Aharon Appelfeld - Until the Dawn's Light

“What are you doing?” he asked.

“I live and breathe.” The voice of past days returned to her.

“May I join you for a cup of coffee?” Ernst said, sitting down beside her.

No, Ernst hadn’t changed. The wrinkles of bitterness had indeed become somewhat deeper, but there was no alteration in his appearance. He spoke as he used to, emphasizing, for some reason, the word “future,” a word his parents had apparently used frequently. His parents had been known in the town as hardworking people whom fortune had not favored.

“You haven’t converted, have you?” Blanca asked.

“No.”

“Like everybody else, I did.”

“My parents didn’t push me into that, and I myself never felt the need to do it.”

“You did right. A person should be loyal to his sentiments,” Blanca said, feeling that those words hadn’t come out of her own mouth.

“Who knows?” he replied, like someone who has already been burned.

After a pause he added, “When we were children, we competed with each other. People used to say, two competitive Jews. You were better, I must admit.”

“Why do you say that?”

“You were more open. Your response to a math problem was spontaneous. You immediately saw the possibilities, and sometimes all the possibilities.”

“But you were more thorough.”

“Maybe. But I was immersed in unnecessary details.”

“Strange, we never talked about it then.” For a moment she wanted to stop the stream of words.

“You were brilliant, and I was sure that I couldn’t catch up with you. Your quickness, your agility, proved to me every day that I was on a lower level.”

It was the same Ernst, with the same inhibitions coming out of hiding. Blanca wanted to contradict him but didn’t know how. Once again muteness seized her.

“I have to go back,” Ernst said, rising to his feet. She even remembered his way of standing up now. The journey from his seat to the blackboard was an obstacle course for him. On the way his momentum would dwindle, and he would reach the blackboard without any strength, immediately declaring, “I was mistaken. I had an idea, but it turned out to be useless. Excuse me.” Because of those apologies, he aroused mockery. In her heart, even Blanca was contemptuous of that weakness of his.

“How long were you here for?” Once again she overcame her muteness.

“Just a few hours. I felt a kind of urge to come, so I did. I took a walk around all the familiar places, but I didn’t meet anyone I knew. You’re the only one. I didn’t want to go inside the high school. That wasn’t a place that was pleasant for me.”

“And how was your parents’ house?”

“Still standing. I sold it very cheaply at the time.”

“Ernst, forgive me.”

“For what?”

“I didn’t know how to appreciate your abilities, and that greatly troubles me. In many areas, you were better than I was.”

“You’re mistaken.”

“I’m not saying it to flatter you.”

“I know. But the truth mustn’t be ignored.”

“In any event, pardon me, if it’s not hard for you.”

“For what, Blanca?”

“For the bad things I did to you.”

“You never did anything bad to me. You were the model I was aspiring to.”

“I ignored you.”

“Rightly.”

“Ernst,” she said, not knowing what she intended to say.

“See you soon,” he said, and hurried to escape the place.

“Ernst!” she called, stretching out her arms to stop him. But Ernst was already outside, directing his steps toward the train. Blanca didn’t move. She didn’t remember what she had said or what Ernst had told her. It seemed to her that the injustice that had been done to him years ago was now demanding recompense. True, Adolf had been much harder on Ernst than she had been: once he had beaten Ernst till he bled. When the vice-principal had asked Adolf why he had done it, Adolf replied, “He annoys me. His very existence is annoying.” The vice-principal had indeed scolded him, but not very severely.

“Ernst,” she said distractedly, trying to stand up.

The café was now full of retired people and idlers. Blanca knew most of them. One of the storekeepers whom she knew well, though she didn’t remember his name, turned to her and said, “Your grandmother Carole was a brave woman in a generation when the Jews were fleeing from their Judaism like mice. You can be proud of her.”

“I am proud of her.”

“She was the only Jewish woman in the city who wasn’t ashamed of her Jewishness, and she denounced the converts to Christianity and those who hid their Judaism.”

“I know,” said Blanca.

“That’s not enough,” said the storekeeper, rising to his feet. “You have to identify with her publicly.”

“But I converted, sir,” Blanca whispered.

“Sorry, I didn’t know. I’ll do it. I’ll stand up. Tomorrow. A closed sanctuary is a sign that there is no judgment and no judge.”

In the café they knew: the man wouldn’t keep his word. He had already made that declaration several times, but this time it had a special sharpness.

Blanca rose and said, “Pardon me.”

“I have to beg your pardon,” the storekeeper said. “You’re exempt from that obligation, but I’m not. I owe it to my father and mother. They were simple, proud Jews.”

After Blanca left the café she wandered through the streets, astonished by the wonders that the morning had brought her. At noon she went back home to see how Otto was doing. Otto was pleased and said, “Mama, you’re beautiful.”

“You’re more beautiful.”

“I’m still little.”

“But you’ll be the biggest.”

To Kirtzl she said, “I looked for work and didn’t find a thing. I’ll go to Himmelburg; maybe I’ll find something there.”

“You must find something,” said Kirtzl.

“True,” said Blanca, and the thought flashed through her mind: I’ll get rid of her, too, one day. This time Otto didn’t wrap himself around her legs. He waved and called out, “Come back soon, Mama.”

Blanca reached the station at one o’clock. The train to Himmelburg was late, and she sat at the narrow buffet and saw Ernst again. Now she realized that the inhibition dwelt in his neck. Whenever he was called to the blackboard, his head would bend to the right, the words he was saying would be choked off immediately, and he would start to stammer. His stammer, more than the rest of his movements, attracted mockery. He tried to overcome this defect, but it was, apparently, stronger than his will. Now Blanca remembered those moments with blinding clarity.

THE TRAIN ARRIVED an hour and a half late. Blanca went to the buffet car and ordered a drink. At the counter she met the veteran conductor Brauschwinn, a sturdy man whose bearing had been crushed by the years, but not his spirit. Every year he had accompanied Blanca’s family on their vacation. He had witnessed her mother’s illness, and during the shivah he had come to console her father. Then he had watched her father’s decline, and he had tried to ease his mind with old folk sayings. Blanca had told him about her father’s disappearance.

Blanca’s parents had liked Brauschwinn. They used to buy their tickets from him and tip him. Brauschwinn would sit and tell them about his troubles with his wife, his sons, and his daughters. He got no joy from any of them — from his wife because she was a nag, from his daughters because they had left the house and moved to the big city, and from his sons because they had no ambition, worked like mules, and barely made a living. In his youth he had spent time with Jews in Vienna. He had worked in their stores and in their small textile factories. Had it not been for his wife, who had pulled him to Heimland, he would not have left Vienna. The provinces were a cage that stained a person’s soul, he said repeatedly.