Free Until the Dawn's Light by Aharon Appelfeld Page B

you?”
    “Everything’s as it should be.”
    “Thank God,” said the waiter, withdrawing to the counter.
    Blanca’s father didn’t say a single word about Himmelburg. He spoke about a few efforts he had made in the past to extricate himself from the difficulty of earning a living. Once he had even gone to Vienna, where he had been offered the management of a small bookstore. The offer fell through because the salary they offered him would barely cover his rent. Her mother was prepared to do any kind of work to pull him out of that swamp, but her father wouldn’t agree, and the idea was shelved.
    He went on for a bit, and Blanca said, “Let’s take a walk in the direction of the station.”
    “I don’t want to go back to Himmelburg. That place depresses me.”
    “Where will we sleep?” Blanca spoke in the plural.
    “I,” he said in a voice that froze her, “am returning to my home.”
    “Papa.”
    “What’s the matter?”
    “We don’t have a home. We sold the house. Don’t you remember?”
    “We sold our house?”
    “Yes, Papa. We had debts.”
    “I don’t want to go back to Himmelburg. That dark place depresses me.” He spoke the way he had sometimes spoken when her mother was alive.
    “I’d invite you to stay with us, but my house, Papa, is completely full. Adolf’s sister and her three children live with us,” she lied.
    “Don’t you have a bed for me?”
    “Everything is dirty, crowded, and noisy.” She spoke hurriedly.
    “I don’t know what to do,” he said, cracking his knuckles.
    “Let’s take a walk. Don’t you want to take a walk?”
    Now she tried to entertain him, to distract him and lead him indirectly back to the railway station. Amazingly, she managed. She told him that after Adolf’s sister left the house and returned to her own home, she intended to enroll in a course in bookkeeping.
    “But you wanted to study at the university, didn’t you?”
    “Later, Papa.”
    “And what does Adolf say?”
    “He’s very encouraging.”
    “I’m glad. Your happiness is very precious to me. I never managed to accomplish anything.”
    Now he spoke about himself again, about his partner, Dachs, and about his classmates who were weak students and became successful industrialists.
    “How can you explain that, Papa?”
    “Abstract thought isn’t good for commerce.” Again he surprised her with a clear and accurate insight.
    “And what’s needed for success?”
    “A certain kind of coarseness of mind.”
    Now she was alarmed by the clarity of his thought.
    They reached the station on time. Blanca had intended to join him, to stay overnight in Himmelburg and return the following day, but her father said quietly, in his customary tone of voice, “Why displace yourself at night? Sleep in your own bed, and come to visit me tomorrow.”
    “Still, I want to join you.”
    “There’s no need, dear.”
    Now he no longer tarried but walked up the steps into the railroad car and sat at the window. The car was empty, and Blanca managed to see him in profile. Then the train began to move, and Blanca waved good-bye with both hands.
    Surprisingly, her father opened the window and called out, “Thank you very much, Blanca. It was a wonderful day.”
    The train quickly moved off into the distance, and Blanca’s face flooded with tears.

20
    THE NEXT MORNING, the postman woke Blanca and handed her a telegram.
    “Your father disappeared last night,” it read. “Police and citizens searching for him. Come at once.” At first it seemed as though the old postman had risen up out of her nightmares, but she saw her error immediately. He was Richard, the postman she had known since her childhood. At one time he delivered the mail in the center of town. Later he was transferred to the outlying areas.
    “Papa’s disappeared,” Blanca said, hardly knowing what she was saying.
    The postman’s jaw dropped. “Where was he?” he asked.
    “He was here. I accompanied him to the Himmelburg