Free The Far Side of the Sky by Daniel Kalla Page A

Franz sensed his daughter’s homesickness growing by the minute but did not share the sentiment. He carried his losses in his heart. Even as they passed landmarks such as the Imperial Palace, which he had known his entire life, he was far too preoccupied for nostalgia. He only wished the taxi would move faster. And he worried Esther might have trouble reaching the railway station with the roads in such poor condition.
    Esther had insisted on spending her final night in Vienna in her own home to organize her belongings. Franz understood. Packing his whole life into one suitcase had proved far tougher than he anticipated. Never much of a clothes horse, he picked his two least-worn suits, opting to wear one on the trip and throw the other in his bag along with a few sweaters, slacks and short-sleeved shirts, since he had heard that Shanghai sweltered in the summer. But he struggled with the rest of his possessions.
    Eventually, he chose his most precious surgical tools—the set that his mentor, Dr. Ignaz Malkin, had left him. He also tucked his Zeiss-Ikon plate camera into the bag. He pored through his wedding album and pared down the photos. He could not face another photo of Hilde’s luminous smile or Karl’s laughing eyes. Eventually, he gave up and just blindly tore out pages.
    The taxi skidded to a stop in front of Vienna’s oldest and largest railway station, the Südbahnhof. As a child, Franz had always arrived at the grand old station giddy with anticipation. For the Adler brothers, the Südbahnhof, with its nineteenth-century classical facade, was synonymous with adventure.
    Concerned about his dwindling cash reserve, Franz waved off the two approaching porters. Instead, he lugged their two cases toward the platform himself. Hannah, who wore two shirts and a sweater beneath her summer jacket and winter coat, carried a small sack with books and snacks slung over her shoulder and clasped Schweizer Fräulein in her good arm.
    Though their overnight express train to Trieste wasn’t scheduled to depart for another three hours, Franz was glad to arrive early. The lineup already ran beyond Platform Five. Franz scanned the faces in line but saw no sign of Esther.
    The howling wind blew intermittent gusts of wet snow into the station. Franz knelt down and retucked Hannah’s scarf snugly into her collar.
    The Jews on the platform were easy to distinguish from Gentiles, because they invariably carried bulkier cases and were surrounded by clusters of distraught loved ones. Few, if any, had dry eyes. Jakob had been too unwell to see them off. Franz was almost relieved. As guilty as he already felt about decamping from Vienna without his father, to have to watch while the train pulled away, leaving Jakob behind on the platform, would have been too much to bear.
    Hannah let go of his hand and rushed off in her slightly lopsided gait toward the main terminal. Franz was about to chase after when he noticed Esther, dressed in a long black coat, gloves and hat, approaching with a porter wheeling her trunk behind her.
    Hannah threw her arms around Esther’s midsection. “Tante!” she cried. Esther walked hand in hand with Hannah toward Franz. “Where’s Onkel Karl?” Hannah demanded.
    “He’s not coming with us,” Esther replied.
    Hannah looked crestfallen. “Is he staying with Opa?”
    “I suppose he is, darling,” Esther said.
    Hannah turned wide-eyed to her father for clarification. Franz smiled and mussed her hair. “Just think of it,
liebchen.
You get your auntie to yourself for the whole ocean voyage.”
    Hannah nodded weakly. Franz turned to his sister-in-law. “Is everything all right, Essie?”
    “Nothing is all right,” she sighed. “But everything is in order, I hope.”
    The express train rolled to a halt at the platform. After the arriving passengers noisily disembarked, guards and customs officials began separating out the Gentiles, who merely had to flash proof of not being Jewish to board. The line