Until the Dawn's Light_ A Novel - Aharon Appelfeld [7]
“Adolf’s a good fellow,” her mother said.
“That’s true,” Blanca replied, so as not to leave her mother’s sentence with no response.
The doctor who came to examine the patient the following day didn’t raise their hopes.
“What can I do?” Blanca’s father rose to his feet. “You can’t let a person wallow in agony. Why can’t we try Dr. Birger’s methods?”
The doctor lowered his head, as if to say, One mustn’t delude people, but her father, who was seized with dread, spoke in a trembling voice about the duty to do everything in our ability to foil death’s plots against innocent people.
“If you want to go there, I can’t stop you,” said the doctor softly. “But it’s my duty to tell you that Dr. Birger’s methods have no scientific basis, and there’s no difference between him and charlatans.”
“So we shouldn’t go to him?” Blanca’s father asked, his eyes closed.
“I didn’t say that.”
“What should we do, Doctor?”
“In a moment I’ll give Ida an injection to ease her pain.”
“An injection will ease her pain?”
“It will ease it,” said the doctor, and set right to work.
Blanca had thought she would be returning home the next day, but seeing her father bent over and shriveled in his fear, she didn’t dare tell him so.
“Papa, why don’t you shave, put on a suit, and we’ll go out to a café,” she said a bit later. Her father did as Blanca asked. In the café, he spoke about her mother’s illness, about the store, and about his cousin Dachs, who had cheated and completely impoverished him. And he spoke about not having emigrated to America. If he’d emigrated, his situation would be entirely different. Blanca knew those were merely wishes and fantasies, but she didn’t stop him. She let him indulge himself.
That night she saw how her father had aged. That tall man, who was only forty-eight, looked like someone whose flesh had been trampled, whose spirit had been stifled, and who had been seated on the threshold of a world devoid of mercy. True, he was not a practical man; he had squandered his inheritance and he had run the store negligently. But he’d done no harm to anyone. When he expressed wonder or asked a question, he was like a child who makes everyone happy with his inventions. And his wife adored him.
At the railroad station Blanca’s father burst into tears, and Blanca, who was astonished by his weeping, hugged him softly.
“It’s all right, Papa,” she said. “We’ll do everything we can to see Dr. Birger.”
“Thank you from the depths of my heart,” he said, as if she weren’t his daughter.
“We will spare neither money nor effort, Papa.” The words left her mouth and, amazingly, they calmed him.
“Pardon me, dear, for being so weak,” he said.
6
WHEN SHE RETURNED home that afternoon, Blanca found the kitchen in a mess, the beds unmade, and empty beer bottles on the coffee table in the living room. The smell of liquor and cigarettes mingled thickly in the air. Adolf’s powerful presence permeated the entire house.
Blanca overcame her immobility. She opened the windows, beat the carpets, and then sank into the dishes that were piled in the sink. The work erased the image of the rest home from her mind, and as she stood in the center of the living room she wondered, When did I first get to know Adolf well? It was as though she had suddenly lost her grip on time. Then she remembered a long, lovely summer some years earlier. Nothing out of the ordinary had occurred, but it had been wonderful just the same. Her mother had packed the suitcases because her father was burdened with the store that he despised. Blanca celebrated inwardly. The grades on her report card were splendid: excellent, excellent, and excellent. Her father’s joy had been unbounded. His only child excelled not only in mathematics, but also in Latin. In two weeks they would be going north, to