Until the Dawn's Light

24

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.”