70

Robert came to visit one afternoon and showed me some copies he had drawn. He had found a book of paintings by Giotto in the library, and every day after work, he would sit and copy. He had changed over the past months. When he looked at me, I saw that a gentle wonder dwelled in his eyes. But I couldn’t be happy because I also noticed that he kept blinking.

“Are you happy when you copy?” I asked.

“I’m doing it willingly.”

“It seems that every artist has to learn how to bow his head before the great works in order to feel the secret of creativity,” I said.

“Giotto is divine,” said Robert, smiling, as though he felt that the word “divine” wasn’t one that should be used.

Because of his smile, I asked him what he meant by “divine.”

We sat and were silent.

Finally, Robert asked about my writing. I was afraid to tell him about the enthusiasm that gripped me at night.

“I’m trying,” I said, and was sorry that I had concealed my exhilaration.

“God sent me Giotto,” he said.

“I’m glad.”

“I didn’t know what painting was until I saw Giotto. He opened the gate for me, and now I know what to look for.”

I hadn’t heard of Giotto, and I expected Robert to tell me more about him, but he was so fired up by his discovery that he just kept showering praises upon the artist. Then he cut the visit short, as though someone was waiting for him somewhere else. Or perhaps he wanted to return to his copying.

—

Friends came to visit me, but not as often as before, and I hadn’t seen some of them for a year. Edward came. I was alarmed by his appearance. His body had shrunk, and his handsome face had softened. Of all his splendor, only the breadth of his shoulders remained. But that broadness didn’t suit the rest of his body.

For years he had known how to give of himself and to be good to his friends. Now he stood helpless.

“Don’t you want to return to the group?” I asked, stupidly.

“No,” he said with his head lowered.

Eventually, he told me that he was thinking of leaving the bakery. An old-age home called Abraham’s Tent had offered him the janitor’s job, and he was probably going to move there soon. He would have his own room, meals, and a small salary.

I felt sorry for Edward, bone of my bones, who had given up all his dreams. Now, at age twenty, he was imprisoning himself in an old-age home. He would work, he would serve, the old people would pick on him, and his bosses would exploit his goodwill. His handsomeness would wither even more, and in a few years he would look like a prisoner, with jail stamped on every step.

“Edward.” His name popped out.

“What?”

“Why are you going there?”

“It’ll be okay. There’s nothing to fear.”

His words dammed my mouth. The warnings that I wanted him to hear from me slipped away.

“Every place has its disadvantages. No place is perfect.” He spoke with a frightening equanimity, as though he had already absorbed the spirit of the place to which he was planning to exile himself.

—

At night I saw Mother.

“I broke through the barrier, and I intend to return home.”

“To what home?”

“To our home.”

“Nothing is there,” she said and flinched, as if she had been hiding that from me.

“I want to once again be in all the places where we were together. The Carpathian Mountains were with me in all my wanderings, and now the hour has come to return to them, with my own eyes. It’s hard to live for so many years alone and exiled.”

“My dear, what you say frightens me. Flesh and blood cannot take such a journey upon itself. First you have to get better and stand on your own two feet.”

“The journey will make me better. Dr. Winter keeps saying, ‘Go, my friend, go.’”

“This is beyond me,” said Mother, throwing up her hands.

“Mother, I have to do it. What I don’t understand, the trees and the cliffs and the hills will tell me. And if I don’t see those marvels, the child who remained behind will show them to me. I saw many sights in my childhood, but I didn’t know how wondrous they were. And so I’ll go from place to place, until I reach the places where we were, or that I’ve been told about.”

“Wait, dear, until Father comes back from the camps. You mustn’t go out on your own. These regions are cold and dangerous. For now, stay where you are living. Let the distant places come to you,” she said, and then she disappeared.