Until the Dawn's Light

37

BLANCA QUICKLY LEARNED how different the old age home in Blumenthal was from the one in Himmelburg. In Blumenthal there were regular times for rising in the morning and for lights-out, the meals were served on time, there was a rest period from two to four in the afternoon, and visitors were permitted only on Tuesdays. The director of the home was strict with the residents, and if they disobeyed her instructions, she scolded them out loud and sometimes punished them.

Upon arriving, Blanca was sent to clean the rooms and make the beds. Then she went down to help in the kitchen. In the kitchen she met Sonia and quickly made friends with her. Sonia had been born in Sarajevo. Her mother was Jewish and her father was Croatian. From her childhood, Sonia had been attracted to Jews. Her father wasn’t pleased by that inclination, but Sonia was so enchanted by Jewish people that at an early age she left her home in order to live among them.

“What attracts you to the Jews?” Blanca asked her.

“I don’t know. My mother never talked with me about being Jewish, but I’ve been interested in them since my girlhood. I would stand for hours next to the synagogue and listen to the prayers. Are you Jewish?”

“I was,” said Blanca, embarrassed by the direct question.

“Why did you convert?”

“I got married,” said Blanca, without explaining.

In the evening the director summoned Blanca to her office and explained the conditions of service.

“You work for six days,” she said, “and you go home on Saturday afternoon. Anyone who is absent without an excuse or is negligent will be fired on the spot. You’ll share a room with Sonia, and there will be a special announcement regarding night shifts. By the way, my name is Elsa Stahl, and you may call me Elsa.” Her look was blue and cold, and it was evident that she was a strict woman who wouldn’t hesitate to punish.

Sonia was three years older than Blanca. She had finished high school in Serbia and begun to study to be a pharmacist, but she had lost interest in her studies and abandoned them. Since then she had been wandering. She’d already been to Vienna, and now she was here, saving money so she could travel to Galicia.

“What attracts you to Galicia?”

“The old-time Jews.”

When Sonia spoke about the old-time Jews, her eyes widened and a spark gleamed in them.

“When I was in the hospital,” Blanca said, “my friend brought me a book of stories about the Ba’al Shem Tov.”

“I never heard of him,” said Sonia.

“It’s a book about the Jewish faith.”

“Marvelous!” Sonia cried.

Sonia was an enthusiastic woman, bold and extravagant. She didn’t hide her thoughts. The residents liked her, but the director was suspicious of her. Once she had proclaimed to one of the janitors, “What difference does it make that my mother is Jewish? I’m proud of it.”

“You mustn’t talk that way,” one of the residents commented.

“Why not?”

“Because being Jewish isn’t something to be proud of.”

“But I am proud,” said Sonia.

After a few days of depression and humiliation, Blanca felt her strength returning to her, and sensations throbbed within her once again.

“I’ve been married for more than two years, and I have a son named Otto,” Blanca told Sonia.

“And your husband?”

“He works in the district dairy.”

Sonia told her about the old age home and its residents, and about Elsa, who treated the old people cruelly. The old people were afraid to complain. Every time a delegation came from Vienna to check on the conditions of the old age homes in the provinces and they asked the old people about the place, they answered as one: everything is fine, everything is decent.

Blanca still didn’t understand everything that was being told to her. She still was overcome with fatigue.

“I don’t know what’s the matter with me anymore,” she said, as she fell asleep.

In the middle of the night Blanca awoke, terrified.

“What’s the matter?” Sonia asked.

“I’m frightened.”

“Of what?”

“I saw Otto near a deep pit, and I couldn’t save him.”