All Whom I Have Loved (2 page)

The days were clear, with not a cloud in the sky, and every day we returned to the river, to exactly the same place, as if we were trying to get to know it better and better. Mother had grown taller here; only I had stayed short. I was no
longer afraid of the water, but I was still not ready to dip my head into it.

The time got shorter and shorter. Mother counted off the days on her fingers and said: “We have another week left.” I found this counting unpleasant, and I wanted to say: “Mother, don't count like that,” but I held back, so as not to make her sad.

But meanwhile we spent a lot of time at the lake. There, by the water, we were either naked or wrapped in large towels. There was not another soul inside this shadowy canopy. And yet I sensed we were in danger. “Mother,” I'd call out, but Mother wasn't frightened. Alongside the brackish water she was lithe, her face open, and there was a moist sparkle in her eyes. She dove and surfaced, dove and uttered incomprehensible sentences. Once she put some squares of halvacovered chocolate on her palm and said, “Take it, my love, it's tasty.”

“Mother, I'm not a bird,” I said for some reason. When she heard this, Mother burst out laughing and hugged me.

Some Christian festival was being celebrated, and throughout the night cows and pigs were slaughtered in the village. The lowing and the squealing was enough to rend the heavens, but no one went to help them. I asked Mother if it was possible to save them, and Mother said it was their fate and that we couldn't change anything. The entire night I saw the blood flowing in the sky and pouring into the horizon.

The next day we didn't go to the river; Mother took me to the church. We walked along dirt roads and saw the clear morning like a canopy over the gardens. The fruit had already been picked from the trees, but on the highest branches a few large apples still swayed, reddish, as if drunken. At times we came upon a rooster or a sheep that
would take fright at our footsteps; I was happy that they had been spared from the night slaughter.

“What do people do in the church?”

“Nothing. They pray.”

“Will we pray, too?”

“No.”

The church wasn't tall; it was domed, made of wooden beams, and a golden cross rose from the roof.

“Nice,” said Mother, and we went inside.

The priest wore a long ceremonial robe and stood next to the altar. He read from a book, and the choir responded to him in song; there was a magnificence in this ceremony that deeply moved me. Mother must have been moved as well, for her face was tense and she grasped my hand. I was sorry that I had to be silent and didn't know how to sing the song that the choir and the worshippers were singing together.

After that, in a gesture that was slow and extremely impressive, the priest lifted a bowl of incense and waved it over the faces of those assembled. When they saw the smoke rising, they bowed their heads and I burst into tears.

“What's wrong, my love?” Mother bent down to me. “There's nothing to be afraid of.”

I wasn't afraid; I was overwhelmed by the singing and the pungent incense.

The next day Mother packed our suitcase and paid the landlady. The landlady watched us with a kindly eye. “Where are you going?” she asked.

“Home,” said Mother in a cold voice, and the openness in her face shut tight. I knew that if I were to ask her something, she would answer but in one word only. We still had two hours at our disposal, but Mother was in a hurry, as if the road beckoned to us.

It was night when our train arrived in Czernowitz. The station was in turmoil, with whistling trains and an overflow of people. We tried to make our way through, but all the exits were blocked. Seeing this reminded me of the nightmares that had kept me awake in the country. I gripped Mother's hand. Mother did not give up but tried again and again to push inside the waiting room with all her might. It was useless. People stronger than she shoved against us. In the end we were pushed aside, pressed against the wall.

We sat on the suitcase and waited for the crush to subside. I pictured the fields and the water that we had left behind, and longing choked me.

While we were sitting there hopelessly, Father appeared, as if the ground had split open and he'd emerged from it. He was wearing his usual clothes, but he looked so different here, as if he were a stranger. He immediately grasped the suitcase and led us outside through a dark opening. A carriage was waiting for us. Even now, Father behaved as he always did. He asked no questions. When we reached the house, he pulled down the suitcase, carried it up to the apartment, and said, “I'll come tomorrow.” Then he was gone.

Mother had brought a few provisions from the country, and we sat down to eat. Her face was still tan from the country, but its freshness had faded. She tried to recall sights we had seen, but there was a hollow ring to her words.

Then, for no apparent reason, she began to cry. It was a bitter weeping that left her face blotchy. I fell at her feet, hugging her legs. Yet this time my love did not help. Her crying only intensified, as if drawing upon the depths of her hidden pain. I was so moved that when I went to bed I could not fall asleep. It then seemed to me that Mother was about to say, “I'm going to pack the suitcase, we're going back to the country. I feel out of place in this crowded city; everything is dirty and tasteless.” But I was wrong; her sorrow passed and little by little she accepted our old place.

That same night Mother told me about her childhood. Her parents died young and she had grown up in an orphanage. The orphanage is at the edge of the town, near the trees and water. When she was nine, her class was taken to the city, and there she saw the Great Synagogue for the first time.

“And you didn't have any brothers or sisters?”

“No, I'm an only child,” she said with a shy laugh.

At the age of twelve she was already an apprentice at the large garment workshop owned by the Stein family. She worked from morning till night, and in the evenings she studied. Eventually, she passed the matriculation examinations with low grades, but she graduated from the teachers' seminary with distinction.

“And do you remember your mother?”

“No. A few years ago, I could still remember some of
her features, but now they're gone. I remember that she was short.”

“And was your father tall?”

“I don't remember. He died before my mother.”

Mother opened her eyes very wide, so as to take in the distant visions, but it didn't help. To my questions she answered, “I don't remember; what I recall is so hazy.”

I, at any rate, could imagine my mother's mother and father very clearly.

“I'm sorry, everything has faded from my memory,” Mother said, shrugging.

“I will remember the house in the country and the water in the river. And the lake,” I said for some reason.

“And me? Will you remember me, too?” she asked, suddenly putting me to the test.

“I'll remember you most of all.” I wanted to impress her.

“How will you remember me?”

“Swimming in the water.”

“Only swimming?”

“And wrapped in a large towel.”

“What else?”

“And the song ‘The Long Clear Nights of Summer’—the song you like to sing.”

“I'm happy.”

That night I slept soundly, but one clear image filtered into my sleep: Mother wearing a pure white nightdress.

Father came the next day and took me downtown. A month and a half in the country had effaced him from my memory. Father took long strides and I hopped along after him, getting tired. We stopped briefly, standing at a kiosk to drink some lemonade, and eventually we reached a café where Father loves to play chess. I find it hard to take his silence. It hurts me, and yet I still said, “Father,” trying to be closer to him.

“What?” He opened his eyes, as if I'd stopped the flow of his thoughts.

Father played chess and I gazed at him. This time he opened his mouth and spoke, hummed, and leaned toward his opponent in a gesture of goodwill.

“Where have you been, child?” Father's elderly friend turned to me.

“In the country with Mother.”

“And how was it there?”

“Good.”

Father raised his head and smiled, happy that I revealed something to him that he would never have asked about.

“Paul knows his multiplication tables very well; you can test him,” Father said.

“Seven times seven is what?”

I answered.

“I see that you're going to be even better than your father,” said the elderly man without even looking at me.

We walked a lot that evening, and we also went to the tavern. Father's mood improved and he hummed a folk song, keeping time with his foot. Before I went into the house, he told me that the following week, when he got his salary, he would buy me a pair of high, laced boots.

The parting from Father was not hard, and yet it was not forgotten easily. The sight of his face did not leave me even when I sat next to the table and Mother gazed at me. Once, I said to my mother, “I love Father,” and Mother's response was not slow in coming: “And don't you love me?” Since then I have chosen my words very carefully.

That night Mother told me that after I had left the house, a messenger delivered a letter to her with the news that she had been accepted as a teacher in a primary school in Storozynetz.

“Are we going there?”

“Of course.”

Only later did I understand that this was not really about a journey so much as it was about being pulled away from everything I knew, and then a dark fear gripped me. That night my mother told me a lot about Storozynetz and about the beautiful fields that surround the small city. It was that night that I heard the phrase “garden city” for the first time, and it stuck in my head.

The next day Father came in the afternoon. The sun was still shining, and we went for a walk by the river. On the way we met a man dressed in black who was carrying a
suitcase. The man turned to my father and asked him something. Father answered in a language that I did not understand. Then the man opened the suitcase and showed Father what he was selling, and Father chose two pencils and paid him. They talked, or, rather, the man talked, and he sounded as if he was complaining. Father, in his usual way, said only a word or two. For a moment the face of the man wrinkled up and it seemed that he was about to burst into tears. I was wrong: he burst out laughing, and Father did, too. His face opened momentarily as a smile emerged from his eyes. The man did not stop but continued talking, and Father laughed heartily.

“Who's the man?” I asked only when we had gone some distance from him.

“A Jewish peddler.”

“What is a Jewish peddler?”

Father smiled as if I had embarrassed him, and said, “A peddler that belongs to the Jewish people.”

“Is it a large people?”

“Not really.”

“And everyone wears black?”

“No.”

Then we went into a tavern. Father gulped down a small shot glass, flirted with the waitress, and complimented her. The waitress did not blush. It was obvious she was used to compliments. After the tavern we went straight home, and Father uttered not a word the entire way.

Mother is packing feverishly. It's hard to know if she's happy. The apartment is very small, but it has a window that faces the park. In the afternoons, elderly people from the old-age home sit in the park. I stand at the window and gaze at them, and the more I gaze at them, the more I feel that their thoughts touch my thoughts.

Father doesn't come. I wait for him every afternoon. He is sick and is away. His absence, like his silence, pains me, and for tense hours I wait for him.

Mother stuffs utensils and clothes into the suitcases. The two suitcases are already full, and yet still she crams more into them. Her movements are full of force and bring to mind a destructive anger.

Later, a driver comes and loads the suitcases onto a wagon, then we climb up as well. It's the first time that I've ridden in a simple open wagon in the city. I feel as though everyone is looking at me. Mother, too, seems embarrassed, for she wears a broad-brimmed hat and sunglasses.

At the station, porters help us, taking the suitcases and the bags to the train. The porters are so tall and so broad that they seem like a different breed of people. Mother pays
them, but they demand more, and Mother gives in to them without bargaining.

We sit in the second-class car and Mother's face is restored to her. She tells me that in the garden city we will have a large house with a porch and a garden. When Mother is comfortable she likes to describe things, and I can picture them vividly. Sometimes the place or the person doesn't bear any resemblance to what she has described, perhaps because when she gets enthusiastic she exaggerates. I love her exag-gerations—they suit her.

The journey passes quietly. Though there are some drunks in the car, there are no fights. We eat sandwiches and drink lemonade, and we gaze at the passing landscape. At one of the stations we get off and Mother buys me an icecream cone. It is pink and tasty and reminds me of another ice cream that I ate with Father in a remote place next to an old chapel.

Then I fall asleep, and in my sleep I see black peddlers like the ones I saw at the riverbank. They are huddled together next to a tall tree. When they discover me, they turn toward me and ask how Father is. I freeze in fear. I want to run away but my legs are tied.

I awake in fright and confusion. Mother kisses my forehead and rubs my shoulders to take away my bad dream. Whenever I have bad dreams, Mother says, “Every sleep has bad dreams. It's only a deception.” But what's to be done? The dreams awaken me even when they disappear. Sometimes they cling to me the entire day, returning at night, and sometimes I have a bad dream that goes on for an entire week.

While the train hurtles on, a man approaches Mother and addresses her by name. It turns out that he is an old acquaintance. He and Mother studied together at the
teachers' seminary, and they haven't seen each other for years. He immediately joins us and they become immersed in a lighthearted conversation. Mother knows how to make people happy, but her openness actually makes me sad. When she tells stories and gets enthusiastic she forgets me, and I feel neglected. Once, she met a friend from the orphanage, and she was so happy that she left me on a bench in the park. “Mother!” I shouted, but she didn't hear me. People gathered around me, asked my name, and offered me candies. I was in despair, and I shouted, “Mother! Mother!” Eventually she came back and collected me.