“If you aren’t going to study then you are going to work and I don’t mean playing degenerate noise in some den of depravity. I mean a real job at the factory. It’s high time you learned the real meaning of work, instead of sitting on your privileged bottom in front of a piano.”
Peter stopped and looked his father squarely in the eye. “You will never chain me up like an animal in some boring old factory.”
Uncle Witold was close to the keyboard now. Suddenly he picked up one of the music books that was on the piano stand and flung it at Peter, barely grazing his head. “The same boring factory that puts food in your mouth and clothes on your back. Ungrateful pup! For that I’m selling this piano.”
“It’s your piano. You bought it. Do as you like.”
Mariasse grew afraid as she saw Uncle Witold’s hands begin to tremble. He looked around and picked up the sheet music for “Troublesome Ivories”, fixing Peter with a cold eye and a cruel grin.
“Don’t you dare,” Peter warned.
“Or what?”
“That’s my property. I paid for it with my own money.”
“Doing what? Playing for drunks and whores, as if that’s somehow more noble than working in a boring factory.”
“If you don’t put it down I swear I’ll leave this house and you’ll never see me again.”
“And go where? For a piece of paper you would shame your family?”
“It’s you I’m ashamed of. For you it’s all about money and your fake appearances. But you don’t care two bits for what really matters, for what comes from the heart. You have no heart!”
Mariasse looked at Uncle Witold’s eyes, witnessing a flicker of stung feelings before hardening once more into grey steel. As he tore the sheet music in half, a sickening rip filled the room and seized Mariasse by the heart. She screamed. Both Uncle Witold and Peter turned to look at her, having forgotten that she was in the room. Realising that all the attention was now on her, Mariasse burst into tears and ran from the parlour out into the street.
“After that I was forbidden to see him,” said Mariasse. She and Gérard were starting to come full circle now, making their way along the western part of town. Neither of them paid much attention to the sun, now high up in the distance, beaming like a lighthouse beacon to show them the way back.
“You were heartbroken?” he asked, hands thrust awkwardly into the pockets of his bell-bottomed trousers.
“I thought I would die. I didn’t see him for months. Then one day he came into the dress shop where I worked. He told me that he was sailing to America and had come to say good-bye to me. I begged him to stay in Kraków, but he said I had inspired him to go away and follow his dreams. He even called me his muse. It tore me apart. That was two years ago.”
“Did you stay in touch?”
“We wrote each other often. The ocean between us seemed to bring us closer together. His letters were full of wonderful descriptions of his new life in New York, but he was also lonely. He bared his soul to me. He had been travelling to Canada with a jazz band and somehow got stranded in Montreal with no money, so he decided to stay. He said some of the churches there reminded him of Kraków and he felt more homesick than ever. By that time I had saved up enough money. I knew I couldn’t wait any longer.”
They both stopped to catch their breath, only now realizing that they’d been walking up a hill for the last few minutes.
“Listen,” said Mariasse. “What’s that sound?”
“It sounds like a wounded animal.”
“No, listen. It’s a person. A woman I think.”
“Maybe she’s trapped or hurt.”
The rhythm and length of the wailing - a desperate moan rising to a frenzied pitch and then falling again into wordless sobs - was clearly a cry of utter despair and hopelessness.
“It’s coming from there,” said Gérard pointing an open wrought-iron gate. “That’s the Old Communal Cemetery.”
“Maybe we should take a look,” said Mariasse. “Just to make sure she’s okay.”
Without waiting for an answer she hurried through the gates with Gérard close behind. Once they found themselves on the well-swept dirt path they slowed to a more respectful pace. On either side grey headstones formed irregular rows like crooked teeth in a gaping green mouth. The wailing grew louder until they saw people gathered in one of the sections. Mariasse and Gérard stopped behind a large oak tree a safe distance away.
A funeral was in progress. Immediately they recognised the source of the wailing. A young woman in a dark shawl. She was on her knees rocking back and forth, almost in danger of falling into the open grave. A man, wearing a black skullcap on the crown of his head and a white and blue shawl around his shoulders, tried to keep the woman away from the grave.
Mariasse whispered. “That man is a rabbi.”
“What’s that?” said Gérard.
“A Jewish priest.”
“The woman won’t let them put the casket into the grave.”
In an effort to hold the grieving woman back, the rabbi knelt beside her, praying in a loud singsong voice, trying to match her own unbridled keening. Three men lowered the casket into the grave with ropes. It was a small casket, obviously for a child.
Behind the rabbi and the howling mother stood a man holding a crying infant. At first Mariasse was unsure whether he was part of the funeral or just someone stopping to watch and pay his respects. He seemed to stand apart from the others, his stillness somehow distancing him from the histrionics. But soon she noticed that he made a slight but continuous bowing motion, something between prayer and rocking to soothe the crying baby in his arms.
When the casket was lowered the rabbi took the baby from the man, who solemnly shovelled a bit of the earth into the grave. The woman immediately tried to fling herself into the hole before the man pulled her back. To everyone’s surprise and horror, the woman struck the man across the face. The man was stunned into absolute stillness and Mariasse found she couldn’t breathe as if it was she who had been struck. Then the man calmly took the baby from the rabbi and stood off to the side.
The three men continued the shovelling as the woman cried longer and louder. Mariasse had never heard a sound like that before. It was a bottomless sound wrung from the woman’s very being. It seemed to make the ground tremble and the headstones vibrate.
“Mon Dieu,” said Gérard, shaking his head. “She’s going to wake all the dead.”
The rabbi tried to help the woman to her feet, partially succeeding before she fell to her knees again and renewed her full-throated grieving. As grotesquely intriguing as all this was, Mariasse kept shifting her attention to the man with the baby. He resumed his bowing. He seemed like a ghost - there but not there - as if he might be the ageing spirit of the child who was being buried. Somehow his grief seemed greater than the woman’s.
Mariasse could not help herself. The entire scene blurred as tears ran carelessly down her face. Gérard put his arm tentatively around her shoulder.
“Are you alright?”
She leaned into the crook of his arm. Her body trembled and Gérard held her more firmly, not knowing what else to say.
“I’m sorry,” she sobbed.
“For what?”
“I don’t know if I’m doing the right thing or not. I’ve hurt both my parents. I’m leaving everything I know behind.”
“Poor Mariasse. I know how you feel. I think sometimes in a way it’s good to have doubts. But you will soon be with him again.” Gérard took a handkerchief from his back pocket and handed it to Mariasse. “Don’t worry, it’s clean.”
She dried her eyes and blew her nose. Then she remembered the two letters, for her parents and for Mrs. Blaustein, in her pocketbook.
“The post office is just opening,” Gérard said. “I’ll take you there. It’s time we were getting back anyway. If I’m late getting aboard the Montmartre there will be hell to pay.”
As they hurried along the lane Mariasse took one last look at the funeral. The three gravediggers were tamping down the last of the dirt on the grave with their shovels. The rabbi was leading the woman away. She seemed to have exhausted herself, with only enough strength left to mutter sorrowfully into her shawl.
Following a few paces behind, as if he was a shadow cast by the woman under the cheerful morning sun, walked the man with the baby. Mariasse thought she could hear the infant gurgling in wonderment. A restless sound mingling with the last echoes of grief.
