Aharon Appelfeld - Until the Dawn's Light

“What’s the matter, dear?”

“I left my son behind, and I miss him.”

“I understand you very well. I also left my two little girls behind and went out to work.”

“How can you stand it?”

“It’s very hard for me. Every day I dull my longing with cognac. It’s been three years now.”

The damp cloth made Blanca feel better, and she sank into a pressured, choking sleep, but in the midst of it she heard a clear voice.

“Blanca, you mustn’t despair. There is a God in heaven, and He watches over you. You have to do what God tells you to do. Your suffering is not in vain. Your life has a purpose.” It was Theresa’s voice, coming from a distance; not a soft voice, but a very endearing one in its simplicity. Blanca opened her eyes. The train was close to Blumenthal. She pulled herself together and rose to her feet.

BLANCA QUICKLY LEARNED how different the old age home in Blumenthal was from the one in Himmelburg. In Blumenthal there were regular times for rising in the morning and for lights-out, the meals were served on time, there was a rest period from two to four in the afternoon, and visitors were permitted only on Tuesdays. The director of the home was strict with the residents, and if they disobeyed her instructions, she scolded them out loud and sometimes punished them.

Upon arriving, Blanca was sent to clean the rooms and make the beds. Then she went down to help in the kitchen. In the kitchen she met Sonia and quickly made friends with her. Sonia had been born in Sarajevo. Her mother was Jewish and her father was Croatian. From her childhood, Sonia had been attracted to Jews. Her father wasn’t pleased by that inclination, but Sonia was so enchanted by Jewish people that at an early age she left her home in order to live among them.

“What attracts you to the Jews?” Blanca asked her.

“I don’t know. My mother never talked with me about being Jewish, but I’ve been interested in them since my girlhood. I would stand for hours next to the synagogue and listen to the prayers. Are you Jewish?”

“I was,” said Blanca, embarrassed by the direct question.

“Why did you convert?”

“I got married,” said Blanca, without explaining.

In the evening the director summoned Blanca to her office and explained the conditions of service.

“You work for six days,” she said, “and you go home on Saturday afternoon. Anyone who is absent without an excuse or is negligent will be fired on the spot. You’ll share a room with Sonia, and there will be a special announcement regarding night shifts. By the way, my name is Elsa Stahl, and you may call me Elsa.” Her look was blue and cold, and it was evident that she was a strict woman who wouldn’t hesitate to punish.

Sonia was three years older than Blanca. She had finished high school in Serbia and begun to study to be a pharmacist, but she had lost interest in her studies and abandoned them. Since then she had been wandering. She’d already been to Vienna, and now she was here, saving money so she could travel to Galicia.

“What attracts you to Galicia?”

“The old-time Jews.”

When Sonia spoke about the old-time Jews, her eyes widened and a spark gleamed in them.

“When I was in the hospital,” Blanca said, “my friend brought me a book of stories about the Ba’al Shem Tov.”

“I never heard of him,” said Sonia.

“It’s a book about the Jewish faith.”

“Marvelous!” Sonia cried.

Sonia was an enthusiastic woman, bold and extravagant. She didn’t hide her thoughts. The residents liked her, but the director was suspicious of her. Once she had proclaimed to one of the janitors, “What difference does it make that my mother is Jewish? I’m proud of it.”

“You mustn’t talk that way,” one of the residents commented.

“Why not?”

“Because being Jewish isn’t something to be proud of.”

“But I am proud,” said Sonia.

After a few days of depression and humiliation, Blanca felt her strength returning to her, and sensations throbbed within her once again.

“I’ve been married for more than two years, and I have a son named Otto,” Blanca told Sonia.

“And your husband?”

“He works in the district dairy.”

Sonia told her about the old age home and its residents, and about Elsa, who treated the old people cruelly. The old people were afraid to complain. Every time a delegation came from Vienna to check on the conditions of the old age homes in the provinces and they asked the old people about the place, they answered as one: everything is fine, everything is decent.

Blanca still didn’t understand everything that was being told to her. She still was overcome with fatigue.

“I don’t know what’s the matter with me anymore,” she said, as she fell asleep.

In the middle of the night Blanca awoke, terrified.

“What’s the matter?” Sonia asked.

“I’m frightened.”

“Of what?”

“I saw Otto near a deep pit, and I couldn’t save him.”

FROM THEN ON, Otto never faded from Blanca’s view. She heard his voice in every corner, and on every floor she saw him crawling to her.

After a few days of fear, Blanca was about to return home, but at the last minute she changed her mind. She knew that Adolf would make a sour face and say, “Why did you come back?”

At night Sonia would sit on Blanca’s bed and tell her about her childhood and youth. While she was studying in high school, she had been a communist, and her boyfriend was also a communist. The two of them were going to go to Switzerland. But once, as though in passing, her boyfriend said to her that the Jews stood in the way of redemption because they were petits bourgeois in their souls and that the revolution was hateful to them. At first she didn’t catch the meaning of his words, but once she did, she understood that old-style anti-Semitism was coming from his mouth. That very week she broke off her connection with him and with the party.

Were it not for her nightmares, Blanca would have been immersed in the hard work. But they would return each night and bring Otto with them. Now Otto looked like baby Jesus lying on a pile of straw. The yellowish colors surrounding him looked unpleasant.

“Otto!” she would cry, alarmed. Hearing her voice, he would move a little, but he wouldn’t respond, as though he had been kidnapped and wrapped up like a mummy.

Blanca slept very little, so as not to see Otto in the figure of Jesus. She sat in the kitchen, and if one of the residents was hungry or couldn’t sleep, she would sneak a sandwich to him.

Elsa lived outside the old age home, but she had informers — two janitors who flattered her and told her what was happening in the home at night. Luckily for the other workers, the janitors were sound asleep after midnight, and not even shouts could awaken them.

Sonia also told Blanca about her father, a wise, sensitive man who had studied philology for two years but whose hatred of Jews was boundless. Every time he spoke about them, his rage would burn. When Sonia was little, her mother used to object to his prejudices, but in time she stopped. She had gotten used to his arguments and even believed them a little. Once Sonia had been very close to her parents, but over the years a barrier of alienation had arisen between them. Now all she wanted to do was get to Kolomyja, her mother’s birthplace.

“What do you expect to find?”

“I don’t know, but my heart tells me that I have to go there.”

“I would very much like to join you, but I’m shackled.”

When Blanca laid her head on the pillow, Otto came back, looking out at her from the long oil paintings that hung on the walls of the church. A cold, sad, puzzled expression appeared on his pure face, as though he were wondering, What am I doing here, and what will my fate be when morning comes ? Dry plants and people bent over with hunger surrounded him on every side, but Otto was lost in his amazement and ignored their plots against him.