| OCR Text |
Show 17 down on the mattress, weeping. The elevator door opens. He trembles, hearing the footsteps; they move slowly closer, until the old man is just behind him. He waits for a blow. But then he feels something else: a strong, thick hand; it pats his heaving back, strokes his matted hair. The hand rubs his back until his crying is nearly gone. Slowly, he turns, and looks upward at the man. He finds an incredibly unnatural, ugly face*. eyes splayed wide apart, nose flat and misshapen, skin mottled and pocked. Another time, he might have screamed; now, he searches out the man's eyes, and stares desperately into them. "Keep me," he whimpers. Silently, as if making a new and unexperienced gesture, the old man brings his lips together in the shape of a kiss, leans slowly forward, and places the kiss gently on the boy's soft cheek. When he gets back upstairs he realizes the parents are out looking for him. There is time, if he hurries. "It's only a short march this time," he tells the soldiers, as he packs them in a box. He packs only the few clothes he likes; the rest he drops down the chute that feeds them into the incinerator. He removes the crayons, the coloring books, everything except the bears. He writes a note, "To Mommy and Daddy," it says. "Love." He leaves the note on the grandfather bear, impaled on the sharp-pointed scissors. When he reaches the basement he finds a clean sheet spread over his mattress, and a little blanket folded up at the foot of it. There are new blocks of wood |
