A week before the end of the school year, three weeks before Blanca and her parents left for Winterweiss, Blanca met Adolf near the school laboratory, and they spoke for a few minutes. Adolf’s words had no special content, but they struck her heart; it was as though he had whispered a secret to her. After that, he never left her sight. Adolf wasn’t an outstanding student, but the teachers were fond of him because of his height and strength, and they didn’t fail him. Even the tall teachers looked short next to him. They saw him as a phenomenon of nature, sometimes saying, “Adolf will pick that up. Only Adolf can do it.” Once, he lifted a teacher’s desk up on his shoulders, and everyone cheered him. On the playing field, he wasn’t one of the swifter athletes, but his strength stood him in good stead there, too. The girls admired him but were afraid of him. Sometimes, when he managed to overcome a mathematics problem, a wild smile would spread across his face, like that of an animal whose hunger was satisfied.
Adolf wasn’t particularly kindhearted, but he was always ready to help carry building materials or move cabinets. In the spring he would help the gardeners, and if a boy got hurt, he would carry him to the infirmary in his arms. He was a friend of the principal and assistant principal because they also needed his help from time to time. Only one person was his adversary: Dr. Klein, the Latin teacher. At first he would scold Adolf for not doing his homework properly. But in the end he just ignored him, as though Adolf weren’t sitting in the classroom. Adolf hated Dr. Klein, and everyone was afraid he would do something impulsive. At the end of the year, Dr. Klein refused to give him even a barely passing grade, as he had done the year before. That task fell to the assistant principal. He examined Adolf again and awarded him a low passing grade. Adolf gnashed his teeth and threatened revenge.
Adolf was different from anyone Blanca had ever known, and not only because of his height and strength. His movements were also different. Blanca was certain not only that those movements suited him, but that they were attractive in themselves. Even his way of sitting was different. Two days before her departure for the mountains, Adolf passed by her father’s store, as though by chance.
“What are you doing this summer?” he asked.
“We’re going to Winterweiss,” she replied.
“What will you do there?”
“I’ll read.”
“You always read, don’t you?”
“I love to read,” Blanca said, blushing.
The next day they set out for Winterweiss. Her father’s face took on a pleasant look. The second-class car was half empty, and the green landscapes rushed past them as they did every year.
“What are you planning to study, Blanca?” her father asked jovially.
“Mathematics,” Blanca said without hesitation.
“That’s just what I wanted to study, but my parents wanted me to be a merchant. I’ll never forgive them.”
“Not even now?”
“Papa has forgiven them,” her mother interrupted.
“No, I haven’t.” Her father didn’t give in.
On vacations, her father didn’t talk about his parents or about the miserable store. Rather, he meandered among mathematics books, chess books, and literature. His suitcase was the heaviest of all, because it contained only books.
They easily found a house next to the Danube. Blanca’s father was pleased, and his happiness was evident with every step he took. He swam, sunbathed, and read. Her mother prepared the foods they liked, and Blanca dreamed about Adolf. Even in her dreams she was a little frightened of him, but when she awoke, she would console herself and say, “Adolf is a sturdy person. Sturdy people are generous.”
Eventually, she forgot about him. She was with her beloved parents, and it was summer. They sat at the water’s edge for hours, enjoying the long sunset, drinking lemonade, and being quiet together. Sometimes, in the evening, a peasant would stop his wagon in front of the house and offer them fish that he had just then caught in his net.
“Mama,” Blanca said anxiously.
“What, dear?”
“Nothing.”
The thought that she would have to part from her parents one day shocked her.
7
THAT WAS THE last summer Blanca spent with her parents, and she remembered it in full detail. During the winter her mother became ill, and the doctors promised that she would feel better in the spring. As if in spite, the winter was long, and her mother tried in vain to rise to her feet. Her father promised repeatedly, “In the spring, you’ll get some relief,” and it seemed to Blanca that the tone of his voice was not as it had been in the past. He spoke as though he had rehearsed what he was saying.
In high school Blanca was hugely successful. Once again, her grades glowed on her report card. Her mother took the card in her hands, and the joy that had been on her face during the summer lit it once again.
“There’s an excellent mathematics department in Berlin,” her father announced, as if he were capable of paying for it. The store stood on rickety foundations and barely supported the family. Her father would return home every evening and immediately sit down next to her mother. His look was full of devotion. The store and his partner depressed him to the dust, and only at his beloved wife’s side did he receive some solace.
At the beginning of the next term, the assistant principal proposed that Blanca help Adolf in mathematics and Latin, and Blanca agreed. Adolf came to her house in the afternoon, and they did their homework together. The work was very difficult for him, and when he left the house his face would be red and sweaty, as after hard labor.
“How’s Adolf coming along?” her mother asked.
“It’s hard for him, but it seems to me that he’s improving.”
Sometimes her mother would address him directly.
“How are you, Adolf?” she would ask.
“Fine, thank you, ma’am,” he would say, blushing.
Adolf did do his homework, but he failed the oral examination in Latin. Dr. Klein had no pity on him, and at the end of the term he gave Adolf a failing grade. Dr. Weiss, the mathematics teacher, was more generous and gave him a barely passing grade. Blanca tried to soften his disappointment, but Adolf was angry. It had always been the case, he argued, that the mathematics and Latin teachers had mistreated him. In the other subjects, he did fine. Blanca didn’t correct him. She saw his shame and felt sorry for him.
“The Jewish teachers hate me,” he said, chuckling.
“Dr. Klein converted in his youth,” she pointed out.
“Why does he have a Jewish name, then?”
Blanca’s father didn’t know how to relate to Adolf.
“That boy has no human manners,” he would say. “A tree will grow from a tall boy like that, not a human being.”
“You mustn’t talk that way,” her mother scolded.
“Short people know their place in the world; the big ones always get confused.”
“I refuse to listen,” said her mother, blocking her ears.
That was the way her father used to joke. Sometimes he would describe people grotesquely, but he would then retract the descriptions and excuse himself. Her mother knew his little weaknesses but still didn’t let him get away with it.
“Ida, you’re terrible.”
“Why?”
“Not even one generalization?”
“Generalizations are worse than prejudices.”
“You’re right. I give in.”
This was one of her father’s ways of teasing that Blanca liked to hear.
Spring came, and Blanca’s mother felt better. Her father would take her easy chair out into the garden, wrap her in a blanket, and sit by her side. Her weakness wasn’t evident in their home. The house was spotless, aired out, and filled with her gentle spirit. Blanca would return from school and tell her mother every detail about her day. Her mother would listen intently, to avoid missing anything. In the evening they would all sit and talk. But sometimes a frightening
billow of sobs would burst forth from Blanca. Her mother would rush over to her and comfort her.
So the spring passed. Blanca’s mother continued to feel better, and in the evening she would water the garden and take pleasure in the flowers and the lilac bushes that adorned their small yard.
“Mama,” Blanca would call.
“What, dear?”
“Let me give you a kiss.”
“What’s the matter?”
“Nothing.”
That spring Blanca was very sensitive, and every movement alarmed her.
8
EVEN BEFORE THE end of the school year, Adolf was told that he couldn’t stay in high school. Dr. Klein and Dr. Weiss demanded his expulsion. The pleas of the assistant principal and some of the other teachers were to no avail. The decision to expel Adolf passed by a single vote. The announcement was sent to him in writing, and Adolf, in his fury, burned all his mathematics and Latin books in the school yard, shouting out loud, “Death to Klein! Death to Weiss! Long live freedom!”
Blanca returned from school in tears. Her pupil, whom she had tried so hard to help, had failed. Her mother tried in vain to console her.
“Klein and Weiss were cruel to him,” Blanca said angrily, still weeping.
The next day Blanca met Adolf at school. His face was furious and closed. Students surrounded him and tried to cheer him up, but Adolf rejected their efforts.
“I’m not upset,” he said. “The ones who failed me will pay the price.”
“I’m sorry, Adolf,” Blanca said, trying to take some of the blame on herself.
“You’re not to blame. It’s Klein and Weiss,” he said drily.
Adolf’s face was frightening, but Blanca didn’t leave his side.
“I don’t like pity,” he said repeatedly. “I’ve declared war, and I won’t be deterred.” That was clear in his appearance. The skin of his face was taut, and his lips were set in a firm line—which was exactly what Blanca found so enchanting.
“Good God,” she said when she got home. “Why are good people hurt? Why are they made to fail? People ought to be judged favorably, to bring out the good in them. So what if someone has trouble with mathematics or Latin? Is that a reason to expel him from school? What harm did he do?”
The school year ended, and Adolf was not among those who received report cards. His absence was conspicuous, because no boy in the school was as tall or as broad as he was. The excellent grades that sparkled on Blanca’s report card didn’t make her as happy as they had in the past. It seemed to her that they had come at Adolf’s expense.
“In mathematics there are those who are good and those who are better,” said her father enigmatically.
“Is that why they don’t let students study and expel them from school?” Blanca asked.
“What can you do? That’s nature.”
“Isn’t our motto that everyone should work according to their ability and receive according to their needs?”
“That principle doesn’t apply to the study of mathematics.”
“If mathematics leads to discrimination, I don’t want anything more to do with it.”
“Dear, you’re going too far.”
“I’m completely serious.”
Blanca’s father was proud of her, and now, hearing her opinions, he was even prouder. Her mother didn’t enter the argument. In matters of logic, her husband and daughter were better than she. Every time they caught her in a contradiction, she would say, “I raise my hands in surrender.”
That summer they didn’t go to Winterweiss. The doctors ordered Blanca’s mother to rest at home.
“I’m sorry, Blanca,” her mother said.
“Why are you saying you’re sorry, Mama?”
“Because of me, we’re not going to Winterweiss.”
“What are you talking about, Mama? I love being at home.”
Meanwhile, Adolf surprised Blanca by inviting her out for a bowl of ice cream. They sat in the busy café, and Adolf told her about his plans. Next month he would start working at a dairy, and he would be making a living. He was tired of being dependent on his parents. A man should work and make money.
Blanca was embarrassed and didn’t say a word. Being close to Adolf’s strength dazzled her.
“And you’re going to go on studying?” he asked, like someone who had himself been liberated from such things.
“What can I do?” She wanted to draw near to him.
“Aren’t you tired of it?”
“In another year, I’ll finish, too.”
When they parted, she, too, felt disgust for the institution called high school, which tortured the weak and raised the talented up to the skies. Her fury burned against the teachers who were so good to her, Dr. Klein and Dr. Weiss; because of them, about twenty students were expelled from school every year. High school without Adolf would be barren. “By virtue of the weak, we are humane.” She had heard that once from her uncle Salo, her father’s brother, who was a communist, heart and soul, and had been imprisoned for a number of years. After his release, he died suddenly of a mysterious illness.
9
FROM THEN ON, Blanca would see Adolf everywhere, in her dreams and while awake. She wanted so much to see him that she walked as far as the dairy where he worked. Adolf was surprised and embarrassed by her sudden appearance. But he recovered immediately and introduced her to his fellow workers. This was the first time Blanca heard the German peasant dialect, and she didn’t understand a word of it. The workers were tall and clumsy, and the odors in the dairy were pungent and stifling.
“Why did you come here?” Adolf asked.
To see you, she was about to say, but then she thought better of it and said simply, “I was taking a walk.”
“Isn’t there any school today?”
“There is, but I took a little vacation.”
“I understand,” he said, but showed no sign of excitement at her presence. But that very lack of emotion enchanted her. She interpreted it as inner quietness, as natural behavior, as masculinity of the proper kind.
Blanca’s thoughts were now filled with fantasies of Adolf. When will I see him again? she wondered. Her grades were no longer as brilliant as they used to be.
“What’s the matter with you, Blanca?” Dr. Klein wondered.
“I don’t know.” She didn’t reveal even the slightest thing.
Dr. Weiss was more merciful and spoke to her like a father. “Blanca,” he said, “you have all the talent and potential of a mathematician. Please, do yourself a favor, concentrate, and make an effort so we can give you a scholarship to study in Vienna. The mathematics department in Berlin may be better, but they’re no slouches in Vienna, either. I don’t have many students like you.”
“I’ll try,” she said to mollify him.
“For the sake of your future, my dear.”
Blanca didn’t want to reveal her deepest thoughts to them. Ever since Adolf had been expelled, she hated the high school, and the mathematics and Latin classes in particular. It seemed to her that the continued existence of that arrogant institution was for nothing but the persecution of Adolf’s soul. She remembered how Adolf had carried desks on his broad shoulders from classroom to classroom, and she felt a stabbing in her heart. That was the gratitude they showed him. Anyone who lacked an analytical brain was banished to the dairy.
“I won’t lend a hand to it,” she said to her father one evening, but her father was so preoccupied with the business of his store that he didn’t notice her anger. “That’s right,” he replied distractedly.
Blanca used to meet Adolf from time to time in the street or near the tavern. He was well liked everywhere, and people gathered around him. Sometimes she would pass him without his noticing her. One evening, on her way home, he approached her and said, “What are you doing here?”
“I’m on my way home.”
“How’d you like to have a beer?”
“G
ladly.”
Blanca had never been in a tavern, although she had read a lot about them. Dim lights illuminated the corners of the room, the gramophone blared, and the smells of beer and smoke billowed up to the ceiling. On a low stage couples danced, kissed, and cuddled.
“Do you plan to study at the university?”
“I haven’t decided yet.”
“All the young Jews are sent to the university, right?”
First, not all the young Jews, she was about to say, and, second, they aren’t sent. People have free will and the ability to choose, and they go of their own accord, not because they’re sent. But she controlled herself and said simply, “I don’t know.”
Adolf didn’t realize that her answer was evasive.
“All the young Jews are sent to the university,” he insisted. “I know.”
“What’s wrong with that?” she asked.
“I don’t know what’s wrong with it, but it certainly isn’t good.”
Logic wasn’t Adolf’s strong suit, and whenever he got stuck, he became obstinate. But Blanca found charm in that stammering as well, and, rather than criticizing his response, she was enchanted, as if she had been shown a wild spot where rare flowers grew.
“I met Adolf,” she told her mother. “He’s working in a dairy.”
“Poor fellow.”
“I prefer the dairy to high school. In the dairy there’s no distinction between one person and another. There people aren’t tested on their knowledge of mathematics and Latin every week.”
“You’re right, dear.” Her mother knew in her heart that Blanca’s argument was flawed, but once her daughter had entered high school, she no longer commented on anything she said. She would say to herself that a girl who excels in mathematics and Latin, who is admired by her teachers, and who is a candidate for the prestigious Salzburg Prize certainly knows what she’s talking about. That was also how she felt about her husband. She was certain that one day his talents would come to light, and he would even do wonders in business.
Until the Dawn's Light Page 3
