Until the Dawn's Light

by Aharon Appelfeld

  Blanca knelt down and played dominoes with Otto. Otto won, but he wasn’t happy with his victory. It seemed to him that his mother was fooling him, though Blanca assured him again and again that his victory was truly earned, that she had done nothing to let him win.

  Then Otto put on his new clothes. They suited him. He looked like the only son of a petit bourgeois family that had lost its fortune, but whose mother decided to dress him like a prince anyway, and to that end she had taken out a loan, unbeknownst to her husband. Now, sudden fear fell upon her.

  Later in the day Blanca remembered the hasty visit she had made to the cemetery during the winter, after Otto’s recovery. No one had been there, and heavy rain whipped the gravestones. The mud on the paths was deep and sticky, and Blanca could barely reach her mother’s grave. When she stood before the small tombstone, she had nothing to say, and she immediately turned back in her tracks. Since that visit, she hadn’t dared return. It seemed to her that her mother was asking her not to come and bother her, as she had done a few weeks before her death.

  “My darlings, let me be by myself for a few days,” she had said at the time. “I have to be by myself.” Blanca’s father, who was confused and fearful, had grasped Blanca’s hand, stepped back to the door, and murmured, “We’re going right out. We won’t disturb you. You need rest.” Years had passed since she had heard those trembling words. Now they filled her ears again.

  Otto played and played until he finally sank down and slept. From the time he had been a baby, Blanca loved to watch Otto in his sleep. Now he slept in a different position. He lay folded up, and it was evident that his daytime activity was continuing on into his sleep. His intense face softened, and a thin smile spread across it. Blanca sat without moving from her place. The thought that she, with her own hands, had freed Otto from the prison of Kirtzl, had borne him far away and brought him here—that thought filled her with pride.

  Suddenly Otto woke up in alarm.

  “Mama!” he called out.

  “What’s the matter, dear?”

  “I dreamed that I lost you in a railway station.”

  “That’s not true. I’m here.”

  “Why didn’t I see you?”

  “That happens sometimes. It was only a dream.”

  To distract him, they went down to the dining room and sat in their usual places. It was eight o’clock, and Mrs. Tauber said, “I see that our young man fell asleep and slept well. Now I’ll make him something that he’ll like a lot: cheese dumplings dipped in strawberry jam. I speak poor German, but you understand me, don’t you?”

  During that time of the year the guests were few and the dining room was mostly empty, so Mrs. Tauber indulged those who were there. Otto was pleased and ate with gusto. The pension reminded Blanca of another house in another place, but where, she couldn’t remember. She sat and drank cup after cup of coffee. The thoughts that had oppressed her during the day had scattered now, and she watched Otto closely. A feeling that things would be like this from now on, that nothing would separate them, throbbed within her.

  “What are you thinking about, Mama?” Otto asked softly.

  “Nothing.”

  “You’re not thinking about anything?” He tried to understand.

  “That happens sometimes.”

  Otto chuckled, as though he had caught his mother once again in a kind of mental lapse.

  55

  THE NEXT DAY Blanca learned from Mrs. Tauber that a Jewish woman had recently opened a kindergarten on the outskirts of the city. She had studied in Vienna and was applying modern educational methods. I must find a secure shelter for Otto, she said to herself, and so they went there.

  It was an old-fashioned house. The windows were broad, there was a garden behind the house, and beyond the fence were open fields. Blanca introduced herself.

  “My name is Blanca Guttmann,” she said, “and this is my son, Otto Guttmann. We heard about your kindergarten, and we’d like to learn more.”

  “My name is Rosa Baum,” the woman answered. “This is actually the community orphanage.”

  “That’s exactly what I’m looking for,” Blanca said. “I can help out here, if there’s a need.”

  “Regrettably, we can’t offer a salary.”

  “I don’t need a salary.”

  So Blanca and Otto were received in “The Home,” which is what Rosa called it.

  “The place is just right for Otto,” Blanca told Mrs. Tauber that evening. “The house is close to the fields, and light streams in from the windows. I’m so grateful to you.”

  “I didn’t do anything,” Mrs. Tauber said, blushing.

  “You helped us,” Blanca insisted. “Without your help, we were like blind people.”

  Mr. Tauber, in contrast to his wife, spoke in torrents, interpreting and explaining, and his efforts to please the guests were somewhat ridiculous. Despite this, he also had a certain charm, especially when he appeared in the morning with the coffeepot in his hand, loudly announcing his wish to be of service.

  “Fresh coffee,” he would say. “I prepared it with my own hands just now.”

  Rosa Baum was about thirty-five years old, but her face was like a young girl’s. When she knelt, she was no taller than the children who surrounded her. She herself had been orphaned at a young age, and good people had adopted her and taken care of her schooling. When she was eighteen, they had sent her to Vienna to study education at a well-known institution named after Rousseau. She studied there for five years. At the end of her studies she was invited to stay on and teach, but Rosa wanted to come back to Struzhincz and establish the first orphanage in the province. At the beginning it wasn’t easy. For many months she knocked on the doors of wealthy people until she found a donor, Dr. Haussmann, and he placed a beautiful home at her disposal. The daily needs and the salaries were paid for by the Jewish community.

  In the mornings Blanca helped to wash the children and to prepare the prayer hall. The prayers lasted no longer than twenty minutes, and afterward breakfast was served.

  “I never learned the Hebrew alphabet,” Blanca apologized.

  “It’s not hard to learn, if you want to,” said Rosa in the manner of a person who has known sorrow in her life.

  “And my knowledge of Judaism, I’m ashamed to say, is extremely limited,” said Blanca. She remembered the thick holiday prayer book she had seen in her mother’s hands, and its yellowed pages.

  Otto felt comfortable in the orphanage. He played with the children on the floor. They spoke a mixture of Yiddish and German, and he usually understood what they were talking about. Sometimes, when he didn’t understand a word, he raised his head, looked over to his mother, and Rosa explained it to him.

  At ten thirty Rosa would tell them a Bible story. When Rosa was speaking, the children were very attentive, devouring every word. Afterward they would return to their play in the central room or on the balcony. When a quarrel broke out—and a quarrel did break out once or twice a day—Rosa would stand in the middle of the room, close her eyes, and say, “God in heaven sees everything and hears everything. He is our father and our redeemer, and He commands us to love one another.” Amazingly, the quarrel would die down.

  At first Blanca was put off by Rosa’s religiosity—it seemed contrived to her—but now she saw that her worship of God was neither artificial nor bitter. There was simplicity in her ways and in her faith, and that faith is what she sought to instill in the children.

  During one break Rosa said to Blanca, “I’m trying to bring the children close to the faith of their fathers. A person who is connected with the faith of his fathers is not an orphan.”

  “Will they be religious children?” Blanca asked, immediately sensing that there was a flaw in her question.

  “We teach them how to pray,” Rosa replied.

  “In my house we didn’t observe the tradition,” said Blanca, realizing that it wasn’t the full truth.

  In the aftern
oon Blanca would go down to the market and buy groceries for The Home. The market extended out over a broad, bustling plaza. Peasants displayed their produce in improvised stalls or on long linen cloths. The bustle filled Blanca with a marvelous feeling of forgetfulness, and for a moment it seemed to her that she hadn’t just arrived in Struzhincz, but that she had been working in The Home and shopping in this market for years. Toward evening she would return from the market, laden, and lay the baskets on the mats next to the sink. She would prepare supper together with Rosa.

  At night Blanca would return to the pension, and Otto would stay and sleep with the children in The Home. Mrs. Tauber was childless, and the sorrow this caused her was apparent in everything she did. Years ago she had traveled to a well-known doctor in Vienna. He had treated her and promised wonders, but later it became known that his methods were fraudulent and that he had deceived hundreds of women. Since then she had not gone anywhere else to seek a cure. For twenty years she and her husband had run the pension. They had regular clients who came from Czernowitz.

  “Our needs are not many,” she would say, “and our life is simple. For what we have, we say a blessing.”

  It was evident that the faith of her fathers, which she had brought from her village, sustained her here, too, and there was an innocence in her speech. Nevertheless, Blanca refrained from revealing even a hint of her secret to her. She merely said, “I married very young, and my life wasn’t easy. Now I have to bring Otto to a safe haven.”

  Thus November passed. In early December Blanca noticed that the WANTED posters that had hung on the walls of the railway station were now displayed on public buildings as well. For a few days she tried to ignore them, but they cried out from every wall.

  I have to tell you something important, she was about to say to Rosa, but she checked herself. She was afraid and didn’t know what to do. It seemed to her that gendarmes were lying in wait for her in every corner.

  December was gloomy and cold. After work she would return to the pension and ask, “Has anything come for me?”

  “No, nothing, my dear,” Mrs. Tauber would reply.

  She would go up to her room immediately, curl up in bed, and say to herself, Otto is so busy with his friends that if I disappear, he won’t notice my absence.

  Blanca’s life seemed to have slowly disintegrated. First her conversion, then the hasty marriage, and, immediately afterward, her mother’s death. In those two ceremonies and in the funeral, parts of her soul were amputated. And after her father’s disappearance, her body was emptied of all its will. Just one desire remained within her now: for drink. She tried not to drink in Otto’s presence. She would drink only at night, when she was by herself.

  “Don’t forget the notebooks that are in your backpack,” she would remind Otto whenever she was with him.

  “What notebooks?”

  “The notebooks that I wrote for you.”

  “I won’t forget,” said Otto distractedly.

  Blanca knew that her requests were pointless. Still, she confused and embarrassed him with them.

  With every passing day, the threat to Blanca increased. One evening, when she was on her way from the market to the orphanage, she noticed that a WANTED poster also appeared on the church wall. The sight of the poster on the wall brought before her a vision of Adolf, kneeling in church. Even while kneeling he stood out; he was so much taller than the other worshippers. He didn’t pray much, but he did pray loudly. His mother, who always knelt at his side, would sometimes raise her head to gaze at him during the service. She adored him, and showed it even in church.

  The next morning, by chance, Blanca heard a woman say to her friend, “Did you hear about the murderess who killed her husband with an ax? They say that she’s hiding among us and that a contingent of gendarmes is due to come here to make a search.”

  “I didn’t hear that.”

  “But you did hear about the murderess?”

  “Of course.”

  “It’s frightening to think that she’s among us.”

  They kept on talking, but Blanca couldn’t catch their words. She fled and headed straight for the pension.

  That night Blanca didn’t sleep. The fear that had secretly tormented her suddenly vanished. Her senses were alert, and she could see clearly—the residents of the old age home in Blumenthal, for example. She saw the row of beds in the dormitory, the private rooms of the wealthier residents, and the alcove where the aged Tsirl lived. She had started stealing there by chance, but she soon came to steal deftly, while pretending to be a lethargic woman. The residents hadn’t suspected her but picked on the cleaning women instead. All the time she worked there, she had remained on guard and hadn’t erred even with a single gesture. And when she bade good-bye to the residents, her voice hadn’t conveyed even a single hint of remorse. On the contrary, the pocket full of jewels filled her with hidden pleasure. This, too, is Blanca, she said to herself, and she’ll face judgment for that as well, when the day comes.

  The next morning she told Mrs. Tauber, “I’ve just gotten news that my father is very ill, and I have to set out right away.”

  “What can I say?” Mrs. Tauber said in a choked voice.

  “I didn’t behave well toward my father. You should never send parents to an old age home. Old age homes stifle and humiliate people.”

  Mrs. Tauber cut her short. “Go easy on yourself, Blanca.”

  “I’m not the essence of purity,” Blanca replied.

  “None of us has done his duty properly,” said Mrs. Tauber.

  “I’m not talking about duties, but about ugly selfishness.”

  Mrs. Tauber was stunned by Blanca’s words and refused to accept payment for the final week. But Blanca insisted and said, “I don’t want to be in your debt.” She also stuffed a banknote into the housekeeper’s apron. And so they parted.

  When Blanca reached The Home, she went over to the children’s beds to see Otto, and for the moment she forgot her hasty departure from the pension. Then she busied herself with work, washing the children and polishing their shoes, preparing the main room for prayers. Rosa had introduced a lovely custom: she decorated the prayer room with flowers and potted plants, and before the prayers began she watered them.

  After prayers, Blanca prepared breakfast with Rosa. Only when the meal was finished did she say, “My father is very ill, and I have to leave.”

  “What’s the matter with him?”

  “When I parted from my father, he was healthy and in good spirits. He’s a professional mathematician. But now I don’t know.”

  “Where is he?”

  “In Kimpolung.” Blanca wasn’t flustered by the question and was pleased that the name had immediately occurred to her.

  “Go, Blanca. Otto can stay here. The children like him.”

  “I don’t know how to thank you.”

  “You don’t have to thank me. Let’s pray together that God will send a full recovery to your father and to all the sick people among the Jews.”

  “What should I say to Otto?”

  “Tell him the truth. It’s always best to tell the truth.”

  After lunch Blanca knelt and said, “Otto.”

  “What?” he asked, without looking up.

  “I want to tell you something.”

  “What?”

  “I have to go away again.”

  “Okay.”

  “I’ll return soon. Don’t worry.”

  She expected Otto to pick up his head and look at her, but Otto was too deeply immersed in his play. The words passed by without touching him. Later, too, when she was dressed for the trip, her bundle in her hand, even then he didn’t pay attention to her.

  Blanca closed the door. Through the panes of glass she could still see Otto’s face in profile and a drop on the tip of his nose. She had a huge desire to go back and touch his face again and wipe his nose, but the hand that had closed the door no longer had the power to open
it again.

  56

  FROM THEN ON Blanca traveled without much of a plan. If she chanced upon a wagon, she would pay the driver and hitch a ride. At first the broad fields made her despair, and more than once she was about to return to Struzhincz. I’d be better off dying near Otto and not in a strange land, she said to herself, knowing there was no logic to her words. After a while she overcame that delusion and would repeat to herself, You mustn’t go back. Otto has to get used to living without you.

  Along the way she met decent people who helped her and put her up in their homes, and bullies who mistreated her. Against the bullies Blanca struggled with all her might, scratching and cursing. One night she fought off a drunken peasant, biting his arm and hissing at him, “If you touch me, I’ll murder you.” The peasant panicked and let her go.

  I have to keep going, she said to herself, and did so. The winter winds dulled her fear and bolstered her courage. She felt strength in her legs. Sometimes she would stop next to a stream, wash her face, and immediately sink down into the grass and fall asleep. Sometimes a sheep or colt would emerge from the undergrowth. In that green wasteland they looked like hunted creatures to her, running away from the arms of the oppressor, as she was. For a moment they would look at each other and try to draw near, but in the end each would go his own way, as though agreeing that they would be better off alone.

  Sometimes she would happen upon a Jewish peddler. He would tell her about the surrounding villages, and she would ask him how to reach a Jewish inn. These thin and unpleasant Jews were her friends now, and she trusted them and bought matches and supplies from them. The life she had left behind now seemed to her like the abandoned ruins she encountered on her way: barren and full of damp darkness.