Until the Dawn's Light

42

BLANCA REACHED THE old age home in Blumenthal at six o’clock. It was already dark. Elsa stood at the entrance to the corridor, and when she saw Blanca, she thundered, “I don’t want to see you here!”

Blanca just stood there, motionless. “Grandma Carole died, and there was no one to attend her funeral. Forgive me.”

“And who will take care of these people?” Elsa pointed to the inmates lying in the rooms.

“What could I do?” Blanca replied, her arms upraised.

“You could have come here on time.” Elsa continued to hammer at her.

One of the veteran workers dared to approach Elsa and said, “Forgive her.”

“How can I forgive her?” Elsa addressed the woman angrily.

“Blanca is devoted to the old people, and she doesn’t avoid any task.”

“She was late by six full hours. That’s an unforgivable sin,” Elsa said, and went into her office, leaving Blanca standing outside. Two women who lived in the home and had witnessed the unpleasant scene entered the office and said, “Forgive her.”

That last request was apparently effective. Elsa came out and announced, “This time I’m forgiving you, but I won’t do it again. From now on, you’re on probation.”

Blanca went back to work. She prepared the tables for supper and served meals to the bedridden residents. This was her home now, and she was glad to be in the company of the old people. Some of them were tall and thin, and imbued with an old-fashioned nobility. They observed more than they spoke, with the sharpness of people who had lived fully in the world for many years and seen what they’d seen. Their expressions were clear, quiet, and merciful. In contrast to them were the irritable ones who never stopped complaining about the sons and daughters who had converted and abandoned them. Day and night they rummaged through everything that had happened to them during their lives, casting blame and raising the ghosts of long-departed men and women. Everyone at the home knew everything about them. Because they talked about it so much, their pain was discolored, and all one saw was bitterness and misery.

Blanca was glad to be working and helping people who needed her assistance, and the events of that long and painful day began to fade. One of the bedridden women asked her about Grandma Carole, and Blanca told her.

While the last meals were being served to the people in beds, Elsa burst into the dining room. This time she vented her fury on Fritz, the plumber. That tall, sturdy man didn’t seem surprised. Without raising his head, he asked, “What’s the matter?” The question heightened her rage. Fritz didn’t respond. He just moved to the side, as though he had met up with a mad dog. Fritz was a lazy, drowsy man who did only what was necessary. Elsa had sworn more than once that she would fire him, but she hadn’t carried out her intention. Fritz was strong, and he helped everyone. He picked sick people up in his arms and carried them to the infirmary or the toilet. He loaded onto his back furniture, valises, sacks of flour, and whatever else needed carrying. He was no longer young, but his strength had not waned. When Elsa would explode, he would stop what he was doing, and after she wore herself out with shouting, he would go back to his room, lie down on the bed, and doze off.

That night Blanca told Sonia about Grandma Carole’s death. Sonia asked for details, and Blanca said simply, “Grandma Carole was not a woman of this world. It was hard to get near her, because she was like a pillar of fire.”

“What do you mean, Blanca?” Sonia tried to understand.

“She defended the faith of her ancestors with her body.”

“Did you ever speak with her?”

“I couldn’t speak with her. How could I speak with her?”

“I’ve never met Jews like that.”

Blanca noticed that Sonia’s body didn’t suit her face. Her body was sturdy like a peasant woman’s, but her face was long and thin, and when she paid close attention to something, it appeared even narrower.

The conversation with Sonia unexpectedly clarified something for Blanca: her mother’s religious beliefs. For years Blanca had been sure that her mother, like her father, was distant from her tribe and its beliefs. Only now did she grasp clearly that her mother had kept a hidden connection with the faith of her ancestors. She refrained from showing her feelings only because of her husband, whom she loved. Once, when Blanca’s father was complaining about the store, about his partner, and about the debts into which he had sunk, her mother said, “There is a God in heaven, and He watches over all of His creatures.” Upon hearing those words, her father buried his face in his hands.

“Where did you get that strange belief?” he asked.

“It’s my faith,” she said, without raising her voice.

“That was your ancestors’ belief, not yours.” Blanca’s father tried to correct her.

“Mine, too, if I may.”

Hearing her last words, Blanca’s father raised his head and said, “I don’t believe what I’m hearing.”

Blanca’s mother responded to that with a restrained smile, and the conversation ceased.

“Soon I’ll be leaving Austria to the Austrians and traveling to the Carpathians,” Sonia said.

“What will I do without you?”

“I’m sure you’ll get there, too.”

“I don’t see how.”

“I already see you there.”

Thus the days passed. During breaks between shifts, Blanca would tell Otto what she was thinking. She was sure not only that Otto could hear her from afar, but also that he could understand her. Once one of the residents approached her and asked in surprise, “Blanca, are you praying? I didn’t know you were so religious.”

“I’m not praying. I was just mumbling something, apparently. Sorry.”

There was an extremely aged woman named Tsirl in the home. Like Blanca’s mother, she had been born in Zelishtshik and remembered Ida Beck’s family and its ancestry, and she told Blanca that Ida was a descendant of the legendary Rabbi Nachman of Horodenka. Just the mention of his name brought blessings.

“I didn’t know,” said Blanca.

“It was no accident that my daughter hospitalized me in this place, and no accident that you came to work here. There is a reason for everything, my child.”

“What was so special about that rabbi?”

“He wasn’t a rabbi, dear. He was Rabbi Nachman of Horodenka.”

“Do you remember Grandma Carole?”

“Certainly I remember her. She was many years younger than I.”

“She passed away yesterday.”

“May her memory be blessed. In the world of truth, they will receive her well,” she said, and closed her eyes.

Tsirl dozed most of the day, but when she opened her eyes, her gaze was clear and she remembered everything very well.

The next day she told Blanca, “It’s hard for me to die in a foreign place. If I were in Zelishtshik, I would have been gathered to my ancestors long ago. This alien place is delaying death, and a person lives a long life for no purpose.”