Aharon Appelfeld - Until the Dawn's Light

“I’ve been here longer. What’s going on in my hometown?”

“Everything is as it was.”

“It’s good to see familiar people. Our accent gives us away immediately, does it not? Don’t you miss home, too?”

“A little. What are you doing here?”

“I’m making my way to the Holy Rabbi of Vizhnitz. My parents of blessed memory were born in this region, and I’m following in their footsteps, to get the Holy Rabbi’s blessing.”

“Strange.”

“Why strange?”

“In these times no one goes to holy men anymore.”

“They are exalted men, sir. Have you never heard the name of Martin Buber?”

“No.”

“He wrote a wonderful book about the faith of the Tsadiks.”

The eyes of one of the gendarmes lit up.

“What’s your name, if I may ask?”

“My name is Blanca Guttmann, and my father had a stationery store in Heimland.”

“And you studied in the municipal high school?”

“Correct, sir.”

“When, then, did you leave Heimland?”

“Right after my father’s disappearance. My father lived during the last year of his life, or rather the last months of his life, in the old age home in Himmelburg, and he suddenly disappeared. God knows where he disappeared to. Since then I’ve been looking for him.”

“How are you looking for him?”

“I go from place to place.”

“And meanwhile you set churches on fire?”

“No, sir. That’s strictly forbidden.”

“I was suspicious of the innocent, apparently.”

“I’m going straight to Vizhnitz from here. Maybe the Holy Rabbi will find the solution to his disappearance.”

“Well, Stephan,” the gendarme said, turning to his comrade, who had been standing silently at his side, “the fox has forgotten his tail.”

Blanca didn’t move or react to his words. She appeared to be caught up in the man’s charm. The many drinks she had downed no longer made her dizzy. She stood on her two feet and placed her trust in those two gendarmes, who reminded her of the two old janitors in her high school. And when they placed handcuffs on her wrists and brought her to the police station, she neither complained nor pleaded.

“I used to go to My Corner with my father almost every week” was all that she said. “It’s an excellent café, and its cheesecake is worthy of every praise. If there’s one thing I miss now, it’s a cup of coffee and their cheesecake. That’s all, nothing more.”