Tzili (7 page)

And because the weather was fine, and the rains scattered, they would sit for hours by the fire eating, drinking herb tea, listening to the forest and hardly speaking. Mark stopped speaking of the camp and its horrors. He spoke now about the advantages of this high, remote place. And once he said: “The air here is very fresh. Can you feel how fresh it is?” He pronounced the word
fresh
very distinctly, with a secret happiness. Sometimes he used words that Tzili did not understand.

Once Tzili asked what the words
out of this world
meant.

“Don’t you understand?”

“No.”

“It’s very simple: out of this world—out of the ordinary, very nice.”

“From God?” she puzzled.

“Not necessarily.”

But it wasn’t always like this. Sometimes a suppressed rage welled up in him. “What happened to you? Why are you so late?” When he saw the supplies, he recovered his spirits. In the end he would ask her pardon. She, for her part, was no longer afraid of him.

Day by day he changed. He would sit for hours looking at the wild flowers growing in all the colors of the rainbow. Sometimes he would pluck a flower and whisper: “How lovely, how modest.” Even the weeds moved him. And once he said, as if talking to himself: “In Jewish families there’s never any time. Everyone’s in a hurry, everyone’s in a panic. What for?” There was a kind of music in his voice, a melancholy music.

The days went by one after the other and nothing happened to arouse their suspicions. On the contrary, the silence deepened. The corn was cut in one field after the other and the fruit was gathered in the orchards, and Mark, for some reason, decided to dig a bunker,
in case of trouble. This thought came to him suddenly one afternoon, and he immediately set out to survey the terrain. Straightaway he found a suitable place, next to a little mound covered with a tangle of thorns. In his haversack he had a simple kitchen knife. This domestic article, dull with use, fired the desire for activity in him. He set to work to make a spade. The hard, concentrated work changed his face; he stopped talking, as if he had found a purpose for his transitory life, a purpose in which he drowned himself completely.

Every week Tzili went down to the plains and brought back not only bread and sausages but also vodka, in exchange for the clothes which Mark gave her with an abstracted expression on his face. His outbursts did not cease, but they were only momentary flare-ups, few and far between. Activity, on the whole, made him agreeable.

Once he said to her: “My late father’s love for the German language knew no bounds. He had a special fondness for irregular verbs. He knew them all. And with me he was very strict about the correct pronunciation. The German lessons with my father were like a nightmare. I always got mixed up and in his fanaticism he never overlooked my mistakes. He made me write them down over and over again. My mother knew German well but not perfectly, and my father would lose his temper and correct her in front of other people. A mistake in grammar would drive him out of his mind. In
the provinces people are more fanatical about the German language than in the city.”

“What are the provinces?” asked Tzili.

“Don’t you know? Places without gymnasiums, without theaters.” Suddenly he burst out laughing. “If my father knew what the products of his culture were up to now he would say, ‘Impossible, impossible.’ ”

“Why impossible?” said Tzili.

“Because it’s a word he used a lot.”

After many days of slow, stubborn carving, Mark had a spade, a strong spade. The carved instrument brightened his eyes, and he couldn’t stop touching it. He was in good spirits and he told her stories about all the peculiar tutors his father hired to teach him mathematics and Latin. Young Jewish vagabonds, for the most part, who had not completed their university degrees, who ended up by getting some girl, usually not Jewish, into trouble, and had to be sent packing in a hurry. Mark told these stories slowly, imitating his teachers’ gestures and describing their various weaknesses, their fondness for alcohol, and so on. This language was easier for Tzili to understand. Sometimes she would ask him questions and he would reply in detail.

And then he started digging. He worked for hours at a stretch. Every now and then it started raining and the digging was disrupted. Mark would grow angry, but his anger did not last long. The backbreaking work gave
him the look of a simple laborer. Tzili stopped asking questions and Mark stopped telling stories.

After a week of work the bunker was ready, dug firmly into the earth. And it was just what was needed for the cold autumn season, a shelter for the cold nights. Mark was sure that the Germans would never reach them, but it was better to be careful, just in case. Tzili noticed that Mark often used the word
careful
now. It was a word he had hardly ever used before.

He put the finishing touches to the bunker without excitement. A quiet happiness spread over his face and hands. Now she saw that his cheeks were tanned and his arms, which had seemed so weak and flabby, were full and firm. He looked like a laboring man who knew how to enjoy his labors.

What will happen when we’ve sold all the clothes? the thought crossed Tzili’s mind. This thought did not appear to trouble Mark. He was so pleased with the bunker, he kept repeating: “It’s a good bunker, a comfortable bunker. It will stand up well to the rain.”

A
FTER THIS
the days grew cold and cloudy and Mark drank a lot of vodka. The tan faded suddenly from his face. He would sit silently, and sometimes he would talk to himself, as if Tzili weren’t there. On her return from the plains he would ask: “What did you bring?” If she had brought vodka he would say nothing. If she hadn’t he would say: “Why didn’t you bring vodka?”

At night the words would well up in him and come out in long, clumsy, half-swallowed sentences. Tzili could not understand, but she sensed: Mark was now living in another world, a world which was full of people. Day after day he sat and drank. His face grew lean. There was a kind of strength in this leanness. His days became confused with his nights. Sometimes he would fall asleep in the middle of the day and sometimes he would sit up until late at night. Once he turned to her in
the middle of the night and said: “What are you doing here?”

“Nothing.”

“Why don’t you go down to the village and bring supplies? Our supplies are running out.”

“It’s night.”

“In that case,” he said, “we’ll wait for the dawn.”

He’s sad, he’s drunk, she would murmur to herself. If I bring him tobacco and vodka he’ll feel better. She no longer dared to return without vodka. Sometimes she would sleep in the forest because she was afraid to come back without vodka.

At that time Mark said many strange and confused things. Tzili would sit at a distance and watch him. Alien hands seemed to be clutching at him and kneading him. Sometimes he would lie in his vomit like a hired hand on a drunken spree. His old face, the face of a healthy working man, was wiped away.

And once in his drunkenness he cried: “If only I’d studied medicine I wouldn’t be here. I’d be in America.” In his haversack, it transpired, were a couple of books which he had once used to prepare for the entrance exams to Vienna University. And once, when it seemed to her that he was calmer, he suddenly burst out in a loud cry: “Commerce has driven the Jews out of their minds. You can cheat people for one year, even for one hundred years, but not for two thousand years!” In his
drunkenness he would shout, make speeches, tear sentences to shreds and piece them together again.

Tzili sensed that he was struggling with people who were far away and strangers to her, but nevertheless—she was afraid. His lean cheeks were full of strength. On her return from the plains she would hear his voice from a long way off, rending the silence.

And again, just when she thought that his agitation had died down, he fell on her without any warning: “Why didn’t you learn French?”

“We didn’t learn French at school, we learned German.”

“Barbarous. Why didn’t they teach you French? And it’s not as if you know German either. What you speak is jargon. It drives me out of my mind. There’s no culture without language. If only people learned languages at school the world would be a different place. Do you promise me that you’ll learn French?”

“I promise.”

Afterward it began to rain and Mark dragged himself to the bunker. A rough wind was blowing. Mark’s words went on echoing in the air for a long time. And Tzili, without knowing what she was doing, went up to the bunker and called softly: “It’s me, Tzili. Don’t worry. Tomorrow I’ll bring you vodka and sausage.”

A
FTER THIS
the autumn weather grew finer and a cold, clear sun shone on their temporary shelter. Mark’s troubled spirit seemed to lighten too and he stopped cursing. He didn’t stop drinking, but his drinking no longer put him in a rage. Now he would often say: “There was something I wanted to say, but it’s slipped my mind.” A weak smile would break through the clouds, darkening his face. Far-off, forgotten things continued to trouble him, but not in the same shocking way. Now he would speak softly of the need to study languages, acquire a liberal profession, escape from the provinces, but he no longer scolded Tzili.

He would speak of the approaching winter as a frontier beyond which lay life and hope. And Tzili sensed that Mark was now absorbed in listening to himself. Every now and then he would conclude aloud: “There’s still hope. There’s still hope.”

And once he questioned her about her religious studies. Tzili’s life at home now felt so remote and scattered that it didn’t seem to belong to her. On the way to the plains she would wonder about Maria, whose name she had so unthinkingly adopted. The more she thought about her, the clearer her features grew. A tall, proud woman, she gave her body to anyone who wanted it, but not without getting a good price. And when her daughters grew up, they too adopted their mother’s gestures, they too were bold.

She didn’t tell him about Maria, just as she didn’t tell him about Katerina. Her femininity blossomed within her, blind and sweet. Outwardly too she changed. The pimples didn’t disappear from her face, but her limbs were full of strength. She walked easily, even when she had a heavy sack to carry.

“How old are you?” Mark had once asked her in the days of his drunkenness. Afterward he didn’t ask again. Now he would beg her pardon for his drunken behavior; his face recovered its former mildness. Tzili’s happiness knew no bounds. Mark had recovered and he would never shout at her again. For some reason she believed that the new drink, which the peasants called slivovitz, was responsible for this change.

It seemed to Tzili that the happy days of the summer were about to return, but she was wrong. Mark now craved a woman. This secret he was keeping even from
himself. He would urge Tzili to go down to the plains even before it was necessary. Her blooming presence was driving him wild.

And while Tzili was busy pondering ways and means of getting hold of the new, calming drink, Mark suddenly said: “I love you.”

Tzili’s mouth fell open. His voice was familiar, but very different. She was surprised, but not altogether. The last few nights had been cold and they had both slept in the bunker. They had sat together until late at night, with a warm, dark intimacy between them.

Mark stretched out his arms and clasped her round the waist. Tzili’s body shrank from his hands. “You don’t love me,” he mumbled. The tighter he held her, the more her body shrank. But he was determined, and he slid her dress up with nimble fingers. “No,” she managed to murmur. But it was already too late.

Afterward he sat by her side and stroked her body. Strange words came tumbling out of his mouth. For some reason he began talking again about the advantages of the place, the beautiful marshes, the forests, and the fresh air. The words were external, and they brushed past her naked body like a cold wind.

From now on they stayed in the bunker. The rain poured down, but for the time being they were sheltered against it. Mark drank all the time, but never to excess. His happiness was a drunken happiness, and he wanted
to cut it up into little pieces and make it last. From time to time he ventured out to confirm what he already knew—that outside it was cold, dark, and damp.

“Tell me about yourself. Why don’t you tell me?” he would press her. The truth was that he only wanted to hear her voice. He showered many words on her during their days together in the bunker. His heart overflowed. Tzili, for her part, accepted her happiness quietly. Secretly she was glad that Mark loved her.

Their supplies ran short. Tzili put off going out from day to day. She liked it in this new darkness. She learned to drink the insidious drug, and the more she drank the more slothful her body became. “I’d go myself, but the peasants would betray me.” Mark would excuse himself. And in the meantime the rain and cold hemmed them in. They snuggled up together and their small happiness knew no bounds.

Distant sights, hungry malevolent shadows invaded the bunker in dense crowds. Tzili did not know the bitter, emaciated people. Mark went outside and cut branches with his kitchen knife to block up the openings, hurling curses in all directions. For a moment or two it seemed that he had succeeded in chasing them off. But the harder the rain fell the more bitter the struggle became, and from day to day the shadows prevailed. In vain Tzili tried to calm him. His happiness was being attacked from every quarter. Tzili too seemed affected by the same secret poison.

“Enough,” he announced, “I’m going down.”

“No, I’ll go,” said Tzili.

The dark, rainy plains now drew Mark to them. “I have to go on a tour of inspection,” he announced. It was no longer a caprice but a spell. The plains drew him like a magnet.

B
UT IN THE MEANTIME
they put off the decision from day to day. They learned to go short and to share this frugality too. He would drink only once a day and smoke only twice, half a cigarette. The slight tremor came back to his fingers, like a man deprived of alcohol. But for the many shadows besieging their temporary shelter, their small happiness would have been complete.