The Light at the End of the Day

by Eleanor Wasserberg

  Alicia chewed some fruit, let the juice drip onto the tablecloth. The other words, pressured in her throat like a blocked pipe, she swallowed too, trying to explain: it wasn’t just the blood and the strike and the shock of their tall, solid Papa on the ground, it was the way the air changed, the laughter of the crowd, the sneer on that woman’s face, her hiss, and the woman back at the restaurant, something in the set of her lips, her scowl at Alicia as though she didn’t belong. All this she swallowed, thinking on her secret, before she could allow Karolina’s words in. Karolina though was pressing on, her continued whispering, asking, ‘But which? It must be one of them, no one else is so close, it can’t be Uncle Schmuel or a cousin or something like that, who would they weep for?’ And Alicia found the question facing her easy to the point of shame. It must be Mama, she thought. It must be Mama, because if it is Papa I won’t live anymore. Karolina kept on whispering, until Dorothea banged a serving spoon on the table, ‘Enough!’ and they all jumped.

  ‘Go up to your Mama and Papa now. Karolina, your hysteria is ridiculous.’

  Alicia’s mouth was full, and she burst some of the peach on her tongue, feeling its sticky juice as an outpouring of relief.

  The dogs were in the upstairs dining room, lying in the weak sunbeams. Alicia scooped Mimi up as they approached their parents, who sat, formal, as though posing for portraits, in the high-backed chairs under the bookcase. Her Mama had her hands folded in her lap as they entered, but now held out her arms. There was an awkward moment as both girls hesitated, Alicia with Mimi squirming against her chest, Karolina looking at her mother in abject surprise.

  ‘Come,’ Anna said, an edge of annoyance in her voice.

  Karolina went to her. Too tall for a full embrace, she felt her mother’s shoulder dig into the flesh around her own collarbone. Alicia put down the dog.

  ‘Girls, we are changing some plans. Karolina, you won’t be going to Zakopane with the Hartmanns. You’ll stay here for the season. Alicia, you’re also to stay inside over the winter, so there will be no riding lessons.’

  ‘Papa!’ Alicia cried; though she didn’t care about the riding lessons, she was unused to things promised to her being taken away again.

  ‘Is there an epidemic?’ Karolina asked, who loved to read about gruesome plagues sweeping through cities.

  ‘Yes,’ Anna answered Karolina, after a quiet had descended, and Adam had gone to move newspapers around on his desk. ‘Your father was reading about a disease in the morning papers, and we’d like you to stay inside as much as possible. We’ll take some walks together, of course,’ she said, softening at the sight of her elder daughter’s dismay.

  ‘There may be some difficulties, but we are surrounded by friends and our city, and all will be well.’ Their Papa spoke slowly, as though giving a ceremonial speech, or a toast at one of their long, late dinner parties.

  ‘I thought it must be,’ Alicia caught her Papa’s eye and he reddened further, shifted in his chair. ‘We thought it must be family who had died,’ she went on, ‘or something terrible.’

  ‘Well,’ their Mama said. She seemed at a loss and looked at her husband. ‘Go, go to your rooms.’

  They stayed in their own sets of rooms for the rest of the day. Karolina wanted to go to the Jagiellonian, to visit their Uncle Stefan, but Adam, in a message from Janie, forbade it.

  ‘Besides, the university will be closed, out of respect,’ she added. ‘Your Uncle and the others will all be at home, as we are.’

  ‘Yes,’ Karolina said. ‘Of course,’ in such a good impression of her mother’s clipped tones that Janie gave her a tiny head tilt of deference. As she left Karolina made a face at Alicia, who buried her own in a throw rug, fearful of laughing.

  ‘Out of respect for who?’ Alicia almost whispered. She could feel the lie, the way it had got tangled between the servants and her parents, knotted into the wrong words.

  Karolina shrugged, went to her desk and brought a small, leather-bound book to Alicia.

  ‘Shall I tell you the next part of the story?’

  ‘Have you translated the next part yet?’

  ‘No, silly. I only translate little bits. I have the translation here in Polish. One of Uncle Stefan’s friends did it.’

  Alicia sat up, looked again at the pages. One side was full of the Greek symbols in beautiful shapes, their ink tails flicked like tiny tadpoles.

  ‘Why don’t you just learn the Polish off by heart, and then you can pretend to translate it, just changing a few words? Then you wouldn’t need to study so much.’

  ‘But I like the translation part. Besides, I think learning thousands of lines off by heart would be a little difficult, no?’ Karolina laughed.

  Alicia was silent. This was a rare day of warmth between them, and she wouldn’t spoil it by saying how she didn’t understand this; in fact, she had committed the poetry Karolina had read to her so far to memory with ease.

  ‘I might study with Uncle Stefan too when I’m older,’ she said instead.

  Karolina gave her a small smile, which Alicia translated with disappointment. ‘I think you will marry a nice rich man, Ala, and live with lots of beautiful things, like Mama.’

  ‘But Uncle Stefan—’

  ‘Remember how you tortured all your governesses, and Papa drew you out of school?’

  Alicia laughed. ‘But that’s not the same! That wasn’t … I don’t need to learn all the names of the capital cities—’

  ‘Exactly. That’s not for you.’ Karolina pulled her hair lightly, and Alicia saw her sister believed she was kind to her, like Janie when she flicked flies out of the window instead of crushing them against the window pane. Her secret swelled, I know something, I know something true and real that changes everything, more important than your book. It isn’t a disease at all, it’s what happened to Papa last night.

  ‘Where were we up to?’

  Alicia considered reciting the poetry. She’d become a new kind of ally to her sister then. But she felt instinctively that Karolina would be threatened, would feel something had been taken away from her, when Alicia had so much already.

  ‘Odysseus has just been blown back, all the way back far from home,’ she told Karolina. ‘He could see the Ithacans tending their fires and he was nearly home but then they opened the bag of winds.’

  Karolina took her stubby pencil and mimed driving it into her heart, making Alicia snort. It was just like Papa at the Wentzl. They were often the same, but only when her sister was alone with her did she seem like Papa.

  ‘Ah!’ she cried. ‘How could I forget? It’s so heartbreaking! Close enough to see the fires!’

  Alicia shrugged. ‘It was his own fault. He’s always lying to his men. Easy to warn them and explain.’

  ‘I thought you would like him, the liar,’ Karolina said, without malice.

  Alicia went still.

  ‘I mean, he’s slippery and clever. You can be like that.’

  ‘Can I?’ Do you know I’m clever? Do you know the lie about last night?

  ‘Of course! You lied about that dress you stained. No one even guessed.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Yes,’ Karolina nodded, dragging out the word. ‘All right, back to Odysseus.’

  The afternoon was an unusual one: obeying their parents, they stayed in their part of the apartment, curled up on the small, soft nursery chairs, the sound of the doorbell and hushed voices, occasional louder voices, interrupting Karolina as she read. Alicia committed the translated poetry to memory, played its tune with her fingers along her dress, saw phrases in gold, how they looped back to each other, the same refrains. She saw the azure blue of the sea and the oil glistening in the hair of the heroes, and felt the heat of the sands as though on scorched bare feet. Since her father’s fall, her whole body had been tense. Now, no adults to make her sit up or keep her fingers still or to pet her, she sank further and further into her chair, in the cool room, her sister’s voice spinning the story for her, and felt that
if this was a sad day, she wanted all days to be sad days, of stillness and quiet.

  5

  THE DAYS TURNED still colder and bleaker, so the apartment was full of the smell of tapers and burning kindle. The haven-day of reading was long over; the sisters were summoned back to the family rooms, told to welcome and be polite to many guests. Neighbours drifted in and out, ate little, left teacups brimming. Adam began to gather up the newspapers and take them with him to his office, instead of leaving them around for Karolina to read. Anna stayed in more than usual, and Alicia could hear her pacing in the upstairs rooms, stopping at windows, turning, pacing again. The radio was always crackling through the house. One of these dull mornings Janie told them to be ready in the big dining room downstairs early: their Uncle Stefan was to visit.

  Uncle Stefan wasn’t their Papa’s brother, who lived far away; he was his oldest friend, but Alicia always felt he looked like a brother to him. His face was an echo of Papa’s in the way her own was an echo of Karolina’s: the same thin, sharp bones, the crooked smile and a merriment in the brown eyes. He was tall and thin like Papa, even more so, and often had a bruise on his forehead, or his arm, from bumping into the low beams and narrow doorways of the university. He and Adam spoke in almost their own language when they were together, half-sentences which were caught up by the other, and left to drift into laughter or nostalgic silence. Unlike the rest of the house, Uncle Stefan seemed unchanged by the great plague, which made Alicia love him even more.

  ‘Sad times,’ Adam greeted him with a clutch on the arm.

  Stefan peered into his friend’s face. ‘Yes, yes,’ he said, as though acknowledging the existence of an academic argument he was about to dismantle. ‘What happened to you?’ he gestured to his own temple, mirroring the welt on Adam’s face.

  ‘He slipped on the ice,’ Anna said.

  ‘Ah, is that what we call it these days?’

  ‘Call what?’ Adam said sharply.

  Stefan glanced at Anna, confused. ‘Adam, I was only joking. I know you don’t drink so much anymore.’

  ‘I was with Alicia,’ Adam muttered.

  ‘Come on, I have books for Karolina, and here is Anna so beautiful …’ – he kissed her hand and she laughed – ‘and come on, Adam, it was far away. It won’t happen here.’

  ‘Not so far.’

  ‘Far away? So I can go to Zakopane?’ Karolina asked her mother.

  ‘The Hartmanns wrote to say they’ve cancelled,’ Anna replied. ‘As a precaution. We told the girls about the epidemic,’ she said to Stefan, who raised his eyebrows in response.

  ‘Come on now,’ he said, in such gentle rebuke that both Anna and Adam looked away for a moment. Taking their silence as permission, he gestured for Karolina and Alicia to come closer and began, ‘There isn’t an epidemic, except of … unpleasantness.’

  ‘There is a measles outbreak, it said so in the newspaper,’ Anna said, flushing.

  ‘Some windows were smashed in Germany and some people were hurt,’ Adam picked up Stefan’s thread, left Anna’s dangling. She retreated to her sofa, furious. It had been Adam’s idea not to tell their daughters in the first place.

  ‘It’s far away and nothing to worry about here,’ Stefan added, aiming what he hoped was a conciliatory smile at Anna, but her face was closed, and he would need to flatter her all evening.

  ‘Why were people hurt?’ Karolina asked, as Alicia thought about the man on the steps and the way his back curled as he kicked her Papa. Perhaps he had come from Germany to smash windows too.

  ‘Well.’ Stefan gave an elaborate shrug. ‘This is the fate the gods have—’

  ‘Don’t!’ Adam held up a hand, but laughing. ‘Don’t start quoting at us, it’s ten o’clock in the morning and too early for epic!’

  Stefan mirrored Adam’s gesture, and matched his laughter too.

  ‘Come, Karolina,’ he called. Alicia watched as he pulled more of the green-covered books out of a leather satchel. The two of them stood slightly apart, Karolina smoothing her hands over the pages.

  ‘Did you bring me anything?’ Alicia called to him, as the family drifted towards the table where tea was being served. ‘It was my birthday last month, and we haven’t seen you since then.’

  ‘Ah, and how was the Wentzl?’ Stefan directed his question to both Alicia and Adam, who dropped his gaze for a moment. Alicia tried to summon the night again, its nauseating mix of the rich, warm room and the images of blood on the ice.

  ‘It was wonderful,’ she said. ‘It was a lovely treat from Papa. Only I slipped on the ice on the way back.’

  ‘Oh yes, getting cold now,’ Stefan replied politely, with a small smile of amusement at her grown-up tone.

  ‘We haven’t been into the centre since,’ Adam said. ‘The news came through the next morning.’

  ‘But you can’t lock yourselves away,’ Stefan said. He’d spoken mildly, but Adam reddened.

  ‘You think we’re afraid?’

  Stefan sat back, his thin face becoming thoughtful. ‘No, only … sad. Too sad, I think.’

  ‘Don’t you feel anything? Did you read the reports? They made people …’

  He broke off, noticing how his daughters had become still.

  ‘Of course, of course. It’s terrible,’ Stefan said, without fire. ‘But remember ’35. We all worried, and what happened? Nothing. Only you have more German Jews on your payroll, and I have more in my classes, and very welcome they are too.’

  ‘I know,’ Adam said, picking up his tea. ‘I’m sorry,’ he added. He eyed his friend, noted he was wearing, unusually, his kippah. Adam had put his own away after Alicia’s birthday, folded it away with a twinge of regret at how it had been his father’s, given to him with a rare emotion from the old man, his eyes moist. Adam had worn it not as a believer at all but as a mark of respect, love, even, for his father, for the memory of his proud face when Adam had first put it on. He wore it for weddings, holidays, days he wished to mark with respect, such as Alicia’s birthday. Now it was gently pressed between handkerchiefs in his bedroom as though just another piece of cloth.

  Stefan followed his friend’s eyes. ‘What? I’m going to my mother’s for dinner.’

  Adam lowered his voice. ‘It hasn’t given you any trouble?’

  ‘None at all.’ Stefan heard the untold things in Adam’s question; saw how he held himself in his chair. An image of his friend being beaten made his stomach shrink, and he reached for Adam’s arm even as he dismissed the idea: Adam would have told him.

  A silence descended, the rattle of the tea things, the crack of a broken book spine from where Karolina sat.

  Alicia leaned over to Stefan. ‘My present,’ she whispered, but it carried, and they all laughed at her.

  ‘All right,’ Stefan said. ‘I confess my crime, I forgot the birthday girl.’

  ‘Oh, Stefan! How could you? You held her in your arms when she was born!’ Adam cried. ‘You are no longer my brother!’ and the two men collapsed in childish laughter. A look passed between Anna and Dorothea, who was pouring Stefan’s tea, and Anna’s anger ebbed away. She settled more comfortably on the sofa, her head tilted as though to hear better her husband’s newly cheerful voice.

  ‘All right,’ Stefan said, wiping his eyes. He turned to Alicia. ‘What would you like? Here, I’ll give you a choice. A doll, or a globe.’

  ‘A globe?’

  ‘Yes, a globe of the world. You know, when I was your age, turning, what are you, eight?’

  There was more laughter at this from the parents.

  ‘She’s twelve! A crocodile is a better Uncle than you are, Stefan. A snake would do a better job,’ Adam said.

  Stefan laughed, waved this away. ‘When I was your age, I wanted a globe more than anything. So I could see the whole world, understand my place in it’ – he started to make his teaching gestures, slicing the air – ‘so I could travel to far-away places by tracing my finger over the surface. Do you remember that one my father had, Adam? In h
is office.’

  ‘I never saw it, but you talked about it often enough.’

  ‘Well, it’s in my office now.’

  ‘Did you ever get your own, when you were younger?’ Karolina asked.

  Adam started to shake his head.

  ‘No!’ Stefan threw up his hands dramatically, making them laugh again. ‘I asked, and asked, and I was very patient, and then my parents bought me a book of maps, which wasn’t what I wanted at all!’

  ‘Well, Alicia will want the doll,’ Anna said, smiling. ‘She’s not a twelve-year-old boy with an obsession.’

  ‘I’ll have a globe, Uncle Stefan, please.’

  Adam laughed. ‘Your uncle is only teasing you. He will buy you a doll or a pretty thing.’

  ‘With the sea a dark blue colour,’ Alicia said. ‘And a star where we live, so I can see the whole world, understand my place in it.’

  ‘Of course,’ Stefan said. ‘But you know, I was only telling a story about myself. Really you can have any pretty thing you like.’

  ‘We’re having a new portrait of her done,’ Adam said. ‘It’s her birthday gift to ourselves.’

  Her parents began talking about the painting, her Papa gesturing to the windows, where she’d probably have to stand. Karolina was busy with her books, reading some of the spines, looking up occasionally to shoot a look of puzzlement or thanks to her uncle.

  Stefan turned to Alicia. ‘Another portrait, Ala? So, you’ll be famous!’

  ‘Will I?’

  ‘Oh, yes. Your parents, you know, they only hire the very best. You will be like the Mona Lisa.’

  She looked blank, so he added, ‘Maybe one day you will hang in a gallery, and there will be a little card’ – he held up his hands as though making a frame – ‘that says, “Alicia Oderfeldt, famous.”’ He smiled down at her, then checked his smile at her solemn face. ‘Ala?’

  She took a moment to speak. ‘Please, the globe. Won’t you get me one?’

  Stefan took her hand and kissed it, his face alight with amusement at her serious expression. ‘As you wish.’