“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.”
18
AFTER 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.”
19
AFTER 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.”