I hardly had time to put on the sabots before being yanked along by the string still threading my navel. I knew I might never be coming back here, so I said goodbye to the place where I had been so happy and unhappy. Goodbye to the stained paisley coverlet; the pillow still bearing the impress of his head; the wise, comforting faces of the Madonnas in blue tacked up on the walls.
“Take something with you, just one thing. It’s allowed. But hurry!” urged Pierre as the coffin barged through the door towards the stairs, but there was nothing left, not a hat, bandana, painting, or my glass bangle, not even a photograph. Nothing I cared about—except my violin—which the gallery thieves had abandoned on my worktable. I reached for the handle of the violin case and most amazingly, lifted it up bef
