Until the Dawn's Light (3 page)

THE SECOND COMMUNICATION
from Blanca’s father, a long and disjointed letter, arrived a month later. He tried to conceal his distress, but every word in his letter screamed
It’s hard for me to bear this alone
. Blanca decided on the spot:
I’m going tomorrow, no matter what
. In the evening, after supper, she told Adolf that her mother’s condition had worsened and that she had to go to be with her.

“When?”

“Tomorrow.”

“I understand.”

“What can I do?”

Only now did Blanca notice how much Adolf had changed over the last few months. His face had gotten fat, and his walk was heavy, like that of a career soldier. He spoke slowly and emphatically, as though to keep the words from slipping. Every utterance pierced her like a nail. At first he didn’t blame Blanca but criticized her grandmother Carole.

“She’s insane,” he would say. Or, “She’s a crazy Jewess.” Later on he would add, “She passed her madness on to her descendants. Some of them are sick, and some are crazy.” Before long he stopped hedging.

“Don’t be like her,” he would say. “It drives me crazy.” Blanca didn’t contradict him. On the contrary, it seemed to her that this healthy, strong man had the right attitude toward life and that one day she, too, would be like him. Before leaving for work he said, “If you want to go to your mother, I won’t stop you. But you ought to know that with us, the husband comes before everything else.”

The threat was clear, but Blanca interpreted it as passing anger and tried to mollify him. On the train she drank two mugs of beer, felt dizzy, and blamed herself for responding so easily to the desires of her heart and not fulfilling her duty toward Adolf. Later she fell asleep and awoke feeling that she was choking.

When she reached the rest home, Blanca saw with her own eyes how ill her mother was. Her father stood next to the bed, bent over and exhausted, as if he were about to sink to the floor. Blanca, who wanted to know everything about her mother’s condition, was choked with sorrow. Later that day her father told her he had already spent the money he had received from his partner for his half of the store, and now he had no choice but to sell the house.
What are you thinking about, Papa
? she was about to say, but she immediately saw the foolishness of it.

The owner of the rest home, a Jewish woman with a warm and gentle expression, received Blanca like a mother. For supper she served them cheese dumplings and borscht with sour cream.

“Thank you, Mrs. Lauter,” Blanca said, inclining her head.

“If only I could be more helpful.” The woman spoke in the old Jewish way.

In the evening Blanca sat by her father’s side and tried to give him encouragement. He was racked with guilt, saying that he hadn’t done enough to get his wife to a Dr. Birger, in Vienna. Dr. Birger was known as a miracle worker, but for his miracles he demanded exorbitant sums.

If it weren’t for the local doctors, who claimed that Dr. Birger was a charlatan and his medicines were snake oil, he would have sold the house long ago. Now remorse gnawed at his heart.

When they went back to visit her mother, she opened her eyes and asked, “How is Adolf?”

“He’s fine,” said Blanca. She was angry that, of all people, her mother had remembered Adolf, but she quickly overcame her anger and told her mother about their house, about the new furniture they had bought, and about the carpet, which covered most of the living-room floor, that Adolf had bought in a nearby village. She knew those purchases would make her mother happy.

“Adolf’s a good fellow,” her mother said.

“That’s true,” Blanca replied, so as not to leave her mother’s sentence with no response.

The doctor who came to examine the patient the following day didn’t raise their hopes.

“What can I do?” Blanca’s father rose to his feet. “You can’t let a person wallow in agony. Why can’t we try Dr. Birger’s methods?”

The doctor lowered his head, as if to say,
One mustn’t delude people,
but her father, who was seized with dread, spoke in a trembling voice about the duty to do everything in our ability to foil death’s plots against innocent people.

“If you want to go there, I can’t stop you,” said the doctor softly. “But it’s my duty to tell you that Dr. Birger’s methods have no scientific basis, and there’s no difference between him and charlatans.”

“So we shouldn’t go to him?” Blanca’s father asked, his eyes closed.

“I didn’t say that.”

“What should we do, Doctor?”

“In a moment I’ll give Ida an injection to ease her pain.”

“An injection will ease her pain?”

“It will ease it,” said the doctor, and set right to work.

Blanca had thought she would be returning home the next day, but seeing her father bent over and shriveled in his fear, she didn’t dare tell him so.

“Papa, why don’t you shave, put on a suit, and we’ll go out to a café,” she said a bit later. Her father did as Blanca asked. In the café, he spoke about her mother’s illness, about the store, and about his cousin Dachs, who had cheated and completely impoverished him. And he spoke about not having emigrated to America. If he’d emigrated, his situation would be entirely different. Blanca knew those were merely wishes and fantasies, but she didn’t stop him. She let him indulge himself.

That night she saw how her father had aged. That tall man, who was only forty-eight, looked like someone whose flesh had been trampled, whose spirit had been stifled, and who had been seated on the threshold of a world devoid of mercy. True, he was not a practical man; he had squandered his inheritance and he had run the store negligently. But he’d done no harm to anyone. When he expressed wonder or asked a question, he was like a child who makes everyone happy with his inventions. And his wife adored him.

At the railroad station Blanca’s father burst into tears, and Blanca, who was astonished by his weeping, hugged him softly.

“It’s all right, Papa,” she said. “We’ll do everything we can to see Dr. Birger.”

“Thank you from the depths of my heart,” he said, as if she weren’t his daughter.

“We will spare neither money nor effort, Papa.” The words left her mouth and, amazingly, they calmed him.

“Pardon me, dear, for being so weak,” he said.

WHEN SHE RETURNED
home that afternoon, Blanca found the kitchen in a mess, the beds unmade, and empty beer bottles on the coffee table in the living room. The smell of liquor and cigarettes mingled thickly in the air. Adolf’s powerful presence permeated the entire house.

Blanca overcame her immobility. She opened the windows, beat the carpets, and then sank into the dishes that were piled in the sink. The work erased the image of the rest home from her mind, and as she stood in the center of the living room she wondered,
When did I first get to know Adolf well?
It was as though she had suddenly lost her grip on time. Then she remembered a long, lovely summer some years earlier. Nothing out of the ordinary had occurred, but it had been wonderful just the same. Her mother had packed the suitcases because her father was burdened with the store that he despised. Blanca celebrated inwardly. The grades on her report card were splendid: excellent, excellent, and excellent. Her father’s joy had been unbounded. His only child excelled not only in mathematics, but also in Latin. In two weeks they would be going north, to the pleasant, cool tributaries of the Danube. Blanca loved her parents, and her affection for them rose and swelled when they were at the river’s edge. She loved her father because he was unlike other fathers, and her mother because she imbued her with tranquillity and faith.

In prior years they had gone on vacation to Feuerberg, but more recently they traveled as far north as the unspoiled Winterweiss, where branches of the Danube flowed in broad, silent valleys. In Winterweiss there were no Jews; the Jews who had converted tried to behave like Austrians, and the Austrians behaved like Austrians. Blanca’s father didn’t like the company of Jews.

“The Jews have lost their essence,” he used to say, “and their emptiness is annoying.” His usual soft expression would change when he spoke about his brethren.

When he was young Blanca’s father wanted to convert, but his mother, who didn’t observe the traditions but was very devoted to her family, forbade it and made him swear that he would not. At first he planned to ignore the oath, but when he realized how much it would pain her, he abandoned the idea. For years he had regretted that.

“If I’d converted to Christianity,” he used to say, “my life would have been different.”

His wife didn’t agree with him. “The Jews are no worse than other people,” she would reply.

Blanca’s father stuck to his opinion. “They are worse.”

Those of his friends who had converted had graduated from the university and done better than he. Some of them were physicians, attorneys, and industrialists, and he barely could support his family. He attributed all his failures to his Jewishness. Jewishness was an illness that had to be uprooted. That brutal statement didn’t go with his soft temperament. Nevertheless, he repeated it regularly. In Winterweiss he was at ease. He swam in the river, solved chess problems, read mathematics books eagerly, and if there was a piano, he would play it. That was the father Blanca loved, affable and overflowing with humor.

A week before the end of the school year, three weeks before Blanca and her parents left for Winterweiss, Blanca met Adolf near the school laboratory, and they spoke for a few minutes. Adolf’s words had no special content, but they struck her heart; it was as though he had whispered a secret to her. After that, he never left her sight. Adolf wasn’t an outstanding student, but the teachers were fond of him because of his height and strength, and they didn’t fail him. Even the tall teachers looked short next to him. They saw him as a phenomenon of nature, sometimes saying, “Adolf will pick that up. Only Adolf can do it.” Once, he lifted a teacher’s desk up on his shoulders, and everyone cheered him. On the playing field, he wasn’t one of the swifter athletes, but his strength stood him in good stead there, too. The girls admired him but were afraid of him. Sometimes, when he managed to overcome a mathematics problem, a wild smile would spread across his face, like that of an animal whose hunger was satisfied.

Adolf wasn’t particularly kindhearted, but he was always ready to help carry building materials or move cabinets. In the spring he would help the gardeners, and if a boy got hurt, he would carry him to the infirmary in his arms. He was a friend of the principal and assistant principal because they also needed his help from time to time. Only one person was his adversary: Dr. Klein, the Latin teacher. At first he would scold Adolf for not doing his homework properly. But in the end he just ignored him, as though Adolf weren’t sitting in the classroom. Adolf hated Dr. Klein, and everyone was afraid he would do something impulsive. At the end of the year, Dr. Klein refused to give him even a barely passing grade, as he had done the year before. That task fell to the assistant principal. He examined Adolf again and awarded him a low passing grade. Adolf gnashed his teeth and threatened revenge.

Adolf was different from anyone Blanca had ever known, and not only because of his height and strength. His movements were also different. Blanca was certain not only that those movements suited him, but that they were attractive in themselves. Even his way of sitting was different. Two days before her departure for the mountains, Adolf passed by her father’s store, as though by chance.

“What are you doing this summer?” he asked.

“We’re going to Winterweiss,” she replied.

“What will you do there?”

“I’ll read.”

“You always read, don’t you?”

“I love to read,” Blanca said, blushing.

The next day they set out for Winterweiss. Her father’s face took on a pleasant look. The second-class car was half empty, and the green landscapes rushed past them as they did every year.

“What are you planning to study, Blanca?” her father asked jovially.

“Mathematics,” Blanca said without hesitation.

“That’s just what I wanted to study, but my parents wanted me to be a merchant. I’ll never forgive them.”

“Not even now?”

“Papa has forgiven them,” her mother interrupted.

“No, I haven’t.” Her father didn’t give in.

On vacations, her father didn’t talk about his parents or about the miserable store. Rather, he meandered among mathematics books, chess books, and literature. His suitcase was the heaviest of all, because it contained only books.

They easily found a house next to the Danube. Blanca’s father was pleased, and his happiness was evident with every step he took. He swam, sunbathed, and read. Her mother prepared the foods they liked, and Blanca dreamed about Adolf. Even in her dreams she was a little frightened of him, but when she awoke, she would console herself and say, “Adolf is a sturdy person. Sturdy people are generous.”

Eventually, she forgot about him. She was with her beloved parents, and it was summer. They sat at the water’s edge for hours, enjoying the long sunset, drinking lemonade, and being quiet together. Sometimes, in the evening, a peasant would stop his wagon in front of the house and offer them fish that he had just then caught in his net.

“Mama,” Blanca said anxiously.

“What, dear?”

“Nothing.”

The thought that she would have to part from her parents one day shocked her.

THAT WAS THE
last summer Blanca spent with her parents, and she remembered it in full detail. During the winter her mother became ill, and the doctors promised that she would feel better in the spring. As if in spite, the winter was long, and her mother tried in vain to rise to her feet. Her father promised repeatedly, “In the spring, you’ll get some relief,” and it seemed to Blanca that the tone of his voice was not as it had been in the past. He spoke as though he had rehearsed what he was saying.

In high school Blanca was hugely successful. Once again, her grades glowed on her report card. Her mother took the card in her hands, and the joy that had been on her face during the summer lit it once again.

“There’s an excellent mathematics department in Berlin,” her father announced, as if he were capable of paying for it. The store stood on rickety foundations and barely supported the family. Her father would return home every evening and immediately sit down next to her mother. His look was full of devotion. The store and his partner depressed him to the dust, and only at his beloved wife’s side did he receive some solace.

At the beginning of the next term, the assistant principal proposed that Blanca help Adolf in mathematics and Latin, and Blanca agreed. Adolf came to her house in the afternoon, and they did their homework together. The work was very difficult for him, and when he left the house his face would be red and sweaty, as after hard labor.

“How’s Adolf coming along?” her mother asked.

“It’s hard for him, but it seems to me that he’s improving.”

Sometimes her mother would address him directly.

“How are you, Adolf?” she would ask.

“Fine, thank you, ma’am,” he would say, blushing.

Adolf did do his homework, but he failed the oral examination in Latin. Dr. Klein had no pity on him, and at the end of the term he gave Adolf a failing grade. Dr. Weiss, the mathematics teacher, was more generous and gave him a barely passing grade. Blanca tried to soften his disappointment, but Adolf was angry. It had always been the case, he argued, that the mathematics and Latin teachers had mistreated him. In the other subjects, he did fine. Blanca didn’t correct him. She saw his shame and felt sorry for him.

“The Jewish teachers hate me,” he said, chuckling.

“Dr. Klein converted in his youth,” she pointed out.

“Why does he have a Jewish name, then?”

Blanca’s father didn’t know how to relate to Adolf.

“That boy has no human manners,” he would say. “A tree will grow from a tall boy like that, not a human being.”

“You mustn’t talk that way,” her mother scolded.

“Short people know their place in the world; the big ones always get confused.”

“I refuse to listen,” said her mother, blocking her ears.

That was the way her father used to joke. Sometimes he would describe people grotesquely, but he would then retract the descriptions and excuse himself. Her mother knew his little weaknesses but still didn’t let him get away with it.

“Ida, you’re terrible.”

“Why?”

“Not even one generalization?”

“Generalizations are worse than prejudices.”

“You’re right. I give in.”

This was one of her father’s ways of teasing that Blanca liked to hear.

Spring came, and Blanca’s mother felt better. Her father would take her easy chair out into the garden, wrap her in a blanket, and sit by her side. Her weakness wasn’t evident in their home. The house was spotless, aired out, and filled with her gentle spirit. Blanca would return from school and tell her mother every detail about her day. Her mother would listen intently, to avoid missing anything. In the evening they would all sit and talk. But sometimes a frightening billow of sobs would burst forth from Blanca. Her mother would rush over to her and comfort her.

So the spring passed. Blanca’s mother continued to feel better, and in the evening she would water the garden and take pleasure in the flowers and the lilac bushes that adorned their small yard.

“Mama,” Blanca would call.

“What, dear?”

“Let me give you a kiss.”

“What’s the matter?”

“Nothing.”

That spring Blanca was very sensitive, and every movement alarmed her.