All Whom I Have Loved (21 page)

During the funeral Father was drunk and could hardly stand. Two monks supported him. It was a funeral without music. Father did not cry but talked loudly. The monks and the people who had gathered did not hush him, but it was clear that his confused talking disturbed them.

The wagon carrying the coffin made its way heavily. Father suddenly asked if there was still far to go, and a monk answered him as if speaking to a child, “We're already at the graveyard.” The sky was blue but not open like at Halina's funeral. I stood next to Father, tired and numb.

The ceremony was conducted by one of the tall monks, who read from a book and then spoke at great length. For some reason it seemed to me that his talking prevented Mother from rising to heaven. Father apparently felt as I did. “Henia!” he burst out. “What have they done to you?” No one hushed him, and he fell silent. I did not see the lowering of the coffin and the covering of the grave.

After the funeral we returned to the monastery. Father had not yet sobered up. He turned to the monks who were supporting him as if to his brethren in suffering, telling them about his journey to Bucharest and about the anti-Semites
who had tried to ruin his exhibition. The monks paid no heed to his words, but Father went on, telling them about Victor, calling him a “ministering angel.” Faint smiles flitted across their faces; then they were serious again.

During the meal after the funeral Father kept talking. He spoke of the anti-Semites who contaminate the very air we breathed. He did not speak of Mother. One of the monks said of her, “She was a noble woman, and even in sickness she conducted herself with nobility.”

“And let me tell you,” said Father, “it's a pity that she married that man.”

“But you had in fact divorced,” observed the monk.

“That is true, but we never stopped loving each other.”

The monk blushed.

Then the monks went to pray. “Come, let's go out,” Father said, gripping my arm, and we left immediately. The last light was still flickering in the sky as we walked along the road, and the puddles had dried up.

We left the mountain that night. At first Father wanted to go to the monastery to thank the monks, but then he decided to set off right away.

“Why leave at night?” The innkeeper tried to dissuade him.

“I still have to get to Storozynetz tonight.”

“The roads are terrible—no one will want to set out at night.”

“I'll pay good money.”

Father drank but did not get drunk. He told me that he was thinking of taking the night train from Storozynetz to Czernowitz; immediately after that he would rent an apartment and begin to paint. “Life without painting is death.” I did not envision him renting a room; instead, I saw him sitting
with his friends in a tavern, drinking and cursing. I had already learned: what Father desired had very little bearing on what he did.

At midnight, before the inn closed, Father saw a wagon and stopped it. The driver hesitated at first, but eventually he agreed. Father wrapped me up in two sweaters, put a hat on my head, and we set off. As it turned out, the road had dried, and although it was a steep downward slope, the horses were careful and were able to brake the wagon when they had to.

Father buried his head in his coat. I saw again the tall monks who stood in the corridor and listened to him talk. They turned to him and said, “Why not join us? There's a large library here, and light-filled rooms where you can sit and paint. Why wander from place to place?” Father gave them a long answer with many explanations, of which I understood not a word.

The feeling that Mother was in the sky and that I was traveling to her in the wagon became much more real, perhaps because the skies suddenly cleared.

“Are you cold?” Father asked.

“No,” I said, and I heard the sound of the word leaving my mouth.

Again I saw Mother as she was during the summer vacation: tall, with long, flowing hair, floating on the black waters of the lake.

We reached the railway station in Storozynetz sometime after midnight. It was empty, and the ticket-office windows were shuttered. Father asked the guard when the next train was leaving, and he answered indifferently, “Just five minutes ago.” Two dim bulbs lit the platforms, and darkness surrounded us on all sides. We had no choice but to go to town and look for a hotel. “I was wrong,” said Father, as we set off.

I remembered Storozynetz well, but in the darkness it looked different. The tall chestnut trees cast their heavy shadows on the sidewalks. We went from street to street, finally stopping at the entrance of a low house with a sign on it:
HOTEL SALZBURG
. Father knocked on the door. A woman opened it, and Father asked her for a bed for the night. She offered us a room with two beds.

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.

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 mutter: “She's been stealing again!” Father is like a caged lion, not beaten and not broken, only growling and cursing himself.

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.