Free Blooms of Darkness by Jeffrey M. Green, Aharon Appelfeld Page A

his mind. I’ll tell her that I was cold, that the closet froze my legs . That sudden thought casts a shadow over his coziness.
    The day grows darker. Mariana wakes up in a panic. “Darling, we slept too long.” She speaks to him as if to a member of her household, not someone who has slept in her bed for the first time. “Now we’ve got to get dressed. Mariana has to start working in a little while.”
    Mariana quickly puts her clothes on, makes herself up. Remembering that Hugo hasn’t eaten lunch, she rushes to bring him soup. There isn’t any more soup, but she brings thin sandwiches decorated with vegetables. “I starved my darling. Now let him eat his fill,” she says, kneeling down and kissinghim on the face. Mariana kisses hard, and sometimes she also bites.
    “I’m sorry you have to go back into the closet. Don’t worry, Mariana won’t forget you. She knows it’s very cold there, but what can she do? She’s got to work. Without work, she has no food, she has no house, she can’t support her mother. You understand Mariana, right?” She kisses him again. Hugo doesn’t restrain himself this time. He takes her hand and kisses it.
    Soon a man’s voice is heard in Mariana’s room. The voice is stern. Mariana is ordered to change the sheets, and she does it in good spirits, joking with him and saying, “You’re wrong to suspect me. I change the sheets and pillowcases after every customer. That’s the basis of all trust. My job is to give enjoyment, not unpleasantness. I’m changing them so you’ll feel good.”
    The man doesn’t stay in Mariana’s room for long. When he goes, she opens the closet door, and the heat of her room comes into the cold closet. Hugo wants to get up and thank her, but he restrains himself.
    The two pairs of pajamas he is wearing, the hat, and the heat that comes from Mariana’s room finally warm him, and he waits for sleep to come and gather him up. He manages to hear another man come in, who immediately announces that it is very cold outside. He has been on watch for five straight hours, and it’s a good thing that’s over.
    “Did you always keep guard?” Mariana asks.
    “I’ve already been on all sorts of disgusting missions. Guarding an installation isn’t the worst thing of all.”
    “Poor guy.”
    “A soldier isn’t a poor guy,” he corrects her. “A soldier does his duty.”
    “Right,” says Mariana.
    Then he tells her about funny letters that were sent from home, about the strange packages that reach the soldiers fromparents and grandparents, and about a soldier who received a pair of slippers. It’s clear he needs someone to listen to him, and he has found a ready ear.
    Hugo eavesdrops and eavesdrops, gets tired, and falls asleep.

17
    In Hugo’s dream he sees Otto. At first sight, no change has taken place in him. The same skepticism and the same pessimism that he inherited from his mother are spread across his face. Only the pale pink of his narrow cheeks has turned brown, gotten thicker, giving him the look of a farmer. “Don’t you know me?” asks Hugo.
    Hearing his question, Otto smiles, and suntanned creases spread across his forehead and cheeks.
    “I’m Hugo, don’t you recognize me?” He makes an effort to emphasize the words.
    “What do you want from me?” Otto shrugs his shoulders. Hugo recognizes that gesture very well, but at home it was accompanied by a few swallowed words of pessimistic justification. Now it’s a silent twitch.
    “I have come from far away to see you. I miss you.” Hugo tries to rouse him from his forgetfulness.
    What do you want from me? Otto’s gaze rejects any further approach.
    Hugo sits and observes him: a peasant lad, with loosely fitting clothes, shoes made of coarse leather, and leggings wrapped around his calves. “If you deny me, I’ll go on my way.” He finds the words to say to him.
    Otto responds to this appeal by lowering his head, as though he has grasped that it’s a question of bad