Читать книгу Sins of the Innocent - Mireille Marokvia - Страница 19

I liked the cold, dry, sunny winter days in Stuttgart and the snow that softened the ponderous architecture of the town. The suburban houses too were more friendly when icicles dribbled in front of the scrubbed windows and the white fluff messed up the bushes in the front yards.

After my first misdirected efforts, I refused myself even the modest pleasure that a stroll could offer. I ventured out without Abel only for short errands to the grocery store or the vegetable market. And there, invariably having to make a choice between kohlrabi, cabbage, and rutabaga, I would get sick with longing for the cornucopia of a Parisian street market.

I did not go to Dr. Müller any longer. He was treating tuberculosis and kidney stones with herb tea and bicarbonate of soda, I had heard. I had lost faith in his doctoring.

Christine still believed in him. She also believed that if the Germans attacked France, they would be taught a lesson worse than the one they had been taught in 1918.

I did not.

I lived through the first month of 1940 hoping, dreaming that the war would never start, or trembling with fear that it would. If it did, I knew in my heart that France would be crushed. I could not explain how I knew, but I knew.

Christine said I was a defeatist.

On April 8, Germany invaded Norway.

“An ancient rite,” Christine said. “Our noble ancestors always went on a rampage in the spring! That one will end up badly, I am afraid.”

A few scattered bombs fell around the city. No mention was made in the newspaper.

Nobody seemed to worry. Strange. As if Norway had been a faraway country.

Abel read an ad in the newspaper: a grand piano was for sale in our neighborhood. We easily found the tall Gothic house with its high stained-glass windows. We rang the bell hanging by a heavy carved door of dark wood. A pale, unsmiling young woman opened it for us, and we saw the piano. It stood in a vast, bare room under the magic blue, red, and purple light from a stained-glass window. The high, vaulted ceiling above was lost in the shadows.

Abel sat at the piano and played. Mozart, Schumann, Beethoven.

Abel’s mother and sisters had often told me how beautifully he could play. I had known him as a painter and had never heard him play anything besides dance music on an upright piano. Indeed, he could make great music.

Abel stopped playing. We exchanged only one look. He bought the piano.

The piano filled half of the largest room in our apartment. We had a small bench made to order. Once more, I wondered about the man I had married. He had refused to buy one chair, and now he was acquiring the most cumbersome piece of furniture.

Less than two weeks later, bombs fell on our area, and there was a crater-like hole in place of the only tall Gothic house in the vicinity.