The collaborator [antikvár]

C. II A P T K R 1nee upon a time there were twelve prin-cesses My voice surprises me. It's perfectlysteady, the voice of a normal mother on a normal dayas though everything is just the same as it always was.'"Every night their door was locked, yét in the morning their shoes were all worn through, and they were pale and very tired, as though they had been awake all night "'Millie is pressed up against me, sucking her thumb. I can feel the warmth of her body : it comforts me a little.'They'd been dancing, hadn't they, Mummy?''Yes, they'd been dancing,' I say.Blanche sprawls out on the sofa, pretending to read an old copy of Vogue, twisting her long blonde hair in her fingers to try and make it curl. I can teil that she's listening. Ever since her father went to England with the army, she's liked to listen to her sister's bedtime story. Perhaps it gives her a sense of safety. Or perhaps there's something in her that yearns to be a child again.It's so peaceful in my house tonight. The amber light of the setting sun falls on all the things in this roomall so friendly and familiar: my piano and heaps of sheet music, the Staffordshire dogs and silver eggcups, the many books on