Until the Dawn's Light_ A Novel - Aharon Appelfeld [6]
“The Lauter Rest Home received the veteran patient cordially,” her father wrote. “The patient has recovered from the trip, and now she is resting in her room. The weather is pleasant, and the apple trees are in full bloom.” Blanca reread the postcard several times. The sentence “The Lauter Rest Home received the veteran patient cordially” moved her, and she felt a stabbing in her heart.
Forced by Adolf to neglect her mother, Blanca felt numb inside—heavy, unclean, and weak-kneed. But she still worked day and night to clean the house and put everything in order. She was angry because she had given in to Adolf, and she was overcome with remorse. In the evening, when Adolf returned from work, she didn’t tell him about the postcard. Adolf was hungry, and Blanca served him dish after dish.
5
THE SECOND COMMUNICATION from Blanca’s father, a long and disjointed letter, arrived a month later. He tried to conceal his distress, but every word in his letter screamed It’s hard for me to bear this alone. Blanca decided on the spot: I’m going tomorrow, no matter what. In the evening, after supper, she told Adolf that her mother’s condition had worsened and that she had to go to be with her.
“When?”
“Tomorrow.”
“I understand.”
“What can I do?”
Only now did Blanca notice how much Adolf had changed over the last few months. His face had gotten fat, and his walk was heavy, like that of a career soldier. He spoke slowly and emphatically, as though to keep the words from slipping. Every utterance pierced her like a nail. At first he didn’t blame Blanca but criticized her grandmother Carole.
“She’s insane,” he would say. Or, “She’s a crazy Jewess.” Later on he would add, “She passed her madness on to her descendants. Some of them are sick, and some are crazy.” Before long he stopped hedging.
“Don’t be like her,” he would say. “It drives me crazy.” Blanca didn’t contradict him. On the contrary, it seemed to her that this healthy, strong man had the right attitude toward life and that one day she, too, would be like him. Before leaving for work he said, “If you want to go to your mother, I won’t stop you. But you ought to know that with us, the husband comes before everything else.”
The threat was clear, but Blanca interpreted it as passing anger and tried to mollify him. On the train she drank two mugs of beer, felt dizzy, and blamed herself for responding so easily to the desires of her heart and not fulfilling her duty toward Adolf. Later she fell asleep and awoke feeling that she was choking.
When she reached the rest home, Blanca saw with her own eyes how ill her mother was. Her father stood next to the bed, bent over and exhausted, as if he were about to sink to the floor. Blanca, who wanted to know everything about her mother’s condition, was choked with sorrow. Later that day her father told her he had already spent the money he had received from his partner for his half of the store, and now he had no choice but to sell the house. What are you thinking about, Papa? she was about to say, but she immediately saw the foolishness of it.
The owner of the rest home, a Jewish woman with a warm and gentle expression, received Blanca like a mother. For supper she served them cheese dumplings and borscht with sour cream.
“Thank you, Mrs. Lauter,” Blanca said, inclining her head.
“If only I could be more helpful.” The woman spoke in the old Jewish way.
In the evening Blanca sat by her father’s side and tried to give him encouragement. He was racked with guilt, saying that he hadn’t done enough to get his wife to a Dr. Birger, in Vienna. Dr. Birger was known as a miracle worker, but for his miracles he demanded exorbitant sums.
If it weren’t for the local doctors, who claimed that Dr. Birger was a charlatan and his medicines were snake oil, he would have sold the house long ago. Now remorse gnawed at his heart.
When they went back to visit her mother, she opened her eyes and asked, “How is Adolf?”
“He’s fine,” said Blanca. She was angry that, of all people, her mother had remembered Adolf,