Vanished Without A Trace by Nava Dijkstra Read Free Book Online Page B

day's events. Sometimes, when he didn’t listen to her intently, or he was taking her for granted the concern she was showing him, she would raise her voice angrily. But Daniel didn’t get angry with her. He was touched by her concern.
    Ten months had passed. It was not as bad as he thought when he first arrived there. His salary turned out to be enough for his living requirements. The housing was comfortable, and he even found two good friends, Mikhail and Sultana. He would see Mikhail every morning when he arrived at the site to drink coffee with him for a couple of minutes. During the weekend, they would hang out at Alexander’s bar to have a few drinks and talk. Mikhail proved to be a good friend. He also tried to help Daniel find his mother, Julia Montaigne’s family, hoping to find Daniel’s relatives, but it was impossible because of the government agencies’ disorganization with paperwork.
    One morning, Mikhail surprised Daniel by offering him a job in sales with a guy named Adam. "I think it's time for you to start to find a more serious direction in life. You can’t deal with the maintenance job all your life." Daniel was filled with doubt. Although, sometimes he thought of finding a more interesting job, he was afraid to take a new step forward in a field he had no idea about.
    Adam understood Daniel's fear. While Mikhail thought Daniel should give up the maintenance work, Adam thought he should keep the job.
    "If you want to try, it’s okay, but you need to think carefully before you give up your job. In sales you will only get a percentage of the commission, so you could find yourself jobless and with no income. I suggest in the beginning you continue to work as a guard during the night and try your luck with sales for several hours during the day, it is very difficult to sell houses."
    Daniel took his advice and decided to combine the two. But Adam’s warning was proving to be true. All innovative sales strategies Daniel made did not bring him even one potential buyer. Telephone attempts were unsuccessful. Aside from a waste of time and phone calls, nothing came out of it. Most of them said they were not interested even before they heard what it was all about.
    Adam, witnessed Daniel’s tremendous efforts not bearing fruit, and offered him a chance to try selling apartments in Western Europe while continuing to try his luck in the Romanian market.
    But after many months Daniel was unable to get even one customer which hurt his self-confidence, he considered leaving the field. That day he went home with a lack of energy and a feeling he was a pathological megalomania. Sultana was waiting for him for dinner, but he told her he had no appetite and did not want company.
    "What happened?" She asked anxiously.
    "Not hungry."
    "No, I mean why do you look so depressed?"
    "Just tired."
    "Come, sit. Tell me what happened."
    He went into his room and Sultana went after him. "Sultana, this is my private territory!"
    "Do not forget this is my house." She sat at the edge of the bed. "How's it going with sales?" she asked.
    Daniel thought this was not the first time Sultana had read his thoughts. He rubbed his forehead. "It's going pretty well, for four months I haven’t sold even one apartment."
    "You are in the learning period. You will use all this in the future, use your appearance, it will do you good."
    "Very encouraging!" he replied sarcastically. "Shut the door behind you. I want to sleep."

9
    "For the next few days, Daniel worked mostly at the maintenance job. He accepted the fact he should feel lucky to have this job - aspirations and reality were two different things. He didn’t go to the sales office that same day. Instead, he went to the beach. The weather was quite pleasant on summer mornings and he enjoyed looking at the yachts moored in the marina, though not a single day went by when watching them without him remembering the meeting with his grandfather. He felt the same emotion of overflowing