Aharon Appelfeld, For Every Sin. Jeffrey M. Green, translator. Vintage International, 1990.
In a recent interview in the New York Times, while commenting on the importance of other Modernist writers, Salman Rushdie claims that we live in a world that synchs with Kafka, that Kafka more effectively foretold what was coming more accurately than writers like Joyce, Woolf, and Faulkner. Although Rushdie’s claim reflects most immediately his own beleaguered reality–the 2022 stabbing and his recovery from it–as I read For Every Sin I couldn’t but help think that his insight resonates broadly through the twentieth and twenty-first centuries and that For Every Sin is a proof point for that Kafkaesque world.
Appelfeld is Roumanian by birth, was imprisoned in a forced labor camp, survived, and emigrated to British-Mandate Palestine in 1946, which would become Israel in 1948. Like other European emigrés of his generation–for example the poet Yehuda Amichai– Appelfeld learned Hebrew in order to embark on his literary career and became one of the foundational figures of modern Israeli literature; his publishing career lasted from 1962 to 2013. In For Every Sin and the one other Appelfeld book I’ve read, Badenheim 1938, he writes not about contemporary Israel but the Holocaust and the people and places most immediately affected by it. With these books, I feel like Appelfeld is writing prefaces for what would become modern Israeli literature.
For Every Sin takes place right after the liberation of the camps and the end of the war. The single main character is Theo, a young man from Baden Bei Wien, Austria who had completed a year of college before being deported to the camps. He was an only child, and both of his parents were killed in the camps; the few other relatives he mentioned also died in the camps; so Theo is alone in the world, just like almost everyone else he encounters in the novel.
At the beginning and throughout much of the novel, Theo has one aim: to return home to Baden Bei Wien. He wants to go there by the straightest path possible, and he wants to put as much distance as he can between himself and the camp as well as between himself and the other refugees. He wants to be alone, and he wants to avoid contact with anyone–that is, other refugees–who would remind him of his experience, their collective experiences really, of the camps. Theo wants to recover his humanity or make for himself a new humanity after an experience that dissolved his and everyone else’s humanity in the camps. The novel begins with Theo and the other refugees awkwardly rediscovering how to interact with one another again as humans rather than enslaved, condemned laborers. It could be said that the plot is about Theo’s recovery of his humanity, which he initially believes that he can do simply by returning home, returning to his past self, and re-enrolling in college. In so doing, he can reclaim the agency that was taken from him and claim some power in the world. In other words, Theo is trying to move beyond the Kafkaesque existence of the camps, where he had no agency and little or no understanding of the forces that shaped his life: he is like Gregor Samsa or Joseph K. The problem here, though, is that, as Appelfeld narrates the story, it is very difficult to escape a Kafkaesque existence, even for someone as determined as Theo is.
As he walks, Theo notices both the ugliness, burnt out vehicles, and the beauty of the landscape. Theo’s reawakened sensitivity to beauty develops throughout the novel. As he puts distance between himself and others, Theo finds an abandoned guard cabin, which is neat and well-appointed. He rests, eats, drinks coffee, showers, burns his ragged clothes, and puts on brand new clothes that he finds in a closet and which fit him. He soaks up the beauty, the sun, and is reborn into his humanity. The liberators or the defeated/retreating German troops leave behind food stuffs, coffee, and cigarettes, which are important components of this book. Theo and the other refugees do not starve, and they have ready access to a simple luxury, cigarettes. Food stuffs, coffee, and cigarettes become the building blocks the characters use to revive a sense of their civilized selves.
They also regularly block Theo’s forward momentum, returning him to the other refugees, forcing him to interact, act as hospitable host or accept other’s hospitality.
Theo settles in the guard house for awhile with its supplies (canned sardines, rusks, coffee, cigarettes) and orderliness. A woman, Mina, shows up. She too is heading home to Baden Bei Wien. She too is coming out of the deep freeze of the camps and beginning to feel her humanity again. They do not communicate well. Their language and gestures are abrupt and almost offensive, but as things begin to soften between them they share food. Mina, though, sleeps all the time, as if she is sleeping out the trauma of the camps. She worries Theo, who wants to head out again, but he feels the need to care for her. She has two suppurating wounds on her thighs, which provokes both fear and sympathy from Theo. He does give into his desire to walk on, but then he gets worried and returns to the house, only to find that she has left. This kind of truncated, incomplete interaction marks the book.
Concerned for Mina, Theo searches for her, only to encounter others. He notes the good breeding of a woman and assures her that she can finish her high school education, but he speaks to her in a way that offends her, and she walks away. He watched two men beat a collaborator with boards; they don’t beat him hard, and he remains sitting in the mud, even after they move off. Theo’s attempt to encourage him to move on just produces more self-pity. Again, Theo’s interactions with others are awkward and often fail, after which he will return to his original intention of returning home. Sometimes, he returns to his journey, but just as often once he is amongst people he gets stuck.
When Theo walks, he remembers his childhood. As he recovers memory, he particularly thinks of his mother, for whom he felt a strong emotional bond. She was beautiful, suffered from schizophrenia, was in and out of a sanitarium, and drove the family into debt. But she was also a free spirit, who took Theo out of school to travel to other cities and go to churches where Bach and Mozart are played. Theo is wowed by her beauty and quirky behavior. She has a creative spark that Theo cannot ignore. She provides him novel, exciting experiences, takes him into the wider world, teaches him about the beauty of music. She also wants to convert to Christianity, so that she can spend more time in churches, listening to beautiful music. Theo’s father ran a bookstore, was emotionally distant, and worked long hours to pay off his wife’s debts. He was not home much, and in the camp Theo’s memory erased his father while idolizing his mother, the spark of humanity(beauty, art) that helped Theo survive the destitute life of the camp.
Theo’s desire to return home is really a desire to return to his mother, even though he knows that she is dead. Still, his desire to return home sharpens, and he decides that he wants to return to convert to Christianity, to be able to attend church, which is the house of Bach and Mozart. His reason for moving forward sharpens: he would find his mother and their love of music by converting in Baden Bei Wien. ←Here is the key to Theo’s future, the shape of his humanity. Prior to the war and in an attempt to avoid Nazi persecution, Jews converted to Christianity, an understandable but ultimately failed strategy. After the war is over and the Nazis defeated, Theo still wants to convert, not to save his skin but to memorialize his mother.
Perhaps if Theo had continued walking and avoided interacting with any more refugees, he might have made it home to Baden Bei Wien, but he continues to find himself amongst refugees, accepting offers of coffee, food, and cigarettes. Theo ends up talking with a man who reminds him of his uncle, a businessman, who was one of the first in his family to die. This man has food, coffee, and cognac, all of which he freely offers Theo. In conversation, remembering his mother and her love of music, Theo says that he would convert to Christianity, which upsets the man because he feels Theo is betraying his people and his faith. The man grabs Theo, and Theo pushes the man, who falls, injures himself, and becomes unresponsive. This conflict, this momentary act of violence, dominates the rest of the book. Like the collaborators, Theo believes that he will be tried and punished; he believes that there is a column of pursuers who are coming to judge and punish him, a belief that may be no more than a projection of guilt on Theo’s part, especially since the supposed column does not confront him before the end of the novel.
As Theo walks on and encounters more refugees, he confesses his desire to convert and is criticized for it, although no one else assaults him. These interactions only provoke more memories of his mother. He thinks of her love of coffee, a drink that fosters elegance and civilization. He thinks of her desire for an afterlife, which is connected to her desire to convert and music, an afterlife full of Bach and Mozart. He remembers their impromptu trip to Salzburg during a dangerous winter storm without telling Theo’s father. One morning, Theo wakes up to a vision of his mother at home in the morning, a soothing vision of the beauty of the world. His imagination dominated by his mother, Theo dreams of a voice, a chorus of voices(music!), which ask him accusing questions about pushing the man and then tell him to beg forgiveness. Another manifestation of the mother’s desire for conversion, which somehow comforts Theo, and he moves on happily, as if redeemed.
If Theo simply moved forward on the power of his obsession with his mother, he might have reached Baden Bei Wien and converted, but he keeps encountering refugees that distract him from that obsession and disturb his conception of home. He encounters a woman who evaded the camps because she hid in barns, and no one turned her in. Theo wants to return home. She wants to continue living in barns, because for her the barns are home. Theo encounters a mother and daughter, with whom he tries to connect, but they only fear and reject him. He offers help, fire, food, hospitality, but they’ve had a bad experience with other refugees. The mother only has the daughter, and that is clearly all she wants. He talks with a man from Budapest who is heading home to Budapest. The man tells the story of his conversion and what little good it did (none), and he is amazed that Theo still wants to convert after the war is over. Theo tells the story of his mother and music. The man says that before the war he was a musician, but now wants to work with his hands, because it is as if music (Bach, Mozart) are now corrupt and cannot transcend the horrors of war. Theo encounter a woman on the road who feeds people; she has nothing else, and for her the road is now her home. Another woman who gives Theo coffee and sandwiches tells Theo, after he relates his mother/conversion story, that to convert to Christianity now is to commit suicide. She also questions Theo’s desire to return home, since all homes have been lost. For her, the refugees are “precious”: to be cared for above everything else.
In the end, Theo collapses. The attempt to differentiate himself from others, assert agency, fails. He gives in to ennui, and the journey is over. His memory of his mother is not strong enough to push him forward anymore. His mother would have been upset, but he is together with other people of like experience. They are together, and that is consolation enough. Theo does not achieve his nostalgic, sublimated ideal, but by finally settling with other refugees he also seems to avoid a barren Kafkaesque world. He makes a choice. It’s not his initial choice, but it is a choice nonetheless.