Until the Dawn's Light

16

OTTO AWOKE IN the middle of the night.

“What are you doing, Mama?” he asked.

“I’m writing.”

“What are you writing?”

“My memoirs.”

For a moment he was perplexed, as though he realized he had already asked that question and had been answered.

Over the past week they had spent many hours together. The days grew longer, and now the twilight lasted until midnight. Otto was awake for a long time, and Blanca didn’t start writing until he collapsed on the mat. At first the sentences flowed, but now she found it hard to write a complete sentence. Fatigue and fear of coming events blocked the flow, and her sentences were fragmentary and scattered. To correct the flaws, she rewrote again and again.

Otto did not make things easier for her. He demanded attention and kept bringing up memories he had of their house. These few memories were not without meaning for him, but he knew that his mother didn’t like it when he asked about the toys they had left behind. While he seldom asked questions, when they passed by the chapel and he saw the image of the crucified Christ, he didn’t hold back. “Why did the Jews crucify Jesus?” he asked.

“Didn’t I tell you that the Jews didn’t crucify Jesus?” she replied impatiently.

“So who did crucify him?”

“The Romans.”

“I didn’t know.”

“So get that fact into your head. The Romans crucified Jesus and not the Jews.”

The years Blanca had spent with Adolf left more than physical scars on her. When she got angry, she noticed, she imitated his voice. More than once she had sworn to herself that she would uproot that violent voice from her throat, but, as though in spite, every time she got angry, it returned.

“When are we going?” Otto suddenly asked before falling asleep.

“Why are you asking, dear?”

“It looked to me like we were about to leave.”

“Perhaps. Do you want to?”

“Where will we go?”

“I guess we’ll go farther north.”

Otto was sensitive to every movement. Two days earlier, two men who were looking for a woman named Anna Tramweill aroused Blanca’s suspicion. They went from house to house, and finally they stood in the street and questioned passersby. They looked like two peasants who were searching for a debtor or a witness in a trial. In any case, she didn’t like the looks of the men, and she said to Otto, “Maybe we’ll have to leave soon.” He usually reacted to her fears belatedly.

The landlady was very friendly to them. She told Blanca scraps of her life and praised her daughter. Her daughter not only lengthened her mother’s days, but she also broadened her world. God had mercy on all His creatures, and upon her He showed particular mercy. Blanca didn’t usually like that way of speaking, but from the old woman’s mouth it sounded truthful.

That morning the landlady brought them a loaf of bread she had just baked, and a jar of prune jam.

“I’m sorry,” Blanca said. “We might have to leave soon.”

“Why so fast?”

“What can I do?” Blanca said, without going into detail.

Since encountering the two men in the street, Blanca hadn’t felt tranquil. She locked the door and didn’t walk as far as before. When the sun set, which was very late now, they walked up from the riverbank and Blanca made dinner. First Otto observed her handiwork, then he sat with his toys.

The day before he had asked, “When are we going to see a soccer game?”

Otto used to go to the soccer field with Adolf. After the game, Adolf would take him to his friends in the tavern. When they returned home, Otto’s face would be red from the sun, and his movements would be wild. When he shouted, Adolf would slap his face the way he slapped Blanca’s face, with no warning.

“A boy must behave properly. He must listen, and not get fresh,” he would say. Every time a slap landed on Otto’s face, Blanca would cringe, but she never said anything to Adolf. She would hug Otto and kiss the place where he was hurt, and for that she was scolded, of course.

Meanwhile, Blanca’s writings piled up on the wooden table. She hadn’t written since the end of high school, and the letters had become alien to her. She tried to stick to some order and to the facts, and of course to block the anger that sometimes welled up in her. She repeatedly told herself that the facts came before anything else. Without facts, there could be no reliable testimony.