Until the Dawn's Light_ A Novel - Aharon Appelfeld [22]
17
TWO DAYS WITHOUT Adolf, and Blanca’s body began to thaw out a little. Though her movements were still constricted, she was no longer afraid to go into town. A week earlier, in great despair, she had put on her mother’s wristwatch. For a whole day she felt the burning touch of the strap. Now she felt that the watch was protecting her.
Blanca rose early the next morning and rushed to catch the train to Himmelburg. She had packed a bag full of vegetables and fruit, and a cheesecake she bought in a bakery, and she knew that as soon as he walked through the door Adolf would ask her about the extra expenses. But the full bag made her so happy that Adolf’s return didn’t concern her at all. She walked to the railway station energetically and with a self-esteem she had forgotten she had. Within a few minutes she was there.
The train arrived on time, and Blanca found a comfortable seat next to a window. Since Adolf had left the house, some visions of her distant childhood had returned to her. When her mother had taken her to school for the first time, and she had seen how rowdy the school yard was, Blanca had heard her mother say to herself, Good God, what will my daughter do in this mob? She’ll be lost. Then, when the principal, with her sturdy appearance, called Blanca’s name and told her to part from her mother and go into the classroom, her mother had taken her with both hands and said, “May God watch over you, my good little girl!” Thus, with trembling hands, she had let go of her mother. Now Blanca clearly remembered the long, high-ceilinged corridor through which she had walked every day. She also saw the frightening principal, whom she hadn’t seen for years.
Blanca went to the buffet car and had two drinks, one right after the other. The thought that in less than an hour she would be with her beloved father filled her with happiness. For a moment it seemed to her that she wasn’t going to the old age home in Himmelburg but to their enchanted vacation home in the Winterweiss Mountains, where they had imbibed the pleasures of the summer, reading or just sitting in silence. If there was a piano, Blanca’s mother would play Mozart sonatas. In the mountains, what was hidden inside each of them—a desire to withdraw from the noisy world, a yearning for solitude—found expression. They would walk through the valleys, far from the main roads, immersed in silence.
Blanca found her father in a good mood. He told her at length, and not without humor, about the routines of the place and the ridiculous arrangements, but his cheerful behavior, which reminded her of better times and other places, filled her with sudden melancholy. She understood then that her father didn’t grasp what fate had ordained for him, and where he had ended up. He was sitting on his bed in his old striped pajamas, his big impish eyes wide open. The sight of her father in his new incarnation brought a catch to her throat, and she had to stifle her tears.
When she showed him what she had brought, he kissed her forehead and said, “I have one daughter and Blanca is her name, and she is better to me than two brothers.” It was no coincidence that he said “two brothers.” He really did have two brothers in South America; they had sailed there when they were young. At first they had sent postcards. Then they disappeared, and not a word was heard from them.
Then Blanca’s father introduced her to the people lying alongside him in the corridor. In his short stay, he had become acquainted with them. The smell of mold and burned food hung in the air. The people lying in their beds raised themselves slightly in honor of the guest. They asked about the weather and about the arrival and departure of trains, and they complained about their sons and daughters, who had not come to visit them in months.
“Your