The Angel Maker Read Online Free PDF Page B

Maenhout would be coming to look after them.’
    The three ladies shook their heads and Irma Nüssbaum said aloud what the other two were thinking: ‘Why her, in God’s name? She isn’t even from around here.’
    ‘Wait,’ the handyman broke in, ‘because that wasn’t all. The doctor had just finished telling the children that she’d be looking after them when all three boys raised their heads at the same time - and they winked at her.’
    The ladies looked at him open-mouthed.
    ‘That’s what it seemed like to me anyway,’ he added, watering down his testimony somewhat.
    ‘And then? What did Frau Maenhout do then?’ asked Odette.
    ‘Nothing. She asked the doctor what time he wanted her to be there and the doctor said 8.30. Then she left. And now I must be going myself, ladies. I have urgent business spending a nice big tip!’
    He forged his way out of the circle of muttering women and started walking off, but turned back one last time. ‘The doctor pays well. I don’t think Frau Maenhout will regret her decision.’
    Then he turned on his heels and made straight for the Terminus. Behind him there was a brief silence, and then the tongues started wagging again.
     
    Half past eight the next morning found Charlotte Maenhout striding resolutely along Napoleonstrasse. Passing the churchyard, she nodded at Jacob Weinstein, who was weeding the paths; he stuck his chin in the air by way of greeting. From across the street, Irma Nüssbaum, who had been at her post behind the kitchen curtain for a good half-hour, watched her approach. The former schoolteacher had flung a white crocheted shawl around her broad shoulders and every now and then the thick lenses of her horn-rimmed glasses would catch the rising sun. She was wearing her hair pinned up, and Irma guessed that the red fabric sticking out of the wicker basket on her left arm must be an apron. When Frau Maenhout rang the bell at the doctor’s gate, she glanced over her shoulder, showing her face, its roundness in marked contrast to the angular build of her heavy-set body. Her gleaming eyes wore their usual amiable expression, which had always put the little children she taught at ease from their very first day at school.
    When she heard the doctor’s front door being unlocked, Frau Maenhout turned forward again. Irma saw Dr Hoppe in the doorway, awkwardly raising his hand in greeting. He was already wearing his lab coat, but had not buttoned it. With long strides he walked to the gate and opened it, inviting Frau Maenhout to come inside and leaving the gate unlatched for the patients who would be streaming in over the course of the next two hours.
    Following the doctor inside, Charlotte Maenhout couldn’t help recalling the conversation of the day before. She had gone to see the doctor about her raised blood pressure, and Dr Hoppe had made use of the occasion to give her a thorough check-up and ask all sorts of questions for the medical file that he began for every new patient. He’d asked about previous complaints, about any surgery or illnesses or abnormalities in the family. He had also wanted to know about her lifestyle, her eating habits and whether she drank or smoked. Her answers had met with his approval, but she had not admitted to him that she had a sweet tooth. Then he had asked if she was married or had any children - ‘The doctor is looking for a new wife,’ Odette Surmont told her friends after he had asked her the same question on her first visit - whereupon she had said, smiling, that forty years ago, a teacher at a convent school was expected to remain single and live in, and that now she was too old and too wise to take a husband. The doctor hadn’t seemed to get the joke. But at least he now knew not to try anything with her, she had thought at the time. She didn’t find him at all attractive; on the contrary, she was even slightly repelled by him. Never having seen him before, the moment she laid eyes on him she had decided that