Until the Dawn's Light_ A Novel - Aharon Appelfeld [61]
Blanca said to Otto, “Don’t be afraid. I’ll watch over you with all my soul and all my might.” Hearing her voice, Otto opened his eyes wide and laughed, but Blanca was dejected, and in her dejection she began to sob.
On the train one Monday morning Blanca had a few drinks, and she returned to the old age home in a blur. Elsa smelled it on her right away.
“What you do outside isn’t my business,” she said, “but you can’t come here reeking of alcohol. I don’t intend to reprimand you again.”
“I’ll try,” Blanca replied in the tones of a maidservant.
“I’m not talking about trying,” said Elsa.
Now, too, Blanca felt the muteness that blocked her mouth. She rushed to her room, changed clothes, and without delay went to clean the stairs.
The alcohol that Blanca had drunk in the buffet car seeped into her and strengthened her. After cleaning the stairs, she made the beds and mopped the floor. She did all the chores without thinking, and at the end of the day she reported to the dining room and brought trays to those who were eating. The strength of youth, such as she had not even felt in high school, flowed in her arms. One of the old people observed her and said, “What’s happened to you, Blanca?”
“Nothing. Why are you asking, sir?”
“You look different today.”
She soon learned how right the man was. On laundry day she found a diamond ring in one of the smocks. In the past, whenever she had found anything valuable, she quickly returned it to its owner. This time she looked at the ring for a moment and then slipped it into her pocket. After finishing the laundry she thrust the ring into a cleft in the wall.
The theft seemed to have passed unnoticed. But then two weeks later, Mrs. Hubermann discovered that her ring had disappeared, and she burst into tears. All the old people demanded that a worker named Paulina be fired, because stolen jewelry had already been found in her possession. Paulina was summoned to Elsa’s office, and she swore by everything dear to her that she hadn’t stolen a thing. But her oath didn’t help her this time, and she was dismissed. Before leaving, she cursed the residence and the Jews who had plotted against her. The two janitors took hold of her the way they had gripped Sonia and threw her out.
From then on Blanca stole money and jewels, quickly slipping them into her hiding place. Sometimes at night she would go downstairs and fondle them. “I’m not stealing for myself, but for Otto,” she murmured like a slave woman. Contact with the stolen jewels restored to her a moment of joy.
45
BLANCA’S LIFE WAS now submerged in a rigid, impermeable schedule. Shadows clung to all her steps. Once she saw two gendarmes at the entrance of the old age home, and she was sure they had come to arrest her. She was also afraid of the janitors, and of bringing compote to the old people at night. Since Sonia’s departure, Blanca was apprehensive about breaking any of Elsa’s rules. In the past she had sat with the old people, helped them, and stolen food for them. Now she did her duty and departed. A feeling of uncleanliness, similar to what she had felt after her marriage to Adolf, stained her again. She bathed immediately upon finishing a shift, but the feeling didn’t fade away.
Elsa grumbled and threatened to bring the police to make a search and interrogate the staff. Aside from Paulina, who had been fired, there was another worker who had once been caught stealing cheese, and suspicion was now directed at her. No one knew what Elsa would do. After her shift, Blanca would flee to her room and curl up under the blanket.
On the weekends Blanca would return home and surrender her wages to Adolf. Then she would rush to bathe Otto and dress him. Blanca tried to