Read Comedy in a Minor Key for Free Online

thing,” Wim asked, alittle aggressively. “He wants to just go out onto the street, not knowing where? I hope you told him, Marie.”
    Marie started to fill the bowls and, in her mind, was already back in the kitchen. She was thinking about the pieces of meat she had always used to put into her soups, which made them so especially tasty. When would they have meat in their soup again?
    They started to eat. “I’ll talk to him later,” Wim said.
    “Tonight he won’t be coming downstairs again, I’m sure.”
    “Then I’ll go upstairs.” Silence. “Did you also tell him that his ration cards are taken care of?”
    “I forgot,” Marie said, and she let her spoon fall back into the meatless soup. “I never even thought of that.”
    And Wim said slowly, without looking up, “He won’t be eating a single bite of his food up there.”
    “I’ll go right now,” Marie cried, a little ashamed, and she flew up the stairs. She didn’t stay long.
    “You were right, Wim,” she announced when she came back to the table, slightly flushed. “Everything was standing exactly as I brought it to him, untouched.”
    “Maybe it was still too hot for him,” Wim said, and he blew on his soup-filled spoon for a long time before carefully bringing it to his mouth.
    That evening he had a talk with Nico.
    “So what will happen now?” Nico asked timidly.
    “Nothing,” Wim answered.
    He was right. Nothing happened. Jop stayed awayand Leen came by and did exactly the same things that Jop had done. It went on.
    More than anyone, Coba proved herself to be a great help. She watched the house whenever Marie had to be away for a shorter or longer time, like the time when Marie’s mother fell ill and Marie took care of her for ten days. Coba’s nature was just like her walk: not heavy, lightly swinging past every obstacle, but still firm and decisive. She laughed easily. “Excellent!” she said when Marie—during Coba’s very first visit—confided in her. “Excellent. How old? That’ll work. Older and they’re already too fossilized. I had wanted to ask you two for a long time if you’d take someone in.”
    “Really? Would you have done it too?”
    “One? I’d take two or four! Just not three together, that’s bad in arguments and so on. It’s always two against one. By the way, you don’t have anyone else waiting in the wings, do you? I need to take in another three soon.”
    “You?”
    “Yes, well, these things just come up . . .”
    Coba—who would have thought it. Marie felt dizzy.
    “Does he have visitors? . . . No one? But he needs to see someone else’s face now and then.” It turned out she had quite a lot of experience in all sorts of useful things. “Careful,” she said, “be careful, my friends! But within reason, don’t overdo it. That leads to a complex, to anxiety, and that’s how mistakes get made. Don’t isolate him,fresh air every now and then, when it’s possible. Imagine if we . . . !”
    Coba and Nico were on a first-name basis right away. She was in her late twenties. The next time, she brought him new books in English and French, detective novels and others.
    “When this is all over, Nico, Marie and I get a lifetime supply of perfume from you, agreed?”
    “Nuit de Paris. Romance for the lady in the evening . . .”
    “Not just in the evening, Nico, I’m a lady all day long—”
    He went on: “Violetta, Sans-Gêne for afternoons, and some mornings, for fashion shows . . .”
    “I’ve never been to a fashion show myself,” Marie said.
    The names that used to waft from his lips, sleek and melodious like magic formulas, now sounded perfectly ordinary, and strangely fresh, unused. They too once were, and maybe one day would be again . . .
    “Just a drop behind the ear, Marie. Perfume is the visiting card of the lady!”
    They laughed. And Nico laughed along with them!
    “And what is the white queen’s favorite?” Coba asked, with a glance at the chess pieces in