.”

Hugo doesn’t know what to say and hangs his head.

Hugo senses that he is now standing at the threshold of a new period in his life, a period full of secrets and dangers, and he has to be cautious and strong, as he promised his mother.

Mariana keeps staring at him. Hugo feels uncomfortable, and to evade her gaze, he asks, “Is this a big house?”

“Very big,” she says, and laughs. “But you’ll only be in my room and in the closet.”

“Am I allowed to go out into the yard?”

“No. Children like you have to be inside.”

He has already noticed: Mariana speaks in short sentences and, unlike his mother, she doesn’t explain.

After he finishes eating the sandwiches, she says, “Now I’m going to tidy up the room and take a bath. You’ll go back into the closet.”

“Am I allowed to play chess with myself?”

“Certainly, as much as you please.”

Hugo goes back to his place, and Mariana closes the closet door.

Three weeks earlier, when the Actions became fiercer, his mother started talking about great changes that were about to take place in his life, about new people that he would meet, and about an unknown environment. She didn’t speak in her usual, simple language, but in words with many meanings, words that bore a secret. Hugo didn’t ask. He was bewildered, and the more she explained and warned, the more bewildered he became.

Now the secret bears the face of Mariana.

Hugo had met Mariana several times in the past, mostly in dark alleys. His mother would bring her clothes and groceries. The meetings between them were emotional and lasted only a few minutes. Sometimes they wouldn’t meet for a while, and the image of Mariana’s face would depart from his eyes.

Hugo curls up in his dark corner, wrapped in one of the sheepskins, and the tears that were blocked in his eyes burst out and flood his face. “Mama, where are you? Where are you?” He whimpers like an abandoned animal.

He cries himself to sleep. In his sleep he is at home. Rather, in his room. Everything is in its place. Suddenly, Anna appears and stands in the doorway. She has grown taller, and she is wearing a traditional Ukrainian dress. The dress suits her.

“Anna,” he calls out.

“What?” she answers in Ukrainian.

“Have you forgotten how to speak German?” He is alarmed. “I haven’t forgotten, but I’m trying very hard not to speak German.”

“Papa says that you don’t forget a mother tongue.”

“I assume that’s correct, but in my case, the effort was so powerful that it drove the German words from my mouth.” She speaks in a torrent of Ukrainian.

“Strange.”

“Why?”

“Strange to talk with you in Ukrainian.”

Anna smiles the restrained smile he knows well: a mixture of shyness and arrogance.

“Is it also hard for you to speak French?”

She smiles again and says, “In the mountains people don’t speak French.”

“When you come back, after the war, we’ll speak German again, right?”

“I assume so.” She speaks like an adult.