Until the Dawn's Light (20 page)

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 afternoon 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.

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.

Then a heavy snow began to fall, and Blanca was fortunate enough to find a warm and hospitable Jewish inn.

“My parents were born not far from here, and in their youth they moved to Austria,” she told the owner. “They didn’t observe the tradition, but I read the stories of the Hasidim that were collected by Martin Buber, and I would like to see Hasidim close up.”

The innkeeper smiled. She had never heard of Martin Buber, but as for Hasidim, “All of us here are Hasidim,” she said.

“And where does the Tsadik live?”

“Not far away, in Vizhnitz.”

“I didn’t know I was so close to him.”

The innkeeper didn’t know how to behave with her strange guest. She had seen assimilated Jews in her lifetime, but she had never met an assimilated Jew who traveled to see the Tsadik.

Although Vizhnitz was not far off, the way there was hard and strewn with impediments. Gendarmes lay in wait at every crossroad, and thugs gathered in the entrances of taverns. But Blanca was no longer afraid. A powerful resentment seethed within her and filled her arms with strength. For some reason it seemed to her that if she reached Vizhnitz, the snarl of her life would become untangled and she would be set free.

But Blanca’s strength did not always sustain her. She was raped once, and once she was beaten by an old peasant who suspected that she had stolen eggs from his chicken coop. Her body bruised, her arms scratched, she would sink down into the grass and imagine that Otto was waiting for her by the river. This was a new delusion, and in her darkness she would lie for hours without moving. The Prut River flowed in fierce currents in that area, and its rapids were thrilling. More than once she said to herself,
I’ll jump into the water and disappear
. But the desire to see Otto again drew her away from that desperate yearning.
To Vizhnitz,
she would repeat to herself, like a drowning man grasping a log.

Blanca imagined the way to Vizhnitz as a long, illuminated tunnel. At the beginning of it there was a ritual bath where people immersed themselves and were purified. After they were purified, they put on linen garments and advanced to the next stage. At the next stage they sat in a secluded area until their souls were emptied of their dross and they no longer remembered anything. From there the tunnel twisted and turned, but walking in it was not difficult.

One night Blanca found herself standing near a church. It was a village church, and two carved crucifixes stood in the courtyard. At first it seemed like a tranquil place, but then Blanca saw that the figures on the cross were not looking at her with affection. She was about to do what she had been in the habit of doing recently: slipping away. But this time, for some reason, her legs stopped her. She gathered some twigs and, without thinking about it, placed them next to the crucifixes. Then she lit a match and brought it close to the twigs. The twigs caught fire and raised a fine flame. She quickly stretched out her arms and warmed her cold hands.

For a long while Blanca stood and looked at the small fire, which gave off heat and a pleasant scent. The warmth seeped into her limbs, and her fingers and toes thawed out. Now she remembered her friend Sonia clearly, and how she had longed to go to her mother’s hometown. Her strong face would soften when she spoke about Kolomyja, a place where she had never been. A few days ago Blanca had asked one of the peddlers whether Kolomyja was far away. He had given her a long and intricate answer, and then summed it all up by saying, “It’s not far, but you’d be better off not putting yourself in danger during the winter. The winter is a time of troubles, and a person is better off if he sits at home and doesn’t wander on the roads.” Blanca stared at him, trying to absorb the meaning of his words. But the peddler’s tired face expressed only the fatigue of his years. Blanca absorbed that fatigue more than his convoluted explanations.

Blanca added some more twigs, and the fire flared up again. Now the heat spread, and vapor rose from her damp clothes. For the first time after many days of wandering, a vision of Otto appeared before her. First it seemed to her that he was standing and looking out the window of the orphanage, as he used to do, but a second glance showed her that he had been forgotten on the balcony. He was asking for help, and no one was answering him. Blanca was so alarmed by the clarity of this vision that she didn’t notice that the flames had spread to the figures on the crucifixes and had taken hold of them. With a quick movement she was about to remove the kerchief from her head and put out the fire, but her hands froze and she didn’t do anything. The flames twisted up and embraced the crucifixes, quickly spread to the railing in front of the church, and from there climbed up to the doorpost and enveloped the beams. Blanca stepped back and then turned to go away. The night was dark and quiet, and the burning church lit up the sky. Only later, when the fire was already at its full strength, were the peasants called to help put it out.

“Fire has come down from heaven!” they shouted with dread. They tried to put out the fire, but it was too late.

That night Blanca found an abandoned barn and slept restfully there. When she awoke the next morning and remembered that she had set fire to the church, she wasn’t frightened. It seemed to her that she had done an important thing and that from now on the roads would be open before her. Spite mingled with pleasure washed over her.

After another few days of wandering, Blanca set fire to another small church. Once again she gathered twigs and arranged them. The bonfire burned and warmed her hands. Then she watched as the fire spread and took hold of the church walls. This time the act of burning was accompanied not only by malicious pleasure but also by a kind of satisfaction; she had managed to deceive her pursuers, and from now on they would be busy putting out fires and not chasing after her.

And so Blanca continued to wander on that high plateau. The population was sparse, and only rarely would an abandoned horse or a lost cow emerge from the underbrush. Every time the desire to burn down a church arose in her, she would go and look for one. If she saw a church by daylight, she would say to herself,
Tonight I’ll burn it down
. Now she did it without resentment or pleasure, but like a person obsessed.

Blanca met a Jewish peddler on the road, and in return for a gold ring she received from him a pair of galoshes and a long winter coat. The peddler was pleased, and so was Blanca. To his question about what a young Jewish woman was doing in these empty places, she hurriedly explained to him that she intended to get to Vizhnitz.

“If that’s the case,” he said, “you should take the King’s Highway. The King’s Highway is less dangerous.”

He was wasting his words. Blanca was no longer frightened. Every church that she burned down boosted her courage. She stood up to the peasants, calling them wild men and worthless, and she looked at them with venom. If her expressions weren’t effective, she would threaten them:
If you come near me, I’ll choke you
. To herself she said:
If I overcome my fear of people, I won’t fear death. I did what I did and had to do. From now on let God do His will. Otto won’t judge his mother harshly
.

In her sleep, Blanca would see her mother and father; they were young, and their faces were full of youthful wonder. Their closeness to each other always seemed marvelous to her, and now she felt this even more strongly. Blanca believed that she would be reunited with them soon and that then the darkness would vanish. This brightened her spirits even more than the churches she burned down.

Between one rainstorm and the next Blanca would go down to the river, wash her feet, and wrap them in rags. Since she had bought the galoshes from the peddler, her sores had healed somewhat. If she came upon a church on her way, she would burn it down at night. She did it with diligence and attention, as though she were lighting the lanterns of Heimland.

Many sights were effaced from her memory, but not that of the church on Sundays: her father-in-law, her mother-in-law, and Adolf, and the kneeling and the pain that it caused her. On those crowded Sundays in the church and at the gatherings after it, parts of her soul would freeze. Now she felt that everything that had been paralyzed within her was throbbing with life again.
I did succeed at one thing,
she would console herself.
I excised Adolf from Otto’s soul. If God helps me, his memory will be wiped out of the child’s mind forever
.

Sometimes Blanca would enter a tavern, have a few drinks, and be thankful that the light of her eyes had not dimmed, that she could still walk on her two feet and make her way to Vizhnitz. It pained her that her father, whom she loved so much, had cut himself off from the tradition of his fathers and had no faith at all. Her life now, in these green hills where the houses were few and far between, seemed like just a link in a chain of events, each existing on its own but still joined together.
Dr. Nussbaum and Celia, Theresa and Sonia—I’ll take them with me everywhere,
she kept repeating to herself.
Death isn’t darkness if you take your dear ones with you. It’s just a change in place. Innocence, simplicity, and devotion are great principles. So it is written in Buber’s book
, The Hidden Light.
I will behave according to these principles until I reach the gates of light
.

Then the snowstorms began. Hunger and cold tormented her, but Blanca was cautious. Now she avoided entering taverns or the little railway stations that were scattered along her way. Posters about the murderess were pasted on every public building—even on abandoned public buildings. Sometimes from a distance she would see a squad of gendarmes searching the area or sitting on a hill, watching. In her heart she knew whom they were looking for.

Blanca wanted to stay alive and go back to see Otto. The thought that perhaps one day she would be pardoned and go back to Struzhincz, and that Otto would stretch out his little arms and call out “Mama!”—that thought was stronger than hunger, and it dragged her legs from hill to hill.

Finally she had no choice. The cold gripped her fingers and spread throughout her whole body. The pain was great. Blanca entered a tavern, removed her wet coat and galoshes, and stood next to the stove. She ordered a brandy and a sandwich. The bartender prepared them for her. She sipped the drink and bit into the sandwich. The brandy was strong, and she ordered another, and then a third.

It was a peasant tavern, and long tables filled the dim room. A few drunkards sat in the back of the room, cursing the empire and the kaiser. The proprietor’s warnings, that for curses like that people were sent to prison, were to no avail. The clamorous argument didn’t scare Blanca. The brandy set her head spinning, and before her eyes she saw the churches she had set on fire. They had burned for hours and lit up the night. She was sure that what she had done had paved her way to Vizhnitz, which had until then been blocked. Blanca approached the tavern owner, and to her surprise he spoke German. He told her right away that he had served in the Austrian army and that he had been stationed in Salzburg for years. Blanca told him that she intended to go to Vizhnitz. Her ancestors had gone on pilgrimages there, to ask the Tsadik for help.

“You don’t look Jewish,” he said, trying to flatter her.

“No?”

“The Jewish women in this region are suspicious and speak bad German.”

“All of them?”

“Most.”

“I don’t know how to pray, but I want to learn.”

“The young Jews are moving away from the worship of God, if I’m not mistaken.”

“You’re right, it seems to me.”

“A person with no God is a frightening creature,” he said, twisting his lips.

“A person can’t always find the path to God.” Blanca tried to defend the accused.

“That’s their parents’ fault. The Jews are the captives of their children.”

“You know Jews very well, I see.” The irony of the old days came back to her.

“We know them very well.” He spoke in the plural.

Strangely, that long conversation calmed her. It seemed to her that she had more time at her disposal, that she didn’t have to hurry. Better to wait, to warm up, and to doze off a little.

At that moment the front door opened and two gendarmes walked in. They took off their hats and stepped up to the bar. Blanca opened her eyes and observed them with curiosity. The gendarmes were not young, and they sipped their drinks with enjoyment. They asked the tavern owner a few questions, and he explained to them at length that this time of year there were few customers, mostly poor people whose debts filled his books. They vomited and dirtied the floor, he said, and at night he was forced to drag them outside with his own hands.