Until the Dawn's Light

48

ONLY NOW DID Blanca see how much the malady had changed Otto. He had grown taller. His face glowed, and the words in his mouth were clearer.

“The disease has passed,” Blanca told him, “and in a little while we’ll go home.”

“I want to be with you.”

“I’ll always be with you,” she said and kissed his forehead.

Otto knew more than she imagined. He knew, for example, that the job in Blumenthal had been exhausting and that Elsa had mistreated her, that Kirtzl wasn’t his aunt, that Grandma and Grandpa came every Sunday, drank cognac, and grumbled. He’d evidently taken in a lot during his few years. Blanca was astonished by the abundance of words he’d collected.

“I’m afraid of Kirtzl,” he told her.

“Why?”

“She walks around the house without any clothes on.”

“She’s apparently used to that.” Blanca tried to distract him.

Otto’s recovery breathed a new energy into Blanca. She was hungry and ate whatever was served, and at night she sat and talked with Christina. Her life, which had seemed as though poised on the edge of a steep slope, now seemed to have been given a reprieve. An old, youthful strength coursed through her legs. In her heart she knew that hard days were in store for her, but fear didn’t deter her. At night, lying on the mat next to Otto’s bed, she would wander off to faraway lands with him, sailing on boats and struggling through flowing currents.

Blanca didn’t imagine how close at hand the solution was.

Before she left the hospital, Dr. Nussbaum told her, “Otto has recovered, but he needs to be watched over. Don’t put him in the care of that peasant woman. If there’s any need for my intervention, notify me right away.”

“I don’t know how to thank you.”

“You have to be a brave woman.”

“I promise,” Blanca said, and she was glad that those words had emerged clearly from her mouth.

When Blanca returned home she found Kirtzl sitting in the armchair, dressed in a housecoat. Her full face had gotten even fuller. Your job is over, she wanted to say. You have to go back to your village, and I’ll stay with Otto. Otto is recovering, and I have to watch over his recovery.

Kirtzl seemed to guess her thoughts. She rose to her feet, and with a peasant’s cunning she said, “Welcome. Otto, why don’t you say hello to me?”

“Hello.”

“Is that all?”

Blanca didn’t know what to say and sat down. The confidence she had felt earlier evaporated. Once again iron walls surrounded her, stifling her into muteness. Dear God, she said to herself, I went to grade school and after that to the municipal high school. Why can’t I say a single sentence?

“Are you going back to work?” Kirtzl asked after a silent pause.

“No. They fired me.”

“And what do you plan to do?”

“I don’t know.”

“Are you looking for another job?”

“I’m not looking. I don’t have to look,” said Blanca, and her fingers trembled. Kirtzl apparently sensed her anger. She turned around, went into the bedroom to get dressed, and when she came back out she said, “I’m going home. The food for Adolf is ready in the pantry. I’ll come back next Monday.”

The heavy smell of butter stood in the air. Blanca remembered that when she was in elementary school, the country girls used to spread butter on their hair. She had suffered from the smell but never complained about it.

When Adolf came home, he said, “You have to find work right away.”

“I’ll go and look,” she replied, to avoid contradicting him.

“On Monday, first thing.”

I have to suffer a little more, she said to herself, without knowing what she was saying. Only at night, in her sleep, did the meaning become a bit clearer. In her dream she saw Grandma Carole brandishing a long knife like a sword and calling out loud, “Arise, sleeping fathers, from your slumber, arise and save me from the apostates. I declare war and await you. Only with you can I defeat that great camp. Come, together let us break through the locked doors of the synagogue, so that the God of Israel will be revealed in all His splendor.”