The Retreat

by Aharon Appelfeld

  And in the midst of the happiness and excitement, a tall man with the air of an independent farmer appeared at the back door.

  Everyone fell silent. “Come in,” said Isadore. “Allow me to offer you some of the delicacies sent us from the plains.”

  “You want to corrupt me too, then.”

  “Do such insignificant luxuries have the power to corrupt?”

  “One sin leads to another, as I’ve always said,” pronounced the man in a bucolic voice. “Today Swiss chocolate and tomorrow tidbits of cheese and the body which I have worked so hard to cure will be beyond redemption again, as hopelessly Jewish as it was in the beginning.”

  “I see we are back on the old subject again,” said Isadora nastily.

  “We are not at liberty to ignore it.”

  “Nobody can call me a Jewess. I have nothing in common with them.”

  “I’m not so sure,” said the man in a milder tone.

  “You can still doubt it.”

  “I’m a simple man,” he said humbly. “My education is as small as a grain of wheat. Most of my life was spent with horses. It was from them I learned the virtues of nature.”

  “Nature,” interrupted Isadora, and pulled a face.

  “The Jews are hated by all, a fact I think nobody can deny.”

  “Yes, because they are Jews.”

  “And you, madam, are quite untainted by them.”

  “Yes.”

  “Let others be the judge of that,” said the man in the tone of a farmer engaged upon a quarrel.

  “I am my own judge.”

  The tall, strong-looking man suddenly appeared ill at ease, as if the circumstances were too much for him. He leaned his hand on the table and hung his head. His confidence seemed to have evaporated.

  “Nobody will tell me who or what I am any more, nobody,” insisted Isadora.

  At the sound of these last words a broad, gentle smile spread over the man’s bucolic face and he said, “I’m not saying a word.”

  “In that case, why don’t you stop preaching.”

  “I wasn’t preaching. All I was trying to do was teach you the lessons of nature, the virtues of the horse, the benefits of a healthy diet, the cunning of the hunter, the pleasures of sport, of wine. It has nothing to do with preaching. I’m not a preacher, I’m a simple horse farmer. I saw the suffering of my race and I wanted to share my experience with them. My experience, madam, is considerable.”

  “But we, sir, are not animals.”

  “And nevertheless, madam, nevertheless…” He searched for words and could not find them. He raised his head with the air of a baffled peasant and clung desperately to the table.

  At this moment it seemed that someone must rise to his feet and extend a helping hand to this strong man in his great confusion and embarrassment. But no one rose. They all sat still in their places as if they were taking part in a play.

  “Who is that man?” asked Lotte in a whisper.

  “That is Balaban, the great Balaban.”

  In the meantime the man turned his back on them. The door closed soundlessly behind him.

  Later Herbert told her the story. Balaban was a Jew, a horse trader by profession. Seven years ago he had bought this place from the Jewish-Christian Friendship League, which used to hold monthly seminars there, with the intention of converting it into a sanatorium. He conducted an investigation and concluded that there were about fifty aging Jews in the district, in good health and with private means, who were a burden to their children. It began as a commercial venture, so to say, but then things grew more complicated. Balaban put out a glossy, confidence-inspiring prospectus and distributed it all over the district. In this prospectus he offered mountain air, medical supervision, peace of mind and a kosher kitchen. His calculations were thorough, but not accurate. The last-mentioned attraction gave rise to the suspicion that he was advertising a Jewish old age home. Balaban took note of his mistake and learned his lesson. A year later he brought out a different prospectus in a different color, with no mention of the shameful dietary detail and, above all, with an entirely different program: horseback riding, swimming, seasonal hunting, organized hikes and what he called assimilation into the countryside. This proposal was well received by all. Balaban promised that within a short space of time he would painlessly eradicate embarrassing Jewish gestures and ugly accents. No one would have to be ashamed any more.

  He himself, by the way, was originally from a small village in Poland. He arrived in the district after the First World War when he was only twenty years old. In spite of his youth he had already made up his mind: no more infirmity of spirit. And the results spoke for themselves. He began his life here as a stable boy, and before long he knew how to look after a horse as well as the most experienced groom on the estate. Three or four years later he owned a stable and horses of his own. His affairs prospered and he invested his profits, like the other natives of the place, in land. He had bought the retreat for a song, and it was here that his troubles began.

  In the first year the experiment seemed to be succeeding. The residents began their day with a run, they rode horses, played tennis, ate yogurt and learned to drink wine. Balaban himself guided them in their new way of life.

  But the venture upon which he had embarked as a commercial enterprise captured his imagination. He neglected his other, prosperous affairs, and devoted himself completely to his new vocation—to turn the sickly members of his race into a healthy breed. True, some of them could not stand the grueling pace and left, but others persevered. After a year of labor they went back to town changed and full of health. Some said that in the first year he had treated the residents harshly, and some still remembered him from those early days and told stories about him, not without admiration.

  But complications set in due to certain mistakes, muddles and misunderstandings. Balaban, who shied away from explaining his ideas in words, got dragged against his will into arguments, began to smoke, play cards and put on weight. His big face, once ruddy with health, grew flabby, and some of the old gestures which he had pulled out by the roots as a young man came back to vex him.

  “Now he’s just like one of us, even weaker than we are. From time to time he speaks of going down to the village in order to recover his strength. That, madam, is the story. Food for thought, madam.”

  Lotte stirred. The account, although many of its details were not quite clear, moved her. There were many questions she would have liked to have asked, but she did not know where to begin. She felt a delicate sadness for this Balaban whose dreams had come to nothing.

  Afterward they sat drinking coffee and smoking and watched the people sitting round the tables avidly playing cards.

  EIGHT

  The next morning Lotte woke up early and discovered to her delight that the bath taps were working and, what was more, the water was hot. In an instant she shook off her drowsiness and removed her clothes, and while the water was running and filling the bath she managed to subject her naked body to a hurried scrutiny. Her body, her secret home, had changed unrecognizably over the past year. She had followed these changes anxiously and tried to cover up the cracks gaping in the exposed parts of her body. The thought that her body was wearing out preyed on her mind.

  Now the secret ravages were exposed in all their nakedness. Her flesh fell loosely about her, as if it had come undone from its moorings. Even her ankles, her only beauty, were swollen. Her legs stood on the cold floor, heavy and cylindrical.

  The hot, soft water enveloped her instantly and wiped the anxiety momentarily from her heart. She drowned in the water with her eyes closed. She lay soaking for a long time and as her body soaked her senses quickened and revived. No longer thoughts but pictures, pleasant pictures from her many travels.

  There were times, not so long ago, when she still believed that her tired body would find a resting place by the side of some simple man in a remote cottage where the bread was fresh and warm, vegetables grew outside the windows, hor
ses grazed in the meadow and the fences were covered with creepers. From her youth she had been drawn, probably because of the literature she read, to these wild outposts of nature, and sometimes when the company toured the mountain regions she would say to herself: I’ll stay here. The man loves me. What do I care about the theater?

  But the simple men were not so simple. They had ideas of their own, crudities of their own, and in bed they treated a woman like a household cat. Nature was not innocent, it appeared, it had perversities of its own. Although she knew this, she would allow herself to be seduced by her old beliefs again. When Julia married George she had been glad to think that she, at least, would be happy. But George, so blond and healthy looking in his youth, an offshoot of the local peasant stock, and innocent as far as the eye could see, proved no different from any other Austrian: coarse, lustful and eaten up with envy.

  She wrapped herself in the big, thick towel which she took with her wherever she went. If there was anything in the world which gave her constant pleasure, it was this soft piece of cloth. And she in turn felt true affection for it, as if it were a domestic pet. This cotton towel, which she had purchased from an old peasant woman in a remote village, had a magic power to pull her out of the mire of her thoughts and bring her back to life.

  After soaking for almost an hour she discovered to her surprise that her tired body, which only an hour ago had resembled a lump of dough, had recovered its shape. This modest joy was unlike any other.

  She had missed breakfast, of course, and Herbert was unable to offer her even a tepid cup of coffee from his thermos flask.

  “Why don’t we go and sit in a café,” she said, but no sooner were the words out of her mouth then she realized her mistake. There were no cafés here for miles around. Here there were only trees, and whatever could be derived from trees.

  Besides Lotte there were a number of others standing around the hatch, waiting for the favors of the cook and the miracle that never materialized. No one came out to serve them. “Isn’t there anything at all?” said Lotte with a hungry smile.

  “We’ll try our charms on the kitchen maid,” said Herbert, and immediately disappeared from view.

  And he was as true as his word. After coaxing and cajoling the kitchen maid and pulling the wool over the eyes of the cook, he emerged with a pot of coffee and a few slices of bread and jam piled on a plate. Lotte welcomed him like a conquering hero bearing trophies and they all applauded happily. Isadora, who was sitting in the corner watching Herbert’s escapades with a hint of envy, did not curb her tongue, and whispered, “Open doors invite a thief.” Lotte’s participation in this little adventure revived in her, as if by magic, a strong sense of life. The tepid coffee suddenly tasted delicious.

  Herbert, in high spirits, told her the kitchen maid’s story in an imitation of the local idiom. She was a farmer’s daughter, it transpired, born in the mountains, who served Balaban as a living model for training the Jews in the wisdom of the senses. He had found her in the mountains and presented her forthwith to the inmates as a jewel of nature—a jewel, moreover, who knew how to prepare good food untainted by the corruption of the city: yogurt and cheese. Now all that remained to her was a little peasant cunning—she would sell you her household gods for flattery and a small bribe.

  Herbert was happy and in his happiness he announced: “A little bribery will get you whatever you want.”

  “But I have no money, my dear,” confessed Lotte.

  “Never mind. A little charm will do the trick instead. A wave of our magic wand. Logic gave up the ghost in this place a long time ago.”

  They sat outside. The light was cold, the surrounding slopes spread their arms, bare and leafless, in a wide embrace. The shades of autumn were everywhere. Every now and then the leaves, remnant of its glory, rose a little from the earth, as if in one last attempt to rise from the dead.

  “Is there a program here?” asked Lotte.

  “Of course, but it’s veiled in mystery. All the best things are veiled in mystery.”

  “What is your surname, if I may ask,” it suddenly occurred to her to inquire.

  “Zuntz.”

  “Herbert Zuntz, the journalist?”

  “No other. The former journalist.”

  “How wonderful,” said Lotte, as if she were seeing him for the first time.

  Two years before he had been fired from the editorial board of Der Tag with no reason and no severance pay. Friends, connections, rights and personal charms, all were of no avail. For a year he fought, and then with nowhere else to go and on the brink of despair he found his way here, to the mountains and Balaban.

  Herbert Zuntz, one of the illustrious names of Austrian journalism, the pupil and disciple of Karl Kraus. Like his teacher he too fought the evils of the time, the corruption of morals and language. In the course of the years he had made a number of enemies, and they did not miss their opportunity when it came. When the time was ripe, they fired him.

  Herbert did not refer to his days of fame by so much as a single word. His open eyes shone with a mild irony which no longer wished to warn or sting, but seemed content to look inward. When he mentioned his home even this hint of irony disappeared and a delicate sadness flooded his eyes.

  “Our children will no longer suffer,” Lotte hastened to console him.

  “Probably not.”

  “Although, in my heart of hearts I must confess, these Austrian farmers are not my type.”

  Herbert seemed to know exactly what she was hinting at. He bowed his gray head like a man whose wounds had been exposed to a cold wind.

  “These farmers, who once seemed to us so innocent and naïve, are no different from the common workingman,” she said emphatically.

  That evening Balaban appeared in the hall again. He sat down next to one of the tables and observed the poker game. He might have been a farmer who had lost his land or a Jewish speculator. His face was thick and unshaven. He too, apparently, was excited by the game. But every now and then he seemed to lose interest, and closed his eyes. And then it seemed that some inner anxiety was forcing him to withdraw into himself.

  “The great Balaban,” said Lotte in astonishment.

  Once or twice he rose from his seat as if about to leave the hall on some urgent errand. But it was only an illusion. He was only standing up in order to approach some other table, where the stakes were higher. Only two years ago poker had been absolutely forbidden. Balaban was of the opinion that poker was a Jewish disease which had to be pulled up by the roots. Billiards, on the other hand, he permitted, as being more of a sport. Now the billiard table stood deserted in the next room. The people played cards to their heart’s desire, until late at night, until intoxication and total exhaustion.

  “Permit me to introduce Miss Lotte Schloss.” Herbert turned to Balaban. “The well-known actress.”

  “Honored, I’m sure,” said Balaban, in the tone of a hotel owner whose establishment may once have known better days, but which still maintained certain standards. “Have you shown the lady over our domain?”

  “It will be done, it will be done,” said Herbert.

  Balaban spoke with the guttural local accent. And like a farmer who had acquired his education in the fields he got many words wrong. “Very glad to have you with us,” he said. “We need some culture here.” It was evident that the sphere to which he referred as “culture” was quite outside his ken. And indeed, he pronounced the word cautiously, as if he were afraid of touching it.

  “I’ve explained everything to the lady already.” Herbert came to his aid.

  “I thank you from the bottom of my heart,” said Balaban, as a man caught in a minefield might thank his rescuer.

  NINE

  The month of December was cold and gray and the rain fell without stopping. The inmates wrapped themselves in blankets and sat in the hall. The prohibition on speaking about the plain, which Balaban had imposed at the beginning, was still observed, like an old habit. A few people stood by
the windows looking at the gray skies which promised nothing but more rain and cold.

  From time to time Balaban appeared and apologized for his failure to get the heating working. The plumber who had promised to come had not arrived; as soon as the rain stopped he would go down to the village and fetch him himself. And indeed, every now and then Balaban did go down to the village. His affairs had gone from bad to worse. Ever since he had abandoned himself to his magic vision he had allowed all his other affairs to fall into neglect. Now he made jokes about the village, his affairs there, and himself. There was a certain bitterness about these jokes, but the inmates enjoyed listening to the rustic dialect and parables. In the end he always came back to the old complaint: the Jews could not be changed.

  “Why?”

  “Because they’re Jews.”

  “What’s wrong with that?”

  “They’re weak. The weak are always devoured in the end. That is the lesson of the countryside.”

  “What can they do about it?”

  They could change. But the Jews would never change. They were pampered, sensitive, slow, argumentative.

  Sometimes, when he was in a good humor, he would speak of his youth, his determination to become a horse trainer. How the horses had run away and how he had found them and brought them back. Once he had met a Jewish peddler and the Jew had taken fright and fled. Not at his appearance, but because he spoke to him in Yiddish.

  But when he was in his cups he became gloomy. Angry with the world and everything in it, the Jews who refused to learn their lesson, the peasants who were stealing his property, himself and the kitchen maid who was wasting the food. His appearance changed too. His heavy, pockmarked face lost whatever gentleness it possessed and turned red, and he looked like an unruly peasant turned out of a bar. But even then no one was afraid of him. Herbert spoke to him tolerantly, humored him, and promised him that things would soon take a turn for the better. His stolen property would be returned to him and the thieves would be punished. And what about the Jews, he would demand, his sobriety returning. They too would come to their senses, Herbert would comfort him, they would learn their lesson and reform. He reminded him of Adolf Wolf, who had arrived in their midst two years before thin and stooped, looking just like a Jewish peddler. In the space of one year he had achieved the impossible. He had changed beyond recognition, he had even grown a mustache, and then he had returned to the plains.