The Conversion

by Aharon Appelfeld

  “We’ll go up and see it,” said Gloria, and together they loaded their belongings.

  “Where do the Jews live?” she asked.

  “Down below,” said the peasant, chuckling as if he had been asked about something embarrassing.

  “Is there a grocery store there?”

  “The Jews have everything.”

  Spring blew everywhere. In his gymnasium days, he had spoken a lot about living close to nature. The history teacher used to call Rousseau “the prophet of the new era.” Back then he and Martin had both dreamt about a house in the mountains, of tending orchards, and of life without Jews and without bureaucracy. But the dream hadn’t lasted long. After finishing gymnasium, Martin went to law school and Karl began his career in the municipal government. They would often recall their dreams and laugh. After divorcing his first wife, Martin wanted to buy a country house, but he sank deeper and deeper into his work, and the dream was forgotten.

  After half an hour of slow travel, they reached the hilltop. The house was a large peasant dwelling, three rooms in the front and three behind. Next to the house was a barn—with no animals—and a woodshed. Until a year ago the old man had kept the farm going, but since his wife’s death he could no longer manage. He was ninety-three and he wanted to live with his daughter. If he became ill, she would care for him.

  “And how much is it?”

  Gloria conducted the bargaining well, and finally, after numerous refusals and agreements, a deal was made.

  “That chapter is over,” said the old man as he parted from them.

  “We’ll take good care of the house,” Gloria promised.

  “May God keep you, you’re young.”

  “May He keep you, too.”

  “To my regret, I’m on my way to Him,” the old man joked.

  It wasn’t so much a house as a kingdom. In the yard there were apple, pear, and cherry trees. The cherries were already ripe. To the right of the orchard was nestled a well-tended vegetable garden, and beyond it lay the most beautiful beds of flowers.

  “I told you!” he burst out in joy.

  Gloria was more restrained. The abundance frightened her. It reminded her of her forgotten house in the village. Before long they were standing by the stove making coffee. Gloria, it turned out, had brought many supplies, including coffee, tea, and spices. Of course they lacked dairy products, not to mention herring, which Karl loved.

  “Where are the Jews? Where are they?” Karl asked in a bemused voice.

  “They’re down below. We’ll go to them tomorrow.”

  Their kingdom was bigger than at first they realized. There was a toolshed, two greenhouses where the old man grew strawberries and a special variety of tomatoes, a little grove of trees, and a field of sunflowers and corn.

  “I’m overwhelmed,” said Karl.

  “Me too.”

  “I’m going to pick you up and declare you the queen of Rosow.”

  “Don’t pick me up so high.”

  The night fell without their noticing it, and they were drunk with the scents and colors. Neufeld suddenly seemed far away, almost nonexistent.

  “I’ve forgotten everything,” he said.

  “That’s just how it seems.”

  “I swear to you.”

  Words he hadn’t used in years floated up. For example, the expression “splendid treasure.” Once Aunt Franzi had brought a giant bottle of perfume, and on its label the words “Splendid Treasure” had been written.

  “What’s happening to me?” he wondered.

  “You’re tired.”

  When darkness fell he stripped off her clothes and shouted, “I love you to the high heavens!”

  CHAPTER

  26

  May was at its height, and Gloria worked in the garden, hoeing and watering as needed. Karl would come to keep her company. Her face had darkened to a uniform tan, and she walked barefoot without hesitation. For a moment it seemed to him that things would stay this way. In a day or two the turmoil of the city would fade, and the silence of the trees would fill his soul. The dizziness of the mountain air stripped him of memory after memory. Suddenly, the years that had passed seemed as if they never were.

  “What’s happening to me?” he kept asking.

  “Don’t you feel well?”

  “Everything seems so far away.”

  “That’s just how it seems.”

  Somehow they put off the descent into Rosow. Gloria would say, “We must go down for supplies. Soon I won’t have anything to cook.” But Karl wasn’t in a hurry, and he kept postponing the descent from day to day. The place captivated him completely. He would spend hours in the toolshed, in the greenhouse, or in the grove of trees that hid the field of corn and sunflowers. The light intoxicated him. At midday, he would tumble down onto a mat and fall asleep.

  At last they had no choice but to go down.

  Rosow lay on a small plateau surrounded by green hilltops that made the town look even smaller. When they arrived, they saw a village square surrounded by about twenty small houses. That was Rosow.

  “Where are you from?” asked the grocer.

  “From Neufeld,” Karl told him.

  It turned out that the people there were observant but not fanatically religious. In the little bookstore religious books in dark covers were displayed alongside used books in German, and next to them were stacks of magazines.

  They went from store to store purchasing supplies. The shops were small but crammed with merchandise. Everyone greeted them pleasantly. Some asked questions, others kept silent, but no one bothered them. Later, they sat in the café and ordered coffee and strudel. From the window they could see their house perched on the hilltop.

  “It’s pretty,” said Gloria.

  Karl felt dizzy and closed his eyes.

  Gloria had many faces that spring. In the morning she worked in the garden, and in the afternoon she scrubbed clothes on the washboard. Karl brought water from the well and hung the clothes up to dry. During her work hours, her face was calm and focused, and in the evening, speech came to her with great effort.

  “How do you feel?” he would probe.

  “Fine, why do you ask?”

  Once he had imagined that isolation would bring a person to speech. It seemed he was mistaken. He, too, had lost the use of words. The mountain increasingly enveloped him in oblivion. It was as if his life had merged with the vegetation, and his memory had vanished. But sometimes it would reappear in a painful burst of brightness. Past visions would return to him and burst into flame—the relatives who used to invade the house when he was a child, filling it with foreign smells. Their joy and weeping and the conversations long into the night. Even then he had known, without understanding the language, that they were discussing painful experiences from which there was no relief except to race from place to place. When he entered the gymnasium, the relatives stopped coming.

  He was vulnerable. How vulnerable he was, he himself did not know. Sudden memories would seize him, digging in and terrifying him. The light not only put him to sleep but cruelly illuminated several dark places in his soul. For example, the frequent, and repugnant, visits to Victoria’s. The sour taste that remained in his mouth after each visit. The conversion. For some reason the whole business began to disturb him. Gloria didn’t know how to respond. She retained the beliefs and customs she had absorbed in the house, observing the Sabbath and never buying pork. When he asked if she thought he ought to go to church, she said, “You mustn’t bend your knee.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because it doesn’t suit you.”

  He laughed, and Gloria felt relieved.

  Now he remembered: when Martin and Freddy converted, it was as if they had swum far beyond him, and he had to catch up. The connection with Freddy had been severed, but he would meet Martin from time to time. Indirectly, Martin had urged him to convert. Once he said, “Conversion freed me. For years I felt I was boxed in, in a cage.” Indeed, in the first months
after his conversion, Karl, too, had felt relief. He thought he was finally on the right course, that he would go forward without delay. Only later did he learn that the church was oppressive if you didn’t believe in the Holy Trinity. He kept hearing his mother shouting at him into the wee hours: “If promotion requires you to convert, then convert.” When they were sitting shivah for her, the house had hummed like a beehive. Many people came to comfort him and his father. It seemed to Karl then that many of them had come not only to console but also as a sign of their resistance to Father Merser. One mustn’t submit, the mourning faces entreated. Despair is at the root of all sin. During the seven days of the shivah, the mourners’ faces seemed to have become believing faces once more. We are Jews, and there is nothing to be ashamed of. And at the end of the mourning period, they cried out: The Jewish people lives! These were the wretched merchants of the center, whose sons and daughters had been ensnared by Father Merser’s wiles and had left their parents’ homes in disgust.

  CHAPTER

  27

  Finally, he told them his name.

  “Karl Hübner.” They couldn’t believe their eyes.

  Then he began going down to Rosow every day. In the little café he found newspaper readers who were well versed in the complex affairs of the Empire, a few money changers, and, of course, chess players. For hours he would sit and play chess. His daily schedule, which so far had been governed by his moods, seemed to settle down. In the morning he still helped Gloria. The afternoon and evening he spent below, in the café, among people who surrounded him with unspoken affection.

  “He’s Gusta Hübner’s son,” they kept saying, marveling.

  Nothing was unknown to them. They knew that Karl had finished gymnasium with high honors, that his parents couldn’t afford to send him to the university, that he had done well in his job and had risen to the level of municipal secretary. Of course, they also knew about his conversion, but they overlooked it. In their eyes he was simply Gusta Hübner’s son.

  Toward evening Gloria would come and they would do their shopping. From his mother’s descriptions, Gloria could identify many of the houses, including the house where his mother had lived. The place was without beauty, and poverty was visible in every corner. But Gloria noticed: the women were dressed neatly, the children played quietly, and in the shops they wrapped the goods in clean paper.

  “My mother never told me a thing.”

  “She told you, but you were very busy.”

  “That’s true.”

  On their way home they would stop in the tavern to sip a drink or two. The pub was always full at that hour. “Let’s buy a bottle and sit quietly at home,” Gloria suggested more than once, but Karl was drawn to the place, perhaps because it reminded him of Kirzl’s bar. Here, too, the desperate faces stood out.

  “There are too many angry people here,” Gloria remarked.

  “There’s nothing to be afraid of. We’re not bothering anybody.”

  It was here, amid the noise, that he told Gloria about some of the anguish he had never mentioned at home, about his complicated relationship with Martin, and the fear that Hochhut had struck in him from the time he had first met him in gymnasium. But these were echoes of past days. Now the house and the surrounding hills filled his soul. In the early morning hours dense light flowed in, and they took a long while to prepare breakfast. The coffee that Gloria made had an inebriating effect that bubbled in him for hours. Afterward, their paths would divurge. Gloria would head for the garden and Karl would go off into the grove of trees, or as far as the cornfield.

  Thus the first weeks passed. Then he was more and more drawn to Rosow, especially to the merchants who played chess so well. He was astonished by the amount of knowledge that had accumulated in this remote spot. Here they read not only newspapers but journals, books of popular science, history, and literature.

  “How long will you stay with us?”

  “As long as possible. I feel good here.” He didn’t hide his emotions.

  What would happen and how did not concern him at all. The days sustained him. At night he would fall upon Gloria full of strength and desire. In sleep, he was closer to her than when awake. The words that had escaped him were suddenly within reach. Like the phrase “with all his might,” which he recalled at night. Sometimes he would wake Gloria up, calling out, “I’ve found the right words.”

  “What have you found?” she asked nervously.

  It was hard to explain to her what joy he felt.

  He got into arguments in the tavern. There were a few retired policemen and soldiers who spoke German and tried to prove to him that all the evils in the world came only from the Jews. They had all the money. If not for the Jews, there wouldn’t be so many wretched people in the world.

  “That’s a lie,” he shouted.

  “It’s the truth.”

  “You should be ashamed of yourself.”

  “What do I have to be ashamed of?”

  “It’s forbidden to slander.”

  “There’s no point in arguing,” Gloria tried to pull him away, but Karl was resolved: one must not suppress the truth; it must be proclaimed aloud. Those arguments didn’t interfere with his happiness. The summer lights enveloped them from morning until late at night. At night they would collapse onto mats together, like children after a day of swimming in the river.

  CHAPTER

  28

  The summer was still at its height: the sky was broad and open, Gloria was on her knees, picking vegetables in the garden, while Karl lay dozing at the foot of a birch tree. While everything was bright and clear, not a cloud in a perfect sky, a wagon hitched to two strong horses wheeled into the courtyard. A man dressed in a long raincoat and boots stepped down from it slowly, deliberately, like a man who had come to avenge an insult.

  “Karl,” the man called out.

  “I’m over here,” said Karl, sounding trapped.

  It was Freddy.

  “What are you doing here?” asked Karl, as if in a dream.

  “I was worried about you,” answered Freddy, a little short of breath.

  “There’s nothing to worry about. We have a roomy house,” said Karl, embracing him.

  “I’m upset about your leaving.”

  “Everything is fine. Here’s Gloria.”

  Gloria rose and approached, an embarrassed blush glowing in her tanned face. Then for a moment she froze, as if caught in a hiding place. Freddy lowered his head, realizing he was intruding.

  Later, they sat at the table and Gloria prepared coffee and sandwiches. Freddy looked more and more uncomfortable, with both his innocence and clumsiness blossoming anew. Karl tried to console him, but didn’t yet know how. He was sorry Freddy had dragged himself such a long distance.

  “How long have you been on the road?”

  “For two days. I’m used to travel. People are always calling for me, but this time I myself chose the way,” he said, his guileless smile standing out more than ever.

  “Whom do you see in the city?” Karl tried to draw him out.

  “Nobody, just patients.”

  “I help Gloria. We have a garden,” Karl said. Something of Freddy’s awkwardness clung to him.

  “And this is how you see your future?” Freddy, never far from a cliché.

  “What do you mean—‘my future’?”

  “How else should I put it?”

  “I feel good here.”

  “And you don’t miss people?”

  “Life is simple here. The mountain accepts you as you are. And it costs very little.”

  Freddy was astonished, as if he realized it wasn’t a matter of madness but of will.

  “If you feel good here, I suppose I have nothing to say.”

  “I feel excellent. These peaks are marvelous. I don’t need anything more.”

  “I guess I was wrong,” said Freddy, narrowing his shoulders.

  Gloria once again assumed the demeanor of a housemaid, of one who doesn’t sit at th
e table but who serves and immediately withdraws into her corner.

  “There is everything a person needs here. I wasn’t happy in Neufeld.”

  “You won’t return to us?”

  “No. I’ve resigned.”

  “I miss you,” said Freddy, smiling foolishly.

  “I’m not going back to Neufeld.”

  “Father Merser asked after you.”

  “I wasn’t very happy with him during the past year. He’s grown arrogant. Why did he baptize Elsa Ring? You don’t baptize an eighty-year-old person. Someone that age should die in his own bed and be gathered unto his ancestors in peace. At that age you don’t confuse people’s minds. Do you understand me?”

  “Could I have a drink?” Freddy lifted his head.

  “Let’s go down to the village. We can have one there.”

  When Freddy got up, Karl saw how he had aged. His bright face, which had been kneaded by his good-heartedness and concern for the community, had gotten very fat, his eye sockets had turned black, and his posture had become bent. It made Karl angry that peasants called for him night after night, because they were too lazy to go to his clinic. What thankless work. Devoted people like Freddy should have good wives, merciful wives, wives devoted in heart and soul—not grasping, selfish wives, he wanted to cry out. He hastily put on his jacket and said, “Gloria, I’m going down. I’m going to show Freddy Rosow. Should I bring something for you?”

  “We have everything we need.”

  The tavern was overflowing. Peasant men and women crowded around the bar, the air was thick with the smell of vodka, and a wall of tobacco smoke blunted one’s vision. Karl pushed his way through and returned immediately with two glasses of cognac.

  “I need a drink,” Freddy confessed.

  “I do too. But, you know, here sometimes you can sink into yourself without it. You should watch your health, Freddy.”

  “I do. I’m absolutely fine,” he mumbled.

  “I wouldn’t get up in the middle of the night anymore. They should come to the clinic.”

  “What can I do? I’m a doctor.”