The Retreat

by Aharon Appelfeld

  FIFTEEN

  In February Balaban succumbed to dark, angry moods. From time to time he would burst into the hall and lash out with barely intelligible grunts and growls. “None of you are ready,” he growled. “What will you do if the horse trainers come? What did I bring you here for? You’re eating up all my property.” Cries and shouts which had once been the terror of stable and barn. But in spite of his threats the inmates were not really frightened. And Balaban, apparently sensing that his anger was not making an impression, would smash a plate or throw a pot to the floor.

  Herbert would stand next to him and calm him down, speak to him in mild and conciliatory words, humor him and promise him that in the summer everything would be better, the inmates would come to their senses, run like deer and exercise. From time to time Balaban would go down to the village, get drunk and come back red in the face, exuding a sour smell and muttering in the language of a stable boy. The Jews were loafers, cheats, liars, money-grubbers and gamblers. There was no hope for them but a forced labor camp.

  Betty Shlang’s gaiety did not abandon her even in these hard times. She would make her appearance in the hall, nonchalantly scattering compliments. The inmates treated her tolerantly, as if she were a troublesome sister who was not quite right in the head. Toward Balaban, for some reason, she was particularly provocative.

  “So you intend changing me.”

  “Yes, you too.”

  “You hear, he wants to change me. How do you want to change me?”

  “By exercise, of course, running every morning and working the land.”

  “Me.”

  “Yes, you. It’s about time.”

  Two years before she had divorced her husband and ever since she had been celebrating her freedom. She changed her dress twice a day, made up her face and kept up an endless stream of old Jewish jokes, giving the place the air of a pension in bygone days: small talk and flirtations.

  She had arrived here by mistake, under the impression that it was a cheap hotel of the kind commonly encountered in the provinces. But as time went by, although she never actually realized her mistake, she adjusted herself to the life of the retreat and turned into a permanent fixture, one of the loyal old-timers without whom the place would have been unthinkable. Like the others, she too was planning to return to the plains in a month or two. They had grown accustomed to her chatter, and no one told her to keep quiet any more.

  She had wanted to go on the stage when she was a girl, but her parents had been horrified at the idea and prevented her from fulfilling her ambition. Later on she married. The marriage was childless, but nevertheless her husband too had prevented her from becoming an actress. For this she would never forgive him. And in order to show off her theatrical gifts she would recite, sing like a barmaid, and take off the rabbi in the temple. Her performances were rather lacking in taste or talent, but they were amusing nevertheless. But for her mortal enemy the cook, her life would have been easier. The cook hounded her and called her empty-headed Betty, and whenever she had the opportunity to deprive her of breakfast or supper she was only to glad to do so. Betty for her part mimicked her, told jokes about her, and when she was feeling particularly sour she called her a holy harlot.

  In the course of time it became clear that she was bent on attracting the notice of Robert, the janitor. In the beginning Balaban had brought Robert from the village in order to teach the inmates how to work in the fields, ride horses and swim in the river. He was a tall, laconic man. People still remembered how he had guided them on long walks, taken care of the horses and worked in the garden. He did his work quietly and impassively, and when the sun set he would drop onto his bed and fall asleep. But after a year on the mountain something changed in him. At first the change seemed insignificant, but as time went by it transpired that he was taking an increasing interest in the idle chatter and poker games of the inmates. Balaban reprimanded him, but he kept his eyes open and learned in secret. Balaban meant to fire him, but he lacked the resolution to do so.

  From time to time he would go down to the village and get drunk and come back happy. But it was no longer the same happiness. He took to sitting on the ground with a gloomy expression on his face, and he would often fall asleep where he sat.

  “What is to become of you, Robert?” Balaban would say to him from time to time.

  “What?”

  “I’m asking you what is to become of you. I brought you here in order to reform these Jews. To get them out-of-doors, straighten their backs, make honest men of them.”

  At first he would make excuses, tell stories and lies. But now when he saw Balaban coming he would slink away like a guilty animal. Sometimes when the fancy took him he would talk about his village, life in the country, his crops and his animals. He had a soft spot in particular for deciduous fruit trees: plums and peaches. And when he sat and spoke about these things his old expression would come back to him. And thus, without intending it, he kindled longings in people’s hearts and awoke dormant desires to go down to the plains. Betty was enchanted by his voice, but he disapproved of Betty and her eccentricities.

  It was no longer a secret to anyone that at night she cried aloud: Robert, I love you, your body born from the trees of the fields, your eyes washed by the rivers, your soul hewn from the source of purity. And sometimes, beside herself, she would ask shamelessly: “Why doesn’t he want to go to bed with me? Isn’t my body good enough to go to bed with any more?”

  “You must exercise. He’s not used to Jewish women.”

  “I’m a woman and that’s all. What’s Jewish about me, for God’s sake?”

  “You must speak to him quietly.”

  “How can I be calm? He’s driving me out of my mind.”

  At one time, it was no secret, he had conducted a number of modest flirtations with the women residents, some said with Sophia too. But since Sophia’s death he had been sunk in a stupor and hardly uttered a word. If not for Betty, his presence would scarcely have attracted any attention at all. But precisely his comatose state, his quiet, bucolic drowsiness, drove her wild. He sleeps with himself, she muttered, why not with me? What am I asking for, after all. Nothing but a little caress. The cook listened and ground her teeth. If it had been in her power to throw Betty out, she would have thrown her out. But to her credit it must be said that Betty sometimes forgot herself and her tormenting desires, her grudges and grievances against her ex-husband, put on a dress with an impressively low neckline, and sat in the hall telling old Jewish jokes. And although everybody knew these jokes by heart, no one told her to keep quiet.

  Lang, however, persevered. Even when the temperature dropped to below zero he went on exercising. Sometimes he managed to drag Rauch with him, and they ran round the mountain together. And when Betty saw them running in the frost she jumped up like a startled girl and cried, “Look at them running. Who told them to run like that?”

  The end of February was fresh, clear and transparent as glass. From the front windows the slopes looked blindingly smooth and clear. What am I doing here, a voice rose distractedly in the air. What do you mean, have you forgotten? You’re here to reform your character, correct your defects, straighten your distortions. And the crooked shall be made straight, isn’t that what it says in the Bible?

  The old Jewish mockery blossomed round the tables, where the card games now continued from morning to night. From time to time Lauffer brought a bottle of brandy up from the village and they all drank a toast. And if there was anyone who was persecuted for nothing, it was the janitor. Balaban could not forgive him his sins, and whenever Balaban appeared in the hall he slunk away. The horse too was no longer what it had been. It could barely manage to draw the old sleigh. Every now and then the janitor went out to the stable and beat it up, more than anything else in order to create a little commotion so that Balaban would not suspect him of sitting about doing nothing.

  But Lotte was happy. The idea that she had been awarded a grant never ceased to gladden her he
art. At first she thought of preparing Ibsen’s Nora, but then she changed her mind. Now she was working on Rilke. She still had not found the right tone. Poetry reading was a complex art, as she knew to her cost. She saw Herbert only rarely. He was working. Once a day he went down with the janitor to buy provisions. On his return he looked like a tired Jewish businessman. He grew tanned, and there was a kind of wondering bewilderment on his face.

  Lotte’s days now passed in a strange, vivid clarity. The inward clamor, did not subside. But it was no longer a devouring clamor, it was a steady flow of water gathering to a point. She liked observing people closely: their hands and feet, the way they sat, rested, ate. A head suddenly tilting to the left. It was a soundless hunt which absorbed her for hours, so intensely that it hurt. When her heart was stirred, she would put on her coat and go out to walk around the building, the remains of the stables and the running field, Balaban’s kingdom sinking beneath the snow. And when she returned from her walk, she would wrap herself in the thin blankets and sit in the hall. It was very cold, and the heating was not working. If only Balaban had installed an old-fashioned stove they would have been able to chop up wood and heat the hall. But the coal for the heating system had to be brought up from the village and it was expensive. At the beginning of winter Balaban would appear and announce: “Cold strengthens the body. Take an example from Lang.” Now he no longer said anything, and besides, he was hardly ever to be seen in the hall.

  As Lotte sat shivering under the two thin blankets a man approached her and offered her a sheepskin, saying, “This will keep you warm.”

  “But I can’t take it, it’s yours,” said Lotte.

  “I have another one. I provided myself with whatever I needed. I didn’t rely on anybody.”

  “And you’re giving this one to me?”

  “I have an extra one. I bought it in the village last summer. I told them all: prepare yourselves. Winter’s coming. And Balaban won’t do anything about the heating. But they wouldn’t listen, I’m sorry to say, and now they’re freezing.”

  “You were right.”

  “I told them not to give him money. I knew he wouldn’t do anything about the heating, but they shut their ears and gave him all they had. And now they’re freezing.”

  “You were quite right,” said Lotte, sensing that the man was in need of a word of approval.

  “What good are words when people refuse to listen.”

  The practicality of this man, who looked about fifty, horrified her. She looked at his little, waxen hands, which for some reason made her think of the Jewish peddlers she had encountered on her travels, bowed down under the weight of their cases. Sometimes they would push their way into the rehearsal hall and offer their wares for sale.

  “And another thing,” the man continued without waiting for a reply, as if he was afraid something would prevent him from passing on this important information, “don’t trust anybody and don’t expect any favors,” he whispered.

  “I don’t expect anything,” said Lotte.

  “In that case you’re on the right path, the only right one. Illusion is the mother of all sin, and here, I’m sorry to say, everyone is party to the illusion.”

  “Thank you very much,” said Lotte.

  “Not at all. When all’s said and done, I can’t do much to help you. There’s only one thing I wanted to say: don’t expect any favors.” He repeated this slogan and it seemed as if he had learned it off by heart. His pale face, blotched with orange freckles, lost its serious expression, softened and he smiled.

  “People here still write letters and ask for favors from the ones they left below. God almighty, what self-deception.”

  “And you yourself have no relations below?”

  “Of course I have, two sons. But I had them converted when they were still young, while I still had a little control over them. I would never have dared to do it when my wife was alive. My wife was a proud Jewess, from the East. But I knew I had no right to imprison them in the cage called a Jewish ghetto and I gave them the freedom to choose—an observation point. So that they wouldn’t come and blame their father for bequeathing them a malignant disease. Their father did what had to be done. Now let them carry on.”

  “Do they write?”

  “No. I told them explicitly not to write to me. It’s too late now for me to change and I don’t want to change. I’m satisfied with my lot. By the way, I never believed in Balaban’s experiments, begging his pardon. I don’t fancy the taste of his miracle yogurt, I detest hunting, hate sport, nobody’s going to change me at this stage of my life, not even with a whip. But my sons—with my sons it’s another story. I had them converted when they were still boys at high school. They married young and they live in the country. Good luck to them. It’s good for them to be there in the fresh air close to the farm animals. What did I have to give to them: only shame, feelings of fear. I haven’t seen them for ten years now. I’m sure that I wouldn’t recognize them if I saw them. They probably speak the local dialect by now. Tell me, don’t you think I did right?”

  And Lotte, suddenly forced to respond, did not know what to say. Cold shivers ran down her spine. She bent down and tried to hide her face.

  “My considerations were very practical: good and evil, life and death. I chose good, I chose life. Should I perhaps have spoiled my sons’ lives for the sake of a few paternal sentiments? The dead are forgotten in the end. And what I spoiled nature will put right, the women and the animals of the fields.”

  “And don’t you miss them?”

  “No, to tell the truth. I’m a practical man, madam. I feel comfortable with my own kind. I know them and they know me. And here, at any rate, it’s every man for himself. He who has a blanket is warm and he who lacks one suffers from the cold. We were born Jews and it seems we shall die Jews. Let’s not leave any traces beyond what’s strictly necessary.” His businesslike tone seemed to falter and he dropped his voice to a whisper. “Balaban tried to tame me too, he took me out to run in the morning a couple of times. What a joke. And when I laughed he called me an incorrigible Jew. What does he want me to do, cry?”

  “Supper.” The cook opened the hatch and rang a little bell. The man’s face emerged with a start from his stream of words and he hurried off to fetch his bowl. “Au revoir,” he said. “My name is Max Hammer. We’ll meet again.”

  The sharp, sudden sound split Lotte’s attention in two like a ball cut in half. She now knew, with a new clarity, that her achievements in the theater were small and insignificant, that her characterizations were weak, and that she had never plumbed the depths of a single role.

  Everyone was standing in the queue and she too joined them. The way they were standing there, so still, reminded her of some forgotten theatrical piece. She now felt a sad kind of intimacy with these people, who had come to shelter under the wings of Balaban.

  That night Lotte wrapped herself in the sheepskin and she did not feel the cold at all. The figure of the short man did not leave her for a moment. His practical matter-of-factness for some reason filled her with pity. To tell the truth she felt pity for herself, for her life which had passed in haste and confusion.

  SIXTEEN

  And while the cold spread over the bare slopes, locking the retreat within its strong arms, Lang disappeared. At first it seemed nothing but a trifling lateness. For he did sometimes come late. But when evening fell and Lang had still not come back, a few people gathered in the doorway.

  Recently he had been full of enthusiasm, speaking of his own transformation and the transformation of the others with many bombastic words. In the retreat they still remembered his dramatic cry, full of pathos: There is still hope! A few of them had in fact noticed that something had changed in his appearance, but who paid any attention to such trivialities? Everyone was preoccupied with his own concerns: blankets and something hot to drink. Balaban made desperate attempts but lighting a fire in the stove was beyond him.

  The anxiety spread of its own acco
rd. They spoke of other days, different conditions, of the gymnastic apparatus lying uselessly in the deserted gym hall, of Betty Shlang and all her fantasies which had now been subsumed in one compelling vision: Robert.

  And while they were all talking, arguing and complaining, Balaban rose to his feet, put on his farmer’s coat and announced in his old voice: “We must go out to look for him.” The announcement was short and clipped, every word showed resolution. And he did not stop at words. He divided the residents into teams, appointed a leader for every team, distributed a torch, a rope and a hunting knife to each, and with no more ado commanded: “Every man to his post. No one will be abandoned.”

  The residents were thunderstruck. It was a long time since words of this caliber had been heard in the retreat. True, in the days of his glory Balaban had shown a certain firmness and resolution. But many months had passed since then. The old habits had come creeping back and found a refuge here.

  “I told him,” said Mrs. Kron in her old maternal voice, “but he wouldn’t listen to me. He refused to give up his evening run. What sane person goes running in the winter, in the frost?” Rauch, his morning running mate, stood wrapped up in his winter coat, silent and erect, looking for some reason like the possessor of vast properties. To tell the truth, it was Betty who was now the center of attention. She ranted and raved, screaming at the top of her voice. “What am I doing here? Why did I let myself be talked into staying here?” Her outburst was a mixture of words, complaints and ancient fears. Herbert’s pleas were in vain. She was insistent: What am I doing here.

  “Becoming a human being,” said Rauch, raising his voice.

  “I’m a woman.”

  “You’re a jellyfish, not a woman.”

  “Did you hear what he called me?” Betty interrupted her screaming.

  This exchange, for some reason, relieved the tension.