Aharon Appelfeld - Until the Dawn's Light

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 winter 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.

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.