“It’s alright,” Keller whispered, “it’s alright.”
Marlene wondered how this man, who in spite of the poppy was suffering the pains of hell, could still find the strength to reassure her with kind words and a childlike smile: such a contrast with a face so hard and gaunt it made her think she was hallucinating.
“It’s alright, it’s alright.”
“Yes, it’ll be alright. Go to sleep now, please, go to sleep . . .”
Simon reached out a hand and touched her beauty spot. The way her mother used to stroke her after closing the book of Grimm fairy tales and wishing her goodnight.
Marlene took his hand in hers and said, “Forgive me, Simon Keller. Forgive me.”
He did not hear her. He had fallen asleep at last.
Who was she apologising to? To him or to herself? She did not ask herself the question.
All of a sudden, the accumulated tension of all these days spent trapped by the blizzard, the anxieties of the past few weeks – planning to steal the sapphires, worrying about Klaus, about Herr Wegener, about Gabriel and all those who would suffer (or had already suffered) because of her – exploded, and Marlene burst into tears.
Her life had been nothing but a series of lies. Lies on top of other lies. She had lied to everyone. Especially to herself, and to this man, who, despite his pain and the fact that she was a stranger (and a liar at that), had not only saved her life but even now was reassuring her. This man who had fallen asleep with a childlike smile on his frost-scorched lips. This good man.
The only good man, she realised, she had ever met.