The Truth is Dead by Marcus Sedgwick, Marcus Sedgwick Read Free Book Online Page A

stranger standing there. I didn’t know what else to say. Then the stairs began to creak and someone coughed, climbing up. The visitor looked over his shoulder. “Might I come in for a moment?”
    I could hardly refuse, could I?
    In our wretched little flat he was like a fallen angel or something. But he looked around as though he was pleased with everything. He went over to where Addie’s finished or abandoned paintings were propped against the wall and leaned to study them. I had nothing to offer him. Nothing that he would have wanted, anyway.
    He straightened up and took a little silver case from his waistcoat pocket. It flipped open as if by magic and he took out a card.
    He gave it to me and said, “I should be grateful if you would give Herr Hitler my compliments and ask if he would be so kind as to call upon me at this address. Any morning this week would be suitable. Or next week, if he is busy.”
    I nodded and said, “Thank you,” which was stupid. He smiled.
    At the door he turned. “Oh, and ask him if he would bring with him his charming little landscape with the lilac birches. You know the one I mean?”
    When Addie came home, I told him about the visit and gave him Doctor Solomon Etzmann’s card. He looked at it for a whole minute.
    “This man was
here
? A rich Jew was
here
? You let him in?”
    “I didn’t know he was a Jew, Addie. He was just the man who talked to you at the Volksgarten. He seemed very nice.”
    “God in heaven. What the hell did he want?”
NOVEMBER
    He wanted to save us. He really was an angel. So much has happened! I hardly know where to start.
    Addie refused to go at first. It took me almost a week to persuade him. He can be very stubborn. But poverty wins all arguments, as my mother used to say. So he went, and when he came back he was glowing.
    “He bought the picture! Look!”
    Addie put the banknotes on the table like a miracle. I think I cried, I can’t remember. And then he told me that Doctor Etzmann had commissioned him –
commissioned
him! – to do a painting of his country house. Addie is really good at houses. Did I say that already? Anyway, Doctor Etzmann’s house was near Waidhofen something-or-other. Addie had to wait until September, because that was when the trees had the best colour. That was all right, though, because the money for the birches painting kept us going until then.
    So off Addie went with his palette and brushes as soon as the leaves started to turn. I thought he might ask me to go with him, but I suppose he decided I might be a distraction. He was gone a whole month. The money ran out – Addie had spent a lot of it on paint – and it was hard for me to make ends meet.
    Anyway, he came back looking really well. A bit sunburned. And he’d put a bit of weight on, which suited him. Doctor Etzmann had really liked the painting, and had invited his neighbours to look at it, and three of them had asked Addie to paint their houses, too. Herr Steiner’s in the spring, and Herr Popper’s and someone else’s in the summer. But they’d all given Addie what he called “a retainer”, and Herr Steiner had bought a small landscape, so we had lots of money!
    The best thing is that we have a nice new place to live. Addie told Doctor Etzmann that his eyes were failing in the shit hole (he actually used those words) we were living in. And, within a month, Doctor Sol (which is what I call him now, because it makes him laugh) had found us an apartment in the artisan quarter. The stairs are a bit of a climb, but it’s worth it because one of the rooms has a huge north-facing window and the light pours in through it. And when I lug the shopping up, the first thing I see is Addie at his easel turning that light into the special things that only he can see.
    At the end of October Doctor Sol invited us to his daughter’s wedding. Addie was reluctant, at first. Despite everything, he still has a little grumble, just now and again, about “filthy rich