Until the Dawn's Light_ A Novel - Aharon Appelfeld [40]
“How’s your father?” Blanca asked.
“I just saw him. Everyone is picking on him, and I’m afraid for his health.”
“He drew me up out of a deep pit,” Blanca said, removing the scarf from her head.
Then Celia said, “Martin Buber’s anthology has precious elixirs in it. When I was younger, I was sure that the Jews had no true faith. Grandpa used to say, ‘In the church, there’s music, and in the synagogue, people sweat.’ ”
“Are the stories about the Ba’al Shem Tov also about the faith of the Jews?” Blanca asked.
“Yes, so Martin Buber says.”
“And do you think their faith is beautiful?”
“Very much so.”
“Strange.”
“What’s strange?”
“After all, we’re Christians, aren’t we?”
“Contradictions don’t put me off,” said Celia.
Only now did Blanca sense how shallow her thinking had grown. In high school, under the tutelage of her teachers Weiss and Klein, the world had seemed like a work in progress that was striving to improve, to become clearer, more comprehensive, either plumbing the depths of the soul or ascending to the realm of the gods.
“What’s become of me?” Blanca asked herself out loud. “I’m no longer what I was.”
“I don’t understand,” Celia said.
“He says I inherited the faults of my mother and father, and Grandma Carole’s craziness.”
“And how do you answer him?”
“What can I say?”
Blanca walked Celia to the station. Celia spoke with longing about their distant and forgotten ancestors and about how much Buber’s anthologies had helped her understand them. For only in Stillstein had she come to fully realize that her Jewish forebears, who were originally from Bukovina and had moved to Himmelburg at the end of the last century, were truly the flesh of her flesh. They were devoted people who worshipped God in simplicity, and if it hadn’t been for certain disasters, their children would be worshipping God with the same simplicity.
“Are we still connected to them?” Blanca asked.
Blanca hadn’t understood her friend’s words, but she sensed that Celia, who had by now been living in the distant mountains of Stillstein for a year, had seen visions that had entirely changed her way of thinking. She was now connected with her ancestors, with nothing separating her.
“Take me with you, Celia.” The words tumbled from Blanca’s mouth.
“Don’t be afraid. We’re not alone. We have good and faithful ancestors who always dwell within us.”
Blanca raised her eyes, and a chill raced down her spine.
30
ON FEBRUARY 16, 1908, after a long and difficult labor, a son was born to Blanca. At first she wanted to call him Erwin, after her missing father, but Adolf refused. He agreed to the name Otto, after her mother’s brother, who had died young, in the middle of his university studies. Dr. Nussbaum extended her stay in the hospital, and Blanca nursed the infant morning, noon, and night, until she became weak from lack of sleep and, under doctor’s orders, stopped nursing. Adolf heard about it and was angry, but he made no comment. She had noticed: in the hospital he controlled himself and didn’t raise his voice. Dr. Nussbaum’s efforts to restore the hospital to full capacity had failed. Just two wards were occupied. The others were deserted. Day and night, patients pounded on the doors, but he was unable to help them. The maintenance staff refused to work, and, lacking help, Dr. Nussbaum put on overalls and went to clean the toilets and add coal to the boilers to heat water for the laundry. The patients, most of them aged, complained a lot about their pains, about their children who had abandoned them,