Until the Dawn's Light

by Aharon Appelfeld

  At a distance from the door she called out loud, “Kirtzl!” No one answered.

  “Kirtzl!” she called again, and for a moment she stood frozen, trying to absorb what was happening. She opened the door and went inside.

  Kirtzl was sitting outside in the garden, wearing a loose cloak. Her stolid face conveyed a kind of indifference, the relaxed expression of an idle person.

  “How are you?” Blanca addressed Kirtzl as though she weren’t a woman sitting across from her but, rather, a large animal. Because you couldn’t know how it would react, you quickly appeased it.

  “What?” Kirtzl said, her mouth falling open.

  “Where is Otto?”

  “He’s in his room,” she replied, without moving.

  Otto was standing in his cradle, wide-eyed. Blanca sank to her knees, extended her arms, and started to pick him up. Otto burst into tears, frightened by her sudden return.

  “It’s Mama,” Blanca said, putting him down. “Don’t you remember me?”

  Kirtzl got up and stood very close behind her. Blanca felt her fullness and moved aside. Otto cried, and Blanca tried in vain to calm him. Kirtzl observed her desperate efforts without interfering, but eventually she said, “Give him to me.” Blanca passed Otto to her, and, to her astonishment, he stopped crying.

  “How did you do that?” Blanca asked distractedly.

  “You have to lift him up high,” Kirtzl said tonelessly.

  It was two o’clock, and it seemed to Blanca that she had done her duty, that now she had to return to the old age home. A week of separation had distanced her from those oppressive rooms. Even Otto seemed different to her, perhaps because of the blue shirt he was wearing. He had received that shirt some time ago from Adolf’s elder sister. The sister had said at the time, “That’s a boatman’s shirt. Anyone who wears a shirt like that will be as strong as a lion.” Because of what she’d said, or maybe for another reason, Blanca had never touched the shirt, and it lay in the bottom drawer of the dresser. She had hoped that Otto would outgrow it and never wear it.

  “Mama,” Otto suddenly called out, as if he had just realized she was his mother, and reached out toward her. Blanca took him and held him to her heart. She immediately forgot she was working in the old age home in Blumenthal and far away from Otto. It seemed to her that she had been sunk in a long sleep and now she had awakened.

  “How is Adolf?” she asked.

  “He’s fine,” Kirtzl answered briefly.

  Only a week had gone by since Blanca had departed for Blumenthal, and Kirtzl’s fingerprints were in every corner. It wasn’t the house she had left. Every piece of furniture appeared to have changed shape. To the smell of beer and tobacco the scent of cheap perfume was added. But she discovered the most conspicuous change of all on the wall: a blue icon, Jesus in his mother’s arms.

  “Who hung up that icon?” Blanca asked, feeling as though it were no longer her house.

  “I did,” Kirtzl said. “A house without icons is liable to meet disaster.” Kirtzl spoke like a peasant.

  Now Blanca noticed that Kirtzl wasn’t as ugly as she had seemed to be at first. Her broad shoulders suited her face and her full, solid body. For a moment Blanca was about to ask her how one grows such a sturdy body, whether the sun did it or thick corn porridge, but then she realized that it would be a stupid question, and she kept her silence.

  “Did Otto ask about me?”

  “No.”

  “And did you change his diapers at night, too?”

  “You don’t change children’s diapers at night.”

  “Why not?”

  “They have to get strong.”

  Kirtzl had the confidence of a peasant who had received the lessons of life as an inheritance from her ancestors.

  “And how was your work?” Kirtzl surprised her by asking.

  “The old people are sweet.”

  “And they didn’t make passes at you?”

  “They’re old people.”

  “There are old men with very young urges. In our village, there’s an old codger who sleeps with his niece every night.”

  Blanca looked at her broad face again. A kind of satisfaction filled it. It was clear to Blanca that a head like that, stuck onto a sturdy neck and planted on cushioned shoulders, never got dizzy. She never vomited and she didn’t have insomnia, and when she got up in the morning, guilt feelings didn’t gnaw at her. Her limbs were fastened on well. She had no backaches and no weak knees.

  “And are you pleased?” Blanca asked for some reason.

  Kirtzl smiled a narrow, secret smile, which immediately revealed what had happened in the house during the week that Blanca wasn’t there. After eating his dinner, Adolf had made clear how it was going to be and then left for the tavern. When he came back, he had gotten right into Kirtzl’s bed, peeled off her nightgown, and, without any niceties, mounted her. Later, after nodding off for a while, he had mounted her again. Then she had become heated up and planted her teeth in his neck. Adolf had kneaded her and eaten her flesh with a greedy mouth. Toward morning, before leaving for work and while she was still groggy, he had mounted her again, gotten dressed, and gone out.

  Blanca looked at Kirtzl and knew with certainty that this was what had happened. A secret jealousy flooded through her, as though she understood for the first time that there were healthy, coarse people for whom life was intended, and the rest were thrown to the side.

  40

  WHEN ADOLF CAME home from work, he pierced her with a look and asked, “How was it?”

  “Fine,” Blanca answered, matching his tone.

  Adolf’s face was flushed, and it was clear he had downed quite a few drinks, but he wasn’t drunk. Repressed rage filled his face and traveled down the nape of his neck. Blanca rushed to serve him his meal—whatever was in the pantry and what she had managed to prepare. Adolf didn’t complain. He sank into his plate and made no comment.

  Blanca sat at some distance from him and observed him—the way he cut the steak, then sliced the bread and broke it into cubes. He dipped the cubes in the gravy and put them in his mouth. That was how his father ate, and so did he. But this time, for some reason, it seemed to her that with those movements he was imitating an unusually large dog that she had seen the night before in a dream and that she had been frightened of.

  “How was it?” she asked after a prolonged silence.

  “I worked.” He dismissed her with brevity.

  “And how was Kirtzl?” she had an urge to ask.

  “Fine.”

  Blanca knew every detail of that abrupt way of speaking. Adolf had never had a real vocabulary, but the little that did emerge from his mouth was sufficient for him to express himself. Among his friends in the church and the tavern he spoke a lot, but in fact he used the same words over and over.

  When Adolf finished the meal, he asked, “How much did they pay you?”

  Blanca rose to her feet, picked up her purse, and took out the banknotes. With the same hand she took out the coins as well and laid them on the table.

  “Not much,” he said, not touching the money.

  “That’s what I received.”

  “They have to pay you more.”

  “That’s the salary.”

  “The Jews are always exploiters.”

  It seemed to her that he was going to fold the banknotes, gather the coins up in his hand, and slip them into his pocket.

  “I’ll need money for fare on Monday,” she dared to say.

  “Very well,” he said, and left a banknote on the table.

  Blanca took the bill and put it into her purse.

  “I’m going out,” he said.

  In the first weeks after their marriage, Blanca used to implore Adolf to stay. Don’t go out, don’t leave me alone, she would say. Just for an hour or an hour and a half, he would reply, and I won’t drink a lot. She would sit at home and cry, and when he came back, she would pretend to be h
appy. Eventually she stopped asking. She understood that his cronies and the drinks were more important than she was. As long as he enjoyed her body, he didn’t despise her, but after she became pregnant and started vomiting, his attitude changed: he stopped talking to her and his sentences shrank to just a word or two, as though she were no longer his wife but a beast of burden that had fallen ill and was no longer useful.

  Now she stood to the side and observed the way he put on his coat, tightened his belt, opened the door, and, without saying another word, went on his way. Over the next hour he would sit with his buddies, drink, brag, and tell a coarse joke about his Jewish employer. Then he would pull the bills she had given him out of his pocket and pay for them all, proudly proclaiming, “Tonight the drinks are on me!” the way she’d heard him announce more than once. The thought pierced her for a moment. She planted her feet on the floor and didn’t move. But the joy of having Otto in her arms, of being able to look into his eyes and talk with him, was so overwhelming that the way Adolf had robbed her a moment ago was erased from her mind.

  That evening she had a few drinks and told Otto about her father and mother. She recalled the high school and the mathematics and Latin teachers, she spoke at length about Grandma Carole, and she said, “The work in the old age home in Blumenthal is exhausting and humiliating, but after darkness the light will come, and we will never be separated again.” She spoke in a torrent, mixing past and present, and she was so tired that she sank down on the floor next to Otto’s cradle and fell asleep.

  Adolf apparently came back very late. He shouted and cursed, but Blanca didn’t hear him. Still, something apparently filtered into her sleep, because she was frightened and got up. When she opened her eyes, Adolf was already lying on the bed with his legs stretched out like the drunks who used to sprawl in the square not far from the high school.

  The next morning, Blanca rose early, dressed Otto in clean clothes, and immediately left for church. She didn’t wake Adolf because he had once said to her, “Don’t you ever dare wake me!”

  In church she met her father-in-law and mother-in-law and Adolf’s sisters. They all asked how Otto was and made a fuss about his hair; it went without saying that they didn’t ask how his working mother was. They were concerned only about the crown prince.

  After mass the family and some guests came to the house. Adolf was merry and greeted them with hugs. Blanca rushed to serve sandwiches and drinks. Every step was hard for her, but she made an effort and stayed on her feet.

  “Blanca, let me tell you something: you shouldn’t serve sandwiches without pickles,” her mother-in-law commented.

  “I didn’t manage to pickle any cucumbers this week.”

  “I prepare them in the summer, so that I’ll have a supply in the winter.”

  “In the future I’ll see to that,” she said, to avoid quarreling, but her mother-in-law wasn’t content with that apology and went on to say, “You have a big garden, and you can grow all your vegetables in it.”

  “I was working in the old age home in Blumenthal this week,” she said, trying to defend herself.

  “I also worked away from home when I was young, but I never neglected the house. The house comes before everything else. That’s our temple, and we must watch over it like hawks.”

  Now Blanca felt the anger that had been repressed within her since her return. It flowed through her arms and extended to her fingertips. She was alarmed. She hugged Otto and said in a quavering voice, “I understand.” Her mother-in-law apparently sensed the repressed anger and fixed her with a venomous look.

  41

  THUS THE WEEKS sped by, and the seasons changed. Every Sunday Otto would break Blanca’s heart with his weeping. In the first weeks, he seemed to be getting used to her absence, but that was only how it appeared. His cries for help grew steadily stronger, and she could hear them in distant Blumenthal.

  One Monday, while Blanca was running to the station, Brandstock, the storekeeper, stopped her and told her that Grandma Carole had died the previous night. The funeral party was leaving from her house at noon. Then he turned and walked away.

  “What?” Blanca gasped.

  Brandstock was one of the few people in town, perhaps the only one, who was still an observant Jew. He was a short man with an unpleasant look. He would sometimes appear in her father’s store, buy something, and then announce out loud that the merchandise there was more expensive than in another store, but that he, Brandstock, was committed to buying from Jews and would always do so. Her father, of course, would get angry at that remark and retort, “You aren’t obliged to.” To which Brandstock would respond, “I’ll never change. This is how I’ve always acted, and this is how I always will in the future.”

  Blanca, plagued with guilt feelings because she had left Otto behind, didn’t absorb Brandstock’s bitter message at first, but when it did register she started running toward the granaries that stood along the Schenau River to catch up with him and get more details. But, as though in spite, Brandstock had disappeared, as if the earth had swallowed him.

  “I have to go right away,” she said, and turned toward the railway station. After she had gone some distance, she realized that she was walking in the wrong direction and turned around. It was eight thirty, and thick, foggy clouds crept over the houses. Only the tower of the municipal building and the trapezoidal roof of the school stood out.

  Grandma Carole’s house was not far away from there, but ever since her marriage Blanca had avoided the house, and it had faded from her memory. It was a house of the kind that was no longer built, made of wooden beams. In the past people used to daub special oil on the walls, making them shine and last a long time, but in recent years they had stopped oiling the walls, and they were turning gray.

  “I must go straight,” she said, and started walking. It was not the way to Grandma Carole’s house, but the way to the high school. For a moment she was glad to be walking on that path again. Not until she reached the Kumers’ store did she realize that she had made a mistake and that she would be better off heading for the center of town, to find out what had happened and to prepare for what was to come.

  In My Corner people already knew about Grandma Carole’s death, and they came up to Blanca and hugged her. There was no one in town who hadn’t encountered her, and there was no convert to Christianity who hadn’t been wounded by her tongue. Nevertheless, they harbored respect for her. Everybody knew she was an honest, courageous woman and that Judaism was more important to her than her body.

  One of the storekeepers, whose name Blanca didn’t remember, said, “Carole was a great and brave Jewish woman. It’s too bad we didn’t know how to appreciate her when she was alive.”

  “Now you’re saying that?” A voice was heard from the back of the room.

  “I always said it.”

  “I never heard it.”

  The voices surrounded Blanca on every side, and they moved her. The owner of My Corner refused to accept payment for her coffee and apologized because he wouldn’t be able to attend the funeral. Blanca was embarrassed and confused.

  “You have to take this from me,” she said. “It’s your livelihood.”

  Whereupon the proprietor answered emotionally, “You’re like a daughter to me. I won’t accept it.”

  When Blanca reached Grandma Carole’s house, the door was already open wide. In the living room, where Blanca used to play on the floor for hours when she was a child, Grandma Carole lay covered in a white sheet. Two candles burned near her head. The members of the Himmelburg burial society had already performed the necessary tasks, and they now stood at some distance from the deceased woman, waiting for mourners. “My name is Blanca, and I’m the dead woman’s granddaughter,” she said, introducing herself.

  “Aside from you, are there other relatives?” asked a member of the burial society, without any special courtesy.

  “There are two other grandchildren, but they live in Leipzig.”<
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  “Out of respect for the deceased, we need some details.”

  “I’m prepared to help in every way,” Blanca said, and immediately felt that her words were out of place.

  “What was Grandma Carole’s Jewish name?”

  “I don’t know, sir, on my honor, I don’t know. We called her Grandma Carole.”

  “And what were the names of her father and mother?”

  “I don’t know that, either.”

  “Was your grandmother observant?”

  “She was very meticulous in matters of the tradition, Rabbi.”

  “I’m not a rabbi,” said the man.

  “Sorry.”

  “How or from what did the deceased pass away?”

  “I don’t know, sir. For the past two years, I haven’t spoken with her.”

  “Why?”

  “She was angry at me, sir. I married a Christian and converted. Grandma Carole never forgave me for that. Once I tried to ask forgiveness from her, but she wouldn’t forgive me.”

  “I understand,” said the man, bowing his head.

  “And what will we do now, sir?”

  “We’ll wait for the prayer quorum.”

  Blanca knew that her question was stupid, and she was embarrassed. The winter light streamed through the windows and scattered the shadows that had gathered in the corners. Blanca remembered now that when she was a girl, she and her mother used to come here and sit on the sofa. Then, too, a sudden light would pour in and illuminate the dark corners.

  Meanwhile, Brandstock arrived and said, “I didn’t manage to get anyone to come. People don’t want to come to a Jewish funeral. What can I do?”

  “I don’t understand,” said the head of the burial society.