Aharon Appelfeld - Until the Dawn's Light

“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 lying 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.

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.

“Let’s go to My Corner.”

“We’ll sit in your house. Why go so far?” he said, as though seeking cover.

“Everything is neglected in the house. And there isn’t anybody in My Corner at this hour.”

They set off for the center of town and Blanca did most of the talking, telling him about everything that had happened to her since the morning. Her father wasn’t distracted. He listened attentively, as though she were telling him secrets. When they reached the center of town, it was already three o’clock. The sun flooded the shop windows with cool light. Her father raised his eyes, as though looking away from a terrible dream, and said, “I’m so glad I came back. It’s good to return to your native city.”

Blanca was alarmed by that sentence.

“I have no special sentiments for this city,” she said. “There are more important things than the city you live in.”

“What are they?” He surprised her.

“A good feeling, for example,” she said, and she was pleased that she hadn’t been tripped up in an idle statement.

“True, the evening light is always joyful,” he said, pausing, as though he weren’t sure of what he’d said.

“I feel no sentiments for this city. I would gladly travel to another place.”

“Where?” he asked with his old curiosity.

“To Vienna, for example.”

“I,” he said, returning to his former ways, “find our city very pleasant.”

This was not the ill and confused father whom Blanca and Adolf had put into the old age home but, rather, the father from her childhood. He had always dreamed. Her mother loved him because he was a dreamer, and when he failed — he mainly failed — she would support him with her fragile body and envelop him with soft speech, with good food, with a new coat that she had bought him. Or she would take him out for a long walk. She was his great admirer, and she believed in his hidden talents, which would someday be discovered.

“So, where shall we sit, Papa?”

This time her father preferred Amnon & Tamar to My Corner. They sat in the place where they always sat, near the window, across from the acacia tree, whose leaves had fallen, revealing its sturdy trunk. They ordered coffee and cheesecake, and the waiter, who had known them for many years, said, “It’s been a long time since I’ve seen you, sir. How are you?”

“Everything’s as it should be.”

“Thank God,” said the waiter, withdrawing to the counter.

Blanca’s father didn’t say a single word about Himmelburg. He spoke about a few efforts he had made in the past to extricate himself from the difficulty of earning a living. Once he had even gone to Vienna, where he had been offered the management of a small bookstore. The offer fell through because the salary they offered him would barely cover his rent. Her mother was prepared to do any kind of work to pull him out of that swamp, but her father wouldn’t agree, and the idea was shelved.

He went on for a bit, and Blanca said, “Let’s take a walk in the direction of the station.”

“I don’t want to go back to Himmelburg. That place depresses me.”

“Where will we sleep?” Blanca spoke in the plural.

“I,” he said in a voice that froze her, “am returning to my home.”

“Papa.”

“What’s the matter?”

“We don’t have a home. We sold the house. Don’t you remember?”

“We sold our house?”

“Yes, Papa. We had debts.”

“I don’t want to go back to Himmelburg. That dark place depresses me.” He spoke the way he had sometimes spoken when her mother was alive.

“I’d invite you to stay with us, but my house, Papa, is completely full. Adolf’s sister and her three children live with us,” she lied.

“Don’t you have a bed for me?”

“Everything is dirty, crowded, and noisy.” She spoke hurriedly.

“I don’t know what to do,” he said, cracking his knuckles.

“Let’s take a walk. Don’t you want to take a walk?”