Until the Dawn's Light

18

BLANCA HAD PLANNED to go to Himmelburg the next day but didn’t. Bad dreams tormented her during the night, and when she woke up it seemed to her that she must stay at home. She made a cup of coffee, heard the train leave, and with every sip of the beverage she knew that a part of her body had stopped pulsing, that from now on she would have to live an amputated life. That feeling traveled down into her legs, and she curled up in the armchair. She sat there, without moving, for a long time.

Later she recovered and went outside. The sky was bright, and the thought that she was still left with a few days to be by herself made her so happy that the memory of her father was effaced. Without locking the door, she headed for the center of town. Not far away students gaily strolled to the high school. It was Wednesday, she recalled. On Wednesdays studies began at ten o’clock, a kind of minor midweek holiday. A distant, hidden holiday feeling returned to her.

The stores downtown were open, and a pleasant morning bustle filled the narrow streets. Blanca liked that hour. In the past, on vacations, she used to go to the store and pull her father into the nearby café, which was called My Corner. They would sit for a while, immersed in conversation. Spending time with her father was an adventure that always thrilled her: a time of dreams and more dreams.

Blanca entered the café. It was old-fashioned, filled with warm, pleasant-looking furniture. The proprietors, a childless couple, had converted to Christianity in their youth, hoping that their life in the city would change for the better and that their business would flourish. But the café didn’t flourish. A few customers, regulars, remained faithful to the place, but the young people took no interest in the old-fashioned, dark atmosphere that prevailed there. Years of disappointment had left their mark on the owners’ faces. They had come to resemble each other, shrunken, and the light in their eyes had dimmed. But they had liked Blanca’s father and greatly honored him, making him coffee very punctiliously. The proprietress, Mrs. Hofmann, used to say, “We’ll hear great things of Blanca.” That pronouncement would bring a thin smile to her father’s lips, because he secretly hoped so, too.

“Where’s Papa? I haven’t seen him in a long time,” asked Mrs. Hofmann.

“He’s in the old age home in Himmelburg.” Blanca didn’t hide the information from them.

“Good God!” said Mrs. Hofmann, covering her face with her hands.

“I would gladly keep him at home, but Adolf won’t allow it.”

“Why? After all, he’s a quiet, pleasant man.”

“Adolf doesn’t like Jews,” said Blanca, shocked at the sentence that had escaped her.

The Hofmanns gave her a frozen look, without adding a word.

Again Blanca stood on the main street. The broad doorway of the locked synagogue was vacant. Grandma Carole would arrive there later. The day before, Blanca had thought of going to her house, to tell her about her father’s sad situation and ask her to remove her curse from him. For some reason she thought that only Grandma Carole had the power to help her. She had lain in bed for a long time, trying to cobble together some words that would soften Grandma Carole’s anger, but in the end Blanca realized her grandmother wouldn’t help her, not because of hostility toward her father, but because of what she, Blanca, had done. It would be better not to go to her.

Blanca knew everyone downtown. Still, it seemed to her that the center of town had changed. Her mother had brought her to kindergarten here and later to elementary school. When she was little, her mother would take her to the town’s seamstress, a Czech woman. Love of humanity dwelled in her face.

“We’re together for such a short time,” she used to say. “It’s a shame to waste that time with misunderstandings and annoyance.” She would take measurements and chat at the same time. She spoke about Prague and the charm of its streets, and she told them a lot about the Jews of Prague. She had worked for a long time — until her late marriage — for Jews.

“The Jews are the leavening in the dough,” she would say. “Without the Jews, the world would be missing a spice.”

Blanca remembered her very clearly. When she was seven, the dressmaker passed away. For some reason her mother took her to the funeral. It was a silent funeral, without tears. Only her mother couldn’t restrain herself and wept.

Blanca raised her eyes and saw the closed synagogue again. Her father hadn’t liked the place and used to say, “The synagogue lacks beauty. Jews don’t pray, they mumble. In church at least there’s good music.” Her mother attended services on Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur. She had brought Blanca to services a few times. The women’s section was roomy and vacant. In a single dark corner a handful of women crowded together, listening to the prayers that rose from the main sanctuary. Blanca was frightened by the place, but she still accompanied her mother.

After a while the synagogue was closed because there was no longer a congregation. The tall, empty building stood out even more in its barrenness. If it had sunk, everyone would have been relieved, but a solid building like that never sinks by itself. Over the years it became a temple for a single worshipper of God: Grandma Carole.

When Blanca was a little girl, Judaism had appeared to her as a kind of severe disease, accompanied by fever and vomiting. Once she had spoke about this to her mother, who had replied with a sentence that was deeply engraved in her memory.

“I don’t make a business out of my Judaism,” she had said, “but I’m not ashamed of it, either.” That was before tuberculosis had attacked her. When she was ill and lying in a rest home, she had said something to Blanca by chance: “Jews suffer everywhere.”

“Why, Mama?”

“Because they’re sensitive.”

“More sensitive than other people?” Blanca had challenged her.

“No. Just weaker.”

“Strange,” Blanca had said.

“What’s so strange?” her mother had asked.

“That Jews are weaker.”

“That’s how things are.”

Blanca remembered that conversation with great clarity, perhaps because it had taken place in the evening. Her father was sitting in the armchair, and her mother had spoken slowly, as though counting her words.