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to teach you how to kiss,” she says, and closes the closet door.
    Hugo stands there as though he’d been struck: he has never known contact like that.
    The transition from Mariana’s room to the closet is an uprooting from a world full of colors to a world of darkness laden with the smell of sheepskins. He has already gotten slightly used to the smell, but not to the darkness. When Mariana locks the closet door, he feels more heavily stifled. When the suffocating feeling grows stronger, he rises to his feet and stands near the cracks.
    In daylight hours Hugo can see the meadows where horses and cows graze, the gray fields, and two houses covered in vines. He has already seen children carrying schoolbags, on their way to school. How strange—all the children are going to school, and only I am forbidden to study. Why was that punishment imposed on me?
    Because I’m a Jew, Hugo answers himself.
    Why are we Jews punished? he asks again.
    At home they didn’t talk about it. Once he had asked his mother how people knew who was a Jew and who wasn’t.
    His mother answered simply: “We don’t differentiate between Jews and non-Jews.”
    “Why are they kicking out the Jews?”
    “It’s a misunderstanding.”
    That incomprehensible answer stuck in Hugo’s mind, and he tried to understand where that misunderstanding lay, or who had caused it.
    “Is it the Jews’ fault?” he asked once.
    “You mustn’t speak in generalizations,” his mother answered softly.
    Ever since Hugo could remember, he had tried to take sentencesapart and understand words. Those efforts brought him no joy. His father encouraged him to think in an orderly way. His mother, by contrast, taught him to blend into whatever was happening and not to ask unnecessary questions, because not every question has an answer. You have to greet people warmly and not seek a reward for every deed.
    “Hugo, you have to be generous. A generous person isn’t miserable.” That was his mother’s great rule, and she lived by it. In the pharmacy, poor people received medicine without paying, but his mother wasn’t satisfied with that. She helped poor people on her own. She would visit them in their homes and bring them a hot meal or some cash. To Mariana she used to bring fresh food and warm clothing.
    Not only poor people came to the pharmacy, but also the mentally ill, petty thieves, and even criminals. The pharmacy had been surrounded more than once by policemen and detectives. Hugo’s parents were united in the opinion that if a person comes for medicine, you shouldn’t examine him too closely. Several times they had been accused of helping lawbreakers. His mother kept saying, “We aren’t saints, but we can’t ignore people in need.”

9
    Hugo wraps himself in the sheepskins, and it seems to him that he will fall asleep right away. But that good sleep, which he already felt at his fingertips, withdraws and leaves him awake in the empty, silent space. Again he sees the way he got here. His mother is carrying the suitcase in one hand and the knapsack in the other. The knapsack is heavy, and it is too hard for Hugo to carry it.
    Another life , he says to himself, and doesn’t know what he is saying.
    After they took his tonsils out, he hadn’t known what was taken from his body and how many days he would have to suffer from pain. The people around him, two nurses and a doctor, looked to him like severe and cruel creatures. His mother and father stood behind them helplessly. They looked at him with eyes full of mercy, as though saying to Hugo, You aren’t alone. We’ll protect you with all our strength. In a little while the medical team will leave you, and you’ll come back to us. We know, it’s not an easy experience, but in a few days it will all pass, and you’ll be with us, as always .
    Hugo sees his parents very clearly. The distant past that hides within him removes its veils and stands before him, face-to-face. He is sad that he has been