THE HOME FRONT
153
When, at nightfall, he drew the window-blinds against industrial
America, it was not hard to imagine himself in
his
student room at
Heidelberg. He had never been rich enough to eat at the town res–
taurants and he had disliked the tepid white food at the Mensa of
the University, and so he had made little suppers for himself at his
desk. And while now he was quite able to afford four-course dinners
(the dearth of doctors for civilians had contrived for
him
a flourish–
ing and gainful practice amongst Hungarian defense workers and
their pregnant wives) he preferred to remain in
his
room and eat the
sort of food he had done when he was a young man. Upon the table
he would place the parcels he had brought from the delicatessen; a
little sausage and a loaf of bread, a bottle of pickled tomatoes, a
carton of Schmierkase, perhaps a jar of marinated herring. Then, his
meal ready, he would pour himself a glas& of dubonnet, light an
Egyptian Prettiest cigarette and sit for a while in the chair by the
win–
dow, staring now at the dark green blind which was punctured here
and there, admitting star-like bits of light.
During the day, Dr. Pakheiser smoked American cigarettes, but
he had found that nothing so completely and happily restored
his
student days to
him
as the smell o£ Oriental tobacco, and because he
was so busy until he left his office, he could not afford time for the
nostalgic meditations it inevitably brought. Closing
his
eyes, he would
fancy himself twenty years younger, not yet fat, but even now near–
sighted, eating ham and bread and drinking
Rotwein
in the narrow
room of Frau Jost's flat. Frau Jost was a pretty, friendly young widow
about whom he sometimes had romantic daydreams, and she had a
daughter of four, a jolly little girl named Greta. Every morning, as
Alfred left the house, Greta came to wish
him
good bye. She clutched
in her arms a black cat who wore a red ribbon about its neck. And
as he ran down the stairs, she always said, "Please look up at the
win–
dow, Herr Pakheiser, and I will wave." Outside, in the steep street,
he had to hold his head far back so that he could see the top window,
and there she was, on time and faithful every day, to wave her hand
and smile at
him,
still holding her cat.
Although those years at Heidelberg had been rich and full" of
importance, it was little Greta Jost that the flavor of the cigarette
brought back most clearly. While he had had friends with whom he
played chess at Burkhardt's
conditorei
and had drunk with on Satur–
day nights at the Vater Rhein and while he had even occasionally
had a girl, it was
his·
daily encounter with the child that seemed now
to
fix
the days of the past. He had been, even then, a person of strict
habit. Once Greta had had chicken-pox and for a week had not ap-
