Free The End of Days by Jenny Erpenbeck

closely one had to watch what one
     said, making it almost impossible to find true friends later in life. Her father would have
     nodded, saying that he, too, had been lonely these past eight years, excepting of course his
     relationship with his wife — and here he would have tightened his grip on his wife’s
     arm, without mentioning, to be sure, her religious affiliation. His university friend would
     now have looked at the woman more closely and then remarked that the joys of family life had
     unfortunately not yet been granted him, but, well, at least he was lucky at cards, by which
     he meant to say: in his career, of course, well, you can’t have it all, then he said “well”
     again, not following it with any further observation. The father would have been unsure what
     to say next, but his former classmate would have gone on to inform him that at the moment
     the Institution for Meteorology was looking for someone who could perform various writing
     tasks, and probably it wasn’t any better a job than the one he already had, as it was also
     an eleventh pay-grade position, but there were bonuses, and at least it was in Vienna
     — Vienna! — and he could certainly try to be of service to his friend, assuming
     of course that he really did want to live in Vienna — Vienna! — though to be
     sure the city did not come cheap, especially for a family, there would have to be some
     tightening of belts, alas: Vienna! So think it over . . . my goodness, I’d be truly . . .
     don’t mention it . . . if you could, I don’t know how I, etc. The younger daughter would
     have been showing signs of impatience all this time, finally tugging more firmly on her
     father’s hand, asking him to lift her up on his shoulders. He would have lifted her up and
     then several times warmly thanked his rediscovered friend, who wouldn’t have wanted to
     accept the thanks, after all he had no idea whether he could really, but he’d make an
     effort, and possibly. . . . Right after this, the Kaiser would have appeared, walking behind
     his heavenly canopy, an ordinary sinner, and the family from the provinces would have
     cheered like all the rest, and already no one would have been able to distinguish them from
     actual Viennese. As soon as they arrived back at the rooming house where they were staying,
     her father would have written an official letter of application and mailed it off that very
     evening.
    His colleagues in Brody — above all his immediate
     superior, Chief Inspector First Class of the Eighth Rank Vinzenz Knorr — would have
     been quite astonished to hear of his transfer several weeks later. The grandmother would
     have accompanied the family to the station for their second and now final departure for
     Vienna, and waving goodbye, she would have been fully conscious of the fact that, along with
     her daughter, all her questions about her missing father were now traveling away, and that
     this was no doubt for the best.

BOOK II

1
    In January 1919, the gold buttons on the father’s coat still
display the double-headed eagle and the Kaiser’s crown, but the Kaiser has been dead
two years now, and the eagle’s Hungarian half has long since flown away. But the
coat still keeps him warm, so he remains wrapped in Imperial and Royal finery,
sitting day after day in his underheated, now-democratic office in the
Meteorological Institution in Vienna; and after work he goes from there to the
under-heated coffeehouse
Vindobona
for two games of chess with his friend
and colleague, sitting in his coat there as well. Even at home in the evenings he
doesn’t take off this coat, for the wood that mother and daughter gather in the
Vienna Woods twice a week is damp, and when it’s stuffed into the kitchen stove it
hisses more than it burns. The heating stoves in the parlor, the bedroom and the
room shared by the two girls have remained cold for a long time. The father sits
down at the table in his coat with the gold