Until the Dawn's Light_ A Novel - Aharon Appelfeld [54]
“I was working in the old age home in Blumenthal this week,” she said, trying to defend herself.
“I also worked away from home when I was young, but I never neglected the house. The house comes before everything else. That’s our temple, and we must watch over it like hawks.”
Now Blanca felt the anger that had been repressed within her since her return. It flowed through her arms and extended to her fingertips. She was alarmed. She hugged Otto and said in a quavering voice, “I understand.” Her mother-in-law apparently sensed the repressed anger and fixed her with a venomous look.
41
THUS THE WEEKS sped by, and the seasons changed. Every Sunday Otto would break Blanca’s heart with his weeping. In the first weeks, he seemed to be getting used to her absence, but that was only how it appeared. His cries for help grew steadily stronger, and she could hear them in distant Blumenthal.
One Monday, while Blanca was running to the station, Brandstock, the storekeeper, stopped her and told her that Grandma Carole had died the previous night. The funeral party was leaving from her house at noon. Then he turned and walked away.
“What?” Blanca gasped.
Brandstock was one of the few people in town, perhaps the only one, who was still an observant Jew. He was a short man with an unpleasant look. He would sometimes appear in her father’s store, buy something, and then announce out loud that the merchandise there was more expensive than in another store, but that he, Brandstock, was committed to buying from Jews and would always do so. Her father, of course, would get angry at that remark and retort, “You aren’t obliged to.” To which Brandstock would respond, “I’ll never change. This is how I’ve always acted, and this is how I always will in the future.”
Blanca, plagued with guilt feelings because she had left Otto behind, didn’t absorb Brandstock’s bitter message at first, but when it did register she started running toward the granaries that stood along the Schenau River to catch up with him and get more details. But, as though in spite, Brandstock had disappeared, as if the earth had swallowed him.
“I have to go right away,” she said, and turned toward the railway station. After she had gone some distance, she realized that she was walking in the wrong direction and turned around. It was eight thirty, and thick, foggy clouds crept over the houses. Only the tower of the municipal building and the trapezoidal roof of the school stood out.
Grandma Carole’s house was not far away from there, but ever since her marriage Blanca had avoided the house, and it had faded from her memory. It was a house of the kind that was no longer built, made of wooden beams. In the past people used to daub special oil on the walls, making them shine and last a long time, but in recent years they had stopped oiling the walls, and they were turning gray.
“I must go straight,” she said, and started walking. It was not the way to Grandma Carole’s house, but the way to the high school. For a moment she was glad to be walking on that path again. Not until she reached the Kumers’ store did she realize that she had made a mistake and that she would be better off heading for the center of town, to find out what had happened and to prepare for what was to come.
In My Corner people already knew about Grandma Carole’s death, and they came up to Blanca and hugged her. There was no one in town who hadn’t encountered her, and there was no convert to Christianity who hadn’t been wounded by her tongue. Nevertheless, they harbored respect for her. Everybody knew she was an honest, courageous woman and that Judaism was more important to her than her body.
One of the storekeepers, whose name Blanca didn’t remember, said, “Carole was a great and brave Jewish woman. It’s too bad we didn’t know how to appreciate her when she was alive.”
“Now you’re saying that?” A voice was heard from the back of the room.
“I always said it.”
“I never heard it.”
The voices surrounded Blanca on every side, and they moved her. The owner