Читать книгу Undressing Emmanuelle: A memoir - Sylvia Kristel - Страница 8

4

Aunt Alice told my mother all about the scene she’d interrupted in the bar: my hands still bound, the blushing discomfort of ‘Uncle’ Hans, his tousled hair, the way he left, stooped and staggering, looking such a hypocrite. My mother told my father.

‘Uncle’ Hans was dismissed the following day, with no explanation other than my mother’s shattered and contemptuous gaze and the rage written all over my father’s closed face.

My mother didn’t want to know the details, she didn’t ask me a thing. She doesn’t want any trouble. She would rather sweep away evil as she does dirt – straightforward and effective.

My mother will remain shaken for a long time, thinking deeply about the roots of vice and men’s ability to conceal it, to cover evil with a pleasant mask. Can good also contain evil? My mother’s simple, two-tone world was quaking, the black and white blending to create new shades, new shadows.

I watch Hans leaving. I’ve triumphed over the robot. He is deathly pale, demolished, seemingly finished. For a moment, as the door slams behind him and the freezing air floods in, I feel a tinge of regret. Is the sentence too harsh, more than I’m worth?