Secret Dreams Read Online Free Page B

businesslike holder, which she clenched between her teeth, she glanced outside with watery eyes as her words floated across the room on a wretched cloud of Balkan tobacco smoke….
    â€œLet us recall Marie’s only words to date. A command; ‘Go away.‘“ Her cigarette glowed as she inhaled. “But is this really a command? What else do we know about Marie? That she was a fine young pianist. That her mother entertained men. That before her father went down with his ship he brought his daughter presents and gifts from foreign lands, lavishing all kinds of attention on her. So much attention the mother admitted growing spiteful and angry. And lastly, that when Maries father went off to sea, the mother took many of the gifts away — only to return them for show when the father came home again. Given and taken away …,” Madame mused to herself. “Given and taken away …” Suddenly her eyes narrowed, “Marie’s words are not a command but a description, ‘Go away describes the unhappy state of her home life, in which the father was always going off. Yet they also apply to the hard evidence of his affections, the toys and gifts — which vanished and returned…. And finally the words ‘Go away’ apply to her mother, whose secret sexual life entailed that the girl be sent off to strangers, so the woman might be free. In fact, Marie may have wished that all the inconveniences of her life had simply ‘gone away.’ And now it appears the words also describe what the child managed to accomplish. Like her father before her, she too has gone away from home. Gone away and come to us,”
    Max sat up sharply, struck. “But in your case, she didn’t want to be left alone in bed. She didn’t want you to go away!”
    Madame Le Boyau opened her hands in agreement, allowing yet a new twist on the child’s words. “Ah, well, there now, so you see … old Madame has detected a method to the madness.” She discarded the stub of a cigarette in an ashtray by her elbow, then coughed gently into a pretty Swiss handkerchief, She glanced into the hankie, but whatever she saw did not surprise her, and she put the frilly thing away,
    â€œLet us consider the child’s most striking symptom. The muddled droning. What a stunning signal of her unhappiness. Marie stutters music because she used to
study
it. And as for Beethoven’s Fifth, well, it’s a very famous piece of music….” Madame touched her throat, massaging it. “Pardon my singing.” Then she belted out a fairly credible pounding of the Fifth Symphony’s opening bar:
    â€œDah-dah-dah-
dah!”
    She paused to regain herself. “We’ve all heard it, no?” A sly smile came into Madame’s crinkled eyes, she ruffled her shoulders like a molting bird. “Tell me, what are Marie’s favorite toys? Boats. Ships. Vessels. All touching upon her father. And lately she has even played at shipwreck. Is she sailing the sea in her own toy boat, I wonder? And if she finds the
Korkov
, on which her father served, how would she signal him?”
    â€œBy radio?” Max tried.
    â€œBut if the radio is broken. Or the ship is at war?”
    â€œThen the ship is silent. Mute …,” Max answered. “Just like our little girl”
    â€œBravo!” Madame clapped her hands. “And when ships are silent, how do they signal each other?”
    â€œMorse code!” Maximilian cried at once.
    â€œMorse code,” Madame agreed. “Ships at sea flash silent signals across the waves with blinkers. In the chaos of a storm with the radio down, or in a state of war, ships flash signals to each other. Dah-dah-dah- dah!  In code that’s Dot-dot-dot- dash . The sign for the letter
    V … Breaking through the storm of Marie’s chaotic, stop and go singing, it comes again and again. She is calling out the code sign
    V