“Mother.”
“What?”
“When is Father coming back?”
“I don't know.”
We ate dinner in silence. A wall of silence had suddenly sprung up between Mother and me. Toward the end of the meal, Mother tried to placate me, but I felt that her words came from her lips and not from her heart. Before going to sleep she said, “I have to go to work. I have no choice. You're a big boy and you understand.”
When I didn't respond she began to cry. In the city she would sometimes cry over Father's behavior, about his wastefulness and the times he didn't come home. But this was a different kind of weeping; it was sharper and more bitter, as if she were saying, “You, too? You're ganging up with your father so as to hurt me?”
I didn't know what to do, and I knelt down.
“Don't make it so hard for me,” she implored.
“I won't make it hard.”
“I'm a new teacher and everyone's watching me.”
“I won't cry, I promise.”
Mother dried her eyes. Her face, which had become swollen from her tears, returned to itself, and she said, “What can I do? I have to go out to work. There's no one to support us.”
Her words sounded rehearsed, but the more she said, the clearer it became that I would not be able to stop the nanny from coming the next day. So as not to show how much it hurt me and to please her, I said, “Don't worry about it, Mother. I'll go to the park with Halina.”
9
The next day I stood by the door and said good-bye to Mother. I did not cry. I felt the anguish of parting later, in the bedroom, amidst the rumpled bed and scattered clothes. It was a sunny day, and the yard behind the house was filled with light. We went out, and Halina immediately began to show me her wonders: she walked on her hands and then made noises like the cawing of crows; she imitated sheep and cows, frogs and cuckoos. And for a moment she seemed to be not a person but an amazing animal that knew how to do everything that animals can do: to climb trees nimbly, to crawl, to leap over fences, and to fly. Halina lost no time in trying to teach me her skills, but I was far from agile and scarcely capable of producing a single whistle.
Then we rolled in the grass. Halina was slender and very nimble. I tried hard to catch her, but she ran fast and could hop like a rabbit. I stared at her and I knew: I would never be able to do the same.
And so the day passed. The pain of parting from Mother had pierced through me, but Halina was so entertaining that as the time passed I no longer felt it. When Mother returned home, I was playing marbles with Halina and I didn't hear her footsteps. She came in, immediately threw her briefcase onto the floor, and sat down on the sofa. As she stretched out and leaned back, she said, “How was it?”
“We played.”
“You didn't take a walk?”
“We took a walk.”
The following day Halina repeated her tricks. We had a midmorning snack, then we left for a walk along the main street, and from there we went down to the market. Now I saw the Ruthenian peasant women up close. They had spread out their vegetables and fruits on sacking and on low stalls. Some of their fowl were trussed up, and most were in cages. I saw them and it pained me.
And so the morning passed. Halina would point to something and ask me its name in German. She found it hard to pronounce the words that I taught her. Everything amused her and she laughed. I found it hard to laugh, even when I was rolling in the grass.
Mother came back from the school tired, her face as pale as chalk. She told me about the children who came from the villages, who found it hard to learn and were disruptive. The vestiges of anger could still be seen in her face, and for a moment she closed her eyes and rested her head on the back of the chair.
We ate a late lunch on the porch. At this time of day, the porch was still filled with light. I wanted to make Mother happy, but I wasn't sure how. I told her that I was at the market but didn't tell her about the trussed chickens so as not to make her sad.
In the afternoon we stayed in the house. Mother lay on the bed, a cloth to her forehead. The headaches that she used to get in the city had now returned, with greater ferocity. She lay without uttering a sound.
When the light dimmed I went outside and approached the yard that faced our backyard, where the bearded Jews would gather. Up close, I saw that they were not only different in the way they dressed but in their movements, too. They seemed to have a secret, and to move this secret from hiding place to hiding place. When the secret was well hidden they went inside to pray. Their prayer was noisy and sometimes they shouted. It didn't go on for long, and afterward they gathered again in the yard. Darkness fell and blackened their faces. I very much wanted to go in there and touch their secret, but I was afraid. I feared that if they touched me, I would get a rash, like the one I'd had in the winter.
I went back and asked Mother about the bearded Jews, and she explained to me that they were old Jews, and that their way of life was different from ours. It was hard for me to really understand her and yet I did pick up some of what she'd said. Mother was so occupied with things at school that her heart, I felt, was no longer with me. She was up till late at night, correcting exercise books and preparing posters. Sometimes she fell asleep in her clothes, without putting out the light.
Finally, I summoned up the courage to go into the yard of the bearded Jews. Surprised, they gathered around me and asked what my name was and where I lived. I told them my name and pointed to the house.
“You live right next to us,” they said in amazement. One of them took a piece of candy out of his coat pocket and gave it to me. From up close, they were not so short. They spoke a jumbled language, with a strange pronunciation, and they swallowed their words. But I still understood some of what they were saying.
“Where are you from?” one of them asked.
I told him.
“And how long will you live here?”
“Always.”
When they heard this, they were amused, as if I had told them something funny. “And what are you doing?” I asked, and was immediately taken aback by my own question.
“We are praying. Do you want to pray?”
“I don't know how.”
They stared at me and I stared back at them. Eventually one of them said to me, “Go back home, child, your mother must be worried.”
I went back to the fence, bent down, and put a leg over the post. I was in our yard. It was so different from theirs, it was as if I had returned from another city.
I told Mother about the visit. She lifted her head up from the notebooks and did not scold me.
“Are they Jews?” I asked, even though she had told me that they were.
“That's right.”
“And what's the difference between the old Jews and the new Jews?”
“The old Jews believe in God and pray to him.”
“And new Jews don't believe in God?”
“No.”
Usually when Mother explained something she would go into detail, but this time she made do with one word and then buried her head in the pile of notebooks. Ever since she'd started teaching she'd become tired and distracted, and I felt that her enthusiasm had been dampened. But she kept repeating that one can't be tough with the village children, for their lives were harder than ours.
10
Yesterday Mother turned twenty-nine, and the two of us celebrated her birthday on the porch, at the round table that was covered with a white tablecloth. Mother was in high spirits; she lifted a glass of wine and made a toast: “To living!”