Until the Dawn's Light_ A Novel - Aharon Appelfeld [0]
Badenheim 1939
The Age of Wonders
Tzili
The Retreat
To the Land of the Cattails
The Immortal Bartfuss
For Every Sin
The Healer
Katerina
Unto the Soul
Beyond Despair: Three Lectures and a Conversation with Philip Roth
The Iron Tracks
The Conversion
The Story of a Life
A Table for One
All Whom I Have Loved
Laish
Blooms of Darkness
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
Translation copyright © 2011 by Schocken Books, a division of Random House, Inc.
All rights reserved. Published in the United States by Schocken Books, a division of Random House, Inc., New York, and in Canada by Random House of Canada Limited, Toronto. Originally published in Israel as Ad Sheya’aleh Amud Hashachar by Keter Publishing House Ltd., Jerusalem, in 1995. Copyright © 1995 by Aharon Appelfeld and Keter Publishing House Ltd.
Schocken Books and colophon are registered trademarks of Random House, Inc.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Appelfeld, Aron.
[’Ad she-ya’aleh ’amud ha-shahar. English]
Until the dawn’s light / Aharon Appelfeld; translated by Jeffrey M. Green.
p. cm.
eISBN: 978-0-8052-4300-0
1. Jews—Austria—Fiction. 2. Austria—History—1867–1918—Fiction. 3. Jewish fiction. I. Green, Yaacov Jeffrey. II. Title.
PJ5054.A755A6313 2011 892.4’36—dc22 2011007286
www.schocken.com
Cover photograph © Pete Turner/Getty Images
Cover design by Linda Huang
First American Edition
v3.1
Contents
Cover
Also by Aharon Appelfeld
Title Page
Copyright
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Chapter 41
Chapter 42
Chapter 43
Chapter 44
Chapter 45
Chapter 46
Chapter 47
Chapter 48
Chapter 49
Chapter 50
Chapter 51
Chapter 52
Chapter 53
Chapter 54
Chapter 55
Chapter 56
About the Author
1
THEY MOVED FROM train to train, sped past little stations, stopped at level crossings, and set out again with a rush across broad, flat expanses. It all transpired quickly and with frightening precision, as though they were no longer their own masters but in the hands of the railways, which treated them mercifully and moved them from place to place, almost without pain.
Otto was already four, and his mother regarded him as a big boy. She spoke to him and explained things to him that he certainly couldn’t understand. Her long and convoluted sentences perplexed him, but Blanca was sure he grasped her intention, and she would go on and burden him with more words. True, Otto asked pertinent questions, not because he understood what was happening, but because he was frightfully logical. Blanca, who was proud of his consistent thinking, was afraid now that he would trip her up. To distract him, she told him about things that never were, toyed with his limited memory, and promised him that before long they would get to a magical place.
“Where are we going, Mama?” he kept asking.
“To the north.”
“Is it far from here?”
“Not very.”
“Is the north in the country or in the city?”
“The north is up above, my dear.”
In her heart she knew she mustn’t lie; the boy was sensitive to contradictions. Still, she deceived him, distracted him, and concealed information. Even worse: she made him promises she couldn’t keep. Thus she became the accomplice of the speeding trains: together they confused him.
After a week of displacements, Otto stopped pestering her. He slept and barely poked his head out of his coat. Blanca was upset: perhaps his dreams were showing him what