CHAPTER

25

Karl bought tickets for Cracow. Once the train got under way, the conductor traced their route on the map, and to Karl’s surprise he found Rosow. “Gloria,” he called out in excitement. “It isn’t every day that a man passes by his mother’s native village. What’s the hurry? Let’s get off and see it.” Gloria was slow to respond. She was still immersed in the abandoned house, still mourning all that she had left behind. She didn’t quite grasp what was happening around her.

Karl poured a drink, and the darkness that had clung to him for so many months abruptly abandoned him. He was glad to be leaving Neufeld. As in his distant youth, he felt that his life was advancing into a new phase.

“Gloria,” he called out. “We’ve left the prison.”

They were traveling second class, a mixed throng of Jews and gentiles. Fortunately, they had found two seats together and could ignore the others. Gloria was stunned. The swiftness of the last days had frightened her, and she cried and blamed herself. Karl assured her again that there was nothing to worry about. Life in the provinces was quiet, and after resting they would set out on extended journeys, like those he and Martin had made during their summer vacations.

Had it not been for a tiny incident, fatigue would have overcome them and they would have fallen asleep. But as it happened, one of the Jews, a man in his sixties, not unsympathetic looking, approached Karl and asked where he was going. The question was completely ordinary, the kind one Jew casually asks another. But Karl was annoyed. “That’s my business,” he snapped.

“I meant no harm.” The Jew was stunned.

“I don’t care to answer your question,” said Karl.

“You’re a strange one,” said the Jew, who went sadly on his way.

After a day and a half, the train finally stopped in Rosow. Together Karl and Gloria took their suitcases and crates and descended to the platform. Peasants in Ruthenian costume dragged sacks of grain to the freight car. Other peasants rushed to take seats in the third-class car. The station was small and made of wood, and now, after the long winter, the beams were covered with moss and mildew.

“I don’t understand a word I hear,” said Karl gaily, as if he had reached an unknown land.

“And I understand every word,” chuckled Gloria.

Karl was moved by the light, the tall trees, and the crisp air. The peasants who had come on the train loaded the wares they had bought in the city onto wagons that had come for them and then began the climb up the mountain. The station soon emptied.

“Where is the stationmaster?” Karl wondered.

“We’ll find him,” said Gloria, like someone who has returned to a familiar place.

Soon a tall peasant arrived wearing a red cap. He turned out to be the stationmaster. Gloria asked him about the place, and he answered her in a tumult of words. Unlike the railway clerks in Neufeld, his uniform was sloppy and smelled of manure. Evidently he had just come in from the fields and would soon return to them. His job in the station was only part-time.

“What did he say?” Karl asked after the man went away.

“He said we’d do better to ask the Jews. They know everything.”

“The Jews, the Jews,” Karl hummed. Then he added, “I would like to rest on one of these hills for a while.” Gloria spread a cloth on the ground and prepared cheese and egg sandwiches. Karl noticed: when she had spoken with the stationmaster, her face had changed and she resembled the peasant women who had just left the station.

“How long has it been since you last spoke Ruthenian?”

“Since I left my parents’ house.”

“And you understand every word?”

“It’s my mother tongue. You don’t forget that.”

Later, for some reason, he asked, “Is Ruthenian a hard language?”

“The people who speak it understand it very well,” she teased.

Karl smiled. He hadn’t expected an answer like that.

Meanwhile, a wagon entered the station courtyard. Gloria greeted the driver and asked if there were any vacant houses. The peasant pointed to a solitary house on the hilltop across the way. Karl shouted, “That’s it!”

“We’ll go up and see it,” said Gloria, and together they loaded their belongings.

“Where do the Jews live?” she asked.

“Down below,” said the peasant, chuckling as if he had been asked about something embarrassing.

“Is there a grocery store there?”

“The Jews have everything.”

Spring blew everywhere. In his gymnasium days, he had spoken a lot about living close to nature. The history teacher used to call Rousseau “the prophet of the new era.” Back then he and Martin had both dreamt about a house in the mountains, of tending orchards, and of life without Jews and without bureaucracy. But the dream hadn’t lasted long. After finishing gymnasium, Martin went to law school and Karl began his career in the municipal government. They would often recall their dreams and laugh. After divorcing his first wife, Martin wanted to buy a country house, but he sank deeper and deeper into his work, and the dream was forgotten.

After half an hour of slow travel, they reached the hilltop. The house was a large peasant dwelling, three rooms in the front and three behind. Next to the house was a barn—with no animals—and a woodshed. Until a year ago the old man had kept the farm going, but since his wife’s death he could no longer manage. He was ninety-three and he wanted to live with his daughter. If he became ill, she would care for him.

“And how much is it?”

Gloria conducted the bargaining well, and finally, after numerous refusals and agreements, a deal was made.

“That chapter is over,” said the old man as he parted from them.

“We’ll take good care of the house,” Gloria promised.

“May God keep you, you’re young.”

“May He keep you, too.”

“To my regret, I’m on my way to Him,” the old man joked.

It wasn’t so much a house as a kingdom. In the yard there were apple, pear, and cherry trees. The cherries were already ripe. To the right of the orchard was nestled a well-tended vegetable garden, and beyond it lay the most beautiful beds of flowers.

“I told you!” he burst out in joy.

Gloria was more restrained. The abundance frightened her. It reminded her of her forgotten house in the village. Before long they were standing by the stove making coffee. Gloria, it turned out, had brought many supplies, including coffee, tea, and spices. Of course they lacked dairy products, not to mention herring, which Karl loved.

“Where are the Jews? Where are they?” Karl asked in a bemused voice.

“They’re down below. We’ll go to them tomorrow.”

Their kingdom was bigger than at first they realized. There was a toolshed, two greenhouses where the old man grew strawberries and a special variety of tomatoes, a little grove of trees, and a field of sunflowers and corn.

“I’m overwhelmed,” said Karl.

“Me too.”

“I’m going to pick you up and declare you the queen of Rosow.”

“Don’t pick me up so high.”

The night fell without their noticing it, and they were drunk with the scents and colors. Neufeld suddenly seemed far away, almost nonexistent.

“I’ve forgotten everything,” he said.

“That’s just how it seems.”

“I swear to you.”

Words he hadn’t used in years floated up. For example, the expression “splendid treasure.” Once Aunt Franzi had brought a giant bottle of perfume, and on its label the words “Splendid Treasure” had been written.

“What’s happening to me?” he wondered.

“You’re tired.”

When darkness fell he stripped off her clothes and shouted, “I love you to the high heavens!”