Good-bye Marianne Read Online Free PDF Page B

and said, “Thank you very much. It’s a beautiful box – all your things are beautiful.” The man wrapped the box, handed Marianne the change and said, “I’m glad my work will find a good home. Come back again.”
    The street lamps came on. A man trundled a wooden cart over the cobblestones. On it was a gramophone. The man turned the handle. A Wagner march filled the air. Ernest went over to him, and put a coin in a tin cup standing on the trolley.
    “He says he’s a war veteran – he’s only got one leg,” he said to Marianne.
    The snow started to gently fall again.
    “Let’s go home,” said Marianne, and they turned to leave. As they reached the edge of the square where the row of apartment houses stood, a scream of tires disturbed the winter afternoon.

A truck roared into the square. It skidded to a halt in front of a gray house, one of a row overlooking the market. Storm troopers carrying rifles jumped out, their glossy boots shining in the lamplight. One kicked over a basket piled high with apples, which was standing by the fruit stall. Apples rolled in all directions. The troopers hurried up the steps. A voice shouted, “Open up
Juden raus.”
    Marianne was unable to move. She wanted to run, but she seemed to be trapped in one of those dreams where she could not make her feet obey her. Ernest gripped her arm, “There’s going to be an arrest; this is my lucky day.”
    The sounds of breaking glass and splintering wood rang out over the square. A few people watched, like Ernest, wanting to know what was going to happen next. Mothers took their small children by the hand and hurried away. The fruit seller picked up his apples, and polished them one by one on his striped apron.
    Marianne whispered to herself as much as to Ernest, “I have to go now. I’m going.” She crossed the square. Away from the truck, away from the storm troopers, away from the sounds in the house, which the gramophone could not muffle.
    “Wait, I just want to see what’s going on,” said Ernest.
    Marianne wasn’t listening, except to a voice in her head which was saying, ‘Go home.’ She turned her head, forced to do so by the sounds of glass breaking, a cry, the thud of a body landing on cobblestones.
    The soldiers clattered down the steps and picked up the body of a man lying facedown in the snow. They dragged him to the truck and hauled him over the side. The truck pulled away, its tires spinning.
    The square was quiet again. Drops of blood glistened, scarlet as winterberries, under the street lamp where the man had fallen. His black cap lay forgotten in the snow. People moved on.
    Marianne began to run. Ernest sounded the motor-horn behind her. “Wait for me.” He caught up with her. “I don’t think he was dead,” said Ernest, to comfort her.
    A cold wind blew little flurries of snow against their faces. Ernest turned up the collar of his jacket, and Marianne pulled her scarf over her mouth. It gave her an excuse not to speak. There was nothing to say.
    When they got home, Ernest said, “You look like a bandit with your face all muffled up. Good disguise. It was fun today. Thanks. See you.” He disappeared into Number One.
    As soon as Marianne was back inside her own apartment, she took off Ernest’s bandage. Her knee had bled. She ran cold water and washed the handkerchief in the kitchen sink. The stain came out easily.
    Marianne went into her bedroom and dropped her clothes on the floor. She put on her nightdress and lay down on her bed. Then she unwrapped the music box and turned the key. She sang the words of the melody:
    Sleep my baby sleep
Your Daddy guards the sheep.
Mother shakes the gentle tree
The petals fall with dreams for thee
Sleep my baby sleep.
    When the tune was finished, she put the box under her pillow, curled up under the covers, and slept immediately. She did not stir when her mother came in, folded her clothes, and quietly closed her bedroom door.

I t snowed all week.
    Marianne opened