Let Me Go by Helga Schneider Read Free Book Online Page A

smile.
    "She read in Birkenau," she went on with the embarrassment of someone who is giving voice to something that might sound paradoxical. And no one could say that reading in Birkenau wasn't a paradox.
    I didn't want to investigate my mother's passion for reading any further. I turned my back on the bookcase, and my eye fell on a painting depicting a sunset over a lake. It was rather impressively done. Frau Freihorst explained, almost in the tone of a guide showing people around a museum: "Many years ago your mother invested in figurative art. She had around ten paintings that were worth a fair bit of money, but one day burglars got in and took the lot. This is the only picture she's bought since then. She couldn't resist the intensity of the light. She bought it and had it insured because it's by quite a well-known painter."
    "So she didn't have financial problems," I murmured, almost distractedly.
    Frau Freihorst hesitated for a moment, and then said, "I think you ought to know: Since she was released from prison, someone has been regularly paying sums of money into your mother's account."
    "Do you know who it is?"
    She shook her head. "No, I've never known; it was the only secret between myself and Traudi. But if you'd like information about your mother's finances, I know someone who—"
    "No," I interrupted her, "I'm not interested, Frau Freihorst, really."
    She lowered her head. "But all that she has . . ."
    "No," I repeated, "let's forget it, please."
    She nodded in resignation.
    "Right," she concluded, spreading her arms. "I'm going back. I'll leave you alone for a moment." And she went to join Eva, who had remained in the sitting room.
    It was in this room that my mother had slept for years ind years. Without ever stirring herself on my behalf. That thought allowed a doubt to slip into my mind: Had I per-laps failed in my role as a daughter? Wasn't it my duty to understand, to forgive? I repressed a curious impulse to the down on my mother's bed. Had I forgiven her?
    To my great surprise, the answer was yes. I had 'forgiven her the hurt she had done to us, to her husband, o her children. But as for all the other things she was guilty of, only her victims had the right to condemn or forgive.
    Eva appeared in the doorway. "Are you coming?"
    "Come in," I said.
    She walked into the room, instinctively folding her arms over her chest as though to protect herself from an cy draft. Then she looked around, apparently at a loss.
    "In the end, she's my aunt," she said with a certain bewilderment.
    "That's right," I replied, "she's your aunt. I'd never thought of that."
    "I'm curious to see her," she announced, as though speaking to herself. "I haven't seen her in a lifetime."
    I had opened the window and the curtains billowed like sails.
    "I feel so sad," I said.
    Eva put an arm around my waist. "This room makes me sad, too. Come on, let's get back."
    We left. I knew I had set foot in that room for the last time. My mother would never be going back there either.
    FRAU FREIHORST WAS waiting for us in the sitting room, a true friend whom I doubt my mother really deserved.
    We were about to say our good-byes.
    "Can I do anything else for you?" she said.
    I thought for a moment.
    "I've just got one question," I replied cautiously, "but it's a little delicate."
    "Don't worry on my account."
    "All right. In that case, I'd like to ask you if you know of the existence of a person, a man, who might, in those days, have been in any way able to influence my mother in her decision to abandon her family."
    She hesitated.
    "I don't really know if I should . . ." she began.
    "If you don't want to, it doesn't matter," I said hastily.
    She bit her lip slightly. She looked like a little girl who has found herself in an awkward situation.
    "If you don't want to answer, don't—" I broke off with a wave of my hand.
    "No, no, I think I can say." She inhaled, as though taking a run up to something. "I don't know if this person is the one you have