Until the Dawn's Light

23

ADOLF RETURNED THE next day, and when Blanca asked him how he had enjoyed the Tyrolean Mountains, he answered, “We didn’t enjoy ourselves. We worked hard.” Blanca served him roasted meat, cabbage, and baked potatoes. He was hungry and asked for seconds. When he took off his shirt, she was astonished to see how solid he was. His arms appeared to belong to another race of men.

Later she told him that her father had disappeared the previous day and that she had been summoned by the old age home in Himmelburg. He didn’t respond, but when she went on to tell him about everything that had happened to her, he said, “That’s the Jewish muddle-brain.” When he finished the meal, he lit a cigarette and said, “You don’t have to go back there. It’s a rotten place.”

Blanca remembered that right after her mother died, Adolf had said, “Jews don’t know how to live, and they don’t know how to die.” She had been overcome with grief, and that surprising comment had struck her like a hammer. Now she remembered exactly when he had said it: right after the funeral, at the gate to the cemetery. That evening he had made some general statements about the Jews, statements with which she concurred in her heart. If he had said them quietly, without poison, she would have agreed with him completely. At that time she was dreaming about changing herself in a way that would infuse her life with patience and calm. Her arms would swell to the size of Adolf’s sisters’, her body would harden and broaden, her chest would fill out, and she would be able to work without her back bothering her. Adolf insisted that she change herself and said that if she didn’t do so of her own free will, he would change her by force. And that was indeed how he behaved. He beat her with his hands and with his belt, and did not lack for occasions to do so. Great God, she whispered to herself, why is my life so painful? Her bereaved, confused father was so immersed in his own misfortune, he didn’t see his daughter’s pain. She learned to close her eyes and keep silent, to bite her lips and not utter a syllable. Sometimes, when she could bear no more, she would plead, “Don’t hit me. You’re hurting me.” But Adolf paid no attention.

“You’re a weakling,” he would say. “You have no muscles. You’re shouting like your crazy grandmother.” Sometimes it seemed to her that he didn’t mean to hurt her but, rather, to uproot her weakness. He said he would destroy everything that she once was. In an effort to improve herself, she would slave away and say to herself, Adolf is right, I must get stronger. Only a strong person stands on his own two feet. Weak people fail in the end.

Adolf’s absence had made her body forget slightly the pain he inflicted on her. Now everything reverted to the way it had been, but in a harsher way, as if he had left only to gather more rage.

Blanca’s father’s disappearance came to appear to her as a voyage to the realm of his youth: his love of mathematics. Now, in his hiding place, he had become again what he once was: a genius. There he was planning his great discoveries: his marvelous equations, about which he had been thinking for years. As soon as the equations were known, all the humiliations would be erased in a single moment, and he would be what he was meant to be: the genius who was going to bring a blessing to the world. Papa, she would say to herself, I can guess where you’re hiding, but I won’t disturb you. You’re preparing the final draft, and victory will not be slow in coming.

But Blanca also had moments of dreadful mental clarity, and she knew that no garment could cover the shame, that no words would atone for her crime. That evening in the railroad station — God would not forgive her for it. To dull her hidden pains Blanca would work from morning till night, baking and cooking, but Adolf was not content. There were always faults: the potatoes were burned, the roast was dry, the vegetables weren’t properly seasoned. He spent the evenings with his friends in the tavern, and upon his return he would peel off her clothes, beat her, and mount her.

“Don’t hurt me,” she would plead. But her pleas would only make his fury burn hotter.

I’ll run away, she said to herself more than once, and no one will know where I’ve disappeared to. I’ll live among the bulrushes or on the edge of the hills. Better to live in the forest than to endure this shameful suffering. The desire would burn brightly within her, but fear would put it out. Her secret plans eventually shrank to something more reasonable. I’ll sneak away to Himmelburg and find out what has happened with the searches for my father. If I learn that he is living in the mountains, I’ll go to him, no matter what.

As the autumn rains pelted down in fury, Blanca hurriedly put on her raincoat and went to the railway station. By nine o’clock she was in Himmelburg. The familiar houses and the road to the old age home made her dizzy. For a moment she forgot why she had come, and she went into a café. The strong coffee refreshed her memory, and she recalled that she had been there three weeks earlier. It had been cold, but no rain was falling. The courtyard had been lit, and a motionless silence had filled it. She had spoken with the director and gone to the police, and when she had returned, Theresa had served her soup and summer squash quiche.

After sitting for an hour, Blanca gathered herself up and went to the old age home. She went in through the main entrance and headed for the corridor where her father had lain. When she reached his bed, she saw an unfamiliar old man in his place, his eyes sunk in dark sockets and his face hardened. What are you doing here? she was about to call out. This is my father’s bed. You can’t just grab a bed like that. If he comes back today, where will he sleep?

The director’s face was blank and inspired no hope. When Blanca asked whether there was any point in going back to the police, she replied, “My dear, what can I tell you? They do what they want. I bribe them, but it’s useless. God has died in their hearts.”

“Where did he disappear to?” Blanca suddenly asked, as though he had been gone for just a day.

“Who knows?” answered the director, alarmed by Blanca’s question.

Theresa was more open.

“They wait for seven days,” she said, “and if after seven days the person doesn’t return, that means he’ll never return, that he decided of his own free will to go to the world of truth. He had enough of the confusion and the lies and the suffering that disfigures us. I’ve been working here for twenty years. It’s never happened that someone has come back after a long absence.” Her voice had a grave and direct quality, like that of someone who has decided not to conceal the truth, even if it’s cruel.

Blanca drew near to her. “Have we lost all hope?”

“One mustn’t deceive people. I hate deceivers. Death isn’t as horrible as we imagine it to be.”

Blanca held out her hand, as though trying to cut her off, but Theresa wouldn’t stop.

“The next world is better,” she said, as she went to get Blanca a bowl of soup. “Believe me.”

“Thank you, but I have to return home,” said Blanca. “Adolf comes home at three thirty, sometimes even at three. If his meal isn’t ready, he’ll beat me.”

“Just don’t be afraid, my dear.”

“I’m not afraid anymore,” Blanca said, and hugged her.

“You mustn’t despair. We aren’t alone. There’s a God in heaven.”

“I know,” said Blanca, and she ran out to catch the noon train.