Suddenly, Love by Aharon Appelfeld

Author:Aharon Appelfeld [Appelfeld, Aharon]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 978-0-8052-4315-4
Publisher: Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group
Published: 2014-05-05T16:00:00+00:00

30

ERNST HAS RECOVERED: HIS BLOOD TESTS, BLOOD PRESSURE, and EKG are all normal. Soon they will remove the cast from his leg. As for his constant sleeping, the doctors say that it’s curative. Irena knows that the struggle he has been engaged in for so many months has changed its location; now it’s being waged in his sleep. Ernst’s sleep is chock-full of bits and pieces, and every few minutes he wakes up and utters a few words or sentences.

It’s hard for Irena to understand whether Ernst is talking about his life or about his writing. His writing preoccupies him no less than his life. Over the past few days she has heard him murmur: “Facts, facts, and not descriptions. An overabundance of details only blurs the main point. The prose of the Bible has to be a model for any writer.”

One time when he awakened he said, “My best years were when I was in the Red Army. You know who’s a friend and who’s a foe. The soldiers are your sons, and the enemy is the serpent you have to drive out. The grief is great and it is difficult, but your thoughts are clear. There are few doubts, and they don’t gnaw at you. You do your duty, and at night, even when the cannons thunder, you sleep the sleep of the righteous.”

That night Ernst told Irena that after his demobilization from the Red Army he fled to Italy, and from there he was about to sail to Australia. A lot of people were going to Australia and New Zealand then, and it seemed to him that the distant continent would make his heart forget his life. “I didn’t go to Australia because a ship had docked in Naples that was gathering refugees on their way to Palestine. And so, almost by chance, I arrived here.”

Meanwhile, Irena is preparing the apartment for Ernst’s return. The thought that life would soon return to its routine thrills her. Ernst’s injury and slow recovery brought her closer to him through his sleep. From his sleep she learns whether his pain persists or has begun to subside.

One night he told her, “If I had destroyed everything I had written at the right time, perhaps I could have started afresh. Since I didn’t destroy it, I can’t begin again. I saved my labor, even though I knew it was fruitless labor.”

Later that night he awoke and said, “Forgive me, Irena.”

“For what?”

“For asking you to destroy my manuscripts.”

“Why?”

“A person should do that kind of thing by himself and not via an agent.”

Irena was momentarily relieved, although she understood that his earlier request had disturbed him. Don’t worry, she almost said to him, whatever you command me to do, I’ll do.

In her heart Irena knew that submission of this sort would not please him. More than once Ernst had said to her, sometimes in a tone of reproach, “You work too much. You have no life of your own. Complete self-abnegation isn’t a good trait.

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