Читать книгу Five Quarters of the Orange / Пять четвертинок апельсина онлайн

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I shook my head.

“I won’t get in the way,” I told him. “Not unless you try to stop me coming with you.”

Cassis made an impatient gesture. He knew I meant what I said. In the dark I could feel him trembling, with excitement or nerves.

“Keep down,” he told me at last. “And let me do the talking.”

We finally squatted down at the back of the auditorium, close to where the group of German soldiers made an island among the regular crowd. Several of the men were smoking; we could see dimps of red fire on their flickering faces.

“See him there, at the end?” whispered Cassis. “That’s Hauer. I want to talk to him. You just stay with me and don’t say a word, all right?”

I did not reply. I wasn’t going to promise anything.

Cassis slid into the aisle next to the soldier called Hauer. Looking around curiously I could see that no one was paying us the slightest attention except the German standing behind us, a slight, sharp-faced young man with his uniform cap tilted back at a rakish angle and a cigarette in one hand. Beside me I heard Cassis whispering urgently to Hauer, then the crackle of papers. The sharp-faced German grinned at me and gestured with the cigarette.