The single central experience in the childhood years of Aharon Appelfeld was the Holocaust and all his memories and experiences are seen in juxtaposition to that reality, never directly described but always alluded to.

Born in Czernowitz, Bukovina (Romania) in 1932, he was sent as a boy of eight to a concentration camp. After managing to escape he spent the next three years in hiding in the Circassian forests. He arrived in Israel after the war, and has become one of the major authors writing on this period. Appelfeld has taken a particular perspective: he describes the build-up to the moment when all became nightmare, expressing the sense of confusion and disbelief, the shifting of all standards and norms of expectation. This can be seen very movingly in his earlier work, Badenheim 1939, where a holiday resort favored by the Jews becomes in effect their prison. Appelfeld has also described the years after the war when survivors with broken personalities found great difficulty adapting to a normal existence and regular family relationships, in The Immortal Bartfuss.

In Age of Wonders though he explores the late childhood years of his character Bruno. Events are presented in terms of milestones: the holidays spent with his mother and father in familiar places, his growing awareness that some things are changing irreparably; the family members that flow in and out of the narrative. We meet, for example, Uncle Salo and his many mistresses and young Aunt Theresa, sensitive and troubled.

By far the most striking sensations for the young boy are the various train rides he takes. The opening scenario where he and his mother are stopped on their overnight voyage, because all Jewish passengers are required to register at some obscure roadblock, sets the tone of eerie fatalism. The book is intersected with other such journeys predicting the gradual disintegration the family. The descriptions are highly evocative, as the colours, the shadows, the times of day, the seasons, all reflect the inner states of mind of his parents and himself. We are aware too of the unforgettable universal image of the Holocaust, of Jews on cattle trains being herded off to death.

A major theme in Age of Wonders is the role of his father as an author; the vicissitudes of his fortunes, both in reputation and in earning capacity, seem to echo the destiny of the Jews in Austria at the time. Originally well regarded, his standing is questioned when a series of articles begin appearing in journals and newspapers. These decry his ’Jewish’ writing, ’the unhealthy beauty of the parasite’. The accusations are even more hurtful when it becomes clear that their author is himself Jewish. Father’s own anti-Jewish feelings and his denial of any particular Jewish qualities in his writings throw into sinister relief the fate that awaited him.

The second part of the book Many Years Later When Everything was Over, explores the return of Bruno to his hometown after twenty years. The narrative is presented now in the third person, compared to the first person immediacy of the first part. We find out the name of the protagonist and his native town of Stalheim near Vienna for the first time, as a certain objective tone is introduced. Bruno returns by train, and the wealth of associations flood back to the reader, linking all the other train journeys taken in the earlier part of the book.

The narrator explores his past environment, and begins by examining the places he used to see and visit. There seems to be a need to find whether the buildings and surrounding nature bear witness to the tragedy. Certain routines return to his mind: holidays with his elderly Grandmother, or Aunt Theresa; taking coffee with his mother after those excruciating Latin lessons; being ragged by his fellow schoolmates after class; and the hours and days he spent with his maid Louise. Certain figures reappear, as if in a dream. Here is Louise, overblown and ungainly, recalling the attentions of all Bruno’s uncles. There is Lonka, the waitress at the coffee shop, with no sign of remembrance in her eyes. Bruno meets with others at the bar and in the street, all seem to be living in a disoriented world as misfits. Those Jews who have returned are all only half-Jewish; their lives are incomplete and filled with existential anxiety.

Days turn into weeks, his encounter with the unknowing and elusive character Brum, also a personality from his past, troubles him. Once this is reconciled, in another dream-like sequence that typifies much of the writing of this second half, Bruno can return to his new home, Jerusalem.

As a young man attempting to come to terms with the weight of his experiences, Aharon Appelfeld met with and was encouraged by S.Y.Agnon [reviewed in this Babel Guide]. Agnon encouraged him to persevere with his writing and write from the heart about that which he knew. This book bears witness to the value of that advice.

’Bruno entered the Old Bouquet of Flowers next to the crossroads without thinking. Brum’s resounding voice had held him for a moment, trapped with no way out, and he had gone into the café seeking refuge. Here was the silence found only in old wooden buildings. For some reason he took off his hat, and the aroma of coffee fortified with chicory flooded his nostrils.

Every Tuesday in the early hours of the afternoon he used to come here with his mother. It would be after the interminable Latin lesson when his head was clenched like a fist. These unforgotten little outings were usually uneventful, but they left behind a train of sweetness that would seep into his sleep together with the smell of chicory. On Tuesday afternoons the customers were mainly pensioners, each sunk in his own proud loneliness; but the place had a charm all its own due to the proprietress, Lonka — Lonka and her Slavic accent so full of vitality amid the dry formality of the Austrian petite bourgeoisie.

"Does the boy drink coffee yet?" Lonka would ask. "Coffee with lots of milk," Mother would say softly. And Lonka would take his head in both her hands and say, "A wonderfully Jewish face. The kind of face I love." "Why expose the child’s disgrace in public?" Mother would whisper with a wink. "Madame," Lonka would say, "Jews are the finest people in the world. I grew up among Jewish students, you know." And Mother would respond, joining in the spirit of the thing, "In that case, Lonka, I must bow to your superior knowledge." And Lonka would say, "My lust for Jews, Madame, knows no bounds."

He opened his eyes and was glad to see that nothing had changed. The big front window, full of blue flowers, looked modest and natural, as it always had. The aromatic steam of the coffee hung almost imperceptibly in the air. In this café, as in all old-fashioned cafes, some of the corners were brightly lit and some were dim and shadowy. By the front window adorned with its blue garden flowers he would sit with his mother for hours, listening to music.

While he stood there wondering, an old woman appeared and raised her voice as if she were deaf. "What can we do for the gentleman?" It was Lonka. All that was left of her mane of brown hair was a wispy down of gray. Her ears were exposed; the heavy words sticking in her throat seemed about to break out of her mouth.

"Coffee with chicory, please," said Bruno.’ p154-5