Tzili by Aharon Appelfeld Page B

was fine and mild, without wind or rain. The grass grew thick and wild and the people sat about drinking coffee and playing cards. There were no quarrels, and for a while it seemed as if things would go on like this forever.
    From time to time peasant women would appear, spread out their wares on flowered cloths, and offer the survivors apples, smoked meat, and black bread. The survivors bartered clothes for food. Some of them had gold coins too, old watches, and all kinds of trinkets they had kept with them through the years of the war. They gave these things away for food without haggling about their worth.
    Tzili too sold a dress. In exchange she received a joint of smoked meat, two loaves of fresh bread, and a piece of cheese. She remembered the woman’s anger and asked for milk, but they had no milk. Tzili sat on the ground and ate heartily.
    Apart from the card game nobody took any interest in anything. The woman who had scolded Tzili for not providing herself with milk played avidly. Tzili sat and watched them for hours at a time. Their faces reminded her of people from home, but nevertheless they looked like strangers. Perhaps because of the smell, the wet rot of years which clung to them still.
    And while they were all absorbed in their eager game, a sudden fear fell on Tzili. What would she do if they all came back? What would she say, and how would she explain? She would say that she loved Mark. She now feared the questions she would be asked more than she feared the strangers. She curled up and closed her eyes. The fear which came from far away invaded her sleep too. She saw her mother looking at her through a very narrow slit. Her face was blurred but her question was clear: Who was this seducer, who was this Mark?
    And Tzili’s fears were not in vain. One evening everything exploded. One of the card players, a quiet man with the face of a clerk, gentle-mannered and seemingly content, suddenly threw his cards down and said: “What am I doing here?”
    At first this sentence seemed part of the game, annoyance at some little loss, a provocative remark. The game went on for some time longer, without anyone sensing the dynamite about to explode.
    Suddenly the man rose to his feet and said: “What am I doing here?”
    “What do you mean, what are you doing here?” they said. “You’re playing cards.”
    “I’m a murderer,” he said, not in anger, but with a kind of quiet deliberation, as if the scream in his throat had turned, within a short space of time, to a clear admission of guilt.
    “Don’t talk like that,” they said.
    “You know it better than I do,” he said. “You’ll be my witnesses when the time comes.”
    “Of course we’ll be your witnesses. Of course we will.”
    “You’ll say that Zigi Baum is a murderer.”
    “That you can’t expect of us.”
    “I, for one, don’t intend hiding anything.”
    This exchange, proceeding without anger, in a matter-of-fact tone, turned gradually into a menacing confrontation.
    “You won’t tell the truth, then?”
    “Of course we’ll tell the truth.”
    “A man abandons his wife and children, his father and his mother. What is he if not a murderer?” He raised his head and a smile broke out on his face. Now he looked like a man who had done what had to be done and was about to take up his practical duties again. He took off his coat, sat down on the ground, and looked around him. He showed no signs of agitation.
    For a moment it seemed as if he were about to aska question. All eyes were on him. He bowed his head. They averted their eyes.
    “It’s not a big thing to ask, I think,” he said to himself. “I didn’t want to ask you to do it, I don’t know if I should have asked you. The day of judgment will come in the end. If not in this world then in the next. I can’t imagine life without justice.”
    He did not seem confused. There was a straightforward kind of matter-of-factness in his look. As if he wanted to bring a certain matter