Until the Dawn's Light

by Aharon Appelfeld

  “Didn’t I tell you that the Jews didn’t crucify Jesus?” she replied impatiently.

  “So who did crucify him?”

  “The Romans.”

  “I didn’t know.”

  “So get that fact into your head. The Romans crucified Jesus and not the Jews.”

  The years Blanca had spent with Adolf left more than physical scars on her. When she got angry, she noticed, she imitated his voice. More than once she had sworn to herself that she would uproot that violent voice from her throat, but, as though in spite, every time she got angry, it returned.

  “When are we going?” Otto suddenly asked before falling asleep.

  “Why are you asking, dear?”

  “It looked to me like we were about to leave.”

  “Perhaps. Do you want to?”

  “Where will we go?”

  “I guess we’ll go farther north.”

  Otto was sensitive to every movement. Two days earlier, two men who were looking for a woman named Anna Tramweill aroused Blanca’s suspicion. They went from house to house, and finally they stood in the street and questioned passersby. They looked like two peasants who were searching for a debtor or a witness in a trial. In any case, she didn’t like the looks of the men, and she said to Otto, “Maybe we’ll have to leave soon.” He usually reacted to her fears belatedly.

  The landlady was very friendly to them. She told Blanca scraps of her life and praised her daughter. Her daughter not only lengthened her mother’s days, but she also broadened her world. God had mercy on all His creatures, and upon her He showed particular mercy. Blanca didn’t usually like that way of speaking, but from the old woman’s mouth it sounded truthful.

  That morning the landlady brought them a loaf of bread she had just baked, and a jar of prune jam.

  “I’m sorry,” Blanca said. “We might have to leave soon.”

  “Why so fast?”

  “What can I do?” Blanca said, without going into detail.

  Since encountering the two men in the street, Blanca hadn’t felt tranquil. She locked the door and didn’t walk as far as before. When the sun set, which was very late now, they walked up from the riverbank and Blanca made dinner. First Otto observed her handiwork, then he sat with his toys.

  The day before he had asked, “When are we going to see a soccer game?”

  Otto used to go to the soccer field with Adolf. After the game, Adolf would take him to his friends in the tavern. When they returned home, Otto’s face would be red from the sun, and his movements would be wild. When he shouted, Adolf would slap his face the way he slapped Blanca’s face, with no warning.

  “A boy must behave properly. He must listen, and not get fresh,” he would say. Every time a slap landed on Otto’s face, Blanca would cringe, but she never said anything to Adolf. She would hug Otto and kiss the place where he was hurt, and for that she was scolded, of course.

  Meanwhile, Blanca’s writings piled up on the wooden table. She hadn’t written since the end of high school, and the letters had become alien to her. She tried to stick to some order and to the facts, and of course to block the anger that sometimes welled up in her. She repeatedly told herself that the facts came before anything else. Without facts, there could be no reliable testimony.

  17

  TWO DAYS WITHOUT Adolf, and Blanca’s body began to thaw out a little. Though her movements were still constricted, she was no longer afraid to go into town. A week earlier, in great despair, she had put on her mother’s wristwatch. For a whole day she felt the burning touch of the strap. Now she felt that the watch was protecting her.

  Blanca rose early the next morning and rushed to catch the train to Himmelburg. She had packed a bag full of vegetables and fruit, and a cheesecake she bought in a bakery, and she knew that as soon as he walked through the door Adolf would ask her about the extra expenses. But the full bag made her so happy that Adolf’s return didn’t concern her at all. She walked to the railway station energetically and with a self-esteem she had forgotten she had. Within a few minutes she was there.

  The train arrived on time, and Blanca found a comfortable seat next to a window. Since Adolf had left the house, some visions of her distant childhood had returned to her. When her mother had taken her to school for the first time, and she had seen how rowdy the school yard was, Blanca had heard her mother say to herself, Good God, what will my daughter do in this mob? She’ll be lost. Then, when the principal, with her sturdy appearance, called Blanca’s name and told her to part from her mother and go into the classroom, her mother had taken her with both hands and said, “May God watch over you, my good little girl!” Thus, with trembling hands, she had let go of her mother. Now Blanca clearly remembered the long, high-ceilinged corridor through which she had walked every day. She also saw the frightening principal, whom she hadn’t seen for years.

  Blanca went to the buffet car and had two drinks, one right after the other. The thought that in less than an hour she would be with her beloved father filled her with happiness. For a moment it seemed to her that she wasn’t going to the old age home in Himmelburg but to their enchanted vacation home in the Winterweiss Mountains, where they had imbibed the pleasures of the summer, reading or just sitting in silence. If there was a piano, Blanca’s mother would play Mozart sonatas. In the mountains, what was hidden inside each of them—a desire to withdraw from the noisy world, a yearning for solitude—found expression. They would walk through the valleys, far from the main roads, immersed in silence.

  Blanca found her father in a good mood. He told her at length, and not without humor, about the routines of the place and the ridiculous arrangements, but his cheerful behavior, which reminded her of better times and other places, filled her with sudden melancholy. She understood then that her father didn’t grasp what fate had ordained for him, and where he had ended up. He was sitting on his bed in his old striped pajamas, his big impish eyes wide open. The sight of her father in his new incarnation brought a catch to her throat, and she had to stifle her tears.

  When she showed him what she had brought, he kissed her forehead and said, “I have one daughter and Blanca is her name, and she is better to me than two brothers.” It was no coincidence that he said “two brothers.” He really did have two brothers in South America; they had sailed there when they were young. At first they had sent postcards. Then they disappeared, and not a word was heard from them.

  Then Blanca’s father introduced her to the people lying alongside him in the corridor. In his short stay, he had become acquainted with them. The smell of mold and burned food hung in the air. The people lying in their beds raised themselves slightly in honor of the guest. They asked about the weather and about the arrival and departure of trains, and they complained about their sons and daughters, who had not come to visit them in months.

  “Your papa is a young man. What is he doing in this stable?” one of the old men asked her.

  “I’m not so young, sir. I’m fifty-three already,” her father answered.

  “You’re a child, sir. Entry here is restricted to people over seventy. People live here for a year or two and die off.”

  “Isn’t my presence welcome?” her father asked mischievously.

  “Most welcome, and very pleasant. But you mustn’t be in this stable. The old horses are brought to this stable so that no one will see the torments of their demise.”

  “Silence!” an old man called out from a corner of the corridor.

  “I’m just telling him the truth. I’m neither adding nor detracting.”

  “Why don’t we go out and take a little walk?” Blanca was surprised to find that her voice had returned to her.

  “What for, dear?”

  “To see Himmelburg, an ancient and beautiful city.”

  “I don’t feel like getting dressed.”

  “Not even in honor of me?”

  That sentence did what only a magic word can do. Her father put on his fine win
ter suit, he placed his hat on his head, and they left the corridor as though they were visitors. Her father, she found, was familiar with Himmelburg from past years. At one time he had wanted to buy a bookstore there, and the deal almost went through, but Grandma Carole had interfered. She claimed that the store wasn’t profitable and that he would do better to buy a store in Heimland, where people knew one another.

  For a moment it seemed to Blanca that her father had returned to his old self and in a little while he would come home. But then she remembered that the house had been sold, and if Adolf knew that he had slept in their house, he would beat her.

  “Papa,” she said.

  “What, dear?”

  “Himmelburg is a very pretty city, prettier than Heimland.”

  “In my youth I used to come here often.”

  “What for, Papa?”

  “I had a girlfriend here.”

  “And what happened?”

  “I liked your mother better.”

  They sat in a café, and Blanca’s father told her that although he had all the qualifications to be accepted as a student in the mathematics department at the university in Vienna, his parents, who had the means to support him, wouldn’t let him go. Blanca knew very well how things had turned out. But this time her father added new details, and it was clear that he had never forgiven his parents for that injustice. And that was also why he had distanced himself from everything Jewish. Blanca’s father spoke in an orderly, logical way. He mentioned his partner Dachs and Grandma Carole, and Blanca was glad to see that he was once again the father she knew so well, that what had happened to him was just a temporary condition.

  But later, as he continued to speak, he began to talk about another injustice, much graver and unknown to her, that had caused him great sorrow and blocked his way in life. He declared that when the time came he would bring a lawsuit against that good-for-nothing. Blanca tried to find out more about that injustice, and who the man was who had committed it. But as he plunged deeper and deeper into the details, Blanca realized that her beloved father had lost his way in dark labyrinths and was trying with all his strength to extricate himself.

  On their way back to the old age home, he continued to speak angrily against everyone who had stood in his way. His face grew taut, and his words burned. When they parted, he said, “Go in peace, my daughter. It’s good that you at least are happy in life.” All the way home, Blanca tried to hold back her tears.

  18

  BLANCA HAD PLANNED to go to Himmelburg the next day but didn’t. Bad dreams tormented her during the night, and when she woke up it seemed to her that she must stay at home. She made a cup of coffee, heard the train leave, and with every sip of the beverage she knew that a part of her body had stopped pulsing, that from now on she would have to live an amputated life. That feeling traveled down into her legs, and she curled up in the armchair. She sat there, without moving, for a long time.

  Later she recovered and went outside. The sky was bright, and the thought that she was still left with a few days to be by herself made her so happy that the memory of her father was effaced. Without locking the door, she headed for the center of town. Not far away students gaily strolled to the high school. It was Wednesday, she recalled. On Wednesdays studies began at ten o’clock, a kind of minor midweek holiday. A distant, hidden holiday feeling returned to her.

  The stores downtown were open, and a pleasant morning bustle filled the narrow streets. Blanca liked that hour. In the past, on vacations, she used to go to the store and pull her father into the nearby café, which was called My Corner. They would sit for a while, immersed in conversation. Spending time with her father was an adventure that always thrilled her: a time of dreams and more dreams.

  Blanca entered the café. It was old-fashioned, filled with warm, pleasant-looking furniture. The proprietors, a childless couple, had converted to Christianity in their youth, hoping that their life in the city would change for the better and that their business would flourish. But the café didn’t flourish. A few customers, regulars, remained faithful to the place, but the young people took no interest in the old-fashioned, dark atmosphere that prevailed there. Years of disappointment had left their mark on the owners’ faces. They had come to resemble each other, shrunken, and the light in their eyes had dimmed. But they had liked Blanca’s father and greatly honored him, making him coffee very punctiliously. The proprietress, Mrs. Hofmann, used to say, “We’ll hear great things of Blanca.” That pronouncement would bring a thin smile to her father’s lips, because he secretly hoped so, too.

  “Where’s Papa? I haven’t seen him in a long time,” asked Mrs. Hofmann.

  “He’s in the old age home in Himmelburg.” Blanca didn’t hide the information from them.

  “Good God!” said Mrs. Hofmann, covering her face with her hands.

  “I would gladly keep him at home, but Adolf won’t allow it.”

  “Why? After all, he’s a quiet, pleasant man.”

  “Adolf doesn’t like Jews,” said Blanca, shocked at the sentence that had escaped her.

  The Hofmanns gave her a frozen look, without adding a word.

  Again Blanca stood on the main street. The broad doorway of the locked synagogue was vacant. Grandma Carole would arrive there later. The day before, Blanca had thought of going to her house, to tell her about her father’s sad situation and ask her to remove her curse from him. For some reason she thought that only Grandma Carole had the power to help her. She had lain in bed for a long time, trying to cobble together some words that would soften Grandma Carole’s anger, but in the end Blanca realized her grandmother wouldn’t help her, not because of hostility toward her father, but because of what she, Blanca, had done. It would be better not to go to her.

  Blanca knew everyone downtown. Still, it seemed to her that the center of town had changed. Her mother had brought her to kindergarten here and later to elementary school. When she was little, her mother would take her to the town’s seamstress, a Czech woman. Love of humanity dwelled in her face.

  “We’re together for such a short time,” she used to say. “It’s a shame to waste that time with misunderstandings and annoyance.” She would take measurements and chat at the same time. She spoke about Prague and the charm of its streets, and she told them a lot about the Jews of Prague. She had worked for a long time—until her late marriage—for Jews.

  “The Jews are the leavening in the dough,” she would say. “Without the Jews, the world would be missing a spice.”

  Blanca remembered her very clearly. When she was seven, the dressmaker passed away. For some reason her mother took her to the funeral. It was a silent funeral, without tears. Only her mother couldn’t restrain herself and wept.

  Blanca raised her eyes and saw the closed synagogue again. Her father hadn’t liked the place and used to say, “The synagogue lacks beauty. Jews don’t pray, they mumble. In church at least there’s good music.” Her mother attended services on Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur. She had brought Blanca to services a few times. The women’s section was roomy and vacant. In a single dark corner a handful of women crowded together, listening to the prayers that rose from the main sanctuary. Blanca was frightened by the place, but she still accompanied her mother.

  After a while the synagogue was closed because there was no longer a congregation. The tall, empty building stood out even more in its barrenness. If it had sunk, everyone would have been relieved, but a solid building like that never sinks by itself. Over the years it became a temple for a single worshipper of God: Grandma Carole.

  When Blanca was a little girl, Judaism had appeared to her as a kind of severe disease, accompanied by fever and vomiting. Once she had spoke about this to her mother, who had replied with a sentence that was deeply engraved in her memory.

  “I don’t make a business out of my Judaism,” she had said, “but I’m not ashamed of it, either.” That was before tuberculosis had attacked her. When she was ill and ly
ing in a rest home, she had said something to Blanca by chance: “Jews suffer everywhere.”

  “Why, Mama?”

  “Because they’re sensitive.”

  “More sensitive than other people?” Blanca had challenged her.

  “No. Just weaker.”

  “Strange,” Blanca had said.

  “What’s so strange?” her mother had asked.

  “That Jews are weaker.”

  “That’s how things are.”

  Blanca remembered that conversation with great clarity, perhaps because it had taken place in the evening. Her father was sitting in the armchair, and her mother had spoken slowly, as though counting her words.

  19

  AS BLANCA WAS returning home toward evening, from a distance she saw a man standing in front of her door and knocking on it. First it seemed to her that it was Karl, the church beadle, who used to make the rounds before the holidays, soliciting contributions for the church. When she drew nearer, he looked to her like Dachs, her father’s former partner. But when she was only a few feet away from her house, she saw in amazement that it was her father.

  “Papa!” she called out loud.

  “I came back,” said her father. A frightened and perplexed look had hardened on his long, narrow face.

  “What’s the matter?” Something of his frozen voice clung to her.

  “I missed home,” he said, smiling.

  Now she saw: he was thin, and his posture was stooped. It was as if he had left his earthly existence in Himmelburg and had brought here only his trembling soul.

  Blanca hugged him and gathered him to her heart. “How good it is that you’ve come back,” she said.

  “I didn’t know what to do,” said her father, covering his mouth with his right hand.