Our story opens in an Austrian
city, two generations before the Holocaust, where almost all the Jews have converted
to Christianity. The church bells are pealing today for Karl, an ambitious young
civil servant whose conversion will clear his path to a coveted high government
post. For Karl and his friends, most of whom have already converted, Judaism
is an obstacle to their advancement that is easily discarded. The only Jews
left are their impoverished relatives in the outlying Carpathian mountains and
a few merchants whose shoddy stalls in the center of the town have triggered
a campaign to remove them in the name of progress and civic beauty.
Karl's future looks bright,
but with his promotion comes a political crisis that turns his conversion into
a baptism by fire, unexpectedly reuniting Karl with his past and kindling a
love affair that will force him to take a stand he could never have imagined.
Images of the past overwhelmed
him. Silent and bright, they filled his sleep: his father and mother in the
kitchen, the eternal kitchen, conjuring memories. After an hour of this, the
Carpathian Mountains, where they had been born, invaded the narrow kitchen,
filling it till there was no room to breathe. Then their faces took on a different
character. A glimmer of their fathers' faith illuminated their brows. Not only
did their faces change, but also their language, as if German were excised from
their mouths, and another language, somehow related to it, rose and up and made
their lips speak. It was clear to Karl that this was their true language, and
only in its words could they express the fulfillness of their hearts.
"I don't understand
a word," laughed the little boy Karl, spreading out his tiny palms.
"It's Yiddish," said the mother, picking him up.
"Whose language it that?"
His parents had stopped
speaking their language, and only at night, when Karl was sound.
asleep, did they return to it. Since childhood he had harbored fondness for
its sounds. Often he would ask, "Mother, why don't you speak the secret
"What do you mean?"
"Why don't you speak the Jews' language?"
"We must speak German. In Austria everyone speaks German."
He loved his parents' secret
language, as he did the pretty girls who entered the store. The Czech girls
were the prettiest of all. They were buxom, and the braids on their backs were
thick and black. And their happiness contrasted with his parents' misery. Earning
a living had darkened their faces....
Occasionally, as if from
oblivion, an uncle of his would emerge from the Carpathians. A tall man, thin,
with a bent back. In a moment the house would change. The man would sit and,
in a hushed and monotonous voice, tell stories about life's shame and struggles.
Then the secret language would become the language of pain....
to Appelfeld's Iron Tracks