Until the Dawn's Light (12 page)

THEN CAME LONG,
hot days, and Blanca worked in the garden early every morning. The neglected garden bloomed again. On rainy days she tidied the house, did laundry, and decorated Otto’s cradle. When Otto woke up at night, she got out of bed, fed him, and sang to him. Adolf wasn’t pleased by these nightly attentions.

“Let him cry,” he said. “The devil won’t take him.” But Blanca wasn’t at ease with this approach. She would go over to Otto’s cradle and rock it. Once Adolf commented, “He’ll turn into a slug.” Blanca noticed that his sentences, like his movements, were abrupt; he explained little, and what he said cut like a razor blade.

The good thoughts that had made her throb with life in the hospital died out on their own, and again she became what she had been: a maidservant, working from dawn till dark and crushed under Adolf’s heavy body at night.

Dr. Nussbaum tried with all his power to raise money to reopen the hospital, but his efforts were in vain. Having no choice, he turned his home into a hospital. Dozens of people crowded the gate of his courtyard and sought his aid. Whatever he could, he gave.

One day, the doctor met Blanca downtown and invited her to join him for a cup of coffee in My Corner. Blanca was embarrassed to admit to him that Adolf treated her the way he did and, also, that he kept grumbling, “Jewish doctors won’t tell me how to behave.” Dr. Nussbaum looked into her eyes and knew what was on her mind.

“You have to come to see me every month,” he said. “And if your husband abuses you—tell me immediately.”

After that she thought of going to Himmelburg, but she put off the trip. She was afraid to travel with Otto. Adolf would have said, “He’s weak. He’s pale. With us, children aren’t like that.” Blanca used to bring the cradle out into the garden so he’d get some sun. To her dismay, this only brought out his delicate features, and she stopped. One night in a dream she saw her father standing in the courtyard of the old age home, as though he were trapped. His face was gaunt, and an unfamiliar expression of irony, not his, flickered in his eyes.

“Papa!” she called out, and awoke.

The next day she gathered her strength, diapered Otto, prepared food, and set out. At the old age home, Theresa hurried over to her and cried, “Here’s Blanca!” and everyone was excited.

“The child looks a lot like you,” Theresa said. “What’s his name? Otto? A nice name. His features are very delicate. Let’s pray that fortune favors him.” They sat in the kitchen and drank coffee, and Blanca knew that her life had no attachment to any place now. Theresa wasn’t a delicate woman; she was straightforward and understanding. You didn’t have to explain to her what harm a cruel husband did. She had felt it on her own flesh.

“The situation here couldn’t be worse,” Theresa told Blanca. “The treasury is empty, and the Jews of Himmelburg are no longer as generous as before. Conversions are many, and the children deny their parents. They do send us some money from Vienna, but it isn’t enough for regular maintenance.”

“So what are you going to do?” Blanca asked anxiously.

“I don’t know. I simply don’t know.”

“Doesn’t the church help?”

“Have you forgotten, dear, that this is a Jewish home?”

Theresa mentioned the old age home in Blumenthal again, and all the advantages Blanca would have if she worked there.

“You have to be far out of his reach,” she said. “Every hour that a woman saves herself from a beating is a pure benefit.”

“What should I say to him?”

“Tell him that you want to work and contribute to the livelihood of the house.”

“And who will watch over Otto?”

“A housekeeper. I raised three children that way.”

“I’m so afraid of the beatings, and now I’m afraid he’ll hit Otto.”

“You mustn’t be fearful, my dear.”

“I tremble all the time.”

One of the old people approached her and said, “We sometimes remember your father here. He was a very special man. We all liked him. Since he abandoned us, we’ve missed his great soul. You know that Jewish saying, don’t you?”

“No.”

“It’s a marvelous expression. It’s more than an expression.”

Blanca didn’t know how to respond, so she said, “This is my son, Otto. He’s growing and developing nicely.”

Theresa continued to speak about children who neglected their parents, and about old age, with its diseases and torments. If it weren’t for God, whom we believe in and cleave to, she said, were it not for the strong feeling that He is close to us, our lives would be a horror.

“Blanca, my dear, it seems to me that the Jews have lost their connection with God, and that makes their lives so much harder.”

“Do you stay in touch with your children?” Blanca asked.

“If they need money, they write to me.”

“And who comes to visit you?”

“Only my sister. She lives very far from here, but she always comes, and she brings me things. She knit this sweater with her own hands.”

“Strange,” said Blanca.

“Why do you say that it’s strange? That’s how it always was, and that’s how it always will be.” Her face displayed a frightening honesty, as though the years had engraved every injustice and distortion on it. Anyone who looked at her knew that life was flooded with sorrow and filled with clouds.

THE MONTHS PASSED.
Otto was already crawling, and Blanca reconciled herself to her painful body and clouded life. Sometimes she would remember earlier times, and they seemed hidden to her, as though they were part of the life of another woman. Even the town, where she knew every corner, now seemed to belong to the church.

Every Sunday she went to mass. The family made a point of attending on Sundays and holidays. There Adolf was also surrounded by friends, embracing them, chatting with them, laughing. Blanca never missed confession. She would kneel and say, “I didn’t want to see my mother’s death, and I fled from the house. Afterward I abandoned my father in the cemetery. I’m a sinner and worthy of death.” The priest listened and asked no questions.

Once, however, he commented, “Our Lord Jesus has already atoned.”

“But my sin is unbearable.”

“Pray. Prayer will drive away your bad thoughts.”

“It’s hard for me to pray, Father.”

Sundays were the hardest day of the week: in the morning in church and afterward, the gathering in her house. Those parties brought together many of Adolf’s friends as well as his relatives, and they became merrier and dizzier from week to week. Blanca would serve the guests and chat with her mother-in-law. Her mother-in-law had suffered a lot in her life, but she didn’t complain.

“Man is born to labor,” she would repeat, “and let him make no reproaches to his fellow.” It was clear that this saying wasn’t hers. Still, it sounded as if it was.

Adolf knew no mercy now, either. For every mistake or forgetfulness she would pay, but sometimes he would also hit her for no reason, the way you beat an animal.

“You’re not a woman,” he would say. “You’re a monster. You’re like your father, like your grandma.”

“Don’t hit me,” she would beg, but that only increased his anger. In the end she would lie on the floor, absorbing the blows without reacting.

If it weren’t for Otto, for the look in his round eyes, she would have gone to the river and leaped into the water. But Otto would rescue her and draw her out of despair. He would wake up, open his eyes, and call out, “Mama,” and immediately all the clouds scattered and fled.

More than once, after a night of searing pain, Blanca was about to say,
I want to go out to work and help support the household. All the women work, and I want to work, too
. But she was afraid to say it, lest Adolf agree. Otto was now her life and her support. She took him everywhere with her. When she worked in the kitchen, she placed the cradle next to her, and when she worked in the garden, she would take the cradle outside. Blanca spoke to him and told him stories, and when he laughed, she laughed with him.

Adolf was completely given over to his comrades. Over the past few months his face had grown fleshier and had become flushed, like the face of a drunkard. He resembled his father more and more: the same drunken look, the same arrogance. He spent most of his wages in the tavern, and he gave Blanca only a few coins, over which he also got angry. Blanca was frugal, and she made their meals with everything that the garden produced. Sometimes she couldn’t afford milk. Her body bled and hurt, but she was afraid to say,
I’m going out to work
. Once, the pain was so great that she said, “You’re driving me out of this world.”

“What are you talking about?” he said, and headed out the door, as though she were nothing but a ghost.

In the end, it was Adolf himself who declared, “You have to go out to work.”

“How?” She was stunned.

“All the women work. My mother works, too.”

“And who’ll take care of Otto?”

“We’ll bring a woman in from the country.”

At first she deluded herself into believing that it was just a passing thought, but when he kept pressing her, she understood that he wouldn’t let up. A new fear possessed her.
I’ll run away,
she said to herself, but she knew she didn’t have the strength to go far: Adolf’s huge hand would reach her. Once he said to her, “I never miss a thing. I know all your intrigues.”

The next morning, after Adolf went to work, she prepared some sandwiches, dressed Otto, and they set out for Blumenthal. The old age home in Blumenthal was different from the one in Himmelburg. The building was spacious, and around it was a well-tended garden. The director of the place asked for information about Blanca’s life, and she told her.

“And who will take care of your child?”

“A country woman.”

“We’re very strict here about lateness and absence.”

“I’m orderly.”

“So, you’ll start in a week, on Tuesday at eleven o’clock. I’m writing it in my journal.”

When Adolf came home from work, she announced to him that she had found a temporary job in the old age home in Blumenthal. Without looking her in the eye, he said, “Fine. We have to find a woman from the country.” Later he asked when she would be starting her job, and Blanca told him.

It was a week of rain, fear, and great weakness. At night she begged, “Don’t press so hard on me. I can’t breathe.” Those pleas just increased his fury. But for some reason he didn’t hit her. Toward the end of the week she said, “Otto, I’m going out to work. I have no choice. What can I do?”

Blanca washed, ironed, and prepared clothing and bedding. The dread she felt at the thought of being forced to part from Otto in a few days clung to her body like a cloak of fire. Again she saw her mother’s prolonged, slow death. During the last months of her life, her mother had struggled to get up every morning and tidy the house. Her father would try to help her, but his assistance wasn’t effective. Her mother would say, “Erwin, why don’t you sit down and tell me something.”

“What should I tell you?”

“What you want to tell me.”

She tried to be especially pleasant to him, to renew the old hopes, and she managed to do so. Blanca’s father was elevated by his wife’s optimistic mood, and he began to make plans again. Her mother knew in her heart that the plans would lead to nothing, but she listened to everything he said. She knew that in a little while he wouldn’t have an attentive ear. In the last months of her life, her love had been soft and merciful. At the time, Blanca hadn’t grasped the wonder of it. Now it was as if the light of their faces shone again.

ON MONDAY ADOLF
brought home a tall, strong woman from the country and said, “This is Kirtzl. Show her what to do in the house.”

“I’ll show her everything,” Blanca said in the tones of a maidservant, and went right out into the garden.

“This is the vegetable garden,” she said. “In this season there are eggplants, squash, and also cabbage.” Blanca looked at the woman closely: her face was full and flat, and a heavy smile hung on her lips.

“Do you water the garden?” Kirtzl asked stolidly.

“In weeks when there’s no rain.”

They passed on into the kitchen, and Blanca said, “There’s wood in the shed.”

“You don’t use charcoal?” Kirtzl asked in the same tone of voice.

“No,” Blanca said, and the word reverberated in her head for a moment.

Then they went into the bedroom, and Blanca said, “This is Otto. He’s not an infant anymore. He sleeps through the night, eats well, and he’s developing nicely. Do you know how to take care of children?”

“I have three.”

“How old are they, if I may ask?”

Kirtzl smiled. “They’re already in school,” she said.

“Do you want to have a cup of coffee, perhaps?”

“I wouldn’t object.”

Adolf went out with his friends, and the two women sat and talked. Kirtzl told Blanca that her husband had run off six years earlier, and his trail was cold. The children had been little, and she raised them.

“Didn’t the police look for him?”

“Go look for a needle in a haystack.”

“I also have to go to work.” Something of the woman’s voice clung to Blanca.

“Don’t worry. I’ll watch out for your husband and son. You can rely on me.”

Blanca’s former life seemed like a dream to her: she had been a free person, she had parents who loved her, she was excelling in high school, she read books, and in the afternoons she would sit with her father in My Corner. And then, because of a grave sin that she had committed, she became a prisoner. Until now she had been in this prison, and tomorrow she would be transferred to another one.

Kirtzl seemed to comprehend her thoughts and said, “I don’t complain.”

“No?”

“I’ve learned to grab whatever comes my way,” she said, pursing her lips.

“How?”

“Don’t you understand?”

“I,” Blanca said, “never leave the house.”

“If so, this will only do you good.”

Blanca felt that this sturdy woman had a lot of strength, but she couldn’t tell what kind it was. At any rate, she noticed: Kirtzl had sat down on the chair slowly, and when she was sitting there, her body filled it.

“Where have you been working until now?” Blanca asked.

“In the village.”

“Weren’t you happy there?”

“The men molested me,” she said, and her smile revealed her large teeth.

“Here things will be quiet for you,” Blanca said distractedly. Then she ran out of words. “Kirtzl,” she said.

“What?”

“It’s hard for me to part from Otto.”

“Don’t be emotional,” Kirtzl said. “It isn’t good to be emotional. Life is rotten.”

Blanca couldn’t sleep that night. Evil visions horrified her, and she sat in the dark kitchen, awaiting the morning. The night was long, and she knew clearly that without Otto, her life would be even more abject. The statue of the crucified Jesus that hung above the altar in the church appeared before her. But for some reason his face was strong and angry.

Before going to work, Adolf reminded her that she had to come home on Saturday afternoon to prepare the house for Sunday. Blanca was groggy, but still she ironed his shirts and arranged the cupboards. Finally she fell to her knees and begged Otto not to cry.

Kirtzl arrived at eight, and Blanca rushed out to catch the morning train. On the way, she met a former classmate. Andi was a simple, reliable girl whom Blanca had thought about now and then. Now, when she met her, she could say only, “Excuse me, I’m running to catch a train.”

Andi, astonished by her sudden appearance, called loudly after her, “God preserve you.”

Blanca got to the station at the last minute, bought a ticket right away, and boarded the train. The buffet car was empty, and she ordered a brandy. During her pregnancy and for some time afterward, Blanca hadn’t drunk. Now she felt a strong thirst for a drink. The first shot of brandy blurred her, and she saw the statue of Jesus again. His face had changed once again: now it didn’t seem angry, but determined, as if he were about to detach himself from the nails and take revenge against his tormenters.

Then her head emptied. The blur thickened, and a dull pain took hold of her scalp, spreading across her temples and down to the nape of her neck.

“Do you have a damp cloth?” she asked the waitress who was serving in the buffet. “My head is splitting with pain.”

The waitress handed her a cloth.

“Here,” she said softly. “This will make you feel better.”

Hearing her soft words, Blanca burst into tears.

“What’s the matter, dear?”

“I left my son behind, and I miss him.”

“I understand you very well. I also left my two little girls behind and went out to work.”

“How can you stand it?”

“It’s very hard for me. Every day I dull my longing with cognac. It’s been three years now.”

The damp cloth made Blanca feel better, and she sank into a pressured, choking sleep, but in the midst of it she heard a clear voice.

“Blanca, you mustn’t despair. There is a God in heaven, and He watches over you. You have to do what God tells you to do. Your suffering is not in vain. Your life has a purpose.” It was Theresa’s voice, coming from a distance; not a soft voice, but a very endearing one in its simplicity. Blanca opened her eyes. The train was close to Blumenthal. She pulled herself together and rose to her feet.