Free The Far Side of the Sky by Daniel Kalla

bank holidays, but now he wore slacks, an open shirt, a cardigan and slippers, all black. His grey hair was dishevelled and, for the first time in Franz’s memory, his father had thick stubble on his cheeks and chin.
    Franz considered hugging his father but instead shook his outstretched hand. “I’m sorry, Father,” he said, still at a loss for more meaningful words.
    Jakob nodded and turned back for the sitting room. Franz followed his father, who moved slowly and had to stop twice to catch his breath on the way to the couches, which were no more than twenty feet from the door. Franz was surprised to see unlit Sabbath candles on the table behind Jakob and a prayer book lying open beside them. His father had lived a secular existence, and Franz had not seen any religious items in his parents’ home since his mother died, fourteen years earlier. “Papa, are you sitting shiva?” he asked, bewildered.
    Jakob shrugged. “You and I may have long ago given up on Jewish customs.” He stopped to gulp a few breaths. “However, your brother never did. I feel I owe this to him.”
    Franz summoned a grin. “I suppose it’s never too late to find God.”
    “Oh, Franz, in my case, it is far too late.” Jakob wheezed. “Besides, at this time, I think we Jews should be far more concerned with God finding
us
rather than vice versa.”
    Franz noticed an ominous bluish tinge to his father’s lips. “Papa, are you still taking the theophylline pills?” he asked, referring to the latest treatment for emphysema.
    “I will need a few more,” Jakob said.
    Franz dug a pill bottle out of his pant pocket. “This is the last of my stock.”
    Jakob accepted it with a shaky hand. “It will do.”
    “I will find a new supply as soon as we reach Shanghai.”
    Jakob tilted his head but said nothing.
    “Papa, I have good news.” Franz went on to explain about the last-minute berths he had secured on the
Conte Biancamano.
He locked eyes with his father and repeated the lines he had rehearsed on the way over. “I understand your desire to stay in Vienna until the end, Papa. But Vienna has become an ugly place. Mama and Karl might have died here, but it’s unfair to their memories to mistake the Vienna of today for the same wonderful city in which they lived. This is no longer our home.”
    Jakob nodded. “I agree, son.”
    “All we have left is each other. Now, of all times, we need to stay together as a family. Hannah needs her opa. Esther needs you too.” He paused. “And I refuse to leave without you, Papa.”
    Jakob, the consummate lawyer, measured Franz with unreadable eyes. “Son, I intend to join you in Shanghai.”
    “You … you will?” Franz exclaimed, shocked by the unexpected capitulation.
    “Yes.”
    “That’s wonderful.” Franz beamed. “I expected you to put up more of a fight.”
    Jakob shrugged. “You are surprisingly persuasive for a doctor.” “I must have absorbed a little something from all the great legal minds in the family.”
    “Of course, I cannot leave with you this Sunday.” Jakob stopped to catch his breath. “No. I think I will follow you on that Japanese ocean liner next month.”
    “But, Papa—”
    Jakob held up his hand. “I cannot walk any distance. Once you land, you will need to find somewhere to live. By the time … I arrive you will have had a chance to establish a home.” He paused again for a few more breaths. “Franz, it is for the best for all of us.”
    Jakob’s impeccable logic left Franz speechless. He recognized that he had just been outmanoeuvred. And in that moment, he realized that he would never see his father again.

CHAPTER 8
    The temperature had tumbled overnight. A centimetre of wet snow blanketed Vienna, turning the streets slick. Franz and Hannah sat in the back seat of the taxi, silently holding hands as the cab wormed its way through traffic, forced to bypass cars and trucks that had slid into each other or the sidewalk.
    Hannah stared out the window.