Marlene Read Online Free Page A

unravel about her face. Then without warning, she said, “Now, you must tell me what troubles you.”
    I was startled. “Troubles me? Nothing, Mademoiselle.” Except that I was sitting at a café on the boulevard with her and was afraid someone who knew Mutti might see us.
    “Oh, no.” She wagged her finger. “I’ve sufficient experience to know when a student tries to hide something.”
    “Experience?”
    “Yes.” She nodded as the waiter set two cups of dark liquid before us, pouring cream from the pitcher into hers. She extended the pitcher. “It’s less bitter this way. Add sugar, too.” As I did, she went on, “Before I took this job, I worked as a governess in a large house. I had three charges. I know when a girl fears saying what’s on her mind.”
    For a paralyzing instant, I thought she’d seen through me, my gifts of marzipan and eagerness for attention betraying me. But then I realized she didn’t appear angry or upset, her candid gaze on me as she said, “I promise whatever you tell me will stay between us.”
    “Like . . . a secret?” I asked. I sipped the coffee; it tasted like sweet molten velvet.
    “If you like. Un secret entre nous .”
    My French might be good, but not good enough to describe my surge of emotion. I didn’t want to impose on her astonishing informality, exciting as it was. No one had ever asked me what I felt, much less my innermost thoughts. As if Mutti were at my side, a sibilant shadow in my ear, I heard: We never display our feelings in public.
    I tore my gaze from her face. “It really is nothing,” I muttered.
    Her hand slid over mine. Her fingers were so warm, the sensation speared all the way to my toes. “Please. I want to help you, if I can.”
    Was I so transparent? Or was it rather that until this moment, no one had ever deigned to see me as someone with feelings worth noting?
    “It’s . . . my mother. She’s getting married again.”
    “Is that all? But I had the impression it must be something else.”
    “Such as?” I was terrified to learn what else she’d divined, prepared to be told that my affection, while flattering, was hardly appropriate between a student and her teacher.
    Instead she said, “I thought there might be a boy you liked, perhaps, or some female trouble?”
    I understood the euphemism and shook my head. I’d had my first menses three months before.
    “Then it is only your mother getting married? But why? Do you not like her suitor?”
    “I don’t know him. My father died when I was six. Until now, it’s just been Mutti, my sister, and me. . . .” Before I knew it, I was telling her all about Herr von Losch and the threatening move to Dessau, about my talent for the violin and Mutti’s ambition to see me enter the conservatory. I curbed my outburst only when I was about to confess that she also troubled me, as I had no words to explain what she made me feel, but that I didn’t want to go anywhere that might take me away from her.
    She sipped her coffee. “I understand how frightening change can be,” she said at length. “ Mon Dieu, how I understand. But it doesn’t seem as if you’ve reason to worry. Your mother sounds like a decent woman who has found a husband to care for her. You want her to be happy, don’t you? AndDessau isn’t too far away. I’m certain there are schools there, with other girls.” She paused. “You’ve not made friends here. That dark-haired girl who sits next to you in class, Hilde—she’s always trying to catch your attention but you behave as if she’s invisible.”
    She did? I hadn’t noticed. But then I never noticed anything at school these days, except Mademoiselle.
    “A girl like you,” she said, “so pretty and intelligent. Why, you could have a hundred friends if you wanted them. But you never try, do you?”
    The conversation had taken an awkward turn. I didn’t want to talk about my lack of friends; I wanted—
    She pointed at my cup. “You should drink that before