AHARON APPELFELD
437
her devotion, the meals she served him, he could not have held his own.
"I received a telegram from Donia," he announced to Hirzl at
lunch. Hearing the news her face tensed, and she looked attentive. "She
invited me to visit her. " Now he was as though waiting for Hirzl to say
something. Hirzl never expressed an opinion unless asked. She served him
a bowl of soup and retreated to the kitchen entrance, standing next to
the china cabinet.
Later he turned to her and asked, "What do you say?"
"Whatever God places in your heart."
"I must overcome pride. Pride is a despicable trait," he said. Hirzl
understood from his tone of voice, that he had made up his mind, and
she immediately went to pack his suitcase.
He left in the afternoon. He knew there was no train at that hour.
Nevertheless he couldn't stop his feet. He loved the path to the railway
station. There were bare hills that extended along the railroad, and
among them a few small winter ponds and remains of woods. What
charmed him especially in these abandoned places were the wild birds
that nested there and flew low, making the air tremble close to the
ground. Strangely, only in that silent neglect did he occasionally feel that
despair had not destroyed faith within him. He sat and deluded himself
that not everything was lost, and that if he continued to resist, even the
heard-hearted merchants would realize that the Jewish faith was a great
faith, and they would return to their Father in heaven.
When he reached the station, the evening twilight had come. The
cashier told him that the train to Mannhausen had already left, and only
early in the morning, at four-thirty, would the next train be leaving. At
that time a few workers were sitting in the buffet, and two young
women were chattering out loud. It was seven, and Kurt decided it
would be better to stay there and not to return home. He immediately
ordered a drink. The first pungent sip unwittingly brought back before
his eyes his father's bitter and skeptical look, his long arms, his lower lip,
to which a cigarette always clung. Until his last day he never forgave his
son for becoming a rabbi. Once he said to him, "One day you'll be sorry
for all that foolishness." He was a sharp-witted man, outraged by all re–
ligious belief He kept his distance from Jews and their creed. Unfortu–
nately for him, he was surrounded by Jews
all
his life, mainly keepers of
the Sabbath, whom he continually provoked until his retirement. Nor
did he relent in old age. He said, "Jews are everywhere. Why do they
talk so loudly?" When he heard that Kurt had registered at the theolog–
ical seminary he grasped his head in both hands and said, "It's beyond my
understanding, beyond it." His large eyes opened with a kind of
