The Empire of the Senses (18 page)

“Lev!”

Leah stood before him, her hair swept up into a bun with little dark wisps escaping around her temples. She looked lovely like this, her elegant white neck bare and inviting.

He tried to smile but his face felt tight and ungainly. Their time in
the hayloft, the fluid conversation, her relaxed body breathing beneath the hay felt strangely separate from this moment, the clear daylight illuminating every detail. The broken capillaries around her nose, the blue shadowy skin under her eyes, her bitten-down fingernails. And yet seeing her so clearly, he wanted her even more.

“Hello, Leah,” he managed. “I didn’t expect to find you at home.”

“Oh,” she replied, biting her lower lip. They stared at each other, and then she bent down to pick up the packages, and at the same time, he bent down to help her. Their foreheads collided. He touched her shoulder, apologizing profusely while she also apologized. Words and sentences flew between them, none of which Lev actually heard, transfixed as he was by her presence.

She hugged the packages to her chest. “Thank you for these. Geza told me about the other day. He must not provoke those boys.”

“He’s young.”

There was an uncomfortable pause. She looked down at the packages and smiled. “The holly is pretty.”

His heart thundered in his chest, and he said a little too excitedly, “It’s for you—I thought you might like it.”

She brushed away a stray hair from her mouth. “Thank you.”

Lev shifted on his feet, the porch creaking beneath him. “It’s quiet today.”

“Everyone’s at services.”

“Oh, of course. It’s Saturday.” Lev gulped, feeling embarrassed he hadn’t realized this simple fact. “The quiet dark houses. Not even a candle is lit.”

“Not even a candle,” she repeated, smiling ruefully.

“You’re not at services with your family?”

She touched her forehead. “Headache.”

Lev stepped back. “I apologize—I didn’t mean to disturb you. Rest, rest—you must rest.”

Her hand slid down her neck, lingering there as if she was taking her pulse. Behind her, the hearth blazed, the room’s warmth filtering onto the porch. She gripped the door frame, holding out her hand. “Don’t go.”

Lev grabbed it; her warmth funneled into his fingertips, up his arm, spreading through his chest.

She pulled him inside.

In a rush, in a stream, she explained how he infiltrated her thoughts, her dreams, as if a demon possessed her. “You are not alone with these feelings,” Lev said, kneading her defined jaw line with his thumbs. Then he touched her hair, her neck, where her collarbone rose and fell with her quickening breath. His hands running over the coarse fabric of her clothes, he felt her torso, her hips, the backs of her thighs—he wanted to undress her but not here with the windows facing the street for all to witness. Leah gestured to the hallway, and they stumbled into the narrow dark space, gripping each other, as if letting go would sever the moment.

Her room was simple, spare, with a few loose floorboards. A neatly made bed in the corner, a rickety table with a small vase, empty of flowers. A diamond window looked out onto the garden, and Leah immediately drew the curtains. Then she turned around, her mouth open, peering at him anxiously as if she was about to explain, but Lev didn’t want her to explain. He swooped her up, slung her over his shoulder, feeling the crush of her breasts, her stomach, her pelvic bone against him. She breathlessly uttered a few words of protest, but her hands slid down his lower back, and she playfully tried to pull off his belt, tugging on the tough leather. He threw her down on the bed and removed each layer of clothing, as if unpacking a precious gift. When he came to her undergarments, she nodded for him to remove these too, and he did. Her body vibrated before him on the little bed, her black hair against the white sheets, her legs parted, her breathing labored. He started to touch the dark softness between her legs when she whispered, “Let me see you too.”

Lev slipped out of his uniform, tearing off his undershirt and long underwear until he stood naked before her. The image of Adam and Eve swam into his head—their mutual shame upon the realization of their nakedness contrasted with his joy. He wanted to laugh out loud, to shout with delight. He wanted to gather her up into his arms and swirl her around the room as if they were the first humans to revel in
the pleasure of their bodies, skin on skin, her hair in his mouth when he kissed her neck, her hot palms pressing down on his shoulder blades, urging him into her without the slightest resistance, as if gravity had released them as they swam in and out of each other, free of the world’s heavy materiality.

Afterward, they languished in the messy bed, watching the sky darken through the drawn curtains. The cat slept in a gray ball next to Lev’s foot. His head on her chest, listening to the rise and fall of her breath, Lev wondered when her family would come home, and as if reading his thoughts, Leah said they were still at services and would be for another hour.

She stroked his hair. “We have a little more time.”

He inhaled her sweaty milky scent. “I don’t want to leave you.”

“Then stay,” she joked, tickling his ear.

Lev stroked her stomach, his fingers running over a raised brown mole above her hipbone. He marveled at the surprise of her body, how different it felt from Josephine’s. Leah’s skin was thicker, rougher, with moles splashed in unexpected places. She had smaller breasts, broader hips. Her taste in his mouth was sharper, more pungent. Recalling their reflection in the smudged oblong mirror made his blood rise to the surface, and he wanted her again. In the mirror, he had held her hips, his chest pressed into her back, her face turned to the side. Her half-closed eyes and open mouth, which occasionally twitched with pleasure. At one point, she opened her eyes wide and watched their reflection. He watched her watching, which caused him to finish too soon, exploding into her. Afterward, he buried his face into her smooth back, apologizing, but she laughed lightly and reassured him that this was only the beginning. There was time to practice.

“Lev,” Leah said, interrupting his reverie.

He pulled her close, their skin sticky and warm.

She freed herself, sitting up and wrapping the sheet around her. “I wouldn’t want you to think—”

He smiled. “I don’t.”

She shook her head, frustrated. “I am serious. I would never do such a thing as this.” She blushed. “Normally.”

The cat continued to purr, nestling up against Lev’s bare leg. The soft fur lulled him, made him sleepy even though he could see Leah wanted to discuss important matters. She told him, twining the sheet more tightly around her, how two weeks ago she had received a letter about her husband. Zalman had died on a Carpathian mountain pass. Of course she felt sad he had suffered such a tragic end, but they had never been happy, not before the war, not even on their wedding day. Zalman. Such a name sounded like the salted pumpkin seeds that always got stuck between his teeth. Leah explained how she hadn’t engaged in sexual relations since her husband left over two years ago, and even then, she barely felt it was intercourse between a man and wife. “He would service himself with his hand, sometimes using mine, but I never moved it fast enough for him—doing this felt like pulling off an old stubborn boot that is too small.” She said this bitterly, with little acknowledgment of the humor such an image evoked.

He waited for her to ask about his wife, but she didn’t. Perhaps she feared any mention of Josephine would immediately darken his mood, make him grow distant and uncertain, and maybe it would.

He reached for her hand. “I also didn’t expect such a thing to happen between us. Of course I dreamed it, wanted it, but I never thought it would. But it has happened.”

“It has,” she said, her eyes shining.

“Do you want it to keep happening?” he asked, already knowing the answer.

She threw herself onto him, crushing her mouth against his neck and chanted into the warm darkness of his body,
Yes, yes, yes
.

11

Otto had lost his voice from yelling because the workers were not clearing the forests quickly enough. The road should have been built before the first frost, and already the ground had nearly frozen into a slick grayish surface, making it that much harder to dig. In the late afternoon, Otto sat down on the frosted ground, unable to speak. His toe was better, although he still wore a felt boot. He took out a cigarette, debating whether or not to light it. Lev watched the men. Their hands bled through their mittens. Dark shadows played under their eyes. They coughed into their armpits while working, hoarse sounds full of fluid. Fewer and fewer men reported to work, their numbers dwindling because of the typhus outbreak, while others just disappeared.

Lev turned away, scanning the massive forest. He couldn’t look at the men. Sometimes, they pitched forward onto the icy ground. The others carried on working, as if this were a natural occurrence. A few times, men died this way, and Lev had to arrange for a burial.

He glanced down at Otto, who still sat motionless on the icy ground.

“I’m leaving. It’s too cold.” Perhaps he could get to the hayloft in time to see Leah. It had become their agreed-upon meeting place. But he never knew when exactly he might meet her, as they had to orchestrate the timing of their rendezvous strategically. If they grew reckless, greedy, her family asked too many questions concerning Leah’s whereabouts, and Leah was a poor liar. Every day, Lev looked for the piece of red string. If Leah tied it to the branch of the birch tree closest to her house, it meant she would be waiting for him in the hayloft. If the red string was not on the branch, Lev turned away, sullen and disappointed, and waited anxiously for tomorrow.

Otto stared moodily at the men, some of whom had paused, sensing a break.

“It’s nearly dark,” Lev said, motioning to the gray sky.

Otto shrugged. He was in one of his black moods when he refused all entreaties. Lev knew to leave him alone, that the more he cajoled him or tried to persuade him, the more disagreeable Otto would become. Hesitating for a few seconds, Lev walked away, knowing that later this evening Otto would come bearing libations, a bottle of schnapps tucked under one arm, bandying about cigarettes among the barracks, full of goodwill, the whole episode of this afternoon forgotten.

Walking back along the river, Lev thought that the only way men knew how to reconcile was over a good deal of alcohol and a shared appreciation for women. The more specific the conversation—which whore did he prefer and what position—combined with the refilling of their vodka glasses, lubricated any resentment that had gathered between them, until it dissolved completely into one of Otto’s tirades on the beauty of war, the bestiality of men, or the inherent duplicity of women. He circulated among these three topics depending on his audience and which topic he had opined on last. Continuing along the river, Lev imagined what Otto would speak of tonight, and already he heard the sonorous tremor of his voice, booming through the smoke-infused barracks, and the lackluster laughs of the men, too lazy and insipid to rouse themselves from their cots.

The river was frozen over, and a group of peasants stood along the bank, pouring beet juice over the white surface. Lev strained to look, realizing the juice was being poured over the outline of a cross in the ice. After they finished, they crossed themselves and then burst into chatter. The girls’ wheat-colored braids, adorned with bows and glass beads, stuck out of their coats. They exchanged parcels wrapped in newspaper. The young men, in wide-cut pants tucked into high boots, waved their hats over the girls’ heads, teasing them. Lev glimpsed a flash of green ribbon on a girl’s blouse, and the lightness of her hair—it lit up the whole scene—reminded him of Josephine’s hair, how even in the dullness of winter it shone in a darkening room. He would come
over to where she sat and kiss her head, his lips running along the white part in her hair. Oftentimes, she would remain still, engrossed in her reading or sewing until the weight of his hands on her shoulders would make her turn around, asking, “What is it?”

He walked on toward the village, Josephine’s hair still pressed against his nostrils. But the smell of something burning interrupted such thoughts. Up ahead, above the marketplace, plumes of black smoke billowed. On the streets, people sprinted between doorways. Windows had been smashed. Doors swung open. Inside houses, pots rolled on the floors. Lev ran past a man lying in a doorway clinging to his shoes, moaning something indecipherable. The infernal murmur of pigeons perched on the rooftops foretold some catastrophe. Lev ran faster, his chest tight and pounding. He had to find Leah.

When he reached her house, the door was unlocked, probably to save the trouble of having it broken down, since the neighboring doors had been yanked off their hinges. He had already checked the birch tree—no red string. The main sitting room was in complete disarray. The hat stand was broken in two. The long wooden table had disappeared. The drawing of Baal Shem Tov had been dashed to the floor, the glass frame in shards. He stepped forward. “Leah?” The sound of his voice vibrated in a futile echo. “What has happened here?” He strained to hear an answer. Slowly, footsteps creaked down the stairs from the attic. He heard whispering. The room was almost dark, as no candles had been lit. Leah appeared at the foot of the stairs. She absently touched her face and then brushed her hair back from her eyes. “Lev?” she whispered.

Lev stepped forward, careful to avoid the shards. His hand rested on his holster. He felt his body tense, but he was useless now. “Cossacks?” The word was as old as childhood stories of men in black, each with a saber in its curved scabbard hanging from his sash, leather boots, and a tall fur hat. Such men had killed his mother’s father and burned down their fields.

She yawned and shook her head. “Peasants. Simple goyim from the town.” She smiled halfheartedly. “It usually comes this time of year. At
Christmas.” She knelt down to retrieve the crushed picture frame, her hair loose around her shoulders.