The Conversion

by Aharon Appelfeld

  Martin was as drunk as usual, and on the way home he cursed the evening and Victoria, and every whore in whose bed he had ever wasted a night. Then he began speaking of “inspiration” for a reason that Karl could not fathom. Karl wanted to ask what he meant but realized that one doesn’t ask a drunk about his drunkenness.

  They passed through the dark streets, past city hall, past the gymnasium, and past the shuttered stores. Karl held Martin’s arm, which was limp. His whole body was unsteady.

  “Gravity doesn’t seem to be working on you, Martin. What’s the matter?”

  “What do you want?” asked Martin.

  “I said the force of gravity doesn’t seem to be working on you. You’re floating all over the place.”

  “I abolished the force of gravity, didn’t you know?”

  “How did you do that?”

  “It’s very simple. You just raise your arms and soar. Let go of me, I’ll show you.”

  Karl obliged and Martin fell on his face. Karl tried to pick him up but he couldn’t. Martin rose to his knees and groaned, “I’m soaring, I’m soaring.”

  “We’re not far from home. Come on, we can make it,” Karl tried to encourage him.

  “I don’t have to go home.”

  “You have to sleep,” Karl said to him the way one talks to a drunk.

  He held Martin’s arm firmly and brought him to his doorstep. At first Martin refused to go in, but finally he agreed. The living room was spacious, with clothing and papers scattered everywhere. He had moved into the house after his last divorce.

  CHAPTER

  5

  On Tuesday the bells rang. Karl heard them and knew that someone else had converted. At first they sounded like Sunday bells, but then he realized his mistake. These bells rang with holiday spirit. He remembered that he had heard in the corridor that Elsa Ring was about to be baptized. One of the secretaries, a trim woman with a hollow voice, had whispered the news about Elsa to her friend. They laughed tartly, as if they were gossiping about an adulterous affair. He started to reproach them but was in a hurry to get to the conference room for a meeting. Later the incident faded from his memory.

  The meeting was long and tedious, strewn with many documents. In the beginning he concentrated, listening and intervening, but as time passed he lost interest. Then the resentment that had been hidden within him for a long time flared up. He was angry at Father Merser for baptizing people wholesale. Father Merser lost his judgment when conversion was at issue. Everyone was fair game for him, from minors to old people. Besides, he made his actions public, so that everyone rejoiced at the expense of those left behind. Suddenly, he felt the flaw in his own conversion. Before the ceremony, he had asked Father Merser to keep it private. The priest nodded, and Karl thought he would respect his wishes. But when the time came, the whole city turned out to celebrate, and the bells sounded as if for a feast day.

  Elsa Ring was a woman of no simple beauty. Her nose, thin and sharp, grew sharper still when she was angry, and with the lightning of her eyes, it became an absolute blade on her face, giving it a noble wildness. Once people had predicted great things for her in the theater. They said that Stefan Zweig had seen her on the stage and was enchanted. For a few years she had studied in Vienna. Then she performed all over the world. From time to time echoes of her successes were heard. She was the secret pride of the Jewish merchants of Neufeld. Then nothing was heard of her for years. Still, the magic spirit named Elsa Ring continued to haunt Karl’s house.

  Elsa was Aunt Franzi’s good friend, and both of them had taken off from this stuffy nest for the great wide world. More had been expected of Elsa Ring. Perhaps because she was taller and sturdier. Perhaps because people remembered that she had once slapped the assistant principal of the gymnasium in the face for calling one of her friends a Jew. There was no shortage of scandals. The two girls smoked in public, declaring that life was not a prison, but a breath of fresh air. People in the city despised them, called them bad names, but the Jewish merchants were secretly proud and expected great things of them.

  Elsa had married a well-known actor, but the marriage was not happy. After the divorce she left the theater and wandered from city to city. Then, without warning, she returned to Neufeld. She was about forty then, and still very pretty. The town held its breath. Her mother, who lived in an old-age home, got out of bed and said, “There are miracles in the world.” That very week Elsa bought a house outside of town, near the flour mill, and shut herself up in it.

  During their gymnasium years, Karl and Martin used to walk as far as that abandoned, marvelous corner and sit on a hill in the hopes of catching a glimpse of her beside a window. Once they found her sitting in the garden. But when she noticed them, she folded her chair and fled inside. Still, they would return to that spot to commune with her, if only from a distance.

  One evening she astonished the town by appearing in Friedrich Square. She was rushing to the post office when a thug, a waiter in a tavern, called her names. For a moment it appeared that she would ignore him, but when he called her a dirty Jew, she raised her head defiantly and proclaimed, “Indeed I am a Jew, and I am proud of it. And if yours is the face of Austria, I hereby declare myself a Jew for all eternity.” Alone she faced a crowd, standing tall and speaking with fervor, but without fear. Karl saw her then from up close. A strangeness suffused her face. After that she was not seen again, and people stopped talking about her, even the merchants in the center. Once he heard one of the merchants say, “Elsa Ring never existed. She was only a legend.” This remark made Karl angry. Elsa Ring was, after all, bound up with the memory of his Aunt Franzi.

  Once he happened to hear about the Ring family’s wanderings from a merchant. Like most of the town’s merchants, they too had come from Galicia and tried their luck here. But fortune had not favored them. Had it not been for Elsa, who began to make her way on the stage at an early age, they would have starved. Her father lay in bed most of the day and accused himself: because of me our good Elsa is keeping bad company. In his grief, he lost his sanity. The merchant told the story, unfurling the details like a coarse piece of cloth. Karl loathed his tone. Unable to restrain himself, he shouted, “That’s no way to speak!”

  Later, her housekeeper made it known that she had changed greatly. No one came to visit her, and letters had also stopped arriving. Several merchants collected money and sent it to her. Elsa returned the envelope unopened. But her name still refused to be erased. They said she was about to come back to life and reconquer the stage. They said she had always been reclusive, that she needed time to herself to prepare for great roles.

  During the past year, Father Merser’s visits to her house had become more frequent. Everyone saw him walking toward her home, but no one believed he could persuade her to convert. “Elsa Ring is a proud Jew and a woman of principle. She can’t be bought with fancy words,” they said.

  Finally, reality slapped them in the face. On September 8 they saw Father Merser cross the avenue, pushing a wheelchair before him. At first they thought he was bringing his cousin Regina to the clinic. Then the truth struck like lightning: it was Elsa Ring, or rather what was left of her, sitting in the narrow wheelchair, wrapped in a brown blanket. She was being pushed by Father Merser along the street that led directly to the great Church of St. George.

  Karl was in his office. It was a day crammed with meetings that left him exhausted. He was overcome with fatigue when he heard the bells sound.

  “What’s happened?” he asked himself.

  “Elsa Ring is converting today,” the secretary answered without raising her head.

  “What?”

  “She has been very ill in the past year. Now the Church will take care of her.”

  “Hard to believe.”

  It pained him to think that Elsa Ring’s life had come to this. For a moment he thought of sending his secretary off on an errand so he could write a long letter to Elsa. Karl did not express emotions easily. But suddenly wo
rds he hadn’t used for years shone in his mind. We have sinned against you, Elsa, he wanted to write, and we deserve no forgiveness. We didn’t know how to love you, and we didn’t come to your aid in a difficult time. We are all petty criminals, hiding by night in the dens of the Green Eagle. But not for long, if I may make a promise. Yes, we have converted, but we are still mentschen.

  He thought of going to the church and asking Father Merser to let him take Elsa home. He thought if he went to her house, it would change his life, that it would truly be reformed. This thought pulled him out of the office and propelled him into the street. Unfortunately, several converts, crude careerists, were also heading toward the church. On the spot he decided: better the tavern.

  He crossed the path of pines, circled the main street, and abruptly entered the back door of the Green Eagle. After two drinks a kind of oblivion cushioned his brain. The third drink deepened that oblivion, and he remembered nothing of the day’s turmoil.

  While he was sitting alone in the corner, a man approached him, a leather merchant, to complain about the sewers on his street. Karl wanted to say this wasn’t his responsibility, that there was a municipal department that took care of such things. Besides, these weren’t his working hours. He had the right to an hour for himself. Nevertheless, he spoke politely to the man and promised that the next day he would look into the matter. But the man, who was drunk and belligerent, demanded an explicit promise, a demand which Karl did not reject out of hand. Before Karl knew it, the rude merchant was joined by his cousin, who was also drunk. Immediately, the cousin declared that the Jews only take care of themselves.

  “Really. That’s news to me,” said Karl, without raising his voice.

  “Let the Jews mind their own business and stay out of public affairs.”

  “Don’t speak that way,” said Karl, no longer able to restrain himself.

  “I’ll say whatever I want,” boasted the cousin.

  Karl felt strength flowing into his arms, the kind he felt as a student, before swimming or running. No one in school had dared to raise a hand against him or Martin. They were tall and strong and weren’t afraid to fight when they had to.

  “I suggest you speak politely,” Karl said softly, driving the man over the edge. He mocked, insulted, and finally, for some reason, called Karl a provocateur. Wanting to see how far he would go, or if anyone would take his side, Karl kept his composure. No one intervened. The customers stayed put, watching the dispute with vulgar curiosity.

  After a number of futile explanations, attempts at courtesy and patience, Karl stood up and punched the man in his drunken face. When he attempted to hit Karl back, he collapsed. From the floor, he threatened that someday justice would be done, but Karl couldn’t listen to his ranting anymore. He paid and left.

  On the way home he met no one. The tranquility of night was spread over the houses and gardens. Only very late, in bed, he saw Elsa Ring again, as he had in his youth. Her face was pure and unblemished. He felt sadness for that purity, which now had been sullied.

  CHAPTER

  6

  In early October, Karl’s promotion was brought before the senior appointments committee. On that committee sat two former municipal secretaries, the deputy mayor, and, representing the local manufacturers’ association, Hochhut the industrialist. The matter had been languishing in file baskets for months, and now it was finally being brought to light.

  He had been with the municipality for seventeen years, since finishing his gymnasium studies, and he had worked in every department, from finance to culture. There was no part of the administration with which he was not familiar. He knew the things that were visible and those that were concealed, the staff, the donors, and of course the elected officials. It was clear to everyone that he was the front-runner for the job. Of course, there were a few other senior officials who submitted their candidacy, but everyone knew that no one had experience like Karl’s.

  Still, ever since submitting his name, he had been uneasy. He kept examining himself in the context of the others. For instance, he discovered that the senior official Brautreben had managed a factory before joining the finance department. Everyone agreed that the finance department was the most complicated one, and for two years he had succeeded in running it well. He was married, had children, and was a member of the parents’ committee. Not only was he a good official but a concerned citizen. Karl saw virtue in every one of the other candidates, and he began to wonder if the conversion would really be viewed as a point in his favor.

  Without realizing it, he became suspicious of Hochhut the industrialist. Karl had known him for years. They had sat together on committees more than once. But Karl had always felt a certain discomfort in his company. Hochhut had converted many years before. Over the years he had acquired all the mannerisms of wood manufacturers. These were men shaped by their work with log rafts and sawmills. There had never been any friction between him and Hochhut. In fact, just two months earlier Karl had authorized two building permits submitted by a contracting company in which Hochhut was a partner. Still, the feeling that Hochhut was going to block his appointment grew stronger and took root in him.

  The next morning he rose, determined to dispel the suspicion. The office was incredibly busy. The files came one after the other. He ate lunch with a childhood friend who was visiting the town. The hours passed slowly but not without pleasure. Only toward evening, on his way home, did he imagine Hochhut’s face again. It was a strong face, resolved against the appointment. Karl felt that if the appointment didn’t go through, he would have to resign, leave town, and start another life elsewhere. He regretted his youth, years wasted in this out-of-the-way place, friends he had abandoned, and his parents, from whom he had been estranged.

  Again, dreams overwhelmed him. For some reason he thought that if he could find Gloria, everything would be put right and the appointment would come through. His sleep became the realm of extended searches, in which his mother, Martin, and senior officials of the municipality took part. These dreams had a clarity that invaded his day. After work he would wander for hours along the Salzburg Boulevard, mulling them over.

  Not far from the boulevard were several seedy bars where Gloria occasionally went. “The peasant in me still needs it,” she would joke. His mother knew of this weakness and forgave her. In fact, if she saw her in a dark mood, she would say, “Gloria, why don’t you go have a drink?”

  One evening he entered one of the bars and asked about Gloria.

  “We haven’t seen her in a long time.”

  “Where is she?”

  “Probably with the Jews. She’s always with them.”

  There was a meanness in the bartender’s voice, and Karl wanted to punch him in the face, but he was too gripped by revulsion at the whole scene. The place seemed like a stinking swamp, and he feared that if he took one more step, he would sink.

  This wasn’t the city he had once loved. From every corner a drunken or wicked face popped up. He lost faith in the possibility of doing good and being rewarded for it. He saw the other officials as a buzzing swarm of bees that stood in the way of the public good. He knew them individually, by name, and he knew what went on in each of their heads. He felt they would never appoint him to the secretaryship. He knew too much, or so they thought. Nor was conversion a panacea. In fact, it had come to seem harmful to him. As if the cover had been removed from some forgotten hiding place. Now anyone could peek in.

  Finally, he entered the White Horse and downed three cognacs. His heart opened as he sat with the woman who owned the place. Kirzl had gone to grade school with him. At the gymnasium they were together for just two years. Her father hadn’t allowed her to finish. A daughter has to help at home. She was short, pretty, and attractive. When she was seventeen an estate owner fell in love with her and they married. But it didn’t last long, so she returned to her father’s house and the bar. Sometimes she would come to see Karl at the municipal building, and he would help her.


  “Have you seen Gloria?” he asked.

  “She hasn’t been here for a year.”

  “I’m planning to go to her village to see what happened to her.”

  “You’re doing the right thing. She’s a precious woman.”

  Kirzl was a good soul who was surrounded by suffering. If she could help, she did. Old men, paupers, and sick people came to her bar. More than a few of them ate there for free. Over the years her face had lost its healthy glow, her body had become gaunt and her fingers swollen. But the innocence of her childhood still sparkled in her eyes.

  During gymnasium she had hardly uttered a word. Studying was as hard for her as splitting the Red Sea. Doing homework, she would bang her head against the wall. Over the years the voice within her taught her to listen to people. Now she focused on Karl. But he wasn’t talking. The few words in his mouth had dried up. So she told him about the place and the people. Once she had spoken only of herself. Now the bar was her life. “I never ask people for what they can’t give,” she said. “A person who expects love ends up lonely. Even parents don’t know how to love their children…” The peasant girl, who had failed mathematics and Latin, now had an advantage over him.

  Kirzl sensed his sadness, poured him a drink and said, “Let’s have another. This cognac is cheap, but good.” Karl sat and looked at her. The blows her father and husband had given her were stamped on her face, but they hadn’t injured her soul.

  “Are you angry with your father?” he finally asked.

  “Not anymore. He suffered in his own way.”

  “It’s hard for us to reconcile with our parents, isn’t it?” Karl asked.

  “It’s true. For many years I hated my father bitterly, and didn’t like my mother either.”

  “My mother died a very difficult death,” the words left Karl’s mouth.

  “I forgave them,” Kirzl said.

  “How?”