Until the Dawn's Light (9 page)

THAT VERY WEEK
Blanca discovered she was pregnant. Fear seized her, and her body trembled. She didn’t tell Adolf a thing. Adolf kept on teaching her lessons, being angry with her and beating her. She would hold her breath and say to herself,
If he knew I was pregnant, he would let up
. She worked diligently in the house and in the garden. It seemed to her that if she worked hard and devotedly, she would placate him.

On Sundays his parents would come, and his brothers and sisters would cram into the house until there was no more room. The odor of beer would make her head spin, but Blanca tried to overcome that weakness as well. She would repeat to herself,
Real life isn’t soft the way it was in my parents’ house, but thick and solid. Anyone who doesn’t understand that is laboring under a delusion
. Now she tried to eat the way Adolf did, to sleep on her back the way he did, and to grow brown skin, but her body, to her misfortune, didn’t comply. Dizzy spells would attack her at times, and at night she would wake up and vomit. Finally, she told him she was pregnant.

“Pregnancy’s not a disease,” he responded.

“So why am I vomiting?”

“My sisters were pregnant, and they didn’t vomit.”

“Be merciful to me.” The words escaped from her lips.

“What’s the matter with you?”

“I feel abandoned.”

“What are you talking about?”

Once a week she would sneak off to Himmelburg. Now it was her secret shelter. The director of the old age home had fallen ill meanwhile, and she lay in a narrow bed like one of the inmates. The welfare office of the Jewish community in Vienna promised to send a substitute director, but she was slow in arriving. From her sickbed, the director mumbled orders that could barely be understood. Theresa was now, in fact, the director. She fought with the cleaning women and with the suppliers, who threatened to sue the old age home for accumulated debts.

“Go ahead!” Theresa would say to them. “If they put the old people in prison, they’ll be better off. I’m prepared to go with them, too.” Blanca helped do laundry, clean the floors, and feed the weak residents. That exhausting work outside of her home brought her some relief, and every time she was able to escape, she did.

On one of her fleeting visits she told Theresa, “I’m pregnant.”

“Don’t expect any special treatment” was Theresa’s immediate reaction.

“He’ll keep beating me, even now?”

“He’ll keep on.”

“And what about the baby?”

“Protect it with both hands. That’s all you can do, no more.”

“Who would have thought?” said Blanca, covering her face with her hands.

One morning Adolf caught her at the train station buying a ticket at the window. Blanca froze on the spot and fainted. The people standing in line rushed to wash her face with water and call the medic. Adolf stood there like an oppressor, without taking his eyes off her. When she roused from her faint, he asked, “Where were you planning to go?”

“To Himmelburg.”

“What do you have there?”

“I wanted to look for my father.”

“Bitch,” he hissed.

She knew the end would be bitter, but where and when, she didn’t reckon. She felt heavy and shackled, as though in a nightmare, and with no way out. Everywhere she turned, the gate was shut in her face. Finally, having no other option, she spoke to her mother-in-law and begged for her mercy. Blanca’s mother-in-law didn’t like her. When she saw Blanca for the first time, she had fixed her with a hostile gaze, and that gaze had not changed over time. She regarded Blanca as a woman who was not engaged in life.

“Adolf beats me,” Blanca said.

A thin smile spread across her mother-in-law’s face, as though this were a trivial misdemeanor.

“I’m afraid for the baby that’s in my womb.” Blanca sought a different kind of mercy.

The smile left her mother-in-law’s face all at once. “Every decent husband hits a little. Nobody dies from it.”

“I’m not used to it,” said Blanca.

“You have to get used to it,” her mother-in-law said, as though they were talking about a type of housework. “Jews spoil their girls. That kind of spoiling is despicable, and one mustn’t become addicted to it.”

Blanca knew now that salvation would not come from her mother-in-law. Nevertheless, she bared her thigh and showed her the wound.

“You shouldn’t show things like that,” her mother-in-law said, shocked. “A husband who beats is a loving husband. That’s what we say. A woman without a beating becomes wanton. A husband not only supports her, he also watches over her.”

“I’m not used to it,” Blanca repeated helplessly.

“You have to get used to our way of life. Among us, husbands beat their wives. There’s nothing wrong with that. That’s how to love a wife, too.”

Blanca hung her head, and tears welled up in her eyes.

For a month she vomited. The vomiting weakened her, but she still rose early to clean the house and prepare breakfast for Adolf. Adolf kept saying, “When my sisters were pregnant, they didn’t vomit. You should have a stiff drink, not tea. Among us, only sick people and old people drink tea.”

Before long the bleeding began. Adolf brought the medic. He examined her and said, “A doctor must see her.”

The next day, Dr. Nussbaum came. Dr. Nussbaum was one of the town’s best-known doctors. After finishing his studies, he converted and began to work in the public hospital. Blanca knew him well. She had studied with his daughter, a thin and sensitive girl named Celia. Any excessive movement, not to mention any harsh sight, would overwhelm her with emotion and make her cry. Once, on a class trip, they had ended up on a farm where pigs were snorting. The squealing of the pigs, which were trying to escape the slaughterers’ axes, amused the class. Celia, seeing the slaughterers, fainted, falling into what seemed to be a coma; for a long time they tried to rouse her from it. In the end they had to summon her father from the hospital, and he resuscitated her himself.

“Blanca,” the doctor called out with fatherly fondness.

Hearing that familiar voice, Blanca burst into tears.

“Don’t cry. Nobody’s done anything to you,” Adolf commented.

“I’d like to ask everyone present to leave the room,” Dr. Nussbaum ordered.

When he asked her what had caused all the wounds on her body, Blanca answered, “I fell down. I wasn’t careful.”

Dr. Nussbaum was an experienced physician, and he knew what some men did to their wives. He didn’t hold his tongue. “Animals,” he said.

“We’re going to put you in the hospital,” he continued, and took her under his protection.

Adolf had come back into the room and was about to say something, but seeing the doctor’s anger, he didn’t dare.

Thus Blanca left her prison. Her pains were sharp and her weakness was great, but the people who surrounded her were kind and pleasant. Every morning she would wake up as if she were in her parents’ home. “Mama,” she said, “you sent me these good angels.”

Dr. Nussbaum visited her twice a day, and when he was off duty, he would sit and converse with her. He had known her parents well and had just heard about her father’s disappearance. “We were friends from youth,” he said, burying his face in his hands. “How is it I knew nothing? How is it I didn’t sense anything? Are they still looking for him?”

“Not anymore.”

IN THE HOSPITAL,
Blanca was cared for with great concern. Christina, the nurse, sat at her side and told her about her life. Her parents had died when she was a child, and she had been forced to go out and work at a young age. First she had worked as a practical nurse. The medical staff had valued her work and sent her to Vienna to study at the nursing school. That was her profession, and this was her home. Blanca noticed: her steps were quick, but her upper limbs were somewhat stiff. A pallor covered her face, and she looked like someone who had not seen sunlight for many days.

Adolf visited her once and didn’t return. Her mother-in-law would visit her after church on Sunday. She brought Blanca apples that had grown in her garden and urged her to taste them. Here she seemed softer, maybe because of the green scarf she wore on her head, but she still preached a little, even here.

“A woman must learn to suffer,” she said. “Suffering purifies her. In the end, the children grow up and submit to her discipline.” It was evident she was speaking from her own experience, but her words sounded as if they were the priest’s.

“How is Adolf?” Blanca asked.

“He’s working. He works hard.” She protected her son.

“Send him my greetings,” she said, as though he were not her husband but a distant relative.

“He’s working hard,” his mother repeated.

Every time Dr. Nussbaum came to see her, he brought her a chocolate or some fruit. With the death of the senior physician, he had become the chief doctor. The public hospital was on the brink of the abyss. During the past two years it had been running on a deficit. There were many debts, the creditors threatened to bring a lawsuit, and the maintenance staff went on strike from time to time. Dr. Nussbaum struggled on every front, and his back was bent from the great burden.

“How is Celia?” Blanca asked, because she was certain she was studying at the university.

“She’s been in a convent, my dear, for more than a year. My daughter is a mystery to me. I see her once a month, talk with her, and I don’t understand a thing.”

“Did it happen suddenly?”

“She was engaged and about to be married. A date was even set, and then she suddenly decided she wanted to be among the servants of God, and the engagement was canceled.”

“Good God!” Blanca said. “We neglect the ones closest to us. I was so involved with myself during the past two years, I didn’t see anything around me.”

The next day, Celia came to visit her. Seeing her friend in a nun’s habit, Blanca burst into tears.

“Why are you crying?” Celia asked softly.

“I don’t know,” said Blanca, wiping her eyes.

Blanca told Celia that since her mother’s death, her life hadn’t gone well. Her father had disappeared mysteriously, and Adolf didn’t allow her to go to Himmelburg to keep searching for him.

“I actually do sneak out and go there,” she said, “but I’m too afraid of what I might discover to ask anything. And now the pregnancy’s not going well, either. And you?”

“I live in the convent in Stillstein, and I’m preparing to become a nun. What happened to your father?”

“I don’t know; I can’t tell you anything,” said Blanca emotionally. “Papa was my handhold on this world, and I, in my great stupidity, in my great fear, lost him. He slipped out of my hands. Fear is our undoing. Fear makes me a person with no substance. I never learned to have courage, and without courage a person is dust and ashes. Do you understand?”

“Certainly I understand you.”

“Life was bitter for my father, and I didn’t know how to help him. Since my marriage, I’ve been afraid of every shadow. How is it in the convent? Are people frightened there as well?”

“I have only been there for a year,” said Celia, bowing her head.

“Sometimes it seems to me that prayer would help me, but I don’t know how to pray. My mother used to pray sometimes. When I was a little girl I used to watch her lips. I would say to myself,
If only I knew how to pray like Mama
.”

“I remember your mother, and sometimes I see her before my eyes.”

“My mother went to her final rest without any complaint,” Blanca said.

“I found a lot of books about Judaism in the convent library, and I read them constantly. That’s strange, isn’t it? Did you ever happen to hear of Martin Buber?”

“No. Never.”

“In my room I have books about the Ba’al Shem Tov, including a very precious anthology. I’m sure you’d find it interesting.”

“What is it about?”

“About faith, if I may make a generalization.”

“I feel empty, like an abandoned vessel.”

“Martin Buber’s anthology gave me a lot of light.”

“I’m so distracted, as if I were born without a nest.”

“I’ll bring you the anthology. You’ll find value in it. Isn’t that what we once used to say?”

“Thank you,” said Blanca. “I don’t know what’s wrong with me.”

LATER BLANCA’S PAIN
grew more intense, and Dr. Nussbaum gave her something for it. The pain did indeed die down a little, but the medicine made her woozy. Then Christina sat by her side and said something. Blanca didn’t absorb what she said, but it seemed to her that Christina’s lips were moving in prayer. For a moment she wondered about that prayer, and this made her faintly recall small scraps of her childhood. When she was sick, her mother used to sit next to her bed and observe her. Blanca would feel her hovering gaze, and she would sigh in relief. Then, surprisingly, a marvelous sort of contact would take place between her mother and her. Blanca’s hidden fears would fade all at once, and she knew that her mother would always be with her. But the full joy would come afterward, when she was recovering, a time that lasted many days and was full of glowing little things, like games of dominoes or cards, or books by Jules Verne. Her mother would read a chapter and say, “Now we’ll take a little break and nibble something. What shall it be? Maybe we’ll peel a pear.”

The weakness would pass, and Blanca’s appetite would return. She even found a slice of bread and butter tasty. Later the quiet hours would come, when nothing happened, just a feeling of pleasure and the happiness of light. While she was recovering, her father would try to entertain her with mathematical puzzles. She couldn’t solve them, but her father would do so effortlessly, like a magician. During those marvelous, brightly lit days, sharp, sudden fears would sometimes strike her, and she knew that her pleasure would not last long, that parting was inevitable. She would cry bitterly, and her mother would try in vain to console her.

These bright scraps of memory, which had been hidden within Blanca for many years, now appeared before her with new clarity. She opened her eyes, and Christina was sitting next to her. For some reason she thought Christina was Celia, and she said, “Celia?”

“How are you, Blanca? How do you feel?” Christina asked.

“I dreamed about my mother,” said Blanca.

Blanca felt better, but Dr. Nussbaum didn’t release her. Adolf came and stood at the door. In his work clothes, alongside the white iron bedsteads, he looked like one of the sturdy maintenance men who carried beds and chests of drawers to the upper floor.

“When are you coming back home?” He spoke in his mother’s voice.

She had noticed: Adolf resembled his mother and was full of superstitions. Once she had been sure that only weak people were subject to moods, daydreams, and superstitions. Later she learned that Adolf was careful to avoid the number thirteen. He had nailed a horseshoe above the door of their house, and sometimes he would say, “My mother says that a gate that doesn’t have a cross on it doesn’t protect the house.” At first she didn’t believe her ears, but in time she conceded to herself that superstitions were held by strong people, too, and in fact they enhanced their strength.

Without a doubt, Adolf was his mother’s son. His mother always protected him and spoke about his work in the dairy with admiration. His father loved him less, but through him Adolf belonged to the Hammer clan, which was known for its industry, religiosity, and devotion to family. All of these were, of course, merely fictions and wishful thinking. The family was full of drunkards, adulterers, cheaters, and idiots. But she had to learn all this painfully, over the years. Now she knew nothing but aches.
Don’t release me,
she was about to say to Dr. Nussbaum,
I’m afraid to go back home
. But Dr. Nussbaum spoke first, telling Adolf, “Blanca will be with us until she regains her strength and her wounds are completely healed.”

“I don’t understand,” said Adolf.

“What don’t you understand?”

“My sisters gave birth at home, not in a hospital.”

“So you’re an expert in medicine, too, I see,” he said and dismissed him.