Sholom Shapiro’s half of the conversation is missing.
— Over here, Father.
— Here… behind the commode, next to the sofa…
— No… just idling away the time… I was having myself a smoke…
— Hiding? What for?
— Ah… perhaps so… hiding, eh? I rather like that…
— No. I am not tired. It is agreeable here in the dark. The forest — the croaking of the frogs — how dear our native land is! And meanwhile winter has set in with a vengeance. I declare, you haven’t left a leaf on the trees…
— I have had quite enough to eat.
— No, Father. I am absolutely sated — and besides, Stefa has brought me a samovar and some cakes. You should see how she cried and crossed herself and shook all over at the sight of me! And how she bent to kiss my hand… what on earth, my dears, were you so worried about?
— My word! Is it that, then?
— So that’s it! It had not occurred to me.
— That is certainly so… I can’t deny that they have a claim on it too…
— Well, Father, I simply had no idea what the great fuss was all about. Mrazhik actually went down on his knees, doffed his cap, carried Linka in his arms from the railway car to the carriage, and covered us with wraps like royalty…
— Church bells?
— So I do… what a simpleton I am, dearest Papa! And here I was convinced that it was a sign of how much they missed us… of how much they loved us…
— No doubt. But not enough to make them carry on in such a fashion.
— Lights in the village? Why, so there are…
— My word… I declare…
— Of course. It is their Holy Land too — there is no denying that — you don’t know how right you are! Jerusalem and all the rest of it… I am quite willing to grant them their fair share of it… but still — such excitement — why, they even tried kissing the tails of my coat…
— No, Papa, I don’t feel the slightest fatigue anymore. It has dissolved quite away in this damp clime of ours, this swamp air… How cozy it is by the fire! The trains are not heated, you know; the people on them are supposed to warm each other, but you have to expend a great deal of warmth before you get any back… which is why this undemanding fire is so wonderful — the whole last leg of our trip I kept myself going by imagining coming home to it — you are looking at a happy man…
— Yes, happy. When the train pulled out of Cracow, and I knew that we would soon be home, and the sun began to dip through the branches, and the fields stretched away to the horizon beyond the railroad tracks that converged from all directions, and I saw the wooden sign of our village pointing toward the black waters of the Vistula… upon my soul, I felt as if I had emerged from a dark tunnel into freedom, as if I had returned from a journey through the earth…
— Through the earth… I remember that when we were children, after Grandfather passed away, you once told us a story about the dead… about how, at the End of Days, at the Resurrection, the Christians would rise from their graves where they were, but we Jews would crawl through underground caverns and come out in the Land of Israel… which is just what I’ve been doing these past few days, but in the opposite direction — from there to here — cavern-crawling and turning over in many graves — as though traveling not upon the globe but deep beneath its surface — with the coaches groaning and the locomotive wailing and smoke and soot and great showers of sparks by night — from tunnel to tunnel and from one remote station to another — each time the same flicker of gas lamps, and the same onrush of blackness, and then the same total nothing — and wherever you looked in the foggy distance, our flour mills standing like titans — talk of resurrection! I am happy, Father; why, we nearly came to grief…
— To grief…
— I mean just that.
— No, you are exhausted, Father. You look drawn. Go to sleep now. Just fetch me another cigarette before you do, and here, in this corner of my childhood, beside the old sofa, I will wait for the dawn. I know myself well enough to know I can’t sleep — I’ll wait for you right here, and whenever you are ready, the trial can begin…
— I mean the accounting that I owe you.
— An accounting. Are you very angry?
— You have every right to be… every right…
— Undoubtedly… every right — until I make you understand — if you can understand — because I fail to understand myself…
— As you wish… are you quite sure? You can stop me whenever you want. Mother has already told me what you have been through these past few weeks, after our “oriental silence” set in… poor Mama! She does not look well. I bit my lips to keep from saying an unnecessary word — one that might betray the fear felt by the doctor in me. What happened, Father?
— When?
— Blood? Good lord…
— In the morning?
— Very well, then… very well… but not now… I will make it my business to look at all those vials and powders before he comes. If I am to help treat her, I shall have to have a good talk with Heshin. After all, you can’t expect me simply to stay out of this; there is no way I can be relegated to the position of a mere observer…
— … if I stick to my corner! Very well, then; but a corner with an unobstructed view. As you wish — we need not go into that now — it is just that I…
— Very well — you have laid down the law… My word, the water is still running up there! By now it is no longer her body that she is washing; it is her very soul, ha ha ha…
— No matter! Let her wash all she wants — it is no affair of mine. She has been dreaming of nothing but this bath for a solid week, as if she were encrusted with the filth of generations — perhaps the water will soothe her sorrow. Hydrotherapy: you can actually find it in the medical books… Just don’t let her fall asleep in it, because she has not slept a wink for three whole days. She simply stewed in the compartment — for hours on end she stood with her head against the windowpane — she crossed the whole of Bulgaria like that…
— I already have sworn it to Mother…
— She is perfectly healthy.
— I suppose she has lost weight; what of it? She’ll put it back on.
— I knew that would give you a fright — but surely you are not afraid that it won’t grow back again…
— She did not do it in Jerusalem; it was in Stamboul, ten days ago. She woke up crying in the middle of the night and found her pillow crawling with them. The hotel had no soap — there was no water left, either — it was a cheap, filthy dive — and right away she began looking for a knife. I begged her not to — half of humanity, I told her, walks around with lice and is none the less human for it — don’t be rash, I said — Father and Mother will still love you, lice and all… But you know how she is — underneath all her smiles, she is as stubborn as a mule — and perhaps she felt the need to do herself injury. I offered to pick them out myself, but she would not let me touch her. She rushed off to the doorman below, borrowed a curved Turkish dagger, stood in front of the rusty mirror, and cut away for dear life…
— I was beside myself too, Father. All that gorgeous red hair lying on the floor with those mortified Turkish lice — perhaps even a louse from Palestine — running about in it… for a moment I almost picked it up and saved it, but by then I was afraid of it myself — and that whole train ride back with her, with everyone staring at her cropped hair — I tell you, it made her more attractive than ever — they were walking up and down the aisles for a look at her! The devil knows why it made her so beautiful — perhaps the way it brought out those high cheekbones — or her eyes…