"The Book of Lies" - читать интересную книгу автора (Kristof Agota)

Grandmother's House

Grandmother's house is five minutes' walk from the last houses in the Little Town. After that, there is nothing but the dusty road, soon blocked off by a barrier. It is forbidden to go any further, a soldier is on guard there. He has a machine gun and binoculars, and when it rains, he takes shelter in a sentry box. We know that beyond the barrier, hidden by the trees, there's a secret military base, and beyond the base, the frontier and another country.

Grandmother's house is surrounded by a garden at the bottom of which is a stream, then the forest.

The garden is planted with all sorts of vegetables and fruit trees. In a corner, there's a hutch, a henhouse, a pigsty, and a shed for the goats. We have tried to ride the biggest of the pigs, but it's impossible to stay on.

The vegetables, the fruit, the rabbits, the ducks, and the chickens are sold at market by Grandmother, as well as the hens' and ducks' eggs and the goat cheese. The pigs are sold to the butcher, who pays for them with money, and with hams and smoked sausage too.

There is also a dog to keep away thieves, and a cat to keep away mice and rats. We mustn't give the cat anything to eat so that he's always hungry.

Grandmother also owns a vineyard on the other side of the road.

You enter the house through the kitchen, which is large and warm. A fire burns all day long in the woodstove. Near the window there's a huge table and a corner seat. We sleep on the seat.

From the kitchen a door leads to Grandmother's bedroom, but it's always locked. Only Grandmother goes there, only at night, to sleep.

There's another room, which can be reached without going through the kitchen, directly from the garden. This room is occupied by a foreign officer. Its door is also locked.

Under the house there's a cellar full of things to eat, and under the roof, an attic where Grandmother doesn't go anymore since we sawed away one of the rungs of the ladder and she fell and hurt herself. The entrance to the attic is just above the officer's door, and we get up there by means of a rope. That's where we hide the notebook, Father's dictionary, and the other things we're obliged to conceal.

In short order we make a key that opens all the doors in the house, and we bore holes in the attic floor. With the key we can move freely about the house when nobody's in, and through the holes we can observe Grandmother and the officer in their rooms, without their suspecting.