11
WHEN THE SNOW began to thaw she fled. The old woman guessed that she was about to escape and kept muttering to herself: “As long as she’s here I’m going to teach her a lesson she’ll never forget. Who knows what she’s still capable of?”
Now Tzili was like a prisoner freed from chains. She ran. The heads of the mountains were still capped with snow, but in the black valleys below, the rivers flowed loud and torrential as waterfalls.
Her body was bruised and swollen. In the last days the old woman had whipped her mercilessly. She had whipped her as if it were her solemn duty to do so, until in the end Tzili too felt that she was only getting what she deserved.
But for the mud she would have walked by the riverside. She liked walking on the banks of the river. For some reason she believed that nothing bad would happen to her next to the water, but she was obliged to walk across the bare mountainside, washed by the melted snow. The valleys were full of mud.
She came to the edge of a forest. The fields spreading below it steamed in the sun. She sat down and fell asleep. When she woke the sun was on the other side of the horizon, low and cold.
She tried to remember. She no longer remembered anything. The long winter had annihilated even the little memory she possessed. Only her feet sensed the earth as they walked. She knew this piece of ground better than her own body. A strange, uncomprehending sorrow suddenly took hold of her.
She took the rags carefully off her feet and then bound them on again. She treated her feet with a curious solemnity. It did not occur to her to ask what would happen when darkness fell. The sun was sinking fast on the horizon. For some reason she remembered that Katerina had once said to her, in a rare moment of peace: “Women are lucky. They don’t have to go to war.”
Now she felt detached from everyone. She had felt the same thing before, but not in the same way. Sometimes she would imagine that someone was waiting for her, far away on the horizon. And she would feel herself drawn toward it. Now she seemed to understand instinctively that there was no point going on.
As she sat staring into space, a sudden dread descended on her. What is it? she said and rose to her feet. There was no sound but for the gurgle of the water. On the leafless trees in the distance a blue light flickered.
It occurred to her that this was her punishment. The old woman had said that many punishments were in store for her. “There’s no salvation for bastards!” she would shriek.
“What have I done wrong?” Tzili once asked uncautiously.
“You were born in sin,” said the old woman. “A woman born in sin has to be cleansed, she has to be purified.”
“How is that done?” asked Tzili meekly.
“I’ll help you,” said the old woman.
That night she found shelter in an abandoned shed. It was cold and her body was sore, but she was content, like a lost animal whose neck has been freed from its yoke at last. She slept for hours on the damp straw. And in her dreams she saw Katerina, not the sick Katerina but the young Katerina. She was wearing a transparent dress, sitting by a dressing table, and powdering her face.
12
WHEN SHE WOKE it was daylight. Scented vapors rose from the fields. And while she was sitting there a man seemed to come floating up from the depths of the earth. For a moment they measured each other with their eyes. She saw immediately: he was not a peasant. His city suit was faded and his face exhausted.
“Who are you?” he asked in the local dialect. His voice was weak but clear.
“Me?” she asked, startled.
“Where are you from?”
“The village.”
This reply confused him. He turned his head slowly to see if anyone was there. There was no one. She smelled the stale odor of his mildewed clothes.
“And what are you doing here?”
She raised herself slightly on her hands and said: “Nothing.”
The man made a gesture with his hand as if he was about to turn his back on her. But then he said: “And when are you going back there?”
“Me?”
Now it appeared that the conversation was over. But the man was not satisfied. He stroked his coat. He seemed about forty and his hands were a grayish white, like the hands of someone who had not known the shelter of a man-made roof for a long time.
Tzili rose to her feet. The man’s appearance revolted her, but it did not frighten her. His soft flabbiness.
“Haven’t you got any bread?” he asked.
“No.”
“And no sausage either?”
“No.”
“A pity. I would have given you money for them,” he said and turned to go. But he changed his mind and said in a clear voice: “Haven’t you got any parents?”
This question seemed to startle her. She took a step backward and said in a weak voice: “No.”
Her reply appeared to excite the stranger, and he said with a kind of eagerness: “What do you say?” The trace of a crooked smile appeared on his gray-white face.
“So you’re one of us.”
There was something repulsive about his smile. Her body shrank and she recoiled. As if some loathsome reptile had crossed her path. “Tell me,” he pressed her, standing his ground. “You’re one of us, aren’t you?”
For a moment she wanted to say no and run away, but her legs refused to move.
“So you’re one of us,” he said and took a few steps toward her. “Don’t be afraid. My name’s Mark. What’s yours?”
He took off his hat, as if he wished to indicate with this gesture not only respect but also submission. His bald head was no different from his face, a pale gray.
“How long have you been here?”
Tzili couldn’t open her mouth.
“I’ve lost everyone. I’d made up my mind to die tonight.” Even this sentence, which was spoken with great emotion, did not move her. She stood frozen, as if she were caught up in an incomprehensible nightmare. “And you, where are you from? Have you been wandering for long?” he continued rapidly, in Tzili’s mother tongue, a mixture of German and Yiddish, and with the very same accent.
“My name is Tzili,” said Tzili.
The man seemed overcome. He sank onto his knees and said: “I’m glad. I’m very glad. Come with me. I have a little bread left.”
Evening fell. The fruit trees on the hillside glowed with light. In the forest it was already dark.
“I’ve been here a month already,” said the man, composing himself. “And in all that time I haven’t seen a soul. What about you? Do you know anybody?” He spoke quickly, swallowing his words, getting out everything he had stored up in the long, cold days alone. She did not understand much, but one thing she understood: in all the countryside around them there were no Jews left.
“And your parents?” he asked.
Tzili shuddered. “I don’t know, I don’t know. Why do you ask?”
The stranger fell silent and asked no more.
In his hideout, it transpired, he had some crusts of bread, a few potatoes, and even a little vodka.
“Here,” he said, and offered her a piece of bread.
Tzili took the bread and immediately sank her teeth into it.
The stranger looked at her for a long time, and a crooked smile spread over his face. He sat cross-legged on the ground. After a while he said: “I couldn’t believe at first that you were Jewish. What did you do to change yourself?”
“Nothing.”
“Nothing, what do you say? I will never be able to change. I’m too old to change, and to tell the truth I don’t even know if I want to.”