Until the Dawn's Light_ A Novel - Aharon Appelfeld [46]
“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.
35
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