Aharon Appelfeld - Suddenly, Love

ERNST’S PAINS HAVE GROWN STRONGER, BUT HE TRIES TO ignore them. Irena brings fruit, vegetables, and flowers from the market. She believes that fresh juice and a devoted heart are necessary for his health.

Not long ago Ernst would get dressed and go out to the café. Going to the café and returning would stimulate his thoughts, but his writing hadn’t progressed. It remained caught in a thicket with no escape. Now the pains are leading him to places where he had been wanting to go for years. Now he is in the Carpathians at his grandparents’ home. But the day is not too far off when he will return to his parents and from there to Tina and Helga, all of whom live in the womb of the Bug River. They all perished on the forced march to that cursed river. Grandmother, too, at the end of her days, was uprooted from her sanctuary and marched with them all, until she collapsed and never rose again.

“Irena,” Ernst says, “last night I dreamed we were both in the Carpathian Mountains. You asked me why everything in the Carpathians is made of wood. I had a long and detailed answer ready, but the words were blocked for some reason. Then you suddenly spoke up and asked for forgiveness for the question, and you said to me, in a clear voice, ‘All the proper sanctuaries are made of wood, because man is like a tree in the field.’ ”

“I said that? Impossible.”

“You did. I heard it with my own ears.”

Once a week Irena returns to her house. She cleans, tidies, and lights a candle. Since she started sleeping in Ernst’s apartment, gloom has settled in her house. Irena tries to sweeten the sadness that has accumulated there. She brings a bunch of flowers and scatters them on the kitchen counters and on the table. Her faith tells her that she must enlist her parents’ help at this time.

But to her regret, her parents don’t take the trouble to come anymore. Irena feels that their failure to return is bound up with an old desire to separate themselves from her. For years they used to say, You have to go out. You have to build a life for yourself . She wants to tell them, You’re wrong. Now I have a companion for life, and I’m bound to him heart and soul . She has often said to herself, What a shame that my parents never knew Ernst. I’m sure they would have loved him .

Sometimes Irena cooks in her house and brings the food to Ernst. There’s no logic in doing this, but it seems to her that the food she cooks there is healthier. When she returns, Ernst asks her, “How’s the house?” Each time she brings word of something new or affecting. This time she told him that the flowers she had put on the table a week ago had dried nicely, and the house was full of their fragrance.

But the pain doesn’t let up. At two in the morning, and sometimes before that, the pain pulls Ernst from his sleep. Since the illness has gotten worse, the pains have increased and become varied. There are stabbing pains, pinching pains, and pains that throb with intense pressure. Irena has many strategies for easing the pain. She doesn’t always succeed, but some nights Ernst falls asleep in her arms, and he is completely hers.

One night Ernst dreamed that Irena was wearing the uniform of the Red Army and they were speeding somewhere together in a jeep. Suddenly the car stops, Irena gets out, removes her boots, and reveals perfect little feet. Ernst is thunderstruck, sinks to his knees, and says, “Captain Ernst Blumenfeld requests permission to kiss your foot.” Without waiting for an answer, he lowers his head and does it.

“IRENA!” ERNST CALLS OUT.

“How can I help you?”

“Nothing special. I want to read you a chapter.”

“I’m glad.”

Irena has noticed that Ernst’s preparations before writing involve a hunching over of his body, to focus his attention. When his attention is well directed, Ernst sees things that he saw in his childhood but also things that he never actually saw with his own eyes, like his great-grandparents. The family had lived in the Carpathians for generations. All the paths around the house, all the fields and orchards, were part of their sanctuary, which consisted of their huts, their storehouses, and the barns that surrounded it all. The woods were also part of the sanctuary, as well as the large black rocks that jutted out of the earth. There were also high, soaring mountains in the Carpathians; if you raised your head to look at them, you would get dizzy.

A neighbor, a frequent visitor, enters the yard, and his appearance is different than it usually is.

“What’s the matter?” Grandfather approaches him.

“The Jews crucified Jesus, and the crucifixion pains me. It’s been paining me for years,” the peasant says, nearly in tears.

“You also believe that the Jews crucified Jesus?” Grandfather asks quietly.

“Everybody says so.”

“And so I say to you that they didn’t crucify him. It’s a lie that people are spreading. Not everything that people say is the truth. You’re a smart man, and you know that not everything people say is true.”

“The priest says so, too.”

“Sometimes even a priest can be mistaken. A priest is a man, not God. You’ve known me ever since you came into the world and opened your eyes. Did you ever see me raise a hand against anyone? Did you ever see my wife, Raisl, shout or curse?”

“No,” the peasant says in embarrassment.

“So why do you say, ‘Everybody says so’? ‘Everybody says so’ isn’t proof.”

Grandfather’s restraint makes an impression on the peasant. He keeps on mumbling, but his mumbling no longer has any force. Grandfather’s words apparently influence him. Grandfather approaches him and says, “You’ve forgotten that we used to work in the fields together. How many years have passed since then? How old were you?”

“Young.” The peasant rouses himself from his distress.

“We hoed the cornfield together.”

“Right. So why did the Jews crucify Jesus?” The peasant goes back to his original question, as if he’d forgotten what Grandfather told him.

“We already talked this over back then, don’t you remember?”

“I don’t remember.”

“I’ll remind you. We all have one God. You go to church, and we go to the synagogue, but we pray to the same God. One God created us all and gave us the Ten Commandments.”

“True,” says the peasant.

Grandfather walks over to the window, and as a sign of reconciliation he takes the bottle of slivovitz from the cupboard and pours two drinks. Both men call out “L’chayim,” and down their drinks. As is the custom here, Grandfather pours each of them another drink. He takes the peasant by the arm and tells him that this year the wheat harvest wasn’t as it had been in prior years, apparently because there was too much rain. Sometimes an excess of blessings can become a curse. The peasant agrees with Grandfather. His fields haven’t done well, either.

The peasant’s house is nearby, and Grandfather escorts him home. Before opening his gate, the peasant tells Grandfather that his daughter has left home and has gone astray and that he plans to kill her at the first opportunity.

“Don’t kill her. She’ll repent,” Grandfather speaks in a soft voice.

“I don’t believe it.”

“You’ll see. Sometimes a person loses his mind, and you have to forgive him. Someone who confesses and leaves his evil ways will be forgiven. That’s what the Bible teaches us.”

The peasant loses himself in thought for a moment and then says, “Who knows?” And he goes inside his house.

After the High Holidays, the mountains are filled with a different silence. Grandfather rises early, prays, and goes out to the fields. Grandmother stays at home and prepares the house for the rainy season. God’s presence is diminished, perhaps because of the low clouds that are always visible in the windows. It’s hard to visualize God in the image of darkness or of melancholy. Grandfather doesn’t come home at noon, and Grandmother brings his meals to him in the orchards in three clay pots.