Blooms of Darkness Read Free Page A

sounds like a punishment to him, and he asks, “Will I be in hiding all the time?”
    “Until the end of the war.”
    He is relieved. The war, he has heard, will not be long.
    Hugo’s questions, asked as he gropes blindly, pain his mother. Usually she answers with a complete sentence or gives half an answer, but she doesn’t deceive him. She has a rule: never deceive. But there were times, to admit the truth, when she blurred things, distracted him, and concealed facts from him. For that reason, her conscience bothers her. To overcome her twinges of conscience, she says, “You must be aware, listen to everything that’s said, and understand that we’re living in strange times. Nothing is the way it was.”
    Hugo feels that his mother is distressed, and he says, “I’m listening, Mama. I listen all the time.”
    “Thanks, dear,” his mother answers. She has been feeling recently that she has lost control over her words. They slip out of her mouth and don’t touch on the main point. For example, she wants to tell Hugo about Mariana and her profession, so that he will know and be careful, but all the words she tries to mobilize don’t help her.
    “Excuse me,” she says suddenly.
    “What for, Mama?”
    “Nothing. My mistake,” she says, and she covers her mouth with a handkerchief.
    Again Hugo is ill at ease. It seems to him that his mother wants to tell him a big secret, but that for some reason she is hesitating. That hesitation makes him talk too much and repeat things he’s already told her.
    “Does Mariana have children?” Hugo tries a different approach.
    “She isn’t married.”
    “What does she do?”
    “She works.”
    To conclude the interrogation, she says, “There’s no reason to ask so many questions. I repeat, Mariana is a good woman. She’ll watch over you like a hawk. I trust her.”
    This time Hugo is insulted, and he says, “I won’t ask.”
    “You’re allowed to ask, but you have to realize that there isn’t an answer to every question. There are things that it’s impossible to explain, and there are things that a boy of your age can’t understand.” To console him a bit, she adds, “Believe me, everything will be clear to you. In a short while you’ll understand a lot of things. You’re a smart boy, and even without answers, you’ll understand.” His mother opens her eyes wide, and they both smile.

4
    The night finally came. It was preceded by a day of house-to-house searches, kidnappings, and cries of dread. The noose was getting tighter, and his mother decided that after midnight they would set out. All the days in the cellar, Hugo didn’t feel afraid. Now, as he is on his knees and stuffing the books back into the knapsack, his hands tremble.
    “Did we forget anything?” asks his mother, the way she used to ask before they went on vacation.
    It’s one in the morning, and they walk up the steps in the dark house. Through the darkness Hugo can see his room—the desk, the dresser, and the bookcase. His schoolbag lies at the foot of the desk. I won’t be going to school anymore —the thought passes through his head.
    Hugo’s mother hastily puts a few small things in a handbag, and they go out the back door into the street. The street is dark and silent, and they cling to the walls as they walk, to avoid discovery. Near what was once the bakery is the manhole. Hugo’s mother pulls up the cover and goes down. Hugo throws her the suitcase and the knapsack. He immediately dangles his legs down, and his mother takes him in her arms. Luckily for them, the sewage isn’t deep at that hour, but the stench and the stifling air slow them down. Hugo knows that quite a few people havebeen caught coming out of the sewers. His mother assumed that on a Sunday night the guards would be drunk, and they wouldn’t leave the ghetto to lie in wait for people running away. From time to time the level of the sewage rises, and the air grows more stifling. While they are trudging along,