Читать книгу Chasing the King of Hearts - Ханна Кралль - Страница 12

Armchair. Rose Marie

At some point—about a quarter of a century after the war—she will begin to imagine her old age.

She will sit in her armchair (lemon, olive, and almond trees will be growing outside her window).

She will reach for a book, one of many that she promised herself she would read someday.

She will watch a film, one of many that . . .

She’ll put on a record . . .

She will go for a long walk up Mount Carmel. Perhaps she’ll head down to the beach, take off her slippers, feel the moist sand under her feet, warmer than the sand in Sopot, but a little coarser . . .

In the evening one of her granddaughters will stop by and talk about work. About school. About her boyfriend. I thought I was in love with him, she’ll confess to her grandmother in secret, but I was wrong.

Izolda will try to tell her granddaughter an extraordinary story from half a century earlier (what else?) and her granddaughter will sit at her knees and listen eagerly. Finally she’ll shut her eyes and whisper: And that was that. Just like in the American film Rose Marie from before the war, based on Friml’s operetta, starring Jeanette MacDonald and Nelson Eddy. Rose Marie, old but still beautiful, sits in her armchair and tells her story, while the film replays her entire life. Except that MacDonald didn’t close her eyes. That was Vivien Leigh as Lady Hamilton, in a completely different film, but no matter. In the last paragraph of the book that someone will write about her life, she could repeat: And that was that—her eyes closed in meditation.