7
As we became ever more enchanted with provincial life, Father appeared. He stood in the doorway, dressed in a gray suit, and I hardly recognized his swarthy face.
“Father!” I called.
His face lit up a bit.
Mother offered him a cup of coffee, but Father refused, saying: “I've come to see Paul; I'll bring him back by evening.”
It was strange: I had almost forgotten him.
“And how is it here?” he asked when we were out of the house.
“It's good.”
We crossed the main street and strolled around the alleyways. Eventually we went into the café where I had sat with Mother. The cloud seemed to lift from Father's face, and I saw that he was squinting, as if he were unused to the light.
I couldn't bear his silence, and I asked: “How was the journey here, Father?”
“Splendid,” he answered, and it was obvious that he wanted to make me happy.
One evening Mother revealed to me that Father had been a painter and was successful when he was young, but that later on he had stopped painting. Now, for a living, he taught art at a high school. He didn't enjoy his profession, and most of the time he was very depressed.
“What's depression?” I fumbled like a blind person. Mother explained this word in different ways, but her explanations clarified nothing for me. Much later I envisioned Father pressed between two iron boards and felt a pain in my chest.
I sat in the café with Father. He drank a cup of coffee and smoked a cigarette. It was hard for me to imagine Father without a cigarette; sometimes it stayed stuck to his lower lip. “In another week the school year starts,” he said, and I felt that this burden weighed heavily upon him. I tried to picture him sitting and painting. It was easier to imagine him looking at a painting than painting. When he looked at a painting he had a sour expression, as if there were a serious defect in it.
Father sat next to me and didn't speak. In my imagination, I recalled the places he'd taken me. The chapels, of course. He was extremely fond of these little shrines where passersby stopped to pray. Once, he said to me: “The icons in the chapels are so beautiful, it's only natural that they be used by those who worship God.”
Mother also told me that in recent years Father had become addicted to drink, and that he squandered most of his salary on it. It was hard for me to picture Father staggering and cursing in the streets like the drunks whom we came upon every Saturday evening.
When we left the café, we walked all the way down the main street again. It was clear that Father did not like the provinces. I tried to pull him toward the fields, but he refused, shrugging. We wandered around the houses and the stores. Finally we went into a tavern. Father gulped down two shot glasses and said, “That's more like it.”
When we arrived home, Father kissed me on my forehead but did not come into the house. He seemed a little more stooped, and his long arms hung limply. I wanted to call out, “Father, when will we meet again?” But I didn't manage to — he was already far off.
I watched how he walked. At first he walked in the middle of the street and kept turning his head to the side, and the farther he went, the clearer it was to me that he was looking for shelter from the harsh light in the street. Finally, he turned onto a dark side street and disappeared.
When I came in, Mother asked, “How was it?”
“We walked around,” I answered.
Only later did I feel the touch of Father's fingers, as if he were still holding my hand. I tried to remember what he had said to me, but I could recall nothing. His unmoving eyes continued to gaze at me for a long time.
Mother was making posters for her classes for the coming school year. I was glad that she left me alone and did not ask anything more. Each meeting with Father left me mute, as if he had poured his silence into me. Sometimes it seems to me that I'm like him, but when Mother holds out her hand to me, her mouth open and her eyes laughing, I immediately meld into her joyfulness.
8
I dreamed a dream, and in my dream I saw Father becoming more and more distant from me. He was taller than his usual height, and he towered like a giant over everyone in the street. People stared at him, as if he were some marvel that had sprung up before their very eyes. I stood at a distance and also marveled, but as he came nearer, Father seemed to shrink more and more, and people ceased paying attention to him, and eventually he disappeared into the darkness.
Shocked and frightened, I awoke. I remembered the dream clearly and I told it to Mother. Mother hugged me and said, “It's a dream, it'll pass.” And she closed her eyes. I felt a distance in her words, perhaps because she hadn't heard me out. I gazed at her sleeping face, and I was astonished that she didn't sense that I was awake. “Mother,” I called, but she didn't answer.
And so the night passed. The next day, a slim young Ruthenian girl came to us, and Mother said, “This is Halina. Halina will look after you and play with you. I'm starting to teach.”
Mother showed Halina the kitchen and the bedroom and said, “Paul loves to take walks. Take him for walks in the streets and in the fields.” Then she picked up her briefcase, kissed me on my forehead, and left. I was in shock, and I didn't see her go out.
My mother tongue was German, and Halina spoke Ruthenian. She knew a few words of German and laughingly ticked them off on her fingers.
I stared at her, and it seemed that this was still the dream from the night before, that I was alone in the world among strangers, and that the person who had been brought to take care of me spoke a language that I didn't understand. “Get out of here,” I wanted to shout, but I choked and burst into tears. Halina tried to calm me. She cavorted and jumped up and down, she imitated birds and frogs, but the tears that were stored in me grew stronger and stronger. To distract me, she knelt down and wept with me, but even this ruse did not calm me.
I stood there and wept, and the tears seemed to flow back into me. Eventually I grew tired and fell asleep on the floor. When I awoke and saw Halina, I let out a shout. Halina must have been frightened, because she took me outside. “Take me to Mother! I want my mother!” I yelled, drumming my legs on the ground. Unfamiliar neighbors gathered around and tried to calm me, but I was so immersed in my tears that their every word only stoked my rage. Eventually they said to Halina: “There's no choice, take him to his mother, take him to the school.”
I wailed all the way to the school. Everything was a blur, but I did see the two-story building and the yard full of noisy children. My crying amused them, and they made fun of me. Halina scolded them and pulled me toward the teachers' room.
Mother saw me and was shocked. In her panic she let out a cry that sounded like she was choking. I was completely overcome with weeping and anger, and I lay on the floor, kicking my legs. Mother knelt and said, “I'm here, my love.” The words barely penetrated my ears. Finally I got to my feet and dragged her outside. Mother didn't resist but let herself be dragged along behind me. I saw she was clenching her jaw, but she didn't rebuke me. The entire way home she tried to distract me by saying things to me, and at the kiosk she bought me an ice cream. Halina stood as if she had been reprimanded, ready to do as she was told. Mother asked her something in her language, and Halina shrugged and said, “What could I do?”
Halina went on her way, and Mother and I entered the house. Mother sat by the table and said nothing of my behavior. I felt that she was waiting for me to come to her and apologize, but something in me refused to do this. Mother went to prepare lunch and I sat on the floor. Suddenly I heard her say, “You'll have to get used to it.” To get used to it—I'd already heard this cold expression, but this time it sounded like ice falling from the roof in the winter.