Aharon Appelfeld - Until the Dawn's Light

“When?”

“Tomorrow.”

“I understand.”

“What can I do?”

Only now did Blanca notice how much Adolf had changed over the last few months. His face had gotten fat, and his walk was heavy, like that of a career soldier. He spoke slowly and emphatically, as though to keep the words from slipping. Every utterance pierced her like a nail. At first he didn’t blame Blanca but criticized her grandmother Carole.

“She’s insane,” he would say. Or, “She’s a crazy Jewess.” Later on he would add, “She passed her madness on to her descendants. Some of them are sick, and some are crazy.” Before long he stopped hedging.

“Don’t be like her,” he would say. “It drives me crazy.” Blanca didn’t contradict him. On the contrary, it seemed to her that this healthy, strong man had the right attitude toward life and that one day she, too, would be like him. Before leaving for work he said, “If you want to go to your mother, I won’t stop you. But you ought to know that with us, the husband comes before everything else.”

The threat was clear, but Blanca interpreted it as passing anger and tried to mollify him. On the train she drank two mugs of beer, felt dizzy, and blamed herself for responding so easily to the desires of her heart and not fulfilling her duty toward Adolf. Later she fell asleep and awoke feeling that she was choking.

When she reached the rest home, Blanca saw with her own eyes how ill her mother was. Her father stood next to the bed, bent over and exhausted, as if he were about to sink to the floor. Blanca, who wanted to know everything about her mother’s condition, was choked with sorrow. Later that day her father told her he had already spent the money he had received from his partner for his half of the store, and now he had no choice but to sell the house. What are you thinking about, Papa ? she was about to say, but she immediately saw the foolishness of it.

The owner of the rest home, a Jewish woman with a warm and gentle expression, received Blanca like a mother. For supper she served them cheese dumplings and borscht with sour cream.

“Thank you, Mrs. Lauter,” Blanca said, inclining her head.

“If only I could be more helpful.” The woman spoke in the old Jewish way.

In the evening Blanca sat by her father’s side and tried to give him encouragement. He was racked with guilt, saying that he hadn’t done enough to get his wife to a Dr. Birger, in Vienna. Dr. Birger was known as a miracle worker, but for his miracles he demanded exorbitant sums.

If it weren’t for the local doctors, who claimed that Dr. Birger was a charlatan and his medicines were snake oil, he would have sold the house long ago. Now remorse gnawed at his heart.

When they went back to visit her mother, she opened her eyes and asked, “How is Adolf?”

“He’s fine,” said Blanca. She was angry that, of all people, her mother had remembered Adolf, but she quickly overcame her anger and told her mother about their house, about the new furniture they had bought, and about the carpet, which covered most of the living-room floor, that Adolf had bought in a nearby village. She knew those purchases would make her mother happy.

“Adolf’s a good fellow,” her mother said.

“That’s true,” Blanca replied, so as not to leave her mother’s sentence with no response.

The doctor who came to examine the patient the following day didn’t raise their hopes.

“What can I do?” Blanca’s father rose to his feet. “You can’t let a person wallow in agony. Why can’t we try Dr. Birger’s methods?”

The doctor lowered his head, as if to say, One mustn’t delude people, but her father, who was seized with dread, spoke in a trembling voice about the duty to do everything in our ability to foil death’s plots against innocent people.

“If you want to go there, I can’t stop you,” said the doctor softly. “But it’s my duty to tell you that Dr. Birger’s methods have no scientific basis, and there’s no difference between him and charlatans.”

“So we shouldn’t go to him?” Blanca’s father asked, his eyes closed.

“I didn’t say that.”

“What should we do, Doctor?”

“In a moment I’ll give Ida an injection to ease her pain.”

“An injection will ease her pain?”

“It will ease it,” said the doctor, and set right to work.

Blanca had thought she would be returning home the next day, but seeing her father bent over and shriveled in his fear, she didn’t dare tell him so.

“Papa, why don’t you shave, put on a suit, and we’ll go out to a café,” she said a bit later. Her father did as Blanca asked. In the café, he spoke about her mother’s illness, about the store, and about his cousin Dachs, who had cheated and completely impoverished him. And he spoke about not having emigrated to America. If he’d emigrated, his situation would be entirely different. Blanca knew those were merely wishes and fantasies, but she didn’t stop him. She let him indulge himself.

That night she saw how her father had aged. That tall man, who was only forty-eight, looked like someone whose flesh had been trampled, whose spirit had been stifled, and who had been seated on the threshold of a world devoid of mercy. True, he was not a practical man; he had squandered his inheritance and he had run the store negligently. But he’d done no harm to anyone. When he expressed wonder or asked a question, he was like a child who makes everyone happy with his inventions. And his wife adored him.

At the railroad station Blanca’s father burst into tears, and Blanca, who was astonished by his weeping, hugged him softly.

“It’s all right, Papa,” she said. “We’ll do everything we can to see Dr. Birger.”

“Thank you from the depths of my heart,” he said, as if she weren’t his daughter.

“We will spare neither money nor effort, Papa.” The words left her mouth and, amazingly, they calmed him.

“Pardon me, dear, for being so weak,” he said.

WHEN SHE RETURNED home that afternoon, Blanca found the kitchen in a mess, the beds unmade, and empty beer bottles on the coffee table in the living room. The smell of liquor and cigarettes mingled thickly in the air. Adolf’s powerful presence permeated the entire house.

Blanca overcame her immobility. She opened the windows, beat the carpets, and then sank into the dishes that were piled in the sink. The work erased the image of the rest home from her mind, and as she stood in the center of the living room she wondered, When did I first get to know Adolf well? It was as though she had suddenly lost her grip on time. Then she remembered a long, lovely summer some years earlier. Nothing out of the ordinary had occurred, but it had been wonderful just the same. Her mother had packed the suitcases because her father was burdened with the store that he despised. Blanca celebrated inwardly. The grades on her report card were splendid: excellent, excellent, and excellent. Her father’s joy had been unbounded. His only child excelled not only in mathematics, but also in Latin. In two weeks they would be going north, to the pleasant, cool tributaries of the Danube. Blanca loved her parents, and her affection for them rose and swelled when they were at the river’s edge. She loved her father because he was unlike other fathers, and her mother because she imbued her with tranquillity and faith.

In prior years they had gone on vacation to Feuerberg, but more recently they traveled as far north as the unspoiled Winterweiss, where branches of the Danube flowed in broad, silent valleys. In Winterweiss there were no Jews; the Jews who had converted tried to behave like Austrians, and the Austrians behaved like Austrians. Blanca’s father didn’t like the company of Jews.