Aharon Appelfeld - Until the Dawn's Light

“Dear,” Blanca whispered to him, “watch out for those people. They’re plotting and liable to harm you.”

Hearing her voice, his lips parted and he said, “Don’t forget. I’m Jesus Christ, and no one can harm me.”

“But you’re also my son,” Blanca said, alarmed.

“Correct, Mother, but no one knows that.”

For a moment Blanca was happy, but when she woke up, her head was spinning, her heart was pounding, and she felt weakness in all her limbs. Only at noon, when she was serving lunch to the old people, did the feelings of oppression let up slightly. The old people liked her and told her about their sons and daughters who had converted to Christianity and who were ashamed to have parents living in a Jewish old age home. Among the residents there was an old storekeeper named Durchfall who didn’t hold his tongue.

“I’m a Jew,” he proclaimed, “and I’ll never hide it. It’s not a special virtue, but it’s also not a shame. At Hanukkah we’ll light candles and sing ‘Rock of Ages,’ and we’ll remember the times when Jews were Jews and their Judaism was dear to them, when they were prepared to rise up against a mighty empire.”

Sometimes Durchfall spoke in a different tone of voice.

“There’s no doubt,” he would say, “the Jews are a changeable and frivolous nation. It’s hard for them to be Jewish, it oppresses them, and at every opportunity they throw a few old books into the Danube. They’re sure that if they convert to Christianity, their neighbors will embrace them and take them to their hearts. They’re wrong. They’re simply wrong.”

WHEN BLANCA RETURNED home on Saturday, she noticed from a distance that the front door was ajar and that the garbage pail kept it from closing. A faded November light shone on the empty lots around the house. She had come at a run from the station, but when she approached the house, she halted. The anxiety that had shackled her body for a week wrapped itself around her legs, and she felt her knees weaken.

At a distance from the door she called out loud, “Kirtzl!” No one answered.

“Kirtzl!” she called again, and for a moment she stood frozen, trying to absorb what was happening. She opened the door and went inside.

Kirtzl was sitting outside in the garden, wearing a loose cloak. Her stolid face conveyed a kind of indifference, the relaxed expression of an idle person.

“How are you?” Blanca addressed Kirtzl as though she weren’t a woman sitting across from her but, rather, a large animal. Because you couldn’t know how it would react, you quickly appeased it.

“What?” Kirtzl said, her mouth falling open.

“Where is Otto?”

“He’s in his room,” she replied, without moving.

Otto was standing in his cradle, wide-eyed. Blanca sank to her knees, extended her arms, and started to pick him up. Otto burst into tears, frightened by her sudden return.

“It’s Mama,” Blanca said, putting him down. “Don’t you remember me?”

Kirtzl got up and stood very close behind her. Blanca felt her fullness and moved aside. Otto cried, and Blanca tried in vain to calm him. Kirtzl observed her desperate efforts without interfering, but eventually she said, “Give him to me.” Blanca passed Otto to her, and, to her astonishment, he stopped crying.

“How did you do that?” Blanca asked distractedly.

“You have to lift him up high,” Kirtzl said tonelessly.

It was two o’clock, and it seemed to Blanca that she had done her duty, that now she had to return to the old age home. A week of separation had distanced her from those oppressive rooms. Even Otto seemed different to her, perhaps because of the blue shirt he was wearing. He had received that shirt some time ago from Adolf’s elder sister. The sister had said at the time, “That’s a boatman’s shirt. Anyone who wears a shirt like that will be as strong as a lion.” Because of what she’d said, or maybe for another reason, Blanca had never touched the shirt, and it lay in the bottom drawer of the dresser. She had hoped that Otto would outgrow it and never wear it.

“Mama,” Otto suddenly called out, as if he had just realized she was his mother, and reached out toward her. Blanca took him and held him to her heart. She immediately forgot she was working in the old age home in Blumenthal and far away from Otto. It seemed to her that she had been sunk in a long sleep and now she had awakened.

“How is Adolf?” she asked.

“He’s fine,” Kirtzl answered briefly.

Only a week had gone by since Blanca had departed for Blumenthal, and Kirtzl’s fingerprints were in every corner. It wasn’t the house she had left. Every piece of furniture appeared to have changed shape. To the smell of beer and tobacco the scent of cheap perfume was added. But she discovered the most conspicuous change of all on the wall: a blue icon, Jesus in his mother’s arms.

“Who hung up that icon?” Blanca asked, feeling as though it were no longer her house.

“I did,” Kirtzl said. “A house without icons is liable to meet disaster.” Kirtzl spoke like a peasant.

Now Blanca noticed that Kirtzl wasn’t as ugly as she had seemed to be at first. Her broad shoulders suited her face and her full, solid body. For a moment Blanca was about to ask her how one grows such a sturdy body, whether the sun did it or thick corn porridge, but then she realized that it would be a stupid question, and she kept her silence.

“Did Otto ask about me?”

“No.”

“And did you change his diapers at night, too?”

“You don’t change children’s diapers at night.”

“Why not?”

“They have to get strong.”

Kirtzl had the confidence of a peasant who had received the lessons of life as an inheritance from her ancestors.

“And how was your work?” Kirtzl surprised her by asking.

“The old people are sweet.”

“And they didn’t make passes at you?”

“They’re old people.”

“There are old men with very young urges. In our village, there’s an old codger who sleeps with his niece every night.”

Blanca looked at her broad face again. A kind of satisfaction filled it. It was clear to Blanca that a head like that, stuck onto a sturdy neck and planted on cushioned shoulders, never got dizzy. She never vomited and she didn’t have insomnia, and when she got up in the morning, guilt feelings didn’t gnaw at her. Her limbs were fastened on well. She had no backaches and no weak knees.

“And are you pleased?” Blanca asked for some reason.

Kirtzl smiled a narrow, secret smile, which immediately revealed what had happened in the house during the week that Blanca wasn’t there. After eating his dinner, Adolf had made clear how it was going to be and then left for the tavern. When he came back, he had gotten right into Kirtzl’s bed, peeled off her nightgown, and, without any niceties, mounted her. Later, after nodding off for a while, he had mounted her again. Then she had become heated up and planted her teeth in his neck. Adolf had kneaded her and eaten her flesh with a greedy mouth. Toward morning, before leaving for work and while she was still groggy, he had mounted her again, gotten dressed, and gone out.

Blanca looked at Kirtzl and knew with certainty that this was what had happened. A secret jealousy flooded through her, as though she understood for the first time that there were healthy, coarse people for whom life was intended, and the rest were thrown to the side.

WHEN ADOLF CAME home from work, he pierced her with a look and asked, “How was it?”

“Fine,” Blanca answered, matching his tone.

Adolf’s face was flushed, and it was clear he had downed quite a few drinks, but he wasn’t drunk. Repressed rage filled his face and traveled down the nape of his neck. Blanca rushed to serve him his meal — whatever was in the pantry and what she had managed to prepare. Adolf didn’t complain. He sank into his plate and made no comment.