Aharon Appelfeld - Suddenly, Love

ERNST NO LONGER WRITES WITH MOMENTUM OR WITHOUT interruption. He pauses and reads the little that he has written to Irena. Irena listens attentively. She believes that he is conveying important things to her. She doesn’t know whether they are practical or more esoteric, but she feels that her world is expanding from day to day.

Sometimes Irena thinks that in his youth Ernst trained to be a priest, like Samuel in the Bible, who served Eli the High Priest. Ernst also contemplated nature and people and heard voices, but the circumstances of his life made him stray from the path of his fathers, and he was captured by the enchantments of the Communist Party. Now he was trying to understand why his life went astray, why he served Moloch for so many years, why his ancestors didn’t help him get free of the trap. They are now the focus of his longings. He searches for them in the Bible. He has no doubt that there is a close connection between the patriarchs in Genesis and his ancestors in the Carpathians, but he has no proof.

Irena, to tell the truth, has no interest in questions that are beyond her comprehension. Ernst’s pains and whatever she can do to ease them — most of the time she concentrates on this and this alone. Ernst’s pains are not apparent. He suppresses them, so they are not expressed outwardly, but Irena knows how fierce they are. She makes certain to serve him food that he finds palatable, to give him his medicine at the correct time, to change the pillows as needed, and to distract him. When the pain attacks him, she curls up with him. The wall that once separated them has been completely erased, and she is ready to go anywhere their paths may take them.

Irena is a woman like other women but somehow different. When she sits next to Ernst, or even at some distance from him, it seems to him that she is touching his thoughts. There are no conflicts, reservations, resentments, accusations, or torments of conscience in her world. She blesses that which is good and beautiful or keeps silent.

Often in his dreams Ernst sees Irena standing in wonder among the trees in the Carpathians or working in the vegetable garden. When evening comes, she puts the hoe on her shoulder and returns home.

He is certain that his grandparents would have been pleased with her and would have received her cordially. She, for her part, would have been excited by all the charms of the Carpathians. Irena likes wooden bowls, blue sky, and open fields. When she sees a flower, she is likely to cry. She’s sentimental. Sentimentality doesn’t suit everyone, but it suits Irena. Ernst’s mother and father would certainly have accepted her cordially as well, and they would have been happy with her, too. A house where silence and melancholy reign all day seeks someone whose face glows with life.

“Irena, do you understand me?” Ernst rouses from his reverie and asks her.

Irena doesn’t always know exactly where Ernst is at any given time and what thoughts that place arouse in him, but she can usually guess. When he tells her about the Carpathian Mountains, the sights are not alien to her. More than once she wanted to tell him, Don’t worry. I have been there, too. I’m not a stranger to those paths because you’ve taken me there more than once .

When strong pains wake him and Irena’s embraces don’t work, she doesn’t hesitate to give him an injection to ease the pain. The injection works immediately, and Ernst is so grateful that he hugs and kisses her.

The pain lacerates his body, but Ernst is not a miserable person. Irena’s presence, her closeness, opens corridors for him to worlds he never knew. Or if he knew of them, he was blind to them. He had never imagined such love.

Some nights when Ernst is awake, he tells Irena about previously unknown parts of his life. When he tells her about his grandparents, his face immediately takes on the look of his grandfather: that of a proud peasant with the faith of his fathers instilled in him, his forehead broad and determined. And when he tells her about his parents, his face quickly turns gloomy; their misery clings to his cheeks, and he is as lost as they were. But then the story of his time in the Red Army rouses him to life.

SO THE DAYS PASS, AND THEY REACH THE MONTH OF April. Ernst lies in bed most of the day, dozing, reading a book, or watching Irena’s doings. Her body is full, but her movements are quick. The house is tidy and shining, with a vase of flowers or a landscape in every corner. Irena’s taste is like her personality: simple and not overly decorated. The corner where she secludes herself with her dear ones also has nothing that offends the eye. When she has finished the housework, she sits at the dining room table or in the kitchen. “A woman devoted to her house,” says the doctor, but Ernst knows that there is a secret hiding within her simplicity. He has not deciphered it, but he feels it throughout the day.

When evening comes, Irena expresses to Ernst her feeling that life is a continuum that extends into the unknown. There’s no point in listening to the voices of the spirits or of the doctor, who announces each time he arrives that parting is unavoidable. Irena, in any case, won’t leave Ernst alone at any of the way stations that are ahead of him. She now sees him as that low-ranking officer who took command after most of the senior officers were killed or taken prisoner, organized the remnants of the division, and launched a counterattack that defeated the enemy. For that deed he was awarded a medal for heroism by the Soviet Union and raised to the rank of lieutenant colonel.

Irena has worked for Ernst for only three years, but she can’t imagine her life without this house and without him. Her own home has grown distant from her, more like a house where life is mummified. Ernst is a model patient. He seems like a soldier who has been badly wounded at the front, but determination to defeat the enemy burns in his bones. Even now, if someone only gave him crutches, he’d join his regiment.

When Irena discovers this determination, her faith that Ernst will confound all the doctors’ predictions, will rise from his illness and return to his former habits, is strengthened. He still has a lot of work to do, and he will doubtless need a drink or two during the day. The doctors have forbidden strong drink, but to boost his spirits Irena will on occasion secretly give him a shot of vodka. He’ll sip it and look at her with a victorious expression.

There had been days when Kafka’s writings took possession of Ernst, and his own voice was stifled. Thank God, he was no longer under the influence of that great author. Kafka’s focus was entirely inward. Even the exterior was his interior. No wonder he fascinated those who were like him. Ernst explains to Irena why he had been drawn to Kafka and what dangers lurked in that attraction. Now Irena understands most of what he says, and what she doesn’t understand, she intuits.

Later Ernst writes a short letter to Irena, revealing to her that in the coming days he intends to destroy the manuscripts he has accumulated in his cabinet. He is doing this with a calm heart and a feeling of obligation. He will leave only what he has written in the past two years. He asks her not to be angry with him and not to blame herself. Moreover, he regards his latest writing as a collaboration with her. Not only has she been a constant help to him, but she was also the spirit of what he wrote. Therefore, if the manuscript should ever be published, it should say — and this is his explicit desire—“by Ernst and Irena Blumenfeld.” When he finishes writing the letter, he puts it among his papers, closes his eyes, and falls asleep.

Irena’s thoughts are not easily confused. She makes blintzes filled with cheese and raisins. She knows that this is a dish that Ernst savors. The preparations, the frying, and waiting for the moment he awakens direct her thoughts, and she is sure that her life will carry on at this pace for many years. She wants nothing more. Every day with Ernst is a day of spreading her wings and soaring to the heights. If she could take on all of his pains, or even just some of them, she would be happier. Over time Irena has discovered some stratagems for making Ernst happy — for example, handing him his brick-colored shirt in the morning, ironed and fragrant. She knows he likes that shirt, and if he wears it, he will have a pleasant morning.