Until the Dawn's Light

54

“STRUZHINCZ!” THE CONDUCTOR announced. The sound penetrated Blanca’s sleep, and it woke her. She immediately gripped Otto’s hand and said, “We’re getting off.”

“Where?” asked Otto, still tangled in sleep.

“This is it,” she said, without knowing what she was saying.

Here, too, Blanca saw two big posters glued to a wall, each proclaiming the name and description of the murderer. This time the letters were in red, making them stand out even more. Blanca looked at them, lowered her eyes, and slipped out of the station.

Cold evening light illuminated the street and the low houses. Her eyes immediately picked out a sign: SALZBURG HOTEL. Nearby there was another sign: VIENNA HOTEL. The buildings looked as though they housed well-run hotels. But in a hotel they write down your address and ask questions. Then, in an alley not far away, Blanca saw a modest sign: FAMILY PENSION, PERSONAL SERVICE, REASONABLE PRICES. The alley pleased her. The people walked slowly, the calm of the evening permeating their gait. A familiar but forgotten tranquillity flowed from the open windows.

“It’s good that we came here,” she said.

“Mama,” Otto called out, confused from the long journey.

“What, dear?”

“I’d like to eat something good.”

“In a little while they’ll serve us dinner,” she said, picturing in her mind a set table. It turned out to be a Jewish-owned pension. Blanca remembered the little Jewish sanitariums in the mountains where her mother had been hospitalized. The owners had been gentle people, somewhat similar to their patients.

“My name is Blanca Guttmann, and this is my son, Otto Guttmann,” Blanca said, introducing herself.

“Did you come from Czernowitz?”

“Yes, we did.”

“How long will you be here, if I may ask?”

“A month, maybe longer.” Blanca spoke in relaxed tones to avoid raising questions.

“My name is Tina Tauber,” said the landlady. “My German isn’t perfect, but my husband studied it in high school, and he speaks without mistakes. He corrects my errors, but without much success. What can I do? I was born in a village where we spoke Yiddish.”

The woman was about forty, and it was evident that contact with strangers embarrassed her. Her husband, who came to help, did indeed speak a fine German. He showed them their room and said, “Come downstairs with me, and we’ll serve you dinner. You’re surely hungry. What’s your name, little boy?”

Blanca intervened and said, “Otto is big already. Otto is four. In a little while he’ll attend kindergarten.”

After many days of displacement, fear, and depression, the dining room seemed like a quiet return to a familiar place. The meal included vegetables, cheese and sour cream, and thick coffee. The fragrance of the coffee reminded Blanca of the shaded country cafés where she had sat with her parents. For a moment she forgot the jolting journey, and she clung to those vanished places as if she had never left them.

“You’ve come on vacation?” Mrs. Tauber asked cautiously.

“Yes, indeed. We need it, like one needs air to breathe.”

“During this time of year it’s very quiet here,” Mrs. Tauber said calmly.

“Thank you,” said Blanca.

“I haven’t done anything for you yet.” The woman spoke the way they did in the country.

That night Blanca slept without bad dreams. In her sleep she saw Otto, tall and thin like her uncle Otto, whom her mother had loved and loved to talk about. When Blanca awoke, it was already late. Otto was still sleeping, curled up next to her. They’re looking for me in railroad stations, she thought, but I’m here with Otto and no one will discover me because this place is out of the way and hidden. Now the room revealed itself to her: tall, narrow windows, two old-fashioned dressers, an armchair, and two wicker chairs. In the corner was a desk.

“We’re lazy. It’s nine o’clock,” she said as soon as Otto woke up.

“Where are we going?” he asked as if he were on a train.

“We’re not leaving. We’re here.”

“Is there a river?”

“I suppose so, but it’s autumn now, and the water is cold.”

“What will we do?”

“We’ll read and play and do a lot of other things.”

Mrs. Tauber greeted them with a “Good morning” and said, “Make yourselves at home. Here’s what I can offer you for breakfast. Everything is hot and fresh.”

They ate and drank. Otto was impressed by the polished copper pots on the stove, from which you could easily remove omelets and cheese dumplings dipped in strawberry jam. Blanca sipped the thick coffee, which seeped into her like a restorative potion.

She remembered what she had practiced with Otto, and drilled it into him again. “Otto is four and a quarter. Otto is big now. His name is Otto Guttmann, and in a little while he’ll go to kindergarten.”

Otto raised his eyes and stared at her as though he had caught his mother doing something foolish.

After breakfast Otto said, “Mama, let’s go out for a walk.” Blanca was somewhat apprehensive about the new place, but she overcame her misgivings and said, “We’ll go out right away and see what there is here.”

First they strolled down the main avenue and then they sat in a little café and ordered ice cream. There was a toy store near the café, and Blanca bought Otto a basket full of toys. Otto was pleased and expressed his joy by clapping his hands.

Then they sat in a public park, and Otto played. The park was clean, and Blanca knelt down and played with him.

“I have a lot of toys!” he cried out, confused because so many toys had suddenly come to him.

After a while Blanca said, “Today we’ll buy new clothes, too. It’s already autumn, and you have no warm clothing.”

“And boots, too?”

“Boots, too, like grown-ups wear.”

And so they did. By the afternoon, Otto was equipped for the winter. When they returned, Mrs. Tauber was pleased to see them and said, “You’ve come just in time. Lunch is ready.”

For lunch she served them borscht with sour cream and stuffed eggplant.

“We have no fish today,” she apologized.

“That’s all right,” said Blanca. “Otto will be going to kindergarten soon. I’m sure they have fish there.”

The landlady stared at her and said nothing.

After lunch, Otto busied himself with his new toys, and Blanca lay down on the bed and observed him. She felt that a part of her had been left behind in the enchanted cabin on the banks of the Dessel and that from now on she would have to live without some vital organs. My life has to contract, she said to herself, and the more it contracts, the better it will be. An old sadness, one that had gnawed at her years ago in high school, arose within her. In a short while these eyes of mine will see no more. This room and its modest furniture won’t remember that I was here and watched Otto play. And Otto, too, will be so immersed in his own life that he won’t remember these magical moments.

“Otto,” she blurted out.

“What, Mama?”

“You have to be strong.”

“I’m strong.”

“That’s exactly what I wanted to hear,” she said, and was sorry she had said it.

Indeed, Otto sank deeper and deeper into his new toys. The evening light streamed through the tall windows and shone dimly on the floor. Blanca felt that she had distanced herself very far from her life, that she was exposed and without wings to shelter her. In her second-to-last year of high school they had read The Brothers Karamazov and discussed it. They had spoken about the soul and about its darkness, about good and evil, and about murder, which was forbidden in any event. About God, for some reason, they had not spoken. One of the girls, not one of the outstanding students, had surprised everyone by speaking explicitly about God, and the literature teacher, a pleasant, enlightened man, had made a dismissive gesture with his right hand, as if to say, Why drag our feet into intangible things? They won’t be of any use to us. Let’s talk about visible and palpable things. There, at least, we’re on firm footing. The girl, whose name Blanca didn’t remember now, bowed her head, and her face flushed as if she had been slapped. The unfortunate girl’s face now appeared clearly before her, as though the insult had just been hurled at her.

Blanca knelt down and played dominoes with Otto. Otto won, but he wasn’t happy with his victory. It seemed to him that his mother was fooling him, though Blanca assured him again and again that his victory was truly earned, that she had done nothing to let him win.

Then Otto put on his new clothes. They suited him. He looked like the only son of a petit bourgeois family that had lost its fortune, but whose mother decided to dress him like a prince anyway, and to that end she had taken out a loan, unbeknownst to her husband. Now, sudden fear fell upon her.

Later in the day Blanca remembered the hasty visit she had made to the cemetery during the winter, after Otto’s recovery. No one had been there, and heavy rain whipped the gravestones. The mud on the paths was deep and sticky, and Blanca could barely reach her mother’s grave. When she stood before the small tombstone, she had nothing to say, and she immediately turned back in her tracks. Since that visit, she hadn’t dared return. It seemed to her that her mother was asking her not to come and bother her, as she had done a few weeks before her death.

“My darlings, let me be by myself for a few days,” she had said at the time. “I have to be by myself.” Blanca’s father, who was confused and fearful, had grasped Blanca’s hand, stepped back to the door, and murmured, “We’re going right out. We won’t disturb you. You need rest.” Years had passed since she had heard those trembling words. Now they filled her ears again.

Otto played and played until he finally sank down and slept. From the time he had been a baby, Blanca loved to watch Otto in his sleep. Now he slept in a different position. He lay folded up, and it was evident that his daytime activity was continuing on into his sleep. His intense face softened, and a thin smile spread across it. Blanca sat without moving from her place. The thought that she, with her own hands, had freed Otto from the prison of Kirtzl, had borne him far away and brought him here — that thought filled her with pride.

Suddenly Otto woke up in alarm.

“Mama!” he called out.

“What’s the matter, dear?”

“I dreamed that I lost you in a railway station.”

“That’s not true. I’m here.”

“Why didn’t I see you?”

“That happens sometimes. It was only a dream.”

To distract him, they went down to the dining room and sat in their usual places. It was eight o’clock, and Mrs. Tauber said, “I see that our young man fell asleep and slept well. Now I’ll make him something that he’ll like a lot: cheese dumplings dipped in strawberry jam. I speak poor German, but you understand me, don’t you?”

During that time of the year the guests were few and the dining room was mostly empty, so Mrs. Tauber indulged those who were there. Otto was pleased and ate with gusto. The pension reminded Blanca of another house in another place, but where, she couldn’t remember. She sat and drank cup after cup of coffee. The thoughts that had oppressed her during the day had scattered now, and she watched Otto closely. A feeling that things would be like this from now on, that nothing would separate them, throbbed within her.

“What are you thinking about, Mama?” Otto asked softly.

“Nothing.”

“You’re not thinking about anything?” He tried to understand.

“That happens sometimes.”

Otto chuckled, as though he had caught his mother once again in a kind of mental lapse.