Aharon Appelfeld - Until the Dawn's Light

Later, they strolled along the riverbank. The water was already dark, but it looked calm. After a summer day full of activity, tranquillity settled on the bushes and the wild grass. Blanca and Otto walked silently. Blanca wanted to say something, but the words slipped away from her. Tension gripped her neck and stomach. Later, when they sat on the mat and Blanca cut a watermelon into cubes, she still didn’t know what to say. Finally, she spoke.

“Otto.”

“What, Mama?”

“Nothing.”

Thus the day fell away. The darkness was thick, and it seeped into the house through the narrow windows.

BLANCA HAD CONVERTED to Christianity and married hastily, to avoid watching her mother’s prolonged death from up close. Somehow she believed that with this act her fear of death would be lifted from her heart and her mother would be saved. And indeed, that was what seemed to happen: her mother recovered and rose from her sickbed. Her father rented a carriage, and together they all rode to Saint Paul’s Church. Blanca’s conversion ceremony was long, full of music and prayer. Her parents sat at her side and smiled throughout the service. Although her parents seemed to be content, repressed dread, which hadn’t perturbed Blanca for years, returned to her with great force. She trembled as she stood in the church, and she couldn’t stop, even after the ceremony was finished and her mother hugged and kissed her. In addition to her parents, some of her school friends had come, too. It seemed to Blanca that she had found the examination difficult, and that there were two questions she hadn’t answered correctly. She grasped her mother’s hand, as she had done as child when sudden darkness fell upon the house.

A week after her conversion, Blanca married Adolf. Her mother wore makeup and a flowered dress, and she served cakes to the guests. Her father looked young in his white suit, and he chatted happily with everyone, as though he’d been saved from a bad business deal. The wedding lasted for many hours. Adolf’s brothers and sisters drank, sang, and danced. At first Blanca danced, too, but after a few rounds she felt dizzy and sat down next to her mother. This was the kind of wedding she hadn’t seen before: vulgar and merry. She watched the dancers as though it weren’t her wedding but one she’d been invited to. Her father, who had had a few drinks, felt dizzy, too, and sat down next to his wife. His long face turned gloomy. But Blanca’s mother didn’t stop smiling, as though she were constantly seeing new marvels.

“Very beautiful,” she said, as tears flowed from her eyes.

Right after the wedding, her mother’s health deteriorated again. She stumbled several times, and headaches constantly plagued her. Blanca came to visit her every day. At first Adolf would join her, but after a while he stopped.

“A patient needs rest,” he would say, “and you shouldn’t disturb her too much.” His words sounded clear and convincing. It seemed to Blanca, too, that she should visit less often.

Despite the depressions that sometimes afflicted her, Blanca was happy. She and Adolf lived outside the city, in a small house surrounded by open fields and the sky.

Blanca’s house wasn’t far from where Grandma Carole lived. Blanca would give her grandmother’s house a wide berth, but, as though in spite, her grandmother ran into her. The blind woman used to trudge through the streets, appearing in places where one wouldn’t expect to find her, her head stretched forward, her sealed eyelids twitching and tense. When she sensed that Blanca was near, she would immediately stop and proclaim, “Woe to the converts to Christianity who have forgotten their ancestry and their good fathers, who have exchanged a great faith for belief in wood and stones.”

Blanca’s mother’s illness became more severe, and Blanca avoided visiting her in the afternoon so she wouldn’t meet Grandma Carole. Her grandmother didn’t hold her tongue, even at her sick daughter’s bedside.

“Everybody’s converting.” Blanca’s mother tried to defend her daughter.

“It’s a foul deed.” The answer came quickly.

“Even respectable Jews are converting today.”

“We don’t live by their word.”

Around that time, the town’s rabbi died, and because there were no longer any worshippers, they closed the synagogue. At the rabbi’s funeral several wealthy merchants vowed to preserve the house of prayer, but after a while they changed their minds and agreed that it would be best to send the Torah scrolls and the curtain that hung in front of the Holy Ark to Vienna and to close the place. As it happened, the synagogue refused to be ignored. It stood at the edge of the market square, and Grandma Carole would go there every day, stand in front of the closed doors, and proclaim, “Woe to the Jews who have abandoned their Temple. God in heaven will not forgive them, and when the time comes, He will pass judgment on them.” The town’s Jews dreaded her, and they all awaited her death. But Grandma Carole showed no signs of weakness. On the contrary, ever since she’d gone blind, her voice had become clear and cutting, and she phrased her words simply and clearly. Even her curses had a thundering rhythm.

In the end, the police arrested her.

“Woe to the Jews who deny their Father in heaven,” she proclaimed in court. “Those who close a synagogue are closing the gates of prayer.” She named the wealthy merchants who refused to pay the janitor’s wages. “And for that,” she said, “they shall not be absolved. The earth will open its mouth and swallow them like Korach and his followers.” When the judge admonished her, telling her that she had to stay in the house and not wander in the street and insult people, she replied, “There is a height above all height, and only that must we heed.”

The court released her, ordering the family to keep her from roaming the streets. And the next day, she stood in the synagogue doorway again, calling out the names of the town’s Jewish converts to Christianity and wishing that they all would go to hell.

Meanwhile, Blanca’s mother’s illness grew more severe, and the doctors ordered her to return to the mountains. Blanca wanted to travel with her, but Adolf forbade it.

“You’ll end up catching it, too,” he said in a tone of disgust. Blanca was frightened, but she didn’t disobey him. A day before her departure, Blanca’s mother broke down and wept, asking her family for forgiveness for the trouble she was causing. Blanca’s father scolded her in a strange manner, and she stopped crying.

Two weeks later a postcard came.

“The Lauter Rest Home received the veteran patient cordially,” her father wrote. “The patient has recovered from the trip, and now she is resting in her room. The weather is pleasant, and the apple trees are in full bloom.” Blanca reread the postcard several times. The sentence “The Lauter Rest Home received the veteran patient cordially” moved her, and she felt a stabbing in her heart.

Forced by Adolf to neglect her mother, Blanca felt numb inside — heavy, unclean, and weak-kneed. But she still worked day and night to clean the house and put everything in order. She was angry because she had given in to Adolf, and she was overcome with remorse. In the evening, when Adolf returned from work, she didn’t tell him about the postcard. Adolf was hungry, and Blanca served him dish after dish.

THE SECOND COMMUNICATION from Blanca’s father, a long and disjointed letter, arrived a month later. He tried to conceal his distress, but every word in his letter screamed It’s hard for me to bear this alone . Blanca decided on the spot: I’m going tomorrow, no matter what . In the evening, after supper, she told Adolf that her mother’s condition had worsened and that she had to go to be with her.