Until the Dawn's Light_ A Novel - Aharon Appelfeld [81]
Blanca closed the door. Through the panes of glass she could still see Otto’s face in profile and a drop on the tip of his nose. She had a huge desire to go back and touch his face again and wipe his nose, but the hand that had closed the door no longer had the power to open it again.
56
FROM THEN ON Blanca traveled without much of a plan. If she chanced upon a wagon, she would pay the driver and hitch a ride. At first the broad fields made her despair, and more than once she was about to return to Struzhincz. I’d be better off dying near Otto and not in a strange land, she said to herself, knowing there was no logic to her words. After a while she overcame that delusion and would repeat to herself, You mustn’t go back. Otto has to get used to living without you.
Along the way she met decent people who helped her and put her up in their homes, and bullies who mistreated her. Against the bullies Blanca struggled with all her might, scratching and cursing. One night she fought off a drunken peasant, biting his arm and hissing at him, “If you touch me, I’ll murder you.” The peasant panicked and let her go.
I have to keep going, she said to herself, and did so. The winter winds dulled her fear and bolstered her courage. She felt strength in her legs. Sometimes she would stop next to a stream, wash her face, and immediately sink down into the grass and fall asleep. Sometimes a sheep or colt would emerge from the undergrowth. In that green wasteland they looked like hunted creatures to her, running away from the arms of the oppressor, as she was. For a moment they would look at each other and try to draw near, but in the end each would go his own way, as though agreeing that they would be better off alone.
Sometimes she would happen upon a Jewish peddler. He would tell her about the surrounding villages, and she would ask him how to reach a Jewish inn. These thin and unpleasant Jews were her friends now, and she trusted them and bought matches and supplies from them. The life she had left behind now seemed to her like the abandoned ruins she encountered on her way: barren and full of damp darkness.
Then a heavy snow began to fall, and Blanca was fortunate enough to find a warm and hospitable Jewish inn.
“My parents were born not far from here, and in their youth they moved to Austria,” she told the owner. “They didn’t observe the tradition, but I read the stories of the Hasidim that were collected by Martin Buber, and I would like to see Hasidim close up.”
The innkeeper smiled. She had never heard of Martin Buber, but as for Hasidim, “All of us here are Hasidim,” she said.
“And where does the Tsadik live?”
“Not far away, in Vizhnitz.”
“I didn’t know I was so close to him.”
The innkeeper didn’t know how to behave with her strange guest. She had seen assimilated Jews in her lifetime, but she had never met an assimilated Jew who traveled to see the Tsadik.
Although Vizhnitz was not far off, the way there was hard and strewn with impediments. Gendarmes lay in wait at every crossroad, and thugs gathered in the entrances of taverns. But Blanca was no longer afraid. A powerful resentment seethed within her and filled her arms with strength. For some reason it seemed to her that if she reached Vizhnitz, the snarl of her life would become untangled and she would be set free.
But Blanca’s strength did not always sustain her. She was raped once, and once she was beaten by an old peasant who suspected that she had stolen eggs from his chicken coop. Her body bruised, her arms scratched, she would sink down into the grass and imagine that Otto was waiting for her by the river. This was a new delusion, and in her darkness she would lie for hours without moving. The Prut River flowed in fierce currents in that area, and its rapids were thrilling. More than once she said to herself, I’ll jump