THE GREEN KING (part 26)
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The Photographer
from Salzburg
A few second
later, the American looked up, and exclaimed. The five men turned, looking
toward a small baroque house of three stories, six windows, with balconies
across the first two, and a columned entrance.
All they saw
was a silhouette, spread-eagled against the building on the top floor like a
crucified figure. This image stuck them. Everything conspired towards it: the
incredible leanness of the tall boy, on which floated pants and a shirt that were
at the same time too large and too short, the bare feet, the emaciated face
hollowed even more by two huge eyes, so light they seemed almost white in the
beam of the searchlight, and the mouth, half open in a grimace of effort and
suffering.
In truth, the
scene lasted only a few seconds. Using the handle of a window, holding on the
ledge, the silhouette had moved. The light beam caught it one last time before
it scaled the railing of a balcony. They heard glass breaking, the slight
squeak of a window being opened and closed. Then silence.
‘A burglar,’
said the Viennese phlegmatically. ‘But it was only a kid, in spite of his size.’
The intent was
clear. The International Patrol could intervene only in cases where a
representative of the occupying forces was implicated. Ordinary misdemeanours
were the responsibility of the Austrian police. The central police station was
alerted. Ten minutes passed before the arrival of an inspector and two
policemen.
This was enough
time for Reb Klimrod.
For twenty,
maybe thirty, minutes, two sorts of noises reached him in strange
superimposition.
First, the real
noises, those made by the policemen entering the house and searching it from
bottom to top, opening and closing doors, walking on the marble tiles of the
ground floor and on the wood floors above, on so carefully polished. As he had
expected, they followed the trail he had traced for them, using what energy he
had left: they followed his bloody footsteps to the attic, found the small
circular window open, concluded, naturally, that he had escaped that way, over
the roofs, came back down, speaking louder, looked around one last time, left……
TO BE CONTINUED
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I LOVE YOU…
I LOVE YOU…
I LOVE YOU…
I LOVE YOU…
I LOVE YOU…
I LOVE YOU…
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