WALTER ABISH
75
absence. She had not given any notice and therefore was forfeiting one–
months rent. Apparently a young man in a stationwagon had helped
her move some of her belongings. Speechless, I looked at the doorman,
then walked to the elevator. No one answered when I rang her doorbell.
On Sunday she had promised me a key lO her apartment. She intended
lO
have a duplicate made that morning. Her letter lO me was slipped
under my door. It was addressed lO Ulri ch von Hargenau. It was in her
handwriting, a handwriting that was still unfamiliar.
Why the
von?
What was she trying to say?
Dear Ulrich,
I am returning to America, in pan because I do not wish to become
emotionally entangled with you at this time. I do not feel happy in a
role that is so devoid of any certitude. I do not like lO feel that I am
depending on another person. Please feel free lO take anything I have
left behind in the apartment. I may conti nue my studies in America. I
wish you had not taken me to visit your brother and his family.
Daphne.
19.
I am the first to admit that I don 't know Daphne. I think I know what
she thinks of Klude and of Germany in a vague sort of way. To some
extent I know her taste in furniture, in music, in books, in clothes.
If
I
know little else, it is because I failed lO show much interest in her
initially and
did
not engage her in conversations like my brother did in
order to elicit from her why, precisely why she was in Germany, and
what she felt about her father. That is not to say that I had ruled out
ever asking her any of these questions, but until I received her letter, I
had felt quite content to leave things as they were. I was content with
our new relationship, content to sit back and muse over Daphne, the
young earnest-faced American in Germany who never once asked me a
single question regarding my dead father or my own somewhat
dubious role at the Einzig trial.
20.
The doorman took a certain pleasure in telling me that Daphne had
left. He had watched my face to see how I would receive the news. I
turned and stiffly walked to the elevalOr, pressed the up bulton, entered
the eleva tor, and pressed the button to the seventh floor under the stern
unforgiving gaze of the doorman.
