Until the Dawn's Light

25

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.”